James Raymond Steward Part 1

 

Heroes and Rebels in the Family Tree – James Raymond Steward

The Nile Expedition

I was digging into the family tree when I met up with Pat Edwards.  Pat is one of the newest members of our ancestry group and has been extremely helpful in developing the Steward family tree.  I came upon some interesting relatives in Pat’s tree and wanted to introduce you to some of them.

James Raymond Steward (1875-1956) was the fifth child of thirteen born to George Steward (1842-1907) and Mary Ann Groome Roper (1849-1922).  James’ eldest brother Frederick Steward (1868-1891) was married to Helen Mary Forster (1896-1915), the younger sister of Caroline Forster (1867-1906) who was the wife of George “Pikey” William Welsh Adams (1867-1940).  Pat Edwards is the great granddaughter of Frederick Steward and Helen Mary Forster.

Within this ancestry group, we now have descendants of Mina Forster (1862-1941), Caroline Forster (1867-1906), and Helen Mary Forster (1896-1915).  Together, these three sisters became the ancestral foundation of most of the members of this group.  Exceptions being Tracey Jones and Matt Armishaw who descended along the Mann family line.

Having established some background by way of introduction through our shared family heritage, I was intrigued by the military and family history of James Raymond Steward.  James was born on January 9, 1875 in Great Cornard, Suffolk County, England.  By the age of 20 years and 9 months, he enlisted into the Lincolnshire Regiment in London on September 24, 1895.  At that time, young James was described as 5 foot, 5-1/4 inches in height, weighing 121 pounds with Fair complexion, blue eyes and brown hair.  He completed his military training on February 26, 1896 and was began his military duties with the 1^st Battalion, Lincolnshire Regiment in England until December 27, 1897. 

1^st Battalion, Lincolnshire Regiment Deployed to Egypt

On December 28, 1897, the 1^st Battalion, Lincolnshire Regiment was deployed to Egypt under the orders of Gen. Sir Horatio Herbert Kitchener in preparation for the British conquest of Sudan.  From 1897 until January 3, 1900, James Raymond would remain in Egypt and Sudan engaged in the Battle of Atbara River and other military activities in Sudan.  From there he would be deployed to South Africa to fight in the Second Boer War.  He would not return home until September 6, 1903.

The British conquest of Sudan

British forces invaded and occupied Egypt in 1882 to put down a nationalist revolution hostile to foreign interests and remained there to prevent any further threat to the khedive’s government or the possible intervention of another European power. The consequences of this were far-reaching. A permanent British occupation of Egypt required the inviolability of the Nile waters—without which Egypt could not survive—not from any African state, which did not possess the technical resources to interfere with it, but from rival European powers, which could. Consequently, the British government, by diplomacy and military maneuvers, negotiated agreements with the Italians and the Germans to keep them out of the Nile valley. They were less successful with the French, who wanted them to withdraw from Egypt.

Once it became apparent that the British were determined to remain, the French cast about for means to force the British from the Nile valley. In 1893 an elaborate plan was concocted by which a French expedition would march across Africa from the west coast to Fashoda (Kodok) on the upper Nile, where it was believed a dam could be constructed to obstruct the flow of the Nile waters. After inordinate delays, the French Nile expedition set out for Africa in June 1896, under the command of Capt. Jean-Baptiste Marchand.

As reports reached London during 1896 and 1897 of Marchand’s march to Fashoda, Britain’s inability to insulate the Nile valley became embarrassingly exposed. British officials desperately tried one scheme after another to beat the French to Fashoda. They all failed, and by the autumn of 1897 British authorities had come to the reluctant conclusion that the conquest of the Sudan was necessary to protect the Nile waters from French encroachment. In October an Anglo-Egyptian army under the command of Gen. Sir (later Lord) Horatio Herbert Kitchener was ordered to invade the Sudan.

 

The Battle of Atbara River

In January 1898, British troops began to arrive in the Sudan from the garrison in Egypt; 1^st Royal Warwickshire Regiment, 1^st Seaforth Highlanders and 1^st Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders and from Malta, 1^st Lincolnshire Regiment. These battalions were brigaded under Major-General Gatacre.

