The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1898-09-09
STORY OF THE BATTLE.

Khalifa's Army.
OMDURMAN, Opposite Khartoum, Nu-
bia, Sept. 1.-The sirdar, General Sir
Herbert Kitchener, with the khalifa's
black standard, captured during the
battle, entered Omdurman, the capital
of Mahdiam, at o'clock this afternoon
at the head Of thu Anglo Egg ptian col.
umn, after completely routing the Der.
wishes, and dealing a death blow to
Mahdism. Roughly, our losses were
200, while thousands of the Dervishes
were killed or wounded.
Last night the Anglo Egg ptian army
encamped at Agaisa, eight miles from
Omdurman. The Dervishes were three
miles distant. At dawn today our cav.
airy, patrolling toward Omdurman,
discovered the enemy advancing to the
attack in battle array,
Chanting War Songs.
Their front consisted of infantry and
cavalry stretched out for three or four
miles.
At 1890 a. m. the enemy crowded the
ridges above the camp and advanced
steadily in enveloped form. At 1880
our artillery opened fire, which was
answered by the Dervish rifiemen.
Their attack developed on our left;
and, in accordance with their tradi.
tional tactics, they swept down the
hillside, with the design of rushing our
flank. But the whitening fire, main.
tanned for 10 minutes by all our line,
frustrated the attempt; and the Der.
wishes baked, swept toward our cen.
ter, upon which they concentrated
fierce attack. A large force of horse
men, trying to face continuous hail
of bullets from the Cameron High
landers, the Lincolnshire regiment and
the Soudenese
Were Literally Swept Away,
leading to the withdrawal of the entire
party, whose dead strewed the field.
The bravery of the Dervishes can
hardly be overestimated. Those who
carried the flags struggled to within a
few hundred yards of our fighting line,
while the mounted emirs absolutely
threw their lives away in bold charges.
When the Dervishes withdrew be-
hind the ridge in front of their camp,
the wholD force marched towards Om-
durham. AS our troops surmounted
the crest adjoining the Nile, the Sou
danese, on our right, came into con.
tact with the enemy, who had reformed
under cover of a rocky eminence and
had massed beneath the black stan.
dard of the khalifa, in order to make q
supreme effort to
Retrieve the Fortunes Of the Day.
A mass, $1,000 strong, bore down on
the Soudanese. General Kitchener
swung round the center and left of the
Soudanese and seized the rock emil
nence, and the Egyptians, hitherto in
reserve, joined the firing line in 10
minutes, and before the Dervishes
could drive their attack home, the
flower of the khalifa's army was caught
in depression and within zone of
whitening cross fire from three bri.
gades with the attendant artillery.
The devoted Mahdists strove heroic
ally TO make Roadway, but every rush
was stopped while their main body
was literally mown down by sus-
tanned deadly fire. Defiantly the Der.
wishes planted their standards and
Died Beside Them.
Their deep masses gradually melted
to companies and the companies to
dribbles beneath the leaden hail Final.
ly' they broke and fed, leaving the
field white with Jibban.clad corpses.
AT 1l:15 the sirdar ordered an ad.
vance, and our whole force in line
drove the scattered remnant of the foe
into the desert, our cavalry cutting off
their retreat to Omdurman.
Khalifa Abdullah, with his harem, and
Osman Digna, his principal general,
managed to escape, but Abdullah's ban.
ner and hundreds of prisoners are in
our hands. 1t is estimated that 1000
of the enemy were slain. Our total
casualties were about 500.