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CHAPTER XII.
KHARTOUM

Before entering on the events of this crowning passage in the career of this hero, I think the reader might well consider on its threshold the exact nature of the adventure undertaken by Gordon as if it were a sort of everyday experience and duty. At the commencement of the year 1884 the military triumph of the Mahdi was as complete as it could be throughout the Soudan. Khartoum was still held by a force of between 4000 and 6000 men. Although not known, all the other garrisons in the Nile Valley, except Kassala and Sennaar, both near the Abyssinian frontier, had capitulated, and the force at Khartoum would certainly have offered no resistance if the Mahdi had advanced immediately after the defeat of Hicks. Even if he had reached Khartoum before the arrival of Gordon, it is scarcely doubtful that the place would have fallen without fighting. Colonel de Coetlogon was in command, but the troops had no faith in him, and he had no confidence in them. That officer, on 9th January, "telegraphed to the Khedive, strongly urging an immediate withdrawal from Khartoum. He said that one-third of the garrison are unreliable, and that even if it were twice as strong as it is, it would not hold Khartoum against the whole country." In several subsequent telegrams Colonel de Coetlogon importuned the Cairo authorities to send him authority to leave with the garrison, and on the very day that the Government finally decided to despatch Gordon he telegraphed that there was only just enough time left to escape to Berber. While the commandant held and expressed these views, it is not surprising that the garrison and inhabitants were disheartened and decidedly unfit to make any resolute opposition to a confident and daring foe. There is excellent independent testimony as to the state of public feeling in the town.

Mr Frank Power had been residing in Khartoum as correspondent of The Times from August 1883, and in December, after the Hicks catastrophe, he was appointed Acting British Consul. In a letter written on 12th January he said: "They have done nothing for us yet from Cairo. They are leaving it all to fate, and the rebels around us are growing stronger!" Such was the general situation at Khartoum when General Gordon was ordered, almost single-handed, to save it; and not merely to rescue its garrison, pronounced by its commander to be partly unreliable and wholly inadequate, but other garrisons scattered throughout the regions held by the Mahdi and his victorious legions. A courageous man could not have been charged with cowardice if he had shrunk back from such a forlorn hope, and declined to take on his shoulders the responsibility that properly devolved on the commander on the spot. A prudent man would at least have insisted that his instructions should be clear, and that the part his Government and country were to play was to be as strictly defined and as obligatory on them as his own. But while Gordon's courage was of such a quality that I believe no calculation of odds or difficulties ever entered into his view, his prudence never possessed the requisite amount of suspicion to make him provide against the contingencies of absolute betrayal by those who sent him, or of that change in party convenience and tactics which induced those who first thought his mission most advantageous as solving a difficulty, or at least putting off a trouble, to veer round to the conclusion that his remaining at Khartoum, his honourable but rigid resolve not to return without the people he went to save, was a distinct breach of contract, and a serious offence.

The state of feeling at Khartoum was one verging on panic. The richest townsmen had removed their property and families to Berber. Colonel de Coetlogon had the river boats with steam up ready to commence the evacuation, and while everyone thought that the place was doomed, the telegraph instrument was eagerly watched for the signal to begin the flight. The tension could not have lasted much longer – without the signal the flight would have begun – when on 24th January the brief message arrived: "General Gordon is coming to Khartoum." The effect of that message was electrical. The panic ceased, confidence was restored, the apathy of the Cairo authorities became a matter of no importance, for England had sent her greatest name as a pledge of her intended action, and the unreliable and insufficient garrison pulled itself together for one of the most honourable and brilliant defences in the annals of military sieges. Yet it was full time. Two months had been wasted, and, as Mr Power said, "the fellows in Lucknow did not look more anxiously for Colin Campbell than we are looking for Gordon." Gordon, ever mindful of the importance of time, and fully impressed with the sense of how much had been lost by delay, did not let the grass grow under his feet, and after his two days' delay at Cairo sent a message that he hoped to reach Khartoum in eighteen days. Mr Power's comment on that message is as follows: "Twenty-four days is the shortest time from Cairo to Khartoum on record; Gordon says he will be here in eighteen days; but he travels like a whirlwind." As a matter of fact, Gordon took twenty days' travelling, besides the two days he passed at Berber. He thus reached Khartoum on 18th February, and four days later Colonel de Coetlogon started for Cairo.

