THE SUDAN CAMPAIGN 1896-1908
Harry Lionel Pritchard was born on 16 November 1871, son of Colonel Hurlock Pritchard, and was educated at Charterhouse. Commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Engineers in February 1891, he was advanced to Lieutenant in February 1894 and witnessed active service in the Ashanti Expedition 1895-96, for which he was honourably mentioned.
Transferring to the Egyptian Army in October 1896, he served in the expedition to Dongola, being present at the operations of 19 September 1896 (despatches, Medjidie 4th Class), and in the Nile Expedition 1897, including the battle of Omdurman, for which he was awarded the D.S.O. and a brace of “mentions”. As stated above, he also wrote and important first hand account of the reconquest of the Sudan, not least in respect of the progress of the railway line that saved the campaign, in which project he served on the Railway Staff but, with typical modesty, omits mention of his crucial part in conveying messages in the battle of Omdurman, an omission duly corrected by Henry Keown-Boyd in his excellent account of the Sudan campaign, A Good Dusting:
‘The sequence of orders and counter-orders during this stage of the battle is confused and contradictory, as, no doubt, were the orders themselves. It would seem the Sirdar, riding with the British Division on the left of the line of advance, at first ignored an attempted explanation of the situation on the extreme right offered by MacDonald’s galloper, Lieutenant Pritchard, R.E., who had been sent to ask for help. However, later, when this request was repeated by Hunter, who could see more of what was happening in his sector of the battlefield, Kitchener relented and ordered Wauchope to swing right, come up behind Lewis and fill the gap between Lewis and MacDonald. But MacDonald, by now preparing to cope with the threat from the north, required more direct reinforcement and sent Pritchard to Wauchope asking him to come up on his (MacDonald’s) immediate right. Wauchope, under orders from the Sirdar to fill in on MacDonald’s left, compromised by detaching the Lincolns and sending them on at the double to MacDonald’s right, completing the gap-filling manoeuvre with the remainder of his brigade.
With eighteen guns and eight Maxims, the fire-power at MacDonald’s disposal was formidable and, despite the wild inaccuracy of his Sudanese riflemen, the second attack was pulverised as decisively as had been the first. Had the two attacks been co-ordinated MacDonald might have been in real difficulty but piecemeal they were easily dealt with and the arrival of the Lincolns, renowned for the high standard of their musketry, completed the destruction of Sheikh el Din’s brave but badly led mulazimin. Nevertheless, the officers and senior N.C.Os of MacDonald’s brigade were severely tested by their men’s desire to rush forward and get to grips with their adversaries, which they managed with great difficulty to hold in check, and by the alarming rate at which ammunition was consumed.’
Next specially employed in Cyprus, from December 1898 until June 1899, in which period he was invested with his D.S.O. by the High Commissioner, Pritchard was again actively employed in South Africa from January 1900 until June 1902, when he served on the Staff, including the advance on Kimberley and the actions at Belmont, Enslin, Modder River and Magersfontein, in addition to other operations in Orange Free State and Cape Colony. Again mentioned in despatches, he was advanced to Captain and employed on the Central South African Railways 1902-04, prior to serving as Deputy Assistant Director, Army H.Q., from November 1904 until February 1907, and then as a Deputy Assistant Quarter Master General in India for the remainder of the latter year.
Having been advanced to Major in 1911, Pritchard served out in France and Flanders from August 1914 until January 1915, and as Chief Engineer, in the temporary rank of Brigadier-General, of 16th Army Corps in the Egypt and Salonika theatres of war, where he was severely wounded. Awarded the C.M.G. and the 3rd Class of the Greek Order of the Redeemer, in addition to being mentioned in despatches on four occasions, Pritchard enjoyed a string of senior appointments in the 1920s and 1930s, adding the C.B. to his accolades and latterly serving as G.O.C. Malaya 1929-31 and, finally, as Commandant of the School of Military Engineering.
Placed on the Retired List as a Major-General in 1933, Pritchard served as Colonel Commandant, R.E. until 1941 and made a valuable contribution to the planning of civil defence in his capacity as Air Raids Commandant in the late 1930s. The General died in May 1953.
Sold with a copy of his book Sudan Campaign 1896-1899, by ‘An Officer’ [Lieutenant H. L. Pritchard, R.E.], London, 1899, 261pp, with maps; together with a folder containing some copied research.
www.dnw.co.uk
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