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THE LIFE OF GORDON
MAJOR-GENERAL, R.E., C.B.; TURKISH FIELD-MARSHAL, GRAND
CORDON MEDJIDIEH, AND PASHA; CHINESE TITU (FIELD-MARSHAL),
YELLOW JACKET ORDER.
"_'Tis a name which ne'er hath been dishonour'd,
And never will, I trust--most surely never
By such a youth as thou._"
--SWINTON ON ADAM GORDON.
BY
DEMETRIUS C. BOULGER
AUTHOR OF "THE HISTORY OF CHINA;" "ENGLAND AND RUSSIA IN CENTRAL
ASIA;" "LORD WILLIAM BENTINCK," ETC., ETC.
WITH PORTRAIT
VOLUME II
LONDON
T. FISHER UNWIN
PATERNOSTER SQUARE
MDCCCXCVI
[_All rights reserved._]
[Illustration: Portrait of C. G. Gordon with signature.]
CONTENTS.
VOLUME II.
CHAP. PAGE
VIII. GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF THE SOUDAN 1
IX. MINOR MISSIONS--INDIA AND CHINA 38
X. THE MAURITIUS, THE CAPE, AND THE CONGO 65
XI. THE LAST NILE MISSION 97
XII. KHARTOUM 136
CHAPTER VIII.
GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF THE SOUDAN.
When General Gordon left Egypt for England in December 1876 it was
with the expressed determination not to return; but the real state of
his mind was not bitterness at any personal grievance, or even desire
for rest, although he avowed his intention of taking six months'
leave, so much as disinclination to leave half done a piece of work in
which he had felt much interest, and with which he had identified
himself. Another consideration presented itself to him, and several of
his friends pressed the view on him with all the weight they
possessed, that no signal success could be achieved unless he were
placed in a position of supreme authority, not merely at the Equator,
but throughout the vast province of the Soudan. Such was the decision
Gordon himself, influenced no doubt by the views of two friends whose
names need not be mentioned, but who were well known for their zeal in
the anti-slavery cause, had come to a few weeks after his arrival in
England; and not thinking that there was any reasonable probability of
the Khedive appointing him to any such post, he telegraphed to the
British Consul-General, Mr Vivian, his determination not to return to
Egypt. This communication was placed before the Khedive Ismail, who
had a genuine admiration for Gordon, and who appreciated the value of
his services. He at once took the matter into his own hands, and wrote
the following letter, which shows that he thoroughly understood the
arguments that would carry weight with the person to whom they were
addressed:--
"MY DEAR GORDON,--I was astonished yesterday to learn of the
despatch you had sent to Mr Vivian, in which you inform me that
you will not return; all the more so when I recall your interview
at Abdin, during which you promised me to return, and complete
the work we had commenced together. I must therefore attribute
your telegram to the very natural feelings which influenced you
on finding yourself at home and among your friends. But I cannot,
my dear Gordon Pasha, think that a gentleman like Gordon can be
found wanting with regard to his solemn promise, and thus, my
dear Gordon, I await your return according to that promise.--Your
affectionate
"ISMAIL."
To such a letter as this a negative reply was difficult, if not
impossible; and when General Gordon placed the matter in the hands of
the Duke of Cambridge, as head of the army, he was told that he was
bound to return. He accordingly telegraphed to the Khedive that he was
willing to go back to the Soudan if appointed Governor-General, and
also that he would leave at once for Cairo to discuss the matter. On
his arrival there, early in February 1877, the discussion of the terms
and conditions on which Gordon would consent to return to the Upper
Nile was resumed. He explained his views at length to the Minister,
Cherif Pasha, who had succeeded Nubar as responsible adviser to the
Khedive, concluding with the ultimatum: "Either give me the Soudan, or
I will not go." The only compromise that Gordon would listen to was
that the Khedive's eldest son should be sent as Viceroy to Khartoum,
when he, for his part, would be willing to resume his old post at the
Equator. The Egyptian Ministers and high officials were not in favour
of any European being entrusted with such a high post, and they were
especially averse to the delegation of powers to a Christian, which
would leave him independent of everyone except the Khedive. But for
the personal intervention of the Khedive, Gordon would not have
revisited Cairo; and but for the same intervention he would never have
been made Governor-General, as, after a week's negotiation with
Cherif, an agreement was farther off than ever, and Gordon's patience
was nearly exhausted. The Khedive, really solicitous for Gordon's
help, and suspecting that there was something he did not know, asked
Mr Vivian to explain the matter fully to him. On hearing the cause of
the difficulty, Ismail at once said: "I will give Gordon the Soudan,"
and two days later he saw and told General Gordon the same thing,
which found formal expression in the following letter, written on 17th
February 1877, the day before Gordon left for Massowah:--
"MY DEAR GORDON PASHA,--Appreciating your honourable character,
your energy, and the great services that you have already
rendered to my Government, I have decided to unite in one great
Governor-Generalship the whole of the Soudan, Darfour, and the
Equatorial Provinces, and to entrust to you the important mission
of directing it. I am about to issue a Decree to this effect.
"The territories to be included in this Government being very
vast, it is necessary for good administration that you should
have under your orders three Vakils--one for the Soudan properly
so called and the Provinces of the Equator, another for Darfour,
and the third for the Red Sea coast and the Eastern Soudan.
"In the event of your deeming any changes necessary, you will
make your observations to me.
"The Governor-Generalship of the Soudan is completely independent
of the Ministry of Finance.
"I direct your attention to two points, viz.--the suppression of
slavery, and the improvement of the means of communication.
"Abyssinia extends along a great part of the frontiers of the
Soudan. I beg of you, when you are on the spot, to carefully
examine into the situation of affairs, and I authorise you, if
you deem it expedient, to enter into negotiations with the
Abyssinian authorities with the view of arriving at a settlement
of pending questions.
"I end by thanking you, my dear Gordon Pasha, for your kindness
in continuing to Egypt your precious services, and I am fully
persuaded that, with the aid of your great experience and your
devotion, we shall bring to a happy end the work we are pursuing
together.
"Believe, my dear Gordon Pasha, in my sentiments of high esteem
and sincere friendship.--Your affectionate
ISMAIL."
Nothing could be more gracious than this letter, which made General
Gordon independent of the men who he feared would thwart him, and
responsible to the Khedive alone. It was followed up a few weeks
later--that is to say, after the new Governor-General had left for his
destination--by the conferring of the military rank of Muchir or
Marshal. At the same time the Khedive sent him a handsome uniform,
with £150 worth of gold lace on the coat, and the Grand Cordon of the
Medjidieh Order, which, it may be worth noting here, General Gordon
only wore when in Egyptian uniform. These acts on the part of the
Khedive Ismail show that, whatever may have been his reasons for
taking up the slavery question, he was really sincere in his desire to
support Gordon, who fully realised and appreciated the good-will and
friendly intentions of this Egyptian ruler. When an unfavourable
judgment is passed on Ismail Pasha, his consistent support of General
Gordon may be cited to show that neither his judgment nor his heart
was as bad as his numerous detractors would have the world believe.
Having settled the character of the administration he was to conduct,
General Gordon did not waste a day at Cairo. The holiday and rest to
which he was fully entitled, and of which there can be no doubt that
he stood greatly in need, were reduced to the smallest limits. Only
two months intervened between his departure from Cairo for London on
coming down from the Equator, and his second departure from Cairo to
the Soudan. Much of that period had been passed in travelling, much
more in exhausting and uncongenial negotiation in the Egyptian
capital. All the brief space over enabled him to do was to pass the
Christmas with several members of his family, to which he was so
deeply attached, to visit his sisters in the old home at Southampton,
and to run down for a day to Gravesend, the scene of his philanthropic
labours a few years before. Yet, with his extraordinary recuperative
force, he hastened with fresh strength and spirit to take up a more
arduous and more responsible task than that he had felt compelled to
relinquish so short a period before. With almost boyish energy,
tempered by a profound belief in the workings of the Divine will, he
turned his face once more to that torrid region, where at that time
and since scenes of cruelty and human suffering have been enacted
rarely surpassed in the history of the world.
Having thus described the circumstances and conditions under which
General Gordon consented to take up the Soudan question, it is
desirable to explain clearly what were the objects he had in his own
mind, and what was the practical task he set himself to accomplish.
Fortunately, this description need not be based on surmise or
individual conjecture. General Gordon set forth his task in the
plainest language, and he held the clearest, and, as the result
showed, the most correct views as to what had to be done, and the
difficulties that stood in the way of its accomplishment. He wrote on
the very threshold of his undertaking these memorable sentences:--
"I have to contend with many vested interests, with fanaticism,
with the abolition of hundreds of Arnauts, Turks, etc., now
acting as Bashi-Bazouks, with inefficient governors, with wild
independent tribes of Bedouins, and with a large semi-independent
province lately under Zebehr Pasha at Bahr Gazelle.... With
terrific exertion, in two or three years' time I may, with God's
administration, make a good province, with a good army, and a
fair revenue and peace, and an increased trade, and also have
suppressed slave raids."
No one can dispute either the Titanic magnitude of the task to be
accomplished or the benefit its accomplishment would confer on a
miserably unhappy population. How completely the project was carried
out by one man, where powerful Governments and large armies have
failed both before and since, has now to be demonstrated.
General Gordon proceeded direct from Cairo to Massowah, which route he
selected because he hoped to settle the Abyssinian dispute before he
commenced operations in the Soudan. Both the Khedive and the British
Government wished a termination to be put to the troubles that had for
some time prevailed in the border lands of Abyssinia and the Eastern
Soudan, and it was hoped that Gordon's reputation and energy would
facilitate the removal of all difficulties with King John, who, after
the death of Theodore, had succeeded in obtaining the coveted title of
"Negus."
In order to understand the position, a few historical facts must be
recorded. By the year 1874 King John's authority was established over
every province except in the south, Shoa, where Menelik retained his
independence, and in the north, Bogos, which was seized in the year
stated by Munzinger Bey, a Swiss holding the post of Governor of
Massowah under the Khedive. In seizing Bogos, Munzinger had
dispossessed its hereditary chief, Walad el Michael, who retired to
Hamaçem, also part of his patrimony, where he raised forces in
self-defence. Munzinger proposed to annex Hamaçem, and the Khedive
assented; but he entrusted the command of the expedition to Arokol
Bey, and a Danish officer named Arendrup as military adviser, and
Munzinger was forced to be content with a minor command at Tajoura,
where he was killed some months later. The Egyptian expedition
meantime advanced with equal confidence and carelessness upon Hamaçem,
Michael attacked it in several detachments, and had the double
satisfaction of destroying the troops and capturing their arms and
ammunition. Such was the disastrous commencement of those pending
questions to which the Khedive Ismail referred in his letter to
General Gordon.