The entry of Gordon into Khartoum was marked by a scene of indescribable enthusiasm and public confidence. The whole population, men, women, and children, turned out to welcome him as a conqueror and a deliverer, although he really came in his own person merely to cope with a desperate situation. The women threw themselves on the ground and struggled to kiss his feet; in the confusion Gordon was several times pushed down; and this remarkable demonstration of popular confidence and affection was continued the whole way from the landing-place to the Hukumdaria or Palace. This greeting was the more remarkable because it was clear that Gordon had brought no troops – only one white officer – and it soon became known that he had brought no money. Even the Mahdi himself made his contribution to the general tribute, by sending General Gordon on his arrival a formal salaam or message of respect. Thus hailed on all hands as the one pre-eminently good man who had been associated with the Soudan, Gordon addressed himself to the hard task he had undertaken, which had been rendered almost hopeless of achievement by the lapse of time, past errors, and the blindness of those who should have supported him.

Difficult as it had been all along, it was rendered still more difficult by the decisive defeat of Baker Pasha and an Egyptian force of 4000 men at Tokar, near Souakim. This victory was won by Osman Digma, who had been sent by the Mahdi to rouse up the Eastern Soudan at the time of the threatened Hicks expedition. The result showed that the Mahdi had discovered a new lieutenant of great military capacity and energy, and that the Eastern Soudan was for the time as hopelessly lost to Egypt as Kordofan and Darfour.

The first task to which Gordon addressed himself was to place Khartoum and the detached work at Omdurman on the left bank of the White Nile in a proper state of defence, and he especially supervised the establishment of telegraphic communication between the Palace and the many outworks, so that at a moment's notice he might receive word of what was happening. His own favourite position became the flat roof of this building, whence with his glass he could see round for many miles. He also laid in considerable stores of provisions by means of his steamers, in which he placed the greatest faith. In all these matters he was ably and energetically assisted by Colonel Stewart; and beyond doubt the other Europeans took some slight share in the incessant work of putting Khartoum in a proper state of defence; but even with this relief, the strain, increased by constant alarms of the Mahdi's hostile approach, was intense, and Mr Power speaks of Gordon as nearly worn out with work before he had been there a month.

When Gordon went to the Soudan his principal object was to effect the evacuation of the country, and to establish there some administration which would be answerable for good order and good neighbourship. If the Mahdi had been a purely secular potentate, and not a fanatical religious propagandist, it would have been a natural and feasible arrangement to have come to terms with him as the conqueror of the country. But the basis of the Mahdi's power forbade his being on terms with anyone. If he had admitted the equal rights of Egypt and the Khedive at any point, there would have been an end to his heavenly mission, and the forces he had created out of the simple but deep-rooted religious feelings of the Mahommedan clans of the Soudan would soon have vanished. It is quite possible that General Gordon had in his first views on the Mahdist movement somewhat undervalued the forces created by that fanaticism, and that the hopes and opinions he first expressed were unduly optimistic. If so, it must be allowed that he lost not a moment in correcting them, and within a week of his arrival at Khartoum he officially telegraphed to Cairo, that "if Egypt is to be quiet the Mahdi must be smashed up."

When the British Government received that message, as they did in a few days, with, moreover, the expression of supporting views by Sir Evelyn Baring, they ought to have reconsidered the whole question of the Gordon mission, and to have defined their own policy. The representative they had sent on an exceptional errand to relieve and bring back a certain number of distressed troops, and to arrange if he could for the formation of a new government through the notabilities and ancient families, reports at an early stage of his mission that in his opinion there is no solution of the difficulty, save by resorting to offensive measures against the Mahdi as the disturber of the peace, not merely for that moment, but as long as he had to discharge the divine task implied by his title. As it was of course obvious that Gordon single-handed could not take the field, the conclusion necessarily followed that he would require troops, and the whole character of his task would thus have been changed. In face of that absolute volte-face, from a policy of evacuation and retreat to one of retention and advance, for that is what it signified, the Government would have been justified in recalling Gordon, but as they did not do so, they cannot plead ignorance of his changed opinion, or deny that, at the very moment he became acquainted with the real state of things at Khartoum, he hastened to convey to them his decided conviction that the only way out of the difficulty was to "smash up the Mahdi."

