A Secret History of the English
Occupation
of Egypt.
Strachey - Eminent Victorians
The
Journal ended upon a note of menace and disdain:
'Now MARK THIS, if the Expeditionary Force, and I ask for no more than
200 men, does not come in ten days, the town may fall; and I have done
my best for the honour of our country. Good-bye. --C. G. GORDON.
'You send me no information, though you have lots of money. C. G. G. '
To his sister Augusta he was more explicit.
'I decline to agree,' he told her, 'that the expedition comes for my
relief; it comes for the relief of the garrisons, which I failed to
accomplish. I expect Her Majesty's Government are in a precious rage
with me for holding out and forcing their hand. '
The admission is significant. And then came the final adieux.
'This may be the last letter you will receive from me, for we are on our
last legs, owing to the delay of the expedition. However, God rules all,
and, as He will rule to His glory and our welfare, His will be done. I
fear, owing to circumstances, that my affairs are pecuniarily not over
bright . . . your affectionate brother, C. G. GORDON.
'P. S. I am quite happy, thank God, and, like Lawrence, I have TRIED to
do my duty. '
The delay of the expedition was even more serious than Gordon had
supposed. Lord Wolseley had made the most elaborate preparations. He had
collected together a picked army of 10,000 of the finest British troops;
he had arranged a system of river transports with infinite care. For it
was his intention to take no risks; he would advance in force up the
Nile; he had determined that the fate of Gordon should not depend upon
the dangerous hazards of a small and hasty exploit. There is no
doubt--in view of the opposition which the relieving force actually met
with--that his decision was a wise one; but unfortunately, he had
miscalculated some of the essential elements in the situation. When his
preparations were at last complete, it was found that the Nile had sunk
so low that the flotillas, over which so much care had been lavished,
and upon which depended the whole success of the campaign, would be
unable to surmount the cataracts. At the same time--it was by then the
middle of November--a message arrived from Gordon indicating that
Khartoum was in serious straits. It was clear that an immediate advance
was necessary; the river route was out of the question; a swift dash
across the desert was the only possible expedient after all. But no
preparations for land transport had been made; weeks elapsed before a
sufficient number of camels could be collected; and more weeks before
those collected were trained for military march. It was not until
December 30th--more than a fortnight after the last entry in Gordon's
Journal--that Sir Herbert Stewart, at the head of 1,100 British troops,
was able to leave Korti on his march towards Metemmah, 170 miles across
the desert. His advance was slow, and it was tenaciously disputed by,
the Mahdi's forces. There was a desperate engagement on January 17th at
the wells of Abu Klea; the British square was broken; for a moment
victory hung in the balance; but the Arabs were repulsed. On the 19th
there was another furiously contested fight, in which Sir Herbert
Stewart was killed. On the 21st, the force, now diminished by over 250
casualties, reached Metemmah. Three days elapsed in reconnoitering the
country, and strengthening the position of the camp. On the 24th, Sir
Charles Wilson, who had succeeded to the command, embarked on the
Bordeen, and started up the river for Khartoum. On the following
evening, the vessel struck on a rock, causing a further delay of
twenty-four hours. It was not until January 28th that Sir Charles
Wilson, arriving under a heavy fire within sight of Khartoum, saw that
the Egyptian flag was not flying from the roof of the palace. The signs
of ruin and destruction on every hand showed clearly enough that the
town had fallen. The relief expedition was two days late.
The details of what passed within Khartoum during the last weeks of the
siege are unknown to us. In the diary of Bordeini Bey, a Levantine
merchant, we catch a few glimpses of the final stages of the
catastrophe--of the starving populace, the exhausted garrison, the
fluctuations of despair and hope, the dauntless energy of the
Governor-General. Still he worked on, indefatigably, apportioning
provisions, collecting ammunition, consulting with the townspeople,
encouraging the soldiers. His hair had suddenly turned quite white. Late
one evening, Bordeini Bey went to visit him in the palace, which was
being bombarded by the Mahdi's cannon. The high building, brilliantly
lighted up, afforded an excellent mark. As the shot came whistling
around the windows, the merchant suggested that it would be advisable to
stop them up with boxes full of sand. Upon this, Gordon Pasha became
enraged.
'He called up the guard, and gave them orders to shoot me if I moved; he
then brought a very large lantern which would hold twenty-four candles.