The Khedive decided to retrieve this reverse, and to continue his
original design. With this object a considerable number of troops were
sent to Massowah, and the conduct of the affair was entrusted to Ratib
Pasha and an American soldier of fortune, Colonel Loring Pasha. By
this time--1876--Michael had quarrelled with King John, who had
compelled him to give up the weapons he had captured from the
Egyptians, and, anxious for revenge, he threw in his lot with his
recent adversaries. The Egyptian leaders showed they had not profited
by the experience of their predecessors. They advanced in the same
bold and incautious manner, and after they had built two strong forts
on the Gura plateau they were induced, by jealousy of each other or
contempt for their enemy when he appeared, to leave the shelter of
their forts, and to fight in the open. The Egyptian Ratib had the good
sense to advise, "Stay in the forts," but Loring exclaimed: "No! march
out of them. You are afraid!" and thus a taunt once again sufficed to
banish prudence. The result of this action, which lasted only an hour,
was the loss of over 10,000 Egyptian troops, of 25 cannon, and 10,000
Remington rifles. The survivors took refuge in the forts, and
succeeded in holding them. Negotiations then followed, and King John
showed an unexpected moderation and desire for peace with Egypt, but
only on the condition of the surrender of his recalcitrant vassal
Michael. Michael retaliated by carrying raids into King John's
territory, thus keeping the whole border in a state of disorder, which
precluded all idea of a stable peace.
Such was the position with which General Gordon had to deal. He had to
encourage the weakened and disheartened Egyptian garrison, to muzzle
Michael without exposing the Khedive to the charge of deserting his
ally, and to conclude a peace with Abyssinia without surrendering
either Bogos or Michael. At this stage we are only called upon to
describe the first brief phase of this delicate question, which at
recurring intervals occupied Gordon's attention during the whole of
his stay in the Soudan. His first step was to inform Michael that the
subsidy of money and provisions would only be paid him on condition
that he abstained from attacking the Abyssinian frontier; his next to
write a letter to King John, offering him fair terms, and enclosing
the draft of a treaty of amity. There was good reason to think that
these overtures would have produced a favourable result if it had been
possible for General Gordon to have seen King John at that time, but
unfortunately a fresh war had just broken out with Menelik, and King
John had to proceed in all haste to Shoa. He did not reply to Gordon's
letter for six months, and by that time Gordon was too thoroughly
engaged in the Soudan to take up the Abyssinian question until the
force of events, as will be seen, again compelled him to do so.
Having decided that the Abyssinian dispute must wait, General Gordon
proceeded by Kassala on his journey to Khartoum. Travelling not less
than thirty miles a day, in great heat, organising the administration
on his way, and granting personal audience to everyone who wished to
see him, from the lowest miserable and naked peasant to the highest
official or religious personage, like the Shereef Said Hakim, he
reached Khartoum on the 3rd May. He did not delay an hour in the
commencement of his task. His first public announcement was to abolish
the _courbash_, to remit arrears of taxation, and to sanction a
scheme for pumping the river water into the town. The _Kadi_ or mayor
read this address in the public square; the people hailed it with
manifestations of pleasure, and Gordon himself, carried away by his
enthusiasm for his work, compresses the long harangue into a brief
text: "With the help of God, I will hold the balance level."
But the measures named were not attended by any great difficulty in
their inception or execution. They were merely the preliminaries to
the serious and risky disbandment of the Bashi-Bazouks, and the steps
necessary to restrict and control, not merely the trade in, but the
possession of, slaves. As General Gordon repeatedly pointed out, his
policy and proceedings were a direct attack on the only property that
existed in the Soudan, and justice to the slave could not be equitably
dispensed by injustice to the slave-owner. The third class of slave
raider stood in a separate category, and in dealing with him Gordon
never felt a trace of compunction. He had terminated the career of
those ruthless scourges of the African races at the Equator, and with
God's help he was determined to end it throughout the Soudan. But the
slave question in Egypt was many-sided, and bristled with difficulties
to anyone who understood it, and wished to mete out a fair and equable
treatment to all concerned.
It was with the special object of maintaining the rights of the owners
as well as of the slaves that Gordon proposed a set of regulations,
making the immediate registration of slaves compulsory, and thus
paving the way for the promulgation of the Slave Convention already
under negotiation. His propositions were only four in number, and read
as follows:--
1. Enforce the law compelling runaway slaves to return to their
masters, except when cruelly treated.
2. Require masters to register their slaves before 1st January
1878.
3. If the masters neglect to register them, then Regulation 1 not
to be enforced in their favour.
4. No registration to be allowed after 1st January 1878.
By these simple but practical arrangements General Gordon would have
upheld the rights of the slave-owners, and thus disarmed their
hostility, at the same time that he stopped the imposition of
servitude on any fresh persons. In the course of time, and without
imposing on the Exchequer the burden of the compensation, which he saw
the owners were in equity entitled to, he would thus have put an end
to the slave trade throughout the Soudan.
The Anglo-Egyptian Convention on the subject of the slave trade,
signed on 4th August 1877, was neither so simple nor so practical,
while there was a glaring inconsistency between its provisions and the
Khedivial Decree that accompanied it.
The second article of the Convention reads: "Any person engaged in
traffic of slaves, either directly or indirectly, shall be considered
guilty of stealing with murder (_vol avec meurtre_)," and consequently
punishable, as General Gordon assumed, with death.
But the first and second clauses of the Khedive's Decree were to a
different effect. They ran as follows:--
"The sale of slaves from family to family will be prohibited.
This prohibition will take effect in seven years in Cairo, and in
twelve years in the Soudan.
"After the lapse of this term of years any infraction of this
prohibition will be punished by an imprisonment of from five
months to five years."
The literal interpretation of this decree would have left Gordon
helpless to do anything for the curtailment of the slave trade until
the year 1889, and then only permitted to inflict a quite insufficient
punishment on those who broke the law. General Gordon pointed out the
contradiction between the Convention and the Decree, and the
impossibility of carrying out his original instructions if he were
deprived of the power of allotting adequate punishment for offences;
and he reverted to his original proposition of registration, for which
the Slave Convention made no provision, although the negotiators at
Cairo were fully aware of his views and recommendations expressed in
an official despatch three months before that Convention was signed.
To these representations Gordon never received any reply. He was left
to work out the problem for himself, to carry on the suppression of
the slave trade as best he could, and to take the risk of official
censure and repudiation for following one set of instructions in the
Convention in preference to those recorded in the Decree. The outside
public blamed the Khedive, and Gordon himself blamed Nubar Pasha and
the Egyptian Ministry; but the real fault lay at the doors of the
British Government, which knew of Gordon's representations and the
discrepancy between the orders of the Khedive and the Convention they
had signed together, and yet did nothing to enforce the precise
fulfilment of the provisions it had thought it worth while to resort
to diplomacy to obtain. The same hesitation and inability to grasp the
real issues has characterised British policy in Egypt down to the
present hour.
If Gordon had not been a man fearless of responsibility, and resolved
that some result should ensue from his labours, he would no doubt have
expended his patience and strength in futile efforts to obtain clearer
and more consistent instructions from Cairo, and, harassed by
official tergiversation and delay, he would have been driven to give
up his task in disgust if not despair. But being what he was--a man of
the greatest determination and the highest spirit--he abandoned any
useless effort to negotiate with either the English or the Egyptian
authorities in the Delta, and he turned to the work in hand with the
resolve to govern the Soudan in the name of the Khedive, but as a
practical Dictator. It was then that broke from him the characteristic
and courageous phrase: "I will carry things with a high hand to the
last."
The first and most pressing task to which Gordon had to address
himself was the supersession of the Turkish and Arab irregulars, who,
under the name of "Bashi-Bazouks," constituted a large part of the
provincial garrison. Not merely were they inefficient from a military
point of view, but their practice, confirmed by long immunity, had
been to prey on the unoffending population. They thus brought the
Government into disrepute, at the same time that they were an element
of weakness in its position. Gordon saw that if the Khedive had no
better support than their services, his authority in the Soudan was
liable at any moment to be overthrown. It had been the practice of the
Cairo authorities to send up, whenever reinforcements were asked for,
Arnaut and Arab loafers in that city, and these men were expected to
pay themselves without troubling the Government. This they did to
their own satisfaction, until Gordon resolved to put an end to their
misdeeds at all cost, for he found that not merely did they pillage
the people, but that they were active abettors of the slave trade. Yet
as he possessed no military force, while there were not fewer than
6000 Bashi-Bazouks scattered throughout the provinces, he had to
proceed with caution. His method of breaking up this body is a
striking illustration of his thorough grasp of detail, and of the
prudence, as well as daring, with which he applied what he conceived
to be the most sensible means of removing a grave difficulty. This
considerable force was scattered in numerous small garrisons
throughout the province. From a military point of view this
arrangement was bad, but it enabled each separate garrison to do a
little surreptitious slave-hunting on its own account. General Gordon
called in these garrisons, confined the Bashi-Bazouks to three or four
places, peremptorily stopped the arrival of recruits, and gradually
replaced them with trustworthy black Soudanese soldiers. Before he
laid down the reins of power, at the end of 1879, he had completely
broken up this body, and as effectually relieved the Soudanese from
their military tyrants as he had freed them from the whip.
Having put all these matters in trim, Gordon left Khartoum in the
middle of the summer of 1877 for the western province of Darfour,
where a number of matters claimed his pressing attention. In that
province there were several large Egyptian garrisons confined in two
or three towns, and unable--through fear, as it proved, but on account
of formidable enemies, as was alleged--to move outside them. The
reports of trouble and hostility were no doubt exaggerated, but still
there was a simmering of disturbance below the surface that portended
peril in the future; and read by the light of after events, it seems
little short of miraculous that General Gordon was able to keep it
under by his own personal energy and the magic of his name. When on
the point of starting to relieve these garrisons, he found himself
compelled to disband a regiment of 500 Bashi-Bazouks, who constituted
the only force at his immediate disposal. He had then to organise a
nondescript body, after the same fashion as he had adopted at the
Equator, and with 500 followers of this kind--of whom he said only 150
were any good--he started on his march for the districts which lie
several hundred miles west of the White Nile, and approach most nearly
of the Khedive's possessions to Lake Tchad.
