In order to understand aright the
events that suddenly intervened and prevented General
Gordon from fulfilling his engagement to the King of
the Belgians, it will be necessary to go back to the
year 1882, and briefly survey what occurred after
that time. It will be remembered that Gordon
left the Soudan at the end of 1879, when the young
Khedive Tewfik was reigning in place of his father
Ismail, who had been compelled to resign. Tewfik
unfortunately was not fit to rule, and Egypt above
all things wanted a man who was not a mere puppet.
His father, with all his faults, had great force of
character, and made himself respected in the kingdom.
The son was as weak as the father was strong, with
the result that his rule soon became nominal.
When weak men get into such positions, there is great
temptation for stronger ones to rise up and seize
the reins of government. It is unnecessary to
sketch the history of Arabi Pasha, or to recount in
detail the circumstances that brought him to the front.
Enough for our purpose to mention that his name, little
known before, was suddenly associated with a great
military revolt, and that the powers of Europe took
alarm lest the Suez Canal should be blocked.
But for that Canal, events in Egypt might have taken
a very different turn, and that country might now
have had, what it sorely needs, a strong man at the
head of affairs. England, having far more ships
passing through the Canal than all the rest of the
world together, intervened. Our fleet attacked
Alexandria, and our troops under Lord Wolseley broke
up the Egyptian army at Tel-el-Kebir. From that
time we have virtually been the rulers of the ancient
kingdom of Egypt, the Khedive being little more than
a puppet in our hands. He has all the social
position and dignity of a Khedive, without the trouble
or responsibility of having to govern.
Unfortunately, soon after General
Gordon relinquished the Governor-Generalship of the
Soudan, the Khedive, in spite of Gordon’s protest,
appointed to the post about as bad a man as he could
possibly have selected. This was no other than
Raouf Pasha, whom Gordon had twice turned out of different
appointments for playing the tyrant. No sooner
was he appointed than there was a revival of all the
horrors of cruel government, which Gordon had done
so much to abolish. The following are his own
words in explanation of the origin of the rebellion:
“The movement is not religious,
but an outbreak of despair. Three times over
I warned the late Khedive that it would be impossible
to govern the Soudan on the old system, after
my appointment to the Governor-Generalship.
During the three years that I wielded full powers
in the Soudan, I taught the natives that they had a
right to exist. I waged war against the Turks
and Circassians, who had harried the population.
I had taught them something of the meaning of
liberty and justice, and accustomed them to a higher
ideal of government than that with which they
had previously been acquainted. As soon as
I had gone, the Turks and Circassians returned
in full force; the old Bashi-Bazouk system was re-established;
my old employes were persecuted; and a population
which had begun to appreciate something like decent
government was flung back to suffer the vast excesses
of Turkish rule. The inevitable result followed;
and thus it may be said that the egg of the present
rebellion was laid in the three years during which
I was allowed to govern the Soudan on other than
Turkish principles.”
There was a belief among the Mohammedans
that the year 1882 would be an eventful one for them.
It closed the twelfth century of Mohammedanism, and
the popular expectation was that a Mahdi, or another
prophet, would arise to reform Islam, and to abolish
the tyranny of the rich and powerful. Predictions
of this kind frequently bring about their own accomplishment.
Before the time stated, a man named Mohammed Achmet
had arisen, declaring that he was the long-looked-for
Mahdi, and crowds were flocking to his standard.
With a powerful governor, such as Gordon, the movement
would have been quickly stamped out; indeed, so few
abuses existed under his rule, that there was then
no demand for such a reformer. But with Raouf
Pasha the case was reversed; not only were there many
abuses to be reformed, but there was a corresponding
want of ability to subdue such a movement. The
Mahdi’s forces grew apace, for there existed
plenty of material in the way of recruits. Passing
over smaller engagements in which the Egyptian troops
met the forces of the Mahdi, we come to one crowning
disaster on the 5th November 1883, when an Egyptian
army, numbering something like 12,000 men, under the
command of Colonel Hicks, a retired Indian officer,
was massacred on the road between Khartoum and El
Obeid. No blame can be attached to the commander
on this occasion. Mr. Frank Power, the Times
correspondent at Khartoum, writes of him as follows:
“I pity Hicks; he is an able, good, and energetic
man, but he has to do with wretched Egyptians, who
take a pleasure in being incompetent, thwarting one,
delaying and lying.” The unfortunate men
who composed his army had been dragged from their
homes in chains, and many of them had never learnt
to fire a shot, or to ride a horse. Mr. Power
predicted, before the army left Khartoum, that fifty
good men would rout the whole lot. The Mahdi
not only had upwards of 69,000 men on his side, but
a large proportion of them were fine plucky fellows,
worthy of a better foe.
