Click2Flicks - The Four Feathers, The Story Behind the Movie, Revenge and Desecration, Chapter 7

<body link="0000ff" alink="ff0000" vlink="000000" bgcolor=000033> <table width="100%" bgcolor=000033> <tr> <td align=center valign=top> <table width=90% bgcolor=ffffff> <tr> <td align=center valign=top> <tr> <td> <div align=center><p><b><font face="arial, helvetica" size=5 color=000000><b><i>THE FOUR FEATHERS</i></p> <p><font size="4">CHAPTER 7 - REVENGE AND DESECRATION</b></font></p> </div>  </font> <center> <table width="90%"> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top"> <div align="justify"> <p><font face="arial, helvetica" color="000000" size="3">Winston Churchill, who had sent <a href="http://www.churchill.nls.ac.uk/2.44.html" target="_blank"><b>dispatches</b></a> to Lord Kitchener regarding the Mahdist positions, now found himself in the thick of the Lancer’s charge. (Follow the link to the National Library of Scotland to see Churchill’s originals.) Because he had a bad shoulder, Churchill decided he would use his Mauser <a href="http://www.churchill.nls.ac.uk/2.4new.html" target="_blank"><b>pistol</b></a> instead of a drawn sword.</p> <p>At full gallop, as the bugles sounded the charge, he made the exchange. When he looked up, he was shocked. Instead of 150 riflemen, aiming at 310 charging Lancers, there were 3,000 <a href="http://lookinside-images.amazon.com/Qffs+v35lerT5k4BKPgOioHVNW2L1gyVBCgmEYJ4WxQXKOeXforTvMLoAtKh3/QDjEEywqiPRp4=" target="_blank"><b>spear-carrying dervishes</b></a> ready to annihilate the men on horseback.</p> <p>In Churchill’s Roving Commission, at page 193, he describes what he saw following the initial two-minute clash:</p> <blockquote><font face="Times New Roman"><b><i>...a succession of grisly apparitions; horses spouting blood, struggling on three legs, men staggering on foot, men bleeding from terrible wounds, fish-hook spears stuck right through them, arms and faces cut to pieces, bowels protruding, men gasping, crying, collapsing, expiring.</i></b></font></blockquote> <p align="justify"><font face="arial, helvetica">The battle <a href="http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0850526078.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg" target="_blank"><b>for Omdurman</b></a> was fierce, but Kitchener’s losses were only 3% of his total forces. Scholars say much of the credit for saving thousands of Anglo-British soldiers goes to a hero of the Scottish highlands: General Hector Macdonald. (His days of glory, however, were soon dimmed when charges, apparently brought by people jealous of his rise from non-aristocratic beginnings to respected commander, were brought against him. His <a href="http://pw1.netcom.com/~reincke/tragedy.html" target="_blank"><b>tragic</b></a> death, still the subject of discussion, will once again take center stage in 2003 when documents, perhaps containing information about his accusers, will be unsealed 100 years after his death.)</p> <p>Kitchener, by all accounts, was not satisfied with merely destroying Omdurman on September 2, 1898. In addition to the September 4th <a href="http://www.pinetreeweb.com/kitchener-khartoum.jpg" target="_blank"><b>memorial</b></a> for Gordon, he wanted to avenge the murdered general’s death by different means. On his orders, the tomb of Muhammad Ahmed, <a href="http://sudanhome.com/info/mahdiyah.htm" target="_blank"><b>service</b></a> the Mahdi, was destroyed, including its mosque. Manchester describes the <a href="http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2001/557/tr11.htm" target="_blank"><b>desecration</b></a> of the Mahdi’s remains:</p> <blockquote><font face="Times New Roman"><b><i>...the Mahdi’s tomb was desecrated, the corpse ripped from its shroud, and the head lopped off and dumped in a kerosene can to be “preserved for future disposal” - an official phrase which, the outraged Churchill wrote, could only be interpreted as meaning that it would be “passed from hand to hand till it reached Cairo,” where it would be treated as "an interesting trophy."</b> (The Last Lion</i>, page 281)</font></blockquote> <p align="justify"><font face="arial, helvetica">Before he was talked out of it, <a href="http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/0094803404.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg" target="_blank"><b>Kitchener</b></a> planned to use the Mahdi’s skull as his personal inkwell. Lord Cromer, on hearing of Kitchener’s actions, ordered the skull to be reinterred. It is said that the Mahdi’s remains, absent the skull, were <a href="http://www.arab.net/sudan/tour/sn_khartoum.html" target="_blank"><b>burned</b></a> and his ashes scattered in the Nile. Other accounts hold that his remains now lie in an unmarked plot near Wadi Halfa. In 1947, the Mahdi’s son had <a href="http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/faculty/stsmith/research/images/1618.jpg" target="_blank"><b>the tomb</b></a> and mosque rebuilt. No foreigners are allowed inside.</p> <p>After the Mahdist defeat at Omdurman, Britain <a href="http://www-oi.uchicago.edu/OI/MUS/PA/SUDAN/n2775_72dpi.html" target="_blank"><b>controlled</b></a> Sudan. Kitchener lived to <a href="http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/1873376987.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg" target="_blank"><b>serve</b></a> with great <a href="http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/0786708298.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg" target="_blank"><b>distinction</b></a> in World War I, but it was not until 1956 that <a href="http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/su.html" target="_blank"><b>Sudan</b></a> gained its <a href="http://flambard.dur.ac.uk:6336/dynaweb/guides/ascguide/@Generic__BookTextView/15773;pt=xmlpointer(ID(SAD))" target="_blank"><b>independence</b></a>.</p> </div> <p align="center"><font size="2"><a href="four_feathers_ch3.htm">GO TO LAST CHAPTER</a>   <a href="four_feathers_ch1.htm">BACK TO FIRST CHAPTER</a>    <a href="four_feathers_ch5.htm">GO TO NEXT CHAPTER</p><br> </a> </td> </tr> </table>  </td> </tr> </table>  </td> </tr> </table> </body>