With regard to the wisdom of the course pursued in thus sending away all his European colleagues – the Austrian consul Hensall alone refusing to quit Gordon and his place of duty – opinions will differ to the end of time, but one is almost inclined to say that they could not have been of much service to Gordon once their uppermost thought became to quit Khartoum. The whole story is told very graphically in a passage of Gordon's own diary: —
"I determined to send the Abbas down with an Arab captain. Herbin asked to be allowed to go. I jumped at his offer. Then Stewart said he would go if I would exonerate him from deserting me. I said, 'You do not desert me. I cannot go; but if you go you do great service.' I then wrote him an official; he wanted me to write him an order. I said 'No; for, though I fear not responsibility, I will not put you in any danger in which I am not myself.' I wrote them a letter couched thus: – 'Abbas is going down; you say you are willing to go in her if I think you can do so in honour. You can go in honour, for you can do nothing here; and if you go you do me service in telegraphing my views.'"
There are two points in this matter to which I must draw marked attention. The suggestion for any European leaving Khartoum came from M. Herbin, and when Gordon willingly acquiesced, Colonel Stewart asked leave to do likewise. Mr Power, whose calculation was that provisions would be exhausted before the end of September, then followed suit, and not one of these three of the five Europeans in Khartoum seem to have thought for a moment what would be the position of Gordon left alone to cope with the danger from which they ran away. The suggestion as to their going came in every case from themselves. Gordon, in his thought for others, not merely threw no obstacle in their way, but as far as he could provided for their safety as if they were a parcel of women. But he declined all responsibility for their fate, as they went not by his order but of their own free-will. He gave them his ships, soldiers, and best counsel. They neglected the last, and were taken in in a manner that showed less than a child's suspicion, and were massacred at the very moment they felt sure of safety. It was a cruel fate, and a harsh Nemesis speedily befell them for doing perhaps the one unworthy thing of their lives – leaving their solitary companion to face the tenfold dangers by which he would be beset. But it cannot be allowed any longer that the onus of this matter should rest in any way on Gordon. They went because they wanted to go, and he, knowing well that men with such thoughts would be of no use to him ("you can do nothing here") let them go, and even encouraged them to do so. Under the circumstances he preferred to be alone. Colonel Donald Stewart was a personal friend of mine, and a man whose courage in the ordinary sense of the word could not be aspersed, but there cannot be two opinions that he above all the others should not have left his brother-in-arms alone in Khartoum.
After their departure Gordon had to superintend everything himself, and to resort to every means of husbanding the limited supply of provisions he had left. He had also to anticipate a more vigorous attack, for the Mahdi must quickly learn of the departure of the steamers, the bombardment of Berber, and the favourable chance thus provided for the capture of Khartoum. Nor was this the worst, for on the occurrence of the disaster the Mahdi was promptly informed of the loss of the Abbas and the murder of the Europeans, and it was he himself who sent in to Gordon the news of the catastrophe, with so complete a list of the papers on the Abbas as left no ground for hope or disbelief. Unfortunately, before this bad news reached Gordon, he had again, on 30th September, sent down to Shendy three steamers – the Talataween, the Mansourah, and Saphia, with troops on board, and the gallant Cassim-el-Mousse, there to await the arrival of the relieving force. He somewhat later reinforced this squadron with the Bordeen; and although one or two of these boats returned occasionally to Khartoum, the rest remained permanently at Shendy, and when the English troops reached the Nile opposite that place all five were waiting them. Without entering too closely into details, it is consequently correct to say that during the most critical part of the siege Gordon deprived himself of the co-operation of these vessels, each of which he valued at 2000 men, simply and solely because he believed that reinforcements were close at hand, and that some troops at the latest would arrive before the end of November 1884. As Gordon himself repeatedly said, it would have been far more just if the Government had told him in March, when he first demanded reinforcements as a right, that he must shift for himself. Then he would have kept these boats by him, and triumphantly fought his way in them to the Equator. But his trust in the Government, notwithstanding all his experience, led him to weaken his own position in the hope of facilitating their movements, and he found their aid a broken reed. In only one passage of his journal does Gordon give expression to this view, although it was always present to his mind: – "Truly the indecision of our Government has been, from a military point of view, a very great bore, for we never could act as if independent; there was always the chance of their taking action, which hampered us." But in the telegrams to Sir Evelyn Baring and Mr Egerton, which the Government never dared to publish, and which are still an official secret, he laid great stress on this point, and on Sir Evelyn Baring's message forbidding him to retire to the Equator, so that, if he sought safety in that direction, he would be indictable on a charge of desertion.