He and I then put the candles into the sockets, placed the lantern on
the table in front of the window, lit the candles, and then we sat down
at the table. The Pasha then said, "When God was portioning out fear to
all the people in the world, at last it came to my turn, and there was
no fear left to give me. Go, tell all the people in Khartoum that Gordon
fears nothing, for God has created him without fear. "'
On January 5th, Omdurman, a village on the opposite bank of the Nile,
which had hitherto been occupied by the besieged, was taken by the
Arabs. The town was now closely surrounded, and every chance of
obtaining fresh supplies was cut off. The famine became terrible; dogs,
donkeys, skins, gum, palm fibre, were devoured by the desperate
inhabitants. The soldiers stood on the fortifications like pieces of
wood. Hundreds died of hunger daily: their corpses filled the streets;
and the survivors had not the strength to bury the dead. On the 20th,
the news of the battle of Abu Klea reached Khartoum. The English were
coming at last. Hope rose; every morning the Governor-General assured
the townspeople that one day more would see the end of their sufferings;
and night after night his words were proved untrue.
On the 23rd, a rumour spread that a spy had arrived with letters, and
that the English army was at hand. A merchant found a piece of newspaper
lying in the road, in which it was stated that the strength of the
relieving forces was 15,000 men. For a moment, hope flickered up again,
only to relapse once more. The rumour, the letters, the printed paper,
all had been contrivances of Gordon to inspire the garrison with the
courage to hold out. On the 25th, it was obvious that the Arabs were
preparing an attack, and a deputation of the principal inhabitants
waited upon the Governor-General. But he refused to see them; Bordeini
Bey was alone admitted to his presence. He was sitting on a divan, and,
as Bordeini Bey came into the room, he snatched the fez from his head
and flung it from him.
'What more can I say? ' he exclaimed, in a voice such as the merchant had
never heard before. 'The people will no longer believe me. I have told
them over and over again that help would be here, but it has never come,
and now they must see I tell them lies. I can do nothing more. Go, and
collect all the people you can on the lines, and make a good stand. Now
leave me to smoke these cigarettes. '
Bordeini Bey knew then, he tells us, that Gordon Pasha was in despair.
He left the room, having looked upon the Governor-General for the last
time.
When the English force reached Metemmah, the Mahdi, who had originally
intended to reduce Khartoum to surrender through starvation, decided to
attempt its capture by assault. The receding Nile had left one portion
of the town's circumference undefended; as the river withdrew, the
rampart had crumbled; a broad expanse of mud was left between the wall
and the water, and the soldiers, overcome by hunger and the lassitude of
hopelessness, had trusted to the morass to protect them, and neglected
to repair the breach. Early on the morning of the 26th, the Arabs
crossed the river at this point. The mud, partially dried up, presented
no obstacle; nor did the ruined fortification, feebly manned by some
half-dying troops. Resistance was futile, and it was scarcely offered:
the Mahdi's army swarmed into Khartoum. Gordon had long debated with
himself what his action should be at the supreme moment. 'I shall never
(D. V. ),' he had told Sir Evelyn Baring, 'be taken alive. ' He had had
gunpowder put into the cellars of the palace, so that the whole building
might, at a moment's notice, be blown into the air. But then misgivings
had come upon him; was it not his duty 'to maintain the faith, and, if
necessary, to suffer for it'? --to remain a tortured and humiliated
witness of his Lord in the Mahdi's chains? The blowing up of the palace
would have, he thought, 'more or less the taint of suicide', would be,
in a way, taking things out of God's hands'. He remained undecided; and
meanwhile, to be ready for every contingency, he kept one of his little
armoured vessels close at hand on the river, with steam up, day and
night, to transport him, if so he should decide, southward, through the
enemy, to the recesses of Equatoria. The sudden appearance of the Arabs,
the complete collapse of the defence, saved him the necessity of making
up his mind. He had been on the roof, in his dressing-gown, when the
attack began; and he had only time to hurry to his bedroom, to slip on a
white uniform, and to seize up a sword and a revolver, before the
foremost of the assailants were in the palace. The crowd was led by four
of the fiercest of the Mahdi's followers--tall and swarthy Dervishes,
splendid in their many-coloured jibbehs, their great swords drawn from
their scabbards of brass and velvet, their spears flourishing above
their heads. Gordon met them at the top of the staircase. For a moment,
there was a deathly pause, while he stood in silence, surveying his
antagonists. Then it is said that Taha Shahin, the Dongolawi, cried in a
loud voice, 'Mala' oun el yom yomek! ' (O cursed one, your time is come),
and plunged his spear into the Englishman's body. His only reply was a
gesture of contempt. Another spear transfixed him; he fell, and the
swords of the three other Dervishes instantly hacked him to death. Thus,
if we are to believe the official chroniclers, in the dignity of
unresisting disdain, General Gordon met his end. But it is only fitting
that the last moments of one whose whole life was passed in
contradiction should be involved in mystery and doubt. Other witnesses
told a very different story. The man whom they saw die was not a saint
but a warrior. With intrepidity, with skill, with desperation, he flew
at his enemies. When his pistol was exhausted, he fought on with his
sword; he forced his way almost to the bottom of the staircase; and,
among, a heap of corpses, only succumbed at length to the sheer weight
of the multitudes against him.
