The River War
by
Winston S. Churchill
Part 1 out of 6
This etext was produced by Ronald J. Goodden
THE RIVER WAR
An Account of the Reconquest of the Sudan
(1902 edition)
By Winston S. Churchill
CONTENTS:
Chapter
I. The Rebellion of the Mahdi
II. The Fate of the Envoy
III. The Dervish Empire
IV. The Years of Preparation
V. The Beginning of War
VI. Firket
VII. The Recovery of the Dongola Province
VIII. The Desert Railway
IX. Abu Hamed
X. Berber
XI. Reconnaissance
XII. The Battle of the Atbara
XIII. The Grand Advance
XIV. The Operations of the First of September
XV. The Battle of Omdurman
XVI. The Fall of the City
XVII. 'The Fashoda Incident'
XVIII On the Blue Nile
XIX. The End of the Khalifa
APPENDIX
________________________________________________________________________
THE SOUDAN
>>> to illustrate the military operations <<<
1896-1898
|* Wady Halfa
/
(The Nile) /
_/
|
\_
/
| __* Abu Hamed
| _/ \
Dongola *\ _/ \ Suakin *
\ Merawi / \
\ */ \
\_ _ / \ Berber
\*
/\__ (The Atbara River)
_/ \_
Metemma */ \
/
|
Omdurman */
Khartoum /*\_
| \_
| \_ (The Blue Nile)
\ \
KORDOFAN \
|
(The White Nile)
________________________________________________________________________
CHAPTER I: THE REBELLION OF THE MAHDI
The north-eastern quarter of the continent of Africa is drained
and watered by the Nile. Among and about the headstreams and
tributaries of this mighty river lie the wide and fertile provinces of
the Egyptian Soudan. Situated in the very centre of the land, these
remote regions are on every side divided from the seas by five hundred
miles of mountain, swamp, or desert. The great river is their only
means of growth, their only channel of progress. It is by the Nile
alone that their commerce can reach the outer markets, or European
civilisation can penetrate the inner darkness. The Soudan is joined to
Egypt by the Nile, as a diver is connected with the surface by his
air-pipe. Without it there is only suffocation. Aut Nilus, aut nihil!
The town of Khartoum, at the confluence of the Blue and White Niles,
is the point on which the trade of the south must inevitably converge.
It is the great spout through which the merchandise collected from a
wide area streams northwards to the Mediterranean shore. It marks the
extreme northern limit of the fertile Soudan. Between Khartoum and Assuan
the river flows for twelve hundred miles through deserts of surpassing
desolation. At last the wilderness recedes and the living world broadens
out again into Egypt and the Delta. It is with events that have occurred
in the intervening waste that these pages are concerned.
The real Soudan, known to the statesman and the explorer, lies far
to the south--moist, undulating, and exuberant. But there is another
Soudan, which some mistake for the true, whose solitudes oppress the
Nile from the Egyptian frontier to Omdurman. This is the Soudan of the
soldier. Destitute of wealth or future, it is rich in history. The
names of its squalid villages are familiar to distant and enlightened
peoples. The barrenness of its scenery has been drawn by skilful pen
and pencil. Its ample deserts have tasted the blood of brave men.
Its hot, black rocks have witnessed famous tragedies. It is the scene
of the war.
This great tract, which may conveniently be called 'The Military Soudan,'
stretches with apparent indefiniteness over the face of the continent.
Level plains of smooth sand--a little rosier than buff, a little paler
than salmon--are interrupted only by occasional peaks of rock--black,
stark, and shapeless. Rainless storms dance tirelessly over the hot,
crisp surface of the ground. The fine sand, driven by the wind, gathers
into deep drifts, and silts among the dark rocks of the hills, exactly
as snow hangs about an Alpine summit; only it is a fiery snow, such as
might fall in hell. The earth burns with the quenchless thirst of ages,
and in the steel-blue sky scarcely a cloud obstructs the unrelenting
triumph of the sun.
Through the desert flows the river--a thread of blue silk drawn across
an enormous brown drugget; and even this thread is brown for half the
year. Where the water laps the sand and soaks into the banks there grows
an avenue of vegetation which seems very beautiful and luxuriant by
contrast with what lies beyond. The Nile, through all the three thousand
miles of its course vital to everything that lives beside it, is never
so precious as here. The traveller clings to the strong river as to an
old friend, staunch in the hour of need. All the world blazes, but here
is shade. The deserts are hot, but the Nile is cool. The land is parched,
but here is abundant water. The picture painted in burnt sienna is
relieved by a grateful flash of green.
Yet he who had not seen the desert or felt the sun heavily on his
shoulders would hardly admire the fertility of the riparian scrub.
Unnourishing reeds and grasses grow rank and coarse from the water's
edge. The dark, rotten soil between the tussocks is cracked and
granulated by the drying up of the annual flood. The character of the
vegetation is inhospitable. Thorn-bushes, bristling like hedgehogs and
thriving arrogantly, everywhere predominate and with their prickly
tangles obstruct or forbid the path. Only the palms by the brink are
kindly, and men journeying along the Nile must look often towards their
bushy tops, where among the spreading foliage the red and yellow glint
of date clusters proclaims the ripening of a generous crop, and protests
that Nature is not always mischievous and cruel.
The banks of the Nile, except by contrast with the desert, display an
abundance of barrenness. Their characteristic is monotony. Their
attraction is their sadness. Yet there is one hour when all is changed.
Just before the sun sets towards the western cliffs a delicious flush
brightens and enlivens the landscape. It is as though some Titanic
artist in an hour of inspiration were retouching the picture, painting
in dark purple shadows among the rocks, strengthening the lights on the
sands, gilding and beautifying everything, and making the whole scene
live. The river, whose windings make it look like a lake, turns from
muddy brown to silver-grey. The sky from a dull blue deepens into violet
in the west. Everything under that magic touch becomes vivid and alive.
And then the sun sinks altogether behind the rocks, the colors fade out
of the sky, the flush off the sands, and gradually everything darkens
and grows grey--like a man's cheek when he is bleeding to death. We are
left sad and sorrowful in the dark, until the stars light up and remind
us that there is always something beyond.
In a land whose beauty is the beauty of a moment, whose face is
desolate, and whose character is strangely stern, the curse of war was
hardly needed to produce a melancholy effect. Why should there be
caustic plants where everything is hot and burning? In deserts where
thirst is enthroned, and where the rocks and sand appeal to a pitiless
sky for moisture, it was a savage trick to add the mockery of mirage.
The area multiplies the desolation. There is life only by the Nile.
If a man were to leave the river, he might journey westward and find no
human habitation, nor the smoke of a cooking fire, except the lonely tent
of a Kabbabish Arab or the encampment of a trader's caravan, till he
reached the coast-line of America. Or he might go east and find nothing
but sand and sea and sun until Bombay rose above the horizon. The thread
of fresh water is itself solitary in regions where all living things
lack company.
In the account of the River War the Nile is naturally supreme. It is
the great melody that recurs throughout the whole opera. The general
purposing military operations, the statesman who would decide upon grave
policies, and the reader desirous of studying the course and results of
either, must think of the Nile. It is the life of the lands through
which it flows. It is the cause of the war: the means by which we fight;
the end at which we aim. Imagination should paint the river through every
page in the story. It glitters between the palm-trees during the actions.
It is the explanation of nearly every military movement. By its banks
the armies camp at night. Backed or flanked on its unfordable stream they
offer or accept battle by day. To its brink, morning and evening, long
lines of camels, horses, mules, and slaughter cattle hurry eagerly. Emir
and Dervish, officer and soldier, friend and foe, kneel alike to this god
of ancient Egypt and draw each day their daily water in goatskin or
canteen. Without the river none would have started. Without it none might
have continued. Without it none could ever have returned.
All who journey on the Nile, whether in commerce or war, will pay their
tribute of respect and gratitude; for the great river has befriended all
races and every age. Through all the centuries it has performed the annual
miracle of its flood. Every year when the rains fall and the mountain
snows of Central Africa begin to melt, the head-streams become torrents
and the great lakes are filled to the brim. A vast expanse of low, swampy
lands, crossed by secondary channels and flooded for many miles, regulates
the flow, and by a sponge-like action prevents the excess of one year
from causing the deficiency of the next. Far away in Egypt, prince,
priest, and peasant look southwards with anxious attention for the
fluctuating yet certain rise. Gradually the flood begins. The
Bahr-el-Ghazal from a channel of stagnant pools and marshes becomes a
broad and navigable stream. The Sobat and the Atbara from dry
watercourses with occasional pools, in which the fish and crocodiles are
crowded, turn to rushing rivers. But all this is remote from Egypt.
After its confluence with the Atbara no drop of water reaches the Nile,
and it flows for seven hundred miles through the sands or rushes in
cataracts among the rocks of the Nubian desert. Nevertheless, in spite of
the tremendous diminution in volume caused by the dryness of the earth
and air and the heat of the sun--all of which drink greedily--the river
below Assuan is sufficiently great to supply nine millions of people with
as much water as their utmost science and energies can draw, and yet to
pour into the Mediterranean a low-water surplus current of 61,500 cubic
feet per second. Nor is its water its only gift. As the Nile rises its
complexion is changed. The clear blue river becomes thick and red, laden
with the magic mud that can raise cities from the desert sand and make
the wilderness a garden. The geographer may still in the arrogance of
science describe the Nile as 'a great, steady-flowing river, fed by the
rains of the tropics, controlled by the existence of a vast head reservoir
and several areas of repose, and annually flooded by the accession of a
great body of water with which its eastern tributaries are flushed'
[ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA]; but all who have drunk deeply of its soft yet
fateful waters--fateful, since they give both life and death--will
understand why the old Egyptians worshipped the river, nor will they even
in modern days easily dissociate from their minds a feeling of mystic
reverence.
South of Khartoum and of 'The Military Soudan' the land becomes more
fruitful. The tributaries of the Nile multiply the areas of riparian
fertility. A considerable rainfall, increasing as the Equator is
approached, enables the intervening spaces to support vegetation and
consequently human life. The greater part of the country is feverish
and unhealthy, nor can Europeans long sustain the attacks of its climate.
Nevertheless it is by no means valueless. On the east the province of
Sennar used to produce abundant grain, and might easily produce no less
abundant cotton. Westward the vast territories of Kordofan and Darfur
afford grazing-grounds to a multitude of cattle, and give means of
livelihood to great numbers of Baggara or cow-herd Arabs, who may also
pursue with activity and stratagem the fleet giraffe and the still
fleeter ostrich. To the south-east lies Bahr-el-Ghazal, a great tract
of country occupied by dense woods and plentifully watered. Further
south and nearer the Equator the forests and marshes become exuberant
with tropical growths, and the whole face of the land is moist and green.
Amid groves of gigantic trees and through plains of high waving grass
the stately elephant roams in herds which occasionally number four
hundred, hardly ever disturbed by a well-armed hunter. The ivory of
their tusks constitutes the wealth of the Equatorial Province. So
greatly they abound that Emin Pasha is provoked to complain of a pest of
these valuable pachyderms [LIFE OF EMIN PASHA, vol.i chapter ix.]: and
although they are only assailed by the natives with spear and gun,
no less than twelve thousand hundredweight of ivory has been exported
in a single year [Ibid.] All other kinds of large beasts known to man
inhabit these obscure retreats. The fierce rhinoceros crashes through
the undergrowth. Among the reeds of melancholy swamps huge hippopotami,
crocodiles, and buffaloes prosper and increase. Antelope of every known
and many unclassified species; serpents of peculiar venom; countless
millions of birds, butterflies, and beetles are among the offspring of
prolific Nature. And the daring sportsman who should survive his
expedition would not fail to add to the achievements of science and the
extent of natural history as well as to his own reputation.
The human inhabitants of the Soudan would not, but for their vices
and misfortunes, be disproportioned in numbers to the fauna or less
happy. War, slavery, and oppression have, however, afflicted them until
the total population of the whole country does not exceed at the most
liberal estimate three million souls. The huge area contains many
differences of climate and conditions, and these have produced
peculiar and diverse breeds of men. The Soudanese are of many tribes,
but two main races can be clearly distinguished: the aboriginal natives,
and the Arab settlers. The indigenous inhabitants of the country were
negroes as black as coal. Strong, virile, and simple-minded savages,
they lived as we may imagine prehistoric men--hunting, fighting,
marrying, and dying, with no ideas beyond the gratification of their
physical desires, and no fears save those engendered by ghosts,
witchcraft, the worship of ancestors, and other forms of superstition
common among peoples of low development. They displayed the virtues of
barbarism. They were brave and honest. The smallness of their
intelligence excused the degradation of their habits. Their ignorance
secured their innocence. Yet their eulogy must be short, for though
their customs, language, and appearance vary with the districts they
inhabit and the subdivisions to which they belong, the history of all
is a confused legend of strife and misery, their natures are uniformly
cruel and thriftless, and their condition is one of equal squalor
and want.
