When the first glimmer of dawn came on September 2, every man felt instinctively that the Khalifa had thrown away his last chance.  Yet few were prepared for the crowning act of madness.  Every one feared that he would hold fast to Omdurman and fight the new crusaders from house to house.  Possibly the seeming weakness of the zariba tempted him to a concentric attack from the Kerreri Hills and the ridge which stretches on both sides of the steep slopes of the hill, Gebel Surgham.  A glance at the accompanying plan will show that the position was such as to tempt a confident enemy.  The Sirdar also manoeuvred so as to bring on an attack.  He sent out the Egyptian cavalry and camel corps soon after dawn to the plain lying between Gebel Surgham and Omdurman to lure on the Khalifa’s men.

The device was completely successful.  Believing that they could catch the horsemen in the rocky ridge alongside of Gebel Surgham, the Dervishes came forth from their capital in swarms, pressed them hard, and inflicted some losses.  Retiring in good order, the cavalry drew on the eager hordes, until about 6.30 A.M. the white glint of their gibbehs, or tunics, showed thickly above the tawny slopes on either side of Gebel Surgham.  On they came in unnumbered throngs, until, pressing northwards along the sky-line, their lines also topped the Kerreri Hills to the north of the zariba.  Their aim was obvious:  they intended to surround the invaders, pen them up in their zariba, and slaughter them there.  To all who did not know the value of the central position in war and the power of modern weapons, the attack seemed to promise complete success.  The invaders were 1300 miles away from Cairo and defeat would mean destruction.

Religious zeal lent strength to the onset.  From the converging crescent of the Mahdists a sound as of a dim murmur was wafted to the zariba.  Little by little it deepened to a hoarse roar, as the host surged on, chanting the pious invocations that so often had struck terror into the Egyptians.  Now they heard the threatening din with hearts unmoved; nay, with spirits longing for revenge for untold wrongs and insults.  Thus for some minutes in that vast amphitheatre the discipline and calm confidence of the West stood quietly facing the fanatic fury of the East.  Two worlds were there embattled:  the world of Mohammedanism and the world of Christian civilisation; the empire of untutored force and the empire of mind.

At last, after some minutes of tense expectancy, the cannon opened fire, and speedily gaps were seen in the white masses.  Yet the crescent never slackened its advance, except when groups halted to fire their muskets at impossible ranges.  Waving their flags and intoning their prayers, the Dervishes charged on in utter scorn of death; but when their ranks came within range of the musketry fire, they went down like swathes of grass under the scythe.  Then was seen a marvellous sight.  When the dead were falling their fastest, a band of about 150 Dervish horsemen formed near the Khalifa’s dark-green standard in the centre and rushed across the fire zone, determined to snatch at triumph or gain the sensuous joys of the Moslem paradise.  None of them rode far.