Uninterested in, and bored by, the tedium of day-to-day administration, Gordon embarked on a northern inspection tour in October 1877. He then received reports that trouble had again broken out along the Abyssinian border and set off for Suakin. Once there, he unsuccessfully attempted to communicate with Johannes and then, with a ten-man escort, visited Walid’s camp. To keep him from marauding across the Abyssinian border, Gordon increased Walid’s ‘subvention’ to £1,000 per year and suggested that he might seek Johannes’ pardon for his prior bad acts so that Abyssinia might be available as a sanctuary if Sudanese forces attacked him later. On his return, Gordon was summoned to Cairo to help the Khedive sort out his financial problems.¹⁸

Gordon took up his new duties as Chairman of the Khedive’s Commission of Inquiry in March 1878. He took an instant dislike to the young British Controller General, Evelyn Baring. Without experience in financial affairs, Gordon defended the Khedive’s initial position, objecting to the presence of the Debt Commissioners on the Commission and insisting that current-year debt payments be suspended to permit the Egyptian government to continue functioning. When, under pressure from all of the European representatives in Cairo, the Khedive gave in, Gordon’s position became untenable. Disillusioned, he resigned from the Commission and left Cairo, reducing his own salary from £6,000 to £3,000 in recognition of Egypt’s financial crisis, and successfully protesting to the British Foreign Office about the Commission’s proposal to double Sudan’s annual tribute payment to Egypt.

In July, 1878 Romolo Gessi sailed from Khartoum with 2,800 dragooned, unwilling and long-unpaid men on the steamer Bordein, under orders from Gordon to suppress Suleiman Zubeir’s revolt and to eject his 6,000 fighters from their strongholds at Dem Suleiman and Dem Idris, in Bahr al-Ghazal.¹⁹ Gessi’s orders were to recruit some 5,000 additional men en route and to offer £1,000 for Suleiman’s capture. Privately, Gordon wrote, ‘I hope he will hang him.’²⁰ Gordon had written to the Egyptian government for reinforcements, but to his horror was offered Zubeir Pasha instead. By a combination of deception and force, Gessi captured Dem Idris in December. Over the next three weeks, Suleiman’s men engaged in unsuccessful and suicidal attacks to recapture the stockade, defended by Gessi’s new artillery. Despite Gessi’s reported victories, Gordon worried over the possibility that Suleiman and Haroun would join forces and that a third rebellion brewing in Kordofan might signal a more general Sudanese-wide rebellion. Gessi, however, routed Suleiman’s forces, Suleiman barely escaping with his life. Gessi then began moving toward Shaka to rendezvous with Gordon.²¹

Based on what he saw of the slave trade and in order to tighten the noose around Bahr al-Ghazal, Gordon abandoned his policy of condoning small-scale trading by Jalaba families, operating on behalf of the riverine tribes, and ordered the Baggara to arrest all participants. This antagonised virtually all of the riverine tribes. On top of this, the slaves liberated by the Beggara were left without food or water wandering in the desert. Suleiman sent emissaries, including his chief secretary, to convince Gordon that he had never been disloyal to the Khedive. If Suleiman had not massacred Sudanese soldiers in the Bahr al-Ghazal as part of his take-over, Gordon ‘might have pardoned [Suleiman’s emissaries], but no, I shall not do so’.²² Gordon had them court martialled and shot. In Cairo on the same day, Khedive Ismail moved to control simmering Egyptian nationalist unrest by dismissing Sir Rivers Wilson, the European controller, and appointing an all-Egyptian cabinet.²³ Britain and France then turned to the Ottoman Sultan for redress and the Sultan deposed Ismail on 25 June and appointed his son, Mohammed Tawfíq, in his place.

On 25 June 1879 Gordon and Gessi, now governor of Bahr el-Ghazal, rendezvoused north of Shaka. Gordon was informed that Ismail had been deposed and was ordered to proclaim Tawfíq’s succession throughout the Sudan. On his way back to Khartoum, Gordon also met with Rudolph Slatin, an Austrian who had arrived in Khartoum in January 1879 as Finance Inspector and had been touring the provinces getting a first-hand education on Egyptian governmental corruption. Gordon appointed him Mudir of Darfur. The Darfur rebellion collapsed shortly thereafter and Haroun fled. Slatin caught up with him in March 1880, and shot him dead when he attempted to flee.

