The Life of Gordon, Volume II

Having thus vindicated his own character, as well as the highest principles of Government, Gordon left the Cape a poorer and a wiser man than he was on his arrival. I have explained the personal loss he incurred through the inadequacy of his pay and the cutting-off of his army allowance. It has been stated that when he had taken his passage for England he was without any money in his pocket, and that he quaintly said to a friend: "Do you think it is right for a Major-General of the British Army to set out on a journey like this without sixpence in his pocket?" There is nothing improbable in such an occurrence, and it was matched only sixteen months later, when he was on the point of starting for Khartoum in the same impecunious condition.

Gordon arrived in England on 8th November, and after some correspondence with the King of the Belgians, which will be referred to later in connection with the Congo mission, he again left England on 26th December. On this occasion he was going to carry out a long-cherished desire to visit and reside in the Holy Land, so that he might study on the spot the scenes with which his perfect knowledge of the Bible – his inseparable companion – had made him in an extraordinary degree familiar. In the best sense of the word, he was going to take a holiday. There was to be absolute quiet and rest, and at the same time a congenial occupation. He sailed for Jaffa as a guest on one of Sir William Mackinnon's steamers, but he at once proceeded to Jerusalem, where he lived alone, refusing to see any one, with his books as companions, and "mystifying people as to what he was doing." During his stay at Jerusalem he entered with much zest and at great length into the questions of the various sites in the old Jewish capital. I do not propose to follow the course of his labours in that pursuit, as several works contain between them, I should say, every line he wrote on the subject, and the general reader cannot be expected to take any interest in abstruse and much-debated theological and topographical questions. But even in the midst of these pursuits he did not lose his quickness of military perception. After a brief inspection he at once declared that the Russian Convent commanded the whole city, and was in itself a strong fortress, capable of holding a formidable garrison, which Russia could despatch in the guise of priests without any one being the wiser. From Jerusalem, when the heat became great, he returned to Jaffa, and his interest aroused in worldly matters by the progress of events in Egypt, and the development of the Soudan danger, which he had all along seen coming, was evoked by a project that was brought under his notice for the construction across Palestine of a canal to the head of the Gulf of Akabah. In a letter to myself he thus dilates upon the scheme: —

"Here is the subject which I am interested in if it could be done. The reasons are: —

"1. We are in Egypt supporting an unpopular sovereign, whose tenure ends with departure of our troops. We offer no hope to the people of any solace by this support, and by the supporting of the Turco-Circassian Pashas, who I know by experience are hopeless. We neither govern nor take responsibility; yet we support these vampires.

"2. We are getting mixed up with the question of whether the interest of £90,000,000 will be paid or not.

"3. We are mixed up with the Soudan, where we provoked the rebellion, and of the responsibility of which government we cannot rid ourselves.

"4. We are in constant and increasing hot water with the French, and we gain no benefit from it, for the Canal will remain theirs.

"On the other hand, if we get a Firman from Sultan for the Palestine Canal —

"1. We lose the sacred sites of Jordan River, Capernaum, Bethsaida, and Tiberias, Jericho, not Engedi.

"2. We swamp a notoriously unhealthy valley, where there are no missions.

"3. We cut off the pest of the country of Palestine, the Bedouins.

"4. We are free of all four objections in re occupation of Egypt.

"5. We gain the fertile lands of Moab and Ammon.

"6. Cyprus is 150 miles from the Mediterranean débouché.

"7. We get a waterway for large ships to within fifty miles of Damascus.

"8. We can never be bothered by any internal commotion, except for the twenty-five miles from Haifa to Tiberias, for the waterway of the Canal would be ten miles wide, except in Arabah Valley, where there are on both sides wastes and deserts.

"9. We get rid of unhealthiness of a narrow cut with no current, which is the case with Suez Canal now, where the mud is pestilential from ships' refuse and no current.

"10. It would isolate Palestine, render it quiet from Bedouins; it would pave the way to its being like Belgium, under no Great Power, for religious views would be against Palestine ever being owned by a Great Power.

"11. Up the ladder of Tyre to Gaza would be 10,000 square miles; population 130,000, quite a small country.

