THE SOUDAN ADVANCE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2325, 22 September 1898, Page 17

THE SOUDAN ADVANCE.

THE KHALIFA SUEEOTJHDED. FASHODA TO BE TAKEN. FRANCE AND THE UPPER NILE. THE FRENCH TO BE OUSTED FROM FASHODA. PARIS, September 13. The Colonial Office disclaims the statement that it has received any news with regard to Captain Marchand's expedition to Fashoda. The Paris newspapers are exultant at the indications of the apparent success of Captain Marchand reaching Fashoda. Le Temps says that the Fashoda incident will help as a protest against the continued occupation of Egypt by Britain. Strong reinforcements have been sent to Captain Marchand. CAIRO, September 16. The gunboat Sultan intercepted the dervish garrison at Gedaref, killing 1000 of them and driving the remainder back. Colonel Parsons, commander of the garrison at Kassala, is now marching on Gedaref. The Khalifa is surrounded, and will shortly be captured — dead or alive. The captain of the Khalifa's steamer, which surrendered to General Kitchener after being driven from Fashoda, reports that eight Europeans with a force of 100 Singalese, assisted by blacks, defeated the Fashoda garrison, killing 100. General Kitchener, Colonel Wingate, and Commander Keppel, with 1800 Soudanese, 100 Cameron Highlanders, and Maxim guns, started on the Bth aboard the gunboats Sultan and Shiek Dal, with the intention of hoisting the British flag at Fashoda under any circumstances. September 18. Major-general Grenfell has started from Omdurman to confer with Sir Herbert Kitchener, now en route for Fashoda. LONDON, September 17. The Daily Telegraph states that Sir H. H. Kitchener will present an ultimatum to Captain Marchand, leader of the French expedition, requiring him to quit Fashoda forthwith. If the French fire the British will use force. The tribe of Shillooks, who co-operated with Captain Marchaud in the attack on Fashoda, sent pledges of loyalty to the Khedive. It is expected they will join Sir H. H. Kitchener's force. September 19. News from Fashoda is expected on Friday. PARIS, September 16. The papers are tremendously excited over the Fashoda developments. Le Temps says that France attaches real importance to Captain Marchand's mission, and any act menacing the French flag will be considered to entail the consenuences arising out of such incidents. A London despatch to the New York Sun referring to the advance in the Soudan Bays : — There has been no fuss, and this fact he* lulled foreign suspicion as to the aims of the British policy in the Soudan. If the French think about the matter at all, they assume that General Kitchener will clear out of the Soudan as soon as the dervishes are defeated. The assumption is unfoxmded, whatevei the British Government may have said a year or two ago. The intention now is to keep the Soudan and more. Its policy embraces the possibility — nay, a probability — of war with Abyssinia, despite King Monelik's newlyfound friends in Paris and St. Petersburg. The purely British regiments will be regularly withdrawn from the Soudan, but General Kit, chener's Egyptians, transformed by him froui spiritless peasants into real fighting men and Soudanese warriors, who have learned to worship their British officers, will remain to extend and complete the echeme of conquest. General Kitchener's flag, nominally Egyptian, wili be taken to the borders of Uganda, there to meet a British flag, now upheld by a handful of Englishmen thousands of miles from civilisation. It is a scheme to stir the imagination, yet it was born in prosaic Downing street. There is danger, of course, from half civilised Abyssinia on the east and the French on the west, but it will bo carried through. Intelligent Englishmen do not talk about it much", but they understand well enough that the job has to be done.