If the great Omdurman army had taken the field, the possibility would have
become a certainty. The young Kordofan general saw his opportunity, and
begged to be allowed to seize it. But it was not until the Khalifa had sent
his own army back into the city that, being very badly informed of the
numbers and disposition of the Egyptian force, he allowed the Metemma
Dervishes to move.
Mahmud received permission to advance at the end of January.
He eagerly obeyed the longed-for order. But the whole situation
was now changed. The Egyptian army was concentrated; the British brigade
had arrived; the railway had reached Geneinetti; the miserable hamlet of
Dakhila, at the confluence, had grown from a small depot to a fort,
and from a fort to an entrenched camp, against which neither Dervish
science nor strength could by any possibility prevail. Perhaps Mahmud
did not realise the amazing power of movement that the railway had given
his foes; perhaps he still believed, with the Khalifa, that Berber was held
only by 2,000 Egyptians; or else--and this is the most probable--he was
reckless of danger and strong in his own conceit. At any rate, during the
second week in February he began to transport himself across the Nile,
with the plain design of an advance north. With all the procrastination of
an Arab he crawled leisurely forward towards the confluence of the rivers.
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