The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-10-04

Kitchener Made One Narrow Escape
Stories of Bravery.



Washington Post.
Stories Of the great fight at Omdurman
are beginning to be told from the standpoint
of those who do not tell them for the news
or IoT e SAKE OF of fbe o es
after the fierce charge that has been COM
pared with that of Balaklava, found him
with living wall of Infatuated Dervishes
surrounding him. His lance had been bro
ken in the melee and he had drawn his
hopeless and unequal fight, and he was al
ready wounded in several places when help
rades Of his company. VINO. seeing his
plight, turned back from the main body,
and, standing in their stirrups and using
their, carbines with both hands as clubs.
smashed right and left into the ruck. A
pathway was cleared to the wounded
Lancer, and he was taken on the saddle of
one of his rescuers and borne on in triumph
to where the rest of the regiment were
hacking, clubbing and stabbing their way
through the crowded masses of Dervishes.
IT seems that Kitchener had narrow es-
cape from death. In his eagerness to get
where he could see the progress of the fight
he came trifie too near the lines of fire
of his own men. and bullet cut through
the sleeve of his coat. To have been acci-
he had won the last Of his hard-fought VIC
tories would have been hard fate for the
great sirdar.
In the famous charge Of the lancers it
was largely every one for himself, for the
enemy through which they cut their way
were so tnickly massed that proper align
ment during the terrible rush was an I'M
possibility A corporal of Company A rode
out at the other end of the line when the
impetuous charge had driven through the
Dervishes' ranks like the rush line at Yale
or Harvard through the scrub team on the
football grounds, and, looking around,
sought to locate the men of his company.
The lances were bent and broken. many
had been lost, some men were holding
blood-stained swords, carbines and revolt
vers, and numbers were blood-covered and
badly in need of the medical staff The
corporal was wounded and so much cut up
that the colonel ordered him to the rear,
as the place that was least dangerous in
that vicinity was called by courtesy. In
stead of complying the corporal shook from
his head the blood that was streaming into
his eyes from a deep cut across the fore
head, and called out, Rally, boys of A
Company. Let's get at 'em again." His call
was responded to with a roar, and the men
showed by the way they gathered around
the bleeding corporal that they needed only
the word to charge back again into the
ranks. The colonel, however thought they
had done enough for the time, and ordered
them to retire and fight at long range until
the moment came when the Dervishes be-
gan to WaVer and break.
If the courage of the Egyptian troops was
open to any question at all prior to Omdur-
man, it certainly is not now. They fought
as fiercely as the impetuous British, and
won -Well-ear1ed praise from their white
officers. The frenZied rush of the Dervishes
against their ranks was met with whitening
vOlleyS that were directed coolly and at
the right time There was not the slightest
approach to panic among the black troops.
1t was the opinion of veteran officers of the
SidarS army that these Egyptian troops
could be led against any white soldier in the
world with every chance of success.
The scene after Omdurman is described
by eyewitnesSeS as awful in the extreme.
thickiy piled masses. The Martini Henry
bullets and the Quick-firing guns had cut
them down in such heaps that the ground
was white with the flowing robes, where it
was not dyed with blood.
No quarter was given. A wounded Der
wish is more dangerous than one not wound
and knows it. The only safeguard lay in
the seemingly inhuman plan of killing the
wounded, and this was done. The number
of killed of the sidar's army, If the truth
We're known, was argumented by the bullets
fired by men who lay on the ground appar-
emily stretched out in death. They fired no
second shot but the first usually counted
for one British or Egyptian life. for the
wounded fanatic would wait until the in
hdel was so close at hand that the powder
would almost burn his clothes before firing.
Then the slayer calmly awaited the aveng
ing bullet or gun butt of the dead mans
comrades, and went to paradise with a
smile
This final victory of Kitchener's leaves
that Comprises the basins basins of the Niger Niger
Lake Tchad and the branch of the Nile that
is called Bahr-el- Ghazel. 1t is hard mat
ter to draw a border line in this rough coun-
try to show just where his sphere of inf1u-
ence will begin and end, but it covers an
area OF $4,000 square are. miles. with popula-
ton of over 10000, 900. Egypt controlled it
once, but the Mahdrs revolt took it from
them. Since then the region has been a
constant source of anxiety to Egypt and
England. The Khalifa took possession of
the territory that the British abandoned
after the anihilation of Hicks Pasha's
forces and the killing of General Gordon,
and 1t looked as though the Khalifa would
be able to keep it.
General Kitchener undertook at the be-
ginning of 1896 to suppress the troublesome
Dervish leader With fifteen thousand men
and four gunboats Kitchener took posses
sion of the finest part of the Sudan, and in
1897 pushed farther forward Since then he
has gone forward continually. with Orndur-
man as the objective point. The force that
he had with him, and with which he cap
tured Omdurman, consisted of one British
and one Egyptian infantry division, one regl-
ment of British and ten squadrons of Egyp-
tian cavalry. one field and one howitzer bat
terry. and two siege guns of British artillery.
an Egyptian horse battery and four field
batteries, camel corps and half dozen gun
boats. There were 900 Egyptians and 1850
British.