The enemies with whom General Gordon had to deal were two. There was
first Haroun, who claimed, as the principal survivor after Zebehr's
invasion of Darfour, already described, to be the true Sultan of that
State; and secondly, Suleiman, the son of Zebehr, and the nominal
leader of the slave-dealers. While the former was in open revolt, the
latter's covert hostility was the more to be dreaded, although
Suleiman might naturally hesitate to throw off the mask lest his
revolt might be the signal for his father's execution at Cairo--Zebehr
having been detained there after his too confiding visit a few years
before. It was therefore both prudent and necessary to ignore Suleiman
until Haroun had been brought into subjection, or in some other way
compelled to desist from acts of hostility.
General Gordon's plan was simple in the extreme. Leaving the Nile with
500 men, he determined to collect _en route_ the efficient part of the
scattered garrisons, sending those who were not efficient to the river
for transport to Khartoum, and with this force to relieve the garrison
at Fascher, the most distant of the large towns or stations in
Darfour. It will be understood that these garrisons numbered several
thousand men each, while Gordon's relieving body was only a few
hundreds; but their _morale_ had sunk so low that they dared not take
the field against an enemy whom their own terror, and not the reality,
painted as formidable. Even before he began his advance, Gordon had
taken a fair measure of the revolt, which he expressed himself
confident of suppressing without firing a shot. At Dara, the place
which in the Mahdist war was well defended by Slatin Pasha, he
released 1800 troops; but he was kept in inactivity for some weeks
owing to the necessity of organising his force and of ascertaining how
far Suleiman, with his robber confederacy of 10,000 fighting men at
Shaka--only 150 miles south-east of Dara--might be counted on to
remain quiet. During this period of suspense he was compelled to take
the field against a formidable tribe called by the name of the
Leopard, which threatened his rear. It is unnecessary to enter upon
the details of this expedition, which was completely successful,
notwithstanding the cowardice of his troops, and which ended with the
abject submission of the offending clan.
Having assembled a force of a kind of 3,500 men, he resolved to make a
forced march to Fascher, and then with the same promptitude to descend
on Shaka, and settle the pending dispute with Suleiman. These plans he
kept locked in his own bosom, for his camp was full of spies, and his
own surroundings were not to be trusted.
Leaving the main portion of his troops at Dara, he advanced on Fascher
at the head of less than 1000 men, taking the lead himself with the
small bodyguard he had organised of 150 picked Soudanese. With these
he entered Fascher, where there were 3000 troops, and the Pasha,
Hassan Helmi, had 10,000 more at Kolkol, three days' journey away.
Gordon found the garrison quite demoralised, and afraid to move
outside the walls. He at once ordered Hassan Pasha to come to him,
with the intention of punishing him by dismissal for his negligence
and cowardice in commanding a force that, properly led, might have
coerced the whole province, when the alarming news reached the
Governor-General that Suleiman and his band had quitted Shaka, and
were plundering in the neighbourhood of Dara itself. The gravity of
this danger admitted of no delay. Not a moment could be spared to
either punish an incapable lieutenant or to crush the foe Haroun,
whose proceedings were the alleged main cause of trouble in Darfour.
Gordon returned with his bodyguard as fast as possible, and, leaving
even it behind, traversed the last eighty-five miles alone on his
camel in a day and a half. Here may be introduced what he wrote
himself on the subject of these rapid and often solitary camel
journeys:--
"I have a splendid camel--none like it; it flies along, and quite
astonishes even the Arabs. I came flying into this station in
Marshal's uniform, and before the men had had time to unpile
their arms, I had arrived, with only one man with me. I could not
help it; the escort did not come in for an hour and a half
afterwards. The Arab chief who came with me said it was the
telegraph. The Gordons and the camels are of the same race--let
them take an idea into their heads, and nothing will take it
out.... It is fearful to see the Governor-General arrayed in
gold clothes, flying along like a madman, with only a guide, as
if he were pursued.... If I were fastidious, I should be as many
weeks as I now am days on the road; I gain a great deal of
prestige by these unheard-of marches. It makes the people fear me
much more than if I were slow."
The situation was in every way as serious as was represented. The Dara
garrison as a fighting force was valueless, and with the exception of
his small bodyguard, still on the road from Fascher, Gordon had not a
man on whom he could count. Suleiman and his whole force were encamped
not three miles from the town. Gordon quite realised the position; he
saw that his own life, and, what he valued more, the whole work on
which he had been so long engaged, were at stake, and that a moment's
hesitation would mean ruin. He rose to the crisis. At daybreak,
attired in his official costume, with the Medjidieh gleaming on his
breast, he mounted his horse and rode off to Suleiman's camp. Suleiman
meditated treachery, and a trifle would have decided him to take the
step of seizing Gordon, and holding him as hostage for his father. Had
Gordon delayed even a few hours, there is no doubt that the
slave-hunters would have executed their original design; but his
extraordinary promptitude and self-confidence disconcerted them, and
probably saved his own life. Gordon rode down the brigand lines;
Suleiman, described as "a nice-looking lad of twenty-two," received
him with marks of respect, and the Governor-General, without giving
them a moment to think, at once summoned him and his chief lieutenants
to an audience in the tent placed at his disposal. Here Gordon went
straight to the point, accusing them of meditated rebellion, and
telling them that he meant to break up their confederacy. After
listening to this indictment, they all made him submission very
abjectly; but Gordon saw that Suleiman had not forgiven him, and when
the truth came afterwards to be known, it was found that he did not
carry out his project only because his principal lieutenants had
deserted him. When the negotiations were over, Suleiman retired with
1500 men to Shaka, where we shall hear of him again, and Gordon took
into his pay the other half of the brigand force. In this remarkable
manner did he stave off the greatest peril which had yet threatened
him in the Soudan.
The following corroborative account of this incident was furnished
long afterwards by Slatin Pasha:--
"In the midst of all this discussion and difference of opinion,
Gordon, travelling by Keriut and Shieria, had halted at a spot
about four hours' march from Dara; and having instructed his
escort to follow him as usual, he and his two secretaries started
in advance on camels. Hearing of his approach, Suleiman had
given orders to his troops to deploy in three lines between the
camp and the fort, and while this operation was being carried
out, Gordon, coming from the rear of the troops, passed rapidly
through the lines, riding at a smart trot, and, saluting the
troops right and left, reached the fort. The suddenness of
Gordon's arrival left the leaders no time to make their plans.
They therefore ordered the general salute; but even before the
thunder of the guns was heard, Gordon had already sent orders to
Suleiman and his chiefs to appear instantly before him.... Thus
had Gordon, by his amazing rapidity and quick grasp of the
situation, arrived in two days at the settlement of a question
which literally bristled with dangers and difficulties. Had
Suleiman offered resistance at a time when Darfour was in a
disturbed state, Gordon's position and the maintenance of
Egyptian authority in these districts would have been precarious
in the extreme."
What Gordon's own opinion of this affair was is revealed in the
following extremely characteristic letter written to one of those
anti-slavery enthusiasts, who seemed to think that the whole
difficulty could be settled by a proclamation or two, and a rigid
enforcement of a strict law sentencing every one connected with the
slave trade without discrimination to death:--
"There are some 6000 more slave-dealers in the interior who will
obey me now they have heard that Zebehr's son and the other
chiefs have given in. You can imagine what a difficulty there is
in dealing with all these armed men. I have separated them here
and there, and in course of time will rid myself of the mass.
Would you shoot them all? Have they no rights? Are they not to be
considered? Had the planters no rights? Did not our Government
once allow slave-trading? Do you know that cargoes of slaves came
into Bristol Harbour in the time of our fathers? I would have
given £500 to have had you and the Anti-Slavery Society in Dara
during the three days of doubt whether the slave-dealers would
fight or not. A bad fort, a coward garrison, and not one who did
not tremble--on the other side a strong, determined set of men
accustomed to war, good shots, with two field-pieces. I would
have liked to hear what you would all have said then. I do not
say this in brag, for God knows what my anxiety was."
The drama, of which the first act took place in Suleiman's camp
outside Dara, was not then ended. Gordon knew that to leave a thing
half done was only to invite the danger to reappear. Suleiman had
retired with his 1500 men to Shaka, the followers of Zebehr from all
sides throughout the province would flock to his standard, and in a
little time he would be more formidable and hostile than before. Four
days after Suleiman left Dara, Gordon set out for the same place, at
the head of four companies, and after a six days' march through
terrible heat he reached Shaka. The slave-hunters had had no time to
recover their spirits, they were all completely cowed and very
submissive; and Suleiman craved favour at the hands of the man against
whose life he had only a few days before been plotting. Unfortunately
Gordon could not remain at Shaka, to attend in person to the
dispersion of Suleiman's band, and after his departure that young
leader regained his confidence, and resorted to his hostile and
ambitious designs; but the success of General Gordon's plans in the
summer of 1877 was complete, and sufficed to greatly diminish the
gravity of the peril when, twelve months later, Suleiman broke out
afresh, and fell by the hands of Gessi.
While General Gordon was facing these personal dangers, and coping
with difficulties in a manner that has never been surpassed, and that
will stand as an example to all time of how the energy, courage, and
attention to detail of an individual will compensate for bad troops
and deficient resources, he was experiencing the bitter truth that no
one can escape calumny. The arm-chair reformers of London were not at
all pleased with his methods, and they were quite shocked when they
heard that General Gordon, whom they affected to regard as the nominee
of the Anti-Slavery Society, and not as the responsible lieutenant of
a foreign potentate, was in the habit, not merely of restoring
fugitive slaves to their lawful owners, but even of purchasing slaves
with his own and the Government money, in order to convert them into
soldiers. From their narrow point of view, it seemed to them that
these steps were a direct encouragement of the slave-trade, and they
denounced Gordon's action with an extraordinary, but none the less
bitter, ignorance of the fact that he was employing the only practical
means of carrying out the mission which, in addition to his
administrative duties, had been practically imposed on him as the
representative of civilization. These good but misinformed persons
must have believed that the Egyptian garrison in the Soudan was
efficient, that communications were easy, and the climate not
unpleasant, and that Gordon, supported by zealous lieutenants, had
only to hold up his hand or pass a resolution, in the fashion of
Exeter Hall, for the chains, real and metaphysical, to fall from the
limbs of the negro population of Inner Africa. That was their dream.
