lieview of Heviews, 111,113. 



CHARACTER SKETCH. 



137 



canal, and so had no need to carry 

 water as long as we stuck to the canal. 

 If we had made a flank movement 

 we should have had to carry our water, 

 and we could not have possibly accom- 

 plished that march in the darkness. We 

 should have had to attack in broad day- 

 light, when the enemy was thoroughly 

 alert. We should have lost our way in 

 the dark. This is no fancy of mine. It 

 is proved by the fact that my cavalry, 

 which were sent round in order to attack 

 on the flank the moment that we at- 

 tacked with the infantry in the front, 

 did lose their way, although they were 

 very well led, with the result that at the 

 moment when the attack was delivered 

 they were a mile from the place they 

 ought to have been, and practically 

 were out of it. If my cavalry lost their 

 way, how do you think the whole Army 

 rould have been depended upon to come 

 up to time? The difficulties of a night 

 march are little understood by those 

 who criticise military operations at 

 home. I was constantly in dread of the 

 army getting scattered in the darkness." 



THROUGH THE DARKNESS. 



" How many men had you ?" I asked. 

 " I do not think we had more men than 

 about 16,000, but I had sixty guns, and 

 forty of these I mustered together in 

 ihe middle, between the right and left 

 divisions. It is not so easy for artillery 

 to straggle as for foot soldiers, so I 

 kept the foriy cannons together as a 

 solid link connecting the two divisions. 

 By this means they did not fall apart, 

 although they did rather inconveniently 

 crowd one upon the other. 1 had 

 reconnoitred the ground myself very 

 carefully, and had sent out scouts for 

 several days beforehand. We knew that 

 Arabi never stationed outposts until the 

 morning. During the darkness, the 

 Egyptian Army seemed to think itself 

 secure, and took no precautions ; hence, 

 when we arrived within striking dis- 

 tance, their camp was asleep. We 

 charged, and although the men at the 

 guns fought splendidly, and died where 

 they stood, the others soon broke and 

 ran." 



THE NILE EXPEDITION. 



From this we come to the campaign 



in the Soudan. I asked him what was 

 the truth as to the dispute about the 

 routes. Was the Suakin-Berber route 

 abandoned because of the necessity for 

 smashing Osman Digna, or why ? Lord 

 Wolseley replied, " Not at all. That 

 may have been put forward, but that 

 was not the real reason. The real 

 reason was simply the fact that it was 

 a physical impossibility to get to Ber- 

 ber with an army in the face of the 

 opposition we must have encountered." 



" Use your common sense," said Lord 

 Wolseley, " and say what possibility 

 there was of crossing 245 miles of 

 desert, absolutely waterless, with the ex- 

 ception of some brackish wells, the last 

 being some flfty miles before you get 

 to Berber. After you had made your 

 railway you had the certainty that as 

 you neared the Nile, 245 miles from 

 your base, you would have to meet and 

 overcome some 20,000 fanatics, similar 

 to those men who fought us at Abu 

 Klea. These men can come with a very 

 little water a very long way. We should 

 have been kept constantly expecting 

 their attack for the last fifty or seventy 

 miles of the road." 



"If we had to go to Khartoum, we 

 were compelled to go by the Nile. It is 

 a great principle, in moving troops, 

 never to go by land if you can possibly 

 go by water. The chief difficulty of 

 every commander is not to beat the 

 enemy, but to feed his men — to provide 

 them with rations and water. When 

 you march by the side of a river, or take 

 a river route, the difficulty about roads 

 disappears. By any other route to 

 Khartoum the difficulty of water for an 

 opposed army is almost insurmountable. 



ONLY FORTY-EIGHT HOURS TOO LATE. 



Never, probably, has any commander 

 had success dashed from his lips so 

 cruelly as had Lord Wolseley when a 

 delay of forty -eight hours in the arrival 

 of the steamers at Khartoum rendered 

 abortive the whole expedition for th^e 

 relief of General Gordon. Lord Wol- 

 seley never ceases to grieve with a sor- 

 row too deep for words over the fatal 

 destiny which crowned that famous 

 expedition with an irreparable disaster. 

 It was known in the camp that the 