Kitchener concentrated his force of British, Egyptian and Sudanese troops at Berber, sending a Sudanese brigade further up the River Nile to the mouth of the Atbara River to build a fort.

The Khalif’s general, the Emir Mahmoud, commanding the force of Dervishes holding Metemmeh, around one hundred miles up the River Nile from Berber, on the west bank, was keen to lead his forces into action against the invading Egyptian army. The Khalif finally agreed that Mahmoud should move down the river and attack Kitchener’s troops at Berber.

Mahmoud crossed to the east bank of the River Nile, where he joined the army of Osman Digna, from the eastern Sudan. Despite his apparent enthusiasm for action, it took Mahmoud a couple of weeks to cross the River Nile, under the observation of Kitchener’s riverboats.

Mahmoud and Osman Digna finally began their advance north on 13^th March 1898, marching along the east bank of the River Nile, watched by Kitchener’s steamers.

To meet the threat, Kitchener moved his army up the river, to concentrate behind Atbara Fort.

On 15^th March 1898, Mahmoud changed the direction of his march to the east-north-east, away from the River Nile and towards the Atbara River, upstream of the Nile junction. His intention now was to cross the Atbara River and circle around behind Atbara, to attack Berber from the eastern desert. He no longer entertained the prospect of a head-on clash with Kitchener.

In response to this move, Kitchener marched his army north, up the Atbara River, to intercept Mahmoud’s force, arriving at Hudi on 20^th March 1898.

Apparently in response to Kitchener’s move, Mahmoud’s force again changed direction, this time to an easterly route, to cross the Atbara River even further upstream. The next day, Kitchener arrived at Ras-El-Hudi, some fifteen miles south of the point where the Dervishes were crossing to the east bank of the Atbara River.

At this time of year, the Atbara River did not contain a consistent flow of water and could be crossed on foot.

Mahmoud’s plans were in disarray. He was now too far south for his army to march through the desert to attack Berber, his water carrying capacity being inadequate, even for a force of desert dwellers equipped with camels.

As it was clear to Mahmoud that he was likely to be attacked, he ordered his Dervishes to build a zeriba of thorn fences, trenches and rifle pits on the east bank of the river, where he awaited the arrival of the Anglo-Egyptian army.

Kitchener’s infantry waited in their make-shift camp at Ras-El-Hudi, while the cavalry under Colonel Broadwood scouted along the Atbara River to find Mahmoud’s force.

On 30^th March 1898, Broadwood’s cavalry discovered the zeriba at Nakheila.

Kitchener was in the meantime finding it difficult to decide whether to attack Mahmoud, or to stay in his position on the Atbara River and await a movement by the Dervishes. Gatacre urged an attack, but Hunter, commanding the Egyptians and Sudanese, advised caution. Finally, Hunter changed his mind and Kitchener resolved to attack the Dervish zeriba.

On 4^th April 1898, Kitchener’s army moved a further four miles towards Nakheila.

A cavalry reconnaissance approached the zeriba and formed the view that it was deserted. Suddenly fire was opened from the thorn walls and trenches and the Baggara horse launched an attack on the Egyptian cavalry force.

The Egyptians conducted a spirited rear-guard action, as they withdrew to the camp.

At sunset on 7th April 1898, the British, Egyptian and Sudanese troops of Kitchener’s army marched out of camp, heading south towards the zeriba, the four infantry brigades each in a square, with the four British battalions leading. At around 4am the force halted on a plateau twelve hundred yards from the zeriba.

British brigade advancing at the Battle of Atbara on 8th April 1898 in the Sudanese War: sketch by Melton Prior

At dawn on 8^th April 1898, the army prepared for the assault on the zeriba, the brigades forming with the British on the left, MacDonald’s brigade of three Sudanese and one Egyptian battalion in the centre, and Maxwell’s Sudanese brigade on the right. The flank brigades each deployed a battalion in line, with the remaining three battalions following in column. The Cameron Highlanders formed the forward line of the British brigade.