Although the negroes are the more numerous, the Arabs exceed in power.
The bravery of the aboriginals is outweighed by the intelligence of the
invaders and their superior force of character. During the second
century of the Mohammedan era, when the inhabitants of Arabia went forth
to conquer the world, one adventurous army struck south. The first
pioneers were followed at intervals by continual immigrations of Arabs
not only from Arabia but also across the deserts from Egypt and Marocco.
The element thus introduced has spread and is spreading throughout the
Soudan, as water soaks into a dry sponge. The aboriginals absorbed the
invaders they could not repel. The stronger race imposed its customs and
language on the negroes. The vigour of their blood sensibly altered the
facial appearance of the Soudanese. For more than a thousand years the
influence of Mohammedanism, which appears to possess a strange
fascination for negroid races, has been permeating the Soudan, and,
although ignorance and natural obstacles impede the progress of new
ideas, the whole of the black race is gradually adopting the new
religion and developing Arab characteristics. In the districts of the
north, where the original invaders settled, the evolution is complete,
and the Arabs of the Soudan are a race formed by the interbreeding of
negro and Arab, and yet distinct from both. In the more remote and
inaccessible regions which lie to the south and west the negro race
remains as yet unchanged by the Arab influence. And between these
extremes every degree of mixture is to be found. In some tribes pure
Arabic is spoken, and prior to the rise of the Mahdi the orthodox Moslem
faith was practised. In others Arabic has merely modified the ancient
dialects, and the Mohammedan religion has been adapted to the older
superstitions; but although the gap between the Arab-negro and the
negro-pure is thus filled by every intermediate blend, the two races
were at an early date quite distinct.
The qualities of mongrels are rarely admirable, and the mixture
of the Arab and negro types has produced a debased and cruel breed,
more shocking because they are more intelligent than the primitive
savages. The stronger race soon began to prey upon the simple
aboriginals; some of the Arab tribes were camel-breeders; some were
goat-herds; some were Baggaras or cow-herds. But all, without exception,
were hunters of men. To the great slave-market at Jedda a continual
stream of negro captives has flowed for hundreds of years. The
invention of gunpowder and the adoption by the Arabs of firearms
facilitated the traffic by placing the ignorant negroes at a further
disadvantage. Thus the situation in the Soudan for several centuries
may be summed up as follows: The dominant race of Arab invaders was
unceasingly spreading its blood, religion, customs, and language among
the black aboriginal population, and at the same time it harried and
enslaved them.
The state of society that arose out of this may be easily imagined.
The warlike Arab tribes fought and brawled among themselves in ceaseless
feud and strife. The negroes trembled in apprehension of capture, or rose
locally against their oppressors. Occasionally an important Sheikh would
effect the combination of many tribes, and a kingdom came into existence
--a community consisting of a military class armed with guns and of
multitudes of slaves, at once their servants and their merchandise,
and sometimes trained as soldiers. The dominion might prosper viciously
till it was overthrown by some more powerful league.
All this was unheeded by the outer world, from which the Soudan is
separated by the deserts, and it seemed that the slow, painful course of
development would be unaided and uninterrupted. But at last the
populations of Europe changed. Another civilisation reared itself above
the ruins of Roman triumph and Mohammedan aspiration--a civilisation
more powerful, more glorious, but no less aggressive. The impulse of
conquest which hurried the French and English to Canada and the Indies,
which sent the Dutch to the Cape and the Spaniards to Peru, spread to
Africa and led the Egyptians to the Soudan. In the year 1819 Mohammed
Ali, availing himself of the disorders alike as an excuse and an
opportunity, sent his son Ismail up the Nile with a great army. The Arab
tribes, torn by dissension, exhausted by thirty years of general war,
and no longer inspired by their neglected religion, offered a weak
resistance. Their slaves, having known the worst of life, were apathetic.
The black aboriginals were silent and afraid. The whole vast territory
was conquered with very little fighting, and the victorious army,
leaving garrisons, returned in triumph to the Delta.
What enterprise that an enlightened community may attempt is more
noble and more profitable than the reclamation from barbarism of
fertile regions and large populations? To give peace to warring tribes,
to administer justice where all was violence, to strike the chains off
the slave, to draw the richness from the soil, to plant the earliest
seeds of commerce and learning, to increase in whole peoples their
capacities for pleasure and diminish their chances of pain--what more
beautiful ideal or more valuable reward can inspire human effort? The
act is virtuous, the exercise invigorating, and the result often
extremely profitable. Yet as the mind turns from the wonderful cloudland
of aspiration to the ugly scaffolding of attempt and achievement,
a succession of opposite ideas arises. Industrious races are displayed
stinted and starved for the sake of an expensive Imperialism which they
can only enjoy if they are well fed. Wild peoples, ignorant of their
barbarism, callous of suffering, careless of life but tenacious of
liberty, are seen to resist with fury the philanthropic invaders, and to
perish in thousands before they are convinced of their mistake. The
inevitable gap between conquest and dominion becomes filled with the
figures of the greedy trader, the inopportune missionary, the ambitious
soldier, and the lying speculator, who disquiet the minds of the
conquered and excite the sordid appetites of the conquerors. And as the
eye of thought rests on these sinister features, it hardly seems possible
for us to believe that any fair prospect is approached by so foul a path.
From 1819 to 1883 Egypt ruled the Soudan. Her rule was not kindly, wise,
or profitable. Its aim was to exploit, not to improve the local
population. The miseries of the people were aggravated rather than
lessened: but they were concealed. For the rough injustice of the sword
there were substituted the intricacies of corruption and bribery.
Violence and plunder were more hideous, since they were cloaked with
legality and armed with authority. The land was undeveloped and poor.
It barely sustained its inhabitants. The additional burden of a
considerable foreign garrison and a crowd of rapacious officials
increased the severity of the economic conditions. Scarcity was frequent.
Famines were periodical. Corrupt and incapable Governors-General
succeeded each other at Khartoum with bewildering rapidity. The constant
changes, while they prevented the continuity of any wise policy, did not
interrupt the misrule. With hardly any exceptions, the Pashas were
consistent in oppression. The success of their administration was
measured by the Ministries in Egypt by the amount of money they could
extort from the natives; among the officials in the Soudan, by the
number of useless offices they could create. There were a few bright
examples of honest men, but these, by providing a contrast, only
increased the discontents.
The rule of Egypt was iniquitous: yet it preserved the magnificent
appearance of Imperial dominion. The Egyptian Pro-consul lived in state
at the confluence of the Niles. The representatives of foreign Powers
established themselves in the city. The trade of the south converged
upon Khartoum. Thither the subordinate governors, Beys and Mudirs,
repaired at intervals to report the state of their provinces and to
receive instructions. Thither were sent the ivory of Equatoria, the
ostrich feathers of Kordofan, gum from Darfur, grain from Sennar, and
taxes collected from all the regions. Strange beasts, entrapped in the
swamps and forests, passed through the capital on their journey to Cairo
and Europe. Complex and imposing reports of revenue and expenditure
were annually compiled. An elaborate and dignified correspondence was
maintained between Egypt and its great dependency. The casual observer,
astonished at the unusual capacity for government displayed by an
Oriental people, was tempted to accept the famous assertion which Nubar
Pasha put into the mouth of the Khedive Ismail: 'We are no longer in
Africa, but in Europe.' Yet all was a hateful sham ['The government of
the Egyptians in these far-off countries is nothing else but one of
brigandage of the very worst description.'--COLONEL GORDON IN CENTRAL
AFRICA, April 11, 1879.] The arbitrary and excessive taxes were
collected only at the point of the bayonet. If a petty chief fell into
arrears, his neighbours were raised against him. If an Arab tribe were
recalcitrant, a military expedition was despatched. Moreover, the
ability of the Arabs to pay depended on their success as slave-hunters.
When there had been a good catch, the revenue profited. The Egyptian
Government had joined the International League against the slave trade.
They combined, however, indirectly but deliberately, to make money out
of it. [EGYPT, No.11, 1883.]
In the miserable, harassing warfare that accompanied the collection of
taxes the Viceregal commanders gained more from fraud than force. No
subterfuge, no treachery, was too mean for them to adopt: no oath or
treaty was too sacred for them to break. Their methods were cruel, and
if honour did not impede the achievement, mercy did not restrict the
effects of their inglorious successes; and the effete administrators
delighted to order their timid soldiery to carry out the most savage
executions. The political methods and social style of the
Governors-General were imitated more or less exactly by the subordinate
officials according to their degree in the provinces. Since they were
completely hidden from the eye of civilisation, they enjoyed a greater
licence in their administration. As their education was inferior, so
their habits became more gross. Meanwhile the volcano on which they
disported themselves was ominously silent. The Arab tribes obeyed, and
the black population cowered.
The authority of a tyrannical Government was supported by the presence
of a worthless army. Nearly forty thousand men were distributed among
eight main and numerous minor garrisons. Isolated in a roadless country
by enormous distances and natural obstacles, and living in the midst of
large savage populations of fanatical character and warlike habits,
whose exasperation was yearly growing with their miseries, the Viceregal
forces might depend for their safety only on the skill of their officers,
the excellence of their discipline, and the superiority of their weapons.
But the Egyptian officers were at that time distinguished for nothing
but their public incapacity and private misbehaviour. The evil reputation
of the Soudan and its climate deterred the more educated or more wealthy
from serving in such distant regions, and none went south who could
avoid it. The army which the Khedives maintained in the Delta was, judged
by European standards, only a rabble. It was badly trained, rarely paid,
and very cowardly; and the scum of the army of the Delta was the cream of
the army of the Soudan. The officers remained for long periods, many all
their lives, in the obscurity of the remote provinces. Some had been sent
there in disgrace, others in disfavour. Some had been forced to serve out
of Egypt by extreme poverty, others were drawn to the Soudan by the hopes
of gratifying peculiar tastes. The majority had harems of the women of
the country, which were limited only by the amount of money they could
lay their hands on by any method. Many were hopeless and habitual
drunkards. Nearly all were dishonest. All were indolent and incapable.
Under such leadership the finest soldiery would have soon degenerated.
The Egyptians in the Soudan were not fine soldiers. Like their officers,
they were the worst part of the Khedivial army. Like them, they had been
driven to the south. Like them, they were slothful and effete. Their
training was imperfect; their discipline was lax; their courage was low.
Nor was even this all the weakness and peril of their position; for
while the regular troops were thus demoralised, there existed a powerful
local irregular force of Bazingers (Soudanese riflemen), as well armed
as the soldiers, more numerous, more courageous, and who regarded the
alien garrisons with fear that continually diminished and hate that
continually grew. And behind regulars and irregulars alike the wild Arab
tribes of the desert and the hardy blacks of the forests, goaded by
suffering and injustice, thought the foreigners the cause of all their
woes, and were delayed only by their inability to combine from sweeping
them off the face of the earth. Never was there such a house of cards as
the Egyptian dominion in the Soudan. The marvel is that it stood so long,
not that it fell so soon.
The names of two men of character and fame are forever connected
with the actual outburst. One was an English general, the other an Arab
priest; yet, in spite of the great gulf and vivid contrast between their
conditions, they resembled each other in many respects. Both were earnest
and enthusiastic men of keen sympathies and passionate emotions. Both
were powerfully swayed by religious fervour. Both exerted great personal
influence on all who came in contact with them. Both were reformers.
The Arab was an African reproduction of the Englishman; the Englishman
a superior and civilised development of the Arab. In the end they fought
to the death, but for an important part of their lives their influence on
the fortunes of the Soudan was exerted in the same direction. Mohammed
Ahmed, 'The Mahdi,' will be discussed in his own place. Charles Gordon
needs little introduction. Long before this tale begins his reputation
was European, and the fame of the 'Ever-victorious Army' had spread far
beyond the Great Wall of China.
The misgovernment of the Egyptians and the misery of the Soudanese
reached their greatest extreme in the seventh decade of the present
century. From such a situation there seemed to be no issue other than
by force of arms. The Arab tribes lacked no provocation. Yet they were
destitute of two moral forces essential to all rebellions. The first
was the knowledge that better things existed. The second was a spirit
of combination. General Gordon showed them the first. The Mahdi
provided the second.
It is impossible to study any part of Charles Gordon's career
without being drawn to all the rest. As his wild and varied fortunes
lead him from Sebastopol to Pekin, from Gravesend to South Africa,
from Mauritius to the Soudan, the reader follows fascinated. Every
scene is strange, terrible, or dramatic. Yet, remarkable as are the
scenes, the actor is the more extraordinary; a type without comparison
in modern times and with few likenesses in history. Rare and precious
is the truly disinterested man. Potentates of many lands and different
degree--the Emperor of China, the King of the Belgians, the Premier of
Cape Colony, the Khedive of Egypt--competed to secure his services.
