FUZZY WUZZY'S LEADER

Evening Star, Issue 18339, 28 July 1923, Page 7

FUZZY WUZZY'S LEADER

OSMAN DIGNA STILL IN PRISON,

AN OLD THORN IN BRITAIN’S SIDE. Osman Digna got himself into English literature nearly a-half century ago (says

the * Literary Digest ’), but for twentythree years he has been unable to get himself out of a British prison. The British Foreign Office now has been asked in the House of Commons to release him, there no longer being any likelihood of his stirring up., trouble for the Empire. Perhaps the World War and other epochal events of the twentieth century have caused Osman to sink into virtual oblivion, so far as this generation is concerned. Osman never will be entirely forgotten, however, for ho, or at least the Arab band of which he was the fanatical leader, has been immortalised in Rudyard Kipling's barrack-room ballad 1 Fuzzy Wuzzy ’ and in ' The Light that Failed.’ An article in the Now York ‘ World ' informs us that “ forty years ago Osman Digna’s name was known everywhere and carried with it the thrill of savage scrimmages and the setting of the white-hot Sudan ” and no wonder, for “ when Kipling was writing the Barrack-room Ballads, Fuzzy Wuzzy (term applied to the j Arab tribesmen) was one of England’s 'most troublesome problems,” and Osman Digna, Emir and principal lieutenant of the Mahdi, ” was one of the main reasons why the Sudan Had become a death-trap for thousands of Tommy Atkinses and a : challenge to British military and governi>mtal prestige.” Those who have never before heard of Osman can draw some ; consolation from the fact that even forty years ago, when ho was at the height of his spectacular career, “ little was known about the man himself.” Wo read in this newspaper article that— He was said to be a member of the Hadondowa tribe of Arabs, once himself a slave, then a wharf-porter, and finally a i trader, grown wealthy in the forbidden | slave traffic. j He was also reputed to belong to a wealthy and influential family which had become impoverished. | One story had it that he was the son of a Scotch seaman or marine engineer and a Hadondowa woman, brought up by his mother in native fashion after the death of his father.

Another declared him to be French, but adopted and renamed by his stepfather, a Turk. The most generally credited tale was that his ancestors were Turks from Constantinople, who had settled in Suakirn, on the shore of tho Red Son, and inter--married with the Hadendowas. All accounts agree that when a young man Osman was established at Sria-Idm as a merchant. He had a good house, and outside the walk of the town he had a garden, in which grew fruits, flowers, palms, herbs, vegetables, and tobacco, and in which ho loved to spend a quiet hour in tho coo! of the evening. Ho was looked up to in tho town, epoks-Joixd.ly in council, and had a heavy hand for Ims enemies. lie was a dealer in .European goods and ostrich feathers—ostensibly. The real source of his wealth was the slaves ho supplied surreptitiously to Turks pud Arabs on the other side of the Red Sen. Ho got into trouble with the authorities over the "black ivory” branch of Ids business, and in 1877 his brother, Alt Digna, was caught by a British gunboat, with ninety-six slaves in his possession, tho seizure meaning a loss of about £I,OOO

j to the Digna family. I Osman apparently determined that Government with such ideas on the subject of bis stock-inrirade was no Government for him, and when in 1882 Mohammed Ahmed, “the Malidi,” proclaimed the Holy War, Osman and l his two nephews, Ahmet and Figna Digna, began to rouse the tribesmen along the coast in the name of the Moduli, who shortly made him Emir of the Eastern Sudan. Then began the fighting that made Fuzzy Wuzzy famous. 'Hie Hadendowas, mostly camel drivers, were among the fiercest and , hardiest of the rebel tribes. They wore j their woolly hair standing straight* im on the crown of the hea-d—■whence the British Tommy’s nickname for them. They carod nothing for death in the service of the Mahdi, and’, armed only with their spears, they inched straight into the face : of fire that all previous experience had : made the British believe irresistible. When ; they fell they managed to hamstring a horse and bring 3cis rider down within .spear-reach before they died. When tho English went out to examine the slain, the supposed dead rose up and slashed at them. Like the military leaders of civilised nations, Osman did not participate in much actual fighting, it would seem. Wo are intorraed that he “ was generallv to be found in a comparatively safe place, if, indeed, ho had not got entirely out of range.” His fanatical followers did not need his presence, for their own ardor was sufficient for their crowning achievement, when they broke the British .square In the Battle of Tamai, March 13, 1884. The writer says: “ The tribesmen, utterly reckless of death, charged an angle of the square tn the faro of what seemed an annihilating fire. They threw themselves on the bayonets, and used their spears in their death agony before the bayonets could be withdrawn, They came over the bodies of their own dead, and, crawling on hands find knees underlie muzzles of the guns, they gained the inside of the square, ° and stabbed and slashed until one brigade gave way in confusion, and its guns were captured. The other brigades closed in, the guns were retaken, and the Arabs Wore chased far past the scene of their momentary triumph; hut they had ‘crumpled up the square,’ and The exploit caught the British imagination ami put Fuzzy into English literature. “Kipling described such a fight in ‘The Light That Failed’—the attack of 3,000 men who had not learned from books that it is impossible for troops in close order to attack against breech-loading fire. The bulk of the force was naked humanity, mad with rage and armed with the spear or the sword. Tlio camel-guns shelled •them and opened for an instant lanes through their midst/most like those quickclosing vistas in a Kentish hop garden seen when the train races bv at full speed; and the infantry flro, held till the opportune moment, dropped them in closoJtpackod hundreds. No civilised troops ’in the world would have endured the .hell through which they came, the livinr leaping high to avoid the dying wire clutched at their heels. Then the lino of the diustv troops and the faint blue desert sky went out in roiling smoke. There was a Tush from without, tho short hough-hough of the stabbing up oars, and a man on la horse, followed by thirty or forty others, dashed through, yelling and backing, The right flank of the fiqua,vo sucked in after them and the other sides sent help.’* So much for the valor and the frenzy which Osman managed to inspire in (die hearts of his men. 'Regarding‘this leader himself, we read further: Osman Digna was a formidable foo for many years. He was often officially reported _ dead, only to bob up again in some inconvenient placo from which he must be dislodged with difficulty and losses. Once Kitchener almost captured bun, being himself wounded in the fight. In With Kitchener at Khartum,’ . tovens, famous war correspondent, wrote : “ Osman Digna has become a commonplace oi Sudanese warlarc —a man who has never shown himself eminent either for personal courage or for v-cneral-ship, yet obviously a man of great ability, since by evasive cunning and dogged persistence ho has given us more trouble .than all tho other Emirs together. “ His own tribe, the Hadcndowa, the most warriors of Africa, arc long since reconciled with the Government, and have resumed their old trade of caravan-leading. . . , He has become a fat old toad now, they say, and always leaves fights at an early stage for private prayer; yet he is still as much alive as when ho threw up a position on the Sualcim County Council, to join tho Expect ed_ Mahdi: and you cannot but half admire the rascal’s persistence in his evil ways.” It was tho treachery of his former fol-

lowers that led to his capture at last in January, 1900. He was in hiding in the ii...-- .•i.'.'-ir . linking waiting for an opportunity to escape across the Red .Sea to Arabia, when some sheiks guided the officers to him., Osman Cigna is a very old man now —nearly 100, it is said. If ho is freed and goes back to Suakim,. lie will hardly know the town where ho once had his cool garden, which he later besieged with his rebel hordes behind him. He will find a railroad under construction, wireless communication, technical and industrial schools for the_ children, and, greatest change of all, ’instead of his Fuzzics, a generation of young men who, in tho World War, saw other ways of living than their own, and are accepting them.