Having succeeded Sir Evelyn Wood as Sirdar of the Egyptian Army Major-General Sir Francis Grenfell was busily forming a Nile Frontier Force of British and Egyptian troops. Towards the end of November 1885, the Khalifa Abdullahi, the Mahdi's successor, appeared with a Dervish Army a few miles south of Ginnis and attacks were made on British posts at Kosha and Mograka. General Sir Frederick Stephenson, with two British Brigadesl attacked and defeated the enemy at Ginnie on the penultimate day of 1885 -- it was the very last occasion on which British troops went into action wearing scarlet tunics. Not a very great battle, it was the first time that Egyptian troops had fought the Dervishes to a standstill although they were backed by some English regiments, including the Cameron Highlanders. The surprised Mahdi retired with his army behind the Third Cataract. Three years of raid and counter-raid ensued, with Egyptian troops gaining strength and confidence as the British regiments were withdrawn. On April 28th 1887, Lieutenant-Colonel Chermside led an all Egyptian force on a night march to wipe out a strong Dervish army at Saras and greatly raised the morale of the Egyptian army as it was the very first occasion on which Egyptian Regular troops, without British support, had fought the Dervishes. In mid-1889, the Mahdi attempted to invade Egypt and isolate Wadi Halfa by sending a force through the Western Desert to the Nile, 25 miles north of Aswan. At Toski on August 3rd 1889, the Dervishes under the Emir Wad en Nejumi were attacked by Grenfell with two brigades of Egyptian infantry, a regiment of British cavalry and a brigade of Briti'sh infantry. In this action, which marked the turning point in the tide of the Mahdist invasion, Kitchener was in command of the mounted troops and skilfully lured the Dervish force to destruction with the-death of their leader. Kitchener was later appointed Sirdar of the Egyptian Army and, with the Dervishes far away in the south and peace reigning in Egypt, began to prepare his forces for an attempt to re-occupy the Sudan. Back to Table of Contents -- Wargamer's Newsletter # 115 To Wargamer's Newsletter List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1971 by Donald Featherstone. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com