Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1898-10-15

M: going to fight with it. She intended
| TO use il on some wounded unbeiiever in
| an indescribable manner, SO that when he
| appeared in the next world he should look
ridiculous Every soldier TO whom that
| explanation of the dead women with
4 sticks was given changed his views as TO
the pity of their Slaughter. In any case,
as the women came on with the men in
headlong charge and could Eot be d:stin-
guisbed from them. down they went. This
slaughter OF women was not taken up TO
any extent as a Subject by Exeter Hall,
owing presumably 20 the circumstances
under which they were killed but it was
one of the first motives which led ccrn
manders in the field IN the sudan &c be
come anxious as 70 the special kilograms
of the war correspondents attached &c
Headquarters SD
In these same early BATTLES. before the
dervish realized, as there is reason to be-
lieve he did eventually realize that the in
fdel was. unlike himself. capable of hu
.nanity, no quarter was universal en- both
sides For the infidel. of course. wounded
or not, there never was any quarter. No
wounded man ever escaped dervish sword
or spear. The British troops soon realized
this. After the desperate struggle at Mac
Neill s Zereba. after the severest of the
fighting was over. an officer of one of the
regiments was crossing the BLOOD stained
Enclosure. A wounded dervish who was
lying as IL dead, seeing the young officer
pass near. raised himself on one hand and
with the other threw his spear In mo
ment the officer lay gasping out his life,
and in another moment the dervish re-
ceived the coup de grace from one of
the men. The regiment did not forget the
incident. The effect of the dervlsh mode
of attack upon the British regiments was
remarkable. There could be no severer
fisafa1 for III y,
it seemed, these men of the desert never
hesitated to charge with sword and spear.
They were moved down by the Martini
Henry rifles and by the Calling guns, but
those who escaped the deadly hail still
came right up to the bayonets, into the
zereba or the square and there died fight
ing. But those who were not slain out
right, what of themf Was there any men
ton Of the dervish wounded in those early
battlcsI There was not, there could not
be.
Such are some of the incidents of Sudan
warfare, rarely If ever referred to by cor
respondents. Ii has been denied in parlia-
ment. believe. that such things as have
been described ever took place Doubtless
some Of the members OF the house of com
mons knew that they did happen, but
deemed it the part of wisdom TO say moth
ing about it. Such incidents do not make
pleasant reading and the ablest and most
ardent OF army apologists would find it
difficult to defend such practices TO the
satisfaction of many, not excessively ten
der hearted either:
When Osman Digna first arrived in the
Suakin district the Mahdi's apostle, it
was found that the dervishes were not
men who could be fought in the manner
customary to civilization. 1t was not a
matter of maneuvering or coming into |
action Mt / 600 yards or anything of that |
4 H. Ill.
something much more simple. The enemy |
being sighted, banners are raised. swords |
are drawn. spears poised, and the |
whole force goes straight at him. That |
was what Mahmud Pasha Taher and Com |
mander Moncrieff had not realized when |
on Nov /, 1888. they took 800 Egyptians |
from Suakin toward Tokar. One hundred |
and fifty dervishes completely routed |
Them. Moncricff was among the killed. |
Suakin was paralyzed, stiff with terror.
Then poor Valentine Baker. former |
dashing colonel of hussars. was commits |
stoned by the khedive to retrieve this dis |
aster. His Egyptians were slaughtered al |
El Teb like sheep. They fed. they kncls |
on the desert. raising their hands in |
prayer. stretching forth their necks to the |
sword. There was no quarter for Egyptian |
or British; their heads rolled in the sand; |
their bodies were smitten through and |
through with spears. Hicks had persisted |
with a great army in faraway kordofan
1t was the same there Great Britain was
Two armies led by British officers
had suffered a complete defeat, in one case
Gerald Graham was sent
out. and now for the first time the British |
private soldier Joined battle with the der
wish: now for the first time he learned |
what manner of fighting man was the
fuzzy -wuzzy And from that time must
be dated the "unwritten chapters" of
Sudanese warfare. From that time Tom |
my Atkins became familiar with slaughter
In form new 70 him-the slaughter Of
women and the slaughter of wounded men