Mr. Power says: “The last
that was seen of poor old Hicks was his taking his
revolver in one hand, and his sword in the other; calling
on his soldiers to fix bayonets, and his staff to
follow him, he spurred at the head of his troops into
the dense mass of naked Arabs, and perished with all
his men.” They had fought for three days
and nights without a drop of water, the whole day
under a scorching sun on a sandy plain. Gordon
writing to a friend says: “What a defeat
Hicks’s was! It is terrible to think of
over 12,000 men killed; the Arabs just prodded them
to death, where they lay dying of thirst, four days
without water! It is appalling. What a hecatomb
to death!”
That victory changed everything.
Nothing succeeds like success; the Mahdi became the
hero of the hour in the Soudan, and his forces, it
was supposed, at one time numbered something like
300,000 men. Here then were all the elements
ready for a new Mohammedan crusade, and considering
how much trouble the first Mohammedan crusade had given
in Europe, it was not to be wondered at that there
was fear and trembling in Egypt, the first country
on the line of march of this huge fanatical army,
flushed with victory, believing their leader to be
none other than the long-expected reformer of Islam
and conqueror of the world. A hurriedly-scraped-together
force, consisting mainly of gendarmerie, was at once
dispatched under Baker Pasha, via Suakim, to
relieve Khartoum, and attack the Mahdi. This
force was so completely smashed up by Osman Digna
within a few miles of Suakim that it had little effect
upon the campaign, except to show that Egyptian troops
were absolutely unfit to meet the forces of the Mahdi.
If the tide of conquest was to be rolled back it must
be done by British troops. But England might
well ask what claim was there resting on her that she
should give valuable lives to be sacrificed, to say
nothing of incurring the cost of a fresh campaign,
simply because the corrupt Egyptian Government was
too weak to rule its own territory?
When once it became clear that Egyptian
troops could not hold the Soudan, our Government rightly
decided that the province must be given up. Unfortunately,
there were scattered about in different parts of that
immense territory various Egyptian officials and bodies
of troops. It was calculated that including the
women and children their number must have been about
30,000. We had practically broken up the Egyptian
army, and virtually become the rulers of the country,
so we as a nation had a certain amount of responsibility
in the matter. The problem was how to withdraw
that enormous number of human beings from the Soudan
into Egypt. What appeared to be needed far more
than troops was a man with a head on his shoulders,
acquainted with the country, familiar with the people
and their habits of thought, and possessing force of
character to stand against the turbulent elements that
had to be dealt with. No sooner were the difficulties
of the position recognised in England than an outcry
arose that Gordon ought to be sent to undertake the
herculean task. Mr. Gladstone, in the House of
Commons, has given credit to Sir Charles Wilson as
the first to suggest sending Gordon, as the only man
competent to deal with all the difficulties of the
situation. Both Mr. Gladstone and Sir Charles
Dilke asserted in public that the English Cabinet
advised the Egyptian Government that Gordon was the
best man to send, but that the Khedive’s ministers
did not approve of this step. Sir Henry Gordon,
in his biography states that Sir Evelyn Baring, our
representative in Egypt, does not even seem to have
consulted the Egyptian Government, but of his own accord
declined to accept Gordon. It is quite clear
that Sir Evelyn Baring and General Gordon were not
the best of friends, for Gordon later on complains:
“I hear very little from Cairo. Baring
only telegraphs officially.” It does not,
however, much matter now who is to blame for the want
of wisdom in not recognising in time that Gordon was
the man for the occasion. That blunder, whosever
fault it was, not only lost the Soudan to Egypt, but
caused the death of many of our brave soldiers, to
say nothing of Gordon himself. The Egyptian Government
blundered on a little longer, till it was too late,
and then the request that Gordon might be sent was
telegraphed home.