"Do not quote me if you write this. Oddly enough, Ezekiel xlvii. 10 seems to say the Dead Sea shall have fish like the great Sea (i. e. Mediterranean). Zechariah xiv. speaks of two rivers, one going to Dead Sea, the other to Mediterranean.

"The cost would be —

say, twelve to fifteen millions, and what a comfort to be free of Egypt and Soudan for ever!

"Revenue, Palestine, £120,000, of which £80,000 goes to Sultan. Do not quote me, for I have written part of this to Mr W. (the late Sir William) Mackinnon of B.I.S.N.C., besides which H.M. Government may object. You may say you had a letter from a correspondent."

He wrote in a similar strain to other correspondents, but I have never succeeded in discovering whether, from an engineering point of view, the scheme was at all feasible. It seems to me that its suggestion is somewhat destructive of Gordon's own declarations as to the superior merits of the Cape route, nor does Sir Henry Gordon much strengthen the case when, perceiving the inconsistency, he goes out of his way to declare that Gordon only meant the Palestine canal to be a commercial route. Any attempt to limit its usefulness could not destroy the character claimed for it by its promoters, as an equally short and more secure route than that by Suez. Yet it needs no gift of second sight to predict that when any project of rivalry to the masterpiece of Lesseps is carried out, it will be by rail to the Persian Gulf, whether the starting-point be the Bosphorus or the Levant.

In the midst of his interesting researches near Mount Carmel, a summons from the outer world reached Gordon in the form of a letter from Sir William Mackinnon, telling him that the King of the Belgians now called on him to fulfil a promise he had made some years before.

When Gordon first returned from the Cape the King of the Belgians wrote, reminding him of his old promise, dating from 1880, to enter into his service on the Congo, and stating that the difficulty of having an internationally recognised Congo flag, which Gordon had made a sine quâ non of his appointment, could be most speedily solved by Gordon joining him as counsellor at once. This Gordon could not agree to, and he went to Palestine, there to await the King's summons, which came by Sir William Mackinnon's note in October 1883. It then became necessary for Gordon to obtain the official permission of his Government to take up this post, of the exact nature of which the Foreign Office had been already informed, both by General Gordon and King Leopold.

Gordon at once telegraphed to the War Office for the leave rendered necessary by his being on the active list, and that Department replied, asking for particulars. When these were furnished through the Foreign Office the decision was announced that "the Secretary of State declines to sanction your employment on the Congo." The telegraph clerk, more discerning or considerate than Her Majesty's Government, altered "declines" into "decides," and Gordon, in happy ignorance of the truth, proceeded with all possible despatch via Acre and Genoa to Brussels, which he reached on New Year's Day, 1884. That very night he wrote me a short note saying, "I go (D.V.) next month to the Congo, but keep it secret." Such things cannot be kept secret, and four days later a leading article in The Times informed his countrymen of Gordon's new mission.

On reaching Brussels the mistake in the telegram was discovered, and Gordon here learnt that his Congo mission was vetoed. Then came the difficulty to know what was to be done. Without leave he could not go anywhere without resigning his commission; he was not qualified for a pension, and there were engagements he had voluntarily contracted that he would not see broken, and persons who would suffer by his death, whose interests he was in every way bound to safeguard. Therefore, if he was to carry out his engagement with the King of the Belgians, it was obviously necessary that he should resign the British Army, and that the King should compensate him for his loss. The King said at once: "Retire from the army and I will compensate you," but in a matter of such importance to others Gordon felt nothing should be left to chance, and that a definite contract should be made. For this he had neither the patience nor the business knowledge, and he delegated the task of arranging the matter to his brother, Sir Henry Gordon, who negotiated with the late Sir William Mackinnon as representing the King. They agreed that the value of Gordon's pension if commuted would be £7288, and the King of the Belgians was to provide that sum, which was to be paid into a trust fund. In this and every other matter the King behaved towards Gordon in the most generous and cordial manner, furnishing a marked contrast with the grudging and parsimonious spirit of the British Government towards Gordon in China, at the Cape, and now again when destined for the Congo.

