CHAPTER XII.

KHARTOUM.

Before entering on the events of this crowning passage in the career

of this hero, I think the reader might well consider on its threshold

the exact nature of the adventure undertaken by Gordon as if it were a

sort of everyday experience and duty. At the commencement of the year

1884 the military triumph of the Mahdi was as complete as it could be

throughout the Soudan. Khartoum was still held by a force of between

4000 and 6000 men. Although not known, all the other garrisons in the

Nile Valley, except Kassala and Sennaar, both near the Abyssinian

frontier, had capitulated, and the force at Khartoum would certainly

have offered no resistance if the Mahdi had advanced immediately after

the defeat of Hicks. Even if he had reached Khartoum before the

arrival of Gordon, it is scarcely doubtful that the place would have

fallen without fighting. Colonel de Coetlogon was in command, but the

troops had no faith in him, and he had no confidence in them. That

officer, on 9th January, "telegraphed to the Khedive, strongly urging

an immediate withdrawal from Khartoum. He said that one-third of the

garrison are unreliable, and that even if it were twice as strong as

it is, it would not hold Khartoum against the whole country." In

several subsequent telegrams Colonel de Coetlogon importuned the Cairo

authorities to send him authority to leave with the garrison, and on

the very day that the Government finally decided to despatch Gordon he

telegraphed that there was only just enough time left to escape to

Berber. While the commandant held and expressed these views, it is not

surprising that the garrison and inhabitants were disheartened and

decidedly unfit to make any resolute opposition to a confident and

daring foe. There is excellent independent testimony as to the state

of public feeling in the town.

Mr Frank Power had been residing in Khartoum as correspondent of _The

Times_ from August 1883, and in December, after the Hicks catastrophe,

he was appointed Acting British Consul. In a letter written on 12th

January he said: "They have done nothing for us yet from Cairo. They

are leaving it all to fate, and the rebels around us are growing

stronger!" Such was the general situation at Khartoum when General

Gordon was ordered, almost single-handed, to save it; and not merely

to rescue its garrison, pronounced by its commander to be partly

unreliable and wholly inadequate, but other garrisons scattered

throughout the regions held by the Mahdi and his victorious legions. A

courageous man could not have been charged with cowardice if he had

shrunk back from such a forlorn hope, and declined to take on his

shoulders the responsibility that properly devolved on the commander

on the spot. A prudent man would at least have insisted that his

instructions should be clear, and that the part his Government and

country were to play was to be as strictly defined and as obligatory

on them as his own. But while Gordon's courage was of such a quality

that I believe no calculation of odds or difficulties ever entered

into his view, his prudence never possessed the requisite amount of

suspicion to make him provide against the contingencies of absolute

betrayal by those who sent him, or of that change in party convenience

and tactics which induced those who first thought his mission most

advantageous as solving a difficulty, or at least putting off a

trouble, to veer round to the conclusion that his remaining at

Khartoum, his honourable but rigid resolve not to return without the

people he went to save, was a distinct breach of contract, and a

serious offence.

The state of feeling at Khartoum was one verging on panic. The richest

townsmen had removed their property and families to Berber. Colonel de

Coetlogon had the river boats with steam up ready to commence the

evacuation, and while everyone thought that the place was doomed, the

telegraph instrument was eagerly watched for the signal to begin the

flight. The tension could not have lasted much longer--without the

signal the flight would have begun--when on 24th January the brief

message arrived: "General Gordon is coming to Khartoum." The effect of

that message was electrical. The panic ceased, confidence was

restored, the apathy of the Cairo authorities became a matter of no

importance, for England had sent her greatest name as a pledge of her

intended action, and the unreliable and insufficient garrison pulled

itself together for one of the most honourable and brilliant defences

in the annals of military sieges. Yet it was full time. Two months had

been wasted, and, as Mr Power said, "the fellows in Lucknow did not

look more anxiously for Colin Campbell than we are looking for

Gordon." Gordon, ever mindful of the importance of time, and fully

impressed with the sense of how much had been lost by delay, did not

let the grass grow under his feet, and after his two days' delay at

Cairo sent a message that he hoped to reach Khartoum in eighteen days.

Mr Power's comment on that message is as follows: "Twenty-four days

is the shortest time from Cairo to Khartoum on record; Gordon says he

will be here in eighteen days; but he travels like a whirlwind." As a

matter of fact, Gordon took twenty days' travelling, besides the two

days he passed at Berber. He thus reached Khartoum on 18th February,

and four days later Colonel de Coetlogon started for Cairo.

The entry of Gordon into Khartoum was marked by a scene of

indescribable enthusiasm and public confidence. The whole population,

men, women, and children, turned out to welcome him as a conqueror and

a deliverer, although he really came in his own person merely to cope

with a desperate situation. The women threw themselves on the ground

and struggled to kiss his feet; in the confusion Gordon was several

times pushed down; and this remarkable demonstration of popular

confidence and affection was continued the whole way from the

landing-place to the _Hukumdaria_ or Palace. This greeting was the

more remarkable because it was clear that Gordon had brought no

troops--only one white officer--and it soon became known that he had

brought no money. Even the Mahdi himself made his contribution to the

general tribute, by sending General Gordon on his arrival a formal

_salaam_ or message of respect. Thus hailed on all hands as the one

pre-eminently good man who had been associated with the Soudan, Gordon

addressed himself to the hard task he had undertaken, which had been

rendered almost hopeless of achievement by the lapse of time, past

errors, and the blindness of those who should have supported him.

Difficult as it had been all along, it was rendered still more

difficult by the decisive defeat of Baker Pasha and an Egyptian force

of 4000 men at Tokar, near Souakim. This victory was won by Osman

Digma, who had been sent by the Mahdi to rouse up the Eastern Soudan

at the time of the threatened Hicks expedition. The result showed that

the Mahdi had discovered a new lieutenant of great military capacity

and energy, and that the Eastern Soudan was for the time as hopelessly

lost to Egypt as Kordofan and Darfour.

The first task to which Gordon addressed himself was to place Khartoum

and the detached work at Omdurman on the left bank of the White Nile

in a proper state of defence, and he especially supervised the

establishment of telegraphic communication between the Palace and the

many outworks, so that at a moment's notice he might receive word of

what was happening. His own favourite position became the flat roof of

this building, whence with his glass he could see round for many

miles. He also laid in considerable stores of provisions by means of

his steamers, in which he placed the greatest faith. In all these

matters he was ably and energetically assisted by Colonel Stewart; and

beyond doubt the other Europeans took some slight share in the

incessant work of putting Khartoum in a proper state of defence; but

even with this relief, the strain, increased by constant alarms of the

Mahdi's hostile approach, was intense, and Mr Power speaks of Gordon

as nearly worn out with work before he had been there a month.

When Gordon went to the Soudan his principal object was to effect the

evacuation of the country, and to establish there some administration

which would be answerable for good order and good neighbourship. If

the Mahdi had been a purely secular potentate, and not a fanatical

religious propagandist, it would have been a natural and feasible

arrangement to have come to terms with him as the conqueror of the

country. But the basis of the Mahdi's power forbade his being on terms

with anyone. If he had admitted the equal rights of Egypt and the

Khedive at any point, there would have been an end to his heavenly

mission, and the forces he had created out of the simple but

deep-rooted religious feelings of the Mahommedan clans of the Soudan

would soon have vanished. It is quite possible that General Gordon had

in his first views on the Mahdist movement somewhat undervalued the

forces created by that fanaticism, and that the hopes and opinions he

first expressed were unduly optimistic. If so, it must be allowed that

he lost not a moment in correcting them, and within a week of his

arrival at Khartoum he officially telegraphed to Cairo, that "if Egypt

is to be quiet the Mahdi must be smashed up."

When the British Government received that message, as they did in a

few days, with, moreover, the expression of supporting views by Sir

Evelyn Baring, they ought to have reconsidered the whole question of

the Gordon mission, and to have defined their own policy. The

representative they had sent on an exceptional errand to relieve and

bring back a certain number of distressed troops, and to arrange if he

could for the formation of a new government through the notabilities

and ancient families, reports at an early stage of his mission that in

his opinion there is no solution of the difficulty, save by resorting

to offensive measures against the Mahdi as the disturber of the peace,

not merely for that moment, but as long as he had to discharge the

divine task implied by his title. As it was of course obvious that

Gordon single-handed could not take the field, the conclusion

necessarily followed that he would require troops, and the whole

character of his task would thus have been changed. In face of that

absolute _volte-face_, from a policy of evacuation and retreat to one

of retention and advance, for that is what it signified, the

Government would have been justified in recalling Gordon, but as they

did not do so, they cannot plead ignorance of his changed opinion, or

deny that, at the very moment he became acquainted with the real state

of things at Khartoum, he hastened to convey to them his decided

conviction that the only way out of the difficulty was to "smash up

the Mahdi."

All his early messages show that there had been a change, or at least

a marked modification, in his opinions. At Khartoum he saw more

clearly than in Cairo or in London the extreme gravity of the

situation, and the consequences to the tranquillity of Lower Egypt

that would follow from the abandonment of Khartoum to the Mahdi. He

therefore telegraphed on the day of his arrival these words: "To

withdraw without being able to place a successor in my seat would be

the signal for general anarchy throughout the country, which, though

all Egyptian element were withdrawn, would be a misfortune, and

inhuman." In the same message he repeated his demand for the services

of Zebehr, through whom, as has been shown, he thought he might be

able to cope with the Mahdi. Yet their very refusal to comply with

that reiterated request should have made the authorities more willing

and eager to meet the other applications and suggestion of a man who

had thrust himself into a most perilous situation at their bidding,

and for the sake of the reputation of his country. It must be recorded

with feelings of shame that it had no such effect, and that apathy and

indifference to the fate of its gallant agent were during the first

few months the only characteristics of the Government policy.

