Now,
supposing that General Gordon, in response to a popular agitation in the
Press, were sent to Khartoum, what would follow?
supposing that General Gordon, in response to a popular agitation in the
Press, were sent to Khartoum, what would follow?
Strachey - Eminent Victorians
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. '
In the meantime, Gordon, with the Sudan upon his lips, with the Sudan in
his imagination, had hurried to Brussels, to obtain from the King of the
Belgians a reluctant consent to the postponement of his Congo mission.
On the 17th he was recalled to London by a telegram from Lord Wolseley.
On the 18th the final decision was made. 'At noon,' Gordon told the Rev.
Mr. Barnes, Wolseley came to me and took me to the Ministers. He went in
and talked to the Ministers, and came back and said: "Her Majesty's
Government wants you to undertake this. Government is determined to
evacuate the Sudan, for they will not guarantee future government. Will
you go and do it? " I said: "Yes. " He said: "Go in. " I went in and saw
them. They said: "Did Wolseley tell you your orders? " I said: "Yes. " I
said: "You will not guarantee future government of the Sudan, and you
wish me to go up and evacuate now. " They said: "Yes", and it was over. '
Such was the sequence of events which ended in General Gordon's last
appointment. The precise motives of those responsible for these
transactions are less easy to discern. It is difficult to understand
what the reasons could have been which induced the Government, not only
to override the hesitations of Sir Evelyn Baring, but to overlook the
grave and obvious dangers involved in sending such a man as Gordon to
the Sudan. The whole history of his life, the whole bent of his
character, seemed to disqualify him for the task for which he had been
chosen. He was before all things a fighter, an enthusiast, a bold
adventurer; and he was now to be entrusted with the conduct of an
inglorious retreat. He was alien to the subtleties of civilised
statesmanship, he was unamenable to official control, he was incapable
of the skilful management of delicate situations; and he was now to be
placed in a position of great complexity, requiring at once a cool
judgment, a clear perception of fact, and a fixed determination to carry
out a line of policy laid down from above. He had, it is true, been
Governor-General of the Sudan; but he was now to return to the scene of
his greatness as the emissary of a defeated and humbled power; he was to
be a fugitive where he had once been a ruler; the very success of his
mission was to consist in establishing the triumph of those forces which
he had spent years in trampling underfoot. All this should have been
clear to those in authority, after a very little reflection. It was
clear enough to Sir Evelyn Baring, though, with characteristic
reticence, he had abstained from giving expression to his thoughts. But,
even if a general acquaintance with Gordon's life and character were not
sufficient to lead to these conclusions, he himself had taken care to
put their validity beyond reasonable doubt. Both in his interview with
Mr. Stead and in his letter to Sir Samuel Baker, he had indicated
unmistakably his own attitude towards the Sudan situation. The policy
which he advocated, the state of feeling in which he showed himself to
be, was diametrically opposed to the declared intentions of the
Government. He was by no means in favour of withdrawing from the Sudan;
he was in favour, as might have been supposed, of vigorous military
action. It might be necessary to abandon, for the time being, the more
remote garrisons in Darfur and Equatoria; but Khartoum must be held at
all costs. To allow the Mahdi to enter Khartoum would not merely mean
the return of the whole of the Sudan to barbarism; it would be a menace
to the safety of Egypt herself. To attempt to protect Egypt against the
Mahdi by fortifying her southern frontier was preposterous. 'You might
as well fortify against a fever. ' Arabia, Syria, the whole Mohammedan
world, would be shaken by the Mahdi's advance. 'In self-defence,' Gordon
declared to Mr. Stead, the policy of evacuation cannot possibly be
justified. ' The true policy was obvious. A strong man--Sir Samuel Baker,
perhaps--must be sent to Khartoum, with a large contingent of Indian and
Turkish troops and with two millions of money. He would very soon
overpower the Mahdi, whose forces would 'fall to pieces of themselves'.
For in Gordon's opinion it was 'an entire mistake to regard the Mahdi as
in any sense a religious leader'; he would collapse as soon as he was
face to face with an English general. Then the distant regions of Darfur
and Equatoria could once more be occupied; their original Sultans could
be reinstated; the whole country would be placed under civilised rule;
and the slave-trade would be finally abolished. These were the views
which Gordon publicly expressed on January 9th and on January 14th; and
it certainly seems strange that on January 10th and on January 14th,
Lord Granville should have proposed, without a word of consultation with
Gordon himself, to send him on a mission which involved, not the
reconquest, but the abandonment of the Sudan; Gordon, indeed, when he
was actually approached by Lord Wolseley, had apparently agreed to
become the agent of a policy which was exactly the reverse of his own.
No doubt, too, it is possible for a subordinate to suppress his private
convictions and to carry out loyally, in spite of them, the orders of
his superiors. But how rare are the qualities of self-control and wisdom
which such a subordinate must possess! And how little reason there was
to think that General Gordon possessed them!
In fact, the conduct of the Government wears so singular an appearance
that it has seemed necessary to account for it by some ulterior
explanation. It has often been asserted that the true cause of Gordon's
appointment was the clamour in the Press. It is said--among others, by
Sir Evelyn Baring himself, who has given something like an official
sanction to this view of the case--that the Government could not resist
the pressure of the newspapers and the feeling in the country which it
indicated; that Ministers, carried off their feet by a wave of 'Gordon
cultus', were obliged to give way to the inevitable. But this suggestion
is hardly supported by an examination of the facts. Already, early in
December, and many weeks before Gordon's name had begun to figure in the
newspapers, Lord Granville had made his first effort to induce Sir
Evelyn Baring to accept Gordon's services. The first newspaper demand
for a Gordon mission appeared in the "Pall Mall Gazette" on the
afternoon of January 9th; and the very next morning, Lord Granville was
making his second telegraphic attack upon Sir Evelyn Baring. The feeling
in the Press did not become general until the 11th, and on the 14th Lord
Granville, in his telegram to Mr. Gladstone, for the third time proposed
the appointment of Gordon. Clearly, on the part of Lord Granville at any
rate, there was no extreme desire to resist the wishes of the Press. Nor
was the Government as a whole by any means incapable of ignoring public
opinion; a few months were to show that, plainly enough. It is difficult
to avoid the conclusion that if Ministers had been opposed to the
appointment of Gordon, he would never have been appointed. As it was,
the newspapers were in fact forestalled, rather than followed, by the
Government.
How, then, are we to explain the Government's action? Are we to suppose
that its members, like the members of the public at large, were
themselves carried away by a sudden enthusiasm, a sudden conviction that
they had found their saviour; that General Gordon was the man--they did
not quite know why, but that was of no consequence--the one man to get
them out of the whole Sudan difficulty--they did not quite know how, but
that was of no consequence either if only he were sent to Khartoum?
