682 
THE SUDAN PAST AND PRESENT. 
but with this difference, that in the former the movement grew under 
the very eyes of Europe, and the causes which led to it were too 
apparent to be misunderstood; while the distance of the Sudan gave 
an air of obscurity to events which, owing to imperfect communica¬ 
tions, were seldom understood aright. But looking soberly at the two 
revolts in the light of after-events, it is clear that they were quite 
distinct in their origin, though the causes which led up to them have 
many points of similarity. Misgovernment and maladministration of 
the army existed in both countries, and no doubt both movements are 
traceable in their origin to these two causes. 
But if these abuses existed in Egypt, they were exaggerated ten¬ 
fold in the Sudan. The officers and officials of the Sudan were of the 
same class as those of Egypt, but they were the worst of them, and the 
soldiers were either bad characters or permanent exiles. 
Arabi, had he been capable of it, would have raised a Jehad in Egypt 
and, indeed, there is little doubt that though his revolt has been 
characterised as an attempt to throw off Turkish domination, it had 
also in it the elements of a pan-Islamic movement in so far as, on the 
one hand, it excited Turkish sympathy from the Sultan as Khalif, 
whilst on the other it raised Ottoman opposition in that Arabi was an 
Egyptian—as opposed to an Ottoman—nationalist. 
The Arabi revolt was crushed ere it had time to develop. Mohammed 
Ahmed^s movement would also, doubtless, have been crushed had it 
been subjected to such a treatment as the Egyptian national move¬ 
ment experienced at that period of its growth. But far from being 
crushed, every attempt on the part of the effete Egyptian garrison to 
cope with this national Sudan movement only served to weaken its 
resources and strengthen those of the Mahdi. 
Not only were these wretched garrisons for the most part undis¬ 
ciplined and effete, but to these defects they added an entire disregard 
for the wary foes with whom they had to deal; they made that fatal 
mistake of underrating their enemies. Almost all the early events in 
the Sudan were nothing short of annihilation and disaster, mostly 
traceable to this ignorant folly on the part of the Egyptian com¬ 
manders. What more obvious example of this blind self-confidence 
can there be than in the miserable defeat of Rashid Bey, the Mudir of 
Fashoda, who, on the 9th of December, 1881, was cut to pieces with 
his entire force. Drawn into the midst of a forest, he and his men 
were attacked by a comparatively small number of dervishes and mas¬ 
sacred before they had even time to alight from their camels, and more 
extraordinary still, these dervishes were armed for the most part only 
with sticks. No wonder that a success like this should strengthen the 
people in the belief that the Mahdi could turn Egyptian bullets into 
water. 
The limits of this paper do not admit of more than a passing refer¬ 
ence to the principal military successes by which the Mahdi was raised 
to the elevated position of ruler of the Sudan, but I have ventured to 
supplement this article by a chronological list of the various battles 
and sieges which have taken place during the last ten years, and which 
have been compiled by Mr. W. C. Cartwright, c.m.g., from “Mahdiistn 
and the Egyptian Sudan.” 
