Page 41 - They Also Served

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Edmund Barttelot 1879.
Edmund Musgrave Jones Barttelot
was born in Petworth, Sussex, on 29th
March 1859. He was commissioned
from Sandhurst into the 7th Regiment
of Foot in 1879, which later became
the Royal Fusiliers under the Childers
Reforms of 1881. Joining his Regiment
in India, he fought in the Second Afghan
War and, soon afterwards, the Anglo-
Egyptian War. Remaining in the Middle
East, he was seconded to the Camel
Corps in the Nile Expedition 1884–85
in the attempt to relieve General Gordon at Khartoum. During this expedition, he gained a reputation for quick-tempered brutality. An Arab worker vandalised a water container and struck Barttelot with a stick. He was promptly shot, in a reaction which, even then, many thought was excessive. However, his superiors either ignored or did not know of the incident, and he was promoted to brevet major in recognition of his services.
In 1886, Barttelot volunteered to join Henry Morton Stanley’s Emin Pasha Relief Expedition. This was one of the last major European expeditions into the heart of Africa in the 19th century. Ostensibly, the aim was to rescue Emin Pasha, an Ottoman of German descent, who was the governor of Equatoria in what is now part of both South Sudan and Uganda. It was believed that Emin was in danger from the same Mahdists who had killed General Gordon, and so the expedition had widespread support. There was also an unofficial subtask of annexing tribal lands from either compliant or, more often, duped and confused local chiefs.
The expedition was one of the largest and best equipped to go to Africa at the time. To cut down on overland travel, the party sailed up the Congo River in a steel-hulled boat, which could be dismantled to carry around the rapids, armed with the brand-new Maxim machine gun. Stanley split his force, leaving Barttelot in charge of the rear column at Yambuya in the north of modern-day Democratic Republic of Congo. The party, which included a handful of other Europeans, was to gather additional porters to send north to assist with the main expedition. Stanley pressed on, scattering
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