Doubtless even Cabinet Ministers are liable to such impulses; doubtless
it is possible that the Cabinet of that day allowed itself to drift, out
of mere lack of consideration, and judgment, and foresight, along the
rapid stream of popular feeling towards the inevitable cataract. That
may be so; yet there are indications that a more definite influence was
at work. There was a section of the Government which had never become
quite reconciled to the policy of withdrawing from the Sudan. To this
section--we may call it the imperialist section--which was led, inside
the Cabinet, by Lord Hartington, and outside by Lord Wolseley, the
policy which really commended itself was the very policy which had been
outlined by General Gordon in his interview with Mr. Stead and his
letter to Sir Samuel Baker. They saw that it might be necessary to
abandon some of the outlying parts of the Sudan to the Mahdi; but the
prospect of leaving the whole province in his hands was highly
distasteful to them; above all, they dreaded the loss of Khartoum.
Now,
supposing that General Gordon, in response to a popular agitation in the
Press, were sent to Khartoum, what would follow? Was it not at least
possible that, once there, with his views and his character, he would,
for some reason or other, refrain from carrying out a policy of pacific
retreat? Was it not possible that in that case he might so involve the
English Government that it would find itself obliged, almost
imperceptibly perhaps, to substitute for its policy of withdrawal a
policy of advance? Was it not possible that General Gordon might get
into difficulties, that he might be surrounded and cut off from Egypt'?
If that were to happen, how could the English Government avoid the
necessity of sending an expedition to rescue him? And, if an English
expedition went to the Sudan, was it conceivable that it would leave the
Mahdi as it found him? In short, would not the dispatch of General
Gordon to Khartoum involve, almost inevitably, the conquest of the Sudan
by British troops, followed by a British occupation? And, behind all
these questions, a still larger question loomed. The position of the
English in Egypt itself was still ambiguous; the future was obscure; how
long, in reality, would an English army remain in Egypt? Was not one
thing, at least, obvious--that if the English were to conquer and occupy
the Sudan, their evacuation of Egypt would become impossible?
With our present information, it would be rash to affirm that all, or
any, of these considerations were present to the minds of the
imperialist section of the Government. Yet it is difficult to believe
that a man such as Lord Wolseley, for instance, with his knowledge of
affairs and his knowledge of Gordon, could have altogether overlooked
them. Lord Hartington, indeed, may well have failed to realise at once
the implications of General Gordon's appointment--for it took Lord
Hartington some time to realise the implications of anything; but Lord
Hartington was very far from being a fool; and we may well suppose that
he instinctively, perhaps subconsciously, apprehended the elements of a
situation which he never formulated to himself. However that may be,
certain circumstances are significant. It is significant that the
go-between who acted as the Government's agent in its negotiations with
Gordon was an imperialist--Lord Wolseley. It is significant that the
'Ministers' whom Gordon finally interviewed, and who actually determined
his appointment were by no means the whole of the Cabinet, but a small
section of it, presided over by Lord Hartington. It is significant, too,
that Gordon's mission was represented both to Sir Evelyn Baring, who was
opposed to his appointment, and to Mr. Gladstone, who was opposed to an
active policy in the Sudan, as a mission merely 'to report'; while, no
sooner was the mission actually decided upon, than it began to assume a
very different complexion. In his final interview with the 'Ministers',
Gordon we know (though he said nothing about it to the Rev. Mr Barnes)
threw out the suggestion that it might be as well to make him the
Governor-General of the Sudan. The suggestion, for the moment, was not
taken up; but it is obvious that a man does not propose to become a
Governor-General in order to make a report.
We are in the region of speculations; one other presents itself. Was the
movement in the Press during that second week of January a genuine
movement, expressing a spontaneous wave of popular feeling? Or was it a
cause of that feeling, rather than an effect? The engineering of a
newspaper agitation may not have been an impossibility--even so long ago
as 1884. One would like to know more than one is ever likely to know of
the relations of the imperialist section of the Government with Mr.
Stead.
But it is time to return to the solidity of fact. Within a few hours of
his interview with the Ministers, Gordon had left England forever. At
eight o'clock in the evening, there was a little gathering of elderly
gentlemen at Victoria Station. Gordon, accompanied by Colonel Stewart,
who was to act as his second-in-command, tripped on to the platform.
Lord Granville bought the necessary tickets; the Duke of Cambridge
opened the railway-carriage door. The General jumped into the train; and
then Lord Wolseley appeared, carrying a leather bag, in which was L200
in gold, collected from friends at the last moment for the contingencies
of the journey. The bag was handed through the window. The train
started. As it did so, Gordon leaned out and addressed a last whispered
question to Lord Wolseley. Yes, it had been done. Lord Wolseley had seen
to it himself; next morning, every member of the Cabinet would receive a
copy of Dr. Samuel Clarke's Scripture Promises. That was all. The train
rolled out of the station.
Before the travellers reached Cairo, steps had been taken which finally
put an end to the theory--if it had ever been seriously held--that the
purpose of the mission was simply the making of a report. On the very
day of Gordon's departure, Lord Granville telegraphed to Sir Evelyn
Baring as follows: 'Gordon suggests that it may be announced in Egypt
that he is on his way to Khartoum to arrange for the future settlement
of the Sudan for the best advantage of the people. ' Nothing was said of
reporting. A few days later, Gordon himself telegraphed to Lord
Granville suggesting that he should be made Governor-General of the
Sudan, in order to 'accomplish the evacuation', and to 'restore to the
various Sultans of the Sudan their independence'. Lord Granville at once
authorised Sir Evelyn Baring to issue, if he thought fit, a proclamation
to this effect in the name of the Khedive. Thus the mission 'to report'
had already swollen into a Governor-Generalship, with the object, not
merely of effecting the evacuation of the Sudan, but also of setting up
'various Sultans' to take the place of the Egyptian Government.
In Cairo, in spite of the hostilities of the past, Gordon was received
with every politeness. He was at once proclaimed Governor-General of the
Sudan, with the widest powers. He was on the point of starting off again
on his journey southwards, when a singular and important incident
occurred. Zobeir, the rebel chieftain of Darfur, against whose forces
Gordon had struggled for years, and whose son, Suleiman, had been
captured and executed by Gessi, Gordon's lieutenant, was still detained
at Cairo. It so fell out that he went to pay a visit to one of the
Ministers at the same time as the new Governor-General. The two men met
face to face, and, as he looked into the savage countenance of his old
enemy, an extraordinary shock of inspiration ran through Gordon's brain.