The importance of his offices varied no less than their nature. One day
he was a subaltern of sappers; on another he commanded the Chinese army;
the next he directed an orphanage; or was Governor-General of the Soudan,
with supreme powers of life and death and peace and war; or served as
private secretary to Lord Ripon. But in whatever capacity he laboured
he was true to his reputation. Whether he is portrayed bitterly
criticising to Graham the tactics of the assault on the Redan; or
pulling the head of Lar Wang from under his bedstead and waving it in
paroxysms of indignation before the astonished eyes of Sir Halliday
Macartney; or riding alone into the camp of the rebel Suliman and
receiving the respectful salutes of those who had meant to kill him;
or telling the Khedive Ismail that he 'must have the whole Soudan to
govern'; or reducing his salary to half the regulation amount because
'he thought it was too much'; or ruling a country as large as Europe;
or collecting facts for Lord Ripon's rhetorical efforts--we perceive a
man careless alike of the frowns of men or the smiles of women, of life
or comfort, wealth or fame.
It was a pity that one, thus gloriously free from the ordinary
restraining influences of human society, should have found in his own
character so little mental ballast. His moods were capricious and
uncertain, his passions violent, his impulses sudden and inconsistent.
The mortal enemy of the morning had become a trusted ally before the
night. The friend he loved to-day he loathed to-morrow. Scheme after
scheme formed in his fertile brain, and jostled confusingly together.
All in succession were pressed with enthusiasm. All at times were
rejected with disdain. A temperament naturally neurotic had been
aggravated by an acquired habit of smoking; and the General carried this
to so great an extreme that he was rarely seen without a cigarette. His
virtues are famous among men; his daring and resource might turn the
tide or war; his energy would have animated a whole people; his
achievements are upon record; but it must also be set down that few more
uncertain and impracticable forces than Gordon have ever been introduced
into administration and diplomacy.
Although the Egyptian Government might loudly proclaim their detestation
of slavery, their behaviour in the Soudan was viewed with suspicion by
the European Powers, and particularly by Great Britain. To vindicate his
sincerity the Khedive Ismail in 1874 appointed Gordon to be Governor of
the Equatorial Province in succession to Sir Samuel Baker. The name of
the General was a sufficient guarantee that the slave trade was being
earnestly attacked. The Khedive would gladly have stopped at the
guarantee, and satisfied the world without disturbing 'vested interests.'
But the mission, which may have been originally instituted as a pretence,
soon became in Gordon's energetic hands very real. Circumstances,
moreover, soon enlisted the sympathies of the Egyptian Government on the
side of their zealous agent. The slave dealers had committed every
variety of atrocity for which the most odious traffic in the world
afforded occasion; but when, under the leadership of Zubehr Rahamna,
they refused to pay their annual tribute, it was felt in Cairo that
their crimes had cried aloud for chastisement.
Zubehr is sufficiently described when it has been said that he was
the most notorious slave dealer Africa has ever produced. His infamy had
spread beyond the limits of the continent which was the scene of his
exploits to the distant nations of the north and west. In reality, his
rule was a distinct advance on the anarchy which had preceded it, and
certainly he was no worse than others of his vile trade. His scale of
business was, however, more extended. What William Whiteley was in
respect of goods and chattels, that was Zubehr in respect of slaves--
a universal provider. Magnitude lends a certain grandeur to crime; and
Zubehr in the height of his power, at the head of the slave merchants'
confederacy, might boast the retinue of a king and exercise authority
over wide regions and a powerful army.
As early as 1869 he was practically the independent ruler of the
Bahr-el-Ghazal. The Khedive resolved to assert his rights. A small
Egyptian force was sent to subdue the rebel slaver who not only
disgraced humanity but refused to pay tribute. Like most of the Khedivial
expeditions the troops under Bellal Bey met with ill-fortune. They came,
they saw, they ran away. Some, less speedy than the rest, fell on the
field of dishonour. The rebellion was open. Nevertheless it was the
Khedive who sought peace. Zubehr apologised for defeating the Viceregal
soldiers and remained supreme in the Bahr-el-Ghazal. Thence he planned
the conquest of Darfur, at that time an independent kingdom. The Egyptian
Government were glad to join with him in the enterprise. The man they had
been unable to conquer, they found it expedient to assist. The operations
were successful. The King of Darfur, who was distinguished no less for
his valour than for his folly, was killed. The whole country was subdued.
The whole population available after the battles became slaves. Zubehr
thus wielded a formidable power. The Khedivial Government, thinking to
ensure his loyalty, created him a Pasha--a rank which he could scarcely
disgrace; and the authority of the rebel was thus unwillingly recognised
by the ruler. Such was the situation when Gordon first came to the Soudan.
It was beyond the power of the new Governor of the Equatorial Province
at once to destroy the slave-hunting confederacy. Yet he struck heavy
blows at the slave trade, and when in 1877, after a short visit to
England, he returned to the Soudan as Governor-General and with absolute
power, he assailed it with redoubled energy. Fortune assisted his efforts,
for the able Zubehr was enticed to Cairo, and, once there, the Government
refused to allow their faithful ally and distinguished guest to go back
to his happy-hunting grounds. Although the slave dealers were thus robbed
of their great leader, they were still strong, and Zubehr's son, the brave
Suliman, found a considerable following. Furious at his father's captivity,
and alarmed lest his own should follow, he meditated revolt. But the
Governor-General, mounted on a swift camel and attired in full uniform,
rode alone into the rebel camp and compelled the submission of its chiefs
before they could recover from their amazement. The confederacy was
severely shaken, and when, in the following year, Suliman again revolted,
the Egyptian troops under Gessi Pasha were able to disperse his forces and
induce him to surrender on terms. The terms were broken, and Suliman and
ten of his companions suffered death by shooting [von Slatin, Baron
Rudolf Karl. FIRE AND SWORD IN THE SOUDAN, p.28.] The league of the slave
dealers was thus destroyed.
Towards the end of 1879 Gordon left the Soudan. With short intervals
he had spent five busy years in its provinces. His energy had stirred the
country. He had struck at the root of the slave trade, he had attacked the
system of slavery, and, as slavery was the greatest institution in
the land, he had undermined the whole social system. Indignation had
stimulated his activity to an extraordinary degree. In a climate usually
fatal to Europeans he discharged the work of five officers. Careless of
his methods, he bought slaves himself, drilled them, and with the soldiers
thus formed pounced on the caravans of the hunters. Traversing the country
on a fleet dromedary--on which in a single year he is said to have covered
3,840 miles--he scattered justice and freedom among the astonished natives.
He fed the infirm, protected the weak, executed the wicked. To some he gave
actual help, to many freedom, to all new hopes and aspirations. Nor were
the tribes ungrateful. The fiercest savages and cannibals respected the
life of the strange white man. The women blessed him. He could ride unarmed
and alone where a brigade of soldiers dared not venture. But he was, as he
knew himself, the herald of the storm. Oppressed yet ferocious races had
learned that they had rights; the misery of the Soudanese was lessened, but
their knowledge had increased. The whole population was unsettled, and the
wheels of change began slowly to revolve; nor did they stop until they
had accomplished an enormous revolution.
The part played by the second force is more obscure. Few facts are so
encouraging to the student of human development as the desire, which most
men and all communities manifest at all times, to associate with their
actions at least the appearance of moral right. However distorted may be
their conceptions of virtue, however feeble their efforts to attain even
to their own ideals, it is a pleasing feature and a hopeful augury that
they should wish to be justified. No community embarks on a great
enterprise without fortifying itself with the belief that from some
points of view its motives are lofty and disinterested. It is an
involuntary tribute, the humble tribute of imperfect beings, to the
eternal temples of Truth and Beauty. The sufferings of a people or a
class may be intolerable, but before they will take up arms and risk
their lives some unselfish and impersonal spirit must animate them.
In countries where there is education and mental activity or refinement,
this high motive is found in the pride of glorious traditions or in
a keen sympathy with surrounding misery. Ignorance deprives savage
nations of such incentives. Yet in the marvellous economy of nature this
very ignorance is a source of greater strength. It affords them the
mighty stimulus of fanaticism. The French Communists might plead that
they upheld the rights of man. The desert tribes proclaimed that they
fought for the glory of God. But although the force of fanatical passion
is far greater than that exerted by any philosophical belief, its
sanction is just the same. It gives men something which they think is
sublime to fight for, and this serves them as an excuse for wars which
it is desirable to begin for totally different reasons. Fanaticism is
not a cause of war. It is the means which helps savage peoples to fight.
It is the spirit which enables them to combine--the great common object
before which all personal or tribal disputes become insignificant.
What the horn is to the rhinoceros, what the sting is to the wasp,
the Mohammedan faith was to the Arabs of the Soudan--a faculty
of offence or defence.
It was all this and no more. It was not the reason of the revolt.
It strengthened, it characterised, but it did not cause. ['I do not
believe that fanaticism exists as it used to do in the world, judging
from what I have seen in this so-called fanatic land. It is far more
a question of property, and is more like Communism under the flag
of religion.'--GENERAL GORDON'S JOURNALS AT KHARTOUM, bk.i. p.13.]
Those whose practice it is to regard their own nation as possessing a
monopoly of virtue and common-sense, are wont to ascribe every military
enterprise of savage peoples to fanaticism. They calmly ignore obvious
and legitimate motives. The most rational conduct is considered mad.
It has therefore been freely stated, and is to some extent believed,
that the revolt in the Soudan was entirely religious. If the worst
untruths are those that have some appearance of veracity, this impression
must be very false indeed. It is, perhaps, an historical fact that the
revolt of a large population has never been caused solely or even mainly
by religious enthusiasm.
The reasons which forced the peoples of the Soudan to revolt were
as strong as the defence which their oppressors could offer was feeble.
Looking at the question from a purely political standpoint, we may say
that upon the whole there exists no record of a better case for rebellion
than presented itself to the Soudanese. Their country was being ruined;
their property was plundered; their women were ravished; their liberties
were curtailed; even their lives were threatened. Aliens ruled the
inhabitants; the few oppressed the many; brave men were harried by cowards;
the weak compelled the strong. Here were sufficient reasons. Since any
armed movement against an established Government can be justified only by
success, strength is an important revolutionary virtue. It was a virtue
that the Arabs might boast. They were indeed far stronger than they,
their persecutors, or the outside world had yet learned. All were soon
to be enlightened.
The storm gathered and the waters rose. Three great waves impelled
the living tide against the tottering house founded on the desert sand.
The Arab suffered acutely from poverty, misgovernment, and oppression.
Infuriated, he looked up and perceived that the cause of all his miseries
was a weak and cowardly foreigner, a despicable 'Turk.' The antagonism
of races increased the hatred sprung from social evils. The moment was
at hand. Then, and not till then, the third wave came--the wave of
fanaticism, which, catching up and surmounting the other waves, covered
all the flood with its white foam, and, bearing on with the momentum of
the waters, beat in thunder against the weak house so that it fell;
and great was the fall thereof.
Down to the year 1881 there was no fanatical movement in the Soudan.
In their utter misery the hopeless inhabitants had neglected even the
practices of religion. They were nevertheless prepared for any enterprise,
however desperate, which might free them from the Egyptian yoke. All that
delayed them was the want of some leader who could combine the tribes
and restore their broken spirits, and in the summer of 1881 the leader
appeared. His subsequent career is within the limits of this account,
and since his life throws a strong light on the thoughts and habits
of the Arabs of the Soudan it may be worth while to trace it from
the beginning.
The man who was the proximate cause of the River War was born
by the banks of the Nile, not very far from Dongola. His family were
poor and of no account in the province. But as the Prophet had claimed
a royal descent, and as a Sacred Example was sprung from David's line,
Mohammed Ahmed asserted that he was of the 'Ashraf,'(descendants of
the Prophet) and the assertion, since it cannot be disproved, may be
accepted. His father was a humble priest; yet he contrived to give his
son some education in the practices of religion, the principles of
the Koran, and the art of writing. Then he died at Kerreri while on
a journey to Khartoum, and left the future Mahdi, still a child,
to the mercies of the world. Solitary trees, if they grow at all,
grow strong; and a boy deprived of a father's care often develops,
if he escape the perils of youth, an independence and vigour of thought
which may restore in after life the heavy loss of early days. It was so
with Mohammed Ahmed. He looked around for an occupation and subsistence.
A large proportion of the population of religious countries pass their
lives at leisure, supported by the patient labour of the devout. The
young man determined to follow the profession for which he felt
his talents suited, and which would afford him the widest scope.
He became a priest. Many of the religious teachers of heathen and other
countries are devoid of enthusiasm and turn their attention to the
next world because doing so affords them an easy living in this.
Happily this is not true of all. It was not true of Mohammed. Even at
an early age he manifested a zeal for God's service, and displayed a
peculiar aptitude for learning the tenets and dogmas of the Mohammedan
belief. So promising a pupil did not long lack a master in a country
where intelligence and enthusiasm were scarce. His aspirations growing
with his years and knowledge, he journeyed to Khartoum as soon as his
religious education was completed, and became a disciple of the renowned
and holy Sheikh, Mohammed Sherif.
