The Gun (16 page)

The troops moved across the San Juan River in the sweltering summer heat toward the trenches outside Santiago, where the Spanish infantry had dug in. This was not a case of a modern army with modern weapons facing aboriginal rushes or a primitively equipped foe. One conventional force was moving against another on carefully prepared ground. And the lieutenant was pushing his soldiers and their bulky weapons forward as if they were any other infantrymen closing for an attack.

The bullets were singing by our ears, and some of the men had narrow escapes. One was struck on the ear, and another had a portion of the leather from the toe of his shoe shot away. Some of the men were unable to keep up with the guns, but continued to follow as fast as they could run. One was sunstruck, another ruptured himself badly. A short distance beyond the ford of the San Juan we found an open space from which the works of the enemy were visible at a distance of from 600 to 800 yards. We dashed on to the farther edge of this opening so as to take advantage of some foliage for cover. Mauser bullets were dropping all around us, and as we unlimbered a bullet chipped the pommel of a driver’s saddle. Another cut a mule’s ear, and again we heard his cheerful song.

It was but the work of an instant to indicate the range and point out the objectives. The guns began grinding instantly, and we could see the dirt fly and the straw hats of the Spaniards duck wherever we
pointed a piece. The effect upon the enemy was for a moment that of paralysis. Then they caught sight of Sergeant Green’s gun, which was in the open, and concentrated a hideous fire upon the little battery. This was hard on us, but it relieved the firing line. The light screen of foliage immediately in front was no impediment to our own fire and no protection from that of the enemy. About one minute after we went into action all of Green’s men were knocked out except himself and Corporal Doyle. Sine, who was feeding, struck me as he fell, shot through the heart. Greene [sic] jumped off the gunner’s seat and ran for ammunition, leaving Doyle alone with the piece. I took the vacant place, and Greene [sic] began to pass all the ammunition for several minutes, until some of the men who had been left behind caught up and began to help.

Suddenly I perceived the Spaniards getting out of their trenches; at the same time I heard a yell from Sergeant Steigerwald at one of the other guns. It was like the ferocious cry of an infuriated lion. Doyle turned his head to look. At that I reached over, hit Doyle a jolt with my fist and pointed at the flying groups. He gave one glance and then the crank seemed to fairly fly.

By this time two men were feeding the gun, and we kept them busy. The other guns were turned up also to the highest rate. We ground out cartridges at the rate of 850, perhaps 950, per gun per minute during that last little spurt. It lasted only about two minutes, but it was here that our guns got in their most deadly work. When we got to those trenches the sights we saw were horrible. Where we had been aiming, there were masses of tangled writhing squirming wounded and dead Spaniards, and it was not until then that we fully realized the awful destructiveness of our work.
⁶¹

A member of the burial detail for the Spanish soldiers later told Parker that forty-seven men appeared to have been killed by machine-gun fire. The figure sounds much more realistic than some of the earlier British accounts from Africa, with their round numbers. But body counts were not the issue. The effect in paralyzing the Spanish infantry and reducing their tactical options midfight—this was the observation that mattered most. It marked a shift in war. Machine guns were hereafter going to be a feature of almost every aspect of infantry battle, although not everyone
yet realized it. After the war, Lieutenant Parker told all listeners, including many newspaper editors and correspondents, what had occurred. He wrote a book about the battle, in which he claimed he had proven his theory correct and turned the conventional wisdom upside down: Machine guns were immensely destructive, and thus effective, in offense and defense alike. “The infantry and cavalry had been pounding away for two hours on those positions,” he wrote. “In eight and one-half minutes after the Gatlings opened the works were ours.” His account was confirmed by Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, the commander of the First United States Volunteer Cavalry, known as the Rough Riders, whose charge had overrun Kettle Hill in the same battle for Santiago’s outskirts. In the foreword of Lieutenant Parker’s book, the colonel said that Gatling guns had been more effective in the fight than American artillery, and had boosted American morale.

