The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 Part 36

[Footnote 392: Egypt, No. 12 (1884), p. 115.]

This statement arouses different opinions according to the point of view from which we regard it. As a declaration of general policy it is no less sound than prophetic; as a despatch from the Governor-General of the Sudan to the Egyptian Government, it claimed serious attention; as a recommendation sent by a British officer to the Home Government, it was altogether beyond his powers. Gordon was sent out for a distinct aim; he now proposed to subordinate that aim to another far vaster aim which lay beyond his province. Nevertheless, Sir E. Baring on February 28, and on March 4, urged the Gladstone Ministry even now to accede to Gordon's request for Zebehr Pasha as his successor, on the ground that some Government must be left in the Sudan, and Zebehr was deemed at Cairo to be the only possible governor. Again the Home Government refused, and thereby laid themselves under the moral obligation of suggesting an alternate course. The only course suggested was to allow the despatch of a British force up the Nile, if occasion seemed to demand it[393].

[Footnote 393: Egypt, No. 12 (1884) p. 119.]

In this connection it is well to remember that the question of Egypt and the Sudan was only one of many that distracted the attention of Ministers. The events outside Suakim alone might give them pause before they plunged into the Sudan; for that was the time when Russia was moving on towards Afghanistan; and the agreement between the three Emperors imposed the need of caution on a State as isolated and unpopular as England then was. In view of the designs of the German colonial party (see Chapter XVII.) and the pressure of the Irish problem, the Gladstone Cabinet was surely justified in refusing to undertake any new responsibilities, except on the most urgent need.

Vital interests were at stake in too many places to warrant a policy of Quixotic adventure up the Nile.

Nevertheless, it is regrettable that Ministers took up on the Sudan problem a position that was logically sound but futile in the sphere of action. Gordon's mission, according to Earl Granville, was a peaceful one, and he inquired anxiously what progress had been made in the withdrawal of the Egyptian garrisons and civilians. This question he put, even in the teeth of Gordon's positive statement in a telegram of March 8:--

If you do not send Zebehr, you have no chance of getting the garrisons away; . . . Zebehr here would be far more powerful than the Mahdi, and he would make short work of the Mahdi[394].

[Footnote 394: _Ibid_. p. 145.]

A week earlier Gordon had closed a telegram with the despairing words:--

I will do my best to carry out my instructions, but I feel conviction I shall be caught in Khartum[395].

[Footnote 395: _Ibid_. p. 152.]

It is not surprising that Ministers were perplexed by Gordon's despatches, or that Baring telegraphed to Khartum that he found it very difficult to understand what the General wanted. All who now peruse his despatches must have the same feeling, mixed with one of regret that he ever weakened his case by the proposal to "smash the Mahdi." Thenceforth the British Government obviously felt some distrust of their envoy; and in this disturbing factor, and the duality of Gordon's duties, we may discern one cause at least of the final disaster.

On March 11, the British Government refused either to allow the appointment of Zebehr, or to send British or Indian troops from Suakim to Berber. Without wishing to force Gordon's hand prematurely, Earl Granville urged the need of evacuation at as early a date as might be practicable. On March 16, after hearing ominous news as to the spread of the Mahdi's power near to Khartum and Berber, he advised the evacuation of the former city at the earliest possible date[396]. We may here note that the rebels began to close round it on March 18.

[Footnote 396: _Ibid_. pp. 158, 162, 166.]

Earl Granville's advice directly conflicted with Gordon's sense of honour. As he stated, on or about March 20, the fidelity of the people of Khartum, while treachery was rife all around, bound him not to leave them until he could do so "under a Government which would give them some hope of peace." Here again his duty as Governor of the Sudan, or his extreme conscientiousness as a man, held him to his post despite the express recommendations of the British Government. His decision is ever to be regretted; but it redounds to his honour as a Christian and a soldier. At bottom, the misunderstanding between him and the Cabinet rested on a divergent view of duty. Gordon summed up his scruples in his telegram to Baring:--

You must see that you could not recall me, nor could I possibly obey, until the Cairo _employes_ get out from all the places. I have named men to different places, thus involving them with the Mahdi. How could I look the world in the face if I abandoned them and fled? As a gentleman, could you advise this course?