That morning, while Slatin Pasha was sitting in his chains in the camp
at Omdurman, he saw a group of Arabs approaching, one of whom was
carrying something wrapped up in a cloth. As the group passed him, they
stopped for a moment, and railed at him in savage mockery. Then the
cloth was lifted, and he saw before him Gordon's head. The trophy was
taken to the Mahdi: at last the two fanatics had indeed met face to
face. The Mahdi ordered the head to be fixed between the branches of a
tree in the public highway, and all who passed threw stones at it. The
hawks of the desert swept and circled about it--those very hawks which
the blue eyes had so often watched.
The news of the catastrophe reached England, and a great outcry arose.
The public grief vied with the public indignation. The Queen, in a
letter to Miss Gordon, immediately gave vent both to her own sentiments
and those of the nation.
'HOW shall I write to you,' she exclaimed, 'or how shall I attempt to
express WHAT I FEEL! To THINK of your dear, noble, heroic Brother, who
served his Country and his Queen so truly, so heroically, with a
self-sacrifice so edifying to the World, not having been rescued. That
the promises of support were not fulfilled--which I so frequently and
constantly pressed on those who asked him to go--is to me GRIEF
INEXPRESSIBLE! Indeed, it has made me ill . . . Would you express to your
other sisters and your elder Brother my true sympathy, and what I do so
keenly feel, the STAIN left upon England, for your dear Brother's cruel,
though heroic, fate! '
In reply, Miss Gordon presented the Queen with her brother's Bible,
which was placed in one of the corridors at Windsor, open, on a white
satin cushion, and enclosed in a crystal case. In the meanwhile, Gordon
was acclaimed in every newspaper as a national martyr; State services
were held in his honour at Westminster and St Paul's; L20,000 was voted
to his family; and a great sum of money was raised by subscription to
endow a charity in his memory. Wrath and execration fell, in particular,
upon the head of Mr. Gladstone. He was little better than a murderer; he
was a traitor; he was a heartless villain, who had been seen at the play
on the very night when Gordon's death was announced. The storm passed;
but Mr. Gladstone had soon to cope with a still more serious agitation.
The cry was raised on every side that the national honour would be
irreparably tarnished if the Mahdi were left in the peaceful possession
of Khartoum, and that the Expeditionary Force should be at once employed
to chastise the false prophet and to conquer the Sudan. But it was in
vain that the imperialists clamoured; in vain that Lord Wolseley wrote
several dispatches, proving over and over again that to leave the Mahdi
unconquered must involve the ruin of Egypt; in vain that Lord Hartington
at last discovered that he had come to the same conclusion. The old man
stood firm. Just then, a crisis with Russia on the Afghan frontier
supervened; and Mr. Gladstone, pointing out that every available soldier
might be wanted at any moment for a European war, withdrew Lord Wolseley
and his army from Egypt. The Russian crisis disappeared. The Mahdi
remained supreme lord of the Sudan.
