Khartoum Campaign, 1898 Part 13

Now, I went through the 1882 war in Egypt as well as most of the campaigns in the Soudan. I am therefore in a better position than he to declare, that his allegations are a perversion of the truth. It was neither the practice at Tel-el-Kebir nor subsequent thereto for British led troops to kill wounded men. The insinuation that they did so, or connived at such slaughter, is a stupid or a malicious falsehood. In every battle within the period referred to, large numbers of wounded and unwounded prisoners were taken, and invariably great lenience was shown. Surgical treatment also was, whenever possible, always promptly rendered. Indeed, they were in countless cases treated as tenderly as our own wounded. This further: in action there are no soldiers less p.r.o.ne to needless blood-spilling, or men readier to forgive and forget, than "Tommy Atkins." Official returns exist setting at rest the fiction about Tel-el-Kebir and the Soudan battles. At Tel-el-Kebir many thousand prisoners were made, and in other engagements our hands were always full of dervish wounded. At El Teb, Tamai, Abu Klea, Abu Kru, Gemaizeh, Atbara, and elsewhere, wounded dervishes fell into our hands, and received every attention from the medical staff. And in some of these actions our troops were themselves in sore straits. Several hundred dervishes were picked up within and without the Atbara dem, including the leader Mahmoud and his two cousins. Be it remembered, our troops only remained there a few hours, marching back to the Nile.

Still further abominable charges Mr Bennett lays at the door of his countrymen who command British and Khedivial troops. The Sirdar himself is included in his rigmarole of accusations. But whether dealing with particulars or the general course of events, Mr Bennett discloses that he has scarcely a nodding acquaintanceship with truth.

He has said:--"This wholesale slaughter was not confined to Arab servants," _i.e._, killing wounded dervishes. "The Soudanese seemed to revel in the work, and continually drove their bayonets through men who were absolutely unconscious.... This unsoldierly work was not even left to the exclusive control of the black troops; our British soldiers took part in it."

On whatever ground Mr Bennett may seek to support these a.s.sertions, they are unwarranted and untruthful libels. There was no wholesale slaughter of wounded dervishes, nor was there anything done in the least justifying or providing a decent pretext for that ferocious accusation. Very many thousands of dervish wounded fell into our hands that day and later. Officers have written to the press, denying these charges and the rest of Mr Bennett's tale of monstrosity. The Sirdar himself has confirmed by a personal cablegram my refutation of them.

Here is another of Mr Bennett's suggestions of evil-doing, by innuendo and a.s.sertion:--"It was stated that orders had been given to kill the wounded." And, "If the Sirdar really believes that the destruction of the wounded was a military necessity," etc. Can colossal cra.s.sness go further? There is not and never was a scintilla of truth for the charge of wholesale slaughtering of wounded dervishes, nor that the Sirdar ever issued such an order, or that any reputable person ever received it, or ever had it hinted to him. The accusation is an unmitigated untruth, and absolutely at variance with all that was said and done by the Sirdar before and during the course of the battle and the pursuit. I certainly never heard of the matter until Mr Bennett made the accusation, and I cannot trace its authorship beyond himself.

From the Sirdar down, contradictions of the charge have deservedly been slapped in Mr Bennett's face.

But it is almost sheer waste of words to follow and refute line by line the article "After Omdurman." Other of Mr Bennett's accusations were: that the 21st Lancers, on the way to the front, robbed hen-roosts and stricken villagers; that once in Omdurman the Soudanese troops abandoned discipline, looted, ravished, and murdered the whole night long; that on land and water our cannon and Maxims were deliberately turned upon unarmed flying inhabitants, ma.s.sacring, without pity, men, women, and children. An these charges had been true, I should have hastened to denounce the culprits, whoever they were, in the interests of humanity and country. Happily, Mr Bennett's tale is utterly without foundation, whatever reflection that casts upon his condition. The Lancers pa.s.sed through nothing but deserted villages, where there were neither natives nor roosts to rob, even had they been so disposed. As for the Soudanese troops, their discipline throughout was perfect; there was no looting, no ravishing nor murder done by them or any other divisions of the soldiery. Nor did our gunners on sh.o.r.e or afloat ever fire upon unarmed people. Let it be recalled that those whom Mr Bennett so flippantly accuses are honourable gentlemen and fellow-countrymen. Three things in this connection are worthy of special note. When the first dervish attack upon our zereba was repulsed and Wad Melik's dead, dying and shamming warriors carpeted the north slopes of Jebel Surgham and the plain in front. "Cease fire" was sounded. Thereafter the dervishes arose from the ground in hundreds and thousands and walked off, without awakening a renewal of our fire from cannon, Maxims, or rifles. At the entry into Omdurman the artillery and gunboats were ordered to be careful how they fired, and grave risks were incurred by the Sirdar and staff in personally counselling to friend and foe a cessation of fighting.