At the same period all Gordon's telegrams and despatches showed that

he wanted reinforcements to some small extent, and at least military

demonstrations along his line of communication with Egypt to prove

that he possessed the support of his Government, and that he had only

to call upon it to send troops, and they were there to come. He,

naturally enough, treated as ridiculous the suggestion that he had

bound himself to do the whole work without any support; and fully

convinced that he had only to summon troops for them to be sent him in

the moderate strength he alone cared for, he issued a proclamation in

Khartoum, stating that "British troops are now on their way, and in a

few days will reach Khartoum." He therefore begged for the despatch of

a small force to Wady Halfa, and he went on to declare that it would

be "comparatively easy to destroy the Mahdi" if 200 British troops

were sent to Wady Halfa, and if the Souakim-Berber route were opened

up by Indian-Moslem troops. Failing the adoption of these measures, he

asked leave to raise a sum, by appealing to philanthropists,

sufficient to pay a small Turkish force and carry on a contest for

supremacy with the Mahdi on his own behoof. All these suggestions

were more or less supported by Sir Evelyn Baring, who at last

suggested in an important despatch, dated 28th February, that the

British Government should withdraw altogether from the matter, and

"give full liberty of action to General Gordon and the Khedive's

Government to do what seems best to them."

Well would it have been for Gordon and everyone whose reputation was

concerned if this step had been taken, for the Egyptian Government,

the Khedive, his ministers Nubar and Cherif, were opposed to all

surrender, and desired to hold on to Khartoum and the Souakim-Berber

route. But without the courage and resolution to discharge it, the

Government saw the obligation that lay on them to provide for the

security and good government of Egypt, and that if they shirked

responsibility in the Soudan, the independence of Egypt might be

accomplished by its own effort and success. They perceived the

objections to giving Egypt a free hand, but they none the less

abstained from taking the other course of definite and decisive action

on their own initiative. As Gordon quickly saw and tersely expressed:

"You will not let Egypt keep the Soudan, you will not take it

yourself, and you will not permit any other country to occupy it."

As if to give emphasis to General Gordon's successive

requests--Zebehr, 200 men to Wady Halfa, opening of route from Souakim

to Berber, presence of English officers at Dongola, and of Indian

cavalry at Berber--telegraphic communication with Khartoum was

interrupted early in March, less than a fortnight after Gordon's

arrival in the town. There was consequently no possible excuse for

anyone ignoring the dangerous position in which General Gordon was

placed. He had gone to face incalculable dangers, but now the success

of Osman Digma and the rising of the riparian tribes threatened him

with that complete isolation which no one had quite expected at so

early a stage after his arrival. It ought, and one would have expected

it, to have produced an instantaneous effect, to have braced the

Government to the task of deciding what its policy should be when

challenged by its own representative to declare it. Gordon himself

soon realised his own position, for he wrote: "I shall be caught in

Khartoum; and even if I was mean enough to escape I have not the power

to do so." After a month's interruption he succeeded in getting the

following message, dated 8th April, through, which is significant as

showing that he had abandoned all hope of being supported by his own

Government:--

"I have telegraphed to Sir Samuel Baker to make an appeal to

British and American millionaires to give me £300,000 to engage

3000 Turkish troops from the Sultan and send them here. This

would settle the Soudan and Mahdi for ever. For my part, I think

you (Baring) will agree with me. I do not see the fun of being

caught here to walk about the streets for years as a dervish with

sandalled feet. Not that (_D.V._) I will ever be taken alive. It

would be the climax of meanness after I had borrowed money from

the people here, had called on them to sell their grain at a low

price, etc., to go and abandon them without using every effort to

relieve them, whether those efforts are diplomatically correct or

not; and I feel sure, whatever you may feel diplomatically, I

have your support, and that of every man professing himself a

gentleman, in private."

Eight days later he succeeded in getting another message through, to

the following effect:--

"As far as I can understand, the situation is this. You state

your intention of not sending any relief up here or to Berber,

and you refuse me Zebehr. I consider myself free to act according

to circumstances. I shall hold on here as long as I can, and if I

can suppress the rebellion I shall do so. If I cannot, I shall

retire to the Equator and leave you the indelible disgrace of

abandoning the garrisons of Senaar, Kassala, Berber, and Dongola,

with the _certainty_ that you will eventually be forced to smash

up the Mahdi under greater difficulties if you wish to maintain

peace in, and, indeed, to retain Egypt."

Before a silence of five and a half months fell over Khartoum, Gordon

had been able to make three things clear, and of these only one could

be described as having a personal signification, and that was that the

Government, by rejecting all his propositions, had practically

abandoned him to his fate. The two others were that any settlement

would be a work of time, and that no permanent tranquillity could be

attained without overcoming the Mahdi.

Immediately on arriving at Khartoum he perceived that the evacuation

of the Soudan, with safety to the garrison and officials, as well as

the preservation of the honour of England and Egypt, would necessarily

be a work of time, and only feasible if certain measures were taken in

his support, which, considerable as they may have appeared at the

moment, were small and costless in comparison with those that had

subsequently to be sanctioned. Six weeks sufficed to show Gordon that

he would get no material help from the Government, and he then began

to look elsewhere for support, and to propound schemes for pacifying

the Soudan and crushing the Mahdi in which England and the Government

would have had no part. Hence his proposal to appeal to wealthy

philanthropists to employ Turkish troops, and in the last resort to

force his way to the Equator and the Congo. Even that avenue of safety

was closed to him by the illusory prospect of rescue held out to him

by the Government at the eleventh hour, when success was hardly

attainable.

For the sake of clearness it will be well to give here a brief summary

of the siege during the six months that followed the arrival of

General Gordon and the departure of Colonel Stewart on 10th September.

The full and detailed narrative is contained in Colonel Stewart's

Journal, which was captured on board his steamer. This interesting

diary was taken to the Mahdi at Omdurman, and is said to be carefully

preserved in the Treasury. The statement rests on no very sure

foundation, but if true the work may yet thrill the audience of the

English-speaking world. But even without its aid the main facts of the

siege of Khartoum, down at all events to the 14th December, when

Gordon's own diary stops, are sufficiently well known for all the

purposes of history.

At a very early stage of the siege General Gordon determined to try

the metal of his troops, and the experiment succeeded to such a

perfect extent that there was never any necessity to repeat it. On

16th March, when only irregular levies and detached bodies of

tribesmen were in the vicinity of Khartoum, he sent out a force of

nearly 1000 men, chiefly Bashi-Bazouks, but also some regulars, with a

fieldpiece and supported by two steamers. The force started at eight

in the morning, under the command of Colonel Stewart, and landed at

Halfiyeh, some miles down the stream on the right bank of the Nile.

Here the rebels had established a sort of fortified position, which it

was desirable to destroy, if it could be done without too much loss.

The troops were accordingly drawn up for the attack, and the gun and

infantry fire commenced to cover the advance. At this moment about

sixty rebel horsemen came out from behind the stockade and charged the

Bashi-Bazouks, who fired one volley and fled. The horsemen then

charged the infantry drawn up in square, which they broke, and the

retreat to the river began at a run. Discouraging as this was for a

force of all arms to retire before a few horsemen one-twentieth its

number, the disaster was rendered worse and more disheartening by the

conduct of the men, who absolutely refused to fight, marching along

with shouldered arms without firing a shot, while the horsemen picked

off all who straggled from the column. The gun, a considerable

quantity of ammunition, and about sixty men represented the loss of

Gordon's force; the rebels are not supposed to have lost a single man.

"Nothing could be more dismal than seeing these horsemen, and some men

even on camels, pursuing close to troops who with shouldered arms

plodded their way back." Thus wrote Gordon of the men to whom he had

to trust for a successful defence of Khartoum. His most recent

experience confirmed his old opinion, that the Egyptian and Arab

troops were useless even when fighting to save their own lives, and he

could only rely on the very small body left of black Soudanese, who

fought as gallantly for him as any troops could, and whose loyalty and

devotion to him surpassed all praise. Treachery, it was assumed, had

something to do with the easy overthrow of this force, and two Pashas

were shot for misconduct on return to Khartoum.

Having no confidence in the bulk of his force, it is not surprising

that Gordon resorted to every artifice within engineering science to

compensate for the shortcomings of his army. He surrounded

Khartoum--which on one side was adequately defended by the Nile and

his steamers--on the remaining three sides with a triple line of land

mines connected by wires. Often during the siege the Mahdists

attempted to break through this ring, but only to meet with repulse,

accompanied by heavy loss; and to the very last day of the siege they

never succeeded in getting behind the third of these lines. Their

efficacy roused Gordon's professional enthusiasm, and in one passage

he exclaims that these will be the general form of defence in the

future. During the first months of the siege, which began rather in

the form of a loose investment, the Nile was too low to allow of his

using the nine steamers he possessed, but he employed the time in

making two new ones, and in strengthening them all with bulwarks of

iron plates and soft wood, which were certainly bullet-proof. Each of

these steamers he valued as the equivalent of 2000 men. When it is

seen how he employed them the value will not be deemed excessive, and

certainly without them he could not have held Khartoum and baffled all

the assaults of the Mahdi for the greater part of a year.

