Charles George Gordon

GORDON, CHARLES GEORGE British soldier and administrator, fourth son of Gen. H. W. Gordon, Royal Artillery, was born at Woolwich on Jan. 28, 1833. He received his early education at Taunton school, and was given a cadetship in the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, in 1848. He was com missioned as second lieutenant in the corps of Royal Engineers on June 23, 1852. In 1854 he was sent to Pembroke dock to assist in the construction of the fortifications then being erected for the defence of Milford Haven. Gordon served in the Crimean War, and took part in the siege of Sevastopol. He was attached to one of the British columns which assaulted the Redan on June 18, 1855, and was present at the capture of that work on Sept. 8. After the peace Gordon was attached to an international commis sion appointed to delimit the treaty boundary between Russia and Turkey in Bessarabia, and on the conclusion of this work was ordered to Asia Minor on similar duty on the eastern boundary. While so employed Gordon studied the geography and people of Armenia, and the knowledge of dealing with eastern nations then gained was of great use to him in after life.

In China.

He returned to England towards the end of 1858, and was made instructor at the Royal Engineers' establishment, but in 186o was ordered out to China. He was too late for the attack on the Taku forts, but was present at the occupation of Peking and destruction of the Summer palace. He remained with the British force of occupation in northern China until April 1862, when the British troops, under the command of Gen. Staveley, proceeded to Shanghai, in order to protect the European settlement at that place from the Taiping rebels. The Taiping revolt, which had some remarkable points of similarity with the Mandist rebellion in the Sudan, had commenced in 185o in the province of Kwangsi. The leader, Hung Sin Tsuan, a semi-political, semi-religious enthusiast, assumed the title of Tien Wang, or Heavenly King. The imperialist troops sent against him were defeated. The area of revolt extended northwards through the provinces of Hunan and Hupeh, and down the valley of the Yangtsze-kiang as far as Nanking, which was captured by the rebels in 1853. Here the Tien Wang established his court, and sent the assistant Wangs on warlike expeditions through the ad jacent provinces.

The Taipings gradually advanced eastwards, and approaching Shanghai, alarmed the European inhabitants, who subscribed to raise a mixed force of Europeans and Manila men for the de fence of the town. This force was placed under the command of an American, Frederick Townsend Ward (1831-62). Ward's force was not altogether successful, and when Gen. Staveley ar rived from Tientsin he decided to clear the district of rebels within a radius of 3o m. from Shanghai, and Gordon was attached to his staff as engineer officer. A French force, under the command of Admiral Protet, co-operated with Staveley and Ward, with his little army, also assisted. The country was fairly cleared of rebels by the end of 1862.

Ward was, unfortunately, killed in the assault of Tseki, and Li Hung Chang, the governor of the Kiang-su province, asked for a British officer to command the contingent. Staveley selected Gordon who, in March, 1863, proceeded to Sungkiang to take command of "The Ever-Victorious Army." He marched at once to the relief of Chansu, a town 4o m. north-west of Shanghai. The relief was successfully accomplished, and the operation established Gordon in the confidence of his troops. Gordon then marched through the country, seizing town after town.

Suchow was taken on Nov. 29, and after its capture Gordon had a serious dispute with Li Hung Chang, who had beheaded certain rebel leaders whose lives Gordon had promised to spare if they surrendered. This action, though not opposed to Chinese ethics, was so opposed to Gordon's ideas of honour that he withdrew his force from Suchow and remained inactive at Quinsan until Feb. 1864. He then came to an arrangement with Li, no allusion being made to the death of the Wangs. Chanchufu, the principal mili tary position of the Taipings, fell in May, when Gordon returned to Quinsan and disbanded his force. In June the Tien Wang, seeing his cause was hopeless, committed suicide, and the capture of Nanking by the imperialist troops shortly afterwards brought the Taiping revolt to a conclusion. The suppression of this serious movement was undoubtedly due in great part to the skill and energy of Gordon, who had shown remarkable qualities as a leader of men. The emperor promoted him to the rank of Titu, the highest grade in the Chinese army, and also gave him the Yellow Jacket, the most important decoration in China. He wished to give him a large sum of money, but this Gordon refused. Henceforth he was "Chinese" Gordon.

Gordon was appointed on his return to England Commanding Royal Engineer at Gravesend, where he was employed in super intending the erection of forts for the defence of the Thames. He devoted himself with energy to his official duties, and his leisure hours to practical philanthropy. In Oct. 1871 he was appointed British representative on the international Danube Commission, with headquarters at Galatz. In a visit to Constanti nople in 1872 he met Nubar Pasha, prime minister of Egypt, who sounded him as to whether he would take service under the khedive. In 1873 he received a definite offer from the khedive, which he accepted with the consent of the British Government, and proceeded to Egypt early in 1874. He was then a colonel in the army, though still only a captain in the corps of Royal Engineers.

