3-085-687 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Officers for the Soudan Advance, 1898. 'Major-General W. F. Gatacre, C.B., D.S.O. to Command British Troops; Captain D. E. Collins, Army Ordnance Department; Lieutenant F. F. Ready, Princess of Wales's Royal Berkshire Regiment. It appears now to be generally understood that no early direct forward movement of the Egyptian army commanded by the Sirdar, General Sir Herbert Kitchener, from Berber and the confluence of the Atbara with the Nile, towards Khartoum, is contemplated at this season of the year...There is a very large assemblage of the Dervishes at Metemmeh, with forces of unknown number at Omdurman, and it is even apprehended that these may come to attack, if not the main position at Berber, some other military stations along the great bend of the Nile...It is with a view to this present contingency that fresh reinforcements of British troops are now being sent to Egypt, while those of the existing garrison are being forwarded to the Soudan, intended rather to act on the defensive, and to maintain all that has been gained since last summer, than to proceed with a hasty advance on Khartoum...General Gatacre, who is to command the British troops ordered to the front, has set forth on his voyage up the Nile.' From "Illustrated London News", 1898.