After this experience Gordon would risk no more combats on land, and

on 25th March he dismissed 250 of the Bashi-Bazouks who had behaved so

badly. Absolutely trustworthy statistics are not available as to the

exact number of troops in Khartoum or as to the proportion the Black

Soudanese bore to the Egyptians, but it approximates to the truth to

say that there were about 1000 of the former to 3000 of the latter,

and with other levies during the siege he doubled this total. For

these and a civilian population of nearly 40,000 Gordon computed that

he had provisions for five months from March, and that for at least

two months he would be as safe as in Cairo. By carefully husbanding

the corn and biscuit he was able to make the supply last much longer,

and even to the very end he succeeded in partially replenishing the

depleted granaries of the town. There is no necessity to repeat the

details of the siege during the summer of 1884. They are made up of

almost daily interchanges of artillery fire from the town, and of

rifle fire in reply from the Arab lines. That this was not merely

child's play may be gathered from two of Gordon's protected ships

showing nearly a thousand bullet-marks apiece. Whenever the rebels

attempted to force their way through the lines they were repulsed by

the mines; and the steamers not only inflicted loss on their fighting

men, but often succeeded in picking up useful supplies of food and

grain. No further reverses were reported, because Gordon was most

careful to avoid all risk, and the only misfortunes occurred in

Gordon's rear, when first Berber, through the treachery of the Greek

Cuzzi, and then Shendy passed into the hands of the Mahdists, thus, as

Gordon said, "completely hemming him in." In April a detached force up

the Blue Nile went over to the Mahdi, taking with them a small

steamer, but this loss was of no great importance, as the men were of

what Gordon called "the Arabi hen or hero type," and the steamer could

not force its way past Khartoum and its powerful flotilla. In the four

months from 16th March to 30th July Gordon stated that the total loss

of the garrison was only thirty killed and fifty or sixty wounded,

while half a million cartridges had been fired against the enemy. The

conduct of both the people and garrison had been excellent, and this

was the more creditable, because Gordon was obliged from the very

beginning, owing to the capture of the bullion sent him at Berber, to

make all payments in paper money bearing his signature and seal.

During that period the total reinforcement to the garrison numbered

seven men, including Gordon himself, while over 2600 persons had been

sent out of it in safety as far as Berber.

The reader will be interested in the following extracts from a letter

written by Colonel Duncan, R.A., M.P., showing the remarkable way in

which General Gordon organised the despatch of these refugees from

Khartoum. The letter is dated 29th November 1886, and addressed to

Miss Gordon:--

"When your brother, on reaching Khartoum, found that he could

commence sending refugees to Egypt, I was sent on the 3rd March

1884 to Assouan and Korosko to receive those whom he sent down.

As an instance of your brother's thoughtfulness, I may mention

that he requested that, if possible, some motherly European woman

might also be sent, as many of the refugees whom he had to send

had never been out of the Soudan before, and might feel strange

on reaching Egypt. A German, Giegler Pasha, who had been in

Khartoum with your brother before, and who had a German wife, was

accordingly placed at my disposal, and I stationed them at

Korosko, where almost all the refugees arrived. I may mention

that I saw and spoke to every one of the refugees who came down,

and to many of the women and children. Their references to your

brother were invariably couched in language of affection and

gratitude, and the adjective most frequently applied to him was

'just.' In sending away the people from Khartoum, he sent away

the Governor and some of the other leading Egyptian officials

first. I think he suspected they would intrigue; he always had

more confidence in the people than in the ruling Turks or

Egyptians. The oldest soldiers, the very infirm, the wounded

(from Hicks's battles) were sent next, and a ghastly crew they

were. But the precautions he took for their comfort were very

complete, and although immediately before reaching me they had to

cross a very bad part of the desert between Abou Hamed and

Korosko, they reached me in wonderful spirits. It was touching to

see the perfect confidence they had that the promises of Gordon

Pasha would be fulfilled. After the fall of Khartoum, and your

brother's death, a good many of the Egyptian officers who had

been with your brother managed to escape, and to come down the

river disguised in many cases as beggars. I had an opportunity of

talking to most of them, and there was no collusion, for they

arrived at different times and by different roads. I remember

having a talk with one, and when we alluded to your brother's

death he burst out crying like a child, and said that though he

had lost his wives and children when Khartoum was taken, he felt

it as nothing to the loss of 'that just man.'"

The letters written at the end of July at Khartoum reached Cairo at

the end of September, and their substance was at once telegraphed to

England. They showed that, while his success had made him think that

after all there might be some satisfactory issue of the siege, he

foresaw that the real ordeal was yet to come. "In four months (that is

end of November) river begins to fall; before that time you _must_

settle the Soudan question." So wrote the heroic defender of Khartoum

in words that could not be misunderstood, and those words were in the

hands of the British Ministers when half the period had expired. At

the same time Mr Power wrote: "We can at best hold out but two months

longer." Gordon at least never doubted what their effect would be, for

after what seemed to him a reasonable time had elapsed to enable this

message to reach its destination, he took the necessary steps to

recover Berber, and to send his steamers half-way to meet and assist

the advance of the reinforcement on which he thought from the

beginning he might surely rely.

On 10th September all his plans were completed, and Colonel Stewart,

accompanied by a strong force of Bashi-Bazouks and some black

soldiers, with Mr Power and M. Herbin, the French consul, sailed

northwards on five steamers. The first task of this expedition was if

possible, to retake Berber, or, failing that, to escort the _Abbas_

past the point of greatest danger; the second, to convey the most

recent news about Khartoum affairs to Lower Egypt; and the third was

to lend a helping hand to any force that might be coming up the Nile

or across the desert from the Red Sea. Five days after its departure

Gordon knew through a spy that Stewart's flotilla had passed Shendy in

safety, and had captured a valuable Arab convoy. It was not till

November that the truth was known how the ships bombarded Berber, and

passed that place not only in safety, but after causing the rebels

much loss and greater alarm, and then how Stewart and his European

companions went on in the small steamer _Abbas_ to bear the tale of

the wonderful defence of Khartoum to the outer world--a defence which,

wonderful as it was, really only reached the stage of the miraculous

after they had gone and had no further part in it. So far as Gordon's

military skill and prevision could arrange for their safety, he did

so, and with success. When the warships had to return he gave them the

best advice against treachery or ambuscade:--"Do not anchor near the

bank, do not collect wood at isolated spots, trust nobody." What more

could Gordon say? If they had paid strict heed to his advice, there

would have been no catastrophe at Dar Djumna. These reflections invest

with much force Gordon's own view of the matter:--"If _Abbas_ was

captured by treachery, then I am not to blame; neither am I to blame

if she struck a rock, for she drew under two feet of water; if they

were attacked and overpowered, then I am to blame." So perfect were

his arrangements that only treachery, aided by Stewart's

over-confidence, baffled them.

With regard to the wisdom of the course pursued in thus sending away

all his European colleagues--the Austrian consul Hensall alone

refusing to quit Gordon and his place of duty--opinions will differ to

the end of time, but one is almost inclined to say that they could not

have been of much service to Gordon once their uppermost thought

became to quit Khartoum. The whole story is told very graphically in a

passage of Gordon's own diary:--

"I determined to send the _Abbas_ down with an Arab captain.

Herbin asked to be allowed to go. I jumped at his offer. Then

Stewart said he would go if I would exonerate him from deserting

me. I said, 'You do not desert me. I cannot go; but if you go you

do great service.' I then wrote him an official; he wanted me to

write him an order. I said 'No; for, though I fear not

responsibility, I will not put you in any danger in which I am

not myself.' I wrote them a letter couched thus:--'_Abbas_ is

going down; you say you are willing to go in her if I think you

can do so in honour. You can go in honour, for you can do

nothing here; and if you go you do me service in telegraphing my

views.'"

There are two points in this matter to which I must draw marked

attention. The suggestion for any European leaving Khartoum came from

M. Herbin, and when Gordon willingly acquiesced, Colonel Stewart asked

leave to do likewise. Mr Power, whose calculation was that provisions

would be exhausted before the end of September, then followed suit,

and not one of these three of the five Europeans in Khartoum seem to

have thought for a moment what would be the position of Gordon left

alone to cope with the danger from which they ran away. The suggestion

as to their going came in every case from themselves. Gordon, in his

thought for others, not merely threw no obstacle in their way, but as

far as he could provided for their safety as if they were a parcel of

women. But he declined all responsibility for their fate, as they went

not by his order but of their own free-will. He gave them his ships,

soldiers, and best counsel. They neglected the last, and were taken in

in a manner that showed less than a child's suspicion, and were

massacred at the very moment they felt sure of safety. It was a cruel

fate, and a harsh Nemesis speedily befell them for doing perhaps the

one unworthy thing of their lives--leaving their solitary companion to

face the tenfold dangers by which he would be beset. But it cannot be

allowed any longer that the onus of this matter should rest in any way

on Gordon. They went because they wanted to go, and he, knowing well

that men with such thoughts would be of no use to him ("you can do

nothing here") let them go, and even encouraged them to do so. Under

the circumstances he preferred to be alone. Colonel Donald Stewart was

a personal friend of mine, and a man whose courage in the ordinary

sense of the word could not be aspersed, but there cannot be two

opinions that he above all the others should not have left his

brother-in-arms alone in Khartoum.

