272 
THE EASTERN ? SOUDAN. 
the Lincoln Regiment, and was ably supported by Sergeant Nicklin, 
North Staffordshire Kegiment. This N.C. officer distinguished himself 
greatly throughout the Gedarif operations and has been brought specially 
to notice.* The plan of operation was to hold the river between El Fash- 
er and Asobri by establishing small posts at intervals between these 
two places and connecting them by camel patrols, with a main body in 
hand to deal with the formed bodies of Dervishes. By holding these two 
places and establishing communication between them we could hinder 
the fugitives for a distance of fully thirty miles from obtaining water 
from the river. Some of the mounted Dervishes succeeded in getting 
round, but of the footmen very few managed to do so, 600 of them 
were taken prisoners and some 350 killed; quantities of loot, princi¬ 
pally horses, were captured. The results, which speak for themselves, 
were eminently satisfactory, the Arab soldiers were specially pleased 
at having this fine opportunityof paying off old scores and getting such 
valuable prizes. Three hundred of these prisoners, all of them 
Soudanese, were afterwards enlisted in our black Battalions and fought 
on our side against the Khalifa at the fall of Omdurman. Osman 
Digna himself made a detour by night and was reported to have halted 
north ofElFasher; he started from just north of Asobri. He was 
surprised and nearly captured at mid-day on the 19th April. Reference 
will be made to that later. Stragglers kept passing up the Atbara 
for some weeks, a party succeeded in May in severely wounding Lt.- 
Colonel Lawson, who had succeeded Major Benson in the command of 
the Arab levies on his giving up his command. 
Nothing of importance occurred during the months 
of last July and August, but on the evening of the 
5th September, news of the fall of Omdurman 
reached Kassala from Italian sources and on the 
morning of the 7th the garrison marched out with 
the object of occupying Gedarif. The force that marched out consisted 
of 450 men of the 16th Egyptian Battalion, under Captain McKerrell 
of the Cameron Highlanders, who had Captain Dwyer of the Surrey 
Regiment as his second in command, 450 of the 500 Arabs taken 
over from the Italians, under the command of Major Wilkinson of 
the Lincolnshire Regiment, and 370 Arab regulars under Lt.-Colonel 
Lawson, R.E. We had also with us eighty blacks who had been dis¬ 
charged from the Soudanese Battalions for old age and medical 
unfitness under Captain the Hon. Hore Ruthven. These blacks 
belonged to the Egyptian Slavery Department, were mounted on 
camels, and did the reconnoitring on the march. We had no cavalry, 
no guns, and no Maxims. 
The military situation on the 7th September was as follows:—The 
Dervish Emir, Ahmed Fedil, a cousin of the Khalifa and governor of 
the Gedarif Province, was with 5,000 men at Abu Haraz en route to 
Omdurman to help the Khalifa in the defence of Omdurman, he was 
too late to get there and was halting on the Blue Nile. He was 
Operations 
against 
Gedarif 
commence. 
* Since commissioned. 
