Eminent Victorians — The End of General Gordon, Part 3

The Egyptian Governor-General at Khartoum, hearing that a religious movement was afoot, grew disquieted, and dispatched an emissary to Abba Island to summon the impostor to his presence.

The emissary was courteously received.

Mohammed Ahmed, he said, must come at once to Khartoum.

'Must!'

exclaimed the Mahdi, starting to his feet, with a strange look in his eyes.

The look was so strange that the emissary thought it advisable to cut short the interview and to return to Khartoum empty-handed.

Thereupon, the Governor-General sent 200 soldiers to seize the audacious rebel by force.

With his handful of friends, the Mahdi fell upon the soldiers and cut them to pieces.

The news spread like wild-fire through the country: the Mahdi had arisen, the Egyptians were destroyed.

But it was clear to the little band of enthusiasts at Abba Island that their position on the river was no longer tenable.

The Mahdi, deciding upon a second Hegira, retreated south-westward, into the depths of Kordofan.

The retreat was a triumphal progress.

The country, groaning under alien misgovernment and vibrating with religious excitement, suddenly found in this rebellious prophet a rallying-point, a hero, a deliverer.

And now another element was added to the forces of insurrection.

The Baggara tribes of Kordofan, cattle-owners and slave-traders, the most warlike and vigorous of the inhabitants of the Sudan, threw in their lot with the Mahdi.

Their powerful Emirs, still smarting from the blows of Gordon, saw that the opportunity for revenge had come.

A holy war was proclaimed against the Egyptian misbelievers.

The followers of the Mahdi, dressed, in token of a new austerity of living, in the 'jibbeh', or white smock of coarse cloth, patched with variously shaped and coloured patches, were rapidly organised into a formidable army.

Several attacks from Khartoum were repulsed; and at last, the Mahdi felt strong enough to advance against the enemy.

While his lieutenants led detachments into the vast provinces lying to the west and the south--Darfur and Bahr-el-Ghazal--he himself marched upon El Obeid, the capital of Kordofan.

It was in vain that reinforcements were hurried from Khartoum to the assistance of the garrison: there was some severe fighting; the town was completely cut off; and, after a six months' siege, it surrendered.

A great quantity of guns and ammunition and L100,000 in spices fell into the hands of the Mahdi.

He was master of Kordofan: he was at the head of a great army; he was rich; he was worshipped.

A dazzling future opened before him.

No possibility seemed too remote, no fortune too magnificent.

A vision of universal empire hovered before his eyes.

Allah, whose servant he was, who had led him thus far, would lead him onward still, to the glorious end.

For some months he remained at El Obeid, consolidating his dominion.

In a series of circular letters, he described his colloquies with the Almighty and laid down the rule of living which his followers were to pursue.

The faithful, under pain of severe punishment, were to return to the ascetic simplicity of ancient times.

A criminal code was drawn up, meting out executions, mutilations, and floggings with a barbaric zeal.

The blasphemer was to be instantly hanged, the adulterer was to be scourged with whips of rhinoceros hide, the thief was to have his right hand and his left foot hacked off in the marketplace.

No more were marriages to be celebrated with pomp and feasting, no more was the youthful warrior to swagger with flowing hair; henceforth, the believer must banquet on dates and milk, and his head must be kept shaved.

Minor transgressions were punished by confiscation of property or by imprisonment and chains.

But the rhinoceros whip was the favourite instrument of chastisement.

Men were flogged for drinking a glass of wine, they were flogged for smoking; if they swore, they received eighty lashes for every expletive; and after eighty lashes it was a common thing to die.

Before long, flogging grew to be so everyday an incident that the young men made a game of it, as a test of their endurance of pain.

With this Spartan ferocity there was mingled the glamour and the mystery of the East.

The Mahdi himself, his four Khalifas, and the principal Emirs, masters of sudden riches, surrounded themselves with slaves and women, with trains of horses and asses, with body guards and glittering arms.

There were rumours of debaucheries in high places--of the Mahdi, forgetful of his own ordinances, revelling in the recesses of his harem, and quaffing date syrup mixed with ginger out of the silver cups looted from the church of the Christians.

But that imposing figure had only to show itself for the tongue of scandal to be stilled.

