THE SUDAN CAMPAIGN 1896-1908
He commanded a party of friendly arabs in the Kordofan Field Force in 1899, accompanying Colonel Kitchener (brother of Lord Kitchener) in pursuit of the Khalifa, in charge of intelligence. He was seconded from the Egyptian Army to the Sudan Political Service in March 1899, and was at Suakin 1899-1901 as Deputy Governor of the Red Sea Province.
Burges was responsible for the capture of the famous Hadendowa Mahdist leader Osman Digna and is mentioned several times in Osman Digna by H. C. Jackson (copy sold with Lot). He was awarded the order of the Medjidieh on 5 April 1901 for ‘valuable services to the Khedive of Egypt’, most probably for capturing Osman Digna. Engaged on anti-slavery patrols and based in Khartoum in 1901, he was promoted Kaimakam in 1903, and was based at Berber 1902-08.
He became a permanent member of the Sudan Political Service in January 1908, upon retiring from the army with the rank of substantive Captain. He joined the Legal Department in 1909 and was Police Magistrate in Khartoum 1908-19, in charge of the Khartoum criminal courts.
In July 1915, he was sent to Egypt as Assistant Provost Marshal, Canal Defences, was promoted to the rank of El Lewa (Major-General) in the Egyptian Army in 1916, and made Pasha in 1917. Returning back to Khartoum at the end of the War, he received the Order of the Nile for ‘Services to the Sultan of Egypt’ and the O.B.E. in 1919 for services in the Sudan. He finally retired with the rank of Hon. Lieutenant-Colonel in September 1919, to Broadway, Gloucestershire, where he became a local J.P. Lieutenant-Colonel Burges died on 12 April 1943. With a folder containing copied research.
The Capture of Osman Digna by Major-General Frank Burges Pasha, O.B.E.
In writing a description of the capture of Osman Digna, thirty-five years almost have passed away, and fifty years since he was at the zenith of his power; so that it was thought necessary to write a little of his times and surroundings. He was chief of the Dervish Emirs, and was in command of the country East of the Nile, from Wadi Haifa on the Nile and Cape Elba on the Red Sea, to the mouth of the Atbara on the Nile and to Aqiq on the Red Sea: a country about the size of France, all this was held by him, except Suakin, which he never took. For 15 years he defied some of the finest troops from Great Britain, India and Australia, assisted by the Royal Navy, at one time 12 men of war have been in Suakin harbour.
In January 1900 I had the good fortune to capture him, when he was awaiting a dhow to take him across to Arabia, as his Arabs refused to take the field again. He was descended from a Kurdish soldier from Asia Minor (Turk), who settled at Suakin in the time of Selim The Conqueror, Sultan of Turkey 1512-1530. This ancestor married a Hadendoueh woman, the Arab tribe living in the hills round Suakin. Osman Digna was a merchant in Suakin, and like most of them was engaged in the slave trade. The slaves were brought from the negroid country 300 miles south of Khartoum to 1,000 miles south, and on reaching the Red Sea coast they were surreptitiously shipped across to Arabia. When I was at Suakin 1899 to 1901 we managed to catch some 7 or 8 kidnappers and traders, including Sheikh Marshud of the Rishaida tribe, which tribe had within 100 years come over from Arabia and settled on the West side. This Sheikh was the head of the slave traders and occasionally had a slave market. They had dhows and carried on smuggling and trade between the two coasts. If a Rishaida slave escaped and was caught, they collected all their slaves, made them sit in a row, and the master of the runaway slave went up to his slave who had run away and blew his brains out, saying "Thus shall all runaway slaves perish."
