’On the square being only threatened by a small force of the enemy. . . the Egyptian troops threw down their arms and ran, carrying away the black troops with them, and allowing themselves to be killed without the slightest resistance.’ [General Baker to Sir E. Baring, February 6 (official despatch), telegraphic.] The British and European officers in vain endeavoured to rally them.  The single Soudanese battalion fired impartially on friend and foe.  The general, with that unshaken courage and high military skill which had already on the Danube gained him a continental reputation, collected some fifteen hundred men, mostly unarmed, and so returned to Suakin.  Ninety-six officers and 2,250 men were killed.  Krupp guns, machine guns, rifles, and a large supply of ammunition fell to the victorious Arabs.  Success inflamed their ardour to the point of madness.  The attack of the towns was pressed with redoubled vigour.  The garrison of Sinkat, 800 strong, sallied out and attempted to fight their way to Suakin.  The garrison of Tokar surrendered.  Both were destroyed.

The evil was done.  The slaughter was complete.  Yet the British Government resolved to add to it.  The garrisons they had refused to rescue they now determined to avenge.  In spite of their philanthropic professions, and in spite of the advice of General Gordon, who felt that his position at Khartoum would be still further compromised by operations on his only line of retreat [Sir E. Baring to Earl Granville, Cairo, February 23.], a considerable military expedition consisting of one cavalry and two infantry brigades, was sent to Suakin.  The command was entrusted to General Graham.  Troops were hurriedly concentrated.  The 10th Hussars, returning from India, were stopped and mounted on the horses of the gendarmerie.  With admirable celerity the force took the field.  Within a month of the defeat at Teb they engaged the enemy almost on the very scene of the disaster.  On the 4th of March they slew 3,000 Hadendoa and drove the rest in disorder from the ground.  Four weeks later a second action was fought at Tamai.  Again the success of the British troops was complete; again the slaughter of the Arabs was enormous.  But neither victory was bloodless.  El Teb cost 24 officers and 168 men; Tamai, 13 officers and 208 men.  The effect of these operations was the dispersal of Osman Digna’s gathering.  That astute man, not for the first or last time, made a good retreat.

Ten thousand men had thus been killed in the space of three months in the Eastern Soudan.  By the discipline of their armies the Government were triumphant.  The tribes of the Red Sea shore cowered before them.  But as they fought without reason, so they conquered without profit.