His devotion to his superior, to his studies and to the practice
of austerities, and a strange personal influence he was already
beginning to show, won him by degrees a few disciples of his own:
and with them he retired to the island of Abba. Here by the waters of
the White Nile Mohammed Ahmed lived for several years. His two brothers,
who were boat-builders in the neighbourhood, supported him by their
industry. But it must have been an easy burden, for we read that he
'hollowed out for himself a cave in the mud bank, and lived in almost
entire seclusion, fasting often for days, and occasionally paying a visit
to the head of the order to assure him of his devotion and obedience.'
[I take this passage from FIRE AND SWORD IN THE SOUDAN, by Slatin. His
account is the most graphic and trustworthy of all known records of
the Mahdi. He had terrible opportunities of collecting information.
I have followed his version (chapter iv.) very closely on this subject.]
Meanwhile his sanctity increased, and the labour and charity of the
brothers were assisted by the alms of godly travellers on the river.
This virtuous and frugal existence was disturbed and terminated
by an untoward event. The renowned and holy Sheikh made a feast to
celebrate the circumcision of his sons. That the merriment of the
auspicious occasion and the entertainment of the guests might be
increased, Sherif, according to the lax practice of the time,
granted a dispensation from any sins committed during the festivities,
and proclaimed in God's name the suspension of the rules against singing
and dancing by which the religious orders were bound. The ascetic
of Abba island did not join in these seemingly innocent dissipations.
With the recklessness of the reformer he protested against the
demoralisation of the age, and loudly affirmed the doctrine
that God alone could forgive sins. These things were speedily brought
to the ears of the renowned Sheikh, and in all the righteous indignation
that accompanies detected wrong-doing, he summoned Mohammed Ahmed
before him. The latter obeyed. He respected his superior. He was under
obligations to him. His ire had disappeared as soon as it had
been expressed. He submissively entreated forgiveness; but in vain.
Sherif felt that some sort of discipline must be maintained among
his flock. He had connived at disobedience to the divine law.
All the more must he uphold his own authority. Rising in anger,
he drove the presumptuous disciple from his presence with bitter words,
and expunged his name from the order of the elect.
Mohammed went home. He was greatly distressed. Yet his fortunes were
not ruined. His sanctity was still a valuable and, unless he chose
otherwise, an inalienable asset. The renowned Sheikh had a rival--nearly
as holy and more enterprising than himself. From him the young priest
might expect a warm welcome. Nevertheless he did not yet abandon his
former superior. Placing a heavy wooden collar on his neck, clad in
sackcloth and sprinkled with ashes, he again returned to his
spiritual leader, and in this penitential guise implored pardon. He was
ignominiously ejected. Nor did he venture to revisit the unforgiving
Sheikh. But it happened that in a few weeks Sherif had occasion to
journey to the island of Abba. His former disciple appeared suddenly
before him, still clad in sackcloth and defiled by ashes. Careless of
his plain misery, and unmoved by his loyalty, which was the more
remarkable since it was disinterested, the implacable Sheikh poured forth
a stream of invective. Among many insults, one went home: 'Be off,
you wretched Dongolawi.'
Although the natives of the Dongola province were despised and disliked
in the Southern Soudan, it is not at first apparent why Mohammed should
have resented so bitterly the allusion to his birthplace. But abuse by
class is a dangerous though effective practice. A man will perhaps
tolerate an offensive word applied to himself, but will be infuriated if
his nation, his rank, or his profession is insulted.
Mohammed Ahmed rose. All that man could do to make amends he had done.
Now he had been publicly called 'a wretched Dongolawi.' Henceforth he
would afflict Sherif with his repentance no longer. Reaching his house,
he informed his disciples--for they had not abandoned him in all his
trouble--that the Sheikh had finally cast him off, and that he would now
take his discarded allegiance elsewhere. The rival, the Sheikh
el Koreishi, lived near Mesalamia. He was jealous of Sherif and envied
him his sanctimonious disciples. He was therefore delighted to receive
a letter from Mohammed Ahmed announcing his breach with his former
superior and offering his most devoted services. He returned a cordial
invitation, and the priest of Abba island made all preparation
for the journey.
This new development seems to have startled the unforgiving Sherif.
It was no part of his policy to alienate his followers, still less to
add to those of his rival. After all, the quality of mercy was high
and noble. He would at last graciously forgive the impulsive but
repentant disciple. He wrote him a letter to this effect. But it was now
too late. Mohammed replied with grave dignity that he had committed no
crime, that he sought no forgiveness, and that 'a wretched Dongolawi'
would not offend by his presence the renowned Sheikh el Sherif.
After this indulgence he departed to Mesalamia.
But the fame of his doings spread far and wide throughout the land.
'Even in distant Darfur it was the principal topic of conversation'
[Slatin, FIRE AND SWORD]. Rarely had a Fiki been known to offend
his superior; never to refuse his forgiveness. Mohammed did not
hesitate to declare that he had done what he had done as a protest
against the decay of religious fervour and the torpor of the times.
Since his conduct had actually caused his dismissal, it appears that he
was quite justified in making a virtue of necessity. At any rate he was
believed, and the people groaning under oppression looked from all
the regions to the figure that began to grow on the political horizon.
His fame grew. Rumour, loud-tongued, carried it about the land that a
great Reformer was come to purify the faith and break the stony apathy
which paralysed the hearts of Islam. Whisperings added that a man
was found who should break from off the necks of the tribes the hateful
yoke of Egypt. Mohammed now deliberately entered upon the
path of ambition.
Throughout Nubia the Shukri belief prevails: some day, in a time
of shame and trouble, a second great Prophet will arise--a Mahdi who
shall lead the faithful nearer God and sustain the religion. The people
of the Soudan always look inquiringly to any ascetic who rises to fame,
and the question is often repeated, 'Art thou he that should come,
or do we look for another?' Of this powerful element of disturbance
Mohammed Ahmed resolved to avail himself. He requested and obtained
the permission of the Sheikh Koreishi to return to Abba, where he was
well known, and with which island village his name was connected,
and so came back in triumph to the scene of his disgrace. Thither many
pilgrims began to resort. He received valuable presents, which he
distributed to the poor, who acclaimed him as 'Zahed'--a renouncer of
earthly pleasures. He journeyed preaching through Kordofan, and received
the respect of the priesthood and the homage of the people. And while
he spoke of the purification of the religion, they thought that the
burning words might be applied to the freedom of the soil. He supported
his sermons by writings, which were widely read. When a few months later
the Sheikh Koreishi died, the priest of Abba proceeded forthwith to erect
a tomb to his memory, directing and controlling the voluntary labours
of the reverent Arabs who carried the stones.
While Mohammed was thus occupied he received the support of a man,
less virtuous than but nearly as famous as himself. Abdullah was one of
four brothers, the sons of an obscure priest; but he inherited
no great love of religion or devotion to its observances. He was a man
of determination and capacity. He set before himself two distinct
ambitions, both of which he accomplished: to free the Soudan of
foreigners, and to rule it himself. He seems to have had a queer
presentiment of his career. This much he knew: there would be a great
religious leader, and he would be his lieutenant and his successor.
When Zubehr conquered Darfur, Abdullah presented himself before him
and hailed him as 'the expected Mahdi.' Zubehr, however, protested with
superfluous energy that he was no saint, and the impulsive patriot was
compelled to accept his assurances. So soon as he saw Mohammed Ahmed
rising to fame and displaying qualities of courage and energy,
he hastened to throw himself at his feet and assure him of his devotion.
No part of Slatin Pasha's fascinating account of his perils and sufferings
is so entertaining as that in which Abdullah, then become Khalifa of the
whole Soudan, describes his early struggles and adversity:
'Indeed it was a very troublesome journey. At that time my entire
property consisted of one donkey, and he had a gall on his back,
so that I could not ride him. But I made him carry my water-skin and
bag of corn, over which I spread my rough cotton garment, and drove him
along in front of me. At that time I wore the white cotton shirt,
like the rest of my tribe. My clothes and my dialect at once marked
me out as a stranger wherever I went; and when I crossed the Nile I was
frequently greeted with "What do you want? Go back to your own country.
There is nothing to steal here."'
What a life of ups and downs! It was a long stride from the ownership
of one saddle-galled donkey to the undisputed rule of an empire.
The weary wayfarer may have dreamed of this, for ambition stirs
imagination nearly as much as imagination excites ambition. But further
he could not expect or wish to see. Nor could he anticipate as, in the
complacency of a man who had done with evil days, he told the story of
his rise to the submissive Slatin, that the day would come when he would
lead an army of more than fifty thousand men to destruction, and that
the night would follow when, almost alone, his empire shrunk again to
the saddle-galled donkey, he would seek his home in distant Kordofan,
while this same Slatin who knelt so humbly before him would lay
the fierce pursuing squadrons on the trail.
Mohammed Ahmed received his new adherent kindly, but without enthusiasm.
For some months Abdullah carried stones to build the tomb of the Sheikh
el Koreishi. Gradually they got to know each other. 'But long before he
entrusted me with his secret,' said Abdullah to Slatin, 'I knew that he
was "the expected Guide."' [Slatin, FIRE AND SWORD, p.131.] And though
the world might think that the 'Messenger of God' was sent to lead men
to happiness in heaven, Abdullah attached to the phrase a significance
of his own, and knew that he should lead him to power on earth. The two
formed a strong combination. The Mahdi--for such Mohammed Ahmed had
already in secret announced himself--brought the wild enthusiasm of
religion, the glamour of a stainless life, and the influence of
superstition into the movement. But if he were the soul of the plot,
Abdullah was the brain. He was the man of the world, the practical
politician, the general.
There now commenced a great conspiracy against the Egyptian Government.
It was fostered by the discontents and justified by the miseries of
the people of the Soudan. The Mahdi began to collect adherents and to
extend his influence in all parts of the country. He made a second
journey through Kordofan, and received everywhere promises of support
from all classes. The most distant tribes sent assurances of devotion
and reverence, and, what was of more importance, of armed assistance.
The secret could not be long confined to those who welcomed the movement.
As the ramifications of the plot spread they were perceived by
the renowned Sheikh Sherif, who still nursed his chagrin and thirsted
for revenge. He warned the Egyptian Government. They, knowing his envy
and hatred of his former disciple, discounted his evidence and for some
time paid no attention to the gathering of the storm. But presently
more trustworthy witnesses confirmed his statements, and Raouf Pasha,
then Governor-General, finding himself confronted with a growing
agitation, determined to act. He accordingly sent a messenger to the
island of Abba, to summon Mohammed Ahmed to Khartoum to justify his
behaviour and explain his intentions. The news of the despatch of the
messenger was swiftly carried to the Mahdi! He consulted with his trusty
lieutenant. They decided to risk everything, and without further delay
to defy the Government. When it is remembered how easily an organised
army, even though it be in a bad condition, can stamp out the beginnings
of revolt among a population, the courage of their resolve
must be admired.
The messenger arrived. He was received with courtesy by Abdullah,
and forthwith conducted before the Mahdi. He delivered his message,
and urged Mohammed Ahmed to comply with the orders of the
Governor-General. The Mahdi listened for some time in silence,
but with increasing emotion; and when the messenger advised him,
as he valued his own safety, to journey to Khartoum, if only to
justify himself, his passion overcame him. 'What!' he shouted,
rising suddenly and striking his breast with his hand. 'By the grace
of God and his Prophet I am master of this country, and never shall
I go to Khartoum to justify myself.' [Slatin, FIRE AND SWORD, p.135.]
The terrified messenger withdrew. The rebellion of the Mahdi had begun.
Both the priest and the Governor-General prepared for military
enterprise. The Mahdi proclaimed a holy war against the foreigners,
alike the enemies of God and the scourge of men. He collected his
followers. He roused the local tribes. He wrote letters to all parts
of the Soudan, calling upon the people to fight for a purified religion,
the freedom of the soil, and God's holy prophet 'the expected Mahdi.'
He promised the honour of men to those who lived, the favour of God
to those who fell, and lastly that the land should be cleared of the
miserable 'Turk.' 'Better,' he said, and it became the watchword of
the revolt, 'thousands of graves than a dollar tax.' [Ohrwalder, TEN
YEARS'CAPTIVITY IN THE MAHDI'S CAMP.]
Nor was Raouf Pasha idle. He sent two companies of infantry
with one gun by steamer to Abba to arrest the fanatic who disturbed
the public peace. What followed is characteristically Egyptian.
Each company was commanded by a captain. To encourage their efforts,
whichever officer captured the Mahdi was promised promotion. At sunset
on an August evening in 1881 the steamer arrived at Abba. The promise
of the Governor-General had provoked the strife, not the emulation of
the officers. Both landed with their companies and proceeded by
different routes under the cover of darkness to the village where
the Mahdi dwelt. Arriving simultaneously from opposite directions,
they fired into each other, and, in the midst of this mistaken combat,
the Mahdi rushed upon them with his scanty following and destroyed them
impartially. A few soldiers succeeded in reaching the bank of the river.
