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Thomas M. M. Hemy
datapages
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&
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The empty box above is not a mistake. It is to remind the
webmaster that Thomas Hemy's famous work Running the Gauntlet is still to be located. Someday it will surely 'turn up',
& it would not be a surprise if when it does, it bears a different title than that
stated above.
What the webmaster knows today about the work is very limited. The work was referred to in the Jan. 27, 1894 edition of
Boy's Own Paper, where the following words appear.
Another of his successful works was Running the Gauntlet, a picture of a
small river steamer, heavily and clumsily protected by great baulks of timber,
carrying relief to Khartoum. Exhibited in Bond Street, then taken to Osborne by
Royal command, subsequently sent round the provinces, it now finds a worthy
resting-place at Greenwich Hospital, as the gift of Lord Charles Beresford.
The story is a most interesting story in the annals of
British military history. And I will try, hopefully in
relatively few words, to explain what would seem to be the subject matter of the
work.
In Jan. 1885, 'Chinese' Gordon was in Khartoum, under siege & surrounded by the armies of Muhammad Ahmad ibn as Sayyid Abd Allah (Aug. 12
1844/Jun. 22 1885) a Muslim religious leader better known to history perhaps as 'The Mahdi'.
Gordon's assignment was a most difficult one. For reasons that might better be
read in detail elsewhere, the British & the Egyptians had little choice but to abandon the Sudan.
Gordon's role was to extricate the many Egyptian garrisons from the area & he took
up that role in Dec. 1883.
Gordon was no stranger to the Sudan. He
had been appointed Governor-General of the Sudan by Khedive Ismail of Egypt in 1877. The economy was
then dominated by the slave trade which was controlled by a very tiny Arab minority. He
started to introduce what might be termed 'good government' similar to that
which had successfully been introduced into India. And one of the things he
determined to do was end the slave trade. His policies in that area were
effective but their effects on the economy were disastrous. Increasingly his
activities were seen to be a European Christian crusade & anti Muslim in
nature. His political support declined after Khedive Ismail of Egypt abdicated in favour of his son Tawfiq
in 1877. Gordon wore himself out with his efforts, & totally exhausted, he
left his post in 1880 & left the Sudan in 1881.
Now it has been many years since the webmaster last visited this page. He does so in Aug. 2009 when the site must be moved to a new location (or vanish). He finds
that the earlier page may never have been completed. In particular he found what appears to be
a review text re 'The Story of the Dervish Mohammed Ahmed'. By Richard A. Bermann. With an Introduction by the Rt. Hon. Winston S. Churchill, P.C., C.H,
M.P. The Macmillan Company. New York, 1932. Illustrated. First American Edition.
Illustrated. xiv, [1], 318 pages. A fantastic account of Mohammed Ahmed who
defeated General Gordon of Khartoum and had his head brought in as a trophy. I
should add that the webmaster does not recall, in 2009, where the following text
came from probably 8 or 9 years ago. It was on this page as continuous text with no paragraphs, & the webmaster has
introduced paragraphs to make the text more understandable, but maybe at
incorrect places.
'Muhammad Ahmad ibn as Sayyid Abd Allah
(otherwise known as The Mahdi or Mohammed Ahmed) (12 August 1844–June 22, 1885)
was a Muslim religious leader, a faqir, in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. He declared
a jihad and raised an army after declaring himself the Mahdi in 1881, and led a
successful war of liberation from the Ottoman-Egyptian military occupation. He
died soon after his liberation of Khartoum, and the state he founded fell victim
to colonial manoeuvrings that doomed it to reconquest in 1899. An understanding
of the British role in these events is important.
