The Life of Gordon, Volume II

Having no confidence in the bulk of his force, it is not surprising that Gordon resorted to every artifice within engineering science to compensate for the shortcomings of his army. He surrounded Khartoum – which on one side was adequately defended by the Nile and his steamers – on the remaining three sides with a triple line of land mines connected by wires. Often during the siege the Mahdists attempted to break through this ring, but only to meet with repulse, accompanied by heavy loss; and to the very last day of the siege they never succeeded in getting behind the third of these lines. Their efficacy roused Gordon's professional enthusiasm, and in one passage he exclaims that these will be the general form of defence in the future. During the first months of the siege, which began rather in the form of a loose investment, the Nile was too low to allow of his using the nine steamers he possessed, but he employed the time in making two new ones, and in strengthening them all with bulwarks of iron plates and soft wood, which were certainly bullet-proof. Each of these steamers he valued as the equivalent of 2000 men. When it is seen how he employed them the value will not be deemed excessive, and certainly without them he could not have held Khartoum and baffled all the assaults of the Mahdi for the greater part of a year.

After this experience Gordon would risk no more combats on land, and on 25th March he dismissed 250 of the Bashi-Bazouks who had behaved so badly. Absolutely trustworthy statistics are not available as to the exact number of troops in Khartoum or as to the proportion the Black Soudanese bore to the Egyptians, but it approximates to the truth to say that there were about 1000 of the former to 3000 of the latter, and with other levies during the siege he doubled this total. For these and a civilian population of nearly 40,000 Gordon computed that he had provisions for five months from March, and that for at least two months he would be as safe as in Cairo. By carefully husbanding the corn and biscuit he was able to make the supply last much longer, and even to the very end he succeeded in partially replenishing the depleted granaries of the town. There is no necessity to repeat the details of the siege during the summer of 1884. They are made up of almost daily interchanges of artillery fire from the town, and of rifle fire in reply from the Arab lines. That this was not merely child's play may be gathered from two of Gordon's protected ships showing nearly a thousand bullet-marks apiece. Whenever the rebels attempted to force their way through the lines they were repulsed by the mines; and the steamers not only inflicted loss on their fighting men, but often succeeded in picking up useful supplies of food and grain. No further reverses were reported, because Gordon was most careful to avoid all risk, and the only misfortunes occurred in Gordon's rear, when first Berber, through the treachery of the Greek Cuzzi, and then Shendy passed into the hands of the Mahdists, thus, as Gordon said, "completely hemming him in." In April a detached force up the Blue Nile went over to the Mahdi, taking with them a small steamer, but this loss was of no great importance, as the men were of what Gordon called "the Arabi hen or hero type," and the steamer could not force its way past Khartoum and its powerful flotilla. In the four months from 16th March to 30th July Gordon stated that the total loss of the garrison was only thirty killed and fifty or sixty wounded, while half a million cartridges had been fired against the enemy. The conduct of both the people and garrison had been excellent, and this was the more creditable, because Gordon was obliged from the very beginning, owing to the capture of the bullion sent him at Berber, to make all payments in paper money bearing his signature and seal. During that period the total reinforcement to the garrison numbered seven men, including Gordon himself, while over 2600 persons had been sent out of it in safety as far as Berber.

The reader will be interested in the following extracts from a letter written by Colonel Duncan, R.A., M.P., showing the remarkable way in which General Gordon organised the despatch of these refugees from Khartoum. The letter is dated 29th November 1886, and addressed to Miss Gordon: —

