MREID

Hello All; Very many thanks for your warm welcome and kind words, I'm just glad that I could help with this long-standing mystery. Ulsterman, I appreciate your frustration with the many and varied medal rolls for the various Egyptian/Sudanese campaigns. There are many dozens of unit rolls as well as a raft of " Special Rolls " which are scattered throughout the entire series. At some stage some unknown War Office clerk took all the medal rolls for the Egyptian Army, 1882-89, and had them bound into two volumes which are now held at Kew at The National Archives, ( TNA ) formerly known as the Public Record Office ( PRO. ) These two volumes are identified as WO ( War Office ) 100/71 and are available to the public, with a Reader's Ticket of course. These rolls have not been microfilmed but I have a complete copy so if anyone wants a specific page copied, please let me know and I would be happy to send you a scan. I won't offer to send the whole series because it's about 800 pages long! Harry, what a interesting tale! I am quite intrigued to read about how the Germans recruited Sudanese ex-soldiers. The Egyptian Treasury was an unhealthy beast and on a couple of occasions, recently-raised battalions were disbanded temporarily and the soldiers left to fend for themselves. Some of these soldiers would have served in the old, pre-1883 Egyptian Army and would have been experienced veterans. However, I must admit to being a little sceptical that our man , Mohamed el Zeini, would be a likely candidate for the Germans. The word Sudan means " Land of the Blacks " and in the 19th, early 20th century a Sudanese soldier, by definition, was a black soldier. Egyptians were quite proud of their superior racial status over blacks and kept them in separate units. The first 8 infantry battalions were raised exclusively from Arabic Egyptians and black Sudanese were not enlisted until the 9th Bn. was raised in 1884, primaraily from former soldiers who had escaped from the Sudan. " Brown " Egyptians would not have served beside black Sudanese, except as officers, and I suspect that the Germans would have enlisted only the latter to serve in Africa. All this to say that Mohamed el Zeini was an Egyptian, with 4-5 years service as a Private and he would probably not have been recruited to serve as a soldier beside men whom he would have considered racially inferior. Sadly, racism is not confined to one race or nation and seems to have existed throughout Time.I think it unlikely that he would have been selected as an NCO either. The Egyptian Army was quite good about promoting people on merit and their Sudanese battalions were well-staffed with men who had come up through the ranks, although their literacy skills may have been poor. On another point, Sudanese soldiers would not have spoken Arabic as their first language. Most Sudanese soldiers in the Egyptian Army came from the Nilotic tribes and spoke the Shilluk or Dinka language. When they joined the Egyptian Army they had to have a crash course in Arabic and to learn the concept and practice of numbers, an idea unknown in their culture. One possible solution is that the recpient of the German awards in the medal group was missing his original Egypt Medal and simply acquired a replacement from some jeweller or scrap metal dealer. We should remember that the medal is named entirely in English and there is no reason to beleive that Mohamed el Zeini had any idea what any of this writing meant, he just recognised that it was the same medal that he had received for his military service under His Highness the Khedive. Stranger things have happened, I suppose. Anyway, I hope I haven't blethered on too much. If anyone would like more info on the Egyptian Army of the period please give me a shout. I look forward to learning more from this fascinating forum. Cheers, Mark

Hi All; As a new arrival to the Club, perhaps I can be permitted to offer some additional information to this subject? I can't comment on the group as a whole but I can tell you that the Egypt medal is properly named to a soldier of the Egyptian Army. Certain issues of the medal were named in the UK before distribution to their Egyptian recipients and the naming on this example is consistent with every example that I have seen for the 1885 Suakin campaign. No. 233 of the 5th Infantry Bn. of the Egyptian Army ( EA ) is on the medal roll and noted as being entitled to the clasp Suakin 1885. His unit arrived at Suakin in mid-1884 and remained in garrison until November 1887, fighting almost continuously against the local tribesmen who were led by the wily Osman Digna. The 5th Bn. was commanded by Kaimakam Zuhri Pasha, a veteran of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78, and at least one British officer ( A. Haggard ) described the battalion as " very good and smart. " It should be noted that soldiers in Egyptian society of the time didn't rate very high and when the medal rolls were submitted only their regimental numbers were recorded, their names not being deemed very important; they were just nameless felahin or peasants, after all ( ! ) However, the 1888-89 medal roll for this Battalion does include names and it gives me great pleasure to tell you that No. 233 was actually Mohamed Hussein el Zeini. Egyptian soldiers had a 4-5 year enlistment term so he was just at the tail-end of his military career. It may be significant, in light of his possible future service with the German forces that Mohamed el Zeini remained a Nafar, or Private, for his whole service with the EA. As I wrote above, I know nothing about Imperial German awards but will just add that Egyptian soldiers wore the Khedive's Star, their national award, in front of the Egypt Medal, justly regarded as a foreign award. Hope this was of some help. Cheers, Mark