Nubar Pasha, who was the first to
invite Gordon to Egypt many years before, was now
the first to see that he ought to be sent for.
This astute minister had only just come into office,
and within eight days he got Sir Evelyn Baring to
telegraph to England for Gordon. There can be
little question now that the fatal delay of a single
month sealed the fate of the Soudan. Hicks Pasha’s
force was annihilated in November 1883, but it was
not till January 11, 1884, that General Gordon received
a telegram from his old friend and comrade, Lord Wolseley,
urging him to come to town at once for consultation,
and though he did not lose a single day he did not
reach Cairo till January 24th. By that time he
ought to have been at Khartoum.
Before proceeding further, it may
be well to say that so little was General Gordon known
at this time by his countrymen, that a country gentleman,
who was a magistrate and a deputy-lieutenant in Pembrokeshire,
a county in which Gordon had formerly been stationed,
remarked, on seeing the fact mentioned in the paper
that “Chinese Gordon” was going out.
“I see the Government have just sent a Chinaman
to the Soudan. What can they mean by sending a
native of that country to such a place?” This
story, which is mentioned by Sir William Butler, is
quite characteristic of the ignorance that prevailed
about the Khartoum hero, previous to his being selected
as the one man who could save Egypt from its troubles,
and our Government from an awkward position.
In a letter to his brother, dated
17th January, Gordon says, “I saw King Leopold
to-day; he is furious.” It must have been
a great trial to that kind-hearted monarch to have
all his philanthropic plans thus upset, and he made
Gordon promise that he would, if spared, go to the
Congo when the Soudan was settled. So hard up
for money was Gordon at this time that he had to borrow
from the king enough to pay for his journey to London.
Fortunately it occurred to Lord Wolseley to ask Gordon,
a few hours before he was to start by the evening mail,
if he had sufficient money. Gordon had none,
and as the banks had closed his lordship had some
amusing adventures going about to raise L200, which
he did by borrowing small sums. As far as Gordon
was concerned, his lordship might have saved himself
the trouble, as L100 of the amount was generously
bestowed by him on Mahomet, his old blind secretary
at Cairo.
The Pall Mall Gazette, which
was the first journal to advocate sending Gordon to
the Soudan, and which first published his views on
that country, was represented at Charing Cross when
the gallant General was starting, and described the
scene as a very unusual and interesting one.
Lord Wolseley carried the General’s portmanteau;
Lord Granville, the Foreign Secretary, took his ticket;
and the Duke of Cambridge held open the door.
Considering how little Gordon cared about grandees,
it is amusing to note that he was waited on in a way
that many tuft-hunters would envy.
Writing before he had actually started,
he said: “I am averse to the loss of a
single life, and will endeavour to prevent any happening
if I go. I have a Bank, and on that I
can draw; He is richer than the Khedive, and knows
more of the country than any one; I will trust Him
to help me out of money or any other difficulties.”
Again he writes, when at sea, 21st January: “If
people ask after me, tell them they can greatly help
me with their prayers, not for my earthly success,
but that my mission may be for God’s glory,
the welfare of the poor and wretched, and, for me,
what He wills, above all for a humble heart.”
And to his friend Prebendary Barnes, he says:
“You and I are equally exposed to the attacks
of the enemy me not a bit more than you
are.”
On January 24th he reached Cairo,
where a good deal of excitement prevailed. Gordon
apparently took it all very calmly. He had to
remain a couple of days, and during that time had
a stormy interview with Zebehr, who accused him of
the murder of his son. Gordon’s reply was
practically that had full justice been done, Zebehr
too would have paid the death penalty. Though
he had such a short time at Cairo, he found opportunity
to interest himself in the affairs of a poor lad, the
son of a native pastor of the Church Missionary Society
at Jaffa. The boy had been in a telegraph office
at Jaffa, but had been unjustly dismissed. He
went to Cairo for employment, and got into the telegraph
office. General Gordon had not forgotten him,
and went to call on the young fellow, who was of course
in quite a subordinate position, and must have been
not a little astonished at the visit of a man upon
whom, at that time, the eyes of the whole civilised
world were turned. “How is your mother?”
was the first question Gordon put, the woman having
been unwell when he was in Palestine. He then
spoke to the head of the department, with the result
that the boy’s position was improved considerably.
