Roger Carmichael Robert Owen Lieutenant Colonel Roger Carmichael Robert Owen CMG OBE ( 1866 – 1941 ) was a British military officer who joined the Sudan service in 1903 . He was Sudan Agent in Cairo from 1905 to 1908 . Owen was then appointed Governor of Mongalla Province in South Sudan from 1908 to 1918 . Early life . Owen was born in 1866 in Writtle , Essex , England the son of the local vicar the Reverend Loftus Owen and his wife Emma ( née Kenworthy ) . He was educated at Rossall School , where he was a noted athlete . In August 1884 he was commissioned in 3rd Battalion , The King ' s Shropshire Light Infantry . In 1888 he transferred to The Oxfordshire Light Infantry . India . Owen was Superintendent of Army Signalling with the Manipur Expedition of 1891 , and in the same year was also with the Wuntho Expedition in Upper Burma . He served in the First Mohmand Campaign between 1897 and 1898 and the Tirah Expedition which included operations in the Bara Valley and the Khyber Pass . He was severely wounded while fighting in the Kyhber Pass . Egypt . In 1902 Owen was appointed to the Egyptian Army . He held various posts in Egypt including being Director of the Intelligence Department of the Egyptian War Office . In that position , he was asked whether the Bedouin of Sinai would side with Britain or Turkey in the event of a war . His short - sighted view was " . . . It matters very little to us which side they take in such a case , as if such a war took place ( and no one expects it even will ) . There would be no fighting in Sinai - it would be somewhere else " . This was ironic in view of the later exploits of T . E . Lawrence in the Arab Revolt against the Turks . In 1906 Owen was a member of the Sinai Boundary Commission . He was appointed a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George ( CMG ) that year . From 1905 to 1908 Owen was the Sudan Agent in Cairo . In 1905 Owen was approached by a Canadian missionary group for permission to work in Bahr al - Ghazal . According to Owen they were " the horrible fanatical canting kind of missionary and undesirable " . He painted a bleak picture of conditions in the Sudan and " I even went nearly so far as to suggest they might be served up as missionary mayonnaise " . The missionaries dropped their request . Sudan . IN 1908 Owen was appointed Governor and Officer Commanding the Military District of Mongalla Province in Sudan . In February 1910 Theodore Roosevelt visited the province . Owen told Governor General Sir Reginald Wingate that everything would be done for the former president of the United States , but also pointed out that his troops had not even one donkey . In June 1910 the British Sudanese forces took over the Lado Enclave from the Belgians . The Anglican and Roman Catholic missionaries asked that Sunday be retained as a sabbath , as it had under the Belgians , rather than Friday as in the rest of the Sudan . Owen opposed retaining Sunday . He felt that the more " bigoted " Muslims in the army would object to working on Friday , and noted that all recruits to the army were instructed in the Moslem religion . A few months later , however , Owen proposed creation of an Equatorial battalion composed entirely of southerners . This force would be taught to follow English commands and to follow Christian observances , forming the basis of a Christian population that would in time connect with that of Uganda and would prevent spread of the Muslim faith farther south . He was against the Moslem faith on the basis that it " may at any time break out into a wave of fanaticism " . Owen ' s plan was approved by Wingate . On 7 December 1917 the last of the northern Sudanese troops were withdrawn from Mongalla , replaced by Equatorial troops . When Hasan Sharif , son of Khalifa Muhammad Sahif , was exiled to Mongalla in 1915 after taking place in a conspiracy in Ondurman , Governor Owen said " . . . I told him he is lucky to come and see this part of Sudan for nothing , when tourists pay hundreds of pounds . . . I fear he doesn ' t see the joke . . . " . Owen was part of the Beir Expedition in 1912 acting as a political officer and was involved in the Expeditionary Force , Lafit and Lokoia Mountains , Southern Sudan . Owen ' s administration in Mongalla was ruthless , often using what his superiors considered to be excessive force . This may have stemmed in part from his military background , in part from the endemic violence of the South Sudan after two decades of colonial activity . After Owen had been governor for almost ten years , Wingate described him as " not of that mentality which is altogether desirable , especially in the more remote districts " . Later career . Owen retired from his position as governor of Mongalla in 1918 and was given the sinecure position of governor of the Egyptian oases . Major Cecil Stephen Northcote succeeded him as Governor of Mongala . Owen was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire ( OBE ) in 1919 . He was mentioned in dispatches twice , held the 3rd Class of the Order of the Medjidseh and was a Grand Officer of the Order of the Nile . Owen died in Cairo on 1 August 1941 . References . Sources