First Visit to Egypt.

In 182o-22 Nubia, Sennar and Kor dofan had been conquered by Egypt, and the authority of the Egyptians was subsequently extended southward, eastward to the Red Sea and westward over Darfur (conquered by Zobeir Pasha in 1874). The Egyptian occupation of the country led to the development of the slave trade, especially in the White Nile and Bahr-el-Ghazal districts. Public opinion was moved by the ac counts brought back by travellers and in 1869 the khedive Ismail decided to send an expedition up the White Nile, with the double object of limiting the evils of the slave trade and opening up the district to commerce. The command of the expedition was given to Sir Samuel Baker, who reached Khartum in Feb. 187o, but did not reach Gondokoro, the centre of his province, for 14 months. He established a few posts along the Nile and placed some steamers on the river. The khedive asked for Gordon's services, as governor of the equatorial regions in succession to Baker. After a short stay in Cairo, Gordon proceeded to Khartum by way of Suakin and Berber, a route which he ever afterwards regarded as the best mode of access to the Sudan. From Khartum he pro ceeded up the White Nile to Gondokoro, where he arrived in 24 days, the Budd, which had proved such an obstacle to Baker, having been removed. Gordon remained in the equatorial prov inces until Oct. 1876, and then returned to Cairo. The 21 years thus spent in Central Africa was a time of incessant toil. A line of stations was established from the Sobat confluence on the White Nile to the frontier of Uganda—to which country he pro posed to open a route from Mombasa—and the slave trade was re pressed. The river and lake Albert were mapped by Gordon and his staff, and he sought to improve the condition of the people. But Khartum and the whole of the Sudan north of the Sobat were in the hands of an Egyptian governor, independent of Gordon, and not too eager to diminish the slave trade. On arriving in Cairo Gordon informed the khedive of his reasons for not wishing to return to the Sudan, but did not definitely resign the appointment of governor of the equatorial provinces; but on reaching London he telegraphed to the British consul-general in Cairo, asking him to let the khedive know that he would not go back to Egypt. Ismail Pasha wrote to him saying that he had promised to return, and that he expected him to keep his word. Upon this Gordon re turned to Cairo, and the Khedive appointed him governor-general of the Sudan, inclusive of Darfur and the equatorial provinces.

Governor-General of the Sudan.

Gordon had now to con sider the political relations between Egypt and Abyssinia, which were embittered by a dispute over the district of Bogos, claimed by both parties. In March 1877 he proceeded to Massavva to en deavour to make peace with King John of Abyssinia. He went up to Bogos, and had an interview with Walad Michael, an Abys sinian chief and the hereditary ruler of Bogos, who had joined the Egyptians with a view to raiding on his own account. Gordon persuaded Michael to remain quiet, and wrote to the king pro posing terms of peace. But John, feeling pretty secure on the Egyptian frontier after his two successful actions against the khe dive's troops, had gone south to fight with Menelek, king of Shoa. Gordon then proceeded to Khartum. Here he took up the slavery question, and proposed to issue regulations making the registration of slaves compulsory, but his proposals were not approved by the Cairo government.

In the meantime an insurrection had broken out in Darfur, and Gordon had to relieve the Egyptian garrisons. On coming up with the main body of rebels he saw that diplomacy gave a better chance of success than fighting, and, accompanied only by an interpreter, rode into the enemy's camp to discuss the situation. This bold move proved successful, as part of the insurgents joined him, and the remainder retreated to the south. The relief of the Egyptian garrisons was successfully accomplished, and Gordon visited the provinces of Berber and Dongola, whence he had again to return to the Abyssinian frontier to treat with King John. No satisfactory settlement was reached and Gordon returned to Khartum in Jan. 18i 8. The khedive then summoned him to Cairo to assist in settling the financial affairs of Egypt. He reached Cairo in March, and was appointed by Ismail as president of a commission of inquiry into the finances, on the understanding that the European commissioners of the debt should not be mem bers of the commission. Gordon accepted the post on these terms, but the consuls-general of the different powers protested against the constitution of the commission, and the khedive had to abandon the scheme. The attempt to utilize Gordon as a counter poise to the European financiers having failed, Ismail fell into the hands of his creditors, and was deposed by the sultan in the following year in favour of his son Tewfik. Gordon returned to the Sudan and proceeded to the province of Harrar, south of Abyssinia.