After their departure Gordon had to superintend everything himself,

and to resort to every means of husbanding the limited supply of

provisions he had left. He had also to anticipate a more vigorous

attack, for the Mahdi must quickly learn of the departure of the

steamers, the bombardment of Berber, and the favourable chance thus

provided for the capture of Khartoum. Nor was this the worst, for on

the occurrence of the disaster the Mahdi was promptly informed of the

loss of the _Abbas_ and the murder of the Europeans, and it was he

himself who sent in to Gordon the news of the catastrophe, with so

complete a list of the papers on the _Abbas_ as left no ground for

hope or disbelief. Unfortunately, before this bad news reached Gordon,

he had again, on 30th September, sent down to Shendy three

steamers--the _Talataween_, the _Mansourah_, and _Saphia_, with

troops on board, and the gallant Cassim-el-Mousse, there to await the

arrival of the relieving force. He somewhat later reinforced this

squadron with the _Bordeen_; and although one or two of these boats

returned occasionally to Khartoum, the rest remained permanently at

Shendy, and when the English troops reached the Nile opposite that

place all five were waiting them. Without entering too closely into

details, it is consequently correct to say that during the most

critical part of the siege Gordon deprived himself of the co-operation

of these vessels, each of which he valued at 2000 men, simply and

solely because he believed that reinforcements were close at hand, and

that some troops at the latest would arrive before the end of November

1884. As Gordon himself repeatedly said, it would have been far more

just if the Government had told him in March, when he first demanded

reinforcements as a right, that he must shift for himself. Then he

would have kept these boats by him, and triumphantly fought his way in

them to the Equator. But his trust in the Government, notwithstanding

all his experience, led him to weaken his own position in the hope of

facilitating their movements, and he found their aid a broken reed. In

only one passage of his journal does Gordon give expression to this

view, although it was always present to his mind:--"Truly the

indecision of our Government has been, from a military point of view,

a very great bore, for we never could act as if independent; there was

always the chance of their taking action, which hampered us." But in

the telegrams to Sir Evelyn Baring and Mr Egerton, which the

Government never dared to publish, and which are still an official

secret, he laid great stress on this point, and on Sir Evelyn Baring's

message forbidding him to retire to the Equator, so that, if he sought

safety in that direction, he would be indictable on a charge of

desertion.

The various positions at Khartoum held by Gordon's force may be

briefly described. First, the town itself, on the left bank of the

Blue Nile, but stretching almost across to the right bank of the White

Nile, protected on the land side by a wall, in front of which was the

triple line of mines, and on the water side by the river and the

steamers. On the right bank of the Blue Nile was the small North Fort.

Between the two stretched the island of Tuti, and at each end of the

wall, on the White Nile as well as the Blue, Gordon had stationed a

_santal_ or heavy-armed barge, carrying a gun. Unfortunately, a large

part of the western end of the Khartoum wall had been washed away by

an inundation of the Nile, but the mines supplied a substitute, and so

long as Omdurman Fort was held this weakness in the defences of

Khartoum did not greatly signify. That fort itself lay on the left

bank of the White Nile. It was well built and fairly strong, but the

position was faulty. It lay in a hollow, and the trench of the

extensive camp formed for Hicks's force furnished the enemy with

cover. It was also 1200 yards from the river bank, and when the enemy

became more enterprising it was impossible to keep up communication

with it. In Omdurman Fort was a specially selected garrison of 240

men, commanded by a gallant black officer, Ferratch or Faragalla

Pasha, who had been raised from a subordinate capacity to the

principal command under him by Gordon. Gordon's point of observation

was the flat roof of the Palace, whence he could see everything with

his telescope, and where he placed his best shots to bear on any point

that might seem hard pressed. Still more useful was it for the purpose

of detecting the remissness of his own troops and officers, and often

his telescope showed him sentries asleep at their posts, and officers

absent from the points they were supposed to guard.

From the end of March until the close of the siege scarcely a day

passed without the exchange of artillery and rifle fire on one side or

the other of the beleaguered town. On special occasions the Khedive's

garrison would fire as many as forty or even fifty thousand rounds of

Remington cartridges, and the Arab fire was sometimes heavier. This

incessant fire, as the heroic defender wrote in his journal, murdered

sleep, and at last he became so accustomed to it that he could tell by

the sound where the firing was taking place. The most distant points

of the defence, such as the _santal_ on the White Nile and Fort

Omdurman, were two miles from the Palace; and although telegraphic

communication existed with them during the greater part of the siege,

the oral evidence as to the point of attack was often found the most

rapid means of obtaining information. This was still more advantageous

after the 12th of November, for on that day communications were cut

between Khartoum and Omdurman, and it was found impossible to restore

them. The only communications possible after that date were by bugle

and flag. At the time of this severance Gordon estimated that the

garrison of Omdurman had enough water and biscuit for six weeks, and

that there were 250,000 cartridges in the arsenal. Gordon did

everything in his power to aid Ferratch in the defence, and his

remaining steamer, the _Ismailia_, after the grounding of the

_Husseinyeh_ on the very day Omdurman was cut off, was engaged in

almost daily encounters with the Mahdists for that purpose. Owing to

Gordon's incessant efforts, and the gallantry of the garrison led by

Ferratch, Omdurman held out more than two months. It was not until

15th January that Ferratch, with Gordon's leave, surrendered, and then

when the Mahdists occupied the place, General Gordon had the

satisfaction of shelling them out of it, and showing that it was

untenable.

The severance of Omdurman from Khartoum was the prelude to fiercer

fighting than had taken place at any time during the earlier stages of

the siege, and although particulars are not obtainable for the last

month of the period, there is no doubt that the struggle was

incessant, and that the fighting was renewed from day to day. It was

then that Gordon missed the ships lying idle at Shendy. If he had had

them Omdurman would not have fallen, nor would it have been so easy

for the Mahdi to transport the bulk of his force from the left to the

right bank of the White Nile, as he did for the final assault on the

fatal 26th January.

At the end of October the Mahdi, accompanied by a far more numerous

force than Gordon thought he could raise, described by Slatin as

countless, pitched his camp a few miles south of Omdurman. On 8th

November his arrival was celebrated by a direct attack on the lines

south of Khartoum. The rebels in their fear of the hidden mines, which

was far greater than it need have been, as it was found they had been

buried too deep, resorted to the artifice of driving forward cows, and

by throwing rockets among them Gordon had the satisfaction of

spreading confusion in their ranks, repulsing the attack, and

capturing twenty of the animals. Four days later the rebels made the

desperate attack on Omdurman, when, as stated, communications were

cut, and the _Husseinyeh_ ran aground. In attempting to carry her off

and to check the further progress of the rebels the _Ismailia_ was

badly hit, and the incident was one of those only too frequent at all

stages of the siege, when Gordon wrote: "Every time I hear the gun

fire I have a twitch of the heart of gnawing anxiety for my penny

steamers." At the very moment that these fights were in progress he

wrote, 10th November: "To-day is the day I expected we should have had

some one of the Expedition here;" and he also recorded that we "have

enough biscuit for a month or so"--meaning at the outside six weeks.

Throughout the whole of November rumours of a coming British

Expedition were prevalent, but they were of the vaguest and most

contradictory character. On 25th November Gordon learnt that it was

still at Ambukol, 185 miles further away from Khartoum than he had

expected, and his only comment under this acute disappointment was,

"This is lively!"

Up to the arrival of the Mahdi daily desertions of his Arab and other

soldiers to Gordon took place, and by these and levies among the

townspeople all gaps in the garrison were more than filled up. Such

was the confidence in Gordon that it more than neutralised all the

intrigues of the Mahdi's agents in the besieged town, and scarcely a

man during the first seven months of the siege deserted him; but after

the arrival of the Mahdi there was a complete change in this respect.

In the first place there were no more desertions to Gordon, and then

men began to leave him, partly, no doubt, from fear of the Mahdi, or

awakened fanaticism, but chiefly through the non-arrival of the

British Expedition, which had been so much talked about, yet which

never came. Still to all the enemy's invitations to surrender on the

most honourable terms Gordon gave defiant answers. "I am here like

iron, and I hope to see the newly-arrived English;" and when the

situation had become little short of desperate, at the end of the

year, he still, with bitter agony at his heart, proudly rejected all

overtures, and sent the haughty message: "Can hold Khartoum for twelve

years." Unfortunately the Mahdi knew better. He had read the truth in

all the papers captured on Stewart's steamer, and he knew that

Gordon's resources were nearly spent. Even some of the messages Gordon

sent out by spies for Lord Wolseley's information fell into his hands,

and on one of these Slatin says it was written: "Can hold Khartoum at

the outside till the end of January." Although Gordon may be

considered to have more than held his own against all the power of the

Mahdi down to the capture of Omdurman Fort on 15th January, the Mahdi

knew that his straits must be desperate, and that unless the

expedition arrived he could not hold out much longer. The first

advance of the English troops on 3rd January across the desert towards

the Nile probably warned the enemy that now was the time to renew the

attack with greater vigour, but it does not seem that there is any

justification for the entirely hypothetical view that at any point the

Mahdi could have seized the unhappy town. Omdurman Fort itself fell,

not to the desperate onset of his Ghazis, but from the want of food

and ammunition, and with Gordon's expressed permission to the

commandant to surrender. Unfortunately the details of the most tragic

part of the siege are missing, but Gordon himself well summed up what

he had done up to the end of October when his position was secure, and

aid, as he thought, was close at hand:--

"The news of Hicks's defeat was known in Cairo three weeks after

the event occurred; since that date up to this (29th October

1884) nine people have come up as reinforcements--myself,

Stewart, Herbin, Hussein, Tongi, Ruckdi, and three servants, and

not one penny of money. Of those who came up two, Stewart and

Herbin, have gone down, Hussein is dead; so six alone remain,

while we must have sent down over 1500 and 700 soldiers, total

2200, including the two Pashas, Coetlogon, etc. The regulars, who

were in arrears of pay for three months when I came, are now only

owed half a month, while the Bashi-Bazouks are owed only a

quarter month, and we have some £500 in the Treasury. It is quite

a miracle. We have lost two battles, suffering severe losses in

these actions of men and arms, and may have said to have

scrambled through, for I cannot say we can lay claim to any great

success during the whole time. I believe we have more ammunition

(Remington) and more soldiers now than when I came up. We have

£40,000 in Treasury _in paper_ and £500. When I came up there was

£5000 in Treasury. We have £15,000 out in the town in paper

money."