The tall, broad-shouldered, majestic man, with the dark face and black beard and great eyes--who could doubt that he was the embodiment of a superhuman power?

Fascination dwelt in every movement, every glance.

The eyes, painted with antimony, flashed extraordinary fires; the exquisite smile revealed, beneath the vigorous lips, white upper teeth with a V-shaped space between them--the certain sign of fortune.

His turban was folded with faultless art, his jibbeh, speckless, was perfumed with sandal-wood, musk, and attar of roses.

He was at once all courtesy and all command.

Thousands followed him, thousands prostrated themselves before him; thousands, when he lifted up his voice in solemn worship, knew that the heavens were opened and that they had come near to God.

Then all at once the onbeia--the elephant's-tusk trumpet--would give out its enormous sound.

The nahas--the brazen wardrums--would summon, with their weird rolling, the whole host to arms.

The green flag and the red flag and the black flag would rise over the multitude.

The great army would move forward, coloured, glistening, dark, violent, proud, beautiful.

The drunkenness, the madness of religion would blaze on every face; and the Mahdi, immovable on his charger, would let the scene grow under his eyes in silence.

El Obeid fell in January, 1883. Meanwhile, events of the deepest importance had occurred in Egypt.

The rise of Arabi had synchronised with that of the Mahdi.

Both movements were nationalist; both were directed against alien rulers who had shown themselves unfit to rule.

While the Sudanese were shaking off the yoke of Egypt, the Egyptians themselves grew impatient of their own masters--the Turkish and Circassian Pashas who filled with their incompetence all the high offices of state.

The army led by Ahmed Arabi, a Colonel of fellah origin, mutinied, the Khedive gave way, and it seemed as if a new order were about to be established.

A new order was indeed upon the point of appearing: but it was of a kind undreamt of in Arabi's philosophy.

At the critical moment, the English Government intervened.

An English fleet bombarded Alexandria, an English army landed under Lord Wolseley, and defeated Arabi and his supporters at Tel-el-kebir.

The rule of the Pashas was nominally restored; but henceforth, in effect, the English were masters of Egypt.

Nevertheless, the English themselves were slow to recognise this fact: their Government had intervened unwillingly; the occupation of the country was a merely temporary measure; their army was to be withdrawn as soon as a tolerable administration had been set up.

But a tolerable administration, presided over by the Pashas, seemed long in coming, and the English army remained.

In the meantime, the Mahdi had entered El Obeid, and his dominion was rapidly spreading over the greater part of the Sudan.

Then a terrible catastrophe took place.

The Pashas, happy once more in Cairo, pulling the old strings and growing fat over the old flesh-pots, decided to give the world an unmistakable proof of their renewed vigour.

They would tolerate the insurrection in the Sudan no longer; they would destroy the Mahdi, reduce his followers to submission, and re-establish their own beneficent rule over the whole country.

To this end they collected together an army of 10,000 men, and placed it under the command of Colonel Hicks, a retired English officer.

He was ordered to advance and suppress the rebellion.

In these proceedings the English Government refused to take any part.

Unable, or unwilling, to realise that, so long as there was an English army in Egypt they could not avoid the responsibilities of supreme power, they declared that the domestic policy of the Egyptian administration was no concern of theirs.

It was a fatal error--an error which they themselves, before many weeks were over, were to be forced by the hard logic of events to admit.

The Pashas, left to their own devices, mismanaged the Hicks expedition to their hearts' content.

The miserable troops, swept together from the relics of Arabi's disbanded army, were dispatched to Khartoum in chains.

After a month's drilling, they were pronounced to be fit to attack the fanatics of the Sudan.

Colonel Hicks was a brave man; urged on by the authorities in Cairo, he shut his eyes to the danger ahead of him, and marched out from Khartoum in the direction of El Obeid at the beginning of September, 1883. Abandoning his communications, he was soon deep in the desolate wastes of Kordofan.

As he advanced, his difficulties increased; the guides were treacherous, the troops grew exhausted, the supply of water gave out.

He pressed on, and at last, on November 5th, not far from El Obeid, the harassed, fainting, almost desperate army plunged into a vast forest of gumtrees and mimosa scrub.