All his early messages show that there had been a change, or at least a marked modification, in his opinions. At Khartoum he saw more clearly than in Cairo or in London the extreme gravity of the situation, and the consequences to the tranquillity of Lower Egypt that would follow from the abandonment of Khartoum to the Mahdi. He therefore telegraphed on the day of his arrival these words: "To withdraw without being able to place a successor in my seat would be the signal for general anarchy throughout the country, which, though all Egyptian element were withdrawn, would be a misfortune, and inhuman." In the same message he repeated his demand for the services of Zebehr, through whom, as has been shown, he thought he might be able to cope with the Mahdi. Yet their very refusal to comply with that reiterated request should have made the authorities more willing and eager to meet the other applications and suggestion of a man who had thrust himself into a most perilous situation at their bidding, and for the sake of the reputation of his country. It must be recorded with feelings of shame that it had no such effect, and that apathy and indifference to the fate of its gallant agent were during the first few months the only characteristics of the Government policy.

At the same period all Gordon's telegrams and despatches showed that he wanted reinforcements to some small extent, and at least military demonstrations along his line of communication with Egypt to prove that he possessed the support of his Government, and that he had only to call upon it to send troops, and they were there to come. He, naturally enough, treated as ridiculous the suggestion that he had bound himself to do the whole work without any support; and fully convinced that he had only to summon troops for them to be sent him in the moderate strength he alone cared for, he issued a proclamation in Khartoum, stating that "British troops are now on their way, and in a few days will reach Khartoum." He therefore begged for the despatch of a small force to Wady Halfa, and he went on to declare that it would be "comparatively easy to destroy the Mahdi" if 200 British troops were sent to Wady Halfa, and if the Souakim-Berber route were opened up by Indian-Moslem troops. Failing the adoption of these measures, he asked leave to raise a sum, by appealing to philanthropists, sufficient to pay a small Turkish force and carry on a contest for supremacy with the Mahdi on his own behoof. All these suggestions were more or less supported by Sir Evelyn Baring, who at last suggested in an important despatch, dated 28th February, that the British Government should withdraw altogether from the matter, and "give full liberty of action to General Gordon and the Khedive's Government to do what seems best to them."

Well would it have been for Gordon and everyone whose reputation was concerned if this step had been taken, for the Egyptian Government, the Khedive, his ministers Nubar and Cherif, were opposed to all surrender, and desired to hold on to Khartoum and the Souakim-Berber route. But without the courage and resolution to discharge it, the Government saw the obligation that lay on them to provide for the security and good government of Egypt, and that if they shirked responsibility in the Soudan, the independence of Egypt might be accomplished by its own effort and success. They perceived the objections to giving Egypt a free hand, but they none the less abstained from taking the other course of definite and decisive action on their own initiative. As Gordon quickly saw and tersely expressed: "You will not let Egypt keep the Soudan, you will not take it yourself, and you will not permit any other country to occupy it."

As if to give emphasis to General Gordon's successive requests – Zebehr, 200 men to Wady Halfa, opening of route from Souakim to Berber, presence of English officers at Dongola, and of Indian cavalry at Berber – telegraphic communication with Khartoum was interrupted early in March, less than a fortnight after Gordon's arrival in the town. There was consequently no possible excuse for anyone ignoring the dangerous position in which General Gordon was placed. He had gone to face incalculable dangers, but now the success of Osman Digma and the rising of the riparian tribes threatened him with that complete isolation which no one had quite expected at so early a stage after his arrival. It ought, and one would have expected it, to have produced an instantaneous effect, to have braced the Government to the task of deciding what its policy should be when challenged by its own representative to declare it. Gordon himself soon realised his own position, for he wrote: "I shall be caught in Khartoum; and even if I was mean enough to escape I have not the power to do so." After a month's interruption he succeeded in getting the following message, dated 8th April, through, which is significant as showing that he had abandoned all hope of being supported by his own Government: —

"I have telegraphed to Sir Samuel Baker to make an appeal to British and American millionaires to give me £300,000 to engage 3000 Turkish troops from the Sultan and send them here. This would settle the Soudan and Mahdi for ever. For my part, I think you (Baring) will agree with me. I do not see the fun of being caught here to walk about the streets for years as a dervish with sandalled feet. Not that (D.V.) I will ever be taken alive. It would be the climax of meanness after I had borrowed money from the people here, had called on them to sell their grain at a low price, etc., to go and abandon them without using every effort to relieve them, whether those efforts are diplomatically correct or not; and I feel sure, whatever you may feel diplomatically, I have your support, and that of every man professing himself a gentleman, in private."