But the captain of the steamer would run no risks, and those who
could not swim out to the vessel were left to their fate. With such
tidings the expedition returned to Khartoum.
Mohammed Ahmed had been himself wounded in the attack, but the faithful
Abdullah bound up the injury, so that none might know that God's Prophet
had been pierced by carnal weapons. The effect of the success was
electrical. The news spread throughout the Soudan. Men with sticks
had slain men with rifles. A priest had destroyed the soldiers of the
Government. Surely this was the Expected One. The Mahdi, however,
profited by his victory only to accomplish a retreat without loss of
prestige. Abdullah had no illusions. More troops would be sent.
They were too near to Khartoum. Prudence counselled flight to regions
more remote. But before this new Hegira the Mahdi appointed his four
Khalifas, in accordance with prophecy and precedent. The first was
Abdullah. Of the others it is only necessary at this moment to notice
Ali-Wad-Helu, the chief of one of the local tribes, and among the first
to rally to the standard of revolt.
Then the retreat began; but it was more like a triumphal progress.
Attended by a considerable following, and preceded by tales of the most
wonderful miracles and prodigies, the Mahdi retired to a mountain in
Kordofan to which he gave the name of Jebel Masa, that being the
mountain whence 'the expected Guide' is declared in the Koran sooner or
later to appear. He was now out of reach of Khartoum, but within reach
of Fashoda. The Egyptian Governor of that town, Rashid Bey, a man of
more enterprise and even less military knowledge than is usual in his
race, determined to make all attempt to seize the rebel and disperse his
following. Taking no precautions, he fell on the 9th of December into
an ambush, was attacked unprepared, and was himself, with fourteen
hundred men, slaughtered by the ill-armed but valiant Arabs.
The whole country stirred. The Government, thoroughly alarmed by
the serious aspect the revolt had assumed, organised a great expedition.
Four thousand troops under Yusef, a Pasha of distinguished reputation,
were sent against the rebels. Meanwhile the Mahdi and his followers
suffered the extremes of want. Their cause was as yet too perilous for
the rich to join. Only the poor flocked to the holy standard. All that
Mohammed possessed he gave away, keeping nothing for himself, excepting
only a horse to lead his followers in battle. Abdullah walked.
Nevertheless the rebels were half-famished, and armed with scarcely
any more deadly weapons than sticks and stones. The army of the
Government approached slowly. Their leaders anticipated an easy victory.
Their contempt for the enemy was supreme. They did not even trouble
themselves to post sentries by night, but slept calmly inside a slender
thorn fence, unwatched save by their tireless foes. And so it came to
pass that in the half-light of the early morning of the 7th of June
the Mahdi, his ragged Khalifas, and his almost naked army rushed
upon them, and slew them to a man.
The victory was decisive. Southern Kordofan was at the feet of
the priest of Abba. Stores of arms and ammunition had fallen into
his hands. Thousands of every class hastened to join his standard.
No one doubted that he was the divine messenger sent to free them from
their oppressors. The whole of the Arab tribes all over the Soudan
rose at once. The revolt broke out simultaneously in Sennar and Darfur,
and spread to provinces still more remote. The smaller Egyptian posts,
the tax-gatherers and local administrators, were massacred in every
district. Only the larger garrisons maintained themselves in the
principal towns. They were at once blockaded. All communications were
interrupted. All legal authority was defied. Only the Mahdi was obeyed.
It is now necessary to look for a moment to Egypt. The misgovernment
which in the Soudan had caused the rebellion of the Mahdi, in Egypt
produced the revolt of Arabi Pasha. As the people of the Soudan longed
to be rid of the foreign oppressors--the so-called 'Turks'--so those
of the Delta were eager to free themselves from the foreign regulators
and the real Turkish influence. While men who lived by the sources of
the Nile asserted that tribes did not exist for officials to harry,
others who dwelt at its mouth protested that nations were not made to
be exploited by creditors or aliens. The ignorant south found their
leader in a priest: the more educated north looked to a soldier.
Mohammed Ahmed broke the Egyptian yoke; Arabi gave expression to the
hatred of the Egyptians for the Turks. But although the hardy Arabs
might scatter the effete Egyptians, the effete Egyptians were not likely
to disturb the solid battalions of Europe. After much hesitation and
many attempts at compromise, the Liberal Administration of Mr. Gladstone
sent a fleet which reduced the forts of Alexandria to silence and the
city to anarchy. The bombardment of the fleet was followed by the
invasion of a powerful army. Twenty-five thousand men were landed in
Egypt. The campaign was conducted with celerity and skill. The Egyptian
armies were slaughtered or captured. Their patriotic but commonplace
leader was sentenced to death and condemned to exile, and Great Britain
assumed the direction of Egyptian affairs.
The British soon restored law and order in Egypt, and the question
of the revolt in the Soudan came before the English advisers of
the Khedive. Notwithstanding the poverty and military misfortunes which
depressed the people of the Delta, the desire to hold their southern
provinces was evident. The British Government, which at that time was
determined to pursue a policy of non-interference in the Soudan, gave a
tacit consent, and another great expedition was prepared to suppress the
False Prophet, as the English and Egyptians deemed him--'the expected
Mahdi,' as the people of the Soudan believed.
A retired officer of the Indian Staff Corps and a few European officers
of various nationalities were sent to Khartoum to organise the new
field force. Meanwhile the Mahdi, having failed to take by storm, laid
siege to El Obeid, the chief town of Kordofan. During the summer of 1883
the Egyptian troops gradually concentrated at Khartoum until a
considerable army was formed. It was perhaps the worst army that has ever
marched to war. One extract from General Hicks's letters will suffice.
Writing on the 8th of June, 1883, to Sir E. Wood, he says incidentally:
'Fifty-one men of the Krupp battery deserted on the way here, although
in chains.' The officers and men who had been defeated fighting for their
own liberties at Tel-el-Kebir were sent to be destroyed, fighting to
take away the liberties of others in the Soudan. They had no spirit,
no discipline, hardly any training, and in a force of over eight thousand
men there were scarcely a dozen capable officers. The two who were the
most notable of these few--General Hicks, who commanded, and Colonel
Farquhar, the Chief of the Staff--must be remarked.
El Obeid had fallen before the ill-fated expedition left Khartoum;
but the fact that Slatin Bey, an Austrian officer in the Egyptian service,
was still maintaining himself in Darfur provided it with an object. On the
9th of September Hicks and his army (the actual strength of which was
7,000 infantry, 400 mounted Bashi Bazuks, 500 cavalry, 100 Circassians,
10 mounted guns, 4 Krupps, and 6 Nordenfeldt machine guns) left Omdurman
and marched to Duem. Although the actual command of the expedition was
vested in the English officer, Ala-ed-Din Pasha, the Governor-General who
had succeeded Raouf Pasha, exercised an uncertain authority. Differences
of opinion were frequent, though all the officers were agreed in taking
the darkest views of their chances. The miserable host toiled slowly
onward towards its destruction, marching in a south-westerly direction
through Shat and Rahad. Here the condition of the force was so obviously
demoralised that a German servant (Gustav Klootz, the servant of Baron
Seckendorf) actually deserted to the Mahdi's camp. He was paraded
in triumph as an English officer.
On the approach of the Government troops the Mahdi had marched
out of El Obeid and established himself in the open country, where he
made his followers live under military conditions and continually
practised them in warlike evolutions. More than forty thousand men
collected round his standard, and the Arabs were now armed with several
thousand rifles and a few cannon, as well as a great number of swords
and spears. To these proportions had the little band of followers who
fought at Abba grown! The disparity of the forces was apparent before
the battle. The Mahdi thereupon wrote to Hicks, calling on him to
surrender and offering terms. His proposals were treated with disdain,
although the probable result of an engagement was clear.
Until the expedition reached Rahad only a few cavalry patrols had watched
its slow advance. But on the 1st of November the Mahdi left El Obeid and
marched with his whole power to meet his adversary. The collision took
place on the 3rd of November. All through that day the Egyptians
struggled slowly forward, in great want of water, losing continually from
the fire of the Soudanese riflemen, and leaving several guns behind them.
On the next morning they were confronted by the main body of the Arab
army, and their attempts to advance further were defeated with heavy loss.
The force began to break up. Yet another day was consumed before it was
completely destroyed. Scarcely five hundred Egyptians escaped death;
hardly as many of the Arabs fell. The European officers perished fighting
to the end; and the general met his fate sword in hand, at the head of
the last formed body of his troops, his personal valour and physical
strength exciting the admiration even of the fearless enemy, so that in
chivalrous respect they buried his body with barbaric honours. Mohammed
Ahmed celebrated his victory with a salute of one hundred guns; and well
he might, for the Soudan was now his, and his boast that, by God's grace
and the favour of the Prophet, he was the master of all the land had been
made good by force of arms.
No further attempt was made to subdue the country. The people of
the Soudan had won their freedom by their valour and by the skill and
courage of their saintly leader. It only remained to evacuate the towns
and withdraw the garrisons safely. But what looked like the winding-up
of one story was really the beginning of another, much longer, just as
bloody, commencing in shame and disaster, but ending in triumph and,
let us hope, in peace.
I desire for a moment to take a more general view of the
Mahdi's movement than the narrative has allowed. The original causes
were social and racial. But, great as was the misery of the people,
their spirit was low, and they would not have taken up arms merely on
material grounds. Then came the Mahdi. He gave the tribes the enthusiasm
they lacked. The war broke out. It is customary to lay to the charge of
Mohammed Ahmed all the blood that was spilled. To my mind it seems that
he may divide the responsibility with the unjust rulers who oppressed
the land, with the incapable commanders who muddled away the lives of
their men, with the vacillating Ministers who aggravated the misfortunes.
But, whatever is set to the Mahdi's account, it should not be forgotten
that he put life and soul into the hearts of his countrymen, and freed
his native land of foreigners. The poor miserable natives, eating only
a handful of grain, toiling half-naked and without hope, found a new,
if terrible magnificence added to life. Within their humble breasts the
spirit of the Mahdi roused the fires of patriotism and religion. Life
became filled with thrilling, exhilarating terrors. They existed in
a new and wonderful world of imagination. While they lived there were
great things to be done; and when they died, whether it were slaying the
Egyptians or charging the British squares, a Paradise which they could
understand awaited them. There are many Christians who reverence
the faith of Islam and yet regard the Mahdi merely as a commonplace
religious impostor whom force of circumstances elevated to notoriety.
In a certain sense, this may be true. But I know not how a genuine
may be distinguished from a spurious Prophet, except by the measure of
his success. The triumphs of the Mahdi were in his lifetime far greater
than those of the founder of the Mohammedan faith; and the chief
difference between orthodox Mohammedanism and Mahdism was that the
original impulse was opposed only by decaying systems of government and
society and the recent movement came in contact with civilisation and
the machinery of science. Recognising this, I do not share the popular
opinion, and I believe that if in future years prosperity should come
to the peoples of the Upper Nile, and learning and happiness follow in
its train, then the first Arab historian who shall investigate the
early annals of that new nation will not forget, foremost among
the heroes of his race, to write the name of Mohammed Ahmed.
CHAPTER II: THE FATE OF THE ENVOY
All great movements, every vigorous impulse that a community
may feel, become perverted and distorted as time passes, and the
atmosphere of the earth seems fatal to the noble aspirations of
its peoples. A wide humanitarian sympathy in a nation easily
degenerates into hysteria. A military spirit tends towards brutality.
Liberty leads to licence, restraint to tyranny. The pride of race is
distended to blustering arrogance. The fear of God produces bigotry
and superstition. There appears no exception to the mournful rule,
and the best efforts of men, however glorious their early results,
have dismal endings, like plants which shoot and bud and put forth
beautiful flowers, and then grow rank and coarse and are withered by
the winter. It is only when we reflect that the decay gives birth to
fresh life, and that new enthusiasms spring up to take the places of
those that die, as the acorn is nourished by the dead leaves of the oak,
the hope strengthens that the rise and fall of men and their movements
are only the changing foliage of the ever-growing tree of life, while
underneath a greater evolution goes on continually.
The movement which Mohammed Ahmed created did not escape the common
fate of human enterprise; nor was it long before the warm generous blood
of a patriotic and religious revolt congealed into the dark clot of
a military empire. With the expulsion or destruction of the foreign
officials, soldiers, and traders, the racial element began to subside.
The reason for its existence was removed. With the increasing disorders
the social agitation dwindled; for communism pre-supposes wealth, and the
wealth of the Soudan was greatly diminished. There remained only the
fanatical fury which the belief in the divine mission of the Mahdi
had excited; and as the necessity for a leader passed away, the belief
in his sanctity grew weaker. But meanwhile a new force was making itself
felt on the character of the revolt. The triumph no less than the plunder
which had rewarded the Mahdi's victories had called into existence a
military spirit distinct from the warlike passions of the
tribesmen--the spirit of the professional soldier.
