THE RUIN OF THE SOUDAN.*
IT is a strange proof of the ceaseless and ever-growing hurry of events in our crowded age, that such an extraordinary and lamentable history as that which is brought before us again in Mr. Russell's work on the Soudan, should have so quickly and completely faded out of the public mind. Yet, though it is not more than ten years ago that we began to bear the first faint reports of a rebellion in a distant Egyptian province, headed by a fanatical impostor who called himself a prophet, the name, " Mandi," conveying at that time no ideas or asso- ciations to the British mind,—it reads now quite like ancient history, this melancholy record of wasted energy and missed opportunities, of great schemes that came to nothing, and easy expedients neglected till they were out of reach. Perhaps we should be glad to forget it, for, beyond some heroic deeds, and a fairly satisfactory proof that our rank and file at least have in no way degenerated from earlier standards—the Desert Column of the Gordon Relief Expedition, in especial, giving a fresh and striking example of the bull-headed way in which our soldiers will win battles after their leaders have taken the most elaborate precautions to ensure defeat—there is little to look back upon with pride or satisfaction. Many valuable lives have been lost, and much treasure spent and what good came of it at last is beyond the wit of man to discover.
Mr. Russell has evidently calculated on this forgetfulness on the part of the public, and has therefore given an elaborate review of the cause, as well as the effect and proposed remedy, of what be not unjustly calls the " Ruin of the Soudan." The history of the war, from General Hicks's expedition in 1883 to the fall of Khartoum in 1885, as well as the course of sub- sequent events at Suakin, is laid before us, not in the form of narrative, but through official despatches and papers, showing rather the springs of action and the conditions of events, than the events themselves. A sketch is even given of the earlier history of the Soudan, which, under independent Mahommedan domination, was at one time a great, prosperous, and cultivated country, Senaar in especial being of great note as a seat of learning. Through various causes, however, the country fell into a state of anarchy in the beginning of this century, and became an easy prey to Mehemet Ali, the famous Viceroy of Egypt. In Egyptian hands, the Soudan was abominably misgoverned, oppression and corrup- tion being everywhere prevalent, with hardly any attempt to check them on the part of the rulers, who, indeed, usually took for themselves the lion's share of the plunder. One enlightened Governor, Jaafar Pasha, avowedly under- took the interesting experiment of finding out how much the peasants could pay, with the object of making at a later period an equitable adjustment of taxes ; he was, however, removed before he could carry out this latter project, if he
ever intended to do so. The whole country had long been ripe for revolt when an opportunity offered, the people being
less restrained by any fear of consequences from their rooted conviction that the Egyptian Army was mach more for- midable in time of peace than in war. In these circumstances arose Mahomed Ahmed, a Dongolese run-away apprentice,
• The Ruin of the Soudan : Cause, Elect, .1 Remedy. By Henry Russell, assisted by William Gattie. London: Sampson Low, Marston, and Co.
who. having become a dervish from motives of the beer-and- skittles order, had acquired a great reputation for sanctity by living the life of a hermit on an island in the White Nile.
Here he repeated many thousand times a day one of the ninety-nine names of God ; and Allah, no doubt according to custom, sent some of the angels attached to that name to be his servants. The Prophet selected him for his successor— the Mandi mentioned in the Koran—and appeared to him in visions, in the course of which he occasionally used regrettably plain language to his disciple, even going so far as to call him an ass for his conduct at the siege of Obeid. Mahomed Ahmed had taken pains to form as many connections as possible with the Sheikhs of the country by marrying their daughters. The Prophet only allows the faithful four wives apiece upon earth; but if the text is interpreted as meaning four wives at a time, and a liberal use is made of divorce, it is astonishing how many fathers-in-law an enter- prising man may have, especially if he occasionally takes back the discarded ones to avoid offence to their families. So the new Mandi went forth to reform Islam at the head of his connections by marriage and of those of his fellow-Fakirs who did not openly regard him as a lunatic. His repulse in the attack upon Obeid had almost nipped the rebellion in the bud ; but the Prophet, and other persons of more local knowledge, advised him to establish a blockade, and this was ultimately successful. Another revolt broke out almost simultaneously in the neighbourhood of Senaar, to which town its leader, Ahmed-el-Makasbfi, laid siege; while a third outbreak took place among the Hadendowas, a large and powerful tribe, or rather, confederation of tribes, whose territories lie between the Nile and the Red Sea, and command the great caravan route from Suakin to Berber. This rebellion became at a later period exceedingly formidable under the leadership of the famous Osman Digna, and all three were soon merely integral parts of a common movement, acknowledging as a common head the Caliph, as he was soon called, Mahomed Ahmed.