Inaccuracy and sensationalism Mr Bennett is welcome to, and to the sort of notoriety it has brought him. Cheap maudlin sentiment may profess a pity for those "dervish homes ruined" by the successes of British arms. The dervishes in their day had no homes. Nay, they made honest profession that their mission was to destroy other people's, and do without carking domesticity, as that detracted from the merit of preparation for paradise. As I have elsewhere said, one of the "fads" of the day is to hold that liberalism of mind is always characterised by being a friend to every country and race but your own. Exact truth is as illusive to discovery by that as other pernicious methods. That there may have been one or two instances of cruelty practised on the battle-field is possible. Something of the kind always takes place in warfare as in everyday life. But only the amateur would magnify a few instances into a catalogue of charges.

Alas! you cannot eliminate from armies, any more than from ordinary communities, the foolish, insane, and criminal.

THE AUTHOR.

LONDON, _February 1899_.

THE END.

NEILL AND COMPANY, LTD., PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.

_FOURTH IMPRESSION NOW READY._

SIRDAR AND KHALIFA;

OR THE

RE-CONQUEST OF THE SOUDAN.

BY

BENNET BURLEIGH.

WITH PORTRAITS, NUMEROUS ILl.u.s.tRATIONS, MAPS, AND PLAN OF BATTLE.

DEMY 8vo, 12s.

THE DAILY NEWS says:--"Picturesque, spirited, and trustworthy narrative.... The book comprises a summary of the military situation, and a glance at the probable course of the renewed operations which are now on the point of commencing."

THE PALL MALL GAZETTE says:--"Nothing could be more timely. It is unnecessary at this time of day to speak of Mr Burleigh's familiar style ... always to the point, clear, and vigorous; or of his matter--the matter of an experienced, shrewd, and fearless war correspondent. The book is just the book for the occasion, and will make the tale that is coming directly more real to many of us. Mr Burleigh gives a few useful introductory chapters dealing with previous events, and a very interesting account of a trip to Ka.s.sala, 'our new possession'; but in the main it is the story of the Atbara Campaign. The book makes good reading, entirely apart from its timely instructiveness."

THE ST JAMES'S GAZETTE says:--"Its real value to the judicious reader lies in the fact that it is a faithful record by a highly skilled observer of the day-by-day life of an Anglo-Egyptian Army engaged in desert warfare. The country itself--river and wilderness--the rival leaders, the soldiery, their appearance, arms, and uniform, their eating and drinking, their lying down and their rising up, their marching and the final rush of battle--these are all here before us in a living picture, making the book in reality an invaluable 'vade mec.u.m' for those who wish to realise just what it is that our men are doing to-day between the Atbara and Omdurman."

THE WESTMINSTER GAZETTE says:--"The book is profoundly interesting.

Readers familiar with the author's letters in _The Daily Telegraph_ do not need to be told that he is a master of vivid and picturesque narrative. Mr Burleigh has been an eye-witness during the course of all the campaigns in the Soudan in which British troops have been employed, and therefore writes out of full knowledge and experience."

THE MORNING POST says:--"Many chapters are devoted to the Atbara Campaign and the incidents connected with it, the storming of Mahmoud's entrenched Camp on the 7th of April last, and interviews with that Emir after he was taken prisoner. Mr Burleigh's book, it will be sufficient to say, should prove very useful to all who follow the progress of the Force now advancing on Omdurman. In a supplementary chapter will be found official despatches, and the work is provided with a map of the Soudan, and plans of the Battle of the Atbara and of the Island of Meroe, showing positions before the battle. The ill.u.s.trations are numerous. Among them is a frontispiece portrait of the Sirdar."

THE DAILY CHRONICLE says:--"We are given a connected and very comprehensible account of all the operations up to the destruction of Mahmoud's host and the Sirdar's triumphant return to Berber.... The description of the main battle itself is very vivid and complete."

THE SCOTSMAN says:--"Mr Bennet Burleigh's new volume, 'Sirdar and Khalifa,' comes just in the nick of time. Its object is to recount the story of the reconquest of the Soudan up to the Battle of Atbara.... A very readable book."

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH says:--"Readers of _The Daily Telegraph_ will not be chary of accepting our estimate of the value of this book when we remind them that its author is Mr Bennet Burleigh, who has acted throughout the numerous campaigns which have been waged in the Soudan as the War Correspondent of this journal, and gained himself a well-merited reputation for his pluck in the face of the enemy, his endurance of hardship and fatigue, his excellence of judgment, and his graphic descriptions of the shock of battle.... It only remains to say that this book is well ill.u.s.trated, handsomely printed, and is in every way a worthy record of a brief but memorable campaign."