8 KHARTOUM CAMPAIGN.

of lives were foolishly squandered and all without the least compensating advantage. The barren results of the Soudan campaigns directed from the War Office in

Pall Mall form too painful a subject for discussion. It is only fair to say, that the military officials’ hands may have been much hampered from Downing Street.

As I have stated elsewhere, it was not until 1896 that the serious reconquest of the Soudan was begun. Before then there had been, as Mr Gladstone after all appropriately termed them, “ military opera-

tions,” but not a state of war. He might have called them ‘‘blood-spilling enterprises,” for they were only that and no more. The re-occupation of the province of Dongola in 1896, freed the Nile up to Merawi, and gave the disaffected Kababish, Jaalin and riverain tribesmen a chance of reverting to their allegiance to the

Khedive. It also enabled the Sirdar to pass his gun- boats farther up the river. Another gain issuing from the forward movement was that his right was secured from serious attack. Then followed the building of the wonderful Wady Halfa direct desert railway to- wards Abu Hamid, Berber, and Dakhala at the mouth of the Atbara. It was the 1897 campaign which put

all these places into the Sirdar’s hands. During that years high Nile, he passed his gunboats over the long stretch of cataracts betwixt Merawi and Abu Hamid, and ran them up the river where they co- operated with the land forces, regulars and friendlies.

Nay more, the steamers were set to do a double duty : convey stores to the advanced posts and assail and

harass the dervishes, pushing as far south as Shendy