There was a sudden, appalling yell; the Mahdi, with 40,000 of his finest men, sprang from their ambush.

The Egyptians were surrounded, and immediately overpowered.

It was not a defeat, but an annihilation.

Hicks and his European staff were slaughtered; the whole army was slaughtered; 300 wounded wretches crept away into the forest.

The consequences of this event were felt in every part of the Sudan.

To the westward, in Darfur, the Governor, Slatin Pasha, after a prolonged and valiant resistance, was forced to surrender, and the whole province fell into the hands of the rebels.

Southwards, in the Bahr-el-Ghazal, Lupton Bey was shut up in a remote stronghold, while the country was overrun.

The Mahdi's triumphs were beginning to penetrate even into the tropical regions of Equatoria; the tribes were rising, and Emir Pasha was preparing to retreat towards the Great Lakes.

On the East, Osman Digna pushed the insurrection right up to the shores of the Red Sea and laid siege to Suakin.

Before the year was over, with the exception of a few isolated and surrounded garrisons, the Mahdi was absolute lord of a territory equal to the combined area of Spain, France, and Germany; and his victorious armies were rapidly closing round Khartoum.

When the news of the Hicks disaster reached Cairo, the Pashas calmly announced that they would collect another army of 10,000 men, and again attack the Mahdi; but the English Government understood at last the gravity of the case.

They saw that a crisis was upon them, and that they could no longer escape the implications of their position in Egypt.

What were they to do?

Were they to allow the Egyptians to become more and more deeply involved in a ruinous, perhaps ultimately a fatal, war with the Mahdi?

And, if not, what steps were they to take?

A small minority of the party then in power in England--the Liberal Party--were anxious to withdraw from Egypt altogether and at once.

On the other hand, another and a more influential minority, with representatives in the Cabinet, were in favour of a more active intervention in Egyptian affairs--of the deliberate use of the power of England to give to Egypt internal stability and external security; they were ready, if necessary, to take the field against the Mahdi with English troops.

But the great bulk of the party, and the Cabinet, with Mr. Gladstone at their head, preferred a middle course.

Realising the impracticality of an immediate withdrawal, they were nevertheless determined to remain in Egypt not a moment longer than was necessary, and, in the meantime, to interfere as little as possible in Egyptian affairs.

From a campaign in the Sudan conducted by an English army they were altogether averse.

If, therefore, the English army was not to be used, and the Egyptian army was not fit to be used against the Mahdi, it followed that any attempt to reconquer the Sudan must be abandoned; the remaining Egyptian troops must be withdrawn, and in future military operations must be limited to those of a strictly defensive kind.

Such was the decision of the English Government.

Their determination was strengthened by two considerations: in the first place, they saw that the Mahdi's rebellion was largely a nationalist movement, directed against an alien power, and, in the second place, the policy of withdrawal from the Sudan was the policy of their own representative in Egypt, Sir Evelyn Baring, who had lately been appointed Consul-General at Cairo.

There was only one serious obstacle in the way--the attitude of the Pashas at the head of the Egyptian Government.

The infatuated old men were convinced that they would have better luck next time, that another army and another Hicks would certainly destroy the Mahdi, and that, even if the Mahdi were again victorious, yet another army and yet another Hicks would no doubt be forthcoming, and that THEY would do the trick, or, failing that ...

but they refused to consider eventualities any further.

In the face of such opposition, the English Government, unwilling as they were to interfere, saw that there was no choice open to them but to exercise pressure.

They therefore instructed Sir Evelyn Baring, in the event of the Egyptian Government refusing to withdraw from the Sudan, to insist upon the Khedive's appointing other Ministers who would be willing to do so.

Meanwhile, not only the Government, but the public in England were beginning to realise the alarming nature of the Egyptian situation.

It was some time before the details of the Hicks expedition were fully known, but when they were, and when the appalling character of the disaster was understood, a thrill of horror ran through the country.

The newspapers became full of articles on the Sudan, of personal descriptions of the Mahdi, of agitated letters from colonels and clergymen demanding vengeance, and of serious discussions of future policy in Egypt.

Then, at the beginning of the new year, alarming messages began to arrive from Khartoum.

Colonel Coetlogon, who was in command of the Egyptian troops, reported a menacing concentration of the enemy.

