[53] What Flashman was seeing was the first breaching of Magdala’s defences. The attack had proceeded as he describes, with the British advancing en masse across Islamgee and the artillery barrage covering the troops as they climbed up the narrow track leading to the Kobet Bar Gate. Some were wounded by the fire of Theodore’s defenders, but the Sappers reached the gate, only to discover that the powder charges needed to blow it in had been forgotten. The Duke of Wellington’s 33rd had come up, and a party of them ran along the wall to a point where Private Bergin and Drummer Magner forced a way through the thorn hedge and scaled the wall. Ensign Wynter was boosted on to the wall car rying the 33rd’s Regimental Colour, and waved it to signal that the wall had been carried. This was the last time the Colour of the 33rd was carried into action. (See Chandler.)
There is general agreement with Flashman’s view that if Magdala had been properly defended with artillery, the British attack—and indeed the war—might have ended very differently. Whether Theodore’s gunners would have been capable of mounting such a defence is another matter; they had made poor work of it on Fala at the battle of Arogee, and one concludes that, for all his military talents, Theodore was not a master of the art of gunnery, [p. 266]
[54] The best corroboration for Flashman’s account of Theodore’s suicide, and indeed for his description of the Emperor’s move ments and behaviour in the week they were together, is Theodore’s valet and gun-bearer, Wald Gabr. In a statement made to Speedy, the valet recounted his service with Theodore over a period of five years; he was obviously deeply devoted to his master, but made no attempt to gloss over his atrocities, and indeed confessed his share in them (see Note to p. 255). He describes Theodore’s attempted suicide, his release of the prisoners, his hopes of a peaceful settlement, his attempt to escape from Magdala, his gal loping on the plain and challenging the British cavalry, and the bombardment and storming of the amba. Finally, he tells how Theodore released him from his allegiance and then shot himself, precisely as Flashman says, before the arrival of the first British troops. Stanley, in one of his more colourful passages, gives a romanticised account of the two Irishmen of the 33rd who were the first soldiers on the scene. Wald Gabr’s statement is quoted in full by Holland and Hozier.
Stanley has a slightly purple description of the body, which he viewed soon after Theodore’s death: “His eyes, now fading, gave evidence yet of… piercing power… the lower lip seemed adapted to express scorn.” The features showed “great firmness and obstinacy mingled with ferocity", but Stanley admits he may have been influenced by Theodore’s shocking reputation. Compare the Times’ description of “bloated sensual indulgence about the face, by no means heroic or kingly", but “the forehead intellec tual and the mouth singularly determined and cruel.” It was also noted that “a strange smile lingered about the lips", [p. 270]
[55] It is not clear whether Speedy is referring to James Gordon Bennett, founder and publisher of the New York Herald, or his son and namesake who succeeded him in control of the paper in 1867, the year in which H. M. Stanley was sent to cover the Abyssinian War. Bennett junior later sent Stanley to the Ashanti War of 1873 —4, and, most memorably, in search of Dr Livingstone. If either of the Bennetts was an Anglophobe, it evidently did not influence Stanley’s reporting, which is not only meticulous in its detail but eminently fair. [p. 275]
[56] This explains why Flashman is not mentioned in Napier’s reports, or in Holland and Hozier, and the credit is given to Mir Akbar Ali, a subject of the Nizam of Hyderabad, who was attached to the expedition because, as a Muslim who had made the pilgrimage to Mecca, it was thought he would make an ideal envoy to Queen Masteeat and the Gallas. Plainly Flashman’s advent on the scene caused Napier to change his mind and send him in Mir Akbar’s place, as a far more experienced intelligence agent whose mili tary seniority would also impress the Galla queen and her gen erals; it was, as Napier said, a task tailor-made for Flashman’s supposed talents. Since he was to travel in native disguise, he was given the name of Khasim Tamwar, and in inventing a background and history for him, Napier simply used that of Mir Akbar Ali. Then, when Flashman was captured by Theodore, Mir Akbar was despatched at the last minute to complete the work of organising the Galla encirclement of Magdala.
