The Memoirs of Admiral Lord Beresford

The open space at the Mareotis end was also commanded by a Gatling gun mounted on the roof of the fort. In the forts and earthworks were about twenty miscellaneous guns. These were all kept loaded; the powder being taken from the vast amount of loose powder stored in the Mex lines. The guns were connected with trigger lines to the forts, so that the whole lot could be fired from one place. The railway lines leading from Mex Harbour through the fortification, and, on the other side of the strip of land, from the causeway leading across Lake Mareotis into the city, were repaired. The railway bridge by Lake Mareotis was repaired, and a torpedo was placed beneath it in case of attack. A picquet of Marines occupied a truck placed on the bridge. The train was set running. The two drawbridges leading to the forts were repaired. The men garrisoning the works were housed in tents made out of the sails of the Arab dhows lying in Mex camber. A tank was obtained from Alexandria, and fresh water brought into it. On the sea side of the position, the Condor commanded the flank of the approaches.

Having thus secured this flank of the city against attack, so that it could be held against a large force, it was necessary to make reconnaissances into the surrounding country. The little landing-party went ashore every evening at 5.30 (with the band, few and humble but convincing) and occupied the lines. Every morning at seven o'clock they returned to the ship; and during the afternoon went out upon reconnaissance, accompanied by a boat's gun mounted in a bullock cart, and a rocket-tube mounted on another bullock cart. Two horses were harnessed to each cart, assisted, when required, by bluejackets hauling on drag-ropes. The men of the Condor were reinforced from the Fleet on these expeditions, so that the total force of bluejackets and Marines was 150. The cavalry being represented solely by the colonel and the major of Marines, and myself, who were mounted, we had no sufficient force wherewith to pursue the flying foe.

We used to play hide-and-seek with the soldiery and Bedouin among the sandhills. When they approached on one flank, we shelled them with the little gun until they retired; and then, hauling the gun-cart and rocket-cart over the roughest ground, we suddenly appeared and shelled them on the other flank, to their great amazement. All hands enjoyed these expeditions amazingly.

In the course of these reconnaissances, large quantities of stores and ammunition were found in the neighbouring villages. About three miles from the lines, an immense store of gun-cotton and Abel's detonators was discovered in a quarry among the low hills, stored in a shed. As no hostile force appeared during the next two days, I determined to destroy the gun-cotton. Captain A. K. Wilson of the Hecla sent 20 bluejackets and six Marines to assist me. These were embarked and landed within half a mile of the place. Outposts were set, with orders to signal should the enemy appear, and the rest of the party set to work.

Although gun-cotton does not, strictly speaking, explode except by detonation, it is extremely difficult to define where ignition ends and detonation begins; and there had been instances of its explosion, supposed to be due to the internal pressure of a large mass. A tremendous explosion of gun-cotton had occurred in 1866 at Stowmarket, where its manufacture was being carried on under the patent of Sir Frederick Abel, then chemist to the War Office. On another occasion, when Sir Frederick was conducting an experiment designed to prove that ignition was harmless, he had his clothes blown off his body, and narrowly escaped with his life. Recollecting these things, I thought it advisable to spread the stuff in a loose mass upon the hillside sloping to the quarry. The gun-cotton was packed in boxes. These were unpacked, and the contents were spread on the ground. Next to the pile, a bucket of loose powder was poured on the ground and over the fuse, to make sure of ignition. Into the powder was led one end of a Bickford's fuse, which was then threaded through the discs of gun-cotton. The fuse was timed to burn for five minutes.

The work was highly exhausting to the men, and more than once I felt inclined to call in the outposts to help; but I decided that it would not be right to take the risk of a surprise attack; for we were working in a trap, being closed in by the quarries on one side and by the low hills on the other. And sure enough, when the men had been working for five hours, up went the outpost's signal, and the corporal of Marines with his three men came running in to report that large numbers of the enemy were in sight.

