by wholly
insufficient forces. The result was a series of disasters, culminating
in the extermination of Hicks Pasha's Egyptian force by the Mahdi's
followers near El Obeid, the capital of Kordofan (November 5, 1883).

The details of the disaster are not fully known. Hicks Pasha was
appointed, on August 20, 1883, by the Khedive to command the expedition
into that province. He set out from Omdurman on September 9, with 10,000
men, 4 Krupp guns and 16 light guns, 500 horses and 5500 camels. His
last despatch, dated October 3, showed that the force had been greatly
weakened by want of water and provisions, and most of all by the spell
cast on the troops by the Mahdi's claim to invincibility. Nevertheless,
Hicks checked the rebels in two or three encounters, but, according to
the tale of one of the few survivors, a camel-driver, the force finally
succumbed to a fierce charge on the Egyptian square at the close of an
exhausting march, prolonged by the treachery of native guides. Nearly
the whole force was put to the sword. Hicks Pasha perished, along with
five British and four German officers, and many Egyptians of note. The
adventurous newspaper correspondents, O'Donovan and Vizetelly, also met
their doom (November 5, 1883)[379].

[Footnote 379: Gordon's _Journals_, pp. 347-351; also Parl. Papers,
Egypt, No. 12 (1884), pp. 85 and 127-131 for another account. See, too,
Sir F.R. Wingate's _Mahdism_, chaps. i.-iii., for the rise of the Mahdi
and his triumph over Hicks.]

This catastrophe decided the history of the Sudan for many years. The
British Government was in no respect responsible for the appointment of
General Hicks to the Kordofan command. Lord Dufferin and Sir E. Malet
had strongly urged the Khedive to abandon Kordofan and Darfur; but it
would seem that the desire of the governing class at Cairo to have a
hand in the Sudan administration overbore these wise remonstrances, and
hence the disaster near El Obeid with its long train of evil
consequences[380]. It was speedily followed by another reverse at Tokar
not far from Suakim, where the slave-raiders and tribesmen of the Red
Sea coast exterminated another force under the command of Captain
Moncrieff.

[Footnote 380: J. Morley, _Life of Gladstone_, vol. iii. p. 146; Sir A.
Lyall, _Life of Lord Dufferin_, vol. ii. chap. ii.]

The Gladstone Ministry and the British advisers of the Khedive, among
whom was Sir Evelyn Baring (the present Lord Cromer), again urged the