The reality was a worthless and craven army, a climate that killed
most Europeans, and which the vigour and abstemiousness of Gordon
scarcely enabled him to endure, communications only maintained and
represented by the wearying flight of the camel across the desert,
treachery and hostility to his plans, if not his person, among his
colleagues--all these difficulties and dangers overcome and rendered
nugatory by the earnestness and energy of one man alone. Well might
his indignation find vent in such a grand outburst as this:--
"I do not believe in you all. You say this and that, and you do
not do it; you give your money, and you have done your duty; you
praise one another, etc. I do not wonder at it. God has given you
ties and anchors to this earth; you have wives and families. I,
thank God, have none of them, and am free. Now understand me. If
it suit me, I will buy slaves. I will let captured slaves go down
to Egypt and not molest them, and I will do what I like, and what
God, in His mercy, may direct me to do about domestic slaves; but
I will break the neck of slave raids, even if it cost me my life.
I will buy slaves for my army; for this purpose I will make
soldiers against their will, to enable me to prevent raids. I
will do this in the light of day, and defy your resolutions and
your actions. Would my heart be broken if I was ousted from this
command? Should I regret the eternal camel-riding, the heat, the
misery I am forced to witness, the discomforts of everything
around my domestic life? Look at my travels in seven months.
Thousands of miles on camels, and no hope of rest for another
year. You are only called on at intervals to rely on your God;
with me I am obliged continually to do so. Find me the man and I
will take him as my help who utterly despises money, name, glory,
honour; one who never wishes to see his home again; one who looks
to God as the Source of good and Controller of evil; one who has
a healthy body and energetic spirit, and one who looks on death
as a release from misery; and if you cannot find him, then leave
me alone. To carry myself is enough for me; I want no other
baggage."
Gordon's troubles were not only with English visionaries. The Egyptian
officials had always regarded the delegation of supreme powers to him
with dislike, and this sentiment became unqualified apprehension when
they saw how resolute he was in exercising them. Ismail Pasha was
disposed to place unlimited trust in his energetic Governor-General,
but he could not but be somewhat influenced by those around him while
Gordon was far away. When, therefore, Gordon took into his own hands
the power of life and death, and sentenced men to be hanged and shot,
he roused that opposition to the highest point of activity, and
received repeated remonstrances by telegraph from Cairo. To these he
replied firmly, but quietly, that on no other condition could the
administration be carried on, and that his authority as Viceroy would
be undermined if he could not dispense prompt justice. Notwithstanding
all his representations, he never obtained the ratification of his
right to pass death sentences; but with that strong will that he
showed in every crisis, he announced his determination to act on his
own responsibility. On at least two occasions he expresses a feeling
of gratification at having caused murderers to be hung.
This is a suitable moment to lay stress on the true views Gordon held
on the subject of bloodshed. While averse to all warfare by
disposition, and without the smallest trace of what might be called
the military spirit, General Gordon had none of that timid and
unreasoning shrinking from taking life, which is often cruel and
always cowardly. He punished the guilty without the least false
compunction, even with a death sentence, and if necessity left no
choice, he would have executed that sentence himself, provided he was
quite convinced of its justice. As a rule, he went unarmed in the
Soudan, as in China; but there were exceptions, and on at least one
occasion he took an active and decisive part in a conflict. He was
being attacked by one of the tribes, and his men were firing wildly
and without result. Then Gordon snatched a rifle from one of his men,
and firing at the hostile leader, killed him. There are at least two
other incidents that will show him in a light that many of his
admirers would keep suppressed, but that bring out his human nature. A
clumsy servant fired off his heavy duck-gun close to his head, and
Gordon very naturally gave him a smart box on the ears which the
fellow would remember for a week. Excited by the misery of a
slave-gang, he asked the boy in charge of them to whom they belonged,
and as he hesitated, he struck him across the face with his whip.
Gordon's comment on this act is that it was "cruel and cowardly, but
he was enraged, and could not help it." One feels on reading this that
one would have done so oneself, and that, after all, Gordon was a man,
and not a spiritual abstraction.
Thus ended the first eventful year of General Gordon's tenure of the
post of Governor-General of the Soudan. Some idea of the magnitude of
the task he had performed may be gathered from the fact that during
this period he rode nearly 4000 miles on his camel through the desert.
He put before himself the solution of eight burning questions, and by
the end of 1877 he had settled five of them more or less permanently.
He had also effected many reforms in the military and civil branches
of the administration, and had formed the nucleus of a force in which
he could put some confidence. By the people he was respected and
feared, and far more liked than he imagined. "Send us another Governor
like Gordon" was the burden of the Soudanese cry to Slatin when the
shadow of the Mahdi's power had already fallen over the land. He had
respected their religion and prejudices. When their Mahommedan
co-religionists had ground them down to the dust, even desecrating
their mosques by turning them into powder magazines, General Gordon
showed them justice and merciful consideration, restored and endowed
their mosques, and exhorted them in every way to be faithful to the
observance of their religion. He was always most exact in payment for
services rendered. This became known; and when some of the Egyptian
officials--a Pasha among others--seized camels for his service without
paying for them, the owners threw themselves on the ground, kissing
Gordon's camel's feet, told their tale, and obtained prompt redress.
What more striking testimony to his thoughtfulness for others could be
given than in the following anecdote? One of his native lieutenants, a
confirmed drunkard, but of which Gordon was ignorant, became ill, and
the Governor-General went to see and sit by him in his tent. All the
man asked for was brandy, and General Gordon, somewhat shocked at the
repeated request, expostulated with him that he, a believer in the
Koran, should drink the strong waters so expressly forbidden by that
holy book. But the man readily replied, "This is as medicine, and the
Prophet does not forbid us to save life." Gordon said nothing, but
left the tent, and some hours later he sent the man two bottles of
brandy from his own small store. Even the Soudanese, who were afraid
of him in his terrible mood, knew the many soft corners he kept in his
heart, and easily learnt the way to them. For misfortune and suffering
of every kind his sympathy was quickly won, and with his sympathy went
his support, to the utmost limit of his power.
After the campaign in Darfour, Gordon returned to Khartoum, where he
was preparing for fresh exertions, as well as for a settlement of the
Abyssinian difficulty, when a sudden and unexpected summons reached
him to come down to Cairo and help the Khedive to arrange his
financial affairs. The Khedive's telegram stated that the Egyptian
creditors were trying to interfere with his sovereign prerogative, and
that His Highness knew no one but Gordon who could assist him out of
this position. The precise date on which this telegram reached Gordon
was 25th January 1878, when he was passing Shendy--the place on the
Nile opposite Metammeh, where the British Expedition encamped in
January 1885--but as he had to return to Khartoum to arrange for the
conduct of the administration during his absence, he did not arrive at
Dongola on his way to the capital until the 20th of the following
month. He reached Cairo on 7th March, was at once carried off to dine
with the Khedive, who had waited more than an hour over the appointed
time for him because his train was late, and, when it was over, was
conveyed to one of the finest palaces, which had been specially
prepared in his honour. The meaning of this extraordinary reception
was that the Khedive Ismail thought he had found a deliverer from his
own troubles in the man who had done such wonders in the Soudan. That
ruler had reached a stage in his affairs when extrication was
impossible, if the creditors of Egypt were to receive their dues. He
was very astute, and he probably saw that the only chance of saving
himself was for some high authority to declare that the interests of
himself and his people must be pronounced paramount to those of the
foreign investors. There was only one man in the world likely to come
to that conclusion, with a spotless reputation and a voice to which
public opinion might be expected to pay heed. That man was Gordon.
Therefore he was sent for in post haste, and found the post of
President of "An Inquiry into the State of the Finances of the
Country" thrust upon him before he had shaken off the dust of his long
journey to Cairo.
The motives which induced the Khedive to send for General Gordon
cannot be mistaken; nor is there any obscurity as to those which led
General Gordon to accept a task in which he was bound to run counter
to the views of every other European authority, and still more to the
fixed policy of his and other Governments. In the first place, Gordon
being the servant of the Khedive, it would have been impossible for
him to have said no to a request which was entitled to be regarded as
a command. In the second place, Gordon did not know all the currents
of intrigue working between Cairo and the capitals of Europe, and he
convinced himself that a sound workable plan for the benefit of Egypt
and her people would command such general approval that "the financial
cormorants," as he termed the bondholders, or rather their leaders,
would have to retire beaten from the field. He had no doubt that he
could draw up such a plan, based on a suspension and permanent
reduction of interest, and the result will convince any disinterested
person of the fact, but Gordon was destined to find that all persons
cannot be guided by such disinterestedness as his, of which the way he
treated his Egyptian salary furnished such a striking instance. When
sent to the Equator, he was offered £10,000 a year, and accepted
£2000; as Governor-General, he was nominated at £12,000 a year, and
cut it down to a half; and when, during this very Cairo visit, a new
and unnecessary official was appointed under the Soudan
Administration, he insisted that his own salary should be further
reduced to £3000, to compensate for this further charge. Such an
example as this did not arouse enthusiasm or inspire emulation in the
Delta. General Gordon never dealt with a question in which abstract
justice was deemed more out of place, or had less chance of carrying
the day.
As the matter was very important, and interested persons might easily
have misrepresented his part in it, General Gordon drew up a
memorandum explaining every incident in the course of the affair.
This document was published by his brother, Sir Henry Gordon, in 1886,
and the following description merely summarises its contents.
As far back as the year 1875 the Khedive Ismail began to discover that
the financial position of his Government was bad, and that it would be
impossible to keep up the payment of the interest on the debt at the
high rate of seven per cent., which Egypt had bound itself to pay. He
therefore applied to the British Government for advice and assistance.
In response to his representations, a Financial Commission, composed
of three members--Mr Cave, Colonel Stokes, and Mr Rivers Wilson--was
sent to Egypt for the purpose of inquiring into the financial position
of that country. They had no difficulty in coming to the conclusion
that it was unsound, and that the uneasiness of Ismail Pasha had not
been expressed a day too soon. They recommended that an arrangement
should be come to with the bondholders by which all the loans were to
be placed on the same footing, and the rate of interest reduced to
some figure that might be agreed upon. It then became necessary to
negotiate with the bondholders, who appointed Mr Goschen for the
English section, and M. Joubert for the French, to look after their
rights. The result of their efforts in 1876 was that they united the
loans into one, bearing a uniform rate of six per cent, instead of
seven, and that four Commissioners were appointed to look after the
debt in the interests of the bondholders, while two other European
officials were nominated--one to control the receipts, the other the
expenditure. In less than two years Ismail Pasha discovered that this
arrangement had not remedied the evil, and that the Government was
again on the verge of bankruptcy. It was at this juncture that the
Khedive applied to General Gordon, in the hope that his ability and
reputation would provide an easy escape from his dilemma.