Hastening out, I saw about 50 scouts running up, an action so unusual that it was evident they were strongly supported. Presently, about 200 skirmishers appeared, and behind them a large body of cavalry, probably about 700 in number. The outposts were at once recalled. The men were ordered out of the quarry, divided into two companies of twelve men each, and retired by companies over the hill towards the shore, out of sight of the enemy. Mr. Attwood, the gunner of the Hecla, a bluejacket and myself, remained to fire the fuse. It was a five-minute fuse. The retreating men had been told to count as they ran, and at the end of four minutes, or when they saw us lie down, to halt and lie down. I gave the order in case there should be an explosion. When the men were lying down, I fired the fuse. Then the gunner, the bluejacket and I ran about 300 yards, and flung ourselves down.

Then there came a noise as though a giant had expelled a huge breath; the blast of the ignition burned our cheeks; in the midst of a vast column of yellow smoke, boxes and pieces of paper were whirling high in air, and a strong wind sucked back into the vacuum, almost dragging us along the sand. The enemy were so interested in the spectacle that they gave us time to get back to the boats.

It is probable that information had been given to the hostile forces by the inhabitants of the village past which we went to reach the quarry where was the gun-cotton; for, in retreating to the boats, when I looked back, instead of the 20 or 30 native women who were usually sitting about the place, I saw about 200 men eagerly watching us from the house-tops, evidently in the hope of enjoying the gratifying spectacle of our destruction.

From the summit of the slope falling to the sea, I signalled to the flagship, with a handkerchief tied to a pole, that I was surrounded: one of the many occasions upon which a knowledge of signalling proved invaluable. There was a haze upon the water, and I could not clearly discern the answering signal; but the signalman of the flagship had seen my figure silhouetted on the sky-line. Instantly after, Captain John Fisher of the Inflexible manned and armed boats, came ashore, and the enemy immediately retreated.

Shortly afterwards, as I was now a captain, I was relieved of the command of the Condor by Commander Jeffreys, and went on half-pay. I should naturally have much preferred to remain in my little ship; but she was not a captain's command; and I left her (as I see I wrote at the time) with a tear in each eye. Commander Jeffreys discovered the place where she had been hit during the bombardment, one of her under-water plates having been started. Until then, it was thought that the only damage consisted of a hole through her awning and the smashing of a boat.

At the conclusion of this period of my service, I was most gratified to receive a gracious message of congratulation from Her Majesty the Queen.

H.H. the Khedive wrote to me, kindly expressing his sense of my services, and at the same time offering me an appointment upon his staff, in which capacity I was to go to the front. Lord Granville and the Admiralty having signified their permission that I should accept the post, I left Alexandria for Ismailia, together with several members of the Khedival staff.

We went by steamer, which towed a huge iron lighter carrying horses. A beam ran from stem to stern of the lighter, and to it the horses were tethered with halters. I remarked to the captain of the steamer that it would be advisable, in order to avoid injuring the lighter, to take every precaution to prevent the steamer from having to go astern. But in Ismailia Bay, which was crowded with shipping, a vessel crossed the steamer's bows, the steamer was forced to go astern, and she cut a hole in the lighter with her propeller. One of the ship's officers instantly descended the Jacob's ladder into the lighter with me, and we cut the halters of the horses, just in time to free them before the lighter sank, and there we were swimming about among the wild and frightened stallions. By splashing the water into their faces, we turned one or two shorewards, when the rest followed and came safely to land.

Upon discussing the matter of my appointment to the staff of the Khedive with Sir Garnet Wolseley, to my surprise he declined to permit me to accept it. Discipline is discipline, and there was nothing for it but to acquiesce.

I was about packing up my things, when Mr. Cameron, the war correspondent of The Standard, informed me that he was authorised to appoint a correspondent to The New York Herald, and also that he had permission to send the said correspondent to the front, where I particularly desired to go. The notion attracted me. I applied to the military authorities for permission to accept the offer. Permission was, however, refused. So there was nothing to do but to go home. But before starting, I consoled myself by sending some provisions, privately, to the unfortunate officers at the front, who, owing to the substitution by the transport people of tents for food, were short of necessaries. I obtained from the Orient four large boxes filled with potted lobster, salmon, sardines, beef, tins of cocoa, and so forth, and sent one box each to the 1st Life Guards, the Blues, the Guards, and the Royal Marines. The orders were that no private supplies were to go up. These I ventured to disregard; got up bright and early at three o'clock in the morning; and had the boxes stowed under the hay which was being sent up in railway trucks, before officialdom was out of bed. Then I went home.

