n Egyptian force under Colonel Parsons in December 1897. _The
Egyptian Sudan_, by H.S.L. Alford and W.D. Sword (1898).]

Preparations for the advance southwards went forward slowly and
methodically through the summer and autumn of 1896. For the present the
operations were limited to the recapture of Dongola. Sir Herbert
Kitchener, then the Sirdar of the Egyptian army, was placed in command.
Under him were men who had proved their worth in years of desultory
fighting against the Khalifa--Broadwood, Hunter, Lewis, Macdonald,
Maxwell, and many others. The training had been so long and severe as to
weed out all weaklings; and the Sirdar himself was the very incarnation
of that stern but salutary law of Nature which ordains the survival of
the fittest. Scores of officers who failed to come up to his
requirements were quietly removed; and the result was seen in a finely
seasoned body of men, apt at all tasks, from staff duties to railway
control. A comparison of the Egyptian army that fought at Omdurman with
that which thirteen years before ran away screaming from a tenth of its
number of Dervishes affords the most impressive lesson of modern times
of the triumph of mind over matter, of western fortitude over the weaker
side of eastern fatalism.

Such a building up of character as this implies could not take place in
a month or two, for the mind of Egyptians and Sudanese was at first an
utter blank as to the need of prompt obedience and still prompter
action. An amusing case of their incredible slackness has been recorded.
On the first parade of a new camel transport corps before Lord
Kitchener, the leading driver stopped his animal, and therefore all that
followed, immediately in front of the Sirdar, in order to light a
cigarette. It is needless to say, the cigarette was not lighted, but the
would-be smoker had his first lesson as to the superiority of the claims
of collectivism over the whims of the individual[411].

[Footnote 411: _Sudan Campaign_, 1896-97, by "An Officer," p. 20.]

As will be seen by reference to the map on page 477, the decision to
limit the campaign to Dongola involved the choice of the Nile route. If
the blow had been aimed straight at Khartum, the Suakim-Berber route, or
even that by way of Kassala, would have had many advantages. Above all,
the river route held out the prospect of effective help from gunboats in
the final attacks on Berber, Omdurman, and Khartum. Seeing, however,
that the greater