The various positions at Khartoum held by Gordon's force may be briefly described. First, the town itself, on the left bank of the Blue Nile, but stretching almost across to the right bank of the White Nile, protected on the land side by a wall, in front of which was the triple line of mines, and on the water side by the river and the steamers. On the right bank of the Blue Nile was the small North Fort. Between the two stretched the island of Tuti, and at each end of the wall, on the White Nile as well as the Blue, Gordon had stationed a santal or heavy-armed barge, carrying a gun. Unfortunately, a large part of the western end of the Khartoum wall had been washed away by an inundation of the Nile, but the mines supplied a substitute, and so long as Omdurman Fort was held this weakness in the defences of Khartoum did not greatly signify. That fort itself lay on the left bank of the White Nile. It was well built and fairly strong, but the position was faulty. It lay in a hollow, and the trench of the extensive camp formed for Hicks's force furnished the enemy with cover. It was also 1200 yards from the river bank, and when the enemy became more enterprising it was impossible to keep up communication with it. In Omdurman Fort was a specially selected garrison of 240 men, commanded by a gallant black officer, Ferratch or Faragalla Pasha, who had been raised from a subordinate capacity to the principal command under him by Gordon. Gordon's point of observation was the flat roof of the Palace, whence he could see everything with his telescope, and where he placed his best shots to bear on any point that might seem hard pressed. Still more useful was it for the purpose of detecting the remissness of his own troops and officers, and often his telescope showed him sentries asleep at their posts, and officers absent from the points they were supposed to guard.
From the end of March until the close of the siege scarcely a day passed without the exchange of artillery and rifle fire on one side or the other of the beleaguered town. On special occasions the Khedive's garrison would fire as many as forty or even fifty thousand rounds of Remington cartridges, and the Arab fire was sometimes heavier. This incessant fire, as the heroic defender wrote in his journal, murdered sleep, and at last he became so accustomed to it that he could tell by the sound where the firing was taking place. The most distant points of the defence, such as the santal on the White Nile and Fort Omdurman, were two miles from the Palace; and although telegraphic communication existed with them during the greater part of the siege, the oral evidence as to the point of attack was often found the most rapid means of obtaining information. This was still more advantageous after the 12th of November, for on that day communications were cut between Khartoum and Omdurman, and it was found impossible to restore them. The only communications possible after that date were by bugle and flag. At the time of this severance Gordon estimated that the garrison of Omdurman had enough water and biscuit for six weeks, and that there were 250,000 cartridges in the arsenal. Gordon did everything in his power to aid Ferratch in the defence, and his remaining steamer, the Ismailia, after the grounding of the Husseinyeh on the very day Omdurman was cut off, was engaged in almost daily encounters with the Mahdists for that purpose. Owing to Gordon's incessant efforts, and the gallantry of the garrison led by Ferratch, Omdurman held out more than two months. It was not until 15th January that Ferratch, with Gordon's leave, surrendered, and then when the Mahdists occupied the place, General Gordon had the satisfaction of shelling them out of it, and showing that it was untenable.
The severance of Omdurman from Khartoum was the prelude to fiercer fighting than had taken place at any time during the earlier stages of the siege, and although particulars are not obtainable for the last month of the period, there is no doubt that the struggle was incessant, and that the fighting was renewed from day to day. It was then that Gordon missed the ships lying idle at Shendy. If he had had them Omdurman would not have fallen, nor would it have been so easy for the Mahdi to transport the bulk of his force from the left to the right bank of the White Nile, as he did for the final assault on the fatal 26th January.