Writing from Khartoum, Gordon said: “I saw
two pleasant things at Cairo Baring’s and Woods chicks; and I heard one pleasant
thing Mrs. Amos wanted me to see her lambs.”
General Gordon had brought with him
from England a very able staff officer, Colonel Stewart,
of the 11th Hussars, who knew Egypt well. Having
done all that was necessary in the way of interviewing
officials at Cairo, the two proceeded together on
January 26th, reaching Korosko on February 1st, at
which point they took to their camels, and dashed
into the Nubian Desert. All sorts of alarming
rumours reached England as to Gordon’s fate
during this hazardous ride, but on February 13th he
reached Berber in safety, and we heard that he had
reached Khartoum on the 18th. Mr. Power, the
Times correspondent, writing from Khartoum
on January 24th, said: “I hear that Chinese
Gordon is coming up. They could not have a better
man. He, though severe, was greatly loved during
the five years he spent up here.” Again
Mr. Power writes: “Just got a telegram
from Mr. Bell, the Times agent for Egypt, to
say, ’Gordon leaves Cairo to-night, and will
be in Khartoum in eighteen days.’ The shortest
time on record is twenty-four days; but Gordon (sword
and Bible) travels like a whirlwind. No Arab of
the desert could, when he was up here, vie with him
in endurance on camel back;” and yet again,
on February 9th, “I don’t believe the fellows
in Lucknow looked more anxiously for Colin Campbell
than we look for Gordon.” The same pen
described the scene he created on arrival, and the
speech he made. Thousands of the people crowded
to kiss his hands and feet, calling him the “Sultan
of the Soudan.”
“His speech to the people was
received with enthusiasm. He said, ’I come
without soldiers, but with God on my side, to redress
the evils of the Soudan. I will not fight
with any weapons but justice. There shall
be no more Bashi-Bazouks.’ It is now believed
that he will relieve the Bahr-Gazelle garrisons
without firing a shot. Since they heard that
he was coming the aspect of the people has so changed
that there are no longer any fears of disturbance in
the town. They say that he is giving them
more than even the Mahdi could give. He is
sending out proclamations in all directions. Such
is the influence of one man, that there are no
longer any fears for the garrison or people of
Khartoum.”
General Gordon immediately reduced
the taxation of the people by one half, and directed
Colonel Stewart to examine into the case of each person
in prison. It was found that some prisoners had
been awaiting trial for months and some even for years,
one poor woman having been detained for fifteen years
for a paltry offence committed when a child.
As many as possible were released, only the worst cases
being detained. One poor old Sheikh had to be
carried into Gordon’s presence, the ex-governor
of Khartoum having bastinadoed him so severely on the
feet that the flesh had all gone, and only the sinews
and bones were showing. Gordon was so indignant
at this that he telegraphed to Cairo to have L50 stopped
out of the pay of Hussein Pasha Cheri, and handed
to his victim by way of compensation for such brutal
treatment. He had a collection made of kourbashes
and other instruments of torture, and had them all
destroyed in a bonfire.
Writing on February 22nd, Gordon says:
“I have all my old servants back,
and it is like old times again. I have not
minced matters with the Pashas; it was useless to do
so. We have thousands of petitions daily.
I have ordered an Arabic text, ‘God rules
the hearts of all men,’ to be put up over my
throne, to which I can refer when people come to
me in fear.... There is, of course, a very
mixed sort of feeling here about the evacuation
of the Soudan; the civil employes do not desire it,
for the half taxes will cause their pay to be
diminished by half, and the personnel reduced.”
From Mr. Power’s interesting
correspondence we get pleasant little peeps at the
private life of the great hero:
“Gordon is a most lovable character quiet,
mild, gentle and strong; he is so humble too.
