to pieces, reached Suakin on the 12th of February. On the 24th General Graham’s force disembarked at Trinkitat and received information of the surrender of Tokar. At 8 A.M. on the 29th the force advanced towards Tokar in square, and came under fire at 11.20 A.M. from the enemy entrenched at El Teb. The tribesmen made desperate efforts to rush the square, but were repulsed, and the position was taken by 2 P.M. The cavalry, 10th and 19th Hussars, under Brigadier-General Sir H. Stewart, became involved in a charge against an unbroken enemy, and suffered somewhat severely. The total British loss was 34 killed and 155 wounded; that of the tribesmen was estimated at 1500 killed. On the following day Tokar was reached, and on the 2nd of March the force began its return to Suakin, bringing away about 700 people belonging to the late garrison and the civil population, and destroying 1250 rifles and a quantity of ammunition found in a neighbouring village. On the 9th of March the whole force was back at Suakin, and on the evening of the 11th an advance to Tamai began, and the force bivouacked and formed a zeriba in the evening. Information was brought by a native that the enemy had assembled in the Khor Ghob, a deep ravine not far from the zeriba. At about 8.30 A.M. on the 13th the advance began in echelon of brigade squares from the left. The left and leading square (2nd Brigade) moved towards the khor, approaching at a point where a little ravine joined it. The enemy showing in front, the leading face of the square was ordered to charge up to the edge of the khor. This opened the square, and a mass of tribesmen rushed in from the small ravine. The brigade was forced back in disorder, and the naval guns, which had been left behind, were temporarily captured. After a severe hand-to-hand struggle, in which the troops behaved with great gallantry, order was restored and the enemy repulsed, with the aid of the fire from the 1st Brigade square and from dismounted cavalry. The 1st Brigade square, having a sufficient field of fire, easily repelled all attempts to attack, and advancing as soon as the situation had been restored, occupied the village of Tamai. The British loss was 109 killed and 104 wounded; of the enemy nearly 2000 were killed. On the following day the force returned to Suakin.
Two heavy blows had now been inflicted on the followers of Osman Digna, and the road to Berber could have been opened, as General Graham and Brigadier-General Sir H. Stewart suggested. General Gordon, questioned on the point, telegraphed from Khartum, on the 7th of March, that he might be cut off by a rising at Shendi, adding, “I think it, therefore, most important to follow up the success near Suakin by sending a small force to Berber.” He had previously, on the 29th of February, urged that the Suakin-Berber road should be opened up by Indian troops. This, and General Gordon’s proposal to send 200 British troops to Wadi Halfa, was opposed by Sir E. Baring, who, realizing soon afterwards the gravity of the situation, telegraphed on the 16th of March:—
“It has now become of the utmost importance not only to open the road between Suakin and Berber, but to come to terms with the tribes between Berber and Khartum.”
The government refused to take this action, and Major-General Graham’s force was employed in reconnaissances and small skirmishes, ending in the destruction of the villages in the Tamanieb valley on 27th March. On the 28th the whole force was reassembled at Suakin, and was then broken up, leaving one battalion to garrison the town.
The abrupt disappearance of the British troops encouraged the tribesmen led by Osman Digna, and effectually prevented the formation of a native movement, which might have been of great value. The first attempt at intervention Entanglement of General Gordon at Khartum. in the affairs of the Sudan was made too late to save Sinkat and Tokar. It resulted only in heavy slaughter of the tribesmen, which afforded no direct or indirect aid to General Gordon or to the policy of evacuation. The public announcement of the latter was a grave mistake, which increased General Gordon’s difficulties, and the situation at Khartum grew steadily worse. On the 24th of March Sir E. Baring telegraphed:—
“The question now is, how to get General Gordon and Colonel Stewart away from Khartum. . . . Under present circumstances, I think an effort should be made to help General Gordon from Suakin, if it is at all a possible military operation. . . . We all consider that, however difficult the operations from Suakin may be, they are more practicable than any operations from Korosko and along the Nile.”
A telegram from General Gordon, received at Cairo on the 19th of April, stated that
“We have provisions for five months and are hemmed in. . . . Our position will be much strengthened when the Nile rises. . . . Sennar, Kassala and Dongola are quite safe for the present.”
At the same time he suggested “an appeal to the millionaires of America and England” to subscribe money for the cost of “2000 or 3000 nizams” (Turkish regulars) to be sent to Berber. A cloud now settled down upon Khartum, and subsequent communications were few and irregular. The foreign office and General Gordon appeared to be somewhat at cross purposes. The former hoped that the garrisons of the Sudan could be extricated without fighting. The latter, judging from the tenor of some of his telegrams, believed that to accomplish this work entailed the suppression of the mahdi’s revolt, the strength of which he at first greatly underestimated. He had pressed strongly for the employment of Zobeir as “an absolute necessity for success” (3rd of March); but this was refused, since Sir H. Gordon advised at this time that it would be dangerous. On the 9th of March General Gordon proposed, “if the immediate evacuation of Khartum is determined upon irrespective of outlying towns,” to send down the “Cairo employés” and the garrison to Berber with Lieutenant-Colonel J. D. Stewart, to resign his commission, and to proceed with the stores and the steamers to the equatorial provinces, which he would consider as placed under the king of the Belgians. On the 13th of March Lord Granville gave full power to General Gordon to “evacuate Khartum and save that garrison by conducting it himself to Berber without delay,” and expressed a hope that he would not resign his commission.
By the end of March 1884 Sir E. Baring and the British officers in Egypt were convinced that force would have to be employed, and the growing danger of General Gordon, with the grave national responsibility involved, began to be Relief expedition: question of route. realized in Great Britain. Sir Henry Gordon, however, who was in personal communication with Mr Gladstone, considered that his brother was in no peril, and for some time disbelieved in the need for a relief expedition. Meanwhile it was at least necessary to evolve some plan of action, and on the 8th of April the adjutant-general addressed a memorandum to the secretary of state for war detailing the measures required for placing 6500 British troops “in the neighbourhood of Shendi.” The battle of the routes began much earlier, and was continued for some months. Practically the choice lay between the Nile and the Suakin-Berber road. The first involved a distance of 1650 m. from Cairo along a river strewn with cataracts, which obstructed navigation to all but small boats, except during the period of high water. So great was this obstruction that the Nile had never been a regular trade route to the Sudan. The second entailed a desert march of about 250 m., of which one section, Obak-Bir Mahoba (52 m.), was waterless, and the rest had an indifferent water supply (except at Ariab, about half-way to Berber), capable, however, of considerable development. From Berber the Nile is followed (210 m.) to Khartum. This was an ancient trade route with the Sudan, and had been used without difficulty by the reinforcements sent to Hicks Pasha in 1883, which were accompanied by guns on wheels. The authorities in Egypt, headed by General Stephenson, subsequently supported by the Admiral Lord John Hay, who sent a naval officer to examine the river as far as Dongola, were unanimous in favour of the Suakin-Berber route. From the first Major-General Sir A. Clarke, then inspector-general of fortifications, strongly urged this plan, and proposed to begin at once a metre gauge railway from Suakin, to be constructed by Indian labour under officers skilled in laying desert lines. Some preliminary arrangements were made, and on the 14th of June the government
