The Battle of Ginnis

The Aftermath of Battle

by Doug Johnson

The Anglo-Egyptian casualties during the battle were light. They were reported as two British killed and 25 wounded, 8 Egyptians killed and 13 wounded (Cairint). Later sources placed the dead at 20 Egyptians and 12 British (Haggard, p. 384), or a total of 150 casualties (Smith-Dorrien, p. 65).

It is hard to say what the Mahdist casualties were, as the official despatches give no figures either of the force or its losses Wingate gives casualty figues as 500 killed and 300 wounded (Wingate, p.279). Andrew Haggard, who commanded the 1st Egyptians in the battle, later claimed that an official estimate of 600 casualties was too high (Haggard, p. 384). It should be noted that Haggard's figures are usually at variance with the official figures. The loss of amirs seems to have been high, including as it did abd al-Kbjid, abd al-Khalik and Umar wad al-fakir among the high command, the commanders of the Rubatab, Berber and Khartoum contingents, and Hamid at-Zain. Abd al-Majid al-Khujali was wounded. The official despatch erroneously claimed Uthman Azraq and Mahmud al-Ajumi Hamza among the slain (Cairint).

The Mahdist forces' were rallied by 'Uthman Azraq at old Dongola, which served as the northern most Mahdist outpost during most of the rest of 1886. Muhamnad al-Khair reported to the Khalifa that his forces were taken completely by surprise. He was later blamed for the defeat and was removed from his command of Berber and Dongala in 1886.

The Mahdists continued to fear an invasion from the north until the Anglo-Egyptian forces, now satisfied that they faced no immediate threat from the south, abandoned Kosha and withdrew to Wadi Halfa, where they remained until the beginning of the Reconquest.

CONCLUSIONS ABOUT THE BATTLE

Most of the front-line fighting was done by the British army, but it cannot be denied that all branches of the Egyptian army acquitted themselves well. Both the Camel Corps and the 1st Egyptians were involved in difficult hand-to-hand fighting, and all four guns captured during the battle were captured by the Egyptian army. The honors of the day went to the recently formed IXth Sudanese, the first, and at that time the only Sudanese battalion in the Egyptian army. Sergeant Major Ali Abdullah of the IXth, formerly a gunner on one of Gordon's steamers, was mentioned in despatches and recommended for promotion far his skill in handling the Gardner gun on the Lotus (Cairint). In the battle, the battalion captured two guns. A bond was formed between it and the Cameron Highlanders during the month they shared the siege in Kosha, and the Camerons presented the IXth with a set of colors, suitably inscribed with "Kosheh" and "Ginnis" as their first honors. The success of the IXth on the frontier led to the raising of a second Sudanese battalion, the XIIIth under Smith-Dorrien.

Even with the honors the Egyptian army won, so great was the rivalry between the British officers of the Egyptian army and those of the regular army that one officer attached to the Egyptian army rushed into the Mahdist camp at Ginnis, bundling Mahdist banners under his arms, shouting "Don' t let the English get the flags!" (Haggard, p. 376)

Ginnis marked the end of the active involvement of the British Army on the Nile frontier. The ad hoc Camel Corps and Mounted Infantry disappeared from all future engagements and the regulars returned to garrisons further down the river. It was also the last time that large units of British and Egyptian troops were brigaded together The defence of the Frontier devolved on the Egyptian Army and over the next few years certain units such as the Sudanese battalions and the Egyptian Camel Corps gained a reputation for fighting that was carried through the reconquest. It was the Egyptian Army that later defeated Wad al-Nujumi's army at Toski (only one British unit, the 20th Hussars was present), and it was the Egyptian Army that carried out the early stages of the reconquest. It was only with the Atbara and Omdurman campaigns that large numbers of the British Army were used, and then there were brigaded separately.

It is hard to make an assessment of the Mahdist performance, because intelligence reports about them at this time are so incomplete. Aside from the want of accurate numbers, there is no complete list of the different contingents. There seems to have been a separate command of riflemen, but it is unlikely that they were a regular unit of the jihadiyya (former Sudanese soldiers in the Mahdist army), as the jihadiyya at this time was still under the command of Hamdan Abu Anja, and he was using them in 1885 to put down various revolts in Kordofan and the Nuba Mountains.

There are varying opinions about the accuracy of the Mahdist riflemen at Kosha and Ginnis. One Cameron Highlander Sergeant claimed that the Mahdists did not use their Remingtons well and fired high, even at close range.(Lawton, pp. 31 and 68). Andrew Haggard stated that some of the snipers were very good shots (Haggard, p 367). The official reports speak of heavy or sharp, "but ill-directed fire", yet the Sirdar attributed the low casualties of the Anglo-Egyptian force to the complete surprise it achieved in its attack, not to the accurate rifle fire (Cairint). In the fighting around Kosha Fort prior to the battle, Wingate commented that "very harassing" Mahdist rifle fire forced the defenders to build additional earthworks, and it was the excellence of these that kept casualties low. Yet Smith-Dorrien, who visited the black rock above the fort after the battle claimed that every movement in the fort could be seen, and the low casualties were due to "the extraordinary bad shooting of the Arabs" (Smith-Dorrien, p. 59).

During the month preceding the battle, the Mahdists showed a high degree of ingenuity and skill in their many raids around Kosha and along the railroad. In particular their enemies noted their use of riflemen as skirmishers, and the well-placed gun emplacements along the river and overlooking the railroad (Grant, p.160). They were unable to counter the Anglo-Egyptian ability to bring in reinforcements quickly by train or steamer , and in the end they were totally surprised by the appearance of a large army where they were aware of only a small garrison.

The brevity of reports does not give us a very clear idea of the abilities of the different Mahdist commanders. Muhammad al-Khair was in over-all command of the frontier, but he does not seem to have been directly involved at Ginnis. The force there seems to have been commanded by Abd al-Majid al-Khujali, who proved to be somewhat careless. Hamid at-Zain was a very good hit and-run frontier fighter, and Wad ar-Rais placed his guns and riflemen well during the siege of Kosha.

What has to be emphasized is that the Mahdist army at Ginnis was not the vanguard of an invading army, but the first line of defence. While Wad al-Nujumi raised an army for the defence of the frontier, Muhammad al-Kahir and Abd al-najid al-Khujali were to contain the enemy. Their tactics were mainly defensive, aimed at forcing the withdrawal of the Kosha garrison without risking a major assault. What is surprising is that although the Mahdists were expecting a large invading force, they were totally unprepared for the one that attacked them, but Ginnis was not a major defeat. It allowed the Anglo-Egyptians to withdraw to Wadi Halfa without harassment, but it left the Mahdists in possession of a longer stretch of the Nile than they previously held.

(Originally appeared in Soldiers of the Queen, Issue 11)

The Battle of Ginnis

Back to Table of Contents -- Savage and Soldier Sudan Special Issue
Back to Savage and Soldier List of Issues
Back to MagWeb Magazine List
© Copyright 2004 by Milton Soong.
This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com