Gessi also eventually ran down Suleiman and he and his principal officers were summarily sentenced to death and shot. Gessi telegraphed the news to Gordon at Foggia and Gordon reported that ‘Gessi only obeyed my orders in shooting him; I have no compunction about his death.’²⁴ Among papers captured, Gessi found a letter from Zubeir to his son which purported to confirm his instigating role in the rebellion. Based on this evidence, the Egyptian government tried Zubeir in absentia for treason, convicted him, and sentenced him to death. Gordon himself requested that the Khedive pardon Zubeir, and nothing was done about the verdict or the sentence. Later, Gordon modestly summed up his work in the Sudan: ‘I do not profess to have been either a great ruler or a great financier; but I can say this – I have cut off the slave-dealers in their strongholds and I have made all my people love me.’²⁵ During his tenure, he had succeeded in cutting major slave-trading routes and making the trade much more difficult. He left, not loved, but respected by many as an honest man and resented by many others as an infidel, a tool of Egyptian imperialism or as a destroyer of what had by then become traditional ways of life.²⁶

Having decided to resign his post, Gordon left Khartoum for Cairo in July. Arriving there, Tawfíq accepted his resignation, but asked him to undertake a last mission, to calm the renewed Abyssinian belligerency in Bogos province without ceding Egyptian claims or involving Egypt in a war. Gordon agreed and did a diplomatic dance with the King, who was at first aware neither of Tawfíq’s accession nor of Gordon’s appointment as his envoy. The King demanded territory, an indemnity, an Egyptian Coptic Bishop (to insure his own people’s religious purity) and international guarantees as the price for peace, and Gordon agreed to carry a letter containing the demands back to Egypt.

Convinced that Johannes was ‘rapidly going mad’,²⁷ Gordon left Debra Tabor on 8 November 1879. His trip back to Massawa was difficult and frequently interrupted by tribesmen arresting, plundering and releasing him. Returning to Egypt, he was accused of failing to collect sufficient taxes in the Sudan, of using the succession crisis to detach the Sudan from Egyptian control, and of plotting to cede Egypt’s Red Sea provinces to Abyssinia and Italy, since he had recommended both seek Italian diplomatic support and also some territorial concessions along the Red Sea coast as a possible path to maintaining peace with Abyssinia in a confidential ciphered telegram to the Khedive. He also confronted Baring, who had resigned from the Debt Commission to become British Comptroller General, over the relative importance of restoring Egyptian solvency and eradicating the Egyptian-controlled Sudanese slave trade. Gordon had recommended strongly that his predecessor, the Circassian officer, Ismail Ayúb, replace him and the appointment was actually recorded on 15 January, but his appointment was cancelled in favour of Ra’úf Pasha, a man he had twice fired for malfeasance. Gordon was enraged. He was in poor health and bad humour and was dissuaded by British Consul General, Edward Malet, from challenging the Egyptian Prime Minister, Nubar Pasha, to a duel over comments he made about Malet’s predecessor. In early January 1880, he sailed for England. In Naples he visited the deposed Khedive, hoped in Rome to convince the Pope to preach a crusade against the influx of Jews into Jerusalem, and in Paris berated the British ambassador over Ra’úf’s appointment, and shocked him by saying that perhaps a Frenchman ought to have been appointed. In accepting his resignation, Tawfíq publicly stated that: ‘I have pleasure in once more acknowledging the loyalty with which you have always served the Government…. I should have liked to retain your service, but, in view of your persistent tender of resignation, I am obliged to accept it. I regret, my dear Pasha, losing your co-operation.’²⁸

After a short stay in England, Gordon again travelled to the continent for a holiday in Switzerland, meeting with the Belgian King Leopold II in Brussels to discuss the Congo. While on holiday, Gordon was offered the command of the Cape Colony military forces to put down Boer and native unrest by force but declined the offer. In April 1880 Gladstone appointed the Marquis of Ripon as Viceroy of India and Ripon offered the post of Private Secretary to Gordon, for reasons that remain unclear.²⁹ Ripon asked Gordon to review the evidence concerning Afghan Emir Mohammed Yaqub Khan’s complicity in the 1879 murder of Louis Cavagnari, the British Resident in Kabul. Gordon concluded that the Emir was not responsible and recommended that he be restored. Indian government officials disagreed and Ripon supported them so, on 2 June, Gordon resigned his post.

Gordon then received a letter from a friend, the Inspector General of Imperial Customs in China, Sir Robert Hart, inviting him to return to China, which was on the verge of war with Russia over disputed border territories in Chinese Turkestan. Concerned about the Russian reaction to Gordon’s return to the scene of his greatest triumphs, the British Government refused permission, but Gordon boarded a ship bound for China anyway, wiring back: ‘Arrange retirement, commutation or resignation of service. My counsel, if asked, would be peace, not war.’³⁰ By the time his ship reached Ceylon, the Government had changed its mind. Upon arrival, Gordon renewed old friendships, and plunged into court intrigues, counselling that, given the state of the Chinese army and Russia’s need to further restore its prestige by imperial expansion, going to war would be ‘idiocy’: he proposed a five-point peace plan.³¹ On 16 August, however, Gordon was ordered back to England. When he arrived home in October, he was sent on indefinite leave.