In 1869 the Suez Canal opened,
and to defend the waterway Britain sought a greater role in Egyptian affairs. In
1873 the British government supported a program where an Anglo-French debt
commission assumed responsibility for managing Egypt's fiscal affairs. This
commission eventually forced Khedive Ismail to abdicate in favor of his son
Tawfiq in 1877, leading to a period of political turmoil. Ismail had appointed
Charles George Gordon Governor-General of the Sudan in 1877. Soon after he
arrived he started to end the slave trade, which at that point dominated the
economy which was controlled by the tiny minority of Arabs. Before his arrival
some 7 out of 8 blacks in the Sudan were enslaved by the tiny minority of Arabs;
the native Africans formed well over 80% of the overall population. Gordon's
policies were effective, but the effects on the economy were disastrous, and
soon the Arab Social Ascendancy came to see this not as a liberation from slavery,
but as a modern-day European Christian crusade and Muslim and Arab social
dominance. It was this anger that fed the Ansars' ranks.
Upon Ismail's
abdication Gordon found himself with dramatically decreased support. He
eventually resigned his post in 1880, exhausted by years of work, and left early
the next year. His policies were soon abandoned by the new governors, but the
anger and discontent of the dominant Arab minority was left unaddressed.
Although the Egyptians were fearful of the deteriorating conditions, the British
refused to get involved, "Her Majesty’s Government are in no way responsible for
operations in the Sudan", the Foreign Secretary Earl Granville noted. Even after
the Mahdi proclaimed a jihad or holy war, against the Egyptian Ottoman
government, Muhammad Ahmad was dismissed as a religious fanatic. The government
paid more attention when his religious zeal turned to denunciation of tax
collectors. To avoid arrest, the Mahdi and a party of his followers, the Ansar
"Helpers" (known in the West inaccurately as "the Dervishes"), made a long march
to Kurdufan. There he gained a large number of recruits, especially from the
Baqqara. Muhammad Ahmad also wrote to many Sudanese tribal leaders and gained
their support, or at least neutrality, and he was also supported by the slave
traders who were looking to return to power. They were also joined by the
Hadendowa Beja, known as the Fuzzy-wuzzies, who were rallied to the Mahdi by an
Ansar captain, Usman Digna.
Late in 1883, the Ansar, armed only with spears
and swords, overwhelmed an 8000-man Egyptian force not far from Al Ubayyid ("El
Obied") in the Battle of El Obied, and seized their rifles and ammunition. The
Mahdi followed up this victory by laying siege to al-Ubayyid and starving it
into submission after four months. The town remained the headquarters of the
Ansar for much of the decade. The Ansar, now 30,000 strong, then defeated an
8000-man Egyptian relief force at Sheikan, captured Darfur, and, in 1883, took
Jabal Qadir in to the south. The western half of the Sudan was now largely in
Ansar hands, and this state of affairs lasted for several years. Their
success emboldened the Beja, who wiped out a smaller force of Egyptians under
the command of Colonel Valentine Baker near the Red Sea port of Suakim.
Major-General Gerald Graham was sent with a force of 4000 British and defeated
Digna at El Teb on February 29th, but were themselves hard-hit two weeks later
at Tamai. Graham eventually withdrew his forces.
Given their general lack of
interest in the area, the British decided to abandon the Sudan in December 1883.
While their forces still held several northern towns and Red Sea ports, they
ordered Gordon to return to Khartoum and organize a withdrawal of the Egyptian
garrisons there.
Gordon reached Khartoum in February 1884. At first he was
greeted with jubilation as many of the tribes in the immediate area were at odds
with the Mahdists. Transportation northward was still open and the telegraph
lines intact. However, the uprising of the Beja soon after his arrival changed
things considerably, reducing communications to runners. Gordon considered the
routes northward to be too dangerous to extricate the garrisons and so pressed
for reinforcements to be sent from Cairo to help with the withdrawal. He also
suggested that his old enemy Zubayr, a fine military commander, be given tacit
control of the Sudan in order to provide a counter to the Ansar. London
rejected both proposals, and so Gordon prepared for a fight.