"When your brother, on reaching Khartoum, found that he could commence sending refugees to Egypt, I was sent on the 3rd March 1884 to Assouan and Korosko to receive those whom he sent down. As an instance of your brother's thoughtfulness, I may mention that he requested that, if possible, some motherly European woman might also be sent, as many of the refugees whom he had to send had never been out of the Soudan before, and might feel strange on reaching Egypt. A German, Giegler Pasha, who had been in Khartoum with your brother before, and who had a German wife, was accordingly placed at my disposal, and I stationed them at Korosko, where almost all the refugees arrived. I may mention that I saw and spoke to every one of the refugees who came down, and to many of the women and children. Their references to your brother were invariably couched in language of affection and gratitude, and the adjective most frequently applied to him was 'just.' In sending away the people from Khartoum, he sent away the Governor and some of the other leading Egyptian officials first. I think he suspected they would intrigue; he always had more confidence in the people than in the ruling Turks or Egyptians. The oldest soldiers, the very infirm, the wounded (from Hicks's battles) were sent next, and a ghastly crew they were. But the precautions he took for their comfort were very complete, and although immediately before reaching me they had to cross a very bad part of the desert between Abou Hamed and Korosko, they reached me in wonderful spirits. It was touching to see the perfect confidence they had that the promises of Gordon Pasha would be fulfilled. After the fall of Khartoum, and your brother's death, a good many of the Egyptian officers who had been with your brother managed to escape, and to come down the river disguised in many cases as beggars. I had an opportunity of talking to most of them, and there was no collusion, for they arrived at different times and by different roads. I remember having a talk with one, and when we alluded to your brother's death he burst out crying like a child, and said that though he had lost his wives and children when Khartoum was taken, he felt it as nothing to the loss of 'that just man.'"

The letters written at the end of July at Khartoum reached Cairo at the end of September, and their substance was at once telegraphed to England. They showed that, while his success had made him think that after all there might be some satisfactory issue of the siege, he foresaw that the real ordeal was yet to come. "In four months (that is end of November) river begins to fall; before that time you must settle the Soudan question." So wrote the heroic defender of Khartoum in words that could not be misunderstood, and those words were in the hands of the British Ministers when half the period had expired. At the same time Mr Power wrote: "We can at best hold out but two months longer." Gordon at least never doubted what their effect would be, for after what seemed to him a reasonable time had elapsed to enable this message to reach its destination, he took the necessary steps to recover Berber, and to send his steamers half-way to meet and assist the advance of the reinforcement on which he thought from the beginning he might surely rely.

On 10th September all his plans were completed, and Colonel Stewart, accompanied by a strong force of Bashi-Bazouks and some black soldiers, with Mr Power and M. Herbin, the French consul, sailed northwards on five steamers. The first task of this expedition was if possible, to retake Berber, or, failing that, to escort the Abbas past the point of greatest danger; the second, to convey the most recent news about Khartoum affairs to Lower Egypt; and the third was to lend a helping hand to any force that might be coming up the Nile or across the desert from the Red Sea. Five days after its departure Gordon knew through a spy that Stewart's flotilla had passed Shendy in safety, and had captured a valuable Arab convoy. It was not till November that the truth was known how the ships bombarded Berber, and passed that place not only in safety, but after causing the rebels much loss and greater alarm, and then how Stewart and his European companions went on in the small steamer Abbas to bear the tale of the wonderful defence of Khartoum to the outer world – a defence which, wonderful as it was, really only reached the stage of the miraculous after they had gone and had no further part in it. So far as Gordon's military skill and prevision could arrange for their safety, he did so, and with success. When the warships had to return he gave them the best advice against treachery or ambuscade: – "Do not anchor near the bank, do not collect wood at isolated spots, trust nobody." What more could Gordon say? If they had paid strict heed to his advice, there would have been no catastrophe at Dar Djumna. These reflections invest with much force Gordon's own view of the matter: – "If Abbas was captured by treachery, then I am not to blame; neither am I to blame if she struck a rock, for she drew under two feet of water; if they were attacked and overpowered, then I am to blame." So perfect were his arrangements that only treachery, aided by Stewart's over-confidence, baffled them.