All the arrangements connected with this subject were made in three days, and while Gordon gave instructions for his will to be prepared for the disposal of the trust fund after his death, he wrote the same day (6th January) to Mr H. M. Stanley, then acting for the King on the Congo, announcing his own appointment, offering to "serve willingly with or under him," and fixing his own departure from Lisbon for 5th of February. Dis aliter visum. For the moment he worked up some enthusiasm in his task. "We will kill the slave-traders in their haunts"; and again, "No such efficacious means of cutting at root of slave trade ever was presented as that which God has, I trust, opened out to us through the kind disinterestedness of His Majesty," are passages in the same letter, yet all the time there is no doubt his heart and his thoughts were elsewhere. They were in the Soudan, not on the Congo.

The night of this letter he crossed from Brussels, and went straight to his sister's house, long the residence, and, practically speaking, the home of his family, 5 Rockstone Place, Southampton. On the 7th of the month – that is, the same day as he arrived – he wrote the formal letter requesting leave to resign his commission in the Queen's army, and also stating, with his usual candour, that King Leopold II. had guaranteed him against any pecuniary loss. To that letter it may at once be stated that no reply was ever sent. Even the least sympathetic official could not feel altogether callous to a voluntary proposition to remove the name of "Chinese" Gordon from the British army list, and the sudden awakening of the public to the extraordinary claims of General Gordon on national gratitude, and his special fitness to deal with the Soudan difficulty warned the authorities that a too rigid application of office rules would not in his case be allowed. By no individual effort, as has been too lightly granted by some writers, but by the voice of the British people was it decided that not only should Gordon have leave to go to the Congo, without resigning his commission, but also that he should be held entitled to draw his pay as a British general while thus employed. But this was not the whole truth, although I have no doubt that the arrangement would have been carried out in any case. In their dilemma the Government saw a chance of extrication in the person of Gordon, the one man recognised by the public and the press as capable of coping with a difficulty which seemed too much for them. The whole truth, therefore, was that the Congo mission was to wait until after Gordon had been sent to, and returned from, the Soudan. He was then to be placed by the British Government entirely at the disposal of the King of the Belgians. As this new arrangement turned on the assent of the King, it was vital to keep it secret during the remainder of the 15th and the whole of the 16th of that eventful January.

When Gordon arrived at Waterloo Station, at a little before two o'clock on 15th January, and was met there by myself, I do not think that he knew definitely what was coming, but he was a man of extraordinary shrewdness, and although essentially unworldly, could see as clearly and as far through a transaction as the keenest man of business. What he did know was that the army authorities were going to treat him well, but his one topic of conversation the whole way to Pall Mall was not the Congo but the Soudan. To the direct question whether he was not really going, as I suspected, to the Nile instead of the Congo, he declared he had no information that would warrant such an idea, but still, if the King of the Belgians would grant the permission, he would certainly not be disinclined to go there first. I have no doubt that those who acted in the name of the Ministry in a few minutes discovered the true state of his mind, and that Gordon then and there agreed, on the express request of the Government of Mr Gladstone, to go and see the King, and beg him to suspend the execution of his promise until he had gone to the Soudan to arrest the Mahdi's career, or to relieve the Egyptian garrisons, if the phrase be preferred. It should also be stated that Gordon's arrangement with the King of the Belgians was always coupled with this proviso, "provided the Government of my own country does not require my services." The generosity of that sovereign in the matter of the compensation for his Commission did not render that condition void, and however irritating the King may have found the circumstances, Gordon broke neither the spirit nor the letter of his engagement with his Majesty by obeying the orders of his own Government.