General Gordon agreed to accept the post of President of this
Commission of Inquiry, and he also fell in with the Khedive's own wish
and suggestion that the Commissioners of the Debt should not be
members of the Commission. This point must be carefully borne in mind,
as the whole negotiation failed because of the Khedive's weakness in
waiving the very point he rightly deemed vital for success. Having
laid down the only principle to which he attached importance, the
Khedive went on to say that M. de Lesseps would act in conjunction
with General Gordon, and that these two, with some vague assistance
from financial experts, were to form the Commission. It soon became
evident that M. de Lesseps had no serious views on the subject, and
that he was only too much disposed to yield to external influences.
On the very threshold of his task, which he took up with his usual
thoroughness and honest desire to get at the truth, General Gordon
received a warning that the greatest difficulties were not those
inherent to the subject, but those arising from the selfish designs of
interested persons. As soon as it became known that General Gordon had
accepted this task, and that he had agreed to the Khedive's suggestion
that the Debt Commissioners were not to sit on the Commission, there
was a loud outburst of disapproval and dismay in diplomatic and
financial circles. This part of the story must be given in his own
words:--
"Mr Vivian, the English Consul-General, said to me, 'I wonder you
could accept the Presidency of the Commission of Inquiry without
the Commissioners of the Debt.' I said, 'I was free to accept or
refuse.'
"I then called on the German Consul-General, and when there the
French and Austrian Consuls-General, and also Vivian, came in,
and attacked me for having accepted the post of President. I said
'I was free.' And then they said, 'I was risking his Highness his
throne; that he ran a very serious risk personally, if he formed
the Commission of Inquiry without the creditors' representatives,
viz. the Commissioners of the Debt.' I said, 'Why do you not tell
him so?' They said, 'You ought to do so.' I said, 'Well, will you
commission me to do so, from you, with any remarks I like to make
as to the futility of your words?' They all said, 'Yes, we
authorise you to do so--in our names.'"
General Gordon went that evening to the Abdin Palace, where he was
engaged to dine with the Khedive; and having asked permission to make
an important communication, saw Ismail before dinner, when words to
this effect were exchanged:--
Gordon said: "I have seen the four Consuls-General to-day, and they
told me to tell your Highness from them that you run a serious
personal risk if you have a Commission of Inquiry without the
Commissioners of Debt being upon it."
The Khedive replied as follows: "I do not care a bit. I am only afraid
of England, and I feel sure she will not move. You will see Lesseps
to-morrow, and arrange the _enquête_ with him." Encouraged by the
Khedive's firmness, and fully convinced that no good result would
follow if the Debt Commissioners, who only considered the bondholders'
interests, were on this inquiry, Gordon met Lesseps the next morning
in the full expectation that business would now be begun. The further
ramifications of the intrigue, for it soon became one, for the
discomfiture and discrediting of Gordon, must be told in his own
words:
"The next day Lesseps came to my Palace with Stanton (Stokes's
old Danube Secretary, now Resident-Commissioner for the British
Government Suez Canal Shares at Paris, an old friend of mine).
Lesseps began, 'We must have the Commissioners of the Debt on the
_enquête_.'
"I said, 'It is a _sine quâ non_ that they are not to be upon
it.' Lesseps replied, 'They must be upon it.'
"Then in came Cherif Pasha (the Premier), and said, 'Are you
agreed?' I left Lesseps to speak, and he said, 'Yes,' at which I
stared and said, 'I fear not.' Then Lesseps and Cherif discussed
it, and Lesseps gave in, and agreed to serve on the Commission
without the Commissioners of the Debt, but with the proviso that
he would ask permission to do so from Paris. Cherif Pasha was
pleased.
"But I instinctively felt old Lesseps was ratting, so I asked
Cherif to stop a moment, and said to Stanton, 'Now, see that
Lesseps does not make a mess of it. Let him say at once, Will he
act without the Commissioners of Debt or not? Do this for my
sake; take him into that corner and speak to him.' Stanton did
so, while I took Cherif into the other corner, much against his
will, for he thought I was a bore, raising obstacles. I told him
that Lesseps had declared before he came that he would not act
unless with the Commissioners of the Debt. Cherif was huffed with
me, and turned to Lesseps, whom Stanton had already dosed in his
corner of the room, and he and Lesseps had a close conversation
again for some time; and then Cherif came to me and said,
'Lesseps has accepted without the Commissioners of the Debt.'
"I disgusted Cherif as I went downstairs with him by saying, 'He
will never stick to it.'"
If Gordon was not a diplomatist, he was at least very clear-sighted.
He saw clearly through M. de Lesseps, who had no views on the subject,
and who was quite content to play the part his Government assigned
him. A few minutes after the interview described he obtained further
evidence of the hostility the projected inquiry without the
Commissioners had aroused. He met Major Evelyn Baring, then beginning
the Egyptian career which he still pursues as Lord Cromer, who was
desirous of knowing what decision had been arrived at. On hearing that
the Commissioners were to be excluded, Major Baring remarked, "It was
unfair to the creditors," which seems to have drawn from Gordon some
angry retort. There is no doubt that at this moment Gordon lost all
control over himself, and employed personalities that left a sore
feeling behind them. That they did so in this case was, as I am
compelled to show later on, amply demonstrated in December 1883 and
January 1884. The direct and immediate significance of the occurrence
lay in its furnishing fresh evidence of the unanimity of hostility
with which all the European officials in the Delta regarded the
Khedive's proposal, and his attempt to make use of General Gordon's
exceptional character and reputation. It is a reflection on no
particular individual to assert that they were all resolved that
General Gordon's appeal to the abstract sense of justice of the world
should never be promulgated.
The first practical proposal made was to telegraph for Mr Samuel
Laing, a trained financier, who had acted in India at the head of the
finances of that country; but General Gordon refused to do this,
because he knew that he would be held responsible for the terms he
came on; and instead he drew up several propositions, one of them
being that the services of Mr Laing should be secured on conditions to
be fixed by the Khedive. During this discussion, it should be noted,
Lesseps paid no attention to business, talking of trivial and
extraneous matters. Then Gordon, with the view of clinching the
matter, said:
"There are two questions to decide:
"_First_, How to alleviate the present sufferings of the unpaid
civil employés and of the army, as well as the pressing claims of
the floating debt.
"_Second_, And afterwards to inquire into the real state of the
revenue by a Commission."
This was the exact opposite of the bondholders' view, for the
settlement of the grievances of the public and military service and of
the floating debt would _then_ have left nothing for the payment of
the coupons on the permanent external debt of a hundred millions. In
fact, General Gordon boldly suggested that the funds immediately
wanted must be provided by the non-payment of the next coupon due.
It is impossible to resist the conclusion that if General Gordon had
had his way, the Arabi revolt would have been averted; the Khedive
Ismail, the ablest member of his house, would not have been deposed;
and an English occupation of Egypt, hampered by financial and
diplomatic shackles that neutralise the value of its temporary
possession, need never have been undertaken. But _dis aliter visum_.
It is equally impossible to resist the conclusion that the forces
arrayed against Gordon on this occasion were such as he could not
expect to conquer.
The concluding scenes of the affair need only be briefly described. M.
de Lesseps had never swerved from his original purpose to refer the
matter to Paris, but even Gordon was not prepared for the duplicity he
showed in the matter, and in which he was no doubt encouraged by the
prevalent feeling among the foreigners at Cairo. The first point in
all tortuous diplomacy, Eastern or Western, is to gain time; and when
General Gordon, intent on business, called on Lesseps the next
day--that is to say, two days after his arrival from Khartoum--the
French engineer met him with the smiling observation that he was off
for a day in the country, and that he had just sent a telegram to
Paris. He handed Gordon a copy, which was to this effect: "His
Highness the Khedive has begged me to join with M. Gordon and _the
Commissioners of the Debt_ in making an inquiry into the finances of
Egypt; I ask permission." Gordon's astonished ejaculation "This will
never do" was met with the light-hearted Frenchman's remark, "I must
go, and it must go."
Then General Gordon hastened with the news and the draft of the
telegram to the Khedive. The copy was sent in to Ismail Pasha in his
private apartments. On mastering its contents, he rushed out, threw
himself on a sofa, and exclaimed, "I am quite upset by this telegram
of Lesseps; some one must go after him and tell him not to send it."
Then turning to Gordon, he said, "I put the whole affair into your
hands." Gordon, anxious to help the Khedive, and also hoping to find
an ally out of Egypt, telegraphed at great length to Mr Goschen, in
accordance with the Khedive's suggestion. Unfortunately, Mr Goschen
replied with equal brevity and authority, "I will not look at you; the
matter is in the hands of Her Majesty's Government." When we remember
that Gordon was the properly-appointed representative of an
independent Prince, or at least of a Prince independent of England, we
cannot wonder at his terming this a "rude answer." Mr Goschen may have
had some after-qualms himself, for he telegraphed some days later in a
milder tone, but Gordon would not take an affront from any man, and
left it unanswered.
At this crisis Gordon, nothing daunted, made a proposal which, if the
Khedive had had the courage to carry it out, might have left the
victory with them. He proposed to the Khedive to issue a decree
suspending the payment of the coupon, paying all pressing claims, and
stating that he did all this on the advice of Gordon. Failing that,
Gordon offered to telegraph himself to Lord Derby, the Foreign
Secretary, and accept the full responsibility for the measure. Ismail
was not equal to the occasion. He shut himself up in his harem for two
days, and, as Gordon said, "the game was lost."
General Gordon was now to experience the illimitable extent of human
ingratitude. Even those who disagreed with the views he expressed on
this subject cannot deny his loyalty to the Khedive, or the magnitude
of the efforts he made on his behalf. To carry out the wishes of the
Prince in whose service he was for the time being, he was prepared to
accept every responsibility, and to show an unswerving devotion in a
way that excited the opposition and hostility even of those whom he
might otherwise have termed his friends and well-wishers. By an
extreme expedient, which would either have ruined himself or thwarted
the plans of powerful statesmen, and financiers not less powerful, he
would have sealed his devotion to Ismail Pasha; but the moral or
physical weakness of the Oriental prevented the attempt being made.
