BATTLE OF OMDURMAN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23594, 2 September 1938, Page 10

BATTLE OF OMDURMAN

THE SUDAN CAMPAIGN FORTIETH ANNIVERSARY THREE WELLINGTON VETERANS (Pee United Press Association) WELLINGTON, Sept. 1. To-morrow will be the fortieth anniversary of the Battle of Omdurman, when Lord Kitchener routed the forces of the Khalifa Abdullah in the Sudan campaign of 1898. To-morrow night three old soldiers —veterans of that campaign—will meet in Wellington to revive memories of those brave days. These three survivors of Omdurman are: Mr J. Miller, formerly a sergeant in the Ist Battalion of the Northumberland Fusiliers and to-day in the Prime Minister’s Department; Mr E. F. Rynd, formerly of the Imperial Guards and to-day of the National Bank of New Zealand; and Mr F. J. Verney, formerly of the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders and today of the Post and Telegraph Department. All three live in Wellington, and they believe that they are the only men in New Zealand today who were present at Omdurman. In an interview Mr Miller described his memories of the Sudan campaign. They made a vivid background to the bald facts of history. The despotism of the Khalifa and the force of public opinion after the Italian defeat at Adowa in 1896 decided the British Government to recover the Sudan provinces yielded by Egypt to the Khalifa in the previous year. The Khalifa had concentrated his full forces at Omdurman. His headquarters were situated near Khartoum, at the junction of the Blue and White Niles, and his dervishes numbered 40,000. Lord Kitchener, with fewer than 26,000 men. marched on Omdurman, up the west bank of the Nile.

Arduous Marches “We used to break camp and march before the dawn, and sometimes even into the heat of the day, and again in the evening,” Mr Miller said. “ The heat was scorching; we were parched with thirst. We used to carry a pebble in our mouths to keep our tongues cool when we could not get a drink. I still have one of those pebbles. I carried it so far in my mouth that I kept it for a souvenior.” They broke their march in the heat of the day, Mr Miller said, and resumed before dusk, marching far into the night. A man with a lantern on a pole rode at the head of the battalion so that they should keep their line. The night before the battle they bivouacked in a Zariba hedge of thorn bushes built round the camp. At dawn they had opened the zariba to resume the march when they saw dervishes advancing in five columns out of the hills—4o,ooo strong. They therefore retired into the zariba and closed the gaps. “A quarter of an hour before we opened fire a stray bullet out of the blue struck down a lieutenant of the Warwickshire Regiment a few yards from me,” Mr Miller said. “The niggers used to fire from the hip, the muzzles of their weapons pointing to the sky, at a long range. The lieutenant went down with a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead. “ It was Slaughter ” “ Our artillery waited until the dervishes were within 2000 yards and then opened fire and cut them to pieces. It was slaughter. The guns smashed them to pieces. I had not seen any guns being brought up. They must have come by water up the Nile, but they decided the battle. Afterwards the cavalry charged the dervishes and drove them into full retreat. Kitchener’s army then quit the zariba and marched on to Omdurman. Twice they were attacked fiercely, resulting in bloody skirmishes under a blazing sun, but each time the dervishes were driven off, thanks to MacDonald’s brigade and the 21st Lancers. The Khalifa abandoned Omdurman and fled with Kitchener’s cavalry at his heels. The dervishes lost 10,000 killed and 5000 were taken prisoners. Not 500 British soldiers fell. “We marched into Omduram in the heat of the day. The place was a shambles. I will never forget the market place. We called it Execution Square,” Mr Miller said. “ There was nothing we could drink there—• no clean water. We were glad to reach a river and filter it through our jackets to get rid of the mud. Many rushed breast-deep into the water and drank it like wild beasts, and what do you think Kitchener did next morning? He held a march-past. We were hot and tired and thirsty, but he made us march past as if we were on parade. That was what the army was like in those days.”