Eight days later he succeeded in getting another message through, to the following effect: —

"As far as I can understand, the situation is this. You state your intention of not sending any relief up here or to Berber, and you refuse me Zebehr. I consider myself free to act according to circumstances. I shall hold on here as long as I can, and if I can suppress the rebellion I shall do so. If I cannot, I shall retire to the Equator and leave you the indelible disgrace of abandoning the garrisons of Senaar, Kassala, Berber, and Dongola, with the certainty that you will eventually be forced to smash up the Mahdi under greater difficulties if you wish to maintain peace in, and, indeed, to retain Egypt."

Before a silence of five and a half months fell over Khartoum, Gordon had been able to make three things clear, and of these only one could be described as having a personal signification, and that was that the Government, by rejecting all his propositions, had practically abandoned him to his fate. The two others were that any settlement would be a work of time, and that no permanent tranquillity could be attained without overcoming the Mahdi.

Immediately on arriving at Khartoum he perceived that the evacuation of the Soudan, with safety to the garrison and officials, as well as the preservation of the honour of England and Egypt, would necessarily be a work of time, and only feasible if certain measures were taken in his support, which, considerable as they may have appeared at the moment, were small and costless in comparison with those that had subsequently to be sanctioned. Six weeks sufficed to show Gordon that he would get no material help from the Government, and he then began to look elsewhere for support, and to propound schemes for pacifying the Soudan and crushing the Mahdi in which England and the Government would have had no part. Hence his proposal to appeal to wealthy philanthropists to employ Turkish troops, and in the last resort to force his way to the Equator and the Congo. Even that avenue of safety was closed to him by the illusory prospect of rescue held out to him by the Government at the eleventh hour, when success was hardly attainable.

For the sake of clearness it will be well to give here a brief summary of the siege during the six months that followed the arrival of General Gordon and the departure of Colonel Stewart on 10th September. The full and detailed narrative is contained in Colonel Stewart's Journal, which was captured on board his steamer. This interesting diary was taken to the Mahdi at Omdurman, and is said to be carefully preserved in the Treasury. The statement rests on no very sure foundation, but if true the work may yet thrill the audience of the English-speaking world. But even without its aid the main facts of the siege of Khartoum, down at all events to the 14th December, when Gordon's own diary stops, are sufficiently well known for all the purposes of history.

At a very early stage of the siege General Gordon determined to try the metal of his troops, and the experiment succeeded to such a perfect extent that there was never any necessity to repeat it. On 16th March, when only irregular levies and detached bodies of tribesmen were in the vicinity of Khartoum, he sent out a force of nearly 1000 men, chiefly Bashi-Bazouks, but also some regulars, with a fieldpiece and supported by two steamers. The force started at eight in the morning, under the command of Colonel Stewart, and landed at Halfiyeh, some miles down the stream on the right bank of the Nile. Here the rebels had established a sort of fortified position, which it was desirable to destroy, if it could be done without too much loss. The troops were accordingly drawn up for the attack, and the gun and infantry fire commenced to cover the advance. At this moment about sixty rebel horsemen came out from behind the stockade and charged the Bashi-Bazouks, who fired one volley and fled. The horsemen then charged the infantry drawn up in square, which they broke, and the retreat to the river began at a run. Discouraging as this was for a force of all arms to retire before a few horsemen one-twentieth its number, the disaster was rendered worse and more disheartening by the conduct of the men, who absolutely refused to fight, marching along with shouldered arms without firing a shot, while the horsemen picked off all who straggled from the column. The gun, a considerable quantity of ammunition, and about sixty men represented the loss of Gordon's force; the rebels are not supposed to have lost a single man. "Nothing could be more dismal than seeing these horsemen, and some men even on camels, pursuing close to troops who with shouldered arms plodded their way back." Thus wrote Gordon of the men to whom he had to trust for a successful defence of Khartoum. His most recent experience confirmed his old opinion, that the Egyptian and Arab troops were useless even when fighting to save their own lives, and he could only rely on the very small body left of black Soudanese, who fought as gallantly for him as any troops could, and whose loyalty and devotion to him surpassed all praise. Treachery, it was assumed, had something to do with the easy overthrow of this force, and two Pashas were shot for misconduct on return to Khartoum.

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.