Late the same evening I was present at his brother's house to receive an account for publication of his plans on the Congo, but surrounded by so large a number of his relatives summoned to see their hero, many of them for the last time, it was neither convenient nor possible to carry out this task, which was accordingly postponed till the following morning, when I was to see him at the Charing Cross Hotel, and accompany him by the early boat train to Dover. On that night his last will was signed and witnessed by his uncle, Mr George Enderby, and myself. The next morning I was at the hotel before seven, but instead of travelling by this early train, he postponed his departure till ten o'clock, and the greater part of those three hours were given to an explanation, map in hand, of his plans on the Congo. The article, based on his information, appeared in The Times of 17th January 1884, but several times during our conversation he exclaimed, "There may be a respite," but he refused to be more definite. Thus he set out for Brussels, whether he was accompanied by his friend Captain (now Colonel) F. Brocklehurst, who was undoubtedly acting as the representative of the authorities. I believe I may say with confidence that if he did not actually see the King of the Belgians on the evening of the same day, some communication passed indirectly, which showed the object of his errand, for although his own letter communicating the event is dated 17th, from Brussels, it is a fact within my own knowledge that late in the evening of the 16th a telegram was received – "Gordon goes to the Soudan."

The first intimation of something having happened that his brother Sir Henry Gordon received, was in a hurried letter, dated 17th January, which arrived by the early post on Friday, 18th, asking him to "get his uniform ready and some patent leather boots," but adding, "I saw King Leopold to-day; he is furious." Even then Sir Henry, although he guessed his destination, did not know that his departure would be so sudden, for Gordon crossed the same night, and was kept at Knightsbridge Barracks in a sort of honourable custody by Captain Brocklehurst, so that the new scheme might not be prematurely revealed. Sir Henry, a busy man, went about his own work, having seen to his brother's commission, and it was not until his return at five o'clock that he learnt all, and that Gordon was close at hand. He at once hurried off to see him, and on meeting, Gordon, in a high state of exhilaration, exclaimed, "I am off to the Soudan." Sir Henry asked "When?" and back came the reply, "To-night!" He had got his respite.

To him at that moment it meant congenial work and the chance of carrying out the thoughts that had been surging through his mind ever since Egyptian affairs became troubled and the Mahdi's power rose on the horizon of the Soudan. The reality was to prove far different. He was to learn in his own person the weakness and falseness of his Government, and to find himself betrayed by the very persons who had only sought his assistance in the belief that by a miracle – and nothing less would have sufficed – he might relieve them from responsibilities to which they were not equal. Far better would it have been, not only for Gordon's sake, but even for the reputation of England, if he had carried out his original project on the Congo, where, on a less conspicuous scene than the Nile, he might still have fought and won the battle of humanity.

I am placed in a position to state that on the morning of the 17th, at 10 a. m., he wrote to his sister from Brussels, as follows – "Do not mention it, but there is just a chance I may have to go to Soudan for two months, and then go to Congo," and again in a second letter at two o'clock, "Just got a telegram from Wolseley saying, 'Come back to London by evening train,' so when you get this I shall be in town, but keep it a dead secret, for I hope to leave it again the same evening. I will not take Governor-Generalship again, I will only report on situation." After this came a post-card – 18th January, 6 a. m. "Left B., am now in London; I hope to go back again to-night." That very night he left for Egypt.

That he was not detained the whole day in the Barracks is shown in the following letter, now published for the first time, which gives the only account of his interview with the members of the Government that sent him out: —

"19. 1, 1884.

"My Dear Augusta, – I arrived in town very tired, at 6 a. m. yesterday, went with Brocklehurst to Barracks, washed, and went to Wolseley. He said Ministers would see me at 3 p. m. I went back to Barracks and reposed. At 12.30 p. m. Wolseley came for me. I went with him and saw Granville, Hartington, Dilke, and Northbrook. They said, 'Had I seen Wolseley, and did I understand their ideas?' I said 'Yes,' and repeated what Wolseley had said to me as to their ideas, which was 'they would evacuate Soudan.' They were pleased, and said 'That was their idea; would I go?' I said 'Yes.' They said 'When?' I said 'To-night,' and it was over. I started at 8 p. m. H.R.H. The Duke of Cambridge and Lord Wolseley came to see me off. I saw Henry and Bob (R. F. Gordon); no one else except Stokes – all very kind. I have taken Stewart with me, a nice fellow. We are now in train near Mont Cenis. I am not moved a bit, and hope to do the people good. Lord Granville said Ministers were very much obliged to me. I said I was much honoured by going. I telegraphed King of the Belgians at once, and told him 'Wait a few months.' Kindest love to all. – Your affectionate brother,

"C. G. Gordon.