He was seized, as he explained in a State paper, which he drew up
immediately after the meeting, with a 'mystic feeling' that he could
trust Zobeir. It was true that Zobeir was 'the greatest slave-hunter who
ever existed'; it was true that he had a personal hatred of Gordon,
owing to the execution of Suleiman--'and one cannot wonder at it, if one
is a father'; it was true that, only a few days previously, on his way
to Egypt, Gordon himself had been so convinced of the dangerous
character of Zobeir that he had recommended by telegram his removal to
Cyprus. But such considerations were utterly obliterated by that one
moment of electric impact of personal vision; henceforward, there was a
rooted conviction in Gordon's mind that Zobeir was to be trusted, that
Zobeir must join him at Khartoum, that Zobeir's presence would paralyse
the Mahdi, that Zobeir must succeed him in the government of the country
after the evacuation. Did not Sir Evelyn Baring, too, have the mystic
feeling? Sir Evelyn Baring confessed that he had not. He distrusted
mystic feelings. Zobeir, no doubt, might possibly be useful; but, before
deciding upon so important a matter, it was necessary to reflect and to
consult.
In the meantime, failing Zobeir, something might perhaps be done with
the Emir Abdul Shakur, the heir of the Darfur Sultans. The Emir, who had
been living in domestic retirement in Cairo, was with some difficulty
discovered, given L2,000, an embroidered uniform, together with the
largest decoration that could be found, and informed that he was to
start at once with General Gordon for the Sudan, where it would be his
duty to occupy the province of Darfur, after driving out the forces of
the Mahdi. The poor man begged for a little delay; but no delay could be
granted. He hurried to the railway station in his frockcoat and fez, and
rather the worse for liquor. Several extra carriages for his
twenty-three wives and a large quantity of luggage had then to be
hitched on to the Governor-General's train; and at the last moment some
commotion was caused by the unaccountable disappearance of his
embroidered uniform. It was found, but his troubles were not over. On
the steamer, General Gordon was very rude to him, and he drowned his
chagrin in hot rum and water. At Assuan he disembarked, declaring that
he would go no farther. Eventually, however, he got as far as Dongola,
whence, after a stay of a few months, he returned with his family to
Cairo.
In spite of this little contretemps, Gordon was in the highest spirits.
At last his capacities had been recognised by his countrymen; at last he
had been entrusted with a task great enough to satisfy even his desires.
He was already famous; he would soon be glorious. Looking out once more
over the familiar desert, he felt the searchings of his conscience
stilled by the manifest certainty that it was for this that Providence
had been reserving him through all these years of labour and of sorrow
for this! What was the Mahdi to stand up against him! A thousand
schemes, a thousand possibilities sprang to life in his pullulating
brain. A new intoxication carried him away. 'Il faut etre toujours ivre.
Tout est la: c'est l'unique question. ' Little though he knew it, Gordon
was a disciple of Baudelaire. 'Pour ne pas sentir l'horrible fardeau du
Temps qui brise vos epaules et vous penche vers la terre, il faut vous
enivrer sans treve. ' Yes--but how feeble were those gross resources of
the miserable Abdul-Shakur! Rum? Brandy? Oh, he knew all about them;
they were nothing. He tossed off a glass. They were nothing at all. The
true drunkenness lay elsewhere. He seized a paper and pencil, and dashed
down a telegram to Sir Evelyn Baring. Another thought struck him, and
another telegram followed. And another, and yet another. He had made up
his mind; he would visit the Mahdi in person, and alone. He might do
that; or he might retire to the Equator. He would decidedly retire to
the Equator, and hand over the Bahr-el-Ghazal province to the King of
the Belgians. A whole flock of telegrams flew to Cairo from every
stopping-place. Sir Evelyn Baring was patient and discrete; he could be
trusted with such confidences; but unfortunately Gordon's strange
exhilaration found other outlets. At Berber, in the course of a speech
to the assembled chiefs, he revealed the intention of the Egyptian
Government to withdraw from the Sudan. The news was everywhere in a
moment, and the results were disastrous. The tribesmen, whom fear and
interest had still kept loyal, perceived that they need look no more for
help or punishment from Egypt, and began to turn their eyes towards the
rising sun.
Nevertheless, for the moment, the prospect wore a favourable appearance.
The Governor-General was welcomed at every stage of his journey, and on
February 18th he made a triumphal entry into Khartoum. The feeble
garrison, the panic-stricken inhabitants, hailed him as a deliverer.
Surely they need fear no more, now that the great English Pasha had come
among them. His first acts seemed to show that a new and happy era had
begun. Taxes were remitted, the bonds of the usurers were destroyed, the
victims of Egyptian injustice were set free from the prisons; the
immemorial instruments of torture--the stocks and the whips and the
branding-irons were broken to pieces in the public square. A bolder
measure had been already taken. A proclamation had been issued
sanctioning slavery in the Sudan. Gordon, arguing that he was powerless
to do away with the odious institution, which, as soon as the withdrawal
was carried out, would inevitably become universal, had decided to reap
what benefit he could from the public abandonment of an unpopular
policy. At Khartoum the announcement was received with enthusiasm, but
it caused considerable perturbation in England. The Christian hero, who
had spent so many years of his life in suppressing slavery, was now
suddenly found to be using his high powers to set it up again. The
Anti-Slavery Society made a menacing movement, but the Government showed
a bold front, and the popular belief in Gordon's infallibility carried
the day.
He himself was still radiant. Nor, amid the jubilation and the devotion
which surrounded him, did he forget higher things. In all this turmoil,
he told his sister, he was 'supported'. He gave injunctions that his
Egyptian troops should have regular morning and evening prayers; 'they
worship one God,' he said, 'Jehovah. ' And he ordered an Arabic text,
'God rules the hearts of all men', to be put up over the chair of state
in his audience chamber. As the days went by, he began to feel at home
again in the huge palace which he knew so well. The glare and the heat
of that southern atmosphere, the movement of the crowded city, the
dark-faced populace, the soldiers and the suppliants, the reawakened
consciousness of power, the glamour and the mystery of the whole strange
scene--these things seized upon him, engulfed him, and worked a new
transformation on his intoxicated heart. England, with its complications
and its policies, became an empty vision to him; Sir Evelyn Baring, with
his cautions and sagacities, hardly more than a tiresome name. He was
Gordon Pasha, he was the Governor-General, he was the ruler of the
Sudan. He was among his people--his own people, and it was to them only
that he was responsible--to them, and to God. Was he to let them fall
without a blow into the clutches of a sanguinary impostor? Never! He was
there to prevent that. The distant governments might mutter something
about 'evacuation'; his thoughts were elsewhere. He poured them into his
telegrams, and Sir Evelyn Baring sat aghast. The man who had left London
a month before, with instructions to 'report upon the best means of
effecting the evacuation of the Sudan', was now openly talking of
'smashing up the Mahdi' with the aid of British and Indian troops. Sir
Evelyn Baring counted upon his fingers the various stages of this
extraordinary development in General Gordon's opinions. But he might
have saved himself the trouble, for, in fact, it was less a development
than a reversion. Under the stress of the excitements and the realities
of his situation at Khartoum, the policy which Gordon was now proposing
to carry out had come to tally, in every particular, with the policy
which he had originally advocated with such vigorous conviction in the
pages of the Pall Mall Gazette.