At a loose end and desperate for something to do in March 1881, Gordon chanced upon an old friend, Colonel Sir Howard Elphinstone, who complained that he had been posted as CRE on Mauritius, the Seychelles and Chagos Islands. Elphinstone considered it an exile to nowhere and offered £800 to anyone who would agree to go in his place. Since Gordon’s biblical and geographical studies had convinced him that the exact site of the Garden of Eden lay somewhere in the Seychelles, Gordon jumped at the chance to replace Elphinstone, while refusing the cash. While in Le Havre awaiting a ship to take him to Mauritius, Gordon received a letter detailing the terrible death of Gessi.³² By mid-May he had arrived at Port-Louis, Mauritius. He refused to become part of the social life of the island, swore off spirits, and vowed to reduce his smoking to only fifteen cigarettes a day. As quickly as possible, he turned his duties over to subordinates and set sail for the Seychelles, ostensibly to oversee repairs of the harbour facilities on Mahé, but really to fulfil his quest for Eden. He ‘discovered’ that the exact site was on the island of Praslin in the Vallée de Mai, and wrote an eight-page essay offering his proofs.

Meanwhile, in the Sudan, Muhammed Ahmed had publicly declared himself Mahdi in June 1881.³³ Sent by Ra’úf Pasha, Muhammed Abù-al-Su’ùd met with Muhammed Ahmed at Jazíra Aba on 7 August 1881. The mission failed, and three days later when Su’úd returned to capture the ‘false prophet’ with 200 men, a cannon, and a government theologian, he was ambushed and killed. Over the next two years – with one exception: on May 3, 1882, when acting Governor General Carl Geigler³⁴ defeated an Ansár³⁵ force at Abú-Haráz – Ansár forces won a series of victories over Egyptian forces and won or forced the loyalty of many of the country’s clans, tribes and sheiks. Egyptian response was then hindered by growing nationalist pressure within the army led by Colonel Ahmed ‘Arábi, which ultimately led to Wolseley’s expedition to Egypt in August 1882. Wolseley destroyed ‘Arábi’s army at Tel el-Kebir. As a result, the Ottoman Sultan’s power over Egypt was limited to receiving Egypt’s annual tribute, France was frozen out completely and the British became the de facto rulers of the country. Major General Sir Evelyn Wood was appointed Sirdar (C in C) of the Egyptian army, and Sir Samuel Baker’s younger brother Valentine was appointed to train and lead the Egyptian police.

In March 1882 Gordon had received his promotion to Major General, which made him too senior for the Mauritius posting. Therefore, having expressed an interest in the Cape Colony posting he had previously declined, Gordon was invited on 2 April 1882 to advise the Cape authorities on resolving its BaSotho (Basuto) problem.³⁶ Gordon was uncertain as to whether the Cape government wanted him to broker a peaceful solution to the Basuto problem or to lead a military expedition against them. He certainly tended to sympathise with the BaSotho. After receiving assurances from the Commissioner of Crown Lands and Public Works, John Merriman, that improving the quality and integration of the British, colonial, Boer and native forces would play an important role in resolving the Colony’s tribal questions, Gordon travelled the 700 miles by rail and cart to King William Town. There he ruffled feathers by his attitudes toward military decorum and his oft-stated belief that local people, born to the saddle, made better soldiers than British regulars. He further strained his relationship with the Cape government and Basuto Agent Joseph Orpen by sending them a mass of lengthy and sometimes contradictory memoranda, most referring to matters outside his areas of responsibility and which were rejected accordingly. Increasingly frustrated, and having, in July, received a glowing report on the Congo from the Scottish East African merchant and ship owner, Sir William Mackinnon, Gordon considered resigning.

To forestall his resignation, Merriman, an advocate of the ‘divide and conquer’ approach to tribal relations, suggested in July that Gordon, along with the Cape’s Secretary of Native Affairs, J W Sauer, go on a fact-finding mission to Basutoland. Sauer pressed Paramount Chief Lestie to organise an attack on the hostile chief Masupha, while Gordon claimed that he was there to find a peaceful resolution. Gordon offered to visit Masupha and Sauer agreed, but insisted that Gordon sign an agreement that this would be a private visit, with no authority to negotiate or reach agreements. Gordon informed Masupha of the personal nature of his visit, assured him that he would never wage war on him, warned him that divisions among the BaSotho would leave them vulnerable to the Boers, and, contrary to his instructions, offered, both orally and in writing, his suggestions for a peaceful resolution.

On 26 September 1882 Lestie unexpectedly launched an attack on Masupha led by his son, Lerothodi. Sauer, who did not believe that a negotiated settlement was possible and had pushed Lestie to take action, sent instructions to Gordon to leave Masupha’s camp just before Lerothodi’s attack, but Masupha received information during the night and accused Gordon of perfidy, claiming that he had been ready to accept Gordon’s terms. Gordon convinced Masupha that he knew nothing about the raid and that he had not betrayed him and Masupha permitted him to leave. The attack petered out and Gordon returned to Cape Town and, convinced that he had been betrayed by Sauer, resigned his position.³⁷