And yet it was not with the Mahdi that the future lay. Before six months
were out, in the plenitude of his power, he died, and the Khalifa
Abdullahi reigned in his stead. The future lay with Major Kitchener and
his Maxim-Nordenfeldt guns. Thirteen years later the Mahdi's empire was
abolished forever in the gigantic hecatomb of Omdurman; after which it
was thought proper that a religious ceremony in honour of General Gordon
should be held at the palace at Khartoum. The service was conducted by
four chaplains--of the Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian, and Methodist
persuasions--and concluded with a performance of 'Abide with Me'--the
General's favourite hymn--by a select company of Sudanese buglers. Every
one agreed that General Gordon had been avenged at last. Who could doubt
it? General Gordon himself, possibly, fluttering, in some remote
Nirvana, the pages of a phantasmal Bible, might have ventured on a
satirical remark. But General Gordon had always been a contradictious
person--even a little off his head, perhaps, though a hero; and besides,
he was no longer there to contradict . . . At any rate, it had all ended
very happily--in a glorious slaughter of 20,000 Arabs, a vast addition
to the British Empire, and a step in the Peerage for Sir Evelyn Baring.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
General Gordon. Reflections in Palestine. Letters. Khartoum Journals.
E. Hake. The Story of Chinese Gordon.
H. W. Gordon. Events in the Life of C. G. Gordon.
D. C. Boulger. Life of General Gordon.
Sir W. Butler. General Gordon.
Rev. R. H. Barnes and C. E, Brown. Charles George Gordon: A Sketch.
A. Bioves. Un Grand Aventurier.
Li Hung Chang. Memoirs. *
Colonel Chaille-Long. My Life in Four Continents.
Lord Cromer. Modern Egypt.
Sir R. Wingate. Mahdiism and the Sudan.
Sir R. Slatin. Fire and Sword in the Sudan.
J. Ohrwalder. Ten Years of Captivity in the Mahdi's Camp.
C. Neufeld. A Prisoner of the Khaleefa.
Wilfrid Blunt.
A Secret History of the English Occupation of Egypt.
Gordon at Khartoum.
Winston Churchill. The River War.
F. Power. Letters from Khartoum.
Lord Morley. Life of Gladstone.
George W. Smalley. Mr Gladstone. Harper's Magazine, 1898.
B. Holland. Life of the Eighth Duke of Devonshire.
Lord Fitzmaurice. Life of the Second Earl Granville.
S. Gwynn and Gertrude Tuckwell. Life of Sir Charles Dilke.
Arthur Rimbaud. Lettres.
G. F. Steevens. With Kitchener to Khartoum.
* The authenticity of the Diary contained in this book has been
disputed, notably by Mr. J. 0. P. Bland in his Li Hung Chang.
(Constable, 1917)
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Journal ended upon a note of menace and disdain:
'Now MARK THIS, if the Expeditionary Force, and I ask for no more than
200 men, does not come in ten days, the town may fall; and I have done
my best for the honour of our country. Good-bye. --C. G. GORDON.
'You send me no information, though you have lots of money. C. G. G. '
To his sister Augusta he was more explicit.
'I decline to agree,' he told her, 'that the expedition comes for my
relief; it comes for the relief of the garrisons, which I failed to
accomplish. I expect Her Majesty's Government are in a precious rage
with me for holding out and forcing their hand. '
The admission is significant. And then came the final adieux.
'This may be the last letter you will receive from me, for we are on our
last legs, owing to the delay of the expedition. However, God rules all,
and, as He will rule to His glory and our welfare, His will be done. I
fear, owing to circumstances, that my affairs are pecuniarily not over
bright . . . your affectionate brother, C. G. GORDON.
'P. S. I am quite happy, thank God, and, like Lawrence, I have TRIED to
do my duty. '
The delay of the expedition was even more serious than Gordon had
supposed. Lord Wolseley had made the most elaborate preparations. He had
collected together a picked army of 10,000 of the finest British troops;
he had arranged a system of river transports with infinite care. For it
was his intention to take no risks; he would advance in force up the
Nile; he had determined that the fate of Gordon should not depend upon
the dangerous hazards of a small and hasty exploit. There is no
doubt--in view of the opposition which the relieving force actually met
with--that his decision was a wise one; but unfortunately, he had
miscalculated some of the essential elements in the situation. When his
preparations were at last complete, it was found that the Nile had sunk
so low that the flotillas, over which so much care had been lavished,
and upon which depended the whole success of the campaign, would be
unable to surmount the cataracts. At the same time--it was by then the
middle of November--a message arrived from Gordon indicating that
Khartoum was in serious straits. It was clear that an immediate advance
was necessary; the river route was out of the question; a swift dash
across the desert was the only possible expedient after all. But no
preparations for land transport had been made; weeks elapsed before a
sufficient number of camels could be collected; and more weeks before
those collected were trained for military march. It was not until
December 30th--more than a fortnight after the last entry in Gordon's
Journal--that Sir Herbert Stewart, at the head of 1,100 British troops,
was able to leave Korti on his march towards Metemmah, 170 miles across
the desert. His advance was slow, and it was tenaciously disputed by,
the Mahdi's forces. There was a desperate engagement on January 17th at
the wells of Abu Klea; the British square was broken; for a moment
victory hung in the balance; but the Arabs were repulsed. On the 19th
there was another furiously contested fight, in which Sir Herbert
Stewart was killed. On the 21st, the force, now diminished by over 250
casualties, reached Metemmah. Three days elapsed in reconnoitering the
country, and strengthening the position of the camp. On the 24th, Sir
Charles Wilson, who had succeeded to the command, embarked on the
Bordeen, and started up the river for Khartoum. On the following
evening, the vessel struck on a rock, causing a further delay of
twenty-four hours. It was not until January 28th that Sir Charles
Wilson, arriving under a heavy fire within sight of Khartoum, saw that
the Egyptian flag was not flying from the roof of the palace. The signs
of ruin and destruction on every hand showed clearly enough that the
town had fallen. The relief expedition was two days late.