The siege of Khartoum was carried on while this new influence
was taking the place of the original forces of revolt. There was
a period when a neutral point was obtained and the Mahdist power
languished. But the invasion of the Eastern Soudan by the British troops
in the spring and the necessary advance of the relieving columns in the
winter of 1884 revived the patriotic element. The tribes who had made
a great effort to free themselves from foreign domination saw in the
operations of Sir Gerald Graham and Lord Wolseley an attempt to bring
them again under the yoke. The impulse which was given to the Mahdi's
cause was sufficient to raise a fierce opposition to the invading forces.
The delay in the despatch of the relief expedition had sealed the fate
of Khartoum, and the fall of the town established the supremacy of
the military spirit on which the Dervish Empire was afterwards founded.
All the warlike operations of Mohammedan peoples are characterised
by fanaticism, but with this general reservation it may be said--that the
Arabs who destroyed Yusef, who assaulted El Obeid, who annihilated Hicks
fought in the glory of religious zeal; that the Arabs who opposed Graham,
Earle, and Stewart fought in defence of the soil; and that the Arabs who
were conquered by Kitchener fought in the pride of an army. Fanatics
charged at Shekan; patriots at Abu Klea; warriors at Omdurman.
In order to describe conveniently the changing character of the revolt,
I have anticipated the story and must revert to a period when the social
and racial influences were already weakening and the military spirit
was not yet grown strong. If the defeat of Yusef Pasha decided the whole
people of the Soudan to rise in arms and strike for their liberties,
the defeat of Hicks satisfied the British Government that those liberties
were won. The powerful influence of the desire to rule prompted
the Khedive's Ministers to make still further efforts to preserve their
country's possessions. Had Egypt been left to herself, other desperate
efforts would have been made. But the British Government had finally
abandoned the policy of non-interference with Egyptian action in the
Soudan. They 'advised' its abandonment. The protests of Sherif Pasha
provoked Lord Granville to explain the meaning of the word 'advice.'
The Khedive bowed to superior authority. The Minister resigned.
The policy of evacuation was firmly adopted. 'Let us,' said the
Ministers, 'collect the garrisons and come away.' It was simple to decide
on the course to be pursued, but almost impossible to follow it. Several
of the Egyptian garrisons, as in Darfur and El Obeid, had already fallen.
The others were either besieged, like Sennar, Tokar, and Sinkat,
or cut off from the north, as in the case of the Equatorial Province,
by the area of rebellion. The capital of the Soudan was, however, as yet
unmolested; and as its Egyptian population exceeded the aggregate of the
provincial towns, the first task of the Egyptian Government was obvious.
Mr. Gladstone's Administration had repressed the revolt of Arabi Pasha.
Through their policy the British were in armed occupation of Egypt.
British officers were reorganising the army. A British official supervised
the finances. A British plenipotentiary 'advised' the re-established
Tewfik. A British fleet lay attentive before the ruins of Alexandria,
and it was evident that Great Britain could annex the country in name
as well as in fact. But Imperialism was not the object of the Radical
Cabinet. Their aim was philanthropic and disinterested. As they were now
determined that the Egyptians should evacuate the Soudan, so they
had always been resolved that the British should evacuate Egypt.
Throughout this chapter it will be seen that the desire to get out
of the country at once is the keynote of the British policy. Every act,
whether of war or administration, is intended to be final. Every despatch
is directed to breaking the connection between the two countries
and winding up the severed strings. But responsibilities which had been
lightly assumed clung like the shirt of Nessus. The ordinary practice
of civilised nations demanded that some attempt should be made to justify
interference by reorganisation. The British Government watched therefore
with anxious solicitude the efforts of Egypt to evacuate the Soudan
and bring the garrisons safely home. They utterly declined to assist
with military force, but they were generous with their advice. Everybody
at that time distrusted the capacities of the Egyptians, and it was
thought the evacuation might be accomplished if it were entrusted to
stronger and more honest men than were bred by the banks of the Nile.
The Ministers looked about them, wondering how they could assist the
Egyptian Government without risk or expense to themselves, and in an
evil hour for their fame and fortunes someone whispered the word 'Gordon.'
Forthwith they proceeded to telegraph to Cairo: 'Would General Charles
Gordon be of any use to you or to the Egyptian Government; and, if so,
in what capacity'? The Egyptian Government replied through Sir Evelyn
Baring that as the movement in the Soudan was partly religious they were
'very much averse' from the appointment of a Christian in high command.
The eyes of all those who possessed local knowledge were turned to
a different person. There was one man who might stem the tide of Mahdism,
who might perhaps restore the falling dominion of Egypt, who might at
least save the garrisons of the Soudan. In their necessity and distress
the Khedivial advisers and the British plenipotentiary looked
as a desperate remedy to the man whose liberty they had curtailed,
whose property they had confiscated, and whose son they
had executed--Zubehr Pasha.
This was the agent for whom the Government of Egypt hankered.
The idea was supported by all who were acquainted with the local
conditions. A week after Sir Evelyn Baring had declined General Gordon's
services he wrote: 'Whatever may be Zubehr's faults, he is said to be
a man of great energy and resolution. The Egyptian Government considers
that his services may be very useful. . . . Baker Pasha is anxious to
avail himself of Zubehr Pasha's services.'[Sir Evelyn Baring, letter of
December 9, 1883.] It is certain that had the Egyptian Government been
a free agent, Zubehr would have been sent to the Soudan as its Sultan,
and assisted by arms, money, and perhaps by men, to make head against
the Mahdi. It is probable that at this particular period the Mahdi would
have collapsed before a man whose fame was nearly equal to, and whose
resources would have been much greater than, his own. But the British
Ministry would countenance no dealings with such a man. They scouted the
idea of Zubehr, and by so doing increased their obligation to suggest
an alternative. Zubehr being rejected, Gordon remained. It is scarcely
possible to conceive a greater contrast than that which these two men
presented. It was a leap from the Equator to the North Pole.
When difficulties and dangers perplex all minds, it has often
happened in history that many men by different lines of thought arrive
at the same conclusion. No complete record has yet been published
of the telegrams which passed between the Government and their agent
at this juncture. The Blue-books preserve a disingenuous discretion.
But it is known that from the very first Sir Evelyn Baring was bitterly
opposed to General Gordon's appointment. No personal friendship existed
between them, and the Administrator dreaded the return to the feverish
complications of Egyptian politics of the man who had always been
identified with unrest, improvisation, and disturbance. The pressure was,
however, too strong for him to withstand. Nubar Pasha, the Foreign Office,
the British public, everyone clamoured for the appointment. Had Baring
refused to give way, it is probable that he would have been overruled.
At length he yielded, and, as soon as his consent had been obtained,
the government turned with delight to Gordon. On the 17th of January
Lord Wolseley requested him to come to England. On the 18th he met
the Cabinet. That same night he started on the long journey
from which he was never to return.
Gordon embarked on his mission in high spirits, sustained by
that belief in personality which too often misleads great men and
beautiful women. It was, he said, the greatest honour ever conferred
upon him. Everything smiled. The nation was delighted. The Ministers
were intensely relieved. The most unbounded confidence was reposed
in the envoy. His interview with the Khedive was 'very satisfactory.'
His complete authority was proclaimed to all the notables and natives
of the Soudan [Proclamation of the Khedive, January 26, 1884.] He was
assured of the support of the Egyptian Government [Sir E. Baring to
Major-General Gordon, January 25, 1884.] The London Foreign Office,
having with becoming modesty admitted that they had not 'sufficient
local knowledge,' [Earl Granville to Sir E. Baring, January 22, 1884.]
accorded him 'widest discretionary power.' [Sir E. Baring to Earl
Granville, February 1, 1884.] One hundred thousand pounds was placed
to his credit, and he was informed that further sums would be supplied
when this was exhausted. He was assured that no effort would be wanting
on the part of the Cairene authorities, whether English or Egyptian,
to afford him all the support and co-operation in their power
[Sir E. Baring to Major-General Gordon, January 25, 1884.] 'There is
no sort of difference,' wrote Sir Evelyn Baring, 'between General
Gordon's views and those entertained by Nubar Pasha and myself.'
[Sir E. Baring to Earl Granville, February 1,1884.] Under these
propitious auguries the dismal and disastrous enterprise began.
His task, though difficult and, as it ultimately proved, impossible,
was clearly defined. 'You will bear in mind,' wrote Sir Evelyn Baring,
'that the main end to be pursued is the evacuation of the Soudan.'
'The object. . . of your mission to the Soudan,' declared the Khedive,
'is to carry into execution the evacuation of those territories and to
withdraw our troops, civil officials, and such of the inhabitants . . .
as may wish to leave for Egypt. . . and after the evacuation to take the
necessary steps for establishing an organised Government in the different
provinces.' Nor was he himself under any misconception. He drew up a
memorandum when on board the Tanjore in which he fully acquiesced in
the evacuation of the Soudan. In a sentence which breathes the same
spirit as Mr. Gladstone's famous expression, 'a people rightly struggling
to be free,' he wrote: 'I must say that it would be an iniquity to
conquer these peoples and then hand them back to the Egyptians without
guarantees of future good government.' Finally, he unhesitatingly
asserted: 'No one who has ever lived in the Soudan can escape the
reflection "What a useless possession is this land!"' And Colonel Stewart,
who accompanied him and endorsed the memorandum, added: 'And what a huge
encumbrance to Egypt!' Thus far there was complete agreement
between the British envoy and the Liberal Cabinet.
It is beyond the scope of these pages to describe his long ride
across the desert from Korosko to Abu Hamed, his interview with the
notables at Berber, or his proclamation of the abandonment of the Soudan,
which some affirm to have been an important cause of his ruin.
On the 22nd of February he arrived at Khartoum. He was received with
rejoicing by the whole population. They recognised again their just
Governor-General and their present deliverer. Those who had been about
to fly for the north took fresh heart. They believed that behind the
figure of the envoy stood the resources of an Empire. The Mahdi and the
gathering Dervishes were perplexed and alarmed. Confusion and hesitancy
disturbed their councils and delayed their movements. Gordon had come.
The armies would follow. Both friends and foes were deceived. The great
man was at Khartoum, but there he would remain--alone.
Whatever confidence the General had felt in the power of his personal
influence had been dispelled on the journey to Khartoum. He had no more
illusions. His experienced eye reviewed the whole situation. He saw
himself confronted with a tremendous racial movement. The people of
the Soudan had risen against foreigners. His only troops were Soudanese.
He was himself a foreigner. Foremost among the leaders of the revolt
were the Arab slave dealers, furious at the attempted suppression of
their trade. No one, not even Sir Samuel Baker, had tried harder to
suppress it than Gordon. Lastly, the whole movement had assumed a
fanatical character. Islam marched against the infidel. Gordon was a
Christian. His own soldiers were under the spell they were to try to
destroy. To them their commander was accursed. Every influence was
hostile, and in particular hostile to his person. The combined forces
of race, class, and religion were against him. He bowed before their
irresistible strength. On the very day of his arrival at Khartoum,
while the townsfolk were cheering his name in the streets and the
batteries were firing joyful salutes, while the people of England thought
his mission already accomplished and the Government congratulated
themselves on the wisdom of their action, General Gordon sat himself
down and telegraphed a formal request to Cairo for Zubehr Pasha.
The whole story of his relations with Zubehr is extremely characteristic.
Zubehr's son, Suliman, had been executed, if not by Gordon's orders,
at least during his administration of the Soudan and with his complete
approval. 'Thus,' he had said, 'does God make gaps in the ranks of His
enemies.' He had hardly started from London on his new mission, when he
telegraphed to Sir Evelyn Baring, telling him that Zubehr was a most
dangerous man and requesting that he might be at once deported to Cyprus.
This was, of course, quite beyond the powers or intention of the British
Agent. The General arrived in Cairo like a whirlwind close behind his
telegram, and was very angry to hear that Zubehr was still in Egypt.
Before starting up the river he went to see Sherif Pasha. In the
ex-Minister's ante-room he met the very man he had determined to avoid
--Zubehr. He greeted him with effusion. They had a long talk about
the Soudan, after which Gordon hurried to the Agency and informed
Sir Evelyn Baring that Zubehr must accompany him to Khartoum at once.
Baring was amazed. He did not himself disapprove of the plan. He had,
in fact, already recommended it. But he thought the change in Gordon's
attitude too sudden to be relied on. To-morrow he might change again.
He begged the General to think more seriously of the matter. Gordon with
his usual frankness admitted that his change of mind had been very sudden.
He had been conscious, he said, of a 'mystic feeling' that Zubehr was
necessary to save the situation in the Soudan.