Earl Granville summed up his statement of the case in the words:--

The Mission of General Gordon, as originally designed and decided upon, was of a pacific nature and in no way involved any movement of British forces. . . . He was, in addition, authorised and instructed to perform such other duties as the Egyptian Government might desire to entrust to him and as might be communicated by you to him. . . . Her Majesty's Government, bearing in mind the exigencies of the occasion, concurred in these instructions [those of the Egyptian Government], which virtually altered General Gordon's Mission from one of advice to that of executing, or at least directing, the evacuation not only of Khartum but of the whole Sudan, and they were willing that General Gordon should receive the very extended powers conferred upon him by the Khedive to enable him to effect his difficult task. But they have throughout joined in your anxiety that he should not expose himself to unnecessary personal risk, or place himself in a position from which retreat would be difficult[397].

[Footnote 397: Egypt, No. 13 (1884), pp. 5, 6. Earl Granville made the same statement in his despatch of April 23. See, too, _The Life of Lord Granville_.]

He then states that it is clear that Khartum can hold out for at least six months, if it is attacked, and, seeing that the British occupation of Egypt was only "for a special and temporary purpose," any expedition into the Sudan would be highly undesirable on general as well as diplomatic grounds.

Both of these views of duty are intelligible as well as creditable to those who held them. But the former view is that of a high-souled officer; the latter, that of a responsible and much-tried Minister and diplomatist. They were wholly divergent, and divergence there spelt disaster.

On hearing of the siege of Khartum, General Stephenson, then commanding the British forces in Egypt, advised the immediate despatch of a brigade to Dongola--a step which would probably have produced the best results; but that advice was overruled at London for the reasons stated above.

Ministers seem to have feared that Gordon might use the force for offensive purposes. An Egyptian battalion was sent up the Nile to Korosko in the middle of May; but the "moral effect" hoped for from that daring step vanished in face of a serious reverse. On May 19, the important city of Berber was taken by the Mahdists[398].

[Footnote 398: Parl. Papers, Egypt, No. 25 (1884), pp. 129-131.]

Difficult as the removal of about 10,000 to 15,000[399] Egyptians from Khartum had always been--and there were fifteen other garrisons to be rescued--it was now next to impossible, unless some blow were dealt at the rebels in that neighbourhood. The only effective blow would be that dealt by British or Indian troops, and this the Government refused, though Gordon again and again pointed out that a small well-equipped force would do far more than a large force. "A heavy, lumbering column, however strong, is nowhere in this land (so he wrote in his _Journals_ on September 24). . . . It is the country of the irregular, not of the regular." A month after the capture of Berber a small British force left Siut, on the Nile, for a.s.suan; but this move, which would have sent a thrill through the Sudan in March, had little effect at midsummer. Even so, a prompt advance on Dongola and thence on Berber would probably have saved the situation at the eleventh hour.

[Footnote 399: This is the number as estimated by Gordon in his _Journals_ (Sept. 10, 1884), p. 6.]

But first the battle of the routes had to be fought out by the military authorities. As early as April 25, the Government ordered General Stephenson to report on the best means of relieving Gordon; after due consideration of this difficult problem he advised the despatch of 10,000 men to Berber from Suakim in the month of September. Preparations were actually begun at Suakim; but in July experts began to favour the Nile route. In that month Lord Wolseley urged the immediate despatch of a force up that river, and he promised that it should be at Dongola by the middle of October. Even so, official hesitations hampered the enterprise, and it was not until July 29 that the decision seems to have been definitely formed in favour of the Nile route. Even on August 8, Lord Hartington, then War Minister, stated that help would be sent to Gordon, _if it proved to be necessary_[400]. On August 26, Lord Wolseley was appointed to the command of the relief expedition gathering on the Nile, but not until October 5 did he reach Wady Haifa, below the Second Cataract.

[Footnote 400: Morley, _Life of Gladstone_, vol. iii. p. 164.]

Meanwhile the web of fate was closing in on Khartum. In vain did Gordon seek to keep communications open. All that he could do was to hold stoutly to that last bulwark of civilisation. There were still some grounds for hope. The Mahdi remained in Kordofan, want of food preventing his march northwards in force. Against his half-armed fanatics the city opposed a strong barrier. "Crows' feet" scattered on the ground ended their mad rushes, and mines blew them into the air by hundreds. Khartum seemed to defy those sons of the desert. The fire of the steamers drove them from the banks and pulverised their forts[401].