At the point (14th December) when the authentic history of the

protracted siege and gallant defence of Khartoum stops, a pause may be

made to turn back and describe what the Government and country which

sent General Gordon on his most perilous mission, and made use of his

extraordinary devotion to the call of duty to extricate themselves

from a responsibility they had not the courage to face, had been doing

not merely to support their envoy, but to vindicate their own honour.

The several messages which General Gordon had succeeded in getting

through had shown how necessary some reinforcement and support were at

the very commencement of the siege. The lapse of time, rendered the

more expressive by the long period of silence that fell over what was

taking place in the besieged town, showed, beyond need of

demonstration, the gravity of the case and the desperate nature of the

situation. But a very little of the knowledge at the command of the

Government from a number of competent sources would have enabled it to

foresee what was certain to happen, and to have provided some remedy

for the peril long before the following despairing message from Gordon

showed that the hour when any aid would be useful had almost expired.

This was the passage, dated 13th December, in the last (sixth) volume

of the Journal, but the substance of which reached Lord Wolseley by

one of Gordon's messengers at Korti on 31st December:--

"We are going to send down the _Bordeen_ the day after to-morrow,

and with her I shall send this Journal. _If some effort is not

made before ten days' time the town will fall._ It is

inexplicable this delay. If the Expeditionary forces have reached

the river and met my steamers, one hundred men are all that we

require just to show themselves.... Even if the town falls under

the nose of the Expeditionary forces it will not in my opinion

justify the abandonment of Senaar and Kassala, or of the

Equatorial Province by H.M.'s Government. All that is absolutely

necessary is for fifty of the Expeditionary force to get on board

a steamer and come up to Halfiyeh, and thus let their presence be

felt. This is not asking much, but it must happen _at once_, or

it will (as usual) be too late."

The motives which induced Mr Gladstone's Government to send General

Gordon to the Soudan in January 1884 were, as has been clearly shown,

the selfish desire to appease public opinion, and to shirk in the

easiest possible manner a great responsibility. They had no policy at

all, but they had one supreme wish, viz. to cut off the Soudan from

Egypt; and if the Mahdi had only known their wishes and pressed on,

and treated the Khartoum force as he had treated that under Hicks,

there would have been no garrisons to rescue, and that British

Government would have done nothing. It recked nothing of the grave

dangers that would have accrued from the complete triumph of the

Mahdi, or of the outbreak that must have followed in Lower Egypt if

his tide of success had not been checked as it was single-handed by

General Gordon, through the twelve months' defence of Khartoum. Still

it could not quite stoop to the dishonour of abandoning these

garrisons, and of making itself an accomplice to the Mahdi's

butcheries, nor could it altogether turn a deaf ear to the

representations and remonstrances of even such a puppet prince as the

Khedive Tewfik. England was then far more mistress of the situation at

Cairo than she is now, but a helpless refusal to discharge her duty

might have provoked Europe into action at the Porte that would have

proved inconvenient and damaging to her position and reputation.

Therefore the Government fell back on General Gordon, and the hope was

even indulged that, under his exceptional reputation, the evacuation

of the Soudan might not only be successfully carried out, but that his

success might induce the public and the world to accept that

abnegation of policy as the acme of wisdom. In all this they were

destined to a complete awakening, and the only matter of surprise is

that they should have sent so well-known a character as General

Gordon, whose independence and contempt for official etiquette and

restraint were no secrets at the Foreign and War Offices, on a mission

in which they required him not only to be as indifferent to the

national honour as they were, but also to be tied and restrained by

the shifts and requirements of an embarrassed executive.

At a very early stage of the mission the Government obtained evidence

that Gordon's views on the subject were widely different from theirs.

They had evidently persuaded themselves that their policy was Gordon's

policy; and before he was in Khartoum a week he not merely points out

that the evacuation policy is not his but theirs, and that although he

thinks its execution is still possible, the true policy is, "if Egypt

is to be quiet, that the Mahdi must be smashed up." The hopes that had

been based on Gordon's supposed complaisance in the post of

representative on the Nile of the Government policy were thus

dispelled, and it became evident that Gordon, instead of being a tool,

was resolved to be master, so far as the mode of carrying out the

evacuation policy with full regard for the dictates of honour was to

be decided. Nor was this all, or the worst of the revelations made to

the Government in the first few weeks after his arrival at Khartoum.

While expressing his willingness and intention to discharge the chief

part of his task, viz. the withdrawal of the garrisons, which was all

the Government cared about, he also descanted on the moral duty and

the inevitable necessity of setting up a provisional government that

should avert anarchy and impose some barrier to the Mahdi's progress.

All this was trying to those who only wished to be rid of the whole

matter, but Gordon did not spare their feelings, and phrase by phrase

he revealed what his own policy would be and what his inner wishes,

however repressed his charge might keep them, really were.

Having told them that "the Mahdi must be smashed up," he went on to

say that "we cannot hurry over this affair" (the future of the Soudan)

"if we do we shall incur disaster," and again that, although "it is a

miserable country it is joined to Egypt, and it would be difficult to

divorce the two." Within a very few weeks, therefore, the Government

learnt that its own agent was the most forcible and damaging critic of

the policy of evacuation, and that the worries of the Soudan question

for an administration not resolute enough to solve the difficulty in a

thorough manner were increased and not diminished by Gordon's mission.

At that point the proposition was made and supported by several

members of the Cabinet that Gordon should be recalled. There is no

doubt that this step would have been taken but for the fear that it

would aggravate the difficulties of the English expedition sent to

Souakim under the command of General Gerald Graham to retrieve the

defeat of Baker Pasha. Failing the adoption of that extreme measure,

which would at least have been straightforward and honest, and

ignoring what candour seemed to demand if a decision had been come to

to render Gordon no support, and to bid him shift for himself, the

Government resorted to the third and least justifiable course of all,

viz. of showing indifference to the legitimate requests of their

emissary, and of putting off definite action until the very last

moment.

We have seen that Gordon made several specific demands in the first

six weeks of his stay at Khartoum--that is, in the short period before

communication was cut off. He wanted Zebehr, 200 troops at Berber, or

even at Wady Halfa, and the opening of the route from Souakim to the

Nile. To these requests not one favourable answer was given, and the

not wholly unnatural rejection of the first rendered it more than ever

necessary to comply with the others. They were such as ought to have

been granted, and in anticipation they had been suggested and

discussed before Gordon felt bound to urge them as necessary for the

security of his position at Khartoum. Even Sir Evelyn Baring had

recommended in February the despatch of 200 men to Assouan for the

moral effect, and that was the very reason why Gordon asked, in the

first place, for the despatch of a small British force to at least

Wady Halfa. It is possible that one of the chief reasons for the

Government rejecting all these suggestions, and also, it must be

remembered, doing nothing in their place towards the relief and

support of their representative, may have been the hope that this

treatment would have led him to resign and throw up his mission. They

would then have been able to declare that, as the task was beyond the

powers of General Gordon, they were only coming to the prudent and

logical conclusion in saying that nothing could be done, and that the

garrisons had better come to terms with the Mahdi. Unfortunately for

those who favoured the evasion of trouble as the easiest and best way

out of the difficulty, Gordon had high notions as to what duty

required. No difficulty had terrors for him, and while left at the

post of power and responsibility he would endeavour to show himself

equal to the charge.

Yet there can be no doubt that those who sent him would have rejoiced

if he had formally asked to be relieved of the task he had accepted,

and Mr Gladstone stated on the 3rd April that "Gordon was under no

orders and no restraint to stay at Khartoum." A significant answer to

the fact represented in that statement was supplied, when, ten days

later, silence fell on Khartoum, and remained unbroken for more than

five months. But at the very moment that the Prime Minister made that

statement as to Gordon's liberty of movement, the Government knew of

the candid views which he had expressed as to the proper policy for

the Soudan. It should have been apparent that, unless they and their

author were promptly repudiated, and unless the latter was stripped of

his official authority, the Government would, however tardily and

reluctantly, be drawn after its representative into a policy of

intervention in the Soudan, which it, above everything else,

wished to avoid. Gordon concealed nothing. He told them "time,"

"reinforcements," and a very considerable expenditure was necessary to

honourably carry out their policy of evacuation. They were not

prepared to concede any of these save the last, and even the money

they sent him was lost because they would send it by Berber instead of

Kassala. But they knew that "the order and restraint" which kept

Gordon at Khartoum was the duty he had contracted towards them when he

accepted his mission, and which was binding on a man of his principles

until they chose to relieve him of the task. The fear of public

opinion had more to do with their abstaining from the step of ordering

his recall than the hope that his splendid energy and administrative

power might yet provide some satisfactory issue from the dilemma, for

at the very beginning it was freely given out that "General Gordon

was exceeding his instructions."

The interruption of communications with Khartoum at least suspended

Gordon's constant representations as to what he thought the right

policy, as well as his demands for the fulfilment by the Government of

their side of the contract. It was then that Lord Granville seemed to

pluck up heart of grace, and to challenge Gordon's right to remain at

Khartoum. On 23rd April Lord Granville asked for explanation of "cause

of detention." Unfortunately it was not till months later that the

country knew of Gordon's terse and humorous reply, "cause of

detention, these horribly plucky Arabs." Lord Granville, thinking this

despatch not clear enough, followed it up on 17th May by instructing

Mr Egerton, then acting for Sir Evelyn Baring, to send the following

remonstrance to Gordon:

"As the original plan for the evacuation of the Soudan has been

dropped, and as aggressive operations cannot be undertaken with

the countenance of H.M.'s Government, General Gordon is enjoined

to consider, and either to report upon, or, if possible, to adopt

at the first proper moment measures for his own removal and for

that of the Egyptians at Khartoum who have suffered for him, or

who have served him faithfully, including their wives and

children, by whatever route he may consider best, having especial

regard to his own safety and that of the other British subjects."