In his report to Napier, Mir Akbar claims sole credit for per suading the Gallas, so there is a considerable discrepancy between his version and Flashman’s, and readers must decide for them selves which to accept. There is no doubt that Mir Akbar did valu able work in the last days of the campaign, for which he was paid at the far from generous rate of £25 a month, roughly the same as the expedition’s lower-grade interpreters. (See Holland and Hpzier.) [p. 275]
[57] Looting at Magdala was on a small scale compared to the orgies of plunder and destruction which Flashman witnessed in the Mutiny and in China. There was plenty of glitter among the stuff strewn on the ground, according to Stanley, but much of it was of little value, and he noted that some of the prisoners (he does not name any) were foremost among the looters. But some treas ures there were: gold, silver, silk, furs and skins, carpets, weapons, and quantities of manuscript. Mr Holmes of the British Museum was “in his glory” when the precious things were auc tioned off, his only rival in the bidding being Flashman’s friend Fraser, who had the wealth of the 11th Hussars’ mess. The auction realised £5000, the proceeds being divided among the non-commissioned troops who had crossed the Bechelo; each man received about four dollars. The elephants which carried it away, and which had played such a vital part in the campaign, carrying guns and mortars, were 39 in number; five had died on the march, [p. 280]
[58] This casual reference to the death of Colonel Robert Alexander Dunn, V.C., suggests that Flashman can only have heard of it at vague second-hand without knowing who was involved. Dunn was from his old regiment, the 11th Hussars, and had taken part in the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava, where he won the only V.C. awarded in that action, for saving the lives of a troop sergeant-major and a trooper. He was CO. of the notorious 33rd Regiment, the Duke of Wellington’s, and died on January 25, 1868, in a shooting accident, [p. 280]
[59] Flashman does not mention Abyssinian casualties in the brief battle for Magdala. More than 60 died in the fighting for the first gate, with about twice as many wounded. Even with the 700 dead and 1400 wounded at Arogee, the total of casualties in the campaign is unusually low for a nineteenth-century war. [p. 280]
[60] Queen Tooroo-Wark ("pure gold") died of consumption a month later on the journey north, and was buried by Coptic priests, the King’s Own providing a guard of honour and music. She was only 18. She had not been happy with Theodore, and is said to have conspired against him, but something like a reconciliation seems to have taken place in the last days of the war. In accor dance with Theodore’s wishes their son Alamayo went to England with Napier, and was educated at Rugby. He died when he was 19, and is buried at Windsor, [p. 281]
[61] “Fat, fair, and forty” was how Stanley described Queen Masteeat, possibly misquoting Speedy, and from his account it is obvious that he liked her for much the same reasons as Flashman: she was handsome, gaudy, jolly, given to “hearty, boisterous guffaws", and had a gargantuan appetite. For the rest, we have only Flashman’s description of her court and conduct; that in spite of her self-indulgence she was a shrewd and formidable personality we may judge from the fact that Napier had no hes itation in preferring her to Warkite and assigning Magdala to her.
As to Flashman’s description of her pet lions, it is interesting that King Theodore had a similar menagerie; a picture in L ’Annee Illustre, 1868, reproduced in Prelude to Magdala shows him sur rounded by them. [p. 283]
[62] Britain’s intervention had done little to change the pattern of civil war and near-anarchy prevailing before 1867, and this continued after the British withdrawal. Kussai, King of Tigre, whose neutrality had been of considerable help, was rewarded with gifts of ordnance, small arms, and supplies, which helped him establish himself in
the north of the country; he aspired to overall monarchy, and for twenty years fought rivals and foreign invaders, defeating Gobayzy and repelling Egyptians, Italians and Dervishes. He was killed in battle against the Dervishes in 1889, and succeeded by the despised Menelek; the “fat boy” achieved supreme power and inflicted a crushing defeat on Italian invaders at Adowa in 1896. This was not forgotten, and Abyssinia was briefly conquered by Mussolini’s forces before the Second World War, which effec tively destroyed Italy’s empire.
The brief exchanges among Napier’s staff have echoes which continue to be heard today. Should Britain have stayed, and paci fied the country, assuming the white man’s burden? There are those who think so; one writer accuses Napier of dodging the issue, and holds that Britain’s leaving Abyssinia did not become her as well as her manner of entering it. This seems rather hard, when it is remembered that Britain had no wish to invade Abyssinia, and did so only on gross provocation. Looking back, it is difficult to see why the pacification of a country to which Britain owed nothing should have been thought (to paraphrase Bismarck) worth the bones of a single British soldier or Indian sepoy. Of one thing we can be sure: if Britain had stayed, revisionist historians would certainly have condemned it as another act of selfish imperialism, [p. 287]
George MacDonald Fraser, Flashman on the March
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