Gordon left Cairo still considering the matter. So soon as he made
his formal demand from Khartoum for the assistance of Zubehr it was
evident that his belief in the old slave dealer's usefulness was a sound
conviction and not a mere passing caprice. Besides, he had now become
'the man on the spot,' and as such his words carried double force.
Sir Evelyn Baring determined to support the recommendation with his whole
influence. Never was so good a case made out for the appointment of
so bad a man. The Envoy Extraordinary asked for him; Colonel Stewart,
his colleague, concurred; the British Agent strongly urged the request;
the Egyptian Government were unanimous; and behind all these were ranged
every single person who had the slightest acquaintance with the Soudan.
nothing could exceed the vigour with which the demand was made.
On the 1st of March General Gordon telegraphed: 'I tell you plainly,
it is impossible to get Cairo employees out of Khartoum unless the
Government helps in the way I told you. They refuse Zubehr . . . .
but it was the only chance.' And again on the 8th: 'If you do not
send Zubehr, you have no chance of getting the garrisons away.'
'I believe,' said Sir Evelyn Baring in support of these telegrams,
'that General Gordon is quite right when he says that Zubehr Pasha is
the only possible man. Nubar is strongly in favour of him. Dr. Bohndorf,
the African traveller, fully confirms what General Gordon says of the
influence of Zubehr.' The Pasha was vile, but indispensable.
Her Majesty's Government refused absolutely to have anything to do
with Zubehr. They declined to allow the Egyptian Government to employ him.
They would not entertain the proposal, and scarcely consented to
discuss it. The historians of the future may occupy their leisure and
exercise their wits in deciding whether the Ministers and the people were
right or wrong; whether they had a right to indulge their sensitiveness
at so terrible a cost; whether they were not more nice than wise; whether
their dignity was more offended by what was incurred or by what
was avoided.
General Gordon has explained his views very clearly and concisely:
'Had Zubehr Pasha been sent up when I asked for him, Berber would in all
probability never have fallen, and one might have made a Soudan Government
in opposition to the Mahdi. We choose to refuse his coming up because of
his antecedents in re slave trade; granted that we had reason, yet, as we
take no precautions as to the future of these lands with respect to the
slave trade, the above opposition seems absurd. I will not send up 'A'
because he will do this, but I will leave the country to 'B', who will do
exactly the same [Major-General Gordon, JOURNALS AT KHARTOUM.]
But if the justice of the decision is doubtful, its consequences were
obvious. Either the British Government were concerned with the Soudan,
or they were not. If they were not, then they had no reason or right to
prohibit the appointment of Zubehr. If they were, they were bound to see
that the garrisons were rescued. It was an open question whether Great
Britain was originally responsible for the safety of the garrisons.
General Gordon contended that we were bound to save them at all costs,
and he backed his belief with his life. Others may hold that Governments
have no right to lay, or at any rate must be very judicious in the laying
of burdens on the backs of their own countrymen in order that they may
indulge a refined sense of chivalry towards foreigners. England had not
misgoverned the Soudan, had not raised the revolt or planted the
garrisons. All that Egypt had a right to expect was commiseration.
But the moment Zubehr was prohibited the situation was changed.
The refusal to permit his employment was tantamount to an admission that
affairs in the Soudan involved the honour of England as well as the honour
of Egypt. When the British people--for this was not merely the act of the
Government--adopted a high moral attitude with regard to Zubehr, they
bound themselves to rescue the garrisons, peaceably if possible,
forcibly if necessary.
With their refusal to allow Zubehr to go to the Soudan
began the long and miserable disagreement between the Government
and their envoy. Puzzled and disturbed at the reception accorded to his
first request, Gordon cast about for other expedients. He had already
stated that Zubehr was 'the only chance.' But it is the duty of
subordinates to suggest other courses when those they recommend are
rejected; and with a whole-hearted enthusiasm and unreserved loyalty
the General threw himself into the affair and proposed plan after plan
with apparent hope.
Gordon considered that he was personally pledged to effect the evacuation
of Khartoum by the garrison and civil servants. He had appointed some
of the inhabitants to positions of trust, thus compromising them with
the Mahdi. Others had undoubtedly been encouraged to delay their departure
by his arrival. He therefore considered that his honour was involved in
their safety. Henceforward he was inflexible. Neither rewards nor threats
could move him. Nothing that men could offer would induce him to leave
Khartoum till its inhabitants were rescued. The Government on their side
were equally stubborn. Nothing, however sacred, should induce them to send
troops to Khartoum, or in any way involve themselves in the middle
of Africa. The town might fall; the garrison might be slaughtered;
their envoy--But what possibilities they were prepared to face as
regards him will not be known until all of this and the next generation
are buried and forgotten.
The deadlock was complete. To some men the Foreign Office might
have suggested lines of retreat, covered by the highest official praise,
and leading to preferment and reward. Others would have welcomed an order
to leave so perilous a post. But the man they had sent was the one man
of all others who was beyond their control, who cared nothing for what
they could give or take away. So events dragged on their wretched course.
Gordon's proposals became more and more impracticable as the best courses
he could devise were successively vetoed by the Government, and as his
irritation and disappointment increased. The editor of his Journals has
enumerated them with indignant care. He had asked for Zubehr. Zubehr was
refused. He had requested Turkish troops. Turkish troops were refused.
He had asked for Mohammedan regiments from India. The Government regretted
their inability to comply. He asked for a Firman from the Sultan to
strengthen his position. It was 'peremptorily refused.' He proposed to go
south in his steamers to Equatoria. The Government forbade him to proceed
beyond Khartoum. He asked that 200 British troops might be sent to Berber.
They were refused. He begged that a few might be sent to Assuan. None were
sent. He proposed to visit the Mahdi himself and try to arrange matters
with him personally. Perhaps he recognised a kindred spirit.
The Government in this case very naturally forbade him.
At last the quarrel is open. He makes no effort to conceal his disgust.
'I leave you,' he says, the 'indelible disgrace of abandoning the
garrisons.' [Major-General Gordon to Sir E. Baring (telegraphic), received
at Cairo April 16.] Such abandonment is, he declares, 'the climax of
meanness.' [Ibid, despatched April 8.] He reiterates his determination
to abide with the garrison of Khartoum. 'I will not leave these people
after all they have gone through.' [Major-General Gordon to Sir E. Baring,
Khartoum, July 30; received at Cairo October 15.] He tosses his commission
contemptuously from him: 'I would also ask her Majesty's Government to
accept the resignation of my commission.' [Major-General Gordon to Sir E.
Baring (telegraphic), Khartoum, March 9.] The Government 'trust that he
will not resign,' [Earl Granville to Sir E. Baring, Foreign Office,
March 13.] and his offer remains in abeyance. Finally, in bitterness and
vexation, thinking himself abandoned and disavowed, he appeals to Sir
Evelyn Baring personally: 'I feel sure, whatever you may feel
diplomatically, I have your support--and that of every man professing
himself a gentleman--in private'; [Major-General Gordon to Sir E. Baring
(telegraphic), received at Cairo April 16.] and as a last hope he begs
Sir Samuel Baker to appeal to 'British and American millionaires'
to subscribe two hundred thousand pounds to enable him to carry out the
evacuation without, and even in spite of, the Governments of Cairo and
London; and Sir Samuel Baker writes a long letter to the Times in
passionate protest and entreaty.
Such are the chief features in the wretched business. Even the Blue-books
in their dry recital arouse in the reader painful and indignant emotions.
But meanwhile other and still more stirring events were passing outside
the world of paper and ink.
The arrival of Gordon at Khartoum had seriously perplexed and alarmed
Mohammed Ahmed and his Khalifas. Their following was discouraged,
and they themselves feared lest the General should be the herald
of armies. His Berber proclamation reassured them, and as the weeks
passed without reinforcements arriving, the Mahdi and Abdullah,
with that courage which in several great emergencies drew them to the
boldest courses, determined to put a brave face on the matter and blockade
Khartoum itself. They were assisted in this enterprise by a revival of
the patriotic impulse throughout the country and a consequent stimulus
to the revolt. To discover the cause it is necessary to look to the
Eastern Soudan, where the next tragedy, after the defeat of Hicks,
is laid.
The Hadendoa tribe, infuriated by oppression and misgovernment,
had joined the rebellion under the leadership of the celebrated,
and perhaps immortal, Osman Digna. The Egyptian garrisons of Tokar and
Sinkat were beleaguered and hard pressed. Her Majesty's Government
disclaimed all responsibility. Yet, since these towns were not far from
the coast, they did not prohibit an attempt on the part of the Egyptian
Government to rescue the besieged soldiers. Accordingly an Egyptian
force 3,500 strong marched from Suakin in February 1884 to relieve Tokar,
under the command of General Baker, once the gallant colonel of the
1Oth Hussars. Hard by the wells of Teb they were, on the 5th of February,
attacked by about a thousand Arabs.
'On the square being only threatened by a small force of
the enemy. . . the Egyptian troops threw down their arms and ran,
carrying away the black troops with them, and allowing themselves
to be killed without the slightest resistance.' [General Baker to Sir
E. Baring, February 6 (official despatch), telegraphic.] The British and
European officers in vain endeavoured to rally them. The single Soudanese
battalion fired impartially on friend and foe. The general, with that
unshaken courage and high military skill which had already on the Danube
gained him a continental reputation, collected some fifteen hundred men,
mostly unarmed, and so returned to Suakin. Ninety-six officers and
2,250 men were killed. Krupp guns, machine guns, rifles, and a large
supply of ammunition fell to the victorious Arabs. Success inflamed their
ardour to the point of madness. The attack of the towns was pressed with
redoubled vigour. The garrison of Sinkat, 800 strong, sallied out and
attempted to fight their way to Suakin. The garrison of Tokar surrendered.
Both were destroyed.
The evil was done. The slaughter was complete. Yet the British Government
resolved to add to it. The garrisons they had refused to rescue they now
determined to avenge. In spite of their philanthropic professions,
and in spite of the advice of General Gordon, who felt that his position
at Khartoum would be still further compromised by operations on his only
line of retreat [Sir E. Baring to Earl Granville, Cairo, February 23.],
a considerable military expedition consisting of one cavalry and two
infantry brigades, was sent to Suakin. The command was entrusted to
General Graham. Troops were hurriedly concentrated. The 10th Hussars,
returning from India, were stopped and mounted on the horses of the
gendarmerie. With admirable celerity the force took the field. Within
a month of the defeat at Teb they engaged the enemy almost on the very
scene of the disaster. On the 4th of March they slew 3,000 Hadendoa
and drove the rest in disorder from the ground. Four weeks later a second
action was fought at Tamai. Again the success of the British troops was
complete; again the slaughter of the Arabs was enormous. But neither
victory was bloodless. El Teb cost 24 officers and 168 men; Tamai,
13 officers and 208 men. The effect of these operations was the dispersal
of Osman Digna's gathering. That astute man, not for the first
or last time, made a good retreat.
Ten thousand men had thus been killed in the space of three months
in the Eastern Soudan. By the discipline of their armies the Government
were triumphant. The tribes of the Red Sea shore cowered before them.
But as they fought without reason, so they conquered without profit.
As soon as Gordon had been finally refused the assistance of
Zubehr Pasha, it was evident that the rescue of the garrisons
was impossible. The General had been sent as the last hope. Rightly or
wrongly, his recommendations were ignored. His mission was an admitted
failure. After that the only question was how to bring him away as quickly
as possible. It was certain that he would not come willingly. Force was
necessary. Yet it was difficult to know how to apply it. After the
victories in the Eastern Soudan the opportunity presented itself.
The road was open. The local tribes were crushed. Berber had not then
fallen. The Mahdi was himself still on the road from El Obeid to Khartoum.
Sir Evelyn Baring saw the chance. He did not then occupy the formidable
and imposing position in Egyptian politics that he has since attained.
But with all his influence he urged the despatch of a small flying column
to Khartoum. His idea was simple. One thousand or twelve hundred men
were to mount on camels and ride thither via Berber. Those who fell ill or
whose camels broke down would have to take their chance by the roadside.
The plan, however, broke down in the military detail. Only one honourable
course remained--a regular expedition. This the British Agent at once
began to urge. This the Government obstinately refused to admit;
and meanwhile time was passing.
The situation at Khartoum became grave even before the breach between
General Gordon and Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet was complete. While the British
Government was indulging in vengeful operations in the Eastern Soudan,
the Mahdi advanced slowly but steadily upon the town with a following
variously estimated at from fifteen to twenty thousand men. On the 7th
of March Colonel Stewart telegraphed from Khartoum: 'The Mahdi has
attempted to raise the people of Shendi by an emissary. . . . We may be
cut off;' [Lieut.-Colonel Stewart to Sir E. Baring, March 7, 1884.]
and on the 11th Gordon himself reported: 'The rebels are four hours
distant on the Blue Nile.' [Major-General Gordon to Sir E. Baring,
March 11, 1884.] Thereafter no more telegrams came, for on the 15th
the wire was cut between Shendi and Berber, and the blockade
had commenced.