At the end of October the Mahdi, accompanied by a far more numerous force than Gordon thought he could raise, described by Slatin as countless, pitched his camp a few miles south of Omdurman. On 8th November his arrival was celebrated by a direct attack on the lines south of Khartoum. The rebels in their fear of the hidden mines, which was far greater than it need have been, as it was found they had been buried too deep, resorted to the artifice of driving forward cows, and by throwing rockets among them Gordon had the satisfaction of spreading confusion in their ranks, repulsing the attack, and capturing twenty of the animals. Four days later the rebels made the desperate attack on Omdurman, when, as stated, communications were cut, and the Husseinyeh ran aground. In attempting to carry her off and to check the further progress of the rebels the Ismailia was badly hit, and the incident was one of those only too frequent at all stages of the siege, when Gordon wrote: "Every time I hear the gun fire I have a twitch of the heart of gnawing anxiety for my penny steamers." At the very moment that these fights were in progress he wrote, 10th November: "To-day is the day I expected we should have had some one of the Expedition here;" and he also recorded that we "have enough biscuit for a month or so" – meaning at the outside six weeks. Throughout the whole of November rumours of a coming British Expedition were prevalent, but they were of the vaguest and most contradictory character. On 25th November Gordon learnt that it was still at Ambukol, 185 miles further away from Khartoum than he had expected, and his only comment under this acute disappointment was, "This is lively!"
Up to the arrival of the Mahdi daily desertions of his Arab and other soldiers to Gordon took place, and by these and levies among the townspeople all gaps in the garrison were more than filled up. Such was the confidence in Gordon that it more than neutralised all the intrigues of the Mahdi's agents in the besieged town, and scarcely a man during the first seven months of the siege deserted him; but after the arrival of the Mahdi there was a complete change in this respect. In the first place there were no more desertions to Gordon, and then men began to leave him, partly, no doubt, from fear of the Mahdi, or awakened fanaticism, but chiefly through the non-arrival of the British Expedition, which had been so much talked about, yet which never came. Still to all the enemy's invitations to surrender on the most honourable terms Gordon gave defiant answers. "I am here like iron, and I hope to see the newly-arrived English;" and when the situation had become little short of desperate, at the end of the year, he still, with bitter agony at his heart, proudly rejected all overtures, and sent the haughty message: "Can hold Khartoum for twelve years." Unfortunately the Mahdi knew better. He had read the truth in all the papers captured on Stewart's steamer, and he knew that Gordon's resources were nearly spent. Even some of the messages Gordon sent out by spies for Lord Wolseley's information fell into his hands, and on one of these Slatin says it was written: "Can hold Khartoum at the outside till the end of January." Although Gordon may be considered to have more than held his own against all the power of the Mahdi down to the capture of Omdurman Fort on 15th January, the Mahdi knew that his straits must be desperate, and that unless the expedition arrived he could not hold out much longer. The first advance of the English troops on 3rd January across the desert towards the Nile probably warned the enemy that now was the time to renew the attack with greater vigour, but it does not seem that there is any justification for the entirely hypothetical view that at any point the Mahdi could have seized the unhappy town. Omdurman Fort itself fell, not to the desperate onset of his Ghazis, but from the want of food and ammunition, and with Gordon's expressed permission to the commandant to surrender. Unfortunately the details of the most tragic part of the siege are missing, but Gordon himself well summed up what he had done up to the end of October when his position was secure, and aid, as he thought, was close at hand: —
"The news of Hicks's defeat was known in Cairo three weeks after the event occurred; since that date up to this (29th October 1884) nine people have come up as reinforcements – myself, Stewart, Herbin, Hussein, Tongi, Ruckdi, and three servants, and not one penny of money. Of those who came up two, Stewart and Herbin, have gone down, Hussein is dead; so six alone remain, while we must have sent down over 1500 and 700 soldiers, total 2200, including the two Pashas, Coetlogon, etc. The regulars, who were in arrears of pay for three months when I came, are now only owed half a month, while the Bashi-Bazouks are owed only a quarter month, and we have some £500 in the Treasury. It is quite a miracle. We have lost two battles, suffering severe losses in these actions of men and arms, and may have said to have scrambled through, for I cannot say we can lay claim to any great success during the whole time. I believe we have more ammunition (Remington) and more soldiers now than when I came up. We have £40,000 in Treasury in paper and £500. When I came up there was £5000 in Treasury. We have £15,000 out in the town in paper money."