With regard to the wisdom of the course pursued in thus sending away all his European colleagues – the Austrian consul Hensall alone refusing to quit Gordon and his place of duty – opinions will differ to the end of time, but one is almost inclined to say that they could not have been of much service to Gordon once their uppermost thought became to quit Khartoum. The whole story is told very graphically in a passage of Gordon's own diary: —

"I determined to send the Abbas down with an Arab captain. Herbin asked to be allowed to go. I jumped at his offer. Then Stewart said he would go if I would exonerate him from deserting me. I said, 'You do not desert me. I cannot go; but if you go you do great service.' I then wrote him an official; he wanted me to write him an order. I said 'No; for, though I fear not responsibility, I will not put you in any danger in which I am not myself.' I wrote them a letter couched thus: – 'Abbas is going down; you say you are willing to go in her if I think you can do so in honour. You can go in honour, for you can do nothing here; and if you go you do me service in telegraphing my views.'"

There are two points in this matter to which I must draw marked attention. The suggestion for any European leaving Khartoum came from M. Herbin, and when Gordon willingly acquiesced, Colonel Stewart asked leave to do likewise. Mr Power, whose calculation was that provisions would be exhausted before the end of September, then followed suit, and not one of these three of the five Europeans in Khartoum seem to have thought for a moment what would be the position of Gordon left alone to cope with the danger from which they ran away. The suggestion as to their going came in every case from themselves. Gordon, in his thought for others, not merely threw no obstacle in their way, but as far as he could provided for their safety as if they were a parcel of women. But he declined all responsibility for their fate, as they went not by his order but of their own free-will. He gave them his ships, soldiers, and best counsel. They neglected the last, and were taken in in a manner that showed less than a child's suspicion, and were massacred at the very moment they felt sure of safety. It was a cruel fate, and a harsh Nemesis speedily befell them for doing perhaps the one unworthy thing of their lives – leaving their solitary companion to face the tenfold dangers by which he would be beset. But it cannot be allowed any longer that the onus of this matter should rest in any way on Gordon. They went because they wanted to go, and he, knowing well that men with such thoughts would be of no use to him ("you can do nothing here") let them go, and even encouraged them to do so. Under the circumstances he preferred to be alone. Colonel Donald Stewart was a personal friend of mine, and a man whose courage in the ordinary sense of the word could not be aspersed, but there cannot be two opinions that he above all the others should not have left his brother-in-arms alone in Khartoum.

After their departure Gordon had to superintend everything himself, and to resort to every means of husbanding the limited supply of provisions he had left. He had also to anticipate a more vigorous attack, for the Mahdi must quickly learn of the departure of the steamers, the bombardment of Berber, and the favourable chance thus provided for the capture of Khartoum. Nor was this the worst, for on the occurrence of the disaster the Mahdi was promptly informed of the loss of the Abbas and the murder of the Europeans, and it was he himself who sent in to Gordon the news of the catastrophe, with so complete a list of the papers on the Abbas as left no ground for hope or disbelief. Unfortunately, before this bad news reached Gordon, he had again, on 30th September, sent down to Shendy three steamers – the Talataween, the Mansourah, and Saphia, with troops on board, and the gallant Cassim-el-Mousse, there to await the arrival of the relieving force. He somewhat later reinforced this squadron with the Bordeen; and although one or two of these boats returned occasionally to Khartoum, the rest remained permanently at Shendy, and when the English troops reached the Nile opposite that place all five were waiting them. Without entering too closely into details, it is consequently correct to say that during the most critical part of the siege Gordon deprived himself of the co-operation of these vessels, each of which he valued at 2000 men, simply and solely because he believed that reinforcements were close at hand, and that some troops at the latest would arrive before the end of November 1884. As Gordon himself repeatedly said, it would have been far more just if the Government had told him in March, when he first demanded reinforcements as a right, that he must shift for himself. Then he would have kept these boats by him, and triumphantly fought his way in them to the Equator. But his trust in the Government, notwithstanding all his experience, led him to weaken his own position in the hope of facilitating their movements, and he found their aid a broken reed. In only one passage of his journal does Gordon give expression to this view, although it was always present to his mind: – "Truly the indecision of our Government has been, from a military point of view, a very great bore, for we never could act as if independent; there was always the chance of their taking action, which hampered us." But in the telegrams to Sir Evelyn Baring and Mr Egerton, which the Government never dared to publish, and which are still an official secret, he laid great stress on this point, and on Sir Evelyn Baring's message forbidding him to retire to the Equator, so that, if he sought safety in that direction, he would be indictable on a charge of desertion.

