Gordon of Khartoum
by From Epics of History: More Prisoners of Eternity.
He was a religious fanatic, arrogant, stubborn, and always convinced of the righteousness of his cause. He was also a hero of Victorian Britain and of the British Empire. Indeed, no one encapsulated the ethos of the Victorians more than Charles George Gordon, and his death was to cause a public outcry.
Prime Minister Gladstone refused to be bullied by Gordon. The British press were demanding that a relief column be sent to Khartoum, the Conservative opposition passed a motion of censure that Gladstone only narrowly won. But still Gladstone refused, he wanted to know why Gordon wasn’t evacuating the Sudan as instructed.
But Gordon was determined not to budge. He would either defeat the Mahdi or die a Christian martyr, and he set about fortifying Khartoum. He was fortunate in that the north and west sides of the city were protected by the River Nile, the rest, however, was open to the desert, here he dug trenches and planted mines. In the meantime, he continued to pressurise the British Government. On 8 April, he wrote, ” I leave you with the indelible disgrace of abandoning the garrisons.” Later that month the northern tribes of the Sudan rose in support of the Mahdi cutting off all direct communication with Cairo. Gordon was now totally isolated in Khartoum and could not be re-supplied. He had more than 34,000 civilian mouths to feed and food stocks for only 5 months. A series of abortive sorties to replenish his stocks were to cost him more than a 1,000 troops.
The Mahdi’s army surrounding Khartoum stood at 30,000 and was continuing to grow but he resolved not to attack the city as long as the waters of the Nile remained high. Instead he contented himself with shelling the city to set it afire and terrify the civilian population.
In Britain the cries of “Save Gordon” were becoming deafening. The Government ordered Gordon to leave Khartoum regardless of any evacuation. He refused, saying his honour would not permit it. It was only after an intervention by Queen Victoria that Gladstone yielded and agreed to send a Relief Column to the Sudan under the command of Sir Garnet Wolsey. This was in July, 1884, but because of delays it did not actually arrive in the Sudan until January of the following year.
On 17 January, the Relief Column was ambushed by the Mahdi’s forces at Abu Klea. It was a fierce and brutal fight and at one point the British square was actually broken. The battle delayed the British advance for a vital few more days. Aware of the danger of delay, Wolsey arranged for a Flying Column to set off post-haste for Khartoum with the rest of the army to follow. It was too late.
Aware that the Relief Column was closing and that the Nile could now be crossed on foot in the early hours of 26 January, the Mahdi ordered his army, now 50,000 strong, to take the city. Resistance was not particularly fierce as Gordon’s troops half-starved and exhausted crumbled before the Sudanese warriors buoyed-up with religious fervour and certain of victory. Within a few hours it was all over.
As the battle neared its tragic conclusion, Gordon appeared on the steps of the Governors Palace dressed in full regalia. Some say he disdained to fight before being speared. His Sudanese bodyguard, however, who witnessed the scene and survived the battle, reported that he first discharged his pistol before being cut down. The Mahdi had ordered that Gordon was to be spared and taken alive, even so Gordon’s head was cut off and taken back to the Mahdi on a pike, where the Mahdi ordered that it be “transfixed between the branches of a tree, where all who passed it could look in disdain, children could throw stones at it, and the hawks of the desert could swoop and circle above.” The Flying Column arrived in Khartoum two days after its fall.
In Britain, Gordon’s death was placed firmly at the door of Gladstone and his Liberal Government. Gladstone who had long been known as the Grand Old Man of British politics, the G.O.M now became known in the press and in Musical Hall as the M.O.G, Murderer of Gordon.
The Mahdi, was now the sole ruler of the Sudan. He had won the country its independence by force of arms and rid it of the Infidel. He instituted strict Sharia Law but had little opportunity to oversee its implementation for he died just five months later in June 1885. Gordon, in death had become the archetypal Victorian hero and Christian Martyr. In 1898, another British hero, Herbert Horatio Kitchener would reconquer the Sudan by defeating the new Mahdi at the Battle of Omdurman. Gordon had been avenged.
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