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Updated: May 11, 2025
We charged their left wing, however, and captured a Maxim-Nordenfeldt, which was in perfect order, at the cost of one killed and three wounded. Our other losses amounted to a very small number. As to the enemy's losses, they took some of their dead and wounded away, but they left behind them several of their dead at the spot where we had captured the gun.
"But where is your gun?" the orderly asked. In reply I pointed to the Maxim-Nordenfeldt, which stood a few hundred paces behind us, surrounded by some burghers. "Will you give us your word of honour," he asked me when he caught sight of the gun, "not to stir from your position till we have got ten miles away? That is the only condition on which we will abandon our positions."
On their immediate right were three batteries the 32nd Field Battery of English 15-pounders, under Major Williams; two Maxim-Nordenfeldt mountain batteries, 12½-pounders, respectively under Captains Stewart and de Rougemont; and six Maxims under Captain Smeaton.
Our gun and Maxim-Nordenfeldt we had to leave behind for the enemy; the draught cattle had become exhausted, and we had no dynamite with which to blow up the guns. But what did it matter?
Shortly before this the Armstrong gun and the Maxim-Nordenfeldt had each fired two shots, but they fired no more; as we reached the top the gunners were shot down at their guns. After a short but desperate struggle the English gave way, or surrendered, and we took possession of the Armstrong and Maxim-Nordenfeldt. We continued to fire on the troops, who had retreated to a short distance.
We had crossed the line, and were about three miles on the further side of it, when a train came up and bombarded us with an Armstrong and a Maxim-Nordenfeldt, without however doing any damage. Our guns were too far behind the vanguard, and the poor horses too tired to go back for them, or we should have answered their fire.
I then divided my burghers into two parties; the first, consisting of two hundred men with the Krupp gun, I ordered to proceed with the convoy; the second, consisting of a hundred and fifty men with the Maxim-Nordenfeldt, I took under my own command, and set out with them in the direction of Paardenberg's Drift.
I am able to give the following particulars. After we had captured the positions referred to above, I gave orders that the Krupp and the Maxim-Nordenfeldt should be brought up. For with our hurried advance, the oxen attached to the big guns, as well as some of the burghers' horses, had become so fatigued, that the guns and a number of the burghers had been left behind.
Had they employed these in "sniping" as at Abu Kru, the Sirdar would have had to march out and attack them. The victory of Omdurman owed much to the masterly serving of the artillery. Even in Macdonald's severely contested action, the three batteries of Maxim-Nordenfeldt 12½-pounders did much to save the situation.
During the night we built these schanzes, and before the sun rose the following morning, the guns were placed in position. By daybreak the English had crept up to within a short distance of our lines. It was the Krupp and the Maxim-Nordenfeldt that gave our answer.
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