At the point (14th December) when the authentic history of the protracted siege and gallant defence of Khartoum stops, a pause may be made to turn back and describe what the Government and country which sent General Gordon on his most perilous mission, and made use of his extraordinary devotion to the call of duty to extricate themselves from a responsibility they had not the courage to face, had been doing not merely to support their envoy, but to vindicate their own honour. The several messages which General Gordon had succeeded in getting through had shown how necessary some reinforcement and support were at the very commencement of the siege. The lapse of time, rendered the more expressive by the long period of silence that fell over what was taking place in the besieged town, showed, beyond need of demonstration, the gravity of the case and the desperate nature of the situation. But a very little of the knowledge at the command of the Government from a number of competent sources would have enabled it to foresee what was certain to happen, and to have provided some remedy for the peril long before the following despairing message from Gordon showed that the hour when any aid would be useful had almost expired. This was the passage, dated 13th December, in the last (sixth) volume of the Journal, but the substance of which reached Lord Wolseley by one of Gordon's messengers at Korti on 31st December: —
"We are going to send down the Bordeen the day after to-morrow, and with her I shall send this Journal. If some effort is not made before ten days' time the town will fall. It is inexplicable this delay. If the Expeditionary forces have reached the river and met my steamers, one hundred men are all that we require just to show themselves… Even if the town falls under the nose of the Expeditionary forces it will not in my opinion justify the abandonment of Senaar and Kassala, or of the Equatorial Province by H.M.'s Government. All that is absolutely necessary is for fifty of the Expeditionary force to get on board a steamer and come up to Halfiyeh, and thus let their presence be felt. This is not asking much, but it must happen at once, or it will (as usual) be too late."
The motives which induced Mr Gladstone's Government to send General Gordon to the Soudan in January 1884 were, as has been clearly shown, the selfish desire to appease public opinion, and to shirk in the easiest possible manner a great responsibility. They had no policy at all, but they had one supreme wish, viz. to cut off the Soudan from Egypt; and if the Mahdi had only known their wishes and pressed on, and treated the Khartoum force as he had treated that under Hicks, there would have been no garrisons to rescue, and that British Government would have done nothing. It recked nothing of the grave dangers that would have accrued from the complete triumph of the Mahdi, or of the outbreak that must have followed in Lower Egypt if his tide of success had not been checked as it was single-handed by General Gordon, through the twelve months' defence of Khartoum. Still it could not quite stoop to the dishonour of abandoning these garrisons, and of making itself an accomplice to the Mahdi's butcheries, nor could it altogether turn a deaf ear to the representations and remonstrances of even such a puppet prince as the Khedive Tewfik. England was then far more mistress of the situation at Cairo than she is now, but a helpless refusal to discharge her duty might have provoked Europe into action at the Porte that would have proved inconvenient and damaging to her position and reputation. Therefore the Government fell back on General Gordon, and the hope was even indulged that, under his exceptional reputation, the evacuation of the Soudan might not only be successfully carried out, but that his success might induce the public and the world to accept that abnegation of policy as the acme of wisdom. In all this they were destined to a complete awakening, and the only matter of surprise is that they should have sent so well-known a character as General Gordon, whose independence and contempt for official etiquette and restraint were no secrets at the Foreign and War Offices, on a mission in which they required him not only to be as indifferent to the national honour as they were, but also to be tied and restrained by the shifts and requirements of an embarrassed executive.
At a very early stage of the mission the Government obtained evidence that Gordon's views on the subject were widely different from theirs. They had evidently persuaded themselves that their policy was Gordon's policy; and before he was in Khartoum a week he not merely points out that the evacuation policy is not his but theirs, and that although he thinks its execution is still possible, the true policy is, "if Egypt is to be quiet, that the Mahdi must be smashed up." The hopes that had been based on Gordon's supposed complaisance in the post of representative on the Nile of the Government policy were thus dispelled, and it became evident that Gordon, instead of being a tool, was resolved to be master, so far as the mode of carrying out the evacuation policy with full regard for the dictates of honour was to be decided. Nor was this all, or the worst of the revelations made to the Government in the first few weeks after his arrival at Khartoum. While expressing his willingness and intention to discharge the chief part of his task, viz. the withdrawal of the garrisons, which was all the Government cared about, he also descanted on the moral duty and the inevitable necessity of setting up a provisional government that should avert anarchy and impose some barrier to the Mahdi's progress. All this was trying to those who only wished to be rid of the whole matter, but Gordon did not spare their feelings, and phrase by phrase he revealed what his own policy would be and what his inner wishes, however repressed his charge might keep them, really were.