The Egyptian Government undertook to put down this rebellion, or these rebellions. Her Majesty's Government, being necessarily consulted, refused to take any part in this enter- prise, and showed their indifference by appointing—" allow- ing," we believe, was the phrase employed—a British officer to take, very much against his will, the command of the Egyptian Army. Poor General Hicks seems to have had a bad time of it throughout. He wrote despairing letters to the British authorities, complaining of the incessant diffi- culties thrown in his way by Egyptian officers, and saying that his troops had neither clothes, food, nor pay ; but all Sir Edward Malet could do for him was to forward his complaint to Cherif Pasha—Hicks having specially requested that it might be banded to the Khedive by Baker Pasha—with a letter which is not pleasant to read. No doubt it was the only thing that could be said in the extremely difficult position in which the British representative was placed, but
the gist of the letter is practically this The enclosed con- tains certain suggestions and requests from General Hicks. You will attend to them if you think it worth while ; but pray don't imagine that we ask you to do so. It is nothing to us what happens to General Hicks.' Yet the same autho- rity undoubtedly used his influence to prevent Hicks from resigning his command, and actually exerted himself to induce the Egyptian Government to get him a colleague with whom it would be possible to work, so as to prevent that consummation. As Dickens's working man says, it is all a muddle. Poor Hicks got the worst of it, though perhaps it was partly his own fault. As is well known, he fell out with his new colleague, Ala Eddeen Pasha, with whom he bad expected to get on per- fectly, and they actually parted on the march, one division of the army following the British, and one the Egyptian General. When they rejoined, Ala Eddeen was already engaged with the enemy, and though Hicks did his best to render effectual assistance at once, the two sections of the Egyptian Army were, in the confusion, firing upon each other for some time. So began the first great disaster of the Soudan.
From this point we have an almost uninterrupted history of blunders and confusion worse confounded by the extraordinary manner in which Mr. Gladstone's Ministry alternately took up and dropped the control of affairs. After the annihilation of General Hicks's force, the Egyptian Government were recom- mended to abandon the Soudan altogether ; but preferred
to hold Khartoum, provisionally at least, and open up the road from Berber to Suakin for the retreat of the with- drawn garrisons of the South. To facilitate the with- drawal, they proposed to employ the services of Zebehr Pasha, a man of acknowledged energy and ability, and immense influence in the Soudan, but hateful in the eyes of European philanthropists from his connection with the slave- trade. Her Majesty's Government, being consulted, declared that nothing would induce them to interfere in the affairs of the Soudan, or to permit the employment of Zebehr Pasha in that province. Even the British representative protested against this policy of tying the hands of Egypt and then telling her to help herself. Pursuing his policy of non-inter- vention, Lord Granville next suggested the appointment of a British officer, whose services Sir Evelyn Baring was instructed to press upon the reluctant Egyptian Government. It is perhaps not generally known that the authorities at Cairo were at first extremely unwilling to employ General Gordon, though his previous administration in the Soudan had made them aware of his merits, on the ground that the appointment of a Christian was, in view of the religious character of the rebellion, distinctly unadvisable. They yielded, however, and Gordon went to Khartoum, where every one knows how he sped. There is no use in going over the melancholy history again ; it is sad enough to read, as it is presented in the correspondence quoted by Mr. Russell ; the gradual change of tone in Gordon's letters, from his original confi- dence of success—which, had he been supported, we have no reason to think excessive—through the long course of eager expostulation with those who thwarted him, patient repetition and re-vindication of the measures he demanded, and fruitless entreaties that no time might be lost, to the despairing suggestion to Sir Samuel Baker that a sum of money might be raised by English and American millionaires to send out a Turkish force who might yet save the Soudan garrison, and the last touching farewell letter to Colonel Watson, written about a month before the fall of Khartoum. We regret that Mr. Russell regards his expression of thanks for Sir Evelyn Baring's services as ironical; they were cer- tainly deserved, and it seems to us that Gordon was too good a judge of men not to appreciate this ; while even his tribute to the Home Government probably really expresses his con- viction that their intentions were good, in spite of all their blunders. We can see even in Lord Granville's hesitating, wavering policy, an undoubted solicitude for Gordon's safety, which unfortunately always showed itself at the wrong times, and in one case probably deprived him of a great chance of escape,—when the Government refused to send Zebehr Pasha to assist Gordon at the latter's special entreaty, because of the old feud between them which might have endan- gered Gordon's life. Gordon's own indignation was great at this ill-timed solicitude for him, and above all at the notion that it was he and Stewart who were to be rescued, and not the whole garrison of the Soudan. When the Government struck a blow for him at last, they struck hard, but with so little chance of success that their purpose seemed rather to be, according to the old heathen practice, the sacrifice of a sufficient number of lives to supply a fitting guard of honour for the dying hero's soul. Certainly the attendance of Sir Herbert Stewart, General Earle, and the many gallant officers and men who fell in that brief and bloody campaign, would make an honourable escort even for Gordon on his entrance into another world.