I consider that Sir Garnet Wolseley's conduct of the campaign, and his brilliant victory at Tel-el-Kebir, were military achievements of a high order. The public, perhaps, incline to estimate the merit of an action with reference to the loss of life incurred, rather than in relation to the skill employed in attaining the object in view. The attack at dawn at Tel-el-Kebir was a daring conception brilliantly carried into execution. Many persons, both at the time and subsequently, have explained how it ought to have been done. But Sir Garnet Wolseley did it.

The public seem to appreciate a big butcher's bill, although it may be caused by stupidity or by lack of foresight on the part of the general. But if he retrieves his mistakes, the public think more of him than of the general who, by the exercise of foresight and knowledge, wins an action with little loss of life.

I carried home with me a 64 lb. shell fired from the Condor at the Mex magazine, intending to present it to the Prince of Wales. I found it in the sand. It had passed right through the walls of the magazine, and it had not exploded. Having brought it on board the Condor, I caused the gunner, Mr. Alexander Greening, to sound it with a copper rod: and he came to the conclusion that it was empty of gunpowder. I therefore thought that it had never been filled. I intended to have it cut in two and a lamp for the Prince made of the pieces, and took it to Nordenfelt's works for the purpose. The foreman, desirous of taking every precaution before cutting it, had it again filled with water and sounded with a copper rod, when it suddenly exploded, blowing off the foot of the workman who held it, and doing other serious damage. The explanation seems to be that the force of the impact when the shell was fired had solidified the powder into a hard mass. But explanation would have little availed had the shell burst in the smoking-room at Sandringham, where a fragment of it remains to this day.

CHAPTER XXII

PASSING THROUGH EGYPT

At the beginning of the year 1883 I was on my way out to India with Lady Charles in the P. and O. s.s. Malwa. Proceeding into Ismailia Lake, the Malwa was rammed by another vessel which tried to cross the Malwa's bows. I was looking over the side of the Malwa and I saw a curious thing. I saw the colliding vessel rebound from the Malwa and strike her again. I ran up to the bridge, where the captain had already given orders to stop the engines. The ship was sinking; it was no time to stand upon ceremony; and I ventured to suggest to the captain that he should put his engines full steam ahead, when he might hope to beach the vessel, whereas if she stayed where she was, she would infallibly go down in deep water. The captain, like a good seaman, gave the order, and the chief engineer carried it into execution with admirable promptitude. I went down into the engine-room and found the water already rising through the foot-plates.

As the ship steamed towards the shore, settling down as she went, I stood with Lady Charles on the bridge, telling her that, if the vessel sank, I should throw her overboard – although she could not swim – and should jump in after her. To which she merely replied, "That will be very disagreeable!"

The ship was safely beached, though not before the water had risen to my cabin. She was afterwards salved by the help of the Navy. H.M.S. Carysfort, commanded by Captain H. F. Stephenson, C.B. (now Admiral Sir Henry F. Stephenson, G.C.V.O., K.C.B., Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod), sent a carpenter and a working party; and they did excellent service in the Malwa.

Our party went to Cairo, there to await the next steamer.

Hicks Pasha and his staff dined with us upon the night before they left Cairo, upon their fatal expedition. Colonel W. Hicks had been appointed by the Khedive chief of the staff of the Army of the Soudan. In the following August he was appointed commander-in-chief. From Cairo he went to Souakim, thence to Berber, and thence to Khartoum. On the 28th April, he fought a successful action on the White Nile, south of Khartoum, in which his Egyptian troops did well. In September, Hicks left Duem with his staff and some 10,000 men and marched into the desert, which swallowed them up. The whole army was exterminated by the Mahdi's dervishes. Gordon said that the Mahdi built with the skulls of the slain a pyramid.

I applied for permission to accompany Hicks Pasha, but my old friend Lord Dufferin was determined that I should not go upon that hazardous enterprise. I believe he telegraphed to the Government on the subject. At any rate, he had his way, and so saved my life.

In October, before the news of the disaster had reached Cairo, the British Army of Occupation had been reduced from 6700 men to 3000. Subsequently, the British Government proceeded with the policy of abandoning the Soudan, in one phase of which I was to bear my part.