After returning to England, where businessmen who were Liberal Party supporters unhappy with Gordon’s South African activities ensured that no new work was offered to him, and without a specific offer from Belgian King Leopold, Gordon left for Palestine in January 1883 to complete his biblical mapping project. From there – after weathering another bout of depression – he travelled to Haifa, where he visited with an old friend, Laurence Oliphant. He expressed his views that British policy in Egypt was sheer folly, and that the emerging problem with the Mahdi could be settled by the intervention of a British Commissioner who might negotiate some independence formula, using the threat of a rebellion by riverine sheikhs to force a compromise on him.³⁸ Moving on to Jerusalem, he lived in the house of an American missionary, and took communion in a nearby Greek-Russian Orthodox church. The result of his introspection, researches, travels and surveys was a series of letters to his friend, the Reverend R H Barnes, who turned them into a book, Reflections in Palestine 1883.³⁹ Encouraged by Mackinnon, King Leopold II telegraphed a firm offer to Gordon on 15 October 1883 to become Governor of the Congo. Upset by Gladstone’s Liberal imperialism, and hopeful that the Congo might provide an alternative means for interdicting the slave trade, Gordon accepted.

Affairs in the Sudan, meanwhile, were causing concern with the outgoing British Consul, Sir Edward Malet, recommending on 4 November 1882 that Egypt should be encouraged to take all measures to repress the rebellion, but ‘without aid or advice from Her Majesty’s Government’.⁴⁰ Having decided to replace Ra’úf Pasha as Governor General in December, the British sent Lieutenant Colonel J D H Stewart of the 11th Hussars on a secret fact-finding mission to the Sudan. In January 1883 ‘Abd-al-Qádir Hilmi was formally replaced as Sudanese Governor General by ‘Alá-al Dín Siddíq, a Circassian Major General who had been governor of the Sudan’s eastern region. Shortly thereafter, another Circassian, 75-year-old Major General Suleimán Niyázi, was appointed to oversee military affairs. At the same time a new and even more motley and disaffected military force was assembled by the Egyptians to reclaim the Sudan from Ansár forces. A 53-year-old retired Bombay army officer, Colonel William Hicks, was suggested, almost by chance, by Valentine Baker and was appointed to lead this force, without in any way implying support by the British government for this effort. Upon accepting the appointment, Hicks was made a Major General in the Egyptian army and Chief of Staff to Niyázi.

Hicks soon found himself at odds with both ‘Abd-al-Qádir and Niyázi, whose Chief of Staff he technically was, over his proposed Kordofan expedition. With respect to continued Egyptian control of the Sudan, Stewart’s report to his superiors recommended that all of the provinces south and west of Khartoum be abandoned.⁴¹ The Khedive refused to abandon any part of the Sudan. Accordingly, Hicks assembled a force of 3,200 Egyptian infantry, 300 Albanian cavalry and 2 artillery batteries and was relatively successful in a preliminary campaign on the east bank of the White Nile. In the eastern Sudan, however, the Mahdi’s Emir, Osmán Digna, received support from the already converted Majdhúbia, converted the Hadendawa clan, the Erkowit, and, most importantly, Sheikh al-Táhir al-Tayyib at Suakin. By November, Ansár were besieging towns along the Red Sea coast. On 4 November, the British Consul in Suakin, Commander Lynedoch Moncrieff RN, was killed near Tokar, heightening British concerns over the security of the coast. With the Egyptian garrison near Suakin also badly mauled by Osman Digna, the Egyptian government assembled an expeditionary force of 3,715 Egyptian police recruits, led by Valentine Baker, and 6,000 black Sudanese, to be led by Zubeir Pasha, to reinforce Suakin and open a route from Suakin to Berber. When news of Zubeir’s role became public, it caused public outrage and it was cancelled. Baker’s troops, forced to board their Red Sea transport, arrived at Suakin on 27 December 1883 and received a change to their orders from Wood, giving them the smaller task of relieving the Sinkat and Tokar, and to do so only if Baker was convinced that his troops were reliable.

Meanwhile, urged on by the Egyptian Prime Minister, Sharíf Pasha, Hicks led some 10,000 men and an enormous baggage train from Khartoum in September. At around the same time as Hicks’ departure, Sir Evelyn Baring (later Lord Cromer) arrived in Cairo as British Agent General, replacing Malet. On 19 November, he advised the British government that the Egyptians should ‘fall back on any points on the Nile they can hold with confidence’,⁴² but was enjoined by his instructions from advising the Egyptians on matters pertaining to the Sudan. What Baring did not yet know was that on 5 November Hicks’s force had been trapped in a densely clustered area of thorn bushes called Shaykan and destroyed, virtually to the last man. Lieutenant Colonel Henry de Coëtlogon, who had been left in charge at Khartoum by Hicks, reported to Cairo that, if the Mahdi continued to advance, Khartoum could not hold out for more than two months. Similarly, The Times correspondent (and honorary British consul) in Khartoum, Frank Power, whose dysentery had compelled him to return early from Hicks’s campaign, reported that it was ‘perfectly useless to attempt to hold this place, where the population is a slumbering volcano’.⁴³ Egyptian troops fleeing from southern garrisons soon began to arrive in Khartoum. After fighting off Ansár attacks for over a year, converting to Islam, experiencing rebellions and betrayals by his own troops and officers, and discovering that the Hicks’s expedition had been destroyed, Rudolf Slatin, the Governor of Darfur, surrendered on 23 December.