In the rear, on the left, Lewis’s brigade guarded the supply camels. The Camel Corps formed a reserve in the centre.  Along the line were deployed the 24 guns, the 4 maxims and the rocket detachment.

The Egyptian cavalry, under Broadwood, guarded the open left flank beyond the British brigade.

To the front of the attacking brigades was the line that marked the thorn fence of the zeriba. A war correspondent reported that there was a haze of dust above the zeriba, as if rifle pits and trenches were still being dug.

At 6:20am, Kitchener’s four artillery batteries opened fire, methodically bombarding every part of the Dervish camp.

A force of Baggara horsemen moved out of the rear of the zeriba and made to attack the left flank of the army, but was driven back by fire from two of the maxims, supported by Broadwood’s cavalry.

After a bombardment lasting some seventy-five minutes, the artillery ceased firing and the infantry began to advance on the zeriba, halting to fire volleys into the Dervish positions.

At about three hundred yards distance, the Dervish riflemen opened a return fire on the advancing infantry.

With rising casualties, Kitchener’s battalions reached the zeriba. The Camerons, the front-line battalion of the British brigade, fired into the camp, while the Seaforths pulled the thorn hedge aside and rushed through into the positions behind. The battalions along the line stormed through the zeriba and engaged the Dervishes, as they emerged from their trenches and rifle pits.

The 11^th Sudanese suffered particularly heavy casualties, their position, as they pressed through the thorn hedge, putting them opposite Mahmoud’s redoubt. Mahmoud’s personal bodyguard opened a devastating fire that annihilated a company of the 11^th, before the 10^th and 11^th Sudanese stormed the redoubt, wiping out the defenders and capturing Mahmoud.

Some of the Dervishes broke out of the camp on the desert side to the east and attempted to charge around the flank of the British first line. These attackers were caught by the fire of the Warwicks, in the second line of the British brigade.

Kitchener’s troops fought through the camp to the Atbara River, where they found the Dervishes escaping across the dried river bed to the west bank and opened fire on them.

The Baggara horse escaped south, along the Atbara River, with Osman Digna, the commander of the eastern Dervish forces.

At 8:30am the battle was over and the bugles sounded the ‘Cease Fire’.

Emir Mahmud brought prisoner to General Kitchener, after the Battle of Atbara on 8th April 1898 in the Sudanese War

Mahmoud, rescued by British officers from the Sudanese soldiers who had captured him, was brought before Kitchener.

After ransacking the Dervish camp, Kitchener’s army formed up and marched back to their positions at Atbara Fort and Berber.

Casualties at the Battle of Atbara:
In excess of 2,000 Dervish dead were found inside the zeriba. A large number of Dervishes were captured, most of whom were enlisted in Kitchener’s Sudanese battalions.

Total losses in Kitchener’s army were 80 killed and 479 wounded. The leading British battalion, 1^st Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders suffered 44 casualties, including 3 officers killed and 1 wounded. The Seaforths suffered 22 casualties, including 6 officers killed and wounded. 1^st Royal Warwicks suffered 11 casualties and 1^st Lincolns 13 casualties.

Among the non-British troops, the Sudanese battalions suffered 375 casualties, while the Egyptian battalions suffered 14 casualties.

Battle Honour and Campaign Medal for the Battle of Atbara:

The Battle Honour of ‘Atbara’ was awarded to the four British infantry regiments present.

The campaign medals awarded were the Queen’s Sudan Medal 1896-1898 and the Khedive’s Sudan Medal 1896-1908, with the clasp on the Khedive’s medal of ‘The Atbara’.

Follow-up to the Battle of Atbara:

Immediately after the battle, an attempt was made at pursuit into the desert on the west bank of the Atbara by Colonel Lewis’s brigade, but the ground was too difficult and the escaping Dervishes too widely dispersed. Lewis abandoned the attempt and withdrew to the main army.

After the return to Berber, Kitchener awaited the reinforcements of British troops considered necessary to complete the defeat of the Khalif and the capture of Khartoum, the capital of the Sudan.