The details of what passed within Khartoum during the last weeks of the
siege are unknown to us. In the diary of Bordeini Bey, a Levantine
merchant, we catch a few glimpses of the final stages of the
catastrophe--of the starving populace, the exhausted garrison, the
fluctuations of despair and hope, the dauntless energy of the
Governor-General. Still he worked on, indefatigably, apportioning
provisions, collecting ammunition, consulting with the townspeople,
encouraging the soldiers. His hair had suddenly turned quite white. Late
one evening, Bordeini Bey went to visit him in the palace, which was
being bombarded by the Mahdi's cannon. The high building, brilliantly
lighted up, afforded an excellent mark. As the shot came whistling
around the windows, the merchant suggested that it would be advisable to
stop them up with boxes full of sand. Upon this, Gordon Pasha became
enraged.
'He called up the guard, and gave them orders to shoot me if I moved; he
then brought a very large lantern which would hold twenty-four candles.
He and I then put the candles into the sockets, placed the lantern on
the table in front of the window, lit the candles, and then we sat down
at the table. The Pasha then said, "When God was portioning out fear to
all the people in the world, at last it came to my turn, and there was
no fear left to give me. Go, tell all the people in Khartoum that Gordon
fears nothing, for God has created him without fear. "'
On January 5th, Omdurman, a village on the opposite bank of the Nile,
which had hitherto been occupied by the besieged, was taken by the
Arabs. The town was now closely surrounded, and every chance of
obtaining fresh supplies was cut off. The famine became terrible; dogs,
donkeys, skins, gum, palm fibre, were devoured by the desperate
inhabitants. The soldiers stood on the fortifications like pieces of
wood. Hundreds died of hunger daily: their corpses filled the streets;
and the survivors had not the strength to bury the dead. On the 20th,
the news of the battle of Abu Klea reached Khartoum. The English were
coming at last. Hope rose; every morning the Governor-General assured
the townspeople that one day more would see the end of their sufferings;
and night after night his words were proved untrue.
On the 23rd, a rumour spread that a spy had arrived with letters, and
that the English army was at hand. A merchant found a piece of newspaper
lying in the road, in which it was stated that the strength of the
relieving forces was 15,000 men. For a moment, hope flickered up again,
only to relapse once more. The rumour, the letters, the printed paper,
all had been contrivances of Gordon to inspire the garrison with the
courage to hold out. On the 25th, it was obvious that the Arabs were
preparing an attack, and a deputation of the principal inhabitants
waited upon the Governor-General. But he refused to see them; Bordeini
Bey was alone admitted to his presence. He was sitting on a divan, and,
as Bordeini Bey came into the room, he snatched the fez from his head
and flung it from him.
'What more can I say? ' he exclaimed, in a voice such as the merchant had
never heard before. 'The people will no longer believe me. I have told
them over and over again that help would be here, but it has never come,
and now they must see I tell them lies. I can do nothing more. Go, and
collect all the people you can on the lines, and make a good stand. Now
leave me to smoke these cigarettes. '
Bordeini Bey knew then, he tells us, that Gordon Pasha was in despair.
He left the room, having looked upon the Governor-General for the last
time.