Hoping to placate British public opinion and believing that his name carried weight in the Sudan, the British government asked Baring on 1 December if Gordon would be ‘of any use to you or to the Egyptian Government, and, if so, in what capacity?’⁴⁴ Concerned both about his eccentricities and his tendency to obey orders only if they suited him, Baring finessed by replying that the Egyptian government thought it unwise to send a Christian to suppress a Muslim revolt. Gladstone and Granville instructed Baring, who had been pleading for specific guidance for the last six weeks, to inform the Egyptians that Britain would not condone wasting Egyptian revenues on military expeditions ‘of doubtful advantage to Egypt’.⁴⁵ While the British undertook to maintain internal order and safeguard her Red Sea ports, Egypt must withdraw its troops from the Sudan and ‘abandon all territory south of Aswan, or at least of Wadi Halfa’.⁴⁶ Sharif Pasha proposed to return the eastern Sudan and Red Sea coast to direct Ottoman rule, but refused to order the withdrawal and, informed of Granville’s conclusion that ministers ‘must carry out this [British] advice or forfeit their offices’, he resigned in protest on 4 January 1884.⁴⁷

Three days earlier, Gordon arrived in Brussels. The next day, he met with King Leopold. He believed that there would be no problem with the British War Office, since he was no longer on the active list, but wanted to go back to England to wind up his affairs – arranging for the publication of his religious explorations and completing the transfer of the house in Southampton to his sister – before leaving for the Congo some time in February. On 6 January The Times reported that Gordon had accepted the Congo commission and Wolseley cabled him to ‘come to London’. On the following day Gordon arrived at Southampton and discovered that the War Office refused him leave to go to the Congo. The next day he sent a letter of resignation – his nineteenth – to the War Office.

On 9 January, the Pall Mall Gazette, which opposed Gladstone’s policy and had already run a story about the proposed evacuation, published a version of an interview that its editor, W T Stead, had had with Gordon when he saw him with or immediately after – the relationship between them remains controversial – a War Office delegation who visited him the day before. According to Stead, Gordon spoke out against the evacuation. Gordon regarded the rebellion as ‘not really religious, but an outbreak of despair’ that an uncorrupted government and amnesty could resolve: ‘If this were done and the government entrusted to a man whose word was truth, all might yet be re-established.’ Gordon suggested Sir Samuel Baker for the job, but Stead published under the headline: ‘Chinese Gordon for the Sudan’.

Pressed by the Queen and by other Cabinet members, Granville again wired Baring about Gordon. After consulting Nubar, Baring again refused. Meanwhile, Sir Samuel Baker also urged Gordon to accept the assignment if it were to be offered and he and Gordon wrote coordinated letters to The Times attacking the government’s proposed policy. On 15 January Gordon visited Wolseley at the War Office, ostensibly to discuss his resignation, and agreed to go to Suakin to ‘inquire into the condition of affairs in the Sudan’.⁴⁸ Responding to the groundswell of both popular and influential support for Gordon, Granville wrote to Gladstone, ‘If Gordon says he believes he could by his personal influence excite the tribes to escort the Khartoum garrison and inhabitants to Suakin, a little pressure on Baring might be advisable.’⁴⁹ Baring was then asked, for the third time, to accept Gordon. Now aware that Gordon was the only choice, Baring reluctantly agreed.

Baring’s new choice for Prime Minister, Nubar Pasha, ordered all non-military residents of Khartoum to proceed northward by whatever means they could find. The order was received by garrisons south of Khartoum and, by 22 January some 6,100 troops defended the city and de Coëtlogon had begun digging a ditch between the Blue and White Niles. At the same time, Baring wired Granville that ‘The Egyptian Government would feel obliged if Her Majesty’s Government would send at once a qualified British officer to go to Khartoum with full power, civil and military, to conduct the retreat.’⁵⁰

On 18 January 1884 Gordon was called to the War Office to meet with Cabinet members. There was no secretary available for this and subsequent meetings and the only record is a letter of 22 January by Gordon to Barnes. According to Gordon, while waiting to go in, Wolseley, who had been asked to obtain his answer in advance, asked Gordon to accept the principle on which the whole Cabinet had agreed: ‘Her Majesty’s Government want you to understand this Government are determined to evacuate the Sudan, for it will not guarantee future government … Will you go and do it?’ Gordon replied ‘Yes’ and then met with Lords Granville, Secretary of State for War Hartington, First Lord of the Admiralty Northbrook, and the radical MP, Sir Charles Dilke, the President of the Local Government Board: ‘Did Wolseley tell you our ideas?’ ‘Yes. He said you will not guarantee future government of the Sudan, and you wish me to go and evacuate it?’⁵¹ The cabal of ministers then attached Colonel Stewart as Gordon’s staff officer and hustled him off on his journey. At Charing Cross Station, Granville bought his ticket, Wolseley took charge of his bag and the Duke of Cambridge ushered him into his carriage for Dover. That night, Northbrook, who was Baring’s cousin, cabled Gordon’s agreement:

