Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 162.djvu/219

Rh sequence of the failure which the rush on the first brigade met with. Along the whole length of the ravine faced by General Graham's army the Arabs were grouped, in the hope of destroying this force, as they had destroyed Baker Pasha's. Away in the front of General Buller's position a considerable body of Arabs was seen, which did not join in the fight at all. This body drew off when General Buller's brigade, advancing to the ravines, and leaving the second brigade behind in the field, plunged into them, marched across, completed the dispersion of the enemy, and wound up the proceedings of this memorable day by the peaceful occupation of Osman Digna's camp.

The reader will now be in a position to understand the cause of the repulse sustained by General Davis's square. He will see that the fault was not the men's, nor the individual officers'. In an order issued at Suakin on Sunday, March 16, the general observed that "the naval brigade for a brief moment lost their guns, but through no fault of their own." The same words apply to the conduct of the Highlanders and the 65th, and, indeed, is implied in a subsequent order in which Sir Gerald Graham assumed responsibility for what had happened. The story of the break-up is brief and simple. The front line doubled, while the flanks and rear followed only in quick time. The lid was taken off the box. The Arabs made for the gaps, which, however, very few of them succeeded in entering. What they did do, was to crush in the front (the "lid") and the sides; and this the extreme shortness of the space over which they charged enabled them to do. The front line charged over a space of about a hundred yards, and halted, as already said, twenty yards from the edge of the slope. As Colonel Green and his officers expressed it, "We charged at nothing;" but they saw their comrades on the right—that is the 65th—and the blue-jackets "blazing away." In a minute or two the Arabs plunged through the smoke upon the right flank and right-front face and corner of the square, and then upon the Highlanders on the left-half front. Machine-guns in good hands can make dreadful havoc at ranges of from three hundred to two thousand yards; but in the hands even of the bluejackets they speedily became useless at a range of twenty. So in the fearful rush, the blue-jackets, who had no supports, were swept away, but not before they had locked their guns, thus preventing them from being turned upon ourselves by the Arabs. There was no such thing as a stampede. Speaking of the 42nd Highlanders in particular—for I stood close to a group of them, and certainly within fifteen yards of the nearest Arab—all I can say is that they fought like demons; they retreated backwards; they never turned an inch except to thrust at the Arabs who were trying to surround them. Confused and broken as the British recoil was, it would have been far worse with troops of less sterling quality than the 1st Royal Highlanders and the York and Lancasters. No other troops could have emerged with fewer disasters from the mad onset of those savages. To show how the same event may be interpreted by different minds, it may be mentioned that an Arab prisoner expressed to my fellow-correspondent, Mr. Cameron of the Standard, his opinion that our recoil was a deliberate trick to get the Arabs drawn in between three fires. Mr. Cameron's friend was as much impressed by the cunning as by the gallantry of the English.

The battles of Tamai and El Teb present as many contrasting features as the respective localities in which they were fought. At El Teb, cavalry (to a very small extent, however, by the Arabs), infantry, and artillery were employed, and that, too, most effectively on either side. Though our enemies were barbarians, our fight with them was a pretty series of evolutions, conducted pretty much on the usual lines of civilized and scientific warfare. But at Tamai the most interesting part of the performance consisted of a series of Homeric scrimmages; the other part, of a series of cautious, deliberate, carefully aimed volleys. General Buller's brigade stood as quietly and collectedly as if it were engaged in an ordinary parade. At Tamai there was no artillery duel, as there was at El Teb; nor did the cavalry charge. While they were drawn up away to General Davis's left, in echeloned squadrons of brigade, it was thought that they might charge; and the Hussars afterwards regretted they had not the opportunity. But a charge could hardly be effected at any time, except at the risk of masking the infantry fire, and of rushing uncomfortably near to the ravines. What the Hussars did was to dismount and pour in volleys on their own account.

The cavalry service in this campaign may have already suggested to the reader's mind some notions respecting the conduct of future African wars. Clearly, English cavalry should not be employed