On the morning of July 1st, the dismounted cavalry, including my regiment, stormed Kettle Hill, driving the Spaniards from their trenches. After taking the crest, I made the men under me turn and begin volley firing at the San Juan Blockhouse and intrenchments [sic] against which Hawkins’ and Kent’s Infantry were advancing. While thus firing, there suddenly smote on our ears a peculiar drumming sound. One or two of the men cried out, “The Spanish machine guns!” but, after listening a moment, I leaped to my feet and called, “It’s the Gatlings, men! It’s our Gatlings!” Immediately the men began to cheer lustily, for the sound was most inspiring. Whenever the drumming stopped, it was only to open again a little nearer the front. Our artillery, using black powder, had not been able to stand within range of the Spanish rifles, but it was perfectly evident that the Gatlings were troubled by no such consideration, for they were advancing all the while.
⁶²

Roosevelt hedged his endorsement of machine gunnery, but barely. He proposed creating permanent machine-gun units for the wars ahead.

I have had too little experience to make judgment final; but certainly, if I were to command either a regiment or a brigade, whether of cavalry or infantry, I would try to get a Gatling battery—under a good
man—with me. I feel sure that the greatest possible assistance would be rendered, under almost all circumstances, by such a Gatling battery, if well handled; for I believe that it could be pushed fairly to the front of the firing line.
⁶³

Lieutenant Parker had four Gatling guns under his command. Several months later, in autumn 1898, the British military brought many more machine guns—of the newer Maxim variety—into battle in Sudan and put them to their most lethal use yet. The latest campaign along the Nile reached back to 1895, when the British government decided to reassert its influence over Sudan, hoping that a conquest of the Islamic forces in the desert would establish a firmer colonial presence from Cairo to the Cape of Good Hope. A large expeditionary force, more than eight thousand British soldiers accompanied by nearly eighteen thousand Egyptian and African troops, was placed under the command of General Herbert Kitchener. It massed in Egypt and prepared for the arduous trek and river movement up the Nile to destroy the forces of the Khalifa, the Sudanese leader, and reclaim Khartoum. The campaign would serve a second purpose: to avenge the beheading of General Gordon in 1885. A feat of logistics and administration made the final clash possible. Kitchener built a railroad through the desert to keep his soldiers well supplied. An escort of gunboats accompanied them as they traveled upriver. The Maxims were brought overland wrapped in silk, to prevent them from collecting sand and grit.
⁶⁴

By late summer 1898, with the British columns nearing the capital at last, the Khalifa prepared to annihilate them outside Omdurman, on the Nile’s western bank and to Khartoum’s north. War drums beat in the city, and before dawn on September 2, General Kitchener’s soldiers formed into order near the village of Karari, anchoring one end along the river and the other at the end of an arc that swept across a plain. Thousands of Sudanese warriors, called Dervishes by the British troops, had spent the night in the field, readying to turn back the invaders. Winston Churchill, then twenty-three years old and a correspondent for the
Morning Post,
was with the British cavalry as the two sides closed the last distance between them. The battle unfolded around him in a series of unequal scenes, as the lightly armed and technologically unsophisticated Sudanese fighter
moved toward an enemy equipped with repeating rifles, artillery, and batteries of Maxim’s guns. Some of the Sudanese men carried rifles, but they were a mixed collection of rusting older patterns. The fighters themselves lamented them. Roughly half of the Khalifa’s soldiers had no firearms at all.
⁶⁵

The indigenous army numbered into the tens of thousands. As many as eight thousand Sudanese men streamed forward for the first frontal attack. The Maxims had a longer range than their limited assortment of rifles. Even before bullets were fired, while the Sudanese formations were far off, the British artillery began dropping shells in the midst of the dense charge, stopping men in clusters. The opening minutes of fighting consumed a column led by Ibrahim al Khalil, and defined the day. Al Khalil went into battle with two horses, Aim and End, and after the artillery barrage, Aim had been killed. The commander pushed on.

