EGYPT. 



259 



lowing fstiiiiiitt' of the armed forces of the Khalifa: 

 :; I. :',.")() .Ichadias who arc black soldiers armed with 

 rifles, two thirds of them with Remingtons in good 

 condition: tU.noO swordsmen and spearmen, of 

 whom 25 per cent, arc too old or too young to In- 

 effective; and 0.600 cavalry. The Khalifa's mnhi- 

 regular army in Omdurman consisted of 

 I.!. nun .leh.-idias :>.5iM) cavalry, and 45.000 spearmen 

 and swordsmen. There were 49 guns in Omdur- 

 man. 14 in Berber. Aim Ilamed. and El < >beid. and 

 12 in Dongola and Gadaref. Of these 75 guns 6 

 Krupps of large caliber, for which there was 

 very little ammunition. 8 were machine guns of 

 various patterns, and 61 were brass muzzle-loaders 

 of many shapes and sizes, for which very inferior 

 ammunition was manufactured in Omdurman. Aft- 

 er the expedition of an English force to Wadelai, 

 which raised the British flag and then departed in 

 t*'.i4. and just before the visit of Major Cunningham 

 to Dufile a year later, Rejaf was reoccupied by the 

 dervishes as their advanced post in the south. The 

 same post had been for some time occupied in 1893 

 by the forces of the Congo Free State. The der- 

 vishes ascended the river in the steamers taken 

 from the Egyptians, and forced the Belgians to 

 evacuate their posts on the Xile, afterward follow- 

 ing them into the basin of the Welle, where they 

 themselves suffered defeat in two engagements 

 fought in 1894. Later the dervishes were driven 

 out of Lado and Rejaf by the natives, and held no 

 posts south of Shambeh and Bor. which they main- 

 tained with the help of the steamers, their authority 

 being respected only along the banks of the river. 

 In Bahr-el-Ghazal also the Dinkas and Shilluks suc- 

 ceeded in freeing their country from the oppre-- 

 who still held out only in Pom Zobeir. In Darfur 

 and Kordofan the Emir Mahmud was only able to 

 hold the provinces for the Khalifa by constant 

 fighting with the tribes in the Kebkebia and Kul- 

 kul districts. Baron Dhanis in March. 1895. assem- 

 bled a force of 3.000 troops on the upper Congo, and 

 in September was reported to have reoccupied Lado 

 for the Congo State. This part of the old Egyptian 

 province of Equatoria was leased to the Free S 

 in the Anglo-Congolese agreement of May. 1894. 

 and the Franco-Congolese agreement of the follow- 

 ing August, by which the sovereign of the Free 

 State debarred himself from extending his frontiers 

 into the Bahr-el-Ghazal, left him free to establish 

 posts there, on the left bank of the Nile. The re- 

 volt of whole provinces and the dwindling of his 

 power taught the Khalifa and his emirs to be more 

 reasonable and lenient in the districts where their 

 empire was as yet undisputed. Mahdism declined 

 to the point of toleration, and encouragement was 

 given to the reoccupation of the land. In Dongola 

 taxes were made lighter and provisions were cheap 

 and conditions so much improved that refugees in 

 Egypt were desirous of returning to their homes. 



The Donsrola Expedition. The dervishes in 

 the Wady Haifa district, with the exception of two 

 insignificant incursions, maintained a strictly de- 

 fensive attitude throughout the year 1895. though 

 they faced the Egyptian advanced posts in consid- 

 erable strength." The wells of Murad. halfway to 

 Abu Hamed. were occupied by the troops and con- 

 nected with Korosko by telegraph. In the latter 

 part of February. 18!)6. Lord Cromer transmitted 

 to the English Government intelligence that he had 

 received indicating unusual activity on the part of 

 the dervishes. The dervishes were" reported to be 

 advancing in the Suakin district, after remaining 

 quiet for three years: the Murad wells were threat- 

 ened with attack : a force of dervishes was said to 

 be advancing on Kokreb : and another and a larger 

 force was on the march for Dongola. Later news 

 told of the dispatch of Osman Digna to Kassala. 



The defeat of the Italians by the Abyssinians at 

 Adua seemed to have rekindled the embers of fanat-' 

 icism throughout the Soudan. When the der. 

 besieged the Italians in Kassala the Engli>h d 

 mined on an advance of the Egyptian troops, 

 supported by English, up the Nile. " They were to 

 go to Akasheh and. if they encountered no serious 

 opposition, to proceed to Dongola, and occupy that 

 city and province so as to prevent it from being 

 made a base for a dervish attack upon Egypt. The 

 movement was intended not only to protect Egypt, 

 but to divert the attention of the dervishes from 

 the Italians. These were the reasons given by 

 English ministers for the unexpected movement 

 into the Soudan. Their political opponents, how- 

 ever, and the French and other foreigners saw no 

 signs of a projected attack upon Egypt, and they 

 could not understand how the beleaguered Italian 

 garrison in Kassala could be helped by delivering 

 a blow at dervishes six months' march" from there. 

 When it was known that the Italians were about to 

 evacuate Kassala. which they only held as fiduciaries 

 of Egypt and England, and that the Italian Govern- 

 ment changed its intention when apprised of the 

 British advance, the military grounds for the expe- 

 dition seemed still more obscure. It was surmised 

 therefore that the object was to reconquer the Sou- 

 dan and at the same time render impossible for an 

 indefinite period the realization of the condition on 

 which England is pledged to evacuate Egypt, which 

 is that Egypt shall be able to govern itself unaided. 

 When the intention of the Italians to evacuate Kas- 

 sala and Adigrat became known the British ambas- 

 sador at Rome protested that the evacuation would 

 leave the dervishes free to attack the Egyptian 

 forces and to threaten the Suakin district. The 

 result was that Italy held on to Kassala and the 

 dervishes were driven off, but the advance up the 

 Nile was not on that account given up. The hold- 

 ing of Kassala, Italy took pains to explain, was for 

 political reasons, and the fictitious character of the 

 military assistance involved in the Dongola dem- 

 onstration was plainly intimated by the Italian 

 minister. In communicating to the European cab- 

 inets the grounds on which it had been decided to 

 make an advance up the valley of the Xile, the 

 English Foreign Minister pointed out that in order 

 to meet the expenses of the expedition a larger sum 

 might be needed than was at the absolute disposal 

 of the Egyptian Government. It was therefore 

 hoped that the Caisse de la Dette would give its 

 consent to the expenditure of 500.000, if it were 

 necessary, from the general reserve fund of 2.500,- 

 000 which had accumulated and which was held to be 

 applicable to extraordinary expenses. The Austrian, 

 German, and Italian governments signified their 

 assent at once. The British Government stated 

 that, as the operation was being undertaken in the 

 interests of Egypt, the cost would be entirely de- 

 frayed out of Egyptian funds. The representatives 

 of France and Russia demanded delay, and further- 

 more denied the competence of the Caisse to decide 

 a matter of the kind, and withdrew from the meet- 

 ing. When the representatives of England and the 

 members of the triple alliance voted nevertheless in 

 favor of granting the money, they were cited before 

 the mixed tribunal to answer for their conduct on 

 April 13. The citation was made in the name of 

 the French bondholders, who own 75 per cent, of 

 the total Egyptian debt. A similar citation and 

 protest were served on the Egyptian Government. 

 When the Sultan made inquiries as to the nature 

 and objects of the intended operations on the Xile, 

 the Khedive, in reply, stated that the British and 

 Egyptian governments had agreed that the moment 

 is opportune for endeavoring to bring back Dongola 

 under Egyptian administration. Although among 