He dismissed Raouf Pasha, the governor, who had allowed the administration to fall into disorder; then returned to Khartum, and in 1879 went again into Darfur to pursue the slave traders, while his subordinate, Gessi Pasha, fought them in the Bahr-el Ghazal district and killed Suleiman, their leader and a son of Zobeir. This put an end to the revolt, and Gordon went back to Khartum. Shortly afterwards he went down to Cairo and was requested by the new khedive to pay a visit to King John and make a definite treaty of peace with Abyssinia. Gordon was not able to do much, as the king wanted great concessions from Egypt, and the khedive's instructions were that nothing material was to be conceded. The matter ended by Gordon being made a prisoner and sent back to Massawa. Thence he returned to Cairo and resigned his Sudan appointment. He was exhausted by the three years' incessant work, during which he had ridden no fewer than 8,5oo m. on camels and mules, and was constantly engaged in the task of trying to reform a vicious system of administration.

l880-1884.--In

March 188o Gordon visited Brussels, and King Leopold suggested that he should at some future date take charge of the Congo Free State. In April the Government of Cape Colony telegraphed to him offering the position of commandant of the local forces, but he declined the appointment. In May the marquess of Ripon, governor-general of India, asked Gordon to go with him as private secretary. Gordon accompanied him to India, but definitely resigned his post on Lord Ripon's staff shortly afterwards. Hardly had he resigned when he received a telegram from Sir Robert Hart, inspector-general of customs in China, inviting him to Peking. He started at once and arrived at Tientsin in July, where he met Li Hung Chang, and learnt that affairs were in a critical condition, and that there was risk of war with Russia. Gordon proceeded to Peking and used all his influence in favour of peace. His arguments, which were given with much plainness of speech, appear to have convinced the Chinese govern ment, and war was avoided. Gordon returned to England, and in April 1881 exchanged with a brother officer, who had been or dered to Mauritius as Commanding Royal Engineer, but who for family reasons was unable to accept the appointment. He remained in Mauritius until the following March, when, on promotion to the rank of major-general, he had to vacate the position.

The Cape ministry now asked his advice on affairs in Basuto land. Gordon sailed at once for the Cape, and saw the governor, Hercules Robinson, Thos. Scanlen, the premier, and J. X. Merri man, who, for political reasons, asked him not to go to Basuto land, but to take the appointment of commandant of the colonial forces at King William's Town. After a few months spent in reorganizing the colonial forces Gordon was requested to go up to Basutoland to try to arrange a settlement with the Basuto chief Masupha. Greatly to his surprise, at the very time he was with Masupha, J. W. Sauer, a member of the Cape Government, was taking steps to induce Lerethodi, another chief, to advance against Masupha. This was regarded by Gordon as an act of treachery. He advised Masupha not to deal with the Cape Government until the hostile force was withdrawn, and resigned his appointment. He considered that the Basuto difficulty was due to the bad system of administration by the Cape Government. A few years later Gordon's view was endorsed, when Basutoland was separated from Cape Colony and placed directly under the imperial govern ment.

Af ter his return to England Gordon went to Palestine, where he devoted a year to the study of Biblical history and the antiquities of Jerusalem. He then accepted a mission from the king of the Belgians to take charge of the Congo Free State, and returned to London to make the necessary preparations. But a few days after his arrival he was requested by the British Government to pro ceed immediately to the Sudan to cope with the revolt headed by the Mandi (Mohammed Ahmed).

The Revolt of the Mandi.—The Egyptian government was too busily engaged in suppressing Arabi's revolt to be able to send any help to the governor of the Sudan, Abdel Kader, and in Sept. 1882, when the British troops entered Cairo, the position in the Sudan was very perilous. Had the British Government lis tened to the representations then made to them, that, having conquered Egypt, it was imperative at once to suppress the revolt in the Sudan, the rebellion could have been crushed, but unfortu nately Great Britain would do nothing herself, while the steps she allowed Egypt to take ended in the disaster to Hicks Pasha's expe dition. In Dec. 1883, the Government ordered Egypt to abandon the Sudan. But abandonment involved the withdrawal of thou sands of Egyptian soldiers, civilian employees and their families. Abdel Kader Pasha was asked to undertake the work, and he agreed on the understanding that he would be supported, and that the policy of abandonment was not to be announced. But the latter condition was refused, and he declined the task. The British Government then asked Gen. Gordon to proceed to Khartum to report on the best method of carrying out the evacuation. Sir Evelyn Baring (Lord Cromer), was, however, at first opposed to Gordon's appointment. His objections were overcome and Gordon received his instructions in London on Jan. 18, 1884, and started at once for Cairo, accompanied by Lt.-Col. J. D. H. Stewart.