In the meantime, Lady Charles and I joined the Duke of Portland and his party, among whom were Lord de Grey and Lord Wenlock; went to India; enjoyed some excellent sport; and returned home.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE SOUDAN WAR OF 1884-5

I. SUMMARY OF EVENTSNOTE

A year before the British forces restored order in Egypt, trouble was beginning in the Soudan. One Mahomet Ahmed, who was the son of a boat-builder, and who had the peculiar conformation of the teeth which betokened the fore-ordained of the Prophet, announced that he was the Mahdi. In July, 1881, the holy man dwelt upon the island of Abba, on the White Nile, above Khartoum. Thence he caused it to be made known that he was the chosen instrument for the reformation of Islam, and that all those who denied him would be abolished. Reouf Pasha, who was then Governor-General of the Soudan, summoned the Mahdi to Khartoum, there to give an account of himself. The Mahdi naturally refused; and when Reouf sent soldiers to fetch him, the Mahdi slew most of them, and departed into the hills, he and all his following. The Governor of Fashoda took an expedition to Gheddeer, and was also slain, together with most of his men. Then Giegler Pasha, a German, acting as temporary Governor-General of the Soudan, succeeded in defeating the forces of the Mahdi. But Abdel Kader, who, succeeding Reouf, took over the command from Giegler, was defeated in his turn. On 7th June, 1882, the Egyptian forces were cut to pieces near Fashoda. In July, the Mahdi was besieging Obeid and Bara. By October, 1882, both places were in danger of falling, and Abdel Kader was demanding reinforcements from Egypt.

The Soudan is a country as large as India; at that time it had no railways, no canals, no roads, and, excepting the Nile during a part of the year, no navigable rivers. In November, 1882, the British Government informed the Khedive that they declined to be responsible for the condition of the Soudan. Lord Granville's intimation to this effect was the first step in the policy which progressed from blunder to blunder to the desertion and death of General Gordon.

The Egyptian Government, left in the lurch, hastily enlisted some 10,000 men, the most part being brought in by force, and dispatched them to Abdel Kader at Berber. At Abdel Kader's request, Colonel Stewart and two other British officers were sent to Khartoum to help him to deal with the raw and mutinous levies.

In December, a number of British officers were appointed to the Egyptian Army in Egypt, in accordance with the recommendations of Lord Dufferin, and Sir Evelyn Wood was appointed Sirdar. The British Army of Occupation had now been reduced to 12,000 men, under the command of General Sir Archibald Alison, who, in the following April (1883) was succeeded by Lieutenant-General F. C. S. Stephenson.

In January, 1883, Colonel W. Hicks, afterwards Hicks Pasha, was appointed by the Khedive chief of the staff of the Army of the Soudan. Before he proceeded to the theatre of war, Abdel Kader had lost and won various engagements, and had reoccupied the province of Sennar; while the Mahdi had taken El Obeid and Bara and occupied the whole of Kordofan.

In February, it was announced in the Queen's Speech that "the British troops will be withdrawn as promptly as may be permitted by a prudent examination of the country"; a declaration provoking intense alarm among the European inhabitants of Egypt. Their protests, however, were totally disregarded. The Egyptians naturally concluded that England owned no real interest in that reform of administration which her influence alone could achieve.

On 7th February, 1883, Colonel Hicks left Cairo for Khartoum, with his staff, consisting of Colonels Colborne and De Coetlogon, Majors Farquhar and Martin, and Captains Warner, Massey and Forrestier-Walker. Upon the night before their departure, Colonel Hicks and his staff dined with Lord and Lady Charles Beresford in Cairo. Lord Charles Beresford, who was then on half-pay, had expressed a wish to accompany Colonel Hicks, but Lord Dufferin disapproving of his suggestion, Lord Charles Beresford withdrew it.

Hicks and his men disappeared into the desert, which presently swallowed them up.

On the 28th April, Hicks defeated a large force of the Mahdi's army on the White Nile. The Egyptian Government then decided to reconquer the province of Kordofan, and dispatched reinforcements to Khartoum. On the 9th September, Hicks Pasha, at the head of 10,000 men, marched for Duem. The last dispatch received from him was dated 3rd October, 1883. Upon a day early in November, Hicks and his whole army were annihilated.