The long and glorious defence of the town of Khartoum will always
fascinate attention. That one man, a European among Africans, a Christian
among Mohammedans, should by his genius have inspired the efforts of 7,000
soldiers of inferior race, and by his courage have sustained the hearts
of 30,000 inhabitants of notorious timidity, and with such materials and
encumbrances have offered a vigorous resistance to the increasing attacks
of an enemy who, though cruel, would yet accept surrender, during a period
of 317 days, is an event perhaps without parallel in history. But it may
safely be predicted that no one will ever write an account which will
compare in interest or in detail with that set forth by the man himself
in the famous. 'Journals at Khartoum.'
The brief account has delighted thousands of readers in Europe and
America. Perhaps it is because he is careless of the sympathy of men
that Charles Gordon so readily wins it. Before the first of the six parts
into which the Journals were divided is finished, the reader has been won.
Henceforth he sees the world through Gordon's eyes. With him he scoffs
at the diplomatists; despises the Government; becomes impatient--
unreasonably, perhaps--with a certain Major Kitchener in the Intelligence
Branch, whose information miscarried or was not despatched; is wearied by
the impracticable Shaiggia Irregulars; takes interest in the turkey-cock
and his harem of four wives; laughs at the 'black sluts' seeing their
faces for the first time in the mirror. With him he trembles for the fate
of the 'poor little beast,' the Husseinyeh, when she drifts stern foremost
on the shoal, 'a penny steamer under cannon fire'; day after day he gazes
through the General's powerful telescope from the palace roof down the
long brown reaches of the river towards the rocks of the Shabluka Gorge,
and longs for some sign of the relieving steamers; and when the end of
the account is reached, no man of British birth can read the last words,
'Now mark this, if the Expeditionary Force--and I ask for no more than
two hundred men--does not come within ten days, the town may fall;
and I have done my best for the honour of our country. Good-bye,' without
being thrilled with vain regrets and futile resolutions. And then the
account stops short. Nor will the silence ever be broken. The sixth
instalment of the Journals was despatched on the 14th of December;
and when it is finished the reader, separated suddenly from the pleasant
companionship, experiences a feeling of loss and annoyance. Imagination,
long supported, is brushed aside by stern reality. Henceforward Gordon's
perils were unrecorded.
I would select one episode only from the Journals as an example of the
peculiarity and the sternness of Charles Gordon's character--his
behaviour towards Slatin. This Austrian officer had been Governor of
Darfur with the rank in the Egyptian service of Bey. For four years he
had struggled vainly against the rebellion. He had fought numerous
engagements with varied success. He had been several times wounded.
Throughout his province and even beyond its limits he bore the reputation
of a brave and capable soldier. The story of his life of suffering and
adventure, written by himself, is widely known, and he is thought by
those who have read it to be a man of feeling and of honour. By those
who enjoy his personal acquaintance this belief is unhesitatingly
confirmed. He had, however, committed an act which deprived him of
Gordon's sympathy and respect. During the fighting in Darfur, after
several defeats, his Mohammedan soldiers were discouraged and attributed
their evil fortune to the fact that their commander was an infidel under
the curse of the Almighty. Slatin therefore proclaimed himself a follower
of the Prophet, and outwardly at least adopted the faith of Islam.
The troops, delighted at his conversion and cheered by the hope of
success, renewed their efforts, and the resistance of the Governor of
Darfur was prolonged. The end, however, was deferred, not averted.
After the destruction of General Hicks's army Slatin was compelled to
surrender to the Dervishes. The religion he had assumed to secure victory
he observed to escape death. The Arab leaders, who admired his courage,
treated him at first with respect and kindness, and he was conducted to
the Mahdi in his encampment before Khartoum. There during the siege he
remained, closely watched but not imprisoned. Thence he wrote letters
to Gordon explaining his surrender, excusing his apostacy, and begging
that he might be allowed--not even assisted--to escape to Khartoum.
The letters are extant, and scarcely anyone who reads them, reflecting
on the twelve years of danger and degradation that lay before this man,
will refuse their compassion.
Gordon was inflexible. Before the arrival of the letters his allusions
to Slatin are contemptuous: 'One cannot help being amused at the Mahdi
carrying all the Europeans about with him--nuns, priests, Greeks,
Austrian officers--what a medley, a regular Etat-Major!' [JOURNALS AT
KHARTOUM.] He is suspicious of the circumstances of his surrender.
'The Greek. . . says Slatin had 4,000 ardebs of dura, 1,500 cows, and
plenty of ammunition: he has been given eight horses by the Mahdi.'
He will not vouch for such a man; but he adds, with characteristic
justice, 'all this information must be taken with reserve.'
At length the letters came. At the peril of his life, when ordered to
write and demand the surrender of the town, Slatin substituted an appeal
to Gordon to countenance his escape. This is the uncompromising minute
in the Journals: 'Oct. 16. The letters of Slatin have arrived. I have
no remarks to make on them, and cannot make out why he wrote them.'
In the afternoon, indeed, he betrays some pity; but it is the pity of
a man for a mouse. 'He is evidently not a Spartan. . . he will want some
quarantine . . . one feels sorry for him.' The next day he is again
inexorable, and gives his reasons clearly. 'I shall have nothing to do
with Slatin's coming here to stay, unless he has the Mahdi's positive
leave, which he is not likely to get; his doing so would be the breaking
of his parole which should be as sacred when given to the Mahdi as to any
other power, and it would jeopardise the safety of all these Europeans,
prisoners with Mahdi.'
Slatin's position, it should be observed, was not that of an officer
released on parole, but of a prisoner of war in durance in the enemy's
camp. In such circumstances he was clearly entitled to escape at his own
proper risk. If his captors gave him the chance, they had only themselves
to blame. His position was not dissimilar from that of the black soldiers
who had been captured by the Dervishes and were now made to serve against
the Government. These deserted to Khartoum daily, and the General fully
acquiesced in their doing so. As to Slatin's escape affecting the
treatment of the other European prisoners, it must be observed that when
at various times escapes were effected from Omdurman, and ultimately when
Slatin himself escaped, no ill-treatment was inflicted on the rest of the
prisoners; and even had such ill-treatment been the certain consequence
of an escape, that need not have debarred a man, according to the customs
of war, from attempting to regain his liberty. Nothing but his free and
formal promise, obtained in return for favours received, can alienate
that right. If the Mahdi chose to slaughter the remaining prisoners,
the responsibility rested with the Mahdi.
Slatin was, however, in no position to argue his case. His correspondence
with Gordon was discovered. For some days his life hung on a thread.
For several months he was heavily chained and fed on a daily handful of
uncooked doura, such as is given to horses and mules. Tidings of these
things were carried to Gordon. 'Slatin,' he observes icily, 'is still in
chains.' He never doubted the righteousness of the course he had adopted,
never for an instant. But few will deny that there were strong arguments
on both sides. Many will assert that they were nicely balanced. Gordon
must have weighed them carefully. He never wavered. Yet he needed Slatin.
He was alone. He had no one in whose military capacity he could put the
slightest confidence. Again and again in the Journals he expresses his
want of trustworthy subordinates. He could not be everywhere, he said.
'Nearly every order has to be repeated two or three times. I am weary
of my life.' 'What one has felt so much here is the want of men
like Gessi, or Messadaglia, or Slatin, but I have no one to whom
I could entrust expeditions. . . . .'
This was the man who would have employed Zubehr and bowed to expediency.
But Zubehr had never 'denied his Lord.'
The actual defence of Khartoum is within the province of the Journals,
nor shall I attempt a chronological account. After the 1Oth of September,
when General Gordon sent Colonel Stewart and Messrs. Power and Herbin
down the river in the ill-fated Abbas steamer, he was altogether alone.
Many men have bowed to the weight of responsibility. Gordon's
responsibility was undivided. There was no one to whom he could talk
as an equal. There was no one to whom he could--as to a trusty
subordinate--reveal his doubts. To some minds the exercise of power
is pleasant, but few sensations are more painful than responsibility
without control. The General could not supervise the defence. The officers
robbed the soldiers of their rations. The sentries slumbered at their
posts. The townspeople bewailed their misfortunes, and all ranks and
classes intrigued with the enemy in the hope of securing safety when the
town should fall. Frequent efforts were made to stir up the inhabitants
or sap their confidence. Spies of all kinds pervaded the town.
The Egyptian Pashas, despairing, meditated treason. Once an attempt was
made to fire the magazine. Once no less than eighty thousand ardebs of
grain was stolen from the arsenal. From time to time the restless and
ceaseless activity of the commander might discover some plot and arrest
the conspirators; or, checking some account, might detect some robbery;
but he was fully aware that what he found out was scarcely a tithe of
what he could not hope to know. The Egyptian officers were untrustworthy.
Yet he had to trust them. The inhabitants were thoroughly broken by war,
and many were disloyal. He had to feed and inspirit them. The town itself
was scarcely defensible. It must be defended to the end. From the flat
roof of his palace his telescope commanded a view of the forts and lines.
Here he would spend the greater part of each day, scrutinising the
defences and the surrounding country with his powerful glass. When he
observed that the sentries on the forts had left their posts, he would
send over to have them flogged and their superiors punished. When his
'penny steamers' engaged the Dervish batteries he would watch, 'on
tenter-hooks,' a combat which might be fatal to the defence, but which,
since he could not direct it, must be left to officers by turns timid and
reckless: and in the dark hours of the night he could not even watch.
The Journals, the only receptacle of his confidences, display the
bitterness of his sufferings no less than the greatness of his character.
'There is no contagion,' he writes, 'equal to that of fear. I have been
rendered furious when from anxiety I could not eat, I would find those at
the same table were in like manner affected.'
To the military anxieties was added every kind of worry which may weary
a man's soul. The women clamoured for bread. The townsfolk heaped
reproaches upon him. The quarrel with the British Government had cut him
very deeply. The belief that he was abandoned and discredited, that
history would make light of his efforts, would perhaps never know of them,
filled his mind with a sense of wrong and injustice which preyed upon his
spirits. The miseries of the townsfolk wrung his noble, generous heart.
The utter loneliness depressed him. And over all lay the shadow of
uncertainty. To the very end the possibility that 'all might be well'
mocked him with false hopes. The first light of any morning might reveal
the longed-for steamers of relief and the uniforms of British soldiers.
He was denied even the numbing anaesthetic of despair.
Yet he was sustained by two great moral and mental stimulants:
his honour as a man, his faith as a Christian. The first had put all
courses which he did not think right once and for all out of the question,
and so allayed many doubts and prevented many vain regrets. But the
second was the real source of his strength. He was sure that beyond this
hazardous existence, with all its wrongs and inequalities, another life
awaited him--a life which, if he had been faithful and true here
upon earth, would afford him greater faculties for good and wider
opportunities for their use. 'Look at me now,' he once said to a
fellow-traveller, 'with small armies to command and no cities to govern.
I hope that death will set me free from pain, and that great armies will
be given me, and that I shall have vast cities under my command.'
[Lieut.-Colonel N. Newham Davis, 'Some Gordon Reminiscences,' published
in THE MAN OF THE WORLD newspaper, December 14, 1898.] Such was
his bright hope of immortality.
As the severity of military operations increases, so also must the
sternness of discipline. The zeal of the soldiers, their warlike
instincts, and the interests and excitements of war may ensure obedience
of orders and the cheerful endurance of perils and hardships during a
short and prosperous campaign. But when fortune is dubious or adverse;
when retreats as well as advances are necessary; when supplies fail,
arrangements miscarry, and disasters impend, and when the struggle is
protracted, men can only be persuaded to accept evil things by the lively
realisation of the fact that greater terrors await their refusal. The ugly
truth is revealed that fear is the foundation of obedience. It is certain
that the influence of General Gordon upon the garrison and townspeople
of Khartoum owed its greatest strength to that sinister element. 'It is
quite painful,' he writes in his Journals in September, 'to see men
tremble so, when they come and see me, that they cannot hold the match to
their cigarette.' Yet he employed all other methods of inspiring
their efforts. As the winter drew on, the sufferings of the besieged
increased and their faith in their commander and his promises of relief
diminished. To preserve their hopes--and, by their hopes, their courage
and loyalty--was beyond the power of man. But what a great man in the
utmost exercise of his faculties and authority might do, Gordon did.
His extraordinary spirit never burned more brightly than in these last,
gloomy days. The money to pay the troops was exhausted. He issued notes,
signing them with his own name. The citizens groaned under the triple
scourge of scarcity, disease, and war. He ordered the bands to play
merrily and discharged rockets. It was said that they were abandoned,
that help would never come, that the expedition was a myth--the lie of
a General who was disavowed by his Government. Forthwith he placarded the
walls with the news of victories and of the advance of a triumphant
British army; or hired all the best houses by the river's bank for the
accommodation of the officers of the relieving force. A Dervish shell
crashed through his palace. He ordered the date of its arrival to be
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