The various positions at Khartoum held by Gordon's force may be briefly described. First, the town itself, on the left bank of the Blue Nile, but stretching almost across to the right bank of the White Nile, protected on the land side by a wall, in front of which was the triple line of mines, and on the water side by the river and the steamers. On the right bank of the Blue Nile was the small North Fort. Between the two stretched the island of Tuti, and at each end of the wall, on the White Nile as well as the Blue, Gordon had stationed a santal or heavy-armed barge, carrying a gun. Unfortunately, a large part of the western end of the Khartoum wall had been washed away by an inundation of the Nile, but the mines supplied a substitute, and so long as Omdurman Fort was held this weakness in the defences of Khartoum did not greatly signify. That fort itself lay on the left bank of the White Nile. It was well built and fairly strong, but the position was faulty. It lay in a hollow, and the trench of the extensive camp formed for Hicks's force furnished the enemy with cover. It was also 1200 yards from the river bank, and when the enemy became more enterprising it was impossible to keep up communication with it. In Omdurman Fort was a specially selected garrison of 240 men, commanded by a gallant black officer, Ferratch or Faragalla Pasha, who had been raised from a subordinate capacity to the principal command under him by Gordon. Gordon's point of observation was the flat roof of the Palace, whence he could see everything with his telescope, and where he placed his best shots to bear on any point that might seem hard pressed. Still more useful was it for the purpose of detecting the remissness of his own troops and officers, and often his telescope showed him sentries asleep at their posts, and officers absent from the points they were supposed to guard.

From the end of March until the close of the siege scarcely a day passed without the exchange of artillery and rifle fire on one side or the other of the beleaguered town. On special occasions the Khedive's garrison would fire as many as forty or even fifty thousand rounds of Remington cartridges, and the Arab fire was sometimes heavier. This incessant fire, as the heroic defender wrote in his journal, murdered sleep, and at last he became so accustomed to it that he could tell by the sound where the firing was taking place. The most distant points of the defence, such as the santal on the White Nile and Fort Omdurman, were two miles from the Palace; and although telegraphic communication existed with them during the greater part of the siege, the oral evidence as to the point of attack was often found the most rapid means of obtaining information. This was still more advantageous after the 12th of November, for on that day communications were cut between Khartoum and Omdurman, and it was found impossible to restore them. The only communications possible after that date were by bugle and flag. At the time of this severance Gordon estimated that the garrison of Omdurman had enough water and biscuit for six weeks, and that there were 250,000 cartridges in the arsenal. Gordon did everything in his power to aid Ferratch in the defence, and his remaining steamer, the Ismailia, after the grounding of the Husseinyeh on the very day Omdurman was cut off, was engaged in almost daily encounters with the Mahdists for that purpose. Owing to Gordon's incessant efforts, and the gallantry of the garrison led by Ferratch, Omdurman held out more than two months. It was not until 15th January that Ferratch, with Gordon's leave, surrendered, and then when the Mahdists occupied the place, General Gordon had the satisfaction of shelling them out of it, and showing that it was untenable.

The severance of Omdurman from Khartoum was the prelude to fiercer fighting than had taken place at any time during the earlier stages of the siege, and although particulars are not obtainable for the last month of the period, there is no doubt that the struggle was incessant, and that the fighting was renewed from day to day. It was then that Gordon missed the ships lying idle at Shendy. If he had had them Omdurman would not have fallen, nor would it have been so easy for the Mahdi to transport the bulk of his force from the left to the right bank of the White Nile, as he did for the final assault on the fatal 26th January.