The way he pats you on the shoulder when he says,
‘Look here, dear fellow, now what would you advise?’
would make you love him. When he goes out
of doors there are always crowds of Arab men and
women at the gate to kiss his feet, and twice
to-day the furious women, wishing to lift his feet
to kiss them, threw him over. He likes my
going so much amongst the natives, for not to
do so is a mortal sin in his eyes.... It is wonderful
that one man could have such an influence on 200,000
people. Numbers of women flock here every
day to ask him to touch their children to cure
them; they call him the ’Father and the Saviour
of the Soudan.’ He has found me badly up
in Thomas a Kempis, which he reads every day,
and has given me an ’Imitation of Christ.’
He is indeed, I believe, the greatest and best man
of this century....
“I like Gordon more and more every
day; he has a most lovable manner and disposition,
and is so kind to me. He is glad if you show
the smallest desire to help him in his great trouble.
How one man could have dared to attempt his task,
I wonder. One day of his work and bother
would kill another man, yet he is so cheerful at breakfast,
lunch, and dinner; but I know he suffers fearfully
from low spirits. I hear him walking up and
down his room all night (it is next to mine).
It is only his great piety carries him through.
He and I agree in a great many religious views.”
Mr. Power being an Irishman and a
Roman Catholic, while General Gordon was a Scotchman
and a member of the Church of England, such testimony
speaks volumes for the General as well as for the writer.
There can be little doubt that General Gordon had
not known the brave young Irishman long, before he
had cast over him that fascinating spell which invariably
attracted and charmed young men. Cowper tells
us that
“Truth embodied in a
tale,
Shall entrance find at lowliest
doors.”
Might not the poet have added that
truth embodied in a life shall be even more efficacious
in obtaining an entrance? Power’s life was
cut short before he had an opportunity of doing much
in the world, but the little that he was permitted
to do shows us that he too was made of that stuff
which produces heroes; and as long as our country has
such men in reserve to fall back upon in times of
emergency, there need be no fear of her not being
able to maintain her supremacy among nations.
How unwavering was Gordon’s
faith in the providence of God, even in the midst
of difficulties that would have appalled most men,
is shown by the following letter:
“February 27, 1884. I
have sent Stewart off to scour the river White
Nile, and another expedition to push back the rebels
on the Blue Nile. With Stewart has also gone
Power, the British Consul and Times correspondent,
so I am left alone in the vast palace of which
you have a photograph, but not alone, for I feel great
confidence in my Saviour’s presence.
“The peculiar pain, which comes
from the excessive anxiety one cannot help being
in for these people, comes back to me at times.
I think that our Lord, sitting over Jerusalem,
is ruling all things to the glory of His kingdom,
and cannot wish things were different than they
are, for, if I did so, then I wish my will not
His to be done. The Soudan is a ruin,
and, humanly speaking, there is no hope.
Either I must believe He does all things in mercy and
love, or else I disbelieve His existence; there
is no half-way in the matter. What holes
do I not put myself into! And for what? So
mixed are my ideas. I believe ambition put
me here in this ruin; however, I trust and stay
myself on the fact that not one sparrow falls to the
ground without our Lord’s permission; also that
enough for the day is the evil. ’God
provideth by the way, strength sufficient for the
day.’
“March 1, 1884. We
are all right at present, and I have hope, but
certainly things are not in a good way; humanly speaking,
Baker’s defeat at Suakim has been a great disaster, and now it has its
effects up here. It is nothing to our God to help with many or with few,
and I now take my worries more quietly than before, for all things are ruled
by Him for His glory, and it is rebellion to murmur against His will. Excuse
a long letter."
It may be well at this point to consider
the position of General Gordon in his official relationship
to the Egyptian and English Governments, for it is
impossible to understand subsequent events accurately,
without a proper apprehension of the exact state of
affairs. When Gordon was first sent out, his
instructions were merely “to report to Her Majesty’s
Government on the military situation in the Soudan,
and on the measures which it might be deemed advisable
to take for the security of the Egyptian garrisons
still holding positions in that country, and for the
safety of the European population in Khartoum, &c.,
&c.” Added, however, to these instructions
was an insignificant clause to which no one at the
time attached much importance, and which ran as follows,
“You will consider yourself authorised and instructed
to perform such other duties as the Egyptian Government
may desire to intrust to you, and as may be communicated
to you by Sir E. Baring.” The Egyptian
Government decided to make Gordon Governor-General
of the Soudan, and the Khedive gave into his hands
all the absolute power that he himself possessed;
this appointment was sanctioned by the British Government,
and officially communicated to Gordon by Sir E. Baring.
