During the progress of the struggle with Abyssinia the war against Egypt
languished. The Mahdi, counting upon the support of the population, had
always declared that he would free the Delta from 'the Turks,' and was
already planning its invasion when he and his schemes were interrupted
by death. His successor inherited all the quarrel, but not all the power.
Much of Mohammed Ahmed's influence died with him. Alive, he might conquer
the Moslem world; dead, he was only a saint. All fanatical feeling in
Egypt soon subsided. Nevertheless the Khalifa persisted in the enterprise.
The success of the Abyssinian war encouraged and enabled him to resume the
offensive on his northern frontier, and he immediately ordered
Wad-el-Nejumi, who commanded in Dongola, to march with his scanty force to
the invasion of Egypt. The mad enterprise ended, as might have been
foreseen, in the destruction of both Emir and army at Toski. The Khalifa
received the news with apparent grief, but it is difficult to avoid
suspecting him of dark schemes. He was far too clever to believe that
Egypt could be conquered by five thousand men. He knew that besides the
Egyptians there was a strange white tribe of men, the same that had so
nearly saved Khartoum. 'But for the English,' he exclaimed on several
occasions, 'I would have conquered Egypt.' Yet, knowing of the British
occupation, he deliberately sent an army to its inevitable ruin.
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