The plain was filled with thousands of corpses. Yet they had had the enemy in sight for only half an hour. Aware of his acute disadvantage in the face of this massive firepower, Ibrahim decided, at a distance of 800 yards from the
zariba,
to veer to the right and enter one of the khurs
ⁱⁱ
where he might pause, take stock, realign his forces and continue the attack. There he would be only 1,200 yards from the
zariba.
He motioned to his men to follow him to the right. Then at this moment, 0705, he was hit in the chest and head. He fell from his horse. End also fell, for he too had been hit. The Maxim machine-guns had opened fire, and one of their first victims was the commander of the Kara army. It was remarkable that he had survived so long, for throughout the long artillery bombardment he had been in the front line. Four horsemen dismounted and bore Ibrahim back amid a shower of bullets. The ferocity of the fire was such that the army’s pace was checked, preventing it from turning to the right to shelter in the khur. But even so the scattered survivors continued to advance. Shells exploded on all sides. Many men fell; few rose again. When they had the chance they fired their guns, but it was an unequal contest. Moreover, the twelve machine guns of the three steamers were all now firing at a range of about 1,000 yards. Shaykh
Babikr Badri, who was a few miles away, described the regular volleys as being fired at intervals and the enemy fired on them with a sound like runnnn. The command now fell on the shoulders of Muhammad Ishaq who tried to rally the reduced force. He indicated the new direction with his hand, but was immediately and fatally struck by a whole volley of bullets. In the open space there was no cover for a warrior to concentrate his aim and direct his fire, apart from a few scattered bushes, and even when these were reached the machine-gun fire was directed at them, and men and trees were torn up without discrimination.
⁶⁶

By eight o’clock in the morning, the mismatch was obvious. Thousands of Sudanese soldiers had been wounded or killed, and not one had managed to come close enough to the British lines to throw a spear. Churchill watched the charges lose momentum, waver, and stop. The remaining Sudanese men tried to get away. There was little chance for that.

As the shells burst accurately above the Dervish skirmishers and spearmen who were taking refuge in the folds of the plain, they rose by hundreds and by fifties to fly. Instantly the hungry and attentive Maxims and the watchful infantry opened on them, sweeping them all to the ground—some in death, others in terror. Again the shells followed them to their new concealment. Again they rose, fewer than before, and ran. Again the Maxims and the rifles spluttered. Again they fell. And so on until the front of the
zeriba
was clear of unwounded men for at least half a mile.
⁶⁷

The British cavalry, the Twenty-first Lancers, organized for a sweep of the plain and pounded out from the lines and across the ground to exploit the enemy’s helplessness and confusion. Roughly four hundred horsemen strong, they rode unexpectedly to a large and deep depression, and met a Sudanese force in hiding. The horsemen were too close to stop, so instead they accelerated and collided with the wall of men in the trench. For ten seconds, both sides were stunned. They continued to fight while intermingled, slashing and stabbing and shooting into one another, sometimes with muzzles pressed almost to one another’s flesh. Then the British broke through, but not before having lost more than a
quarter of their horses and suffering seventy wounded or dead men. Less than two minutes had passed since the two groups collided. The British survivors regrouped and wheeled back to prepare to repeat their charge, as riderless horses or horses carrying sagging, bloodied men wandered uselessly about. The Lancers had just completed the last effective British cavalry charge in history. It had been an anachronism in real time, and an example of older, outmoded ideas of tactics urging men to do what Maxim guns no longer required.

The cavalrymen galloped to the Sudanese flank, dismounted, and the two sides exchanged rifle fire as the Sudanese fighters retreated, allowing the British to recover their dead. General Kitchener in the meanwhile had directed his units to move forward and capture Omdurman, and his forces were attacked en route by a massive concentration of the Khalifa’s fighters. The British set their Maxim guns and shattered charge after charge. The battle passed with astonishing quickness. Churchill, a veteran of the seesaw skirmishes against Pashtun tribes on the Afghan and Pakistani frontier, was both astonished and horrified. A huge collection of drilled fighting men had been cut down, almost extinguished, by modern arms. The British force had suffered forty-eight dead, including those lost in the cavalry charge. Contemporaneous estimates of the Sudanese dead exceeded ten thousand, and sometimes were twice that. It was not yet noon. “Within the space of five hours,” Churchill wrote, “the strongest and best-armed savage army yet arrayed against a modern European power had been destroyed and dispersed with hardly any difficulty, comparatively small risk, and insignificant loss to the victors.”