As further evidence of the haste of his departure, I should like to mention that he had hardly any clothes with him, and that Mrs Watson, wife of his friend Colonel Watson, procured him all he required – in fact, fitted him out – during the two days he stayed at Cairo. These kindly efforts on his behalf were thrown away, for all his baggage – clothes, uniforms, orders, etc. – was captured with the money at Berber and never reached him. His only insignia of office at Khartoum was the Fez, and the writer who described him as putting on his uniform when the Mahdists broke into the town was gifted with more imagination than love of truth.

CHAPTER XI.

THE LAST NILE MISSION

When Gordon left Egypt, at the end of the year 1879, he was able to truthfully declare in the words of his favourite book: "No man could lift his hand or his foot in the land of the Soudan without me." Yet he was fully alive to the dangers of the future, although then they were no more than a little cloud on the horizon, for he wrote in 1878: "Our English Government lives on a hand-to-mouth policy. They are very ignorant of these lands, yet some day or other, they or some other Government, will have to know them, for things at Cairo cannot stay as they are. The Khedive will be curbed in, and will no longer be absolute Sovereign. Then will come the question of these countries… There is no doubt that if the Governments of France and England do not pay more attention to the Soudan – if they do not establish at Khartoum a branch of the mixed tribunals, and see that justice is done – the disruption of the Soudan from Cairo is only a question of time. This disruption, moreover, will not end the troubles, for the Soudanese through their allies in Lower Egypt – the black soldiers I mean – will carry on their efforts in Cairo itself. Now these black soldiers are the only troops in the Egyptian service that are worth anything." The gift of prophecy could scarcely have been demonstrated in a more remarkable degree, yet the Egyptian Government and everybody else went on acting as if there was no danger in the Soudan, and treated it like a thoroughly conquered province inhabited by a satisfied, or at least a thoroughly subjected population. From this dream there was to be a rude and startling awakening.

It is impossible to say whether there was any connection direct or indirect between the revolt of Arabi Pasha and the military leaders at Cairo and the rebellion in the Soudan, which began under the auspices of the so-called Mahdi. At the very least it may be asserted that the spectacle of successful insubordination in the Delta – for it was completely successful, and would have continued so but for the intervention of British arms – was calculated to encourage those who entertained a desire to upset the Khedive's authority in the upper regions of the Nile. That Gordon held that the authors of the Arabi rising and of the Mahdist movement were the same in sympathy, if not in person, cannot be doubted, and in February 1882, when the Mahdi had scarcely begun his career, he wrote: "If they send the Black regiment to the Soudan to quell the revolt, they will inoculate all the troops up there, and the Soudan will revolt against Cairo, whom they all hate." It will be noted that that letter was written more than twenty months before the destruction of the Hicks Expedition made the Mahdi master of the Soudan.

It was in the year 1880 that the movements of a Mahommedan dervish, named Mahomed Ahmed, first began to attract the attention of the Egyptian officials. He had quarrelled with and repudiated the authority of the head of his religious order, because he tolerated such frivolous practices as dancing and singing. His boldness in this matter, and his originality in others, showed that he was pursuing a course of his own, and to provide for his personal security, as well as for convenience in keeping up his communications with Khartoum and other places, he fixed his residence on an islet in the White Nile near Kawa. Mahomed Ahmed was a native of the lower province of Dongola, and as such was looked upon with a certain amount of contempt by the other races of the Soudan. When he quarrelled with his religious leader he was given the opprobrious name of "a wretched Dongolawi," but the courage with which he defied and exposed an arch-priest for not rigidly abiding by the tenets of the Koran, redounded so much to his credit that the people began to talk of this wonderful dervish quite as much as of the Khedive's Governor-General. Many earnest and energetic Mahommedans flocked to him, and among these was the present Khalifa Abdullah, whose life had been spared by Zebehr, and who in return had wished to proclaim that leader of the slave-hunters Mahdi. To his instigation was probably due not merely the assumption of that title by Mahomed Ahmed, but the addition of a worldly policy to what was to have been a strictly religious propaganda.