Then followed suggestions and authority to pay so much a head for

refugees safely escorted to Korosko. The comment Gordon made on that,

and similar despatches, to save himself and any part of the garrison

he could, was that he was not so mean as to desert those who had nobly

stood by him and committed themselves on the strength of his word.

It is impossible to go behind the collective responsibility of the

Government and to attempt to fix any special responsibility or blame

on any individual member of that Government. The facts as I read them

show plainly that there was a complete abnegation of policy or purpose

on the part of the British Government, that Gordon was then sent as a

sort of stop-gap, and that when it was revealed that he had strong

views and clear plans, not at all in harmony with those who sent him,

it was thought, by the Ministers who had not the courage to recall

him, very inconsiderate and insubordinate of him to remain at his post

and to refuse all the hints given him, that he ought to resign unless

he would execute a _sauve qui peut_ sort of retreat to the frontier.

Very harsh things have been said of Mr Gladstone and his Cabinet on

this point, but considering their views and declarations, it is not so

very surprising that Gordon's boldness and originality alarmed and

displeased them. Their radical fault in these early stages of the

question was not that they were indifferent to Gordon's demands, but

that they had absolutely no policy. They could not even come to the

decision, as Gordon wrote, "to abandon altogether and not care what

happens."

But all these minor points were merged in a great common national

anxiety when month after month passed during the spring and summer of

1884, and not a single word issued from the tomb-like silence of

Khartoum. People might argue that the worst could not have happened,

as the Mahdi would have been only too anxious to proclaim his triumph

far and wide if Khartoum had fallen. Anxiety may be diminished, but is

not banished, by a calculation of probabilities, and the military

spirit and capacity exhibited by the Mahdi's forces under Osman Digma

in the fighting with General Graham's well-equipped British force at

Teb and Tamanieb revealed the greatness of the peril with which Gordon

had to deal at Khartoum where he had only the inadequate and

untrustworthy garrison described by Colonel de Coetlogon. During the

summer of 1884 there was therefore a growing fear, not only that the

worst news might come at any moment, but that in the most favourable

event any news would reveal the desperate situation to which Gordon

had been reduced, and with that conviction came the thought, not

whether he had exactly carried out what Ministers had expected him to

do, but solely of his extraordinary courage and devotion to his

country, which had led him to take up a thankless task without the

least regard for his comfort or advantage, and without counting the

odds. There was at least one Minister in the Cabinet who was struck by

that single-minded conduct; and as early as April, when his colleagues

were asking the formal question why Gordon did not leave Khartoum, the

Marquis of Hartington, then Minister of War, and now Duke of

Devonshire, began to inquire as to the steps necessary to rescue the

emissary, while still adhering to the policy of the Administration of

which he formed part. During the whole of that summer the present Duke

of Devonshire advocated the special claim of General Gordon on the

Government, whose mandate he had so readily accepted, and urged the

necessity of special measures being taken at the earliest moment to

save the gallant envoy from what seemed the too probable penalty of

his own temerity and devotion. But for his energetic and consistent

representations the steps that were taken--all too late as they

proved--never would have been taken at all, or deferred to such a date

as to let the public see by the event that there was no use in

throwing away money and precious lives on a lost cause.

If the first place among those in power--for of my own and other

journalists' efforts in the Press to arouse public opinion and to urge

the Government to timely action it is unnecessary to speak--is due to

the Duke of Devonshire, the second may reasonably be claimed by Lord

Wolseley. This recognition is the more called for here, because the

most careful consideration of the facts has led me to the conclusion,

which I would gladly avoid the necessity of expressing if it were

possible, that Lord Wolseley was responsible for the failure of the

relief expedition. This stage of responsibility has not yet been

reached, and it must be duly set forth that on 24th July Lord

Wolseley, then Adjutant-General, wrote a noble letter, stating that,

as he "did not wish to share the responsibility of leaving Charley

Gordon to his fate," he recommended "immediate action," and "the

despatch of a small brigade of between three and four thousand British

soldiers to Dongola, so that they might reach that place about 15th

October." But even that date was later than it ought to have been,

especially when the necessity of getting the English troops back as

early in the New Year as possible was considered, and in the

subsequent recriminations that ensued, the blame for being late from

the start was sought to be thrown on the badness of the Nile flood

that year. General Gordon himself cruelly disposed of that theory or

excuse when he wrote, "It was not a bad Nile; quite an average one.

You were too late, that was all." Still, Lord Wolseley must not be

robbed of the credit of having said on 24th July that an expedition

was necessary to save Gordon, "his old friend and Crimean comrade,"

towards whom Wolseley himself had contracted a special moral

obligation for his prominent share in inducing him to accept the very

mission that had already proved so full of peril. In short, if the

plain truth must be told, Lord Wolseley was far more responsible for

the despatch of General Gordon to Khartoum than Mr Gladstone.

The result of the early representations of the Duke of Devonshire, and

the definite suggestion of Lord Wolseley, was that the Government gave

in when the public anxiety became so great at the continued silence of

Khartoum, and acquiesced in the despatch of an expedition to relieve

General Gordon. Having once made the concession, it must be allowed

that they showed no niggard spirit in sanctioning the expedition and

the proposals of the military authorities. The sum of ten millions was

devoted to the work of rescuing Gordon by the very persons who had

rejected his demands for the hundredth part of that total. Ten

thousand men selected from the _élite_ of the British army were

assigned to the task for which he had begged two hundred men in vain.

It is impossible here to enter closely into the causes which led to

the expansion of the three or four thousand British infantry into a

special corps of ten thousand fighting men, picked from the crack

regiments of the army, and composed of every arm of the service

compelled to fight under unaccustomed conditions. The local

authorities--in particular Major Kitchener, now the Sirdar of the

Egyptian army, who is slowly recovering from the Mahdi the provinces

which should never have been left in his possession--protested that

the expedition should be a small one, and if their advice had been

taken the cost would have been about one-fourth that incurred, and the

force would have reached Khartoum by that 11th November on which

Gordon expected to see the first man of it. But Major Kitchener,

although, as Gordon wrote, "one of the few really first-class officers

in the British army," was only an individual, and his word did not

possess a feather's weight before the influence of the Pall Mall band

of warriors who have farmed out our little wars--India, of course,

excepted--of the last thirty years for their own glorification. So

great a chance of fame as "the rescue of Gordon" was not to be left to

some unknown brigadiers, or to the few line regiments, the proximity

of whose stations entitled them to the task. That would be neglecting

the favours of Providence. For so noble a task the control of the most

experienced commander in the British army would alone suffice, and

when he took the field his staff had to be on the extensive scale that

suited his dignity and position. As there would be some reasonable

excuse for the dispensation of orders and crosses from a campaign

against a religious leader who had not yet known defeat, any friend

might justly complain if he was left behind. To justify so brilliant a

staff, no ordinary British force would suffice. Therefore our

household brigade, our heavy cavalry, and our light cavalry were

requisitioned for their best men, and these splendid troops were

drafted and amalgamated into special corps--heavy and light

camelry--for work that would have been done far better and more

efficiently by two regiments of Bengal Lancers. If all this effort and

expenditure had resulted in success, it would be possible to keep

silent and shrug one's shoulders; but when the mode of undertaking

this expedition can be clearly shown to have been the direct cause of

its failure, silence would be a crime. When Lord Wolseley told the

soldiers at Korti on their return from Metemmah, "It was not _your_

fault that Gordon has perished and Khartoum fallen," the positiveness

of his assurance may have been derived from the inner conviction of

his own stupendous error.

The expedition was finally sanctioned in August, and the news of its

coming was known to General Gordon in September, before, indeed, his

own despatches of 31st July were received in London, and broke the

suspense of nearly half a year. He thought that only a small force was

coming, under the command of Major-General Earle, and he at once, as

already described, sent his steamers back to Shendy, there to await

the troops and convey them to Khartoum. He seems to have calculated

that three months from the date of the message informing him of the

expedition would suffice for the conveyance of the troops as far as

Berber or Metemmah, and at that rate General Earle would have arrived

where his steamers awaited him early in November. Gordon's views as to

the object of the expedition, which somebody called the Gordon Relief

Expedition, were thus clearly expressed:--

"I altogether decline the imputation that the projected

expedition has come to relieve me. It has come to save our

National honour in extricating the garrisons, etc., from a

position in which our action in Egypt has placed these garrisons.

I was Relief Expedition No. 1; they are Relief Expedition No. 2.

As for myself, I could make good my retreat at any moment, if I

wished. Now realise what would happen if this first relief

expedition was to bolt, and the steamers fell into the hands of

the Mahdi. This second relief expedition (for the honour of

England engaged in extricating garrisons) would be somewhat

hampered. We, the first and second expeditions, are equally

engaged for the honour of England. This is fair logic. I came up

to extricate the garrison, and failed. Earle comes up to

extricate garrisons, and I hope succeeds. Earle does not come to

extricate me. The extrication of the garrisons was supposed to

affect our "National honour." If Earle succeeds, the "National

honour" thanks him, and I hope recommends him, but it is

altogether independent of me, who, for failing, incurs its blame.

I am not _the rescued lamb_, and I will not be."

