The Independent. [volume] (Honolulu, H.I.) 1895-1905, 1899-02-09
Continued from Ist pdge.)

y
that is to be learned Of the subject
He has seen and profited by the
errors OF Others as by their success.
He has inherited the wisdom and
achievements of his predecessors
He came at the right hour, and he
was the right man. In the Egyp-
tian army, captain of Royal En-
gineers, he began as second-in-com-
mand of regiment of cavalry. In
Wolseley's campaign he was intelli-
gence officer. During the summer
of 1887 he was at Korosko, negotiat-
ing with the Ababdeh sheiks in view
OF an advance across the desert to
Abu Hamed, and note how charac-
teristically he has now himself bet
tered the then abandoned project,
by going that way to Berber and
Khartoum himself-only with a rail
way.
The idea of the advance across the
desert he took over from Lord
Wolseley, and indeed from the i'm
memorial Arabs; and then from his
own stroke of insight and resolution,
amounting to genius, he turned a
raid into an irresistible certain con-
quest by superseding camels with
the railway. Others had thought
of the desert route; the Sirdar, con-
Meeting Korosko to Halfa, used it.
Others had projected desert rail
ways, the Sirdar made one. That,
summarized in one instance, is the
working of the Soudan machine.
As intelligence officer Kitchener
accompanied Sir Herbert Stewards
desert column, and you may be sure
that the utter breakdown of trans
port which must in any case have
marred that heroic folly was not I'M
noticed by him. Afterward, through
the long decade of little fights that
made the Egyptian army, Kitchener
was fully employed. In 1887 and
1888 he commanded Suakim, and it
is remarkable that his most import
ant enterprise was half failure.
He attacked Osma Digna at Handful,
when most of the Emir's men we're
away raiding; and although he sue
ceeded in releasing a number of cap
tives, he thought it we'll to retire,
himself wounded in the face by a
bullet, without any decisive success.
The withdrawal was in no way dis
creditable, for his force was a tumble
of irregulars and levies without dis
cipline. But it is not, perhaps,
fanciful to believe that the Sirdar,
who has never given battle without
making certain of an annihilating
victory, has not forgotten his expert
ence of haphazard bashi-bazouking
at HANDFUL.
He had his revenge before the end
Of 1888, when he led brigade of
Soudanese over Osman's trenches at
Gemaizeh. Next year, at Toski, he
again commanded brigade. In
1890 he succeeded Sir Francis Gren-
fell as Sirdar. That he meant to be
Sirdar in fact as we'll as in name he
showed Immediately. The young
Khedive travelled south to the
frontier, and took the occasion to
insult every British officer he came
across. Kitchener promptly gave
battle; he resigned, a crisis came,
and the Khedive was obliged to do
public penance by issuing general
order in praise OF the discipline of
the army and of its British officers.
Two years later he began the re-
conquest of the Soudan. Without a
single throwback, the work has gone
forward since-but not without in
teryals. The Sirdar is not in hurry
With immovable self-control he
holds back from each step until the
ground is consolidated under the
last.
The real fighting power OF the
Soudan lies in the country itself-itf