Nor was the adoption of that policy by the English Government by any
means out of the question. For, in the meantime, events had been taking
place in the Eastern Sudan, in the neighbourhood of the Red Sea port of
Suakin, which were to have a decisive effect upon the prospects of
Khartoum. General Baker, the brother of Sir Samuel Baker, attempting to
relieve the beleaguered garrisons of Sinkat and Tokar, had rashly
attacked the forces of Osman Digna, had been defeated, and obliged to
retire. Sinkat and Tokar had then fallen into the hands of the Mahdi's
general. There was a great outcry in England, and a wave of warlike
feeling passed over the country. Lord Wolseley at once drew up a
memorandum advocating the annexation of the Sudan. In the House of
Commons even Liberals began to demand vengeance and military action,
whereupon the Government dispatched Sir Gerald Graham with a
considerable British force to Suakin. Sir Gerald Graham advanced, and in
the battles of El Teb and Tamai inflicted two bloody defeats upon the
Mahdi's forces. It almost seemed as if the Government was now committed
to a policy of interference and conquest; as if the imperialist section
of the Cabinet were at last to have their way. The dispatch of Sir
Gerald Graham coincided with Gordon's sudden demand for British and
Indian troops with which to 'smash up the Mahdi'. The business, he
assured Sir Evelyn Baring, in a stream of telegrams, could very easily
be done. It made him sick, he said, to see himself held in check and the
people of the Sudan tyrannised over by 'a feeble lot of stinking
Dervishes'. Let Zobeir at once be sent down to him, and all would be
well.
The original Sultans of the country had unfortunately proved
disappointing. Their place should be taken by Zobeir. After the Mahdi
had been smashed up, Zobeir should rule the Sudan as a subsidised vassal
of England, on a similar footing to that of the Amir of Afghanistan. The
plan was perhaps feasible; but it was clearly incompatible with the
policy of evacuation, as it had been hitherto laid down by the English
Government. Should they reverse that policy? Should they appoint Zobeir,
reinforce Sir Gerald Graham, and smash up the Mahdi? They could not make
up their minds. So far as Zobeir was concerned, there were two
counterbalancing considerations; on the one hand, Evelyn Baring now
declared that he was in favour of the appointment; but, on the other
hand, would English public opinion consent to a man, described by Gordon
himself as 'the greatest slave-hunter who ever existed', being given an
English subsidy and the control of the Sudan? While the Cabinet was
wavering, Gordon took a fatal step. The delay was intolerable, and one
evening, in a rage, he revealed his desire for Zobeir--which had
hitherto been kept a profound official secret--to Mr Power, the English
Consul at Khartoum, and the special correspondent of "The Times. "
Perhaps he calculated that the public announcement of his wishes would
oblige the Government to yield to them; if so, he was completely
mistaken, for the result was the very reverse. The country, already
startled by the proclamation in favour of slavery, could not swallow
Zobeir. The Anti-Slavery Society set on foot a violent agitation,
opinion in the House of Commons suddenly stiffened, and the Cabinet, by
a substantial majority, decided that Zobeir should remain in Cairo. The
imperialist wave had risen high, but it had not risen high enough; and
now it was rapidly subsiding. The Government's next action was decisive.
Sir Gerald Graham and his British Army were withdrawn from the Sudan.
The critical fortnight during which these events took place was the
first fortnight of March. By the close of it, Gordon's position had
undergone a rapid and terrible change. Not only did he find himself
deprived, by the decision of the Government, both of the hope of
Zobeir's assistance and of the prospect of smashing up the Mahdi with
the aid of British troops; the military movements in the Eastern Sudan
produced, at the very same moment, a yet more fatal consequence. The
adherents of the Mahdi had been maddened, they had not been crushed, by
Sir Gerald Graham's victories. When, immediately afterwards, the English
withdrew to Suakin, from which they never again emerged, the inference
seemed obvious; they had been defeated, and their power was at an end.
The warlike tribes to the north and the northeast of Khartoum had long
been wavering. They now hesitated no longer, and joined the Mahdi. From
that moment--it was less than a month from Gordon's arrival at
Khartoum--the situation of the town was desperate. The line of
communications was cut. Though it still might be possible for occasional
native messengers, or for a few individuals on an armed steamer, to win
their way down the river into Egypt, the removal of a large number of
persons--the loyal inhabitants or the Egyptian garrison--was
henceforward an impossibility. The whole scheme of the Gordon mission
had irremediably collapsed; worse still, Gordon himself, so far from
having effected the evacuation of the Sudan, was surrounded by the
enemy. 'The question now is,' Sir Evelyn Baring told Lord Granville, on
March 24th, 'how to get General Gordon and Colonel Stewart away from
Khartoum. '
The actual condition of the town, however, was not, from a military
point of view, so serious as Colonel Coetlogon, in the first moments of
panic after the Hicks disaster, had supposed. Gordon was of opinion that
it was capable of sustaining a siege of many months. With his usual
vigour, he had already begun to prepare an elaborate system of
earthworks, mines, and wire entanglements. There was a five or six
months' supply of food, there was a great quantity of ammunition, the
garrison numbered about 8,000 men. There were, besides, nine small
paddle-wheel steamers, hitherto used for purposes of communication along
the Nile, which, fitted with guns and protected by metal plates, were of
considerable military value. 'We are all right,' Gordon told his sister
on March 15th. 'We shall, D. V. , go on for months. ' So far, at any rate,
there was no cause for despair. But the effervescent happiness of three
weeks since had vanished. Gloom, doubt, disillusionment,
self-questioning, had swooped down again upon their victim.
'Either I must believe He does all things in mercy and love, or else I
disbelieve His existence; there is no half way in the matter. What holes
do I not put myself into! And for what? So mixed are my ideas. I believe
ambition put me here in this ruin. '
Was not that the explanation of it all? 'Our Lord's promise is not for
the fulfilment of earthly wishes; therefore, if things come to ruin here
He is still faithful, and is carrying out His great work of divine
wisdom. ' How could he have forgotten that? But he would not transgress
again. 'I owe all to God, and nothing to myself, for, humanly speaking,
I have done very foolish things. However, if I am humbled, the better
for me. '
News of the changed circumstances at Khartoum was not slow in reaching
England, and a feeling of anxiety began to spread. Among the first to
realise the gravity of the situation was Queen Victoria. 'It is
alarming,' she telegraphed to Lord Hartington on March 25th. 'General
Gordon is in danger; you are bound to try to save him . . . You have
incurred a fearful responsibility. ' With an unerring instinct, Her
Majesty forestalled and expressed the popular sentiment.