Lord Wolseley, still possessed with the idea that, now that an

expedition had been sanctioned, the question of time was not of

supreme importance, and that the relieving expedition might be carried

out in a deliberate manner, which would be both more effective and

less exposed to risk, did not reach Cairo till September, and had only

arrived at Wady Halfa on 8th October, when his final instructions

reached him in the following form:--"The primary object of your

expedition is to bring away General Gordon and Colonel Stewart, and

you are not to advance further south than necessary to attain that

object, and when it has been secured, no further offensive operations

of any kind are to be undertaken." These instructions were simple and

clear enough. The Government had not discovered a policy. It had,

however, determined to leave the garrisons to their fate, despite the

National honour being involved, at the very moment that it sanctioned

an enormous expenditure to try and save the lives of its

long-neglected representatives, Gordon and Colonel Stewart. With

extraordinary shrewdness, Gordon detected the hollowness of its

purpose, and wrote:--"I very much doubt what is really going to be the

policy of our Government, even now that the Expedition is at Dongola,"

and if they intend ratting out, "the troops had better not come beyond

Berber till the question of what will be done is settled."

The receipt of Gordon's and Power's despatches of July showed that

there were, at the time of their being written, supplies for four

months, which would have carried the garrison on till the end of

November. As the greater part of that period had expired when these

documents reached Lord Wolseley's hands, it was quite impossible to

doubt that time had become the most important factor of all in the

situation. The chance of being too late would even then have presented

itself to a prudent commander, and, above all, to a friend hastening

to the rescue of a friend. The news that Colonel Stewart and some

other Europeans had been entrapped and murdered near Merowe, which

reached the English commander from different sources before Gordon

confirmed it in his letters, was also calculated to stimulate, by

showing that Gordon was alone, and had single-handed to conduct the

defence of a populous city. Hard on the heels of that intelligence

came Gordon's letter of 4th November to Lord Wolseley, who received it

at Dongola on 14th of the same month. The letter was a long one, but

only two passages need be quoted:--"At Metemmah, waiting your orders,

are five steamers with nine guns." Did it not occur to anyone how

greatly, at the worst stage of the siege, Gordon had thus weakened

himself to assist the relieving expedition? Even for that reason there

was not a day or an hour to be lost.

But the letter contained a worse and more alarming passage:--"We can

hold out forty days with ease; after that it will be difficult." Forty

days would have meant till 14th December, one month ahead of the day

Lord Wolseley received the news, but the message was really more

alarming than the form in which it was published, for there is no

doubt that the word "difficult" is the official rendering of Gordon's,

a little indistinctly written, word "desperate." In face of that

alarming message, which only stated facts that ought to have been

surmised, if not known, it was no longer possible to pursue the

leisurely promenade up the Nile, which was timed so as to bring the

whole force to Khartoum in the first week of March. Rescue by the most

prominent general and swell troops of England at Easter would hardly

gratify the commandant and garrison starved into surrender the

previous Christmas, and that was the exact relationship between

Wolseley's plans and Gordon's necessities.

The date at which Gordon's supplies would be exhausted varied not from

any miscalculation, but because on two successive occasions he

discovered large stores of grain and biscuits, which had been stolen

from the public granaries before his arrival. The supplies that would

all have disappeared in November were thus eked out, first till the

middle of December, and then finally till the end of January, but

there is no doubt that they would not have lasted as long as they did

if in the last month of the siege he had not given the civil

population permission to leave the doomed town. From any and from

every point of view, there was not the shadow of an excuse for a

moment's delay after the receipt of that letter on 14th November.

With the British Exchequer at a commander's back, it is easy to

organise an expedition on an elaborate scale, and to carry it out with

the nicety of perfection, but for the realisation of these ponderous

plans there is one thing more necessary, and that is time. I have no

doubt if Gordon's letter had said "granaries full, can hold out till

Easter," that Lord Wolseley's deliberate march--Cairo, September 27;

Wady Halfa, October 8; Dongola, November 14; Korti, December 30;

Metemmah any day in February, and Khartoum, March 3, and those were

the approximate dates of his grand plan of campaign--would have been

fully successful, and held up for admiration as a model of skill.

Unfortunately, it would not do for the occasion, as Gordon was on the

verge of starvation and in desperate straits when the rescuing force

reached Dongola. It is not easy to alter the plan of any campaign, nor

to adapt a heavy moving machine to the work suitable for a light one.

To feed 10,000 British soldiers on the middle Nile was alone a feat of

organisation such as no other country could have attempted, but the

effort was exhausting, and left no reserve energy to despatch that

quick-moving battalion which could have reached Gordon's steamers

early in December, and would have reinforced the Khartoum garrison,

just as Havelock and Outram did the Lucknow Residency.

Dongola is only 100 miles below Debbeh, where the intelligence

officers and a small force were on that 14th November; Ambukol,

specially recommended by Gordon as the best starting-point, is less

than fifty miles, and Korti, the point selected by Lord Wolseley, is

exactly that distance above Debbeh. The Bayuda desert route by the

Jakdul Wells to Metemmah is 170 miles. At Metemmah were the five

steamers with nine guns to convoy the desperately needed succour to

Khartoum. The energy expended on the despatch of 10,000 men up 150

miles of river, if concentrated on 1000 men, must have given a

speedier result, but, as the affair was managed, the last day of the

year 1884 was reached before there was even that small force ready to

make a dash across the desert for Metemmah.

The excuses made for this, as the result proved, fatal delay of taking

six weeks to do what--the forward movement from Dongola to Korti, not

of the main force, but of 1000 men--ought to have been done in one

week, were the dearth of camels, the imperfect drill of the camel

corps, and, it must be added, the exaggerated fear of the Mahdi's

power. When it was attempted to quicken the slow forward movement of

the unwieldy force confusion ensued, and no greater progress was

effected than if things had been left undisturbed. The erratic policy

in procuring camels caused them at the critical moment to be not

forthcoming in anything approaching the required numbers, and this

difficulty was undoubtedly increased by the treachery of Mahmoud

Khalifa, who was the chief contractor we employed. Even when the

camels were procured, they had to be broken in for regular work, and

the men accustomed to the strange drill and mode of locomotion. The

last reason perhaps had the most weight of all, for although the Mahdi

with all his hordes had been kept at bay by Gordon single-handed, Lord

Wolseley would risk nothing in the field. Probably the determining

reason for that decision was that the success of a small force would

have revealed how absolutely unnecessary his large and costly

expedition was. Yet events were to show beyond possibility of

contraversion that this was the case, for not less than two-thirds of

the force were never in any shape or form actively employed, and, as

far as the fate of Gordon went, might just as well have been left at

home. They had, however, to be fed and provided for at the end of a

line of communication of over 1200 miles.

Still, notwithstanding all these delays and disadvantages, a

well-equipped force of 1000 men was ready on 30th December to leave

Korti to cross the 170 miles of the Bayuda desert. That route was well

known and well watered. There were wells at, at least, five places,

and the best of these was at Jakdul, about half-way across. The

officer entrusted with the command was Major-General Sir Herbert

Stewart, an officer of a gallant disposition, who was above all others

impressed with the necessity of making an immediate advance, with the

view of throwing some help into Khartoum. Unfortunately he was

trammelled by his instructions, which were to this effect--he was to

establish a fort at Jakdul; but if he found an insufficiency of water

there he was at liberty to press on to Metemmah. His action was to be

determined by the measure of his own necessities, not of Gordon's, and

so Lord Wolseley arranged throughout. He reached that place with his

1100 fighting men, but on examining the wells and finding them full,

he felt bound to obey the orders of his commander, viz. to establish

the fort, and then return to Korti for a reinforcement. It was a case

when Nelson's blind eye might have been called into requisition, but

even the most gallant officers are not Nelsons.

The first advance of General Stewart to Jakdul, reached on 3rd January

1885, was in every respect a success. It was achieved without loss,

unopposed, and was quite of the nature of a surprise. The British

relieving force was at last, after many months' report, proved to be

a reality, and although late, it was not too late. If General Stewart

had not been tied by his instructions, but left a free hand, he would

undoubtedly have pressed on, and a reinforcement of British troops

would have entered Khartoum even before the fall of Omdurman. But it

must be recorded also that Sir Herbert Stewart was not inspired by the

required flash of genius. He paid more deference to the orders of Lord

Wolseley than to the grave peril of General Gordon.

General Stewart returned to Korti on the 7th January, bringing with

him the tired camels, and he found that during his absence still more

urgent news had been received from Gordon, to the effect that if aid

did not come within ten days from the 14th December, the place might

fall, and that under the nose of the expedition. The native who

brought this intimation arrived at Korti the day after General Stewart

left, but a messenger could easily have caught him up and given him

orders to press on at all cost. It was not realised at the time, but

the neglect to give that order, and the rigid adherence to a

preconceived plan, proved fatal to the success of the whole

expedition.

The first advance of General Stewart had been in the nature of a

surprise, but it aroused the Mahdi to a sense of the position, and the

subsequent delay gave him a fortnight to complete his plans and assume

the offensive.

On 12th January--that is, nine days after his first arrival at

Jakdul--General Stewart reached the place a second time with the

second detachment of another 1000 men--the total fighting strength of

the column being raised to about 2300 men. For whatever errors had

been committed, and their consequences, the band of soldiers assembled

at Jakdul on that 12th of January could in no sense be held

responsible. Without making any invidious comparisons, it may be

truthfully said that such a splendid fighting force was never

assembled in any other cause, and the temper of the men was strung to

a high point of enthusiasm by the thought that at last they had

reached the final stage of the long journey to rescue Gordon. A number

of causes, principally the fatigue of the camels from the treble

journey between Korti and Jakdul, made the advance very slow, and five

days were occupied in traversing the forty-five miles between Jakdul

and the wells at Abou Klea, themselves distant twenty miles from

Metemmah. On the morning of 17th January it became clear that the

column was in presence of an enemy.

At the time of Stewart's first arrival at Jakdul there were no hostile

forces in the Bayuda desert. At Berber was a considerable body of the

Mahdi's followers, and both Metemmah and Shendy were held in his name.

