TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE NILE EXPEDITION.
WHATEVER the merits or demerits of the Expedition to Khartoum, now finally decided on, one thing about it is certain. Nothing more original or more daring was ever at- tempted in tha annals of war ; nor since the Greeks and Persians fought at Salamis, has there ever been quite so strange a cotu- bination of military and naval means. The British Army is going to raise the siege of a city in Ethiopia with row-boats. It is a "cutting-out" expedition on a gigantic scale that has been decided on, and could never have, as a practicable plan, been thought of, except by Generals accustomed to use water as their base, or have been sanctioned except by the Govern- ment of an amphibious people. Just look at the conditions. Far down in the centre of Eastern Africa, deep in ancient Ethiopia, sixteen hundred miles from the Mediterranean, the troops of a Mohammedan Prophet, or Prophet's forerunner—Arabs, half-castes, and negroes, possibly fifty thousand, and cer- tainly thirty thousand in number—are besieging a city of half-baked bricks, defended by two English officers, who, with from five to seven thousand Egyptians and negroes and seven or eight river steamers, have for months on months been holding the hordes of the Desert at bay. For reasons to which we allude below it has been decided by a Governmett in London to raise this siege, to rescue these officers and their followers, and if possible to inflict a severe defeat on the be- sieging army and its Prophet. The city, however, cannot be approached by a civilised army by any means hitherto relied on by scientific Generals. It is protected on the South by a con- tinent of desert, mountain, and swamp, occupied by savages or semi-civilised men too treacherous to be trusted, and too numerous to be defeated without a separate campaign. It is sheltered on the West by inaccessible deserts and distances too vast to traverse, and on the East by a waterless expanse 250 miles broad, over which it would be nearly impossible to transport white troops without either a reckless sacrifice of life or unendurable outlay. Water takes five times the carriage of food, and it would have been necessary, therefore, if the Suakim route had been adopted, to have provided five-fold carriage—camels and mules—for the supply of an army of 7,000 men for twenty-five days, and to have fed and watered all those beasts beside. It could have been done, we suppose, for anything can now be done on this little planet, granted time and money sufficient ; but the Ex- pedition would have cost millions, the Arabs who fought us at Teb might have attacked the cavalcades, and the protection of the huge caravans would have required an army of itself. There remained the route from the North, ex- cessively long, very wearying, and rather costly, but still amply supplied with water from the Nile. To utilise the Nile fully, however, the men must be on it, as a march by the side of the river for months on end under an Egyptian sky would have wearied out any army, and the upper river is impassable by ships or steamers, the Cataracts at different points breaking navigation. The feat seemed impossible ; but Lord Wolseley had, on a smaller scale, accomplished a similar one in Canada, where he took a force up the Red River in row-boats for 600 miles ; he advised its repetition, and so great was the confidence in his judgment that, although the General in command at Cairo thought the whole scheme impossible or absurd, he was permitted to try it. The preparations were rapidly urged forward, the end- less resources of the country for the building of boats were utilised, and by November 1st it is expected that an expedi- tion of 7,000 soldiers will leave Sarras in a flotilla of 800 shallow and narrow boats for their grand row up the Nile. Each boat is 32 ft. long by 7 ft. broad, and is to carry two boatmen, ten soldiers, and stores sufficient to maintain them for 100 days. The boats draw only twenty inches water ; they can be sailed, or rowed, or poled, or " tracked ;" they will be pulled up the rapids by cables, and it is firmly believed that they will reach Khartoum, in that stormless climate, with less loss of men than a few days' marching in the waterless desert would involve. Once arrived and landed, the men will be an army, though without cavalry or heavy guns, able to cope, it is believed, with any force that the Mahdi or his lieutenants can produce. Of course, the possible attacking force has been carefully - studied. In a civilised country, or one in which the inhabitants knew anything of military science, such an expedition once launched would
be destroyed in detail ; but much of the route lies through friendly villages, and where the riparian population is hostile the Expedition can defend itself with effect. It has only to fight as boats'-crews fight in every naval war, and perhaps occa- sionally land. There is no reason patent to the ordinary observer why the huge armed boating-party should not reach Khartoum. as safely as if it had been conveyed in steamers, and witin as little loss of life. But we confess it is impossible for any one who can imagine the scene—a British corps d'arrnec rowing steadily up the Nile into Ethiopia to put down an un- endurable False Prophet—not to credit Lord Wolseley with audacity and originality of the first order. And yet if one thinks of it, Pharaohs, and Ptolemies, and Roman Generale must at different times have done much the same thing. They penetrated to Khartoum, they fought in Ethiopia, and their soldiers certainly did not walk, and as certainly found all our difficulty with the rapids and the rocks, while the archers on the banks may have been as formidable as Arab musketeers.
As to the despatch of the Expedition in itself there is very little to be said, except that we regret the necessity for sending it, Without venturing to disapprove. We have never been able to recognise the obligation of the British Government to rescue regiments of soldiers whom it did not dispatch, who can sub- mit without disgrace, and who ought to be able, if they please, to fight their way through the foe. Nor do we heartily acknow- ledge the obligation to move armies because a self-willed soldier of genius, who can depart at discretion, chooses to con- sider that, orders or no orders, Heaven directs him to stay where he is until relieved. But we have maintained from the first that the Mahdi must descend the Nile, must threaten Egypt. Proper, and must be stopped, and stopped effectually, by British troops. We are in charge of Egypt, and there is no native force capable of stopping him. That disagreeable piece of work is in the day's duty, a part of our obligation to Europe and to Egypt, and to civilisation, which a successful barbarian raid on Cairo, would seriously threaten, and the duty must be done. We would much rather have done it by waiting quietly at Assouan or Siout, where we are nearer our base, and leaving the Mahdi to construct a kingdom from El Obeid; but if the best soldiers think the work can be done as easily by an ascent to Khartoum, the rescue of General Gordon and the Egyptian. garrison furnish additional inducements to attempt the task. None of the objects taken separately quite justify the Expedi- tion, but taken together they do ; and so the country will think. Egyptian soldiers are human beings, and General Gordon an officer whom it is worth while to save at reasonable cost, even in spite of himself. The object now must be to. make the effort succeed ; and with Lord Wolseley at Cairo, and Lord Hartington in London, we may feel satisfied that nothing will be forgotten or spared,—not even the medical comforts and precautions which may prove almost as needful as arms. In that climate and that weather exposure need not be feared ; there is little danger of fever, and liquor can be readily controlled ; but it should not be forgotten that the soldiers will have to drink Nile-water for weeks on end, and that though the sweetest water in the world, it is not, to all Europeans, the most healthy.
Previous page
