PolarBear
Major
- Joined
- Feb 24, 2007
- Messages
- 6,706
"In August, 1882, the 1st Battalion of the Gordon Highlanders disembarked at Alexandria to take part in the suppression of an armed insurrection. The rebels were threatening the Suez Canal and Sir Garnet Wolseley found them entrenched at Tel-el-Kebir and realised at once that it would be useless to attack by daylight. So, by a night march of 8 miles, two divisions advanced simultaneously upon the enemy and dawn found them passed through the enemy's forward line without being discovered. And then as the Egyptian bugles called to action and a stream of rifle fire opened on the British forces the Gordons went in with fixed bayonets and pipers playing and in twenty minutes Arabi Pasha and his army were in full retreat. Though order was soon restored in Egypt, the Sudan was in a turmoil and the 1st Battalion took part with both the desert and river columns in the attempt to save Gordon at Khartoum."