The upshot of the meeting was that he leaves by tonight’s mail for Suakim to report on the best way of withdrawing the garrisons, settling the country, and to perform such other duties as may be entrusted to him by the khedive’s government through you…. does not believe in the great power of the Mahdi. Does not think the tribes will go much beyond their own confines, and does not see why the garrison should not get off. He did not seem at all anxious to retain the Sudan; and agreed heartily to accept the policy of withdrawal.⁵²

Granville’s more formal instruction to Baring reported that Gordon would advise on ‘the best mode of evacuating the interior of the Sudan, and of securing the safety and good administration by the Egyptian Government of the ports of the Red Sea [and to counter] the possible stimulus to the slave trade which may be given by the revolution which has taken place’. Echoing Northbrook, he concluded that ‘Gordon will be under the orders of H.M.’s Minister in Cairo [Baring], and will report through him to H.M.’s Government, and perform such other duties as may be entrusted to him by the Egyptian Government through Sir Evelyn Baring.’⁵³ Neither Granville nor Hartington advised Gladstone of the meeting until after Gordon’s departure, and then only reported narrowly of his advisory role. Almost immediately thereafter Granville expressed his nervousness to Hartington: ‘We were very proud of ourselves yesterday. Are you sure we did not commit a gigantic folly?’⁵⁴

While travelling across France by rail, Gordon dispatched eight telegrams to Granville, two calling for a meeting of the eastern sheikhs at Berber to negotiate a withdrawal, two asking that the Khedive appoint him Governor General for the purpose of withdrawing Egyptian forces and restoring native rule, one calling for the restoration of the Darfur Sultanate and another calling on Egypt to recruit new Sudanese troops. While crossing the Mediterranean aboard the SS Tanjore, he sent another calling for the independence of a Sudan divided among local sultans who would collectively decide the country’s future. Zubeir, he wrote, needed to be kept out of the process, perhaps by exiling him to Cyprus.

Gordon was met by Evelyn Wood at Port Said with a letter from Baring ordering him to proceed through Cairo and altering the terms of his mission from advising and reporting to one ‘arranging for the withdrawal of the Egyptian garrison etc. as rapidly as is consistent with (1) the saving of life and so far as possible, property; (2) the establishment of some rough form of Government which will prevent, so far as possible, anarchy and confusion arising on the withdrawal of the Egyptian troops.’⁵⁵ In Cairo, Gordon paid his respects (and attempted to salve old grievances) to the Khedive and then returned to Wood’s house, where he was staying, to meet with a committee made up of Wood, Baring, Graham, Nubar and Stewart to discuss the details of his mission. He was to proceed to Khartoum in a double role: as the Khedive’s Governor General and as Her Majesty’s High Commissioner; Gordon would have a credit of £100,000 made available to him; a gradual evacuation would be organised and carried out under his direction; he would be issued two firmans (Khedival proclamations), one publicly proclaiming him Governor General, and a second, to be kept confidential until the appropriate moment ordering evacuation and setting up a purely Sudanese government; he would be given resources to attempt to restore the Fur dynasty in Darfur; and he would meet with Zubeir the next day to seek his assistance.

On 26 January Gordon attended a meeting, arranged by Baring, with officers with experience in the Sudan. He was accompanied by Wood’s ADC, Reginald Wingate, who was the only person present who could speak, read and write Arabic. Zubeir was present and he and Gordon fought about the death of Zubeir’s son. The meeting ended badly with Wingate assigned to search Suleiman’s courts-martial records for proof of Zubeir’s involvement.⁵⁶ The meeting adjourned until the next day.

At the reconvened meeting, the difficulties involving the evacuation of 12–15,000 civilians – Christians, Egyptian government officials and their families – as well as the garrisons arose. Baring stipulated that Gordon determine ‘the most opportune time and the best method for effecting the retreat. It is neither necessary nor desirable that you should receive detailed instructions … You will bear in mind that the main end to be pursued is the evacuation of the Sudan … I also understand that you entirely agree on the desirability of adopting this policy.’ Asked by Baring if he agreed, Gordon responded ‘in the strongest terms’, and Baring inserted into the written instructions the clause, ‘and that you think it should on no account be changed’. Baring continued that the timing of the withdrawal was within Gordon’s discretion, that the country should be left to those who ruled it before the Egyptian conquest, and that, while Egyptian troops should not be made responsible for imposing or maintaining this rule, Gordon was to have ‘full discretionary powers to retain the troops for such reasonable period as you may think necessary in order that the abandonment of the country may be accomplished with the least possible risk to life and property’.⁵⁷