The delay mentioned allowed of fresh pressure being brought to bear on
the Khedive; and while Gordon emphatically declared, partly from a
sense of consistency, and partly because he hoped to stiffen the
Khedive's resolution that he would not act with the Debt Commissioners
on the Inquiry, Ismail Pasha was coerced or induced into surrendering
all he had been fighting for. He gave his assent to the Commissioners
being on the Inquiry, and he turned his back on the man who had come
from the heart of Africa to his assistance. When Gordon learnt these
facts, he resolved to return to the Soudan, and he was allowed to do
so without the least mark of honour or word of thanks from the
Khedive. His financial episode cost him £800 out of his own pocket,
and even if we consider that the financial situation in the Delta,
with all its cross-currents of shady intrigue and selfish designs, was
one that he was not quite qualified to deal with, we cannot dispute
that his propositions were full of all his habitual nobility of
purpose, and that they were practical, if they could ever have been
put into effect.
This incident serves to bring out some of the limitations of Gordon's
ability. His own convictions, strengthened by the solitary life he had
led for years in the Soudan, did not make him well adapted for any
form of diplomacy. His methods were too simple, and his remedies too
exclusively based on a radical treatment, to suit every complaint in a
complicated state of society; nor is it possible for the majority of
men to be influenced by his extraordinary self-abnegation and
disregard for money. During this very mission he boasted that he was
able to get to bed at eight o'clock, because he never dined out, and
that he did not care at everyone laughing at him, and saying he was in
the sulks. This mode of living was due, not to any peculiarity about
General Gordon--although I trace to this period the opinion that he
was mad--but mainly to his honest wish not to be biassed by any
European's judgment, and to be able to give the Khedive absolutely
independent advice, as if he himself were an Egyptian, speaking and
acting for Egypt. Enough has been said to explain why he failed to
accomplish a really impossible task. Nor is it necessary to assume
that because they differed from him and strenuously opposed his
project, the other Englishmen in authority in the Delta were
influenced by any unworthy motives or pursued a policy that was either
reprehensible or unsound.
From this uncongenial task General Gordon returned to the work which
he thoroughly understood, and with regard to which he had to apprehend
no serious outside interference, for the attraction of the flesh-pots
of Egypt did not extend into the Soudan. Still, he felt that his
"outspokenness," as he termed it, had not strengthened his position.
He travelled on this occasion by the Red Sea route to Aden, thence to
Zeila, with the view of inspecting Harrar, which formed part of his
extensive Government. During this tour Gordon saw much that disquieted
him--a large strip of country held by fanatical Mahommedans, the slave
trade in unchecked progress where he had not thought it to exist--and
he wrote these memorable words: "Our English Government lives on a
hand-to-mouth policy. They are very ignorant of these lands, yet some
day or other they or some other Government will have to know them, for
things at Cairo cannot stay as they are. His Highness will be curbed
in, and will no longer be absolute sovereign; then will come the
question of these countries."
At Harrar, Gordon dismissed the Governor Raouf, whom he describes as a
regular tyrant, but who, none the less for his misdeeds, was
proclaimed Governor-General of the Soudan when Gordon left it less
than two years after this visit to Harrar. When this affair was
settled, General Gordon proceeded _via_ Massowah and Souakim to
Khartoum, where he arrived about the middle of June. On his way he had
felt bound to remove eight high military officers from their commands
for various offences, from which may be gathered some idea of the
colleagues on whom he had to depend. He reached Khartoum not a moment
too soon, for the first news that greeted him was that Suleiman had
broken out in open revolt, and was practically master of the Province
of Bahr Gazelle, which lies between Darfour and the Equatorial
Province.
But before describing the steps he took to suppress this formidable
revolt, which resembled the rising under the Mahdi in every point
except its non-religious character, some notice may be given of the
financial difficulties with which he had to cope, and which were much
increased by the Khedive's practice of giving appointments in a
promiscuous manner that were to be chargeable on the scanty and
inadequate revenues of the Soudan.
In the year 1877 the expenditure of the Soudan exceeded the revenue by
over a quarter of a million sterling; in 1878 Gordon had reduced this
deficit to £70,000. In the return given by the Khedive of his
resources when foreign intervention first took place, it was stated
that the Soudan furnished a tribute of £143,000. This was untrue; it
had always been a drain on the Cairo exchequer until in 1879 General
Gordon had the satisfaction, by reducing expenditure in every possible
direction and abolishing sinecures, of securing an exact balance. The
most formidable adversary Gordon had to meet in the course of this
financial struggle was the Khedive himself, and it was only by
sustained effort that he succeeded in averting the imposition of
various expenses on his shoulders which would have rendered success
impossible. First it was two steamers, which would have cost £20,000;
then it was the so-called Soudan railway, with a liability of not less
than three quarters of a million with which the Khedive wished to
saddle the Soudan, but Gordon would have neither, and his firmness
carried the day. When the Cairo authorities, in want of money, claimed
that the Soudan owed £30,000, he went into the items, and showed that,
instead, Cairo owed it £9000. He never got it, but by this he proved
that, while he was the servant of the Khedive, he would not be
subservient to him in matters that affected the successful discharge
of his task as that Prince's deputy in the Soudan.
We must now return to the revolt of Suleiman, the most serious
military peril Gordon had to deal with in Africa, which was in its
main features similar to the later uprising under the Mahdi. At the
first collision with that young leader of the slave-dealers, Gordon
had triumphed by his quickness and daring; but he had seen that
Suleiman was not thoroughly cowed, and he had warned him that if he
revolted again the result would inevitably be his ruin. Suleiman had
not taken the warning to heart, and was now in open revolt. His most
powerful supporters were the Arab colonies, long settled in interior
Africa, who, proud of their descent, were always willing to take part
against the Turco-Egyptian Government. These men rallied to a certain
extent to Suleiman, just as some years later they attached themselves
to the Mahdi. As General Gordon wrote in 1878: "They were ready, and
are still ready, to seize the first chance of shaking off the yoke of
Egypt." It was during Gordon's absence at Cairo that Suleiman's plans
matured, and he began the campaign by seizing the province of Bahr
Gazelle. Immediately on receiving this intelligence, General Gordon
fitted out an expedition; and as he could not take the command
himself, he intrusted it to his best lieutenant, Romolo Gessi, an
Italian of proved merit.
Natural difficulties retarded the advance of the expedition. Heavy
floods kept Gessi confined in his camp during three months, and the
lukewarm supporters of the Government regarded this inaction as proof
of inferiority. They consequently rallied to Suleiman, who soon found
himself at the head of a force of 6000 men, while Gessi had only 300
regulars, two cannon, and 700 almost useless irregulars. It was as
difficult for him to let the Governor-General know that he needed
reinforcements as it was for General Gordon to send them. Some of his
subordinates, in command of outlying detachments, refused to obey his
summons, preferring to carry on a little slave-hunting on their own
account. His troops were on the verge of mutiny: he had to shoot one
ringleader with his own hand.
At last the floods fell, and he began his forward movement, fighting
his way against detached bodies of slave-hunters, but after each
success receiving the welcome of the unfortunate natives, of whom
Suleiman had consigned not fewer than 10,000 in the six previous
months to slavery. At last Gessi was himself compelled to halt at a
place called Dem Idris, fifty miles north of the fort which Suleiman
had constructed for his final stand, and named after himself. These
places are about 200 miles south of both Dara and Shaka, while between
them runs the considerable stream called Bahr Arab. Gessi was now in
close proximity to the main force under Suleiman, but he had to halt
for five months before he felt in any way equal to the task of
attacking it. During that period he had to stand on the defensive, and
sustain several attacks from Suleiman, who had made all his plans for
invading Darfour, and adding that province to the Bahr Gazelle.
The first of these engagements was that fought on 28th December 1878,
when Suleiman, at the head of 10,000 men, attacked Gessi's camp at Dem
Idris. Fortunately, he had neglected no precaution, and his regulars,
supported by a strong force of friendly natives, nobly seconded his
efforts. Suleiman's force was repulsed in four assaults, and had to
retire with a loss of 1000 men. But Gessi's difficulties were far from
removed by this victory. Suleiman's losses were easily repaired, while
those of Gessi could not be replaced. His men were also suffering from
fever, and the strain on himself, through the absence of any
subordinates to assist him, was terrible. It was a relief to him when
Suleiman delivered his second attack, fifteen days after the first. On
this occasion Suleiman appealed to the religious fanaticism of his
followers, and made them swear on the Koran to conquer or die; and the
black troops, as the less trustworthy, were placed in the van of
battle and driven to the assault by the Arabs. Gessi made an excellent
disposition of his troops, repulsing the two main attacks with heavy
loss; and when the attack was resumed the next day, his success was
equally complete. Unfortunately, Gessi was unable to follow up this
advantage, because his powder was almost exhausted, and his men were
reduced to pick up bullets from the field of combat. Tidings of his
position reached Suleiman, who made a final attack on the 28th of
January 1879, but owing to the fortunate arrival of a small supply of
powder, Gessi was able to fight and win another battle.
It was not until the 11th March, however, that Gessi received a
sufficient supply of ammunition to enable him to assume the offensive.
Suleiman's camp or fort was a strongly barricaded enclosure,
surrounded by a double row of trunks of trees. The centre of the
enclosure was occupied by an inner fort, which was Suleiman's own
residence. On Gessi attacking it, his first shell set fire to one of
the huts, and as the wood was dry, the whole encampment was soon in a
blaze. Driven to desperation, the brigands sallied forth, only to be
driven back by the steady fire of Gessi's troops, who by this time
were full of confidence in their leader. Then the former broke into
flight, escaping wherever they could. Suleiman was among those who
escaped, although eleven of his chiefs were slain, and the unfortunate
exhaustion of Gessi's powder again provided him with the respite to
rally his followers and make another bid for power.
This further period of enforced inaction terminated at the end of
April, when the arrival of a full supply of powder and cartridges
enabled Gessi to take the field for the last time. On the 1st May the
Egyptian commander started to attack the slave robber in his last
stronghold, Dem Suleiman. Three days later he fought the first of
these final battles outside that fort, and succeeded in cutting off
the retreat of the vanquished Arabs into that place of shelter. He
then broke into the fort itself, where there were only a few men, and
he almost succeeded in capturing Suleiman, who fled through one gate
as Gessi entered by another. Thanks to the fleetness of his horse,
Suleiman succeeded in making good his escape. Before his hurried
flight Suleiman murdered four prisoners sooner than allow of their
recapture, and throughout the long pursuit that now began all slaves
or black troops who could not keep up were killed. These were not the
only crimes perpetrated by these brigands. Superstition, or the mere
pleasure of cruelty, had induced them when their fortunes were getting
low to consecrate a new banner by bathing it in the blood of a
murdered child. For these iniquities the hour of expiation had now
arrived.