His defeat left Khartoum in great danger. On 9th November, before the news of the disaster reached England, the British Government stated that all British troops were to be withdrawn from Egypt. When the fact was known, the decision of the Government was modified; but they still declined to interfere in the Soudan; and advised the Egyptian Government to evacuate at least a part of that territory. The Egyptian Government protesting, the British Government, on 4th January, 1884, sent a peremptory message insisting that the policy of evacuation should be carried into execution. The inconsequence of Her Majesty's Ministers is sufficiently apparent.

In the meantime, during August of the preceding year, 1883, trouble had arisen in the Eastern Soudan, where Osman Digna, a trader, joined the Mahdi, and brought all the tribes of that country to his standard. At the beginning of November, 1883, just at the time when Hicks Pasha and his army had come to their end, an Egyptian force under Mahmoud Talma Pasha was defeated by Osman Digna in the attempt to relieve Tokar, besieged by the rebels, Captain Moncrieff, Royal Navy, British Consul at Souakim, being killed in the action. A second expeditionary force under Suleiman Pasha was cut to pieces on 2nd December at Tamanieh.

The Egyptian Government then dispatched reinforcements under the command of General Valentine Baker, among whose staff were Colonel Sartorius, Lieutenant-Colonel Harrington, Lieutenant-Colonel Hay, Majors Harvey, Giles, and Holroyd, Morice Bey and Dr. Leslie. On the 4th February, 1884, Baker was defeated at El-Teb, with the loss of nearly two-thirds of his force. Morice Bey, Dr. Leslie, and nine other European officers were killed. Souakim being threatened, Admiral Hewett, on 10th December, was given the command of the town, having under him some 3800 troops. Two days later came the news of the taking of Sinkat by the rebels, and of the massacre of the garrison. During the period in which these successive disasters occurred, the British Army of Occupation was kept idle in Cairo by the orders of the British Government.

The current of events now divides, one leading to Khartoum, the other still flowing in the Eastern Soudan. The British Government, hopelessly at fault, turned to General Charles Gordon, as the one man in the world who could apparently perform miracles. Ten years previously, "Chinese" Gordon, as Governor-General of the Soudan, and again in 1877, as Governor-General of the Soudan, Darfur and the Equatorial Provinces, had freed the country from Turkish rule, broken the slave trade, established peace, opened trade routes, and laid the foundations of civilisation. Since 1877 he had been engaged in setting wrong things right in Egypt in the Soudan again, in Abyssinia, in China, in the Mauritius, at the Cape, in Palestine, and in the Congo.

On 18th January, 1884, Gordon was instructed by the British Government to report upon the best method of evacuating the Soudan. When he arrived at Cairo, these instructions were radically altered by Sir Evelyn Baring (afterwards Lord Cromer), who, on the 25th January, informed Gordon that he was required actually to direct the evacuation of Khartoum and of the whole Soudan, and afterwards to establish an organised government in that country. Gordon arrived at Khartoum on the 18th February, where he was hailed as the father and saviour of the people.

On the same day, Major-General Sir Gerald Graham left Suez to join at Souakim the force which had been placed under his command. That force was chiefly drawn from the British Army of Occupation in Egypt. The object of the expedition was the relief of Tokar, or, if that place had already fallen, the protection of Souakim, an alternative which involved an attack upon Osman Digna's victorious army. Tokar was in fact taken by the enemy before the expedition started.

The British Government, whose original intention had been to refrain from any action in the Soudan whatsoever; which had been compelled by force of circumstances, including the most frightful bloodshed, to change a wholly negative policy to a definite scheme of evacuation; now perceived, of course too late, that if the European population was to be brought away, at least some measure of military force must be employed. What Her Majesty's Ministers were unable to see, or what, if they saw, they chose to ignore, was the plain fact that the same force and the same measures and the same promptitude would be required for the salvation of Europeans in face of the enemy, as for the reconquest and reoccupation of the country. In this delusion, or dereliction, resides the explanation of an affair which has left an indelible stain upon British honour.