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. '
In the meantime, Gordon, with the Sudan upon his lips, with the Sudan in
his imagination, had hurried to Brussels, to obtain from the King of the
Belgians a reluctant consent to the postponement of his Congo mission.
On the 17th he was recalled to London by a telegram from Lord Wolseley.
On the 18th the final decision was made. 'At noon,' Gordon told the Rev.
Mr. Barnes, Wolseley came to me and took me to the Ministers. He went in
and talked to the Ministers, and came back and said: "Her Majesty's
Government wants you to undertake this. Government is determined to
evacuate the Sudan, for they will not guarantee future government. Will
you go and do it? " I said: "Yes. " He said: "Go in. " I went in and saw
them. They said: "Did Wolseley tell you your orders? " I said: "Yes. " I
said: "You will not guarantee future government of the Sudan, and you
wish me to go up and evacuate now. " They said: "Yes", and it was over. '
Such was the sequence of events which ended in General Gordon's last
appointment. The precise motives of those responsible for these
transactions are less easy to discern. It is difficult to understand
what the reasons could have been which induced the Government, not only
to override the hesitations of Sir Evelyn Baring, but to overlook the
grave and obvious dangers involved in sending such a man as Gordon to
the Sudan. The whole history of his life, the whole bent of his
character, seemed to disqualify him for the task for which he had been
chosen. He was before all things a fighter, an enthusiast, a bold
adventurer; and he was now to be entrusted with the conduct of an
inglorious retreat. He was alien to the subtleties of civilised
statesmanship, he was unamenable to official control, he was incapable
of the skilful management of delicate situations; and he was now to be
placed in a position of great complexity, requiring at once a cool
judgment, a clear perception of fact, and a fixed determination to carry
out a line of policy laid down from above. He had, it is true, been
Governor-General of the Sudan; but he was now to return to the scene of
his greatness as the emissary of a defeated and humbled power; he was to
be a fugitive where he had once been a ruler; the very success of his
mission was to consist in establishing the triumph of those forces which
he had spent years in trampling underfoot. All this should have been
clear to those in authority, after a very little reflection. It was
clear enough to Sir Evelyn Baring, though, with characteristic
reticence, he had abstained from giving expression to his thoughts. But,
even if a general acquaintance with Gordon's life and character were not
sufficient to lead to these conclusions, he himself had taken care to
put their validity beyond reasonable doubt. Both in his interview with
Mr. Stead and in his letter to Sir Samuel Baker, he had indicated
unmistakably his own attitude towards the Sudan situation. The policy
which he advocated, the state of feeling in which he showed himself to
be, was diametrically opposed to the declared intentions of the
Government. He was by no means in favour of withdrawing from the Sudan;
he was in favour, as might have been supposed, of vigorous military
action. It might be necessary to abandon, for the time being, the more
remote garrisons in Darfur and Equatoria; but Khartoum must be held at
all costs. To allow the Mahdi to enter Khartoum would not merely mean
the return of the whole of the Sudan to barbarism; it would be a menace
to the safety of Egypt herself. To attempt to protect Egypt against the
Mahdi by fortifying her southern frontier was preposterous. 'You might
as well fortify against a fever. ' Arabia, Syria, the whole Mohammedan
world, would be shaken by the Mahdi's advance. 'In self-defence,' Gordon
declared to Mr. Stead, the policy of evacuation cannot possibly be
justified. ' The true policy was obvious. A strong man--Sir Samuel Baker,
perhaps--must be sent to Khartoum, with a large contingent of Indian and
Turkish troops and with two millions of money. He would very soon
overpower the Mahdi, whose forces would 'fall to pieces of themselves'.
For in Gordon's opinion it was 'an entire mistake to regard the Mahdi as
in any sense a religious leader'; he would collapse as soon as he was
face to face with an English general. Then the distant regions of Darfur
and Equatoria could once more be occupied; their original Sultans could
be reinstated; the whole country would be placed under civilised rule;
and the slave-trade would be finally abolished. These were the views
which Gordon publicly expressed on January 9th and on January 14th; and
it certainly seems strange that on January 10th and on January 14th,
Lord Granville should have proposed, without a word of consultation with
Gordon himself, to send him on a mission which involved, not the
reconquest, but the abandonment of the Sudan; Gordon, indeed, when he
was actually approached by Lord Wolseley, had apparently agreed to
become the agent of a policy which was exactly the reverse of his own.
No doubt, too, it is possible for a subordinate to suppress his private
convictions and to carry out loyally, in spite of them, the orders of
his superiors. But how rare are the qualities of self-control and wisdom
which such a subordinate must possess! And how little reason there was
to think that General Gordon possessed them!
In fact, the conduct of the Government wears so singular an appearance
that it has seemed necessary to account for it by some ulterior
explanation. It has often been asserted that the true cause of Gordon's
appointment was the clamour in the Press. It is said--among others, by
Sir Evelyn Baring himself, who has given something like an official
sanction to this view of the case--that the Government could not resist
the pressure of the newspapers and the feeling in the country which it
indicated; that Ministers, carried off their feet by a wave of 'Gordon
cultus', were obliged to give way to the inevitable. But this suggestion
is hardly supported by an examination of the facts. Already, early in
December, and many weeks before Gordon's name had begun to figure in the
newspapers, Lord Granville had made his first effort to induce Sir
Evelyn Baring to accept Gordon's services. The first newspaper demand
for a Gordon mission appeared in the "Pall Mall Gazette" on the
afternoon of January 9th; and the very next morning, Lord Granville was
making his second telegraphic attack upon Sir Evelyn Baring. The feeling
in the Press did not become general until the 11th, and on the 14th Lord
Granville, in his telegram to Mr. Gladstone, for the third time proposed
the appointment of Gordon. Clearly, on the part of Lord Granville at any
rate, there was no extreme desire to resist the wishes of the Press. Nor
was the Government as a whole by any means incapable of ignoring public
opinion; a few months were to show that, plainly enough. It is difficult
to avoid the conclusion that if Ministers had been opposed to the
appointment of Gordon, he would never have been appointed. As it was,
the newspapers were in fact forestalled, rather than followed, by the
Government.
How, then, are we to explain the Government's action? Are we to suppose
that its members, like the members of the public at large, were
themselves carried away by a sudden enthusiasm, a sudden conviction that
they had found their saviour; that General Gordon was the man--they did
not quite know why, but that was of no consequence--the one man to get
them out of the whole Sudan difficulty--they did not quite know how, but
that was of no consequence either if only he were sent to Khartoum?