The a.r.s.enal could turn out 50,000 Remington cartridges a week. There was every reason, then, for holding the city; for, as Gordon jotted down in his _Journal_ on September 17, if the Mahdi took Khartum, it would need a great force to stay his propaganda. Here and there in those pathetic records of a life and death struggle we catch a glimpse of Gordon's hope of saving Khartum for civilisation. More than once he noted the ease of holding the Sudan from the Nile as base. With forts at the cataracts and armed steamers patrolling the clear reaches of the river, the defence of the Sudan, he believed, was by no means impossible[402].

[Footnote 401: For details, see _Letters from Khartum_, by Frank Power.]

[Footnote 402: _Journal_, p. 35, etc.]

On September 10 he succeeded in sending away down stream by steamer Colonel Stewart and Messrs. Power and Herbin; but unfortunately they were wrecked and murdered by Arabs near Korti. The advice and help of that gallant officer would have been of priceless service to the relieving force. On September 10, when the _Journals_ begin, Gordon was still hopeful of success, though food was scarce.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP OF THE NILE.]

At this time the rescue expedition was mustering at Wady Haifa, a point which the narrowing gorge of the Nile marks out as one of the natural defences of its lower valley. There the British and Egyptian Governments were collecting a force that soon amounted to 2570 British troops and some Egyptians, who were to be used solely for transport and portage duties. A striking tribute to the solidarity of the Empire was the presence of 350 Canadians, mostly French, whose skill in working boats up rapids won admiration on all sides. The difficulties of the Nile route were soon found to be far greater than had been imagined. Indeed many persons still believe that the Suakim-Berber route would have been far preferable. The Nile was unfortunately lower than usual, and many rapids, up which small steamers had been hauled when the waters ran deep and full, were impa.s.sable even for the whale-boats on which the expedition depended for its progress as far as Korti. Many a time all the boats had to be hauled up the banks and carried by Canadians or Egyptians to the next clear reaches. The letters written by Gordon in 1877 in a more favourable season were now found to be misleading, and in part led to the miscalculation of time which was to prove so disastrous.

Another untoward fact was the refusal of the authorities to push on the construction of the railway above Sarras. It had been completed from Wady Haifa up to that point, and much work had been done on it for about fifteen miles further. But, either from lack of the necessary funds, or because the line could not be completed in time, the construction was stopped by Lord Wolseley's orders early in October. Consequently much time was lost in dragging the boats and their stores up or around the difficult rapids above Semneh[403].

[Footnote 403: See Gordon's letters of the year 1877, quoted in the Appendix of A. Macdonald's _Too Late for Gordon and Khartum_ (1887); also chap. vi. of that book.]

Meanwhile a large quant.i.ty of stores had been collected at Dongola and Debbeh; numbers of boats were also there, so that a swift advance of a vanguard thence by the calmer reaches farther up the Nile seemed to offer many chances of success. It was in accord with Gordon's advice to act swiftly with small columns; but, for some reason, the plan was not acted on, though Colonel Kitchener, who had collected those stores, recommended it. Another argument for speedy action was the arrival on November 14, of a letter from Gordon, dated ten days before, in which he stated that he could hold out for forty days, but would find it hard to do so any longer.

The advance of the main body to Dongola was very slow, despite the heroic toil of all concerned. We now know that up to the middle of September the Gladstone Ministry cherished the belief that the force need not advance beyond Dongola. Their optimism was once again at fault.

The Mahdists were pressing on the siege of Khartum, and had overpowered and slaughtered faithful tribes farther down the river. Such was the news sent by Gordon and received by Lord Wolseley on December 31 at Korti. The "secret and confidential" part of Gordon's message was to the effect that food was running short, and the rescuers must come quickly; they should come by Metammeh or Berber, and inform Gordon by the messenger when they had taken Berber.

The last entries in Gordon's _Journals_ or in that part which has survived, contain the following statements:--

December 13. ". . . All that is absolutely necessary is for fifty of the expeditionary force to get on board a steamer and come up to Halfeyeh, 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."

December 14. [After stating that he would send down a steamer with the "Journal" towards the expeditionary force]. . . . "Now mark this, if the expeditionary force, and I ask for no more than two hundred 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."