Anecdotes and traditions from the Battle of Atbara:

• Before his appointment to the command of the British brigade in the Sudan, Major General Gatacre made a name for himself commanding a brigade in the relief of Chitral, on the North-West Frontier of India in 1895. Gatacre was known to his troops as ‘Backacher’, due to his demands upon them. Gatacre commanded a division at the unsuccessful Battle of Stormberg, in the South African War in 1899. This ended his active military career.
• Almost all the prisoners taken at Atbara were African Sudanese, as the Arabs mostly fought to the last. These prisoners readily joined the Sudanese battalions and many later fought at Omdurman against the Khalif’s forces.
• ‘Pharaoh and the Sergeant’: Rudyard Kipling’s poem in praise of the British non-commissioned officers who doggedly trained the Egyptian and Sudanese battalions of the Khedive’s Egyptian army, that so distinguished themselves in Kitchener’s campaign to re-conquer the Sudan. 

Pharaoh and the Sergeant

By Rudyard Kipling

 

". . . Consider that the meritorious services of the Sergeant Instructors
 attached to the Egyptian Army have been inadequately acknowledged. . . .
 To the excellence of their work is mainly due the great improvement that has
 taken place in the soldiers of H.H. the Khedive."
                          Extract from Letter written by Kipling

 

Said England unto Pharaoh, "I must make a man of you,

  That will stand upon his feet and play the game;

That will Maxim his oppressor as a Christian ought to do,"

  And she sent old Pharaoh Sergeant Whatsisname.

       It was not a Duke nor Earl, nor yet a Viscount —

          It was not a big brass General that came;

       But a man in khaki kit who could handle men a bit,

          With his bedding labelled Sergeant Whatisname.

 

Said England unto Pharaoh, "Though at present singing small,

  You shall hum a proper tune before it ends,"

And she introduced old Pharaoh to the Sergeant once for all,

  And left 'em in the desert making friends.

       It was not a Crystal Palace nor Cathedral;

          It was not a public-house of common fame;

       But a piece of red-hot sand, with a palm on either hand,

         And a little hut for Sergeant Whatsisname.

 

Said England unto Pharaoh, "You've had miracles before,

  When Aaron struck your rivers into blood;

But if you watch the Sergeant he can show you something more.                                   '

      He's a charm for making riflemen from mud."

       It was neither Hindustani, French, nor Coptics;

          It was odds and ends and leavings of the same,

       Translated by a stick (which is really half the trick),

         And Pharaoh harked to Sergeant Whatsisname.

 

(There were years that no one talked of; there were times of horrid doubt —

  There was faith and hope and whacking and despair —

While the Sergeant gave the Cautions and he combed old Pharaoh out,

  And England didn't seem to know nor care.

       That is England's awful way o' doing business —

         She would serve her God (or Gordon) just the same —

       For she thinks her Empire still is the Strand and Holborn Hill,

         And she didn't think of Sergeant Whatsisname.)

 

Said England to the Sergeant, "You can let my people go!"

  (England used 'em cheap and nasty from the start),

And they entered 'em in battle on a most astonished foe —

   But the Sergeant he had hardened Pharaoh's heart.

       Which was broke, along of all the plagues of Egypt,

         Three thousand years before the Sergeant came

       And he mended it again in a little more than ten,

         Till Pharaoh fought like Sergeant Whatsisname.

 

It was wicked bad campaigning (cheap and nasty from the first),

  There was heat and dust and coolie-work and sun,

There were vipers; flies, and sandstorms, there was cholera and thirst,

  But Pharaoh done the best he ever done.

       Down the desert, down the railway, down the river,

           Like Israelites from bondage so he came,

       'Tween the clouds o' dust and fire to the land of his desire,

         And his Moses, it was Sergeant Whatsisname!

 

We are eating dirt in handfuls for to save our daily bread,

  Which we have to buy from those that hate us most,

And we must not raise the money where the Sergeant raised the dead,

  And it's wrong and bad and dangerous to boast.

        But he did it on the cheap and on the quiet,

         And he's not allowed to forward any claim —

       Though he drilled a black man white, though he made a mummy fight,

          He will still continue Sergeant Whatsisname —

       Private, Corporal, Colour-Sergeant, and Instructor —

          But the everlasting miracle's the same!