Directors of Veterinary Services in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan: Robert Starmer Audas (Assistant Director, 1925-1932) 1909-1935

Robert Starmer Audas served in Sudan in various capacities with several military and civil entities between 1909 and 1935. Along with Claud Percy Fisher (1918-1944), the tenth of the twelve veterinarians who served as Directors of Veterinary Services, and with 26 years of residence, he was the longest serving soldier of the Royal Army Veterinary Corps in the country. Audas worked in several of the more remote provinces in the early years of his time in Sudan. His “home”, however, was Darfur where he worked as Veterinary Inspector during two main periods. The first of these was before, and the other after his stint in Khartoum as Assistant Director of Veterinary Services until that post was abolished. In the context of RAVC officers in Sudan Audas was somewhat unusual. He was not retransferred to the British from the Egyptian Army on the outbreak of World War I. He was not awarded either of the two Turkish Orders of the Osmanieh or Medjidie although he did achieve the Order of the Nile, first in the Fourth Class then later in the Third. He was awarded the Military Cross in the King's New Year Honours in 1919 along with several hundred others but without a particular citation. He contrived to see a lot of military action in “punitive” expeditions against both the “negroes” of southern Sudan and the Arabs in the west and garnered five clasps (only one other British officer achieved as many) to his Khedive's Sudan Medal between 1910 and 1921. In the British Army he was never promoted from Captain but in the Egyptian Army progressed from Bimbashi to Kaimakan with the honorary title of Bey. For just over one year in 1926 and 1927 he carried the rank of Major whilst serving as the Principal Veterinary Officer of the Sudan Defence Force. After retirement in 1935 he was again in Sudan for six months at the end of 1936 and beginning of 1937 on special (but publicly unspecified) duties. During this period, however, he was in Darfur on a private hunting trip with a former British Army officer with whom he had a long friendship. He appears to have done little of note after this period and spent a quiet period in retirement. His health deteriorated during the 1960s and he was almost blind when he died in 1966.