Day by day, hour by hour, affairs grew worse.

The Egyptians were obviously outnumbered: they could not maintain themselves in the field;

Khartoum was in danger; at any moment, its investment might be complete.

And, with Khartoum once cut off from communication with Egypt, what might not happen?

Colonel Coetlogon began to calculate how long the city would hold out.

Perhaps it could not resist the Mahdi for a month, perhaps for more than a month; but he began to talk of the necessity of a speedy retreat.

It was clear that a climax was approaching, and that measures must be taken to forestall it at once.

Accordingly, Sir Evelyn Baring, on receipt of final orders from England, presented an ultimatum to the Egyptian Government: the Ministry must either sanction the evacuation of the Sudan, or it must resign.

The Ministry was obstinate, and, on January 7th, 1884, it resigned, to be replaced by a more pliable body of Pashas.

On the same day, General Gordon arrived at Southampton.

He was over fifty, and he was still, by the world's measurements, an unimportant man.

In spite of his achievements, in spite of a certain celebrity--for 'Chinese Gordon' was still occasionally spoken of--he was unrecognised and almost unemployed.

He had spent a lifetime in the dubious services of foreign governments, punctuated by futile drudgeries at home; and now, after a long idleness, he had been sent for--to do what?

--to look after the Congo for the King of the Belgians.

At his age, even if he survived the work and the climate, he could hardly look forward to any subsequent appointment; he would return from the Congo, old and worn out, to a red-brick villa and extinction.

Such were General Gordon's prospects on January 7th, 1884. By January 18th, his name was on every tongue, he was the favourite of the nation, he had been declared to be the one living man capable of coping with the perils of the hour; he had been chosen, with unanimous approval, to perform a great task; and he had left England on a mission which was to bring him not only a boundless popularity, but an immortal fame.

The circumstances which led to a change so sudden and so remarkable are less easily explained than might have been wished.

An ambiguity hangs over them--an ambiguity which the discretion of eminent persons has certainly not diminished.

But some of the facts are clear enough.

The decision to withdraw from the Sudan had no sooner been taken than it had become evident that the operation would be a difficult and hazardous one, and that it would be necessary to send to Khartoum an emissary armed with special powers and possessed of special ability, to carry it out.

Towards the end of November, somebody at the War Office--it is not clear who--had suggested that this emissary should be General Gordon.

Lord Granville, the Foreign Secretary, had thereupon telegraphed to Sir Evelyn Baring asking whether, in his opinion, the presence of General Gordon would be useful in Egypt; Sir Evelyn Baring had replied that the Egyptian Government was averse to this proposal, and the matter had dropped.

There was no further reference to Gordon in the official dispatches until after his return to England.

Nor, before that date, was any allusion made to him as a possible unraveller of the Sudan difficulty, in the Press.

In all the discussions which followed the news of the Hicks disaster, his name is only to be found in occasional and incidental references to his work "In the Sudan".

The "Pall Mall Gazette", which, more than any other newspaper, interested itself in Egyptian affairs, alluded to Gordon once or twice as a geographical expert; but, in an enumeration of the leading authorities on the Sudan, left him out of account altogether.

Yet it was from the "Pall Mall Gazette" that the impulsion which projected him into a blaze of publicity finally came.

Mr. Stead, its enterprising editor, went down to Southampton the day after Gordon's arrival there, and obtained an interview.

Now when he was in the mood--after a little b. and s. , especially--no one was more capable than Gordon, with his facile speech and his free-and-easy manners, of furnishing good copy for a journalist;

and Mr. Stead made the most of his opportunity.

The interview, copious and pointed, was published next day in the most prominent part of the paper, together with a leading article, demanding that the General should be immediately dispatched to Khartoum with the widest powers.

The rest of the Press, both in London and in the provinces, at once took up the cry: General Gordon was a capable and energetic officer, he was a noble and God-fearing man, he was a national asset, he was a statesman in the highest sense of the word; the occasion was pressing and perilous; General Gordon had been for years Governor-General of the Sudan; General Gordon alone had the knowledge, the courage, the virtue, which would save the situation; General Gordon must go to Khartoum.

So, for a week, the papers sang in chorus.

