HICKS, WILLIAM (183o-1883), British soldier, entered the Bombay army in 1849, and served through the Indian mutiny and the Abyssinian expedition of 1867-68. He retired with the honorary rank of colonel in 1880. After the close of the Egyptian war of 1882, he entered the khedive's service and was made a pasha. Early in 1883 he went to Khartum as chief of the staff of the army there, then commanded by Suliman Niazi Pasha. Camp was formed at Omdurman and a new force of some 8,000 fighting men collected—mostly recruited from the fellahin of Arabi's disbanded troops, sent in chains from Egypt. After a month's vigorous drilling Hicks led 5,000 of his men against an eq•.ial force of dervishes in Sennar, whom he defeated, and cleared the country between the towns of Sennar and Khartum of rebels. Relieved of the fear of an immediate attack by the mandists, the Egyptian officials at Khartum intrigued against Hicks, who in July tendered his resignation. This resulted in the dismissal of Suliman Niazi and the appointment of Hicks as commander-in chief of an expeditionary force to Kordofan with orders to crush the mandi, who in January 1883 had captured El Obeid, the capital of that province. Hicks, aware of the worthlessness of his force for the purpose contemplated, stated his opinion that it would be best to "wait for Kordofan to settle itself" (telegram of Aug. 5) . The Egyptian ministry, however, did not then believe in the power of the mandi, and the expedition started from Khartum on Sept. 9. It was made up of 7,00o infantry, i,000 cavalry and 2,000 camp followers and included 13 Europeans. On the loth the force left the Nile at Duem and struck inland across the almost waterless wastes of Kordofan for Obeid. On Nov. 5, the army, misled by treacherous guides and thirst-stricken, was ambuscaded in dense forest at Kashgil, 3o m. south of Obeid. With the exception of some 30o men the whole force was killed. According to the story of Hicks's cook, one of the the general was the last officer to fall, pierced by the spear of the khalifa Mohammed Sherif.
See Sir F. R. Wingate, Mandiism and the Egyptian Sudan, book iv. (1891), and J. Colborne, With Hicks Pasha in the Soudan (1884)• See also EGYPT.