Zubeir then came into the meeting and Gordon apologised to him. Zubeir then shook his hand (as he had refused to do the day before) and pledged him his services. Gordon announced that he wanted Zubeir to accompany him to install him in power once he and the Egyptians departed. Gordon said that he had a mystical feeling about his trustworthiness. Since many of the Mahdi’s chiefs were Zubeir’s, he would have little trouble ‘end[ing] the Mahdi in a couple of months’.⁵⁸ A furious argument over Zubeir ensued and Gordon refused to attend a farewell dinner. Baring reassured Gordon that, once he reached Khartoum, if he still wanted Zubeir, he would support his request. After their departure, Baring wrote privately to Granville approving his selection, but characterising Gordon as ‘half-cracked’ and concluding, ‘My only fear is that he is terribly flighty and changes his opinions very rapidly. I am glad that Stewart, who impressed me very favourably, is going with him, but I don’t think that Gordon much likes it himself. He said to me, “they sent him with me to be my wet nurse”.’⁵⁹

On 4 February, Valentine Baker’s force was slaughtered by Osman Digna at El Teb. When the Sinkat garrison heard the news, they spiked their guns and attempted to retreat to Suakin as well, but Digna’s men ambushed them a mile from Sinkat and massacred all of the men and most of their women and children. Only a small party of Royal Marines now held Suakin. By 8 February the India Office, Hartington, Wolseley and the Queen had all called for action - demanding that the government reverse its policy of evacuation, leaving everything east of the Nile under British-supervised Egyptian control, that a British force under Gerald Graham be sent to Suakin to defeat Osman Digna and another sent to Wadi Halfa to support Gordon’s efforts. Otherwise, Wolseley warned, sooner or later an expedition would have to be mounted to relieve Khartoum. Gladstone faced a five-day House of Commons debate and vote of confidence, which he survived while further confusing the government’s Sudan policy, and Graham was ordered to Suakin.

Gordon and Stewart reached Abu Hamid on 7 February and received a positive welcome, especially when he announced tax reductions and a general amnesty. Emboldened, over the next two days, Gordon sent messages to Baring advising that the Egyptians should keep the Sudan and that the evacuation of Khartoum should be temporary. He still believed that Zubeir should lead the government there post-evacuation, and requested that Baring publish all of his cables to spur British public opinion. Three days later, Gordon sent a first message to the Mahdi at El Obeid, presenting him with Chinese silks and a Turkish tarbush – a hated symbol of the Turkiyya – offering him the Sultanate of Kordofan, and, contrary to Baring’s instructions, requesting a meeting with him. He also offered to ransom Slatin and his men and asked the Mahdi to restore the Khartoum–El Obeid telegraph line to facilitate communication between them. At Berber on 11 February, 1884 Gordon was welcomed with great pomp and ceremony. Before arriving there, Gordon learned that the Khedive had replaced Hussein Pasha Khalifa as the Murdir of Berber with a Circassian. Gordon cancelled the replacement and announced that henceforth the Sudan would be ruled only by Sudanese. That night, Stewart informed him of Baker’s defeat, of which the people of Berber had not yet heard. Reversing course again, the next morning Gordon announced the complete separation of the Sudan from Egypt (though still subordinate to Gordon’s authority as Her Majesty’s High Commissioner) and, to prove his sincerity, showed the secret firman, perhaps inadvertently – he couldn’t read Arabic – to Hussein Pasha and Mohamad Tahir, a jurist thought to be an ally of the Mahdi. Hussein Pasha and the Berber leaders rejoiced at the announcements and at a proclamation that preserved the status quo with respect to slavery in the Sudan. Even Gordon soon recognised the mistake. Through Baring, Granville telegraphed Gordon soliciting his views on the implications of Baker’s defeat and on whether Gordon himself should be recalled. Gordon answered no, calling on his superiors to do nothing precipitous that might interfere with a meeting of tribal chiefs that he was planning once he arrived at Khartoum, or that might drive them into the arms of the Mahdi.

On 12 February Gladstone finally gave in to the pressure and ordered British forces to protect the Egyptian Red Sea coast. The next day, Graham’s brigade embarked for Suakin. By 5 March, the British had recaptured Tokar and fought and won the second battle of El Teb, forcing Digna’s tribesmen temporarily back into the hills. Its effect on Gordon’s mission would be to cast doubts on the latter’s promises that Britain’s objective was to return control of the Sudan to its native sheikhs. At around the same time, two British officers fluent in Arabic, Captain (and Egyptian Army Major) Horatio Herbert Kitchener and Leslie Rundle, were sent south to scout the shortest route between the Red Sea and the Nile.