But already those in high places had taken a step.

Mr. Stead's interview appeared on the afternoon of January 9th, and on the morning of January 10th Lord Granville telegraphed to Sir Evelyn Baring, proposing, for a second time, that Gordon's services should be utilised in Egypt.

But Sir Evelyn Baring, for the second time, rejected the proposal.

While these messages were flashing to and fro, Gordon himself was paying a visit to the Rev. Mr. Barnes at the Vicarage of Heavitree, near Exeter.

The conversation ran chiefly on Biblical and spiritual matters--on the light thrown by the Old Testament upon the geography of Palestine, and on the relations between man and his Maker; but, there were moments when topics of a more worldly interest arose.

It happened that Sir Samuel Baker, Gordon's predecessor in Equatoria, lived in the neighbourhood.

A meeting was arranged, and the two ex-Governors, with Mr. Barnes in attendance, went for a drive together.

In the carriage, Sir Samuel Baker, taking up the tale of the "Pall Mall Gazette", dilated upon the necessity of his friend's returning to the Sudan as Governor-General.

Gordon was silent; but Mr. Barnes noticed that his blue eyes flashed, while an eager expression passed over his face.

Late that night, after the Vicar had retired to bed, he was surprised by the door suddenly opening, and by the appearance of his guest swiftly tripping into the room.

'You saw me today?'

the low voice abruptly questioned.

'You mean in the carriage?'

replied the startled Mr. Barnes.

'Yes,' came the reply; 'you saw ME--that was MYSELF--the self I want to get rid of.'

There was a sliding movement, the door swung to, and the Vicar found himself alone again.

It was clear that a disturbing influence had found its way into Gordon's mind.

His thoughts, wandering through Africa, flitted to the Sudan; they did not linger at the Congo.

During the same visit, he took the opportunity of calling upon Dr. Temple, the Bishop of Exeter, and asking him, merely as a hypothetical question, whether, in his opinion, Sudanese converts to Christianity might be permitted to keep three wives.

His Lordship answered that this would be uncanonical.

A few days later, it appeared that the conversation in the carriage at Heavitree had borne fruit.

Gordon wrote a letter to Sir Samuel Baker, further elaborating the opinions on the Sudan which he had already expressed in his interview with Mr. Stead; the letter was clearly intended for publication, and published it was in "The Times" of January 14th.

On the same day, Gordon's name began once more to buzz along the wires in secret questions and answers to and from the highest quarters.

'Might it not be advisable,' telegraphed Lord Granville to Mr. Gladstone, to put a little pressure on Baring, to induce him to accept the assistance of General Gordon?'

Mr. Gladstone replied, also by a telegram, in the affirmative; and on the 15th, Lord Wolseley telegraphed to Gordon begging him to come to London immediately.

Lord Wolseley, who was one of Gordon's oldest friends, was at that time Adjutant-General of the Forces; there was a long interview; and, though the details of the conversation have never transpired, it is known that, in the course of it, Lord Wolseley asked Gordon if he would be willing to go to the Sudan, to which Gordon replied that there was only one objection--his prior engagement to the King of the Belgians.

Before nightfall, Lord Granville, by private telegram, had 'put a little pressure on Baring'.

'He had,' he said, 'heard indirectly that Gordon was ready to go at once to the Sudan on the following rather vague terms: His mission to be to report to Her Majesty's Government on the military situation, and to return without any further engagement.

He would be under you for instructions and will send letters through you under flying seal ...

He might be of use,' Lord Granville added, in informing you and us of the situation.

It would be popular at home, but there may be countervailing objections.

Tell me,' such was Lord Granville's concluding injunction, 'your real opinion.'

It was the third time of asking, and Sir Evelyn Baring resisted no longer.

'Gordon,' he telegraphed on the 16th, 'would be the best man if he will pledge himself to carry out the policy of withdrawing from the Sudan as quickly as is possible, consistently with saving life.

He must also understand that he must take his instructions from the British representative in Egypt ...

I would rather have him than anyone else, provided there is a perfectly clear understanding with him as to what his position is to be and what line of policy he is to carry out.

Otherwise, not ...

Whoever goes should be distinctly warned that he will undertake a service of great difficulty and danger.'