When the English force reached Metemmah, the Mahdi, who had originally
intended to reduce Khartoum to surrender through starvation, decided to
attempt its capture by assault. The receding Nile had left one portion
of the town's circumference undefended; as the river withdrew, the
rampart had crumbled; a broad expanse of mud was left between the wall
and the water, and the soldiers, overcome by hunger and the lassitude of
hopelessness, had trusted to the morass to protect them, and neglected
to repair the breach. Early on the morning of the 26th, the Arabs
crossed the river at this point. The mud, partially dried up, presented
no obstacle; nor did the ruined fortification, feebly manned by some
half-dying troops. Resistance was futile, and it was scarcely offered:
the Mahdi's army swarmed into Khartoum. Gordon had long debated with
himself what his action should be at the supreme moment. 'I shall never
(D. V. ),' he had told Sir Evelyn Baring, 'be taken alive. ' He had had
gunpowder put into the cellars of the palace, so that the whole building
might, at a moment's notice, be blown into the air. But then misgivings
had come upon him; was it not his duty 'to maintain the faith, and, if
necessary, to suffer for it'? --to remain a tortured and humiliated
witness of his Lord in the Mahdi's chains? The blowing up of the palace
would have, he thought, 'more or less the taint of suicide', would be,
in a way, taking things out of God's hands'. He remained undecided; and
meanwhile, to be ready for every contingency, he kept one of his little
armoured vessels close at hand on the river, with steam up, day and
night, to transport him, if so he should decide, southward, through the
enemy, to the recesses of Equatoria. The sudden appearance of the Arabs,
the complete collapse of the defence, saved him the necessity of making
up his mind. He had been on the roof, in his dressing-gown, when the
attack began; and he had only time to hurry to his bedroom, to slip on a
white uniform, and to seize up a sword and a revolver, before the
foremost of the assailants were in the palace. The crowd was led by four
of the fiercest of the Mahdi's followers--tall and swarthy Dervishes,
splendid in their many-coloured jibbehs, their great swords drawn from
their scabbards of brass and velvet, their spears flourishing above
their heads. Gordon met them at the top of the staircase. For a moment,
there was a deathly pause, while he stood in silence, surveying his
antagonists. Then it is said that Taha Shahin, the Dongolawi, cried in a
loud voice, 'Mala' oun el yom yomek! ' (O cursed one, your time is come),
and plunged his spear into the Englishman's body. His only reply was a
gesture of contempt. Another spear transfixed him; he fell, and the
swords of the three other Dervishes instantly hacked him to death. Thus,
if we are to believe the official chroniclers, in the dignity of
unresisting disdain, General Gordon met his end. But it is only fitting
that the last moments of one whose whole life was passed in
contradiction should be involved in mystery and doubt. Other witnesses
told a very different story. The man whom they saw die was not a saint
but a warrior. With intrepidity, with skill, with desperation, he flew
at his enemies. When his pistol was exhausted, he fought on with his
sword; he forced his way almost to the bottom of the staircase; and,
among, a heap of corpses, only succumbed at length to the sheer weight
of the multitudes against him.
That morning, while Slatin Pasha was sitting in his chains in the camp
at Omdurman, he saw a group of Arabs approaching, one of whom was
carrying something wrapped up in a cloth. As the group passed him, they
stopped for a moment, and railed at him in savage mockery. Then the
cloth was lifted, and he saw before him Gordon's head. The trophy was
taken to the Mahdi: at last the two fanatics had indeed met face to
face. The Mahdi ordered the head to be fixed between the branches of a
tree in the public highway, and all who passed threw stones at it. The
hawks of the desert swept and circled about it--those very hawks which
the blue eyes had so often watched.
The news of the catastrophe reached England, and a great outcry arose.
The public grief vied with the public indignation. The Queen, in a
letter to Miss Gordon, immediately gave vent both to her own sentiments
and those of the nation.