At Khartum.—At Cairo Gordon received further instructions from Baring, and was appointed by the khedive as governor general, with executive powers. Travelling by Korosko and Berber, he arrived at Khartum on Feb. 18, and at once com menced the task of sending the women and children and the sick and wounded to Egypt : about two thousand five hundred had been removed before the mandi's forces closed upon Khartum. At the same time he saw the necessity of making some arrange ment for the future government of the country, and asked for the help of Zobeir (q.v.), who had great influence in the Sudan, and had been detained in Cairo for some years. This request had been made at Cairo, and was repeated on the day Gordon reached Khartum. The British Government ref used (March 13) to sanc tion the appointment, because Zobeir had been a notorious slave hunter. With this refusal vanished all hope of a peaceful retreat of the Egyptian garrisons. Wavering tribes went over to the Mandi. The advance of the rebels against Khartum was combined with a revolt in the eastern Sudan, and the Egyptian troops in the vicin ity of Suakin met with constant defeat. At length a British force was sent to Suakin under the command of Gen. Sir Gerald Graham, and routed the rebels in several hard-fought actions. Gordon telegraphed to Baring urging that the road from Suakin to Berber should be opened by a small force. But this request, though strongly supported by Baring and the British military authorities in Cairo, was refused by the Government in London. In April Gen. Graham and his forces were withdrawn from Suakin. The garrison of Berber, seeing that there was no chance of relief, surrendered a month later, and Khartum was completely isolated.

With an energy and skill that were almost miraculous, Gordon held Khartum until Jan. 1885. He had only one British officer to assist him, and the town was badly fortified and insufficiently provided with food. The siege commenced on March 18, but it was not until August that the British Government under the pressure of public opinion decided to take steps to relieve Gordon. Gen. Stephenson, who was in command of the British troops in Egypt, wished to send a brigade at once to Dongola, but was overruled ; and it was not until the beginning of Nov. that the British relief force was ready to start from Wadi Haifa under the command of Wolseley. The force reached Korti towards the end of Dec., and from that place a column was despatched across the Bayuda desert to Metemmeh on the Nile. After severe fight ing in which the leader of the column, Sir Herbert Stewart, was mortally wounded, the force reached the river on Jan. 20, and the following day f our steamers, which had been sent down by Gordon to meet the British advance, and which had been waiting for them for four months, reported to Sir Charles Wilson, who had taken command after Stewart was wounded.

Death.—On the 24th Wilson started with two of the steamers for Khartum, but on arriving there on the 28th he found that the place had been captured by the rebels and Gordon killed two days before. The attack was made at a point in the fortifications where the rampart and ditch had been destroyed by the rising of the Nile, and when the mandi's troops entered the soldiers were too weak to make any effectual resistance. Gordon himself expected the town to fall before the end of December, and it is difficult to understand how he succeeded in holding out until Jan. 26. Writing on Dec. 14, he said, "Now, mark this, if the expeditionary force—and I ask for no more than 200 men—does not come in ten days, the town may fall, and I have done my best for the honour of my country." He had indeed done his best, and far more than could have been regarded as possible. Part of his journal (Sept. io–Dec. 14) was fortunately preserved and published.

Gordon's power to command men of non-European races has rarely—if ever—been exceeded. He had no fear of death, and cared but little for the opinion of others, adhering tenaciously to the course he believed to be right in the face of all oppo sition. He was a religious man in the highest sense of the word, and was a constant student of the Bible. To serve God and to do his duty were the great objects of his life, and he died as he had lived, carrying out the work that lay before him to the best of his ability. The last words of his last letter to his sister, written when he knew that death was very near, sum up his character: "I am quite happy, thank God, and, like Lawrence, I have tried to do my duty." BIBLIOGRAPHY.—C. G. Gordon, Reflections in Palestine (1884), The Bibliography.—C. G. Gordon, Reflections in Palestine (1884), The Journals of Major-General Gordon at Khartoum (1885) , General Gordon's Letters from the Crimea, the Danube, and Armenia, Aug. 18, 1854 to Nov. 17, 1858 (ed. D. C. Boulger, 1884), Letters of General C. G. Gordon to his sister M. A. Gordon (1888) ; A. Forbes, Chinese Gordon (1884) ; A. E. Hake, The Story of Chinese Gordon (1884-85) ; 'With this estimate of Gordon's character may be contrasted those of Lord Cromer (one of the most severe of Gordon's critics) , Lord Morley and—in more recent times—Lytton Strachey. In their stric tures as in their praise they help to explain both the causes of the extraordinary influence wielded by Gordon and also his difficulties. Cromer's criticism deals solely with Gordon's last mission to the Sudan ; Morley's is a more general judgment; while Lytton Strachey's essay in Eminent Victorians is impressionistic and has a tendency to throw the high lights on the weaker points in Gordon's character.