A Government dhow whilst I was in the Red Sea was sailing along, and saw another dhow in front of it, which changed its direction when the Government dhow gained on it, this aroused suspicion, and the Government dhow chased this dhow until it was captured, nothing was found, but the crew were imprisoned on suspicion, and after a month a small negro boy confessed that when the Arabs saw they would be caught, they took the 15 slaves they had on board, and dropped them overboard with a stone on their feet and a gag in their months, on the further side of the sail, where it was most blown out. A slave ran away from a Rishaida and came into Aqiq, our most southern harbour, three days afterwards in broad daylight, this slave was cut down with a sword by a man with a cloth over his face, at a well 1 mile outside Aqiq, it was obviously his master. We traced this man into Erythrea, and wrote to the Governor, who agreed to extradite him, he was caught, but when a few miles from the Sudan frontier escaped from the Italians and was seen no more. A slave brought down to the coast on the Sudan side would fetch £5; when sold in Arabia he would fetch £25; small boys between 10 and 12 years were most prized, they were made eunuchs and drafted into the harems of the wealthy Turks in Constantinople and elsewhere. After small boys, girls between 10 and 14 were the most valuable as they were more easily trained at that age, and if comely, were prized as concubines. I tried some half-dozen cases, and my sentences seemed to have a deterring effect, as for two years after I left the province, no case of slave trading was detected.
Osman Digna was born at Suakin about 1840, and by 1877 had become affluent, owing to his profits in the slave trade, he had a house at Suakin and another at Jeddah, on the Arabian coast opposite Suakin; whilst taking 96 slaves across the Red Sea in his dhow, he was captured by H.M.S. Wild Swan, not far from Port Sudan. The slaves were released, the dhow confiscated and its merchandise, and his house and its contents sold, this meant a loss of over £1,000 to Osman Digna, and, from wealth he was reduced to penury. This incident was the cause of Osman Digna's bitter hatred of the British, time after time after crushing defeats, the tribesmen would have come in and made their peace with the Government, but for Osman Digna's personality, who urged them to continue the revolt and keep on fighting the British. In 1882 Mohamed Ahmed, commonly known as the Mahdi started a Jihad or holy war, against the Government at Abba Island on the White Nile, 200 miles from Khartoum, his followers small successes at the beginning raised the whole of Kordofan on the West Bank. El Obeid, the Capital, fell in January 1883, and Hicks Pasha's force of 10,000 men was annihilated in Kordofan on November 5th, 1883, at Sherkeila. The religious frenzy of the Dervishes was unbounded, after the capture of an important place like El Obeid or Khartoum, all the followers were collected and the Mahdi would give them an address, then a salvo of 100 guns was fired, they fought for who could cling to the gun's mouth and be blown to pieces and thus be sent to Paradise. Osman Digna raised the revolt in the Eastern Sudan, and in August that year, he tried to take Sinkat by assault, he led the attack, but was cut down with a sword cut on the head, and another on his wrist, and as his followers tried to drag him away by his legs face downwards, he got a bayonet thrust through his back, he would have been killed had not two or three men all tried to thrust at him at once which turned the bayonet off its mark.
It took him some time to get over his wounds and after this, he no longer led the attack, but conducted operations from a more advantageous place with a good line of retreat. Tokar and Sinkat were besieged. Sinkat fell February 4th, 1884. Valentine Baker Pasha was sent with an Egyptian Force to Trinkitat, a Red Sea port about 7 miles from Tokar to relieve it, with 3,700 men and 6 guns, he was defeated at El Teb by Osman Digna, losing 96 officers, 2,000 men killed, 4 Krupp guns, 3,000 rifles and half-million cartridges. Tokar fell on February 20th. Four thousand Dervishes then advanced on Suakin. On February 16th, British Troops under General Graham left Egypt for Suakin, and as there was some doubt if Tokar had fallen, he sailed for Trinkitat, with 2,250 British Infantry, 750 mounted troops, 150 naval brigade, 80 Royal Engineers and 100 Royal Artillery with 6 machine guns and 8 seven-pounders; on reaching Trinkitat it was found that Tokar had fallen, but General Graham thought it salutary to give the Dervishes a lesson, he advanced on Tokar and fought the second battle of El Teb on February 29th, against 6,000 Dervishes under Osman Digna. He utterly defeated the Dervishes, who had about 3,000 killed, 2000 were left dead on the battlefield, and he recaptured 4 Krupp guns and 2 brass howitzers. The British lost 8 officers killed and 16 wounded, 26 men killed and 139 wounded. The Dervishes fought with the utmost bravery and
www.dnw.co.uk
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138