Doubtless even Cabinet Ministers are liable to such impulses; doubtless
it is possible that the Cabinet of that day allowed itself to drift, out
of mere lack of consideration, and judgment, and foresight, along the
rapid stream of popular feeling towards the inevitable cataract. That
may be so; yet there are indications that a more definite influence was
at work. There was a section of the Government which had never become
quite reconciled to the policy of withdrawing from the Sudan. To this
section--we may call it the imperialist section--which was led, inside
the Cabinet, by Lord Hartington, and outside by Lord Wolseley, the
policy which really commended itself was the very policy which had been
outlined by General Gordon in his interview with Mr. Stead and his
letter to Sir Samuel Baker. They saw that it might be necessary to
abandon some of the outlying parts of the Sudan to the Mahdi; but the
prospect of leaving the whole province in his hands was highly
distasteful to them; above all, they dreaded the loss of Khartoum.
Now,
supposing that General Gordon, in response to a popular agitation in the
Press, were sent to Khartoum, what would follow? Was it not at least
possible that, once there, with his views and his character, he would,
for some reason or other, refrain from carrying out a policy of pacific
retreat? Was it not possible that in that case he might so involve the
English Government that it would find itself obliged, almost
imperceptibly perhaps, to substitute for its policy of withdrawal a
policy of advance? Was it not possible that General Gordon might get
into difficulties, that he might be surrounded and cut off from Egypt'?
If that were to happen, how could the English Government avoid the
necessity of sending an expedition to rescue him? And, if an English
expedition went to the Sudan, was it conceivable that it would leave the
Mahdi as it found him? In short, would not the dispatch of General
Gordon to Khartoum involve, almost inevitably, the conquest of the Sudan
by British troops, followed by a British occupation? And, behind all
these questions, a still larger question loomed. The position of the
English in Egypt itself was still ambiguous; the future was obscure; how
long, in reality, would an English army remain in Egypt? Was not one
thing, at least, obvious--that if the English were to conquer and occupy
the Sudan, their evacuation of Egypt would become impossible?
With our present information, it would be rash to affirm that all, or
any, of these considerations were present to the minds of the
imperialist section of the Government. Yet it is difficult to believe
that a man such as Lord Wolseley, for instance, with his knowledge of
affairs and his knowledge of Gordon, could have altogether overlooked
them. Lord Hartington, indeed, may well have failed to realise at once
the implications of General Gordon's appointment--for it took Lord
Hartington some time to realise the implications of anything; but Lord
Hartington was very far from being a fool; and we may well suppose that
he instinctively, perhaps subconsciously, apprehended the elements of a
situation which he never formulated to himself. However that may be,
certain circumstances are significant. It is significant that the
go-between who acted as the Government's agent in its negotiations with
Gordon was an imperialist--Lord Wolseley. It is significant that the
'Ministers' whom Gordon finally interviewed, and who actually determined
his appointment were by no means the whole of the Cabinet, but a small
section of it, presided over by Lord Hartington. It is significant, too,
that Gordon's mission was represented both to Sir Evelyn Baring, who was
opposed to his appointment, and to Mr. Gladstone, who was opposed to an
active policy in the Sudan, as a mission merely 'to report'; while, no
sooner was the mission actually decided upon, than it began to assume a
very different complexion. In his final interview with the 'Ministers',
Gordon we know (though he said nothing about it to the Rev. Mr Barnes)
threw out the suggestion that it might be as well to make him the
Governor-General of the Sudan. The suggestion, for the moment, was not
taken up; but it is obvious that a man does not propose to become a
Governor-General in order to make a report.
We are in the region of speculations; one other presents itself. Was the
movement in the Press during that second week of January a genuine
movement, expressing a spontaneous wave of popular feeling? Or was it a
cause of that feeling, rather than an effect? The engineering of a
newspaper agitation may not have been an impossibility--even so long ago
as 1884. One would like to know more than one is ever likely to know of
the relations of the imperialist section of the Government with Mr.
Stead.
But it is time to return to the solidity of fact. Within a few hours of
his interview with the Ministers, Gordon had left England forever. At
eight o'clock in the evening, there was a little gathering of elderly
gentlemen at Victoria Station. Gordon, accompanied by Colonel Stewart,
who was to act as his second-in-command, tripped on to the platform.
Lord Granville bought the necessary tickets; the Duke of Cambridge
opened the railway-carriage door. The General jumped into the train; and
then Lord Wolseley appeared, carrying a leather bag, in which was L200
in gold, collected from friends at the last moment for the contingencies
of the journey. The bag was handed through the window. The train
started. As it did so, Gordon leaned out and addressed a last whispered
question to Lord Wolseley. Yes, it had been done. Lord Wolseley had seen
to it himself; next morning, every member of the Cabinet would receive a
copy of Dr. Samuel Clarke's Scripture Promises. That was all. The train
rolled out of the station.
Before the travellers reached Cairo, steps had been taken which finally
put an end to the theory--if it had ever been seriously held--that the
purpose of the mission was simply the making of a report. On the very
day of Gordon's departure, Lord Granville telegraphed to Sir Evelyn
Baring as follows: 'Gordon suggests that it may be announced in Egypt
that he is on his way to Khartoum to arrange for the future settlement
of the Sudan for the best advantage of the people. ' Nothing was said of
reporting. A few days later, Gordon himself telegraphed to Lord
Granville suggesting that he should be made Governor-General of the
Sudan, in order to 'accomplish the evacuation', and to 'restore to the
various Sultans of the Sudan their independence'. Lord Granville at once
authorised Sir Evelyn Baring to issue, if he thought fit, a proclamation
to this effect in the name of the Khedive. Thus the mission 'to report'
had already swollen into a Governor-Generalship, with the object, not
merely of effecting the evacuation of the Sudan, but also of setting up
'various Sultans' to take the place of the Egyptian Government.
In Cairo, in spite of the hostilities of the past, Gordon was received
with every politeness. He was at once proclaimed Governor-General of the
Sudan, with the widest powers. He was on the point of starting off again
on his journey southwards, when a singular and important incident
occurred. Zobeir, the rebel chieftain of Darfur, against whose forces
Gordon had struggled for years, and whose son, Suleiman, had been
captured and executed by Gessi, Gordon's lieutenant, was still detained
at Cairo. It so fell out that he went to pay a visit to one of the
Ministers at the same time as the new Governor-General. The two men met
face to face, and, as he looked into the savage countenance of his old
enemy, an extraordinary shock of inspiration ran through Gordon's brain.
