Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1898-09-24
sLACGHTERED LIKE SHEEP,
Some of the Horrors of the Soudan
Being Revealed.

FROM the SATURDAY Review.
When Osman Digna first arrived in the
Suakin district as the mahdi's apostle it
was found that the dervishes were not men
who could be fought in the manner CUSTOM
airy to civilization. 1t was not a matter of
naneuvering, or coming into action at
one thousand yards, or anything of that
k'nd The dervish method of lighting was
something much more simple The enemy
being sighted, banners are raised swords
are drawn, spears are poised, and the whole
force goes straight at him. That was what
Mahmud Pasha Taher and Commander
Moncrief had rot realized when on No
Vember 4, 1888, they took five hundred and
nifty Egyptians from Suakin toward Tokar
one hundred and fifty dervishes completely
routed them. Moncrief was among the
killed Suakin was paralyzed, stiff with
terror.
Then poor Valentine Baker, our former
dashlng colonel of hussars, was commits
stoned by the khedive TO retrieve this dis
aster. His Egyptians were slaughtered at
RI Ieb like sheep; they fed, they knelt on
the desert, raising their hands in prayer,
stretching forth their necks to the sword
There was no quarter for Egyptians or
English their heads rolled in the sand;
their bodies were smitten through and
through with SPEARS. Hicks had persisted
with great army in faraway Kordofan.
1t was the same there England was
reused. Two armies led by English officers
had suffered complete defeat in one case
humiliation. Gerald Graham was sent out
and now for the first tina the English pri-
vate soldier Joined battle with the deryish.
now for the first time he learned what
manner of lighting man was the fuzzy
wuzzy. And from that time must be dated
the unWritten chapters of Soudanase
warfare. From that time Tommy Atkins
became familiar with slaughter in a form
new to him-the slaughter of women and
the slaughter of wounded men. 1t sounds
terrible. All warfare is terrible; Soudan
warfare is a horror beyond words
After one of those early battles-a ire
mendous fight, hand to hand, bayonet to
spear, in a whirlwind of dust through
which the fighters caught glimpses of
flashing steel and waving banners, while
the heavy air was rent with the rattle of
musketry and screams of passion-a party
OF soldiers, with a reporter or two among
them We're standing over one of the enc
my's dead. why, it's woman said one
of the soldiers, some Tommy who had sis
ters at home, maybe; What bloomin
shame it SENS now, don't it?" One of the
reporters thought the same, and said So
But there was also present an officer long
resident at Suakin, who knew the ways of
the faithful, and he said to the reporter:
" You see what she's got in her hand?" "A
stick Yes; and do you know what she
would have done with it" Thu reporter did
not know but he presumed she was going
to fight With it. No, she not going to
fight with it, She intended to use it on
some wounded unbeliever in an indescriba-
bic 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 sticks was given
changed his views as to the pity of their
slaughter. In any case, the women CAM
on with the men in headlorg charge, and
could not be distinguished from Them
down they went. This slaughter of women
was not taken up to any extent as SUBJ
ject by Exeter Hall, owing, presumably, to
the circumstances under which they
killed, but it was one of the first motives
which led commanders in the field in the
SCudan to become anxious as to the special
kilograms of the war correspondents at
tached to headquarters.
This slaughter of women was bad enough;
but worse remained behind-the slaughter
of wounded men. In these same early bat
ties, before the derViSh realized, as there is
reason to believe he did eventually realize
that the infidel was, unlike himself, capa-
BILE of humanity, no quarter was universal
on both sides For the infidel, of course,
wounded or not, there never was any quar-
ter; no wounded man ever escaped dervish
sword or spear. The English troops soon
realized this After the desperate struggle
at McNeills Zereba, after the severest of
the nghtlng was over, an officer of one of
the regiments was crossing the blood-stain-
ed Enclosure. A wounded dervish. who was
lying if dead, seeing the young officer
pass near, raised himself on one hand and
with the other threw his spear. In a 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. Thu regiment did not forget the in
cident. The effect of the dervish mode of
attack upon the English regiments was re-
markable. There could be severer or
deal for any troops Incredible though it
seemed these men of the desert never hes
itated to charge with sword and spear
They were moved down by the Martini
Henry rife and by the Calling guns, but
those who escaped the deadly hail still
came right up to the bayonets, into the
Zereba the square, and there died fight
ing. But those who were not slain out
right, what of them? Was there any men
ton of the dervish wounded in those early
battles? There was not; there could not be.