Having told them that "the Mahdi must be smashed up," he went on to say that "we cannot hurry over this affair" (the future of the Soudan) "if we do we shall incur disaster," and again that, although "it is a miserable country it is joined to Egypt, and it would be difficult to divorce the two." Within a very few weeks, therefore, the Government learnt that its own agent was the most forcible and damaging critic of the policy of evacuation, and that the worries of the Soudan question for an administration not resolute enough to solve the difficulty in a thorough manner were increased and not diminished by Gordon's mission. At that point the proposition was made and supported by several members of the Cabinet that Gordon should be recalled. There is no doubt that this step would have been taken but for the fear that it would aggravate the difficulties of the English expedition sent to Souakim under the command of General Gerald Graham to retrieve the defeat of Baker Pasha. Failing the adoption of that extreme measure, which would at least have been straightforward and honest, and ignoring what candour seemed to demand if a decision had been come to to render Gordon no support, and to bid him shift for himself, the Government resorted to the third and least justifiable course of all, viz. of showing indifference to the legitimate requests of their emissary, and of putting off definite action until the very last moment.
We have seen that Gordon made several specific demands in the first six weeks of his stay at Khartoum – that is, in the short period before communication was cut off. He wanted Zebehr, 200 troops at Berber, or even at Wady Halfa, and the opening of the route from Souakim to the Nile. To these requests not one favourable answer was given, and the not wholly unnatural rejection of the first rendered it more than ever necessary to comply with the others. They were such as ought to have been granted, and in anticipation they had been suggested and discussed before Gordon felt bound to urge them as necessary for the security of his position at Khartoum. Even Sir Evelyn Baring had recommended in February the despatch of 200 men to Assouan for the moral effect, and that was the very reason why Gordon asked, in the first place, for the despatch of a small British force to at least Wady Halfa. It is possible that one of the chief reasons for the Government rejecting all these suggestions, and also, it must be remembered, doing nothing in their place towards the relief and support of their representative, may have been the hope that this treatment would have led him to resign and throw up his mission. They would then have been able to declare that, as the task was beyond the powers of General Gordon, they were only coming to the prudent and logical conclusion in saying that nothing could be done, and that the garrisons had better come to terms with the Mahdi. Unfortunately for those who favoured the evasion of trouble as the easiest and best way out of the difficulty, Gordon had high notions as to what duty required. No difficulty had terrors for him, and while left at the post of power and responsibility he would endeavour to show himself equal to the charge.
Yet there can be no doubt that those who sent him would have rejoiced if he had formally asked to be relieved of the task he had accepted, and Mr Gladstone stated on the 3rd April that "Gordon was under no orders and no restraint to stay at Khartoum." A significant answer to the fact represented in that statement was supplied, when, ten days later, silence fell on Khartoum, and remained unbroken for more than five months. But at the very moment that the Prime Minister made that statement as to Gordon's liberty of movement, the Government knew of the candid views which he had expressed as to the proper policy for the Soudan. It should have been apparent that, unless they and their author were promptly repudiated, and unless the latter was stripped of his official authority, the Government would, however tardily and reluctantly, be drawn after its representative into a policy of intervention in the Soudan, which it, above everything else, wished to avoid. Gordon concealed nothing. He told them "time," "reinforcements," and a very considerable expenditure was necessary to honourably carry out their policy of evacuation. They were not prepared to concede any of these save the last, and even the money they sent him was lost because they would send it by Berber instead of Kassala. But they knew that "the order and restraint" which kept Gordon at Khartoum was the duty he had contracted towards them when he accepted his mission, and which was binding on a man of his principles until they chose to relieve him of the task. The fear of public opinion had more to do with their abstaining from the step of ordering his recall than the hope that his splendid energy and administrative power might yet provide some satisfactory issue from the dilemma, for at the very beginning it was freely given out that "General Gordon was exceeding his instructions."
