The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas et Prevalebit. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1883. The Egyptian Disaster.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 1008, 24 November 1883, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna Est Veritas et Prevalebit. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 1883. The Egyptian Disaster.

The news which came to us yesterday of the annihilation of the Egyptian army in the Soudan is proof that the troubles of that much tried country are not yet at an end. The false prophet El Mahdi has for a long time been a thorn in the side of the authorities in Egypt, and when General Hicks Pasha started for the scene of the fanatical rebellion it was generally thought that he would set things right. According to the latest English papers it was anticipated that the campaign would be brought to a successful issue, albeit the difficulties to be overcome were admittedly serious. But now we see how fallacious were these hopes, and the army which set out at the beginning of September has been totally destroyed, the only survivors, so far as is known at present, being a newspaper correspondent and an artist, who were presumably not in the thick of the fight. To find a parallel to this wholesale slaughter we must go back to 1842, when the British force, consisting of 4,500 fighting men and 12,000 followers, were massacred by the treacherous Afghans ia the Cabul Pass, Dr Brydone alone surviving to tell the terrible story. Of course, we have as yet received no details of the Egyptian disaster, and it is doubtful if we shall ever know exactly all the ins and outs of the affair. It was a maxim of Napoleon that an army of lambs led by a lion would gain mastery over an army of lions led by a lamb, but nb amount of military genius can altogether make up for the lack of numbers. General Hicks may possibly have under-estimated the. power of the enemy against whom he had to contend, and the army he commanded was not formed of the best materials, as was shown in the campaign against Arabi. Mr Edward Dicey, writing in the Nineteenth Century in August of last year, when the question of England’s intervention in Egypt was being discussed, described the soldiers ot the latter country as follows: —“The Fellaheen detest military service ; they are poorly paid, and badly treated in the ranks; they have no love for fighting, and no martial spirit. Still the same sense of the uselessness of struggling against fate which accounts to my mind for their utter political apathy and indifference causes them, as soldiers, to acquiesce in discipline, and to obey the orders of their officers, so long as the danger of disobedience is greater and more manifest than that of obedience.” Since this was written much has no doubt been done by Sir Evelyn Wood to reorganise the army, but it would be impossible to instil anything like martial ardor into men such as are here described. Still, even supposing that General Hicks had possessed a force equal in energy and bravery to a European army, it is not likely that he would have been able to contend successfully against such overwhelming odds. Against the 10,000 Egyptian troops there are reported to have been no less than 300,000 of El Mahdi’s followers pitted, and it is probable that the latter made their final attack when their opponents were worn out with forced marches through the desert. If General Hicks allowed himself to be entrapped by these half-savage fanatics, he has paid the penalty of his blunder with his life, although this will not remove a stain from his memory should it be proved that he made a strategical mistake. On the face of it there appears to have been something wrong in the management of the campaign, but whether the truth of the affair will ever be known remains to be seen.