Owing to lack of transport and other difficulties, the vanguard of the relieving force could not begin its march from the new Nile base, near Korti, until December 30. Thence the gallant Sir Herbert Stewart led a picked column of men with 1800 camels across the desert towards Metammeh. Lord Wolseley remained behind to guard the new base of operations. At Abu Klea wells, when nearing the Nile, the column was a.s.sailed by a great ma.s.s of Arabs. They advanced in five columns, each having a wedge-shaped head designed to pierce the British square. With a low murmuring cry or chant they rushed on in admirable order, disregarding the heavy losses caused by the steady fire of three faces of the square. Their leaders soon saw the weak place in the defence, namely, at one of the rear corners, where belated skirmishers were still running in for shelter, where also one of the guns jammed at the critical moment. One of their Emirs, calmly reciting his prayers, rode in through the gap thus formed, and for ten minutes bayonet and spear plied their deadly thrusts at close quarters. Thanks to the firmness of the British infantry, every Arab that forced his way in perished; but in this _melee_ there perished a stalwart soldier whom England could ill spare, Colonel Burnaby, hero of the ride to Khiva. Lord Charles Beresford, of the Naval Brigade, had a narrow escape while striving to set right the defective cannon. In all we lost 65 killed and 60 wounded, a proportion which tells its own tale as to the fighting[404].

[Footnote 404: Sir C.W. Wilson, _From Korti to Khartum_, pp. 28-35; also see Hon. R. Talbot's article on "Abu Klea," in the _Nineteenth Century_ for January 1886.]

Two days later, while the force was beating off an attack of the Arabs near Metammeh, General Stewart received a wound which proved to be mortal. The command now devolved on Sir Charles Wilson of the Royal Engineers. After repelling the attacks of other Mahdists and making good his position on the Nile, the new commander came into touch with Gordon's steamers, which arrived there on the 21st, with 190 Sudanese.

Again, however, the advance of other Arabs from Omdurman caused a delay until a fortified camp or zariba could be formed. Wilson now had but 1322 unwounded men; and he saw that the Mahdists were in far greater force than Lord Wolseley or General Gordon had expected. Not until January 24 could the commander steam away southwards with 20 men of the Suss.e.x regiment and the 190 Sudanese soldiers on the two largest of Gordon's boats--his "penny steamers" as he whimsically termed them.

The sequel is well known. After overcoming many difficulties caused by rocks and sandbanks, after running the gauntlet of the Mahdist fire, this forlorn hope neared Khartum on the 28th, only to find that the place had fallen. There was nothing for it but to put about and escape while it was possible. Sir Charles Wilson has described the scene: "The ma.s.ses of the enemy with their fluttering banners near Khartum, the long rows of riflemen in the shelter-trenches at Omdurman, the numerous groups of men on Tuti [Island], the bursting of sh.e.l.ls, and the water torn up by hundreds of bullets, and occasionally heavier shot, made an impression never to be forgotten. Looking out over the stormy scene, it seemed almost impossible that we should escape[405]."

[Footnote 405: Sir C.W. Wilson, _op. cit._ pp. 176-177.]

Weighed down by grief at the sad failure of all their strivings, the little band yet succeeded in escaping to Metammeh. They afterwards found out that they were two days too late. The final cause of the fall of Khartum is not fully known. The notion first current, that it was due to treachery, has been discredited. Certainly the defenders were weakened by privation and cowed by the Mahdist successes. The final attack was also given at a weak place in the long line of defence; but whether the defenders all did their best, or were anxious to make terms with the Mahdi, will probably never be known. The conduct of the a.s.sailants in at once firing on the relieving force forbids the notion that they all along intended to get into Khartum by treachery just before the approach of the steamers. Had that been their aim, they would surely have added one crowning touch of guile, that of remaining quiet until Wilson and his men landed at Khartum. The capture of the town would therefore seem to be due to force, not to treachery.

All these speculations are dwarfed by the overwhelming fact that Gordon perished. Various versions have been given of the manner of his death.

One that rests on good authority is that he died fighting. Another account, which seems more consistent with his character, is that, on hearing of the enemy's rush into the town, he calmly remarked: "It is all finished; to-day Gordon will be killed." In a short time a chief of the Baggara Arabs with a few others burst in and ordered him to come to the Mahdi. Gordon refused. Thrice the Sheikh repeated the command.

Thrice Gordon calmly repeated his refusal. The sheikh then drew his sword and slashed at his shoulder. Gordon still looked him steadily in the face. Thereupon the miscreant struck at his neck, cut off his head, and carried it to the Mahdi[406].

[Footnote 406: A third account given by Bordeini Bey, a merchant of Khartum, differs in many details. It is printed by Sir F.R. Wingate in his _Mahdism_, p. 171.]