He was seized, as he explained in a State paper, which he drew up
immediately after the meeting, with a 'mystic feeling' that he could
trust Zobeir. It was true that Zobeir was 'the greatest slave-hunter who
ever existed'; it was true that he had a personal hatred of Gordon,
owing to the execution of Suleiman--'and one cannot wonder at it, if one
is a father'; it was true that, only a few days previously, on his way
to Egypt, Gordon himself had been so convinced of the dangerous
character of Zobeir that he had recommended by telegram his removal to
Cyprus. But such considerations were utterly obliterated by that one
moment of electric impact of personal vision; henceforward, there was a
rooted conviction in Gordon's mind that Zobeir was to be trusted, that
Zobeir must join him at Khartoum, that Zobeir's presence would paralyse
the Mahdi, that Zobeir must succeed him in the government of the country
after the evacuation. Did not Sir Evelyn Baring, too, have the mystic
feeling? Sir Evelyn Baring confessed that he had not. He distrusted
mystic feelings. Zobeir, no doubt, might possibly be useful; but, before
deciding upon so important a matter, it was necessary to reflect and to
consult.
In the meantime, failing Zobeir, something might perhaps be done with
the Emir Abdul Shakur, the heir of the Darfur Sultans. The Emir, who had
been living in domestic retirement in Cairo, was with some difficulty
discovered, given L2,000, an embroidered uniform, together with the
largest decoration that could be found, and informed that he was to
start at once with General Gordon for the Sudan, where it would be his
duty to occupy the province of Darfur, after driving out the forces of
the Mahdi. The poor man begged for a little delay; but no delay could be
granted. He hurried to the railway station in his frockcoat and fez, and
rather the worse for liquor. Several extra carriages for his
twenty-three wives and a large quantity of luggage had then to be
hitched on to the Governor-General's train; and at the last moment some
commotion was caused by the unaccountable disappearance of his
embroidered uniform. It was found, but his troubles were not over. On
the steamer, General Gordon was very rude to him, and he drowned his
chagrin in hot rum and water. At Assuan he disembarked, declaring that
he would go no farther. Eventually, however, he got as far as Dongola,
whence, after a stay of a few months, he returned with his family to
Cairo.
In spite of this little contretemps, Gordon was in the highest spirits.
At last his capacities had been recognised by his countrymen; at last he
had been entrusted with a task great enough to satisfy even his desires.
He was already famous; he would soon be glorious. Looking out once more
over the familiar desert, he felt the searchings of his conscience
stilled by the manifest certainty that it was for this that Providence
had been reserving him through all these years of labour and of sorrow
for this! What was the Mahdi to stand up against him! A thousand
schemes, a thousand possibilities sprang to life in his pullulating
brain. A new intoxication carried him away. 'Il faut etre toujours ivre.
Tout est la: c'est l'unique question. ' Little though he knew it, Gordon
was a disciple of Baudelaire. 'Pour ne pas sentir l'horrible fardeau du
Temps qui brise vos epaules et vous penche vers la terre, il faut vous
enivrer sans treve. ' Yes--but how feeble were those gross resources of
the miserable Abdul-Shakur! Rum? Brandy? Oh, he knew all about them;
they were nothing. He tossed off a glass. They were nothing at all. The
true drunkenness lay elsewhere. He seized a paper and pencil, and dashed
down a telegram to Sir Evelyn Baring. Another thought struck him, and
another telegram followed. And another, and yet another. He had made up
his mind; he would visit the Mahdi in person, and alone. He might do
that; or he might retire to the Equator. He would decidedly retire to
the Equator, and hand over the Bahr-el-Ghazal province to the King of
the Belgians. A whole flock of telegrams flew to Cairo from every
stopping-place. Sir Evelyn Baring was patient and discrete; he could be
trusted with such confidences; but unfortunately Gordon's strange
exhilaration found other outlets. At Berber, in the course of a speech
to the assembled chiefs, he revealed the intention of the Egyptian
Government to withdraw from the Sudan. The news was everywhere in a
moment, and the results were disastrous. The tribesmen, whom fear and
interest had still kept loyal, perceived that they need look no more for
help or punishment from Egypt, and began to turn their eyes towards the
rising sun.
Nevertheless, for the moment, the prospect wore a favourable appearance.
The Governor-General was welcomed at every stage of his journey, and on
February 18th he made a triumphal entry into Khartoum. The feeble
garrison, the panic-stricken inhabitants, hailed him as a deliverer.
Surely they need fear no more, now that the great English Pasha had come
among them. His first acts seemed to show that a new and happy era had
begun. Taxes were remitted, the bonds of the usurers were destroyed, the
victims of Egyptian injustice were set free from the prisons; the
immemorial instruments of torture--the stocks and the whips and the
branding-irons were broken to pieces in the public square. A bolder
measure had been already taken. A proclamation had been issued
sanctioning slavery in the Sudan. Gordon, arguing that he was powerless
to do away with the odious institution, which, as soon as the withdrawal
was carried out, would inevitably become universal, had decided to reap
what benefit he could from the public abandonment of an unpopular
policy. At Khartoum the announcement was received with enthusiasm, but
it caused considerable perturbation in England. The Christian hero, who
had spent so many years of his life in suppressing slavery, was now
suddenly found to be using his high powers to set it up again. The
Anti-Slavery Society made a menacing movement, but the Government showed
a bold front, and the popular belief in Gordon's infallibility carried
the day.
He himself was still radiant. Nor, amid the jubilation and the devotion
which surrounded him, did he forget higher things. In all this turmoil,
he told his sister, he was 'supported'. He gave injunctions that his
Egyptian troops should have regular morning and evening prayers; 'they
worship one God,' he said, 'Jehovah. ' And he ordered an Arabic text,
'God rules the hearts of all men', to be put up over the chair of state
in his audience chamber. As the days went by, he began to feel at home
again in the huge palace which he knew so well. The glare and the heat
of that southern atmosphere, the movement of the crowded city, the
dark-faced populace, the soldiers and the suppliants, the reawakened
consciousness of power, the glamour and the mystery of the whole strange
scene--these things seized upon him, engulfed him, and worked a new
transformation on his intoxicated heart. England, with its complications
and its policies, became an empty vision to him; Sir Evelyn Baring, with
his cautions and sagacities, hardly more than a tiresome name. He was
Gordon Pasha, he was the Governor-General, he was the ruler of the
Sudan. He was among his people--his own people, and it was to them only
that he was responsible--to them, and to God. Was he to let them fall
without a blow into the clutches of a sanguinary impostor? Never! He was
there to prevent that. The distant governments might mutter something
about 'evacuation'; his thoughts were elsewhere. He poured them into his
telegrams, and Sir Evelyn Baring sat aghast. The man who had left London
a month before, with instructions to 'report upon the best means of
effecting the evacuation of the Sudan', was now openly talking of
'smashing up the Mahdi' with the aid of British and Indian troops. Sir
Evelyn Baring counted upon his fingers the various stages of this
extraordinary development in General Gordon's opinions. But he might
have saved himself the trouble, for, in fact, it was less a development
than a reversion. Under the stress of the excitements and the realities
of his situation at Khartoum, the policy which Gordon was now proposing
to carry out had come to tally, in every particular, with the policy
which he had originally advocated with such vigorous conviction in the
pages of the Pall Mall Gazette.