At the end of October the Mahdi, accompanied by a far more numerous force than Gordon thought he could raise, described by Slatin as countless, pitched his camp a few miles south of Omdurman. On 8th November his arrival was celebrated by a direct attack on the lines south of Khartoum. The rebels in their fear of the hidden mines, which was far greater than it need have been, as it was found they had been buried too deep, resorted to the artifice of driving forward cows, and by throwing rockets among them Gordon had the satisfaction of spreading confusion in their ranks, repulsing the attack, and capturing twenty of the animals. Four days later the rebels made the desperate attack on Omdurman, when, as stated, communications were cut, and the Husseinyeh ran aground. In attempting to carry her off and to check the further progress of the rebels the Ismailia was badly hit, and the incident was one of those only too frequent at all stages of the siege, when Gordon wrote: "Every time I hear the gun fire I have a twitch of the heart of gnawing anxiety for my penny steamers." At the very moment that these fights were in progress he wrote, 10th November: "To-day is the day I expected we should have had some one of the Expedition here;" and he also recorded that we "have enough biscuit for a month or so" – meaning at the outside six weeks. Throughout the whole of November rumours of a coming British Expedition were prevalent, but they were of the vaguest and most contradictory character. On 25th November Gordon learnt that it was still at Ambukol, 185 miles further away from Khartoum than he had expected, and his only comment under this acute disappointment was, "This is lively!"

Up to the arrival of the Mahdi daily desertions of his Arab and other soldiers to Gordon took place, and by these and levies among the townspeople all gaps in the garrison were more than filled up. Such was the confidence in Gordon that it more than neutralised all the intrigues of the Mahdi's agents in the besieged town, and scarcely a man during the first seven months of the siege deserted him; but after the arrival of the Mahdi there was a complete change in this respect. In the first place there were no more desertions to Gordon, and then men began to leave him, partly, no doubt, from fear of the Mahdi, or awakened fanaticism, but chiefly through the non-arrival of the British Expedition, which had been so much talked about, yet which never came. Still to all the enemy's invitations to surrender on the most honourable terms Gordon gave defiant answers. "I am here like iron, and I hope to see the newly-arrived English;" and when the situation had become little short of desperate, at the end of the year, he still, with bitter agony at his heart, proudly rejected all overtures, and sent the haughty message: "Can hold Khartoum for twelve years." Unfortunately the Mahdi knew better. He had read the truth in all the papers captured on Stewart's steamer, and he knew that Gordon's resources were nearly spent. Even some of the messages Gordon sent out by spies for Lord Wolseley's information fell into his hands, and on one of these Slatin says it was written: "Can hold Khartoum at the outside till the end of January." Although Gordon may be considered to have more than held his own against all the power of the Mahdi down to the capture of Omdurman Fort on 15th January, the Mahdi knew that his straits must be desperate, and that unless the expedition arrived he could not hold out much longer. The first advance of the English troops on 3rd January across the desert towards the Nile probably warned the enemy that now was the time to renew the attack with greater vigour, but it does not seem that there is any justification for the entirely hypothetical view that at any point the Mahdi could have seized the unhappy town. Omdurman Fort itself fell, not to the desperate onset of his Ghazis, but from the want of food and ammunition, and with Gordon's expressed permission to the commandant to surrender. Unfortunately the details of the most tragic part of the siege are missing, but Gordon himself well summed up what he had done up to the end of October when his position was secure, and aid, as he thought, was close at hand: —

"The news of Hicks's defeat was known in Cairo three weeks after the event occurred; since that date up to this (29th October 1884) nine people have come up as reinforcements – myself, Stewart, Herbin, Hussein, Tongi, Ruckdi, and three servants, and not one penny of money. Of those who came up two, Stewart and Herbin, have gone down, Hussein is dead; so six alone remain, while we must have sent down over 1500 and 700 soldiers, total 2200, including the two Pashas, Coetlogon, etc. The regulars, who were in arrears of pay for three months when I came, are now only owed half a month, while the Bashi-Bazouks are owed only a quarter month, and we have some £500 in the Treasury. It is quite a miracle. We have lost two battles, suffering severe losses in these actions of men and arms, and may have said to have scrambled through, for I cannot say we can lay claim to any great success during the whole time. I believe we have more ammunition (Remington) and more soldiers now than when I came up. We have £40,000 in Treasury in paper and £500. When I came up there was £5000 in Treasury. We have £15,000 out in the town in paper money."