'HOW shall I write to you,' she exclaimed, 'or how shall I attempt to
express WHAT I FEEL! To THINK of your dear, noble, heroic Brother, who
served his Country and his Queen so truly, so heroically, with a
self-sacrifice so edifying to the World, not having been rescued. That
the promises of support were not fulfilled--which I so frequently and
constantly pressed on those who asked him to go--is to me GRIEF
INEXPRESSIBLE! Indeed, it has made me ill . . . Would you express to your
other sisters and your elder Brother my true sympathy, and what I do so
keenly feel, the STAIN left upon England, for your dear Brother's cruel,
though heroic, fate! '
In reply, Miss Gordon presented the Queen with her brother's Bible,
which was placed in one of the corridors at Windsor, open, on a white
satin cushion, and enclosed in a crystal case. In the meanwhile, Gordon
was acclaimed in every newspaper as a national martyr; State services
were held in his honour at Westminster and St Paul's; L20,000 was voted
to his family; and a great sum of money was raised by subscription to
endow a charity in his memory. Wrath and execration fell, in particular,
upon the head of Mr. Gladstone. He was little better than a murderer; he
was a traitor; he was a heartless villain, who had been seen at the play
on the very night when Gordon's death was announced. The storm passed;
but Mr. Gladstone had soon to cope with a still more serious agitation.
The cry was raised on every side that the national honour would be
irreparably tarnished if the Mahdi were left in the peaceful possession
of Khartoum, and that the Expeditionary Force should be at once employed
to chastise the false prophet and to conquer the Sudan. But it was in
vain that the imperialists clamoured; in vain that Lord Wolseley wrote
several dispatches, proving over and over again that to leave the Mahdi
unconquered must involve the ruin of Egypt; in vain that Lord Hartington
at last discovered that he had come to the same conclusion. The old man
stood firm. Just then, a crisis with Russia on the Afghan frontier
supervened; and Mr. Gladstone, pointing out that every available soldier
might be wanted at any moment for a European war, withdrew Lord Wolseley
and his army from Egypt. The Russian crisis disappeared. The Mahdi
remained supreme lord of the Sudan.
And yet it was not with the Mahdi that the future lay. Before six months
were out, in the plenitude of his power, he died, and the Khalifa
Abdullahi reigned in his stead. The future lay with Major Kitchener and
his Maxim-Nordenfeldt guns. Thirteen years later the Mahdi's empire was
abolished forever in the gigantic hecatomb of Omdurman; after which it
was thought proper that a religious ceremony in honour of General Gordon
should be held at the palace at Khartoum. The service was conducted by
four chaplains--of the Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian, and Methodist
persuasions--and concluded with a performance of 'Abide with Me'--the
General's favourite hymn--by a select company of Sudanese buglers. Every
one agreed that General Gordon had been avenged at last. Who could doubt
it? General Gordon himself, possibly, fluttering, in some remote
Nirvana, the pages of a phantasmal Bible, might have ventured on a
satirical remark. But General Gordon had always been a contradictious
person--even a little off his head, perhaps, though a hero; and besides,
he was no longer there to contradict . . . At any rate, it had all ended
very happily--in a glorious slaughter of 20,000 Arabs, a vast addition
to the British Empire, and a step in the Peerage for Sir Evelyn Baring.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
General Gordon. Reflections in Palestine. Letters. Khartoum Journals.
E. Hake. The Story of Chinese Gordon.
H. W. Gordon. Events in the Life of C. G. Gordon.
D. C. Boulger. Life of General Gordon.
Sir W. Butler. General Gordon.
Rev. R. H. Barnes and C. E, Brown. Charles George Gordon: A Sketch.
A. Bioves. Un Grand Aventurier.
Li Hung Chang. Memoirs. *
Colonel Chaille-Long. My Life in Four Continents.
Lord Cromer. Modern Egypt.
Sir R. Wingate. Mahdiism and the Sudan.
Sir R. Slatin. Fire and Sword in the Sudan.
J. Ohrwalder. Ten Years of Captivity in the Mahdi's Camp.
C. Neufeld. A Prisoner of the Khaleefa.
Wilfrid Blunt.
A Secret History of the English Occupation of Egypt.
Gordon at Khartoum.
Winston Churchill. The River War.
F. Power. Letters from Khartoum.
Lord Morley. Life of Gladstone.
George W. Smalley. Mr Gladstone. Harper's Magazine, 1898.
B. Holland. Life of the Eighth Duke of Devonshire.
Lord Fitzmaurice. Life of the Second Earl Granville.
S. Gwynn and Gertrude Tuckwell. Life of Sir Charles Dilke.
Arthur Rimbaud. Lettres.
G. F. Steevens. With Kitchener to Khartoum.
* The authenticity of the Diary contained in this book has been
disputed, notably by Mr. J. 0. P. Bland in his Li Hung Chang.
(Constable, 1917)
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