In view of this appointment, most readers will concur
in the opinion of Mr. Egmont Hake, the editor of Gordon’s
Journals, that “it is as unfair as it is illogical
to talk about General Gordon having exceeded the instructions
conveyed to him by Her Majesty’s Government.”
The real truth is that it was impossible for Gordon
to exceed his instructions. He himself again
and again contended that while it was open to the
Khedive to cancel the appointment, until that was done
he was absolutely master of the situation, to do as
he thought best for the good of the country.
It must not, however, be supposed
that General Gordon availed himself of a flaw in his
instructions to carry out a policy of his own.
On the contrary, he clearly understood from the British
Government that evacuation was what was required,
and that all the Egyptian employes must be given a
chance of leaving the Soudan if possible. From
beginning to end this was the one thing he held out
as the object at which he aimed. All the suggestions
he put forward were made with this end in view, and
he never swerved from it. He was in reality more
true to the instructions he received than were those
who issued them. No sooner had he got into the
country, and grasped the actual state of affairs,
than he saw that things were looking very serious.
The interval between Hicks’s defeat and his
own arrival had been too prolonged. People who
might have been loyal had lost heart and gone over
to the Mahdi. Added to this, Gordon had himself
made public the fact that the country was to be evacuated,
so all who intended to remain behind saw that their
best policy was to throw in their lot with the Mahdi.
Gordon blamed himself sometimes for having made known
the intentions of the Government, but it is questionable
if such an important fact could have been long kept
secret. At all events, when he openly promulgated
it as Governor-General, he thought, and many thought
with him, that he was taking the line most likely to
lead to a peaceful solution.
General Gordon did not take long to
make up his mind, and soon after his arrival in Khartoum
he astonished the English people by two steps he took.
The first was the issue of a proclamation announcing
that the institution of slavery was not to be interfered
with in any way; the second was an application that
his old enemy, Zebehr Rahama, the great slave-dealer,
should be sent up to govern the Soudan. At first
sight Gordon’s action was amazing; but when
it is more carefully examined in the light of facts,
it cannot be blamed. To take the proclamation
first, it must be apparent to any one that when it
was decided that the Soudan was to be given up, and
that thenceforth neither Egypt nor England should
interfere in its internal affairs, it would have been
ridiculous to go on talking about the abolition of
slavery. Gordon had to face a fanatical body
of Mohammedans who, rightly or wrongly, looked upon
slavery as a religious institution. The feeling
of the country was strongly in favour of slavery,
and if the country was to be left to itself slavery
would continue to exist. Gordon did but make a
virtue of a necessity, and announce that henceforth
outsiders would not interfere in the matter.
Thus he took the wind out of the sails of the Mahdi
and his party, who could not say that they were fighting
on behalf of one of their religious institutions.
The proposal to the English Government
that Zebehr should be made ruler of the Soudan, was,
as Mr. Hake truly says, “one of those daring
strokes of policy which made his tactics unlike those
of other men.” The telegram reached England
on February 18, and must at first have caused some
of the Cabinet Ministers to think that Gordon had lost
his head. The last that they had heard on the
subject of Gordon’s relationship with Zebehr,
was the suggestion of the former that the latter should
be sent as a prisoner to Cyprus, to get him out of
Egypt, where he thought he might give trouble.
No wonder, then, if the ministers were astonished
to hear that their representative had changed his
mind so completely as to propose that instead of being
imprisoned in Cyprus, his enemy should be sent to
govern the Soudan!
Those who have followed Gordon’s
tactics closely will not wonder so much at the proposal.
Indeed it seems to have been a part of his creed to
utilise his enemies, and thus if possible to turn them
into friends. In China he frequently enlisted
hundreds of prisoners of war, converted them into
staunchest allies, and led them to victory against
their old comrades. He now wanted to apply in
the case of Zebehr the principles he had found so
effective elsewhere. So long as he did not see
his way to utilising this king of slave-hunters, he
desired to have him kept out of the way, but when
his brilliant genius saw a way of turning his old
foe into a friend, he asked for his services.
