No Further Attempt Was Made To Subdue The Country.
The people of
the Soudan had won their freedom by their valour and by the skill and
courage of their saintly leader.
It only remained to evacuate the towns
and withdraw the garrisons safely. But what looked like the winding-up
of one story was really the beginning of another, much longer, just as
bloody, commencing in shame and disaster, but ending in triumph and,
let us hope, in peace.
I desire for a moment to take a more general view of the
Mahdi's movement than the narrative has allowed. The original causes
were social and racial. But, great as was the misery of the people,
their spirit was low, and they would not have taken up arms merely on
material grounds. Then came the Mahdi. He gave the tribes the enthusiasm
they lacked. The war broke out. It is customary to lay to the charge of
Mohammed Ahmed all the blood that was spilled. To my mind it seems that
he may divide the responsibility with the unjust rulers who oppressed
the land, with the incapable commanders who muddled away the lives of
their men, with the vacillating Ministers who aggravated the misfortunes.
But, whatever is set to the Mahdi's account, it should not be forgotten
that he put life and soul into the hearts of his countrymen, and freed
his native land of foreigners. The poor miserable natives, eating only
a handful of grain, toiling half-naked and without hope, found a new,
if terrible magnificence added to life. Within their humble breasts the
spirit of the Mahdi roused the fires of patriotism and religion. Life
became filled with thrilling, exhilarating terrors. They existed in
a new and wonderful world of imagination. While they lived there were
great things to be done; and when they died, whether it were slaying the
Egyptians or charging the British squares, a Paradise which they could
understand awaited them. There are many Christians who reverence
the faith of Islam and yet regard the Mahdi merely as a commonplace
religious impostor whom force of circumstances elevated to notoriety.
In a certain sense, this may be true. But I know not how a genuine
may be distinguished from a spurious Prophet, except by the measure of
his success. The triumphs of the Mahdi were in his lifetime far greater
than those of the founder of the Mohammedan faith; and the chief
difference between orthodox Mohammedanism and Mahdism was that the
original impulse was opposed only by decaying systems of government and
society and the recent movement came in contact with civilisation and
the machinery of science. Recognising this, I do not share the popular
opinion, and I believe that if in future years prosperity should come
to the peoples of the Upper Nile, and learning and happiness follow in
its train, then the first Arab historian who shall investigate the
early annals of that new nation will not forget, foremost among
the heroes of his race, to write the name of Mohammed Ahmed.
CHAPTER II: THE FATE OF THE ENVOY
All great movements, every vigorous impulse that a community
may feel, become perverted and distorted as time passes, and the
atmosphere of the earth seems fatal to the noble aspirations of
its peoples. A wide humanitarian sympathy in a nation easily
degenerates into hysteria. A military spirit tends towards brutality.
Liberty leads to licence, restraint to tyranny. The pride of race is
distended to blustering arrogance. The fear of God produces bigotry
and superstition. There appears no exception to the mournful rule,
and the best efforts of men, however glorious their early results,
have dismal endings, like plants which shoot and bud and put forth
beautiful flowers, and then grow rank and coarse and are withered by
the winter. It is only when we reflect that the decay gives birth to
fresh life, and that new enthusiasms spring up to take the places of
those that die, as the acorn is nourished by the dead leaves of the oak,
the hope strengthens that the rise and fall of men and their movements
are only the changing foliage of the ever-growing tree of life, while
underneath a greater evolution goes on continually.
The movement which Mohammed Ahmed created did not escape the common
fate of human enterprise; nor was it long before the warm generous blood
of a patriotic and religious revolt congealed into the dark clot of
a military empire. With the expulsion or destruction of the foreign
officials, soldiers, and traders, the racial element began to subside.
The reason for its existence was removed. With the increasing disorders
the social agitation dwindled; for communism pre-supposes wealth, and the
wealth of the Soudan was greatly diminished. There remained only the
fanatical fury which the belief in the divine mission of the Mahdi
had excited; and as the necessity for a leader passed away, the belief
in his sanctity grew weaker. But meanwhile a new force was making itself
felt on the character of the revolt. The triumph no less than the plunder
which had rewarded the Mahdi's victories had called into existence a
military spirit distinct from the warlike passions of the
tribesmen - the spirit of the professional soldier.
The siege of Khartoum was carried on while this new influence
was taking the place of the original forces of revolt. There was
a period when a neutral point was obtained and the Mahdist power
languished. But the invasion of the Eastern Soudan by the British troops
in the spring and the necessary advance of the relieving columns in the
winter of 1884 revived the patriotic element. The tribes who had made
a great effort to free themselves from foreign domination saw in the
operations of Sir Gerald Graham and Lord Wolseley an attempt to bring
them again under the yoke. The impulse which was given to the Mahdi's
cause was sufficient to raise a fierce opposition to the invading forces.
The delay in the despatch of the relief expedition had sealed the fate
of Khartoum, and the fall of the town established the supremacy of
the military spirit on which the Dervish Empire was afterwards founded.
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