In March 1884,
Gordon tried a small offensive to clear the road northward to Egypt but a number
of the officers in the Egyptian force went over to the enemy and their forces
fled the field after firing a single salvo. This convinced him that he could
carry out only defensive operations and he returned to Khartoum to construct
defensive works. By April 1884, Gordon had managed to evacuate some 2500 of the
foreign population that were able to make the trek northwards. His mobile force
under Colonel Stewart then returned to the city after repeated incidents where
the 200 or so Egyptian forces under his command would turn and run at the
slightest provocation. That month the Ansar reached Khartoum and Gordon was
completely cut off. Nevertheless, his defensive works, consisting mainly of
mines, proved so frightening to the Ansar that they were unable to penetrate
into the city. Stewart maintained a number of small skirmishes using gunboats on
the Nile once the waters rose, and in August managed to recapture Berber for a
short time. However, Stewart was killed soon after in another foray from Berber
to Dongola, a fact Gordon only learned about in a letter from the Mahdi himself.
Under increasing pressure from the public to support him, the British eventually
ordered Lord Garnet Joseph Wolseley to relieve Gordon. He was already deployed
in Egypt due to the attempted coup there earlier, and was able to form up a
large force of infantry, moving forward at an extremely slow rate. Realizing
they would take some time to arrive, Gordon pressed for him to send forward a
"flying column" of camel-borne troops under the command of Brigadier-General Sir
Herbert Stuart. This force was attacked by the Mahdists twice, first at Abu Klea
(Abu Tulayh?) and two days later nearer Metemma. Twice the British square held
and the Mahdists were repelled with heavy losses. At Metemma, 100 miles north of
Khartoum, Wolseley's advance guard met four of Gordon's steamers, sent down to
provide speedy transport for the first relieving troops. They gave Wolseley a
dispatch from Gordon claiming that the city was about to fall. However, only
moments later a runner brought in a message claiming the city could hold out for
a year. Deciding to believe the latter, the force stopped while they refit the
steamers to hold more troops. They finally arrived in Khartoum on 28 January
1885 to find the town had fallen two days earlier.
Faraz Pasha had treacherously
opened the gates and let the Ansar in. Gordon was killed on the steps of the
palace and beheaded although the Mahdi had expressly ordered for him to be taken
alive.
Wolseley's force retreated after attempting to force their way to the
center of the town on ships, being met with a hail of fire. Kassala and Sannar
fell soon after and by the end of 1885 the Ansar had begun to move into the
southern regions of Sudan. In all Sudan, only Suakin, reinforced by Indian Army
troops, and Wadi Halfa on the northern frontier remained in Anglo-Egyptian
hands.
Kitchener's forces, the Anglo-Egyptian Nile Expeditionary Force,
consisted of 25,800 men, including 8,600 British regulars, and a flotilla of
gunboats. They reached and fortified Wadi Halfa in 1895, and started south at a
very slow pace the next March. In September Kitchener captured Dongola, and
constructed several rail lines to ensure supplies. There were small battles at
Abu Hamad and Atbara, both times the Ansar were defeated by the massive English
firepower which now included Maxim machine guns. Kitchener then marched on
Omdurman. On 2 September 1898, the Battle of Omdurman opened with a frontal
assault by the Mahdiyya's 52,000-man army. Over the next five hours, some 11,000
Mahdiyya forces would be killed against about 40 of the Anglo-Egyptian forces
(and about 400 wounded).
The Mahdiyya ended at this point and the British once
again took control of the Sudan. The Khalifa escaped and reformed an army, but
this was defeated in 1899 at the Battle of Umm Diwaykarat and the Khalifa was
killed. During their short reign, the Mahdiyya had destroyed the Sudanese
economy and about half of the population died due to famine, disease,
persecution and warfare. Their efforts to wipe out the former tribal differences
left few loyalties intact, and internecine warfare was common. In general the
country welcomed the fall of the Mahdiyya.
Thomas M. M. Hemy datapages
01,
02
&
03 are now on site. Plus all
of the other image pages, accessible though the index on page
05.
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