Lord Cromer

(Modern Egypt, I., xxvii., p. 565-571) says: "We may admire, and for my own part I do very much admire General Gordon's personal courage, his disinterestedness and his chivalrous feeling in favour of the beleaguered garrisons, but admiration of these qualities is no sufficient plea against a condemnation of his conduct on the ground that it was quixotic. In his last letter to his sister, dated December 14, 1884, he wrote: `I am quite happy, thank God, and, like Lawrence, I have tried to do my duty' ... I am not now dealing with General Gordon's character which was in many respects noble, or with his military defence of Khartoum, which was heroic, but with the political conduct of his mission, and from this point of view I have no hesitation in saying that General Gordon cannot be considered to have tried to do his duty unless a very strained and mistaken view be taken of what his duty was... . As a matter of public morality I cannot think that General Gordon's process of reasoning is defensible.... I do not think that it can be held that General Gordon made any serious effort to carry out the main ends of British and Egyptian policy in the Sudan. He thought more of his personal opinions than of the interests of the state. ... In fact, except personal courage, great fertility in military resource, a lively though sometimes ill-directed repugnance to injustice, oppression and meanness of every description, and a considerable power of acquiring influence over those, necessarily limited in numbers, with whom he was brought into personal contact, General Gordon does not appear to have possessed any of the qualities which would have fitted him to undertake the difficult task he had in hand." Lord Morley (Life of Gladstone, III., ix., p. 151) says: "Gordon, as Mr. Gladstone said, was a hero of heroes. He was a soldier of infinite personal courage and daring, of striking military energy, initiative and resource ; a high, pure and single character, dwelling much in the region of the unseen. But as all who knew him admit, and as his own records testify, notwithstanding an undercurrent of shrewd common sense, he was the creature, almost the sport, of impulse; his impressions and purposes changed with the speed of lightning ; anger often mastered him ; he went very often by intuitions and inspirations rather than by cool inference from carefully surveyed fact ; with many variations of mood he mixed, as we often see in people less famous, an invincible faith in his own rapid prepossessions while they lasted. Everybody now discerns that to despatch a soldier of this temperament on a piece of business [the mission to the Sudan in 1884] that was not only difficult and dangerous, as Sir E. Baring said, but profoundly obscure, and needing vigilant sanity and self control, was little better than to call in a wizard with his magic. Mr. Gladstone always professed perplexity in understanding why the violent end of the gallant Cavagnari in Afghanistan stirred the world so little in comparison with the fate of Gordon. The answer is that Gordon seized the imagination of England, and seized it on its higher side. His religion was eccentric, but it was religion ; the Bible was the rock on which he founded himself, both old dispensation and new; he was known to hate forms, ceremonies and all the `solemn plausi bilities'; his speech was sharp, pithy, rapid and ironic; above all, he knew the ways of war and would not bear the sword for nought." H. W. Gordon, Events in the Life of C. G. Gordon (1886) ; Sir W. F. Butler, Charles George Gordon (1889) ; D. C. Boulger, Life of Gordon (1896). See also L. Brine, The Taeping Rebellion in China (1862) ; A. Wilson, "The Ever Victorious Army," A History of the Chinese Campaign under Lt. Col. C. G. Gordon and of the Taeping Rebellion (1868) ; S. Mossman, General Gordon's private diary of his exploits in China (i885) ; T. Lyster, With Gordon in China. Letters (ed. E. A. Lyster, 1891) ; Events in the Taeping Rebellion (ed. A. E. Hake, 1891) ; Colonel Gordon in Central Africa i874-79 (ed. G. B. Hill, 1881, 3rd ed., 1899) ; British Parliamentary Papers on Egypt (1884-85) • F. R. Wingate, Mandiism and the Egyptian Sudan (1891) ; Lord Cromer, Modern Egypt, 2 vol. (1908) ; Sir G. Graham, Last Words with Gordon (1887) ; "War Correspondent," Why Gordon perished (1896) ; G. Lytton Strachey, "The end of Gordon" in Eminent Victorians (1918). (C. M. W.)