News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1882-08-03
THE EGYPTIAN AS A SOLDIER.
A CowardIy and Degraded Regular
Who Fears Fire.
from the Pail Mall Gazette

Who Fears Fire.
from the Pail Mall Gazette.I
We have received the following from
a correspondent who has had consider
able experience in Eastern wars:
ga not unimportant element in the
consideration of the Egyption question
is the value of the Arab as fighting
material. Of the courage of the
wretches who beat out the brains of SO
many Europeans caught by surprise
and unarmed in the late Alexandria
riots, one may judge by an incident
which took place in the course of them.
son the great square of Alexandria
some two hundred of these patriotic
protesters against the rule of the for
eigner, were engaged in hunting Euro
| peans, when four attendants of the tri-
bunal rushed out of their sanctuary
with drawn swords, and the whole two
hundred took to precipitate flight, leav-
ing the square empty of all but the
dead and wounded, and the four mes
sengers of justice. Without some firm
assurance of the support of mustafiz or
nizam it is quite certain that none OF
the rabbIe would ever have dared to
raise hand against a foreigner. A
kourbash is quite enough for the
courage of an Egyptian on any ordinary
occasion. As a soldier the bloody reg
ime of Mehemet Ali has given him a
prestage which, like the scent of the
roses, fingers long after the organiza-
ton is shattered. It is true that once
Egyptian soldiers defeated Turkish, but
the latter were in a much lower state
of discipline than now, while the former
were ruled with vigor of which the fol-
lowing incident, related by veteran
who remembered Mehemet Ali, will
give an example A milkwoman came
to the Pasha one day complaining that
one of his soldiers had robbed her of
the milk she was bringing to camp. The
soldier was identified and denied having
taken the milk. 'What did he do with
it p asked the Pasha. Drank it, was
the reply. At sign the mans head
was off his body, and his stomach being
opened, was found full of milk. &C.,
said the Pasha to the Mortified milk
woman, paying her the value of her
milk, but if he had not taken it your
| head would have paid for it.
"Needless to say this Draconian rule
has long passed away, and the Egyptian
soldier of to-day is perhaps the most
cowardly and degraded regular in exist
ence. In the late Russo Turkish war
they could not be brought to face fire,
and were kept in reserve for depot
duty. In the Cretan insurrection of
1866 the Viceroy's guard was sent to
the island to aid in the subiugation
the Christians, but on the first en-
counter 1000 of them, attacked in an
intrenched position by about 800 i'll
armed Cretans, were driven into then
intrenchments, their access to the water
sources were cut off, and they sur
rendered unconditionally after the
defeat of another division, which had
marched to their relief-the total being
5000 men, with artillery, and considered
the best troops in the Egyptian Army.
In subsequent affair, under Mehemet
Kiritly Pasha, when the Egyptians were
to cover the retreat of the main army,
they broke and fed precipitately at the
first attack of the insurgents, and
squads of them, lost in the complicate
byways and broken ground of the pass
of Krapi, threw down their arms and
were butchered without resistance by
the Cretans. At the assault of the
Convent of Arkadi the only use the
Egyptians could be put to was to be
put in front with the bayonets of the
Turkish regulars behind them and no
alternative of safety. They were in this
way driven into the breach, covering
the Turks by their bodies.
'sThis was the testimony of one OF
the italian officers in command of them,
and nothing was more common than for
the Cretans to send an Egyptian pris-
oner away contemptuously, saying that
it was like butchering sheep to Kill the
Egyptians. They are capable only of
the simplest evolutions, and their Off
GERS know little more of the science of
war than the privates. The former are
fond of fine uniforms and gewgawry,
but they actually are never exercised in
any movements of warfare there is no
conception of organization, and if ne
cessity arose for action it is not too much
to say that the soldiers could not find
their cartridges, their officers their
commissariat. nor the commanders their
officers. Nothing but the most incon-
ceivable blunders could ever give them
a military advantage, and the slightest
menace toward a fianking movement
would put the entire army to route with
ont firing a shot. A division from India
landing at Suez and marching ON Cairo
would see the defenders of Alexandria
in instant retreat, and distribution OF
few pounds would set the whole of the
Bedouin tribes to plundering the reg
ulars. With the exception of the Copts
and small number of the better classes
of the inhabitants of Lower Egypt,
there is nothing to form self-govern-
ing nation; while anything like repre-
sentative government or military etficl-
ency must be the result of generations
of development.
AT HOME AGAIN. - Charles Lang
heimer, universally knows as "Dickens's
Dutchman," who has spent more than
forty years of his life in the Eastern
Penitentiary of Pennsylvania, and who
was arrested lately for tapping till in
Philadelphia, evidently took that action
for the express purpose of being sent