OSMAN DIGNA

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 54, 5 March 1927, Page 25

OSMAN DIGNA

DEATH IN CAPTIVITY OLD-TIME LEADER OF "FUZZY-WUZZIES" The death recently at Wadi Ealfa of the famous Dervish leader, Osman Digna, who led the famous "Fuzzy Wuzzies," immortalised by Budyard Kipling, is the subject of a special article in a recent issue of the "Daily Telegraph." Slave-raider, warrior, fanatic, rebel, and "grand master of the art of flight," as the late Bennet JBurleigh called him, Osman Digna compressed into seventeen years of bloodshed more iniquities than lie has expiated in the quarter of a century since his capture," 1 which he has spent in confinement. He was born about the year 1840 in Suakin, and was thus a few years older than the Alahdi whom he was to serve. He came of mixed blood, Turk or Levantine onv his father's side, out on his mother's the wildest strain of Red Sea Arab, the dreaded Hadendoa. The Dignai were a'family engaged in slavedealing under the mask of merchants, and Osman started his career with a loathing for all restraint, for in 1877 his group were ■ captured with a batch of 100 slaves and arrested, fined £.1000, and sentenced to wholesale confiscation. Osman tried to foment a riot in 1881 during the abortive rising of Arabi Pasha, but, finding no support at Suakin, went to Berber and El Obeid, where the Mahdi made him Emir of the Eastern Sudan, and set him to work up the tribes for the rising of 1883. GUERILLA WARFARE. The bombardment of Alexandria and the battles of Kassassin and Tel el Kebir in 1882 had only driven the mischief further inland, and neither the Egyptian Government nor its army was equal to the fury" of the guerilla warfare to come. Leading an army of several thousands, Osman routed a force of 500 troops marching from Suakin to Tokar, and another force of 700 Egyptian garrisons in Tolkar and Sinkat, which was the gateway to the Eastern Sudan. With only 300 men behind him, Osman actually invaded the headquarters of Tewkfik Pasha, and in Towfik's presence was slashed with swords and .jabbed in the back with a trooper's bayonet as his followers dragged him or*. This was in August and in September, after sacking the villages of Shat and Taiara, he was attacking Gabab, and again defeated. He seemed, in fact, to bear a charn.ed life. Two more months saw the terrible fight of El-Teb and the annihilation of the Egyptian force under Hicks Pasha—victories which rallied the insurgent tribes more than ever. Tamai in December brought another Egyptian defeat, and Trinkitat in February the defeat of Baker Pasha, followed by the fall of Sinkat, and an ominous demonstration of 4000 dervishes outside the entrenchments of Suahin. By this time (18th February, 1884) Gordon had arrived at Khartoum, arid General Graham had rescued Tamai aud El-Teb with a pair of victories that effectually turned the scale for the time being. But the intensive fighting of the rebels made strategy difficult, and "cavalry charges were wrecked more than once by the ham-stringing of British horses by euemy concealed in the sand a: i scrub. Chief among the tribes were Osman's own tribe of the Hadeud „ whose highly ornate method of hair-dressing earned them immortality as "fuzzywuzzies" and made them the theme of some of Mr. Kipling's raciest battle verse. The one consistent factor throughout this unequal and chequered warfare as the latest biographer of Osman, Mr. H. O. Jackson, of the Sudan Political Service, remarks ("Osman Digna")— was the indecision of the Home Government. As if to emphasise this, there came close on the fall of Omdurman the news of Gordon's death and the sack of Khartoum (26th January, 1885), and the still more ironic messago that our Nile expedition steamer had arrived there two days late. In a fortnight more wo had lost Major-Generals Earle and Stewart, anil Buller had been forced to retire from Gubat to Abu Klca. The Red Sea expedition was abandoned, ami the full of Kassala under a desperate dervish assault gave the cue to the real position—one which Mr. Jackson describes as "almost without parallel in history." For in three years a mob armed with sticks and spears had brokun the elaborate, if rotten, structure of the Egyptian Government, and inflicted on our forces loss after loss. The one consolation of the 1885 campaign was that on 22nd Juue, at Oindmman, the Mahdi's death disconcerted the enemy for a while. But Osman soon revealed his real power, for he obtained from the Khalifah a'letter proclaiming his succession, and a more fanatic was thus replaced in dervish eyes by a born fighter and leader. A COMPOSITE ARMY. With the abandonment of the Hod Sea expedition Lord Wolseley, who reached Sunkin on 4th May, isßs, decided on evacuation, and the British and Australian troops were withdrawn. To the composite army we had collected, including men from many parts of the Empire, there camo Eas Alula, with reinforcements, . from Abyssinia, and these routed Osman at Kufeit. The dervish leader discovered letters there from his own followers appealing to Eas Alula to deliver the Sudan from their ruthless leader, and he had a considerable group of his officers publicly executed, as if to "encourage the rest." The capture of I'amai reve.J many of his cruel methods. He received orders from the Khalifah to make pea.ee with the tribes, who were by this time tired of conflict; but refused compliance. His own tribe and the terrible Amarars broke away from him, but he vnnquishe tin Abyssinians at Dabra Sin. This was one of his last few triumphs, for Wolseley was proceeding with the construction of the desert railway to Berber, and Kitchener, organiser of victory, had arrived on the scene. Suakin was retaken, and put instrong defensive shape, with warships and searchlights, and General Grenfell's wholesale defeat of the dervish hordes at the Water Forts of Gemmeiza (20th December, 1SS8) was but one oi many crowning victories which resulted from a resolute, if belated, change of policy on the British side. Repeated dervish outbreaks in later years and repeated attempts to capture Osman failed of actual results, though they cost us a great deal of vigilance and energy. It was not till 13th January, 3900, that he was actually taken and sent to Wadi Haifa, to be guarded by the newly-established Sudan Government. There he has lived a philosophic life ever since, wearing tho white robes of a new-found sanctity and prompting questions in the House of Commons from his less-informed admirers.

The first notice of the use of coal is in the records of the Abbey of Peterborough England,, in the year 850, which mentions

The Newtown Congregational Church, Constable street, will celebrate the Harvest Festival to-morrow, and at both morning and evening services there will be special singing. The gifts of produce are to be given to a local orphanage.