Unfortunately, Gordon was not in the position of a
Napoleon: he was hampered in the carrying out
of his brilliant designs by those at home, who had
neither his knowledge nor his capacity.
With regard to the proposed appointment
of the great slave-hunter to be King of the Soudan,
opinions even now differ greatly. Lord Wolseley,
Sir Evelyn Baring, and most well-informed people are
agreed that the recommendation ought to have been
acted upon, and that its adoption would have been
the means of saving many valuable lives, including
Gordon’s, and of placing the Soudan under an
authoritative government, which it has not yet obtained.
But the English Cabinet felt that public opinion would
be strongly opposed to such a step, and therefore they
would not sanction it.
When Gordon left Cairo for Khartoum
he thought that the best plan for the Soudan, when
the Egyptian Government withdrew, would be to replace
it by the heirs of the petty Sultans, who had been
deprived of their power when the Soudan was annexed
by Mehemet Ali. But when he saw the real state
of affairs, he felt that these disunited kinglets would
not be strong enough to resist the power of the Mahdi.
As for the Mahdi, he was too much of a religious fanatic
to have the government of the Soudan put into his
hands. He was ambitious as well as fanatical;
his object was to overrun the whole world. Directly
he ceased to be a conqueror, his people would cease
to believe in his Divine mission, and he would lose
his power. At that time he possessed great power,
and Gordon felt that there must be a still more powerful
man set up. There was only one such man alive,
and he was a prisoner at Cairo. The argument
against Zebehr was that he had been an inveterate slave-hunter,
and that to put him into supreme power would be to
give him unlimited means of gratifying his vices.
Against this it must be urged that under the Mahdi’s
rule the kidnapping of slaves would be just as cruelly
carried on as under that of Zebehr. Also that
with Zebehr, being a prisoner, it would be possible
to make certain stipulations on the subject of slave-hunting.
Moreover, it was Gordon’s intention eventually
to annex, for the Congo State, the great slave-hunting
district, and to rule that himself, so that Zebehr
could not interfere. Apart from these arguments,
Gordon did not believe that Zebehr loved slave-hunting
for its own sake, but rather for the wealth and position
it gave him. He believed that if Zebehr were made
Sultan of the Soudan, his ambitious nature would be
satisfied, and he would cease to hunt slaves, the
raison d’etre for such an occupation being
gone.
There can be no question that Zebehr
was a most able man, a born ruler and leader of men.
He was an inveterate enemy of Gordon’s, and at
the meeting which took place between Gordon and Zebehr
at Cairo, when the former was en route to Khartoum,
lookers-on considered that on no account ought these
two men ever to be in the Soudan together.
It was, however, one of Gordon’s
characteristics, and a great charm in his nature,
that he was not only forgiving, but that he never allowed
personal feeling to affect his judgment. He thought
only of what was good for the Soudan, and he was convinced
that the only way to restore law and order there was
to place Zebehr in power. One of the faults of
our system of party government is that the Cabinet
does not consider so much what is right in the abstract,
as what will most affect the public mind. The
national hatred of slavery is, in England, rightly
very strong; but circumstances alter cases. The
Cabinet could not face public opinion, although the
public were at that time ill-informed, and ignorant
of many important elements in the case, and they consequently
refused to let Zebehr go.
Public opinion in England is generally
in the right when the public have been properly informed,
and have had time to form an opinion. But it
is not to be expected that the first impressions, formed
by a large mass of people who have not been supplied
with full information, are very reliable. We
ought therefore always to have a government in office
strong enough to resist, if need be, the first impression
of public opinion, but willing to yield when the public
have thoroughly made up their minds. The government
in office at that time were not united among themselves,
and consequently were weak, and afraid to face the
public. As a result, Gordon’s policy was
not carried out, and he fell a victim. The Soudan
is still without a settled government, and the problem
how it should be governed is as far as ever from being
solved. As for slavery, that institution alone
has gained by the weak policy of those who were afraid
to send up the old slave-hunter to govern the unfortunate
Soudan.