At the latter place a battery or small fort had been erected, and in

an encounter between it and Gordon's steamers one of the latter had

been sunk, thus reducing their total to four. But there were none of

the warrior tribes of Kordofan and Darfour at any of these places, or

nearer than the six camps which had been established round Khartoum.

The news of the English advance made the Mahdi bestir himself, and as

it was known that the garrison of Omdurman was reduced to the lowest

straits, and could not hold out many days, the Mahdi despatched some

of his best warriors of the Jaalin, Degheim, and Kenana tribes to

oppose the British troops in the Bayuda desert. It was these men who

opposed the further advance of Sir Herbert Stewart's column at Abou

Klea. It is unnecessary to describe the desperate assault these

gallant warriors made on the somewhat cumbrous and ill-arranged square

of the British force, or the ease and tremendous loss with which these

fanatics were beaten off, and never allowed to come to close quarters,

save at one point. The infantry soldiers, who formed two sides of the

square, signally repulsed the onset, not a Ghazi succeeded in getting

within a range of 300 yards; but on another side, cavalrymen, doing

infantry soldiers' unaccustomed work, did not adhere to the strict

formation necessary, and trained for the close _melée_, and with the

_gaudia certaminis_ firing their blood, they recklessly allowed the

Ghazis to come to close quarters, and their line of the square was

impinged upon. In that close fighting, with the Heavy Camel Corps men

and the Naval Brigade, the Blacks suffered terribly, but they also

inflicted loss in return. Of a total loss on the British side of

sixty-five killed and sixty-one wounded, the Heavy Camel Corps lost

fifty-two, and the Sussex Regiment, performing work to which it was

thoroughly trained, inflicted immense loss on the enemy at hardly any

cost to itself. Among the slain was the gallant Colonel Fred. Burnaby,

one of the noblest and gentlest, as he was physically the strongest,

officers in the British army. There is no doubt that signal as was

this success, it shook the confidence of the force. The men were

resolute to a point of ferocity, but the leaders' confidence in

themselves and their task had been rudely tried; and yet the breaking

of the square had been clearly due to a tactical blunder, and the

inability of the cavalry to adapt themselves to a strange position.

On the 18th January the march, rendered slower by the conveyance of

the wounded, was resumed, but no fighting took place on that day,

although it was clear that the enemy had not been dispersed. On the

19th, when the force had reached the last wells at Abou Kru or Gubat,

it became clear that another battle was to be fought. One of the first

shots seriously wounded Sir Herbert Stewart, and during the whole of

the affair many of our men were carried off by the heavy rifle fire of

the enemy. Notwithstanding that our force fought under many

disadvantages and was not skilfully handled, the Mahdists were driven

off with terrible loss, while our force had thirty-six killed and one

hundred and seven wounded. Notwithstanding these two defeats, the

enemy were not cowed, and held on to Metemmah, in which no doubt those

who had taken part in the battles were assisted by a force from

Berber. The 20th January was wasted in inaction, caused by the large

number of wounded, and when on 21st January Metemmah was attacked, the

Mahdists showed so bold a front that Sir Charles Wilson, who succeeded

to the command on Sir Herbert Stewart being incapacitated by his, as

it proved, mortal wound, drew off his force. This was the more

disappointing, because Gordon's four steamers arrived during the

action and took a gallant part in the attack. It was a pity for the

effect produced that that attack should have been distinctly

unsuccessful. The information the captain of these steamers, the

gallant Cassim el Mousse, gave about Gordon's position was alarming.

He stated that Gordon had sent him a message informing him that if aid

did not come in ten days from the 14th December his position would be

desperate, and the volumes of his journal which he handed over to Sir

Charles Wilson amply corroborated this statement--the very last entry

under that date being these memorable words: "Now, mark this, if the

Expeditionary Force--and I ask for no more than 200 men--does not come

in ten days, _the town may fall_, and I have done my best for the

honour of our country. Good-bye."

The other letters handed over by Cassim el Mousse amply bore out the

view that a month before the British soldiers reached the last stretch

of the Nile to Khartoum Gordon's position was desperate. In one to his

sister he concluded, "I am quite happy, thank God, and, like Lawrence,

have tried to do my duty," and in another to his friend Colonel

Watson: "I think the game is up, and send Mrs Watson, yourself, and

Graham my adieux. We may expect a catastrophe in the town in or after

ten days. This would not have happened (if it does happen) if our

people had taken better precautions as to informing us of their

movements, but this is 'spilt milk.'" In face of these documents,

which were in the hands of Sir Charles Wilson on 21st January, it is

impossible to agree with his conclusion in his book "Korti to

Khartoum," that "the delay in the arrival of the steamers at Khartoum

was unimportant" as affecting the result. Every hour, every minute,

had become of vital importance. If the whole Jakdul column had been

destroyed in the effort, it was justifiable to do so as the price of

reinforcing Gordon, so that he could hold out until the main body

under Lord Wolseley could arrive. I am not one of those who think

that Sir Charles Wilson, who only came on the scene at the last

moment, should be made the scapegoat for the mistakes of others in the

earlier stages of the expedition, and I hold now, as strongly as when

I wrote the words, the opinion that, "in the face of what he did, any

suggestion that he might have done more would seem both ungenerous and

untrue." Still the fact remains that on 21st January there was left a

sufficient margin of time to avert what actually occurred at daybreak

on the 26th, for the theory that the Mahdi could have entered the town

one hour before he did was never a serious argument, while the

evidence of Slatin Pasha strengthens the view that Gordon was at the

last moment only overcome by the Khalifa's resorting to a surprise. On

one point of fact Sir Charles Wilson seems also to have been in error.

He fixes the fall of Omdurman at 6th January, whereas Slatin, whose

information on the point ought to be unimpeachable, states that it did

not occur until the 15th of that month.

When Sir Herbert Stewart had fought and won the battle of Abou Klea,

it was his intention on reaching the Nile, as he expected to do the

next day, to put Sir Charles Wilson on board one of Gordon's own

steamers and send him off at once to Khartoum. The second battle and

Sir Herbert Stewart's fatal wound destroyed that project. But this

plan might have been adhered to so far as the altered circumstances

would allow. Sir Charles Wilson had succeeded to the command, and many

matters affecting the position of the force had to be settled before

he was free to devote himself to the main object of the dash forward,

viz. the establishment of communications with Gordon and Khartoum. As

the consequence of that change in his own position, it would have been

natural that he should have delegated the task to someone else, and in

Lord Charles Beresford, as brave a sailor as ever led a cutting-out

party, there was the very man for the occasion. Unfortunately, Sir

Charles Wilson did not take this step for, as I believe, the sole

reason that he was the bearer of an important official letter to

General Gordon, which he did not think could be entrusted to any other

hands. But for that circumstance it is permissible to say that one

steamer--there was more than enough wood on the other three steamers

to fit one out for the journey to Khartoum--would have sailed on the

morning of the 22nd, the day after the force sheered off from

Metemmah, and, at the latest, it would have reached Khartoum on

Sunday, the 25th, just in time to avert the catastrophe.

But as it was done, the whole of the 22nd and 23rd were taken up in

preparing two steamers for the voyage, and in collecting scarlet coats

for the troops, so that the effect of real British soldiers coming up

the Nile might be made more considerable. At 8 A.M. on Saturday, the

24th, Sir Charles Wilson at last sailed with the two steamers,

_Bordeen_ and _Talataween_, and it was then quite impossible for the

steamers to cover the ninety-five miles to Khartoum in time. Moreover,

the Nile had, by this time, sunk to such a point of shallowness that

navigation was specially slow and even dangerous. The Shabloka

cataract was passed at 3 P.M. on the afternoon of Sunday; then the

_Bordeen_ ran on a rock, and was not got clear till 9 P.M. on the

fatal 26th. On the 27th, Halfiyeh, eight miles from Khartoum, was

reached, and the Arabs along the banks shouted out that Gordon was

killed and Khartoum had fallen. Still Sir Charles Wilson went on past

Tuti Island, until he made sure that Khartoum had fallen and was in

the hands of the dervishes. Then he ordered full steam down stream

under as hot a fire as he ever wished to experience, Gordon's black

gunners working like demons at their guns. On the 29th the

_Talataween_ ran on a rock and sank, its crew being taken on board the

_Bordeen_. Two days later the _Bordeen_ shared the same fate, but the

whole party was finally saved on the 4th February by a third steamer,

brought up by Lord Charles Beresford. But these matters, and the

subsequent progress of the Expedition which had so ignominiously

failed, have no interest for the reader of Gordon's life. It failed to

accomplish the object which alone justified its being sent, and, it

must be allowed, that it accepted its failure in a very tame and

spiritless manner. Even at the moment of the British troops turning

their backs on the goal which they had not won, the fate of Gordon

himself was unknown, although there could be no doubt as to the main

fact that the protracted siege of Khartoum had terminated in its

capture by the cruel and savage foe, whom it, or rather Gordon, had so

long defied.

I have referred to the official letter addressed to General Gordon, of

which Sir Charles Wilson was the bearer. That letter has never been

published, and it is perhaps well for its authors that it has not

been, for, however softened down its language was by Lord Wolseley's

intercession, it was an order to General Gordon to resign the command

at Khartoum, and to leave that place without a moment's delay. Had it

been delivered and obeyed (as it might have been, because Gordon's

strength would probably have collapsed at the sight of English

soldiers after his long incarceration), the next official step would

have been to censure him for having remained at Khartoum against

orders. Thus would the primary, and, indeed, sole object of the

Expedition have been attained without regard for the national honour,

and without the discovery of that policy, the want of which was the

only cause of the calamities associated with the Soudan.