After the capture of Dem Suleiman, Gessi began a pursuit which,
considering the difficulties of the route owing to heavy rain,
topographical ignorance, and the deficiency of supplies, may be
characterised as remarkable. Gessi took with him only 600 men, armed
with Remington rifles; but they could carry no more than three or four
days' provisions, which were exhausted before he came up with even the
rearmost of the fugitive Arabs. There the troops turned sulky, and it
was only by promising them as spoil everything taken that he restored
them to something like good temper. Six days after the start Gessi
overwhelmed one band under Abou Sammat, one of the most active of the
slave-hunters, and learnt that Suleiman himself was only twenty-four
hours ahead. But the difficulties were such that Gessi was almost
reduced to despair of the capture of that leader, and as long as he
remained at large the rebellion could not be considered suppressed.
Fortune played the game into his hand at the very moment that the
result seemed hopeless. In the middle of the night several men came to
his camp from Sultan Idris, one of the Arab chiefs, thinking it was
that of Rabi, the chief of Suleiman's lieutenants. Gessi sent one of
them back to invite him to approach, and at once laid his own plans.
He resolved to destroy Rabi's force, which lay encamped close by,
before the other band could come up; and by a sudden assault at
daybreak he succeeded in his object. The whole band was exterminated,
with the exception of Rabi himself, who escaped on a fast horse. Then
Gessi laid his ambuscade for Sultan Idris, who marched into the trap
prepared for him. This band also was nearly annihilated, but Sultan
Idris escaped, leaving, however, an immense spoil, which put the
Egyptian soldiers in good humour. For the disposal of this booty, and
for other reasons, Gessi resolved to return to Dem Suleiman.
At this point it was alone possible to criticise the action of the
energetic Gessi during the whole course of the campaign, and General
Gordon no doubt thought that if he had paid no attention to the spoil
captured from Rabi and Sultan Idris, but pressed the pursuit against
Suleiman, he might then and there have concluded the campaign. On the
other hand, it is only fair to state that Gessi had to consider the
sentiment of his own troops, while he was also ill from the mental
strain and physical exertion of conducting the campaign virtually by
himself. The spoil, moreover, did not benefit him in the least. It
went into the coffers of the Government, or the pockets of the
soldiers, not into his. So little reward did he receive that Gordon
intended at first to give him £1000 out of his own pocket, and
eventually found himself able to increase it to a sum of £2000 out of
the Soudan exchequer.
But Suleiman was still at large, and the slave-dealers were fully
determined to preserve their profitable monopoly, if by any means they
could baffle the Government. The Egyptian officials were also inclined
to assist their efforts, and while Gessi was recovering his strength,
he had the mortification of seeing the fruits of his earlier success
lost by the inaction or more culpable proceedings of his lieutenants.
It was not until July 1879 that Gessi felt able to take the field in
person, and then with less than 300 men, while Suleiman's band alone
numbered 900. But there was no time to wait for reinforcements if
Suleiman, who had advanced to within a short distance of Gessi's camp,
was to be captured. Owing to the promptitude of his measures, Gessi
came up with Suleiman in three days' time at the village of Gara,
which he reached at daybreak on 16th of July. His measures were prompt
and decisive. Concealing his troops in a wood, so that the smallness
of their numbers might not be detected, he sent in a summons to
Suleiman to surrender within ten minutes. Surprised, and ignorant of
the strength of the Egyptian force, he and his followers agreed to lay
down their arms: but when Suleiman saw the mere handful of men to whom
he had yielded, he burst out crying. The situation suggested to him
the hope of escape. Gessi learnt that when night came Suleiman and his
men had arranged to break their way through. He therefore resolved to
anticipate them. He held in his hands the ringleaders of the
rebellion. If they escaped, all his work was lost; a summary act of
justice would conclude the affair, and secure the Government against
fresh attacks for a long time. To use his own words, Gessi "saw that
the time had come to have done with these people once for all."
He divided the captives into three bands. The first, composed of the
black soldiers, little better than slaves, he released on the
condition that they left at once and promised to settle down to a
peaceful life. This they agreed to joyfully. Having got rid of these,
the larger number of Suleiman's band, he seized the smaller body of
slave-dealers--157 in number--and having chained them, sent them under
a guard as prisoners to his own camp. Then he seized Suleiman and ten
of his chief supporters, and shot them on the spot. Thus perished
Suleiman, the son of Zebehr, in whose name and for whose safety he had
gone into revolt, in the very way that Gordon had predicted two years
before in the midst of his brigand power at Shaka; and thus, with a
remarkable combination of skill and courage, did Gessi bring his
arduous campaign of twelve months' duration to a victorious
conclusion.
Although the credit of these successful operations was entirely due to
Gessi, it must not be supposed that General Gordon took no part in
controlling them; but, for the sake of clearness, it seemed advisable
to narrate the history of the campaign against Suleiman without a
break. Early in 1879, when Gessi, after obtaining some successes, had
been reduced to inaction from the want of ammunition, Gordon's anxiety
became so great on his account that he determined to assume the
command in person. His main object was to afford relief to Gessi by
taking the field in Darfour, and putting down the rebels in that
province, who were on the point of throwing in their lot with
Suleiman. Gordon determined therefore to march on Shaka, the old
headquarters of Zebehr and his son. On his march he rescued several
slave caravans, but he saw that the suppression of the slave trade was
not popular, and the contradictory character of the law and his
instructions placed him in much embarrassment. Still, he saw clearly
that Darfour was the true heart of the slave trade, as the supply from
Inner Africa had to pass through it to Egypt, and he thought that a
solution might be found for the difficulty by requiring every one of
the inhabitants to have a permission of residence, and every traveller
a passport for himself and his followers. But neither time nor the
conditions of his post allowed of his carrying out this suggestion. It
remains, however, a simple practical measure to be borne in mind when
the solution of the slave difficulty is taken finally in hand by a
Government in earnest on the subject, and powerful enough to see its
orders enforced.
General Gordon reached Shaka on 7th April, and at once issued a notice
to the slave-dealers to quit that advantageous station. He also sent
forward reinforcements of men and stores to Gessi, but in a few days
they returned, with a message from Gessi that he had received enough
powder from his own base on the Nile to renew the attack on Suleiman.
Within one week of Gordon's arrival not a slave-dealer remained in
Shaka, and when envoys arrived from Suleiman, bearing protestations
that he had never been hostile to the Egyptian Government, he promptly
arrested them and sent them for trial by court-martial. Their guilt as
conspirers against the Khedive was easily proved, and they were shot.
Their fate was fully deserved, but Gordon would have spared their
lives if Suleiman had not himself slain so many hostages and helpless
captives.
Gordon's final operations for the suppression of the slave trade in
Darfour, carried on while Gessi was engaged in his last struggle with
Suleiman, resulted in the release of several thousand slaves, and the
dispersal and disarmament of nearly 500 slave-dealers. In one week he
rescued as many as 500 slaves, and he began to feel, as he said, that
he had at last reached the heart of the evil.
But while these final successes were being achieved, he was recalled
by telegraph to Cairo, where events had reached a crisis, and the days
of Ismail as Khedive were numbered. It may have been the instinct of
despair that led that Prince to appeal again to Gordon, but the
Darfour rebellion was too grave to allow of his departure before it
had been suppressed; and on the 1st July he received a telegram from
the Minister Cherif, calling on him to proclaim throughout the Soudan
Tewfik Pasha as Khedive. The change did not affect him in the least,
he wrote, for not merely had his personal feelings towards Ismail
changed after he threw him over at Cairo, but he had found out the
futility of writing to him on any subject connected with the Soudan,
and with this knowledge had come a feeling of personal indifference.
On his return to Khartoum, he received tidings of the execution of
Suleiman, and also of the death of the Darfourian Sultan, Haroun, so
that he felt justified in assuming that complete tranquillity had
settled down on the scene of war. The subsequent capture and execution
of Abdulgassin proved this view to be well founded, for, with the
exception of Rabi, who escaped to Borgu, he was the last of Zebehr's
chief lieutenants. The shot that killed that brigand, the very man who
shed the child's blood to consecrate the standard, was the last fired
under Gordon's orders in the Soudan. If the slave trade was then not
absolutely dead, it was doomed so long as the Egyptian authorities
pursued an active repressive policy such as their great English
representative had enforced. The military confederacy of Zebehr, which
had at one time alarmed the Khedive in his palace at Cairo, had been
broken up. The authority of the Khartoum Governor-General had been
made supreme. As Gordon said, on travelling down from Khartoum in
August 1879, "Not a man could lift his hand without my leave
throughout the whole extent of the Soudan."
General Gordon reached Cairo on 23rd August, with the full intention
of retiring from the Egyptian service; but before he could do so there
remained the still unsolved Abyssinian difficulty, which had formed
part of his original mission. He therefore yielded to the request of
the Khedive to proceed on a special mission to the Court of King John,
then ruling that inaccessible and mysterious kingdom, and one week
after his arrival at Cairo he was steaming down the Red Sea to
Massowah. His instructions were contained in a letter from Tewfik
Pasha to himself. After proclaiming his pacific intentions, the
Khedive exhorted him "to maintain the rights of Egypt, to preserve
intact the frontiers of the State, without being compelled to make any
restitution to Abyssinia, and to prevent henceforth every encroachment
or other act of aggression in the interests of both countries."
In order to explain the exact position of affairs in Abyssinia at this
period, a brief summary must be given of events between Gordon's first
overtures to King John in March 1877, and his taking up the matter
finally in August 1879. As explained at the beginning of this chapter,
those overtures came to nothing, because King John was called away to
engage in hostilities with Menelik, King of Shoa, and now himself
Negus, or Emperor of Abyssinia. In the autumn of the earlier year King
John wrote Gordon a very civil letter, calling him a Christian and a
brother, but containing nothing definite, and ending with the
assertion that "all the world knows the Abyssinian frontier." Soon
after this Walad el Michael recommenced his raids on the border, and
when he obtained some success, which he owed to the assistance of one
of Gordon's own subordinates, given while Gordon was making himself
responsible for his good conduct, he was congratulated by the Egyptian
War Minister, and urged to prosecute the conquest of Abyssinia.
