In Egypt (1882) Lord Fisher, of whom we shall soon hear more, rigged up
a train like an ironclad and kept Arabi Pasha at arm's length from
Alexandria, which Lord Alcester's fleet had bombarded and taken.
Lieutenant Rawson literally "steered" Lord Wolseley's army across the
desert by the stars during the night march that ended in the perfect
victory of Tel-el-Kebir. Mortally wounded he simply asked: "Did I lead
them straight, Sir?"
The Egyptian campaigns continued off and on for sixteen years
(1882-1898) till Lord Kitchener beat the Mahdi far south in the wild
Soudan. British sea-power, as it always does, worked the sea lines of
communication over which the army's supplies had to go to the front
from England and elsewhere, and, again as usual, put the army in the
best possible place from which to strike inland. Needless to say, the
naval part of British sea-power not only helped and protected the
mercantile part, which carried the supplies, but helped both in the
fighting and the inland water transport too.
At one time (1885) the little Naval Brigade on the Nile had to be led
by a boatswain, every officer having been killed or wounded.
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