Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 September 1898 — BATTLE OF THE NILE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

BATTLE OF THE NILE.

OF BRITISH TRIUMPH IN THE SOUDAN. How Gen. Kitchener’* Great Victory Was Won—Dervishes Foujrht with Fanatical Bravery* Throwing Away Life—Operations Before the Fight.

In a terrific battle Gen. Kitchener and Lis Anglo-Egyptian column dealt a death blow to mahdism and to the dervishes of the Soudan,’ capturing the cities of Omdurman and Khartoum, and adding a large stretch of the Egyptian hinterland to the British possessions in Eastern Africa. In this engagement the dervishes fought their last great fight. Though Khalifa Abdullah escaped with Osman Digna and a handful of men, the der-

vishes can never again harass the British and Egyptians on the Nile with their predatory raids, for their army has been almost wiped out, their black standard has been captured, and their leaders are henceforth destined to be fugitives until they become prisoners. At last the murder of “Chinese” Gordon is avenged, and the last of the Mohammedan strongholds in Africa is practically destroyed. This great British victory is due to good discipline, fine arms, steady work and excellent generalship. The British have made the Egyptians into effective soldiers under English officers. Both the natives and the redcoats were armed with the best rifles and machine guns known to modern military science. The strength of

the dervish army was estimated at 60,000, while the British force that dealt out such a terrible defeat to this army consisted of only 25,000 men—lo,ooo British regulars and 15,000 Egyptian natives. Accurate figures as to the losses on both sides are still lacking, but various estimates place the Anglo-Egyptian casualties at from 200 to 500 and those of the dervishes at from 8,000 to 15,000. The most impressive features of the battle were the fanatical courage of the dervishes and the terrible execution of the Maxim guns. It was another demonstration, if any were needed, to show the Impotency of the fiercest courage before the modern rapid fire machine guns. The Arabs threw themselves in fierce charges upon various points of the British formation, but the Maxims hewed horrible laucs through theii> ranks, and the deadly volley fire of the British and Egyptian battalions annihilated them in the act of charging. The attack of the dervishes began at dawn, the battle raged all day, and at 4 o’clock the great army lay in white heaps on the field or had surrendered as prisoners. The Khalifa and his elusive chiefs escaped with a mere corporal’s guard. It , r jjas a great triumph for the British arms. The British Soudan campaign resembles our Cuban campaign ire the nature of the original provocation, in the suspense attendant upon its events, iu the marked disparity of the death lists on the two sides, and in the ultimate increase of territory accruing to the conqueror. For years the raiding and implacable dervishes have been a menace to all civilized life on the borders of upper Egypt. There could be no peace or safety until the power of the Mahdi, or of his successor, the Khalifa, was crushed. The present situation in the Soudan is the outgrowth of the fall of Khartoum and the death of Gordon and the massacre of Hicks’ army; The Soudan, formerly belonging to Slgypt, was theta taken by the Mahdi and Gen. Gordon, the governor, was put to death. That was in 1885, and not a moment since then has the British public or the British Government rested satisfied with the Soudan In the hands of the Mahdists. The Mahdi is a religious fanatic, whose followers are no less fanatical. When the Mahdi died Abdullah Bin Sayd proclaimed himself successor, and he has made a cunning and cruel ruler While the above was the immediate cause of the British expedition against the dervishes, the ultimate aim of securing another large slice of the African continent and the taking of another stride toward the completion of an unbroken stretch of British territory from Cape Colony to the Medrteranearn, was equally definite and avowed. The fall of Omdurman and Khartoum means that these cities are ultimately to be way stations on a British transcontinental railway tanning the whole length of eastern Africa on British territory. , ▲ fool’s company is not hard to find.

GENERAL KITCHENER.

KHARTOUM, DERVISH CAPITAL AND OBJECT OF THE EXPEDITION.