Instead of attempting the impossible, he very wisely came to terms
with King John, who, influenced perhaps by Gordon's advice, or more
probably by his own necessities through the war with Menelik, accepted
Michael's promises to respect the frontier. Michael went to the King's
camp to make his submission in due form, and in the spring of 1879 it
became known that he and the Abyssinian General (Ras Alula) were
planning an invasion of Egyptian territory. Fortunately King John was
more peacefully disposed, and still seemed anxious to come to an
arrangement with General Gordon.
In January 1879 the King wrote Gordon a letter, saying that he hoped
to see him soon, and he also sent an envoy to discuss matters. The
Abyssinian stated very clearly that his master would not treat with
the Khedive, on account of the way he had subjected his envoys at
Cairo to insult and injury; but that he would negotiate with Gordon,
whom he persisted in styling the "Sultan of the Soudan." King John
wanted a port, the restoration of Bogos, and an Abouna or Coptic
Archbishop from Alexandria, to crown him in full accordance with
Abyssinian ritual. Gordon replied a port was impossible, but that he
should have a Consul and facilities for traffic at Massowah; that the
territory claimed was of no value, and that he certainly should have
an Abouna. He also undertook to do his best to induce the British
Government to restore to King John the crown of King Theodore, which
had been carried off after the fall of Magdala. The envoy then
returned to Abyssinia, and nothing further took place until Gordon's
departure for Massowah in August, when the rumoured plans of Michael
and Ras Alula were causing some alarm.
On reaching Massowah on 6th September, Gordon found that the
Abyssinians were in virtual possession of Bogos, and that if the
Egyptian claims were to be asserted, it would be necessary to retake
it. The situation had, however, been slightly improved by the downfall
of Michael, whose treachery and covert hostility towards General
Gordon would probably have led to an act of violence. But he and Ras
Alula had had some quarrel, and the Abyssinian General had seized the
occasion to send Michael and his officers as prisoners to the camp of
King John. The chief obstacle to a satisfactory arrangement being
thus removed, General Gordon hastened to have an interview with Ras
Alula, and with this intention crossed the Abyssinian frontier, and
proceeded to his camp at Gura. After an interview and the presentation
of the Khedive's letter and his credentials, Gordon found that he was
practically a prisoner, and that nothing could be accomplished save by
direct negotiation with King John. He therefore offered to go to his
capital at Debra Tabor, near Gondar, if Ras Alula would promise to
refrain from attacking Egypt during his absence. This promise was
promptly given, and in a few days it was expanded into an armistice
for four months.
After six weeks' journey accomplished on mules, and by the worst roads
in the country, as Ras Alula had expressly ordered, so that the
inaccessibility of the country might be made more evident, General
Gordon reached Debra Tabor on 27th October. He was at once received by
King John, but this first reception was of only a brief and formal
character. Two days later the chief audience was given at daybreak,
King John reciting his wrongs, and Gordon referring him to the
Khedive's letters, which had not been read. After looking at them, the
King burst out with a list of demands, culminating in the sum of
£2,000,000 or the port of Massowah. When he had finished, Gordon asked
him to put these demands on paper, to sign them with his seal, and to
give the Khedive six months to consider them and make a reply. This
King John promised to do on his return from some baths, whither he was
proceeding for the sake of his health.
After a week's absence the King returned, and the negotiations were
resumed. But the King would not draw up his demands, which he realised
were excessive, and when he found that Gordon remained firm in his
intention to uphold the rights of the Khedive, the Abyssinian became
offended and rude, and told Gordon to go. Gordon did not require to be
told this twice, and an hour afterwards had begun his march, intending
to proceed by Galabat to Khartoum. A messenger was sent after him with
a letter from the King to the Khedive, which on translating read as
follows: "I have received the letters you sent me by _that man_ (a
term of contempt). I will not make a secret peace with you. If you
want peace, ask the Sultans of Europe." With a potentate so vague and
so exacting it was impossible to attain any satisfactory result, and
therefore Gordon was not sorry to depart. After nearly a fortnight's
travelling, he and his small party had reached the very borders of the
Soudan, their Abyssinian escort having returned, when a band of
Abyssinians, owning allegiance to Ras Arya, swooped down on them, and
carried them off to the village of that chief, who was the King's
uncle.
The motive of this step is not clear, for Ras Arya declared that he
was at feud with the King, and that he would willingly help the
Egyptians to conquer the country. He however went on to explain that
the seizure of Gordon's party was due to the King's order that it
should not be allowed to return to Egypt by any other route than that
through Massowah.
Unfortunately, the step seemed so full of menace that as a precaution
Gordon felt compelled to destroy the private journal he had kept
during his visit, as well as some valuable maps and plans. After
leaving the district of this prince, Gordon and his small party had to
make their way as best they could to get out of the country, only
making their way at all by a lavish payment of money--this journey
alone costing £1400--and by submitting to be bullied and insulted by
every one with the least shadow of authority. At last Massowah was
reached in safety, and every one was glad, because reports had become
rife as to King John's changed attitude towards Gordon, and the danger
to which he was exposed. But the Khedive was too much occupied to
attend to these matters, or to comply with Gordon's request to send a
regiment and a man-of-war to Massowah, as soon as the Abyssinian
despot made him to all intents and purposes a prisoner. The neglect to
make that demonstration not only increased the very considerable
personal danger in which Gordon was placed during the whole of his
mission, but it also exposed Massowah to the risk of capture if the
Abyssinians had resolved to attack it.
The impressions General Gordon formed of the country were extremely
unfavourable. The King was cruel and avaricious beyond all belief, and
in his opinion fast going mad. The country was far less advanced than
he had thought. The people were greedy, unattractive, and quarrelsome.
But he detected their military qualities, and some of the merits of
their organisation. "They are," he wrote, "a race of warriors, hardy,
and, though utterly undisciplined, religious fanatics. I have seen
many peoples, but I never met with a more fierce, savage set than
these. The King said he could beat united Europe, except Russia."
The closing incidents of Gordon's tenure of the post of
Governor-General of the Soudan have now to be given, and they were not
characterised by that spirit of justice, to say nothing of generosity,
which his splendid services and complete loyalty to the Khedive's
Government demanded. During his mission into Abyssinia his natural
demands for support were completely ignored, and he was left to
whatever fate might befall him. When he succeeded in extricating
himself from that perilous position, he found that the Khedive was so
annoyed at his inability to exact from his truculent neighbour a
treaty without any accompanying concessions, that he paid no
attention to him, and seized the opportunity to hasten the close of
his appointment by wilfully perverting the sense of several
confidential suggestions made to his Government. The plain explanation
of these miserable intrigues was that the official class at Cairo,
seeing that Gordon had alienated the sympathy and support of the
British Foreign Office and its representatives by his staunch and
outspoken defence of Ismail in 1878, realised that the moment had come
to terminate his, to them, always hateful Dictatorship in the Soudan.
While the Cairo papers were allowed to couple the term "mad" with his
name, the Ministers went so far as to denounce his propositions as
inconsistent. One of these Ministers had been Gordon's enemy for
years; another had been banished by him from Khartoum for cruelty;
they were one and all sympathetic to the very order of things which
Gordon had destroyed, and which, as long as he retained power, would
never be revived. What wonder that they should snatch the favourable
opportunity of precipitating the downfall of the man they had so long
feared! But it was neither creditable nor politic for the
representatives of England to stand by while these schemes were
executed to the detraction of the man who had then given six years'
disinterested and laborious effort to the regeneration of the Soudan
and the suppression of the slave trade.
When Gordon discovered that his secret representations, sent in cipher
for the information of the Government, were given to the Press with a
perverted meaning and hostile criticism, he hastened to Cairo. He
requested an immediate interview with Tewfik, who excused himself for
what had been done by his Ministers on the ground of his youth; but
General Gordon read the whole situation at a glance, and at once sent
in his resignation, which was accepted. It is not probable that, under
any circumstances, he would have been induced to return to the Soudan,
where his work seemed done, but he certainly was willing to make
another attempt to settle the Abyssinian difficulty. Without the
Khedive's support, and looked at askance by his own countrymen in the
Delta, called mad on this side and denounced as inconsistent on the
other, no good result could have ensued, and therefore he turned his
back on the scene of his long labours without a sigh, and this time
even without regret.
The state of his health was such that rest, change of scene, and the
discontinuance of all mental effort were imperatively necessary, in
the opinion of his doctor, if a complete collapse of mental and
physical power was to be avoided. He was quite a wreck, and was
showing all the effects of protracted labour, the climate, and
improper food. Humanly speaking, his departure from Egypt was only
made in time to save his life, and therefore there was some
compensation in the fact that it was hastened by official jealousy and
animosity.
But it seems very extraordinary that, considering the magnitude of the
task he had performed single-handed in the Soudan, and the way he had
done it with a complete disregard of all selfish interest, he should
have been allowed to lay down his appointment without any
manifestation of honour or respect from those he had served so long
and so well. Nor was this indifference confined to Egyptians. It was
reflected among the English and other European officials, who
pronounced Gordon unpractical and peculiar, while in their hearts they
only feared his candour and bluntness. But even public opinion at
home, as reflected in the Press, seemed singularly blind to the fresh
claim he had established on the admiration of the world. His China
campaigns had earned him ungrudging praise, and a fame which, but for
his own diffidence, would have carried him to the highest positions in
the British army. But his achievements in the Soudan, not less
remarkable in themselves, and obtained with far less help from others
than his triumph over the Taepings, roused no enthusiasm, and received
but scanty notice. The explanation of this difference is not far to
seek, and reveals the baser side of human nature. In Egypt he had hurt
many susceptibilities, and criticised the existing order of things.
His propositions were drastic, and based on the exclusion of a costly
European _régime_ and the substitution of a native administration.
Even his mode of suppressing the slave trade had been as original as
it was fearless. Exeter Hall could not resound with cheers for a man
who declared that he had bought slaves himself, and recognised the
rights of others in what are called human chattels, even although that
man had done more than any individual or any government to kill the
slave trade at its root. It was not until his remarkable mission to
Khartoum, only four years after he left Egypt, that public opinion
woke up to a sense of all he had done before, and realised, in its
full extent, the magnitude and the splendour of his work as
Governor-General of the Soudan.