The interruption of communications with Khartoum at least suspended Gordon's constant representations as to what he thought the right policy, as well as his demands for the fulfilment by the Government of their side of the contract. It was then that Lord Granville seemed to pluck up heart of grace, and to challenge Gordon's right to remain at Khartoum. On 23rd April Lord Granville asked for explanation of "cause of detention." Unfortunately it was not till months later that the country knew of Gordon's terse and humorous reply, "cause of detention, these horribly plucky Arabs." Lord Granville, thinking this despatch not clear enough, followed it up on 17th May by instructing Mr Egerton, then acting for Sir Evelyn Baring, to send the following remonstrance to Gordon:
"As the original plan for the evacuation of the Soudan has been dropped, and as aggressive operations cannot be undertaken with the countenance of H.M.'s Government, General Gordon is enjoined to consider, and either to report upon, or, if possible, to adopt at the first proper moment measures for his own removal and for that of the Egyptians at Khartoum who have suffered for him, or who have served him faithfully, including their wives and children, by whatever route he may consider best, having especial regard to his own safety and that of the other British subjects."
Then followed suggestions and authority to pay so much a head for refugees safely escorted to Korosko. The comment Gordon made on that, and similar despatches, to save himself and any part of the garrison he could, was that he was not so mean as to desert those who had nobly stood by him and committed themselves on the strength of his word.
It is impossible to go behind the collective responsibility of the Government and to attempt to fix any special responsibility or blame on any individual member of that Government. The facts as I read them show plainly that there was a complete abnegation of policy or purpose on the part of the British Government, that Gordon was then sent as a sort of stop-gap, and that when it was revealed that he had strong views and clear plans, not at all in harmony with those who sent him, it was thought, by the Ministers who had not the courage to recall him, very inconsiderate and insubordinate of him to remain at his post and to refuse all the hints given him, that he ought to resign unless he would execute a sauve qui peut sort of retreat to the frontier. Very harsh things have been said of Mr Gladstone and his Cabinet on this point, but considering their views and declarations, it is not so very surprising that Gordon's boldness and originality alarmed and displeased them. Their radical fault in these early stages of the question was not that they were indifferent to Gordon's demands, but that they had absolutely no policy. They could not even come to the decision, as Gordon wrote, "to abandon altogether and not care what happens."
But all these minor points were merged in a great common national anxiety when month after month passed during the spring and summer of 1884, and not a single word issued from the tomb-like silence of Khartoum. People might argue that the worst could not have happened, as the Mahdi would have been only too anxious to proclaim his triumph far and wide if Khartoum had fallen. Anxiety may be diminished, but is not banished, by a calculation of probabilities, and the military spirit and capacity exhibited by the Mahdi's forces under Osman Digma in the fighting with General Graham's well-equipped British force at Teb and Tamanieb revealed the greatness of the peril with which Gordon had to deal at Khartoum where he had only the inadequate and untrustworthy garrison described by Colonel de Coetlogon. During the summer of 1884 there was therefore a growing fear, not only that the worst news might come at any moment, but that in the most favourable event any news would reveal the desperate situation to which Gordon had been reduced, and with that conviction came the thought, not whether he had exactly carried out what Ministers had expected him to do, but solely of his extraordinary courage and devotion to his country, which had led him to take up a thankless task without the least regard for his comfort or advantage, and without counting the odds. There was at least one Minister in the Cabinet who was struck by that single-minded conduct; and as early as April, when his colleagues were asking the formal question why Gordon did not leave Khartoum, the Marquis of Hartington, then Minister of War, and now Duke of Devonshire, began to inquire as to the steps necessary to rescue the emissary, while still adhering to the policy of the Administration of which he formed part. During the whole of that summer the present Duke of Devonshire advocated the special claim of General Gordon on the Government, whose mandate he had so readily accepted, and urged the necessity of special measures being taken at the earliest moment to save the gallant envoy from what seemed the too probable penalty of his own temerity and devotion. But for his energetic and consistent representations the steps that were taken – all too late as they proved – never would have been taken at all, or deferred to such a date as to let the public see by the event that there was no use in throwing away money and precious lives on a lost cause.