Nor was the adoption of that policy by the English Government by any
means out of the question. For, in the meantime, events had been taking
place in the Eastern Sudan, in the neighbourhood of the Red Sea port of
Suakin, which were to have a decisive effect upon the prospects of
Khartoum. General Baker, the brother of Sir Samuel Baker, attempting to
relieve the beleaguered garrisons of Sinkat and Tokar, had rashly
attacked the forces of Osman Digna, had been defeated, and obliged to
retire. Sinkat and Tokar had then fallen into the hands of the Mahdi's
general. There was a great outcry in England, and a wave of warlike
feeling passed over the country. Lord Wolseley at once drew up a
memorandum advocating the annexation of the Sudan. In the House of
Commons even Liberals began to demand vengeance and military action,
whereupon the Government dispatched Sir Gerald Graham with a
considerable British force to Suakin. Sir Gerald Graham advanced, and in
the battles of El Teb and Tamai inflicted two bloody defeats upon the
Mahdi's forces. It almost seemed as if the Government was now committed
to a policy of interference and conquest; as if the imperialist section
of the Cabinet were at last to have their way. The dispatch of Sir
Gerald Graham coincided with Gordon's sudden demand for British and
Indian troops with which to 'smash up the Mahdi'. The business, he
assured Sir Evelyn Baring, in a stream of telegrams, could very easily
be done. It made him sick, he said, to see himself held in check and the
people of the Sudan tyrannised over by 'a feeble lot of stinking
Dervishes'. Let Zobeir at once be sent down to him, and all would be
well.
The original Sultans of the country had unfortunately proved
disappointing. Their place should be taken by Zobeir. After the Mahdi
had been smashed up, Zobeir should rule the Sudan as a subsidised vassal
of England, on a similar footing to that of the Amir of Afghanistan. The
plan was perhaps feasible; but it was clearly incompatible with the
policy of evacuation, as it had been hitherto laid down by the English
Government. Should they reverse that policy? Should they appoint Zobeir,
reinforce Sir Gerald Graham, and smash up the Mahdi? They could not make
up their minds. So far as Zobeir was concerned, there were two
counterbalancing considerations; on the one hand, Evelyn Baring now
declared that he was in favour of the appointment; but, on the other
hand, would English public opinion consent to a man, described by Gordon
himself as 'the greatest slave-hunter who ever existed', being given an
English subsidy and the control of the Sudan? While the Cabinet was
wavering, Gordon took a fatal step. The delay was intolerable, and one
evening, in a rage, he revealed his desire for Zobeir--which had
hitherto been kept a profound official secret--to Mr Power, the English
Consul at Khartoum, and the special correspondent of "The Times. "
Perhaps he calculated that the public announcement of his wishes would
oblige the Government to yield to them; if so, he was completely
mistaken, for the result was the very reverse. The country, already
startled by the proclamation in favour of slavery, could not swallow
Zobeir. The Anti-Slavery Society set on foot a violent agitation,
opinion in the House of Commons suddenly stiffened, and the Cabinet, by
a substantial majority, decided that Zobeir should remain in Cairo. The
imperialist wave had risen high, but it had not risen high enough; and
now it was rapidly subsiding. The Government's next action was decisive.
Sir Gerald Graham and his British Army were withdrawn from the Sudan.
The critical fortnight during which these events took place was the
first fortnight of March. By the close of it, Gordon's position had
undergone a rapid and terrible change. Not only did he find himself
deprived, by the decision of the Government, both of the hope of
Zobeir's assistance and of the prospect of smashing up the Mahdi with
the aid of British troops; the military movements in the Eastern Sudan
produced, at the very same moment, a yet more fatal consequence. The
adherents of the Mahdi had been maddened, they had not been crushed, by
Sir Gerald Graham's victories. When, immediately afterwards, the English
withdrew to Suakin, from which they never again emerged, the inference
seemed obvious; they had been defeated, and their power was at an end.
The warlike tribes to the north and the northeast of Khartoum had long
been wavering. They now hesitated no longer, and joined the Mahdi. From
that moment--it was less than a month from Gordon's arrival at
Khartoum--the situation of the town was desperate. The line of
communications was cut. Though it still might be possible for occasional
native messengers, or for a few individuals on an armed steamer, to win
their way down the river into Egypt, the removal of a large number of
persons--the loyal inhabitants or the Egyptian garrison--was
henceforward an impossibility. The whole scheme of the Gordon mission
had irremediably collapsed; worse still, Gordon himself, so far from
having effected the evacuation of the Sudan, was surrounded by the
enemy. 'The question now is,' Sir Evelyn Baring told Lord Granville, on
March 24th, 'how to get General Gordon and Colonel Stewart away from
Khartoum. '
The actual condition of the town, however, was not, from a military
point of view, so serious as Colonel Coetlogon, in the first moments of
panic after the Hicks disaster, had supposed. Gordon was of opinion that
it was capable of sustaining a siege of many months. With his usual
vigour, he had already begun to prepare an elaborate system of
earthworks, mines, and wire entanglements. There was a five or six
months' supply of food, there was a great quantity of ammunition, the
garrison numbered about 8,000 men. There were, besides, nine small
paddle-wheel steamers, hitherto used for purposes of communication along
the Nile, which, fitted with guns and protected by metal plates, were of
considerable military value. 'We are all right,' Gordon told his sister
on March 15th. 'We shall, D. V. , go on for months. ' So far, at any rate,
there was no cause for despair. But the effervescent happiness of three
weeks since had vanished. Gloom, doubt, disillusionment,
self-questioning, had swooped down again upon their victim.
'Either I must believe He does all things in mercy and love, or else I
disbelieve His existence; there is no half way in the matter. What holes
do I not put myself into! And for what? So mixed are my ideas. I believe
ambition put me here in this ruin. '
Was not that the explanation of it all? 'Our Lord's promise is not for
the fulfilment of earthly wishes; therefore, if things come to ruin here
He is still faithful, and is carrying out His great work of divine
wisdom. ' How could he have forgotten that? But he would not transgress
again. 'I owe all to God, and nothing to myself, for, humanly speaking,
I have done very foolish things. However, if I am humbled, the better
for me. '
News of the changed circumstances at Khartoum was not slow in reaching
England, and a feeling of anxiety began to spread. Among the first to
realise the gravity of the situation was Queen Victoria. 'It is
alarming,' she telegraphed to Lord Hartington on March 25th. 'General
Gordon is in danger; you are bound to try to save him . . . You have
incurred a fearful responsibility. ' With an unerring instinct, Her
Majesty forestalled and expressed the popular sentiment.