The story of the rebellion in other parts of the Soudan is equally melancholy; but we have all read already how the garrison of Sinkat, despairing of relief, perished en masse in a desperate attempt to cut their way through the besieging forces; how the garrison of Kassala, despairing of relief, when their last donkey was eaten and the stock of grain utterly exhausted, surrendered, and were subjected to frightful cruelties by the triumphant rebels; and how many similar preventable disasters took place. Negotiations were actually being carried on for the relief of Kassala at the time of its fall, but the plan was of so- complicated and roundabout a nature, that it is no wonder it came to nothing. Had Captain Speedy's easy and practical scheme been adopted, the town might have been rescued ten months earlier. Sir Gerald Graham's murderous raids into the interior were absolutely barren of result, the refusal of the Government to utilise their successes effacing all their effects even among the best-disposed tribes. Over
and over again the home authorities were warned that the most loyal Sheikhs, if unsupported, were obliged to join Osman Digna—and so prolong the rebellion—out of mere self-defence. But the Government resolutely shut their ears to the opinions of experts on the spot. The most remarkable instance of this obstinacy given by Mr. Russell, is perhaps in connection with the question of reopening trade with the Soudan. This measure was unanimously pressed on the Government by Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, Sir Evelyn Baring, Nubar Pasha (Egyptian Prime Minister), Abdul Kader Pasha (a distinguished Egyptian officer, with much experience of the Soudan), Moukhtar Pasha (the Turkish representative), Generals Stephenson and Butler, Colonel Watson Pasha, and a host of minor authorities in Egypt, whose opinion, however, was completely outbalanced by the prejudice of a few English officers at the Horse Guards. The only attention paid to their recommendations was shown by Lord Rosebery's tardy despatch of an officer from England, who stayed twelve whole days in Cairo, and was able to assure his chiefs on his return, out of the depths of his superior knowledge, that all the experts in Egypt were entirely wrong.
The question of trade is that which is of the most importance to Mr. Russell. The whole purpose of his book, indeed, is to show the desirability of giving every facility for trade, and the manner in which this object might be attained. He advocates the establishment of a British Protectorate over the Soudan, which he would hand over to a Chartered Com- pany. A confederation of Soudanese tribes would be formed under the superintendence of their agents, whose first work would be to guard and assist in the formation of the long- needed Suakin-Berber Railway. The scheme is not a new one, being practically the same as that laid before the Foreign Office in 1885 by Captain Lovett Cameron and Mr. F. W. Fox. The principal difference between their proposal and that of Mr. Russell, is that the latter would only recognise England, and not Egypt, as having rights even on the Red Sea littoral. Indeed, he argues with some cogency that the ignoring of Egypt in the Anglo-Italian agreement proves that her supremacy is nominally as well as practically over. Mr. Russell makes out a fairly good case for himself, and, though Chartered Companies are not in the highest favour just now, it is certainly worth attentive reading. Some of the author's difficulties in the last chapter would be removed if he could only remember that it was Lord Rosebery who " declined on March 19th [1886] to entertain propositions " to which Lord Salisbury "had apparently acceded in the preceding January." The same remark applies to Sir Charles Warren's appoint- ment and recall, and various other matters apparently beyond Mr. Russell's comprehension.
Previous page