Having survived a Mahdist ambush at the sixth cataract on board the steamer Ismailia (renamed Tewfikieha) escorted by the Abbas, Gordon arrived in Khartoum on 18 February. He received a warm reception from the city’s notables in a formal ceremony at the Governor’s Palace, and issued taxation remission and slavery continuation statements calculated to please the people. He then turned his attention to his mission, telegraphing Baring, again reversing his position on the Sudan’s future, calling on Britain to assume direct control of the country and appoint a local ruler to whom Britain would offer moral support and a subsidy for good behaviour. ‘As for the man H.M.G. (not the Khedive) should select one above all others, namely Zebeyr [sic].’⁶⁰ Baring, in accordance with his promise to Gordon, supported Gordon’s recommendation to Granville, but suggested that Zubeir not be sent to Khartoum until Gordon completed his evacuation and left. Already feeling the outrage of anti-slavery supporters over Gordon’s maintenance of the practice, Granville replied on 23 February that the government doubted the wisdom of appointing anyone and that ‘public opinion here would not tolerate the appointment of Zebeyr’.⁶¹

Khartoum, 1884–85

Gordon sent the first party of Egyptian evacuees northward to safety on 26 February and by 11 March, when operations ceased, he had evacuated 2,140 Egyptians. At the same time, he sent a telegram to Granville stating his view that, to prevent chaos in the wake of the evacuation, the ‘Mahdi must be smashed up’.⁶² However cogent this advice, the prospect of offensive action against the Mahdi diminished the Cabinet’s confidence in Gordon. In the next few days, Gordon sent at least thirty telegrams to Baring, who took to reading them in batches in order to make sense of them, forwarding only the more lucid of them to Granville. On 29 February Baring wired Granville stating the options in stark terms: ‘simply evacuate with no thought of consequence; or evacuate the country leaving some semblance of order behind’.⁶³ Gordon, he wrote, wanted to do the latter, but Zubeir was necessary to accomplish this, and Baring agreed with Gordon’s analysis and conclusions. Graham’s victory at El Teb convinced Gordon that the Suakin–Berber road would soon be open. On 13 March, however, Graham barely held off another attack at Tamai. Despite Wood’s and Baring’s advice, the Cabinet formally rejected sending Graham’s troops further westward to Berber and ordered their withdrawal to Suakin. From there, the force was ordered back to Egypt on 3 April, leaving just two battalions to guard Suakin.

On 3 March Gordon wired Baring; ‘Pray do not consider me in any way to advocate the retention of the Sudan. I am quite adverse to it, but you must see that you could not recall me, nor could I possibly obey, until the Cairo employees get out from all the places. How could I look the world in the face if I abandoned them and fled?’⁶⁴ A day later, however, Stewart sent a more sober evaluation pointing out that the weather and terrain would probably prevent such forays even if they were authorised. He supported Gordon’s plea that Zubeir be sent. Baring made the plea to Granville but he flatly refused the request.

On 10 March The Times published Frank Power’s account of an interview that Gordon had given (against Stewart’s advice) dwelling at length on the necessity of sending Zubeir to Khartoum. The publication of Gordon’s views ignited a firestorm of protest against empowering Zubeir ‘the slaver’. On 13 March the telegraph line to Khartoum was cut. In response, Kitchener and Rundle were ordered to Berber to facilitate ongoing communications and to keep the Suakin–Berber road open, but they never got there.

The first Ansár forces, led by Sheikh al-‘Ubeid occupied positions on the Blue Nile across from the city on 14 March, beginning a 319-day siege. On 15 March Sheikh el-Obeid led all the tribes between Berber and Shendi into revolt, and by 20 March some 30,000 Ansár tribesmen loosely surrounded Khartoum. On 22 March the Mahdi’s response to Gordon’s 10 February message arrived in Khartoum carried by three armed Ansár envoys under a white flag. He suggested Gordon renounce his faith and surrender.⁶⁵ Returning Gordon’s compliment, the Mahdi sent Gordon a patched jibba – ‘a filthy patched Dervish’s coat’⁶⁶ Gordon called it – for Gordon to wear if he accepted the Mahdi’s offer. Gordon responded that ‘I cannot have any more communication with you’⁶⁷ – the Mahdi would send at least eight more letters to him by 18 January 1885 – and turned his attention to preparation for the defence of the city and its 34,000 inhabitants. Food continued to flow into the city, now supplemented by land and river raids organised by Gordon and Stewart. The city itself was mostly not fortified, bounded on three sides by the confluence of the Blue and White Niles. To the existing 8ft deep ditch and rampart, which ranged from 5,900 to 6,700ft long depending on the height of the rivers that bounded it, Gordon added barbed and telegraph-wire entanglements, studded the ditch and ramparts with spearheads, laced the first 100yd of open ground with triple-spiked iron ‘crows feet’ and the next 500ft with broken glass, and laid a mass of land-mines made up of tin biscuit boxes full of powder, nails and bullets electronically detonatable. When he ran out of electric triggers, he added somewhat less reliable match or pressure-detonated mines. The ditch was anchored by Fort Mogren at the Blue Nile end and by Fort Buri on the White. The town’s two cross-river outposts, Omdurman across the White Nile and North Fort across the Blue Nile, connected to Gordon’s headquarters in the Governor General’s Palace by field telegraph, were also reinforced. With the summer high-water period approaching, Gordon felt confident of his defensive position.

Gordon could muster some 8,665 defenders comprising 2,316 black Sudanese regulars – many former slaves and Gordon’s most reliable force – 1,421 Egyptian troops, 1,906 Bashi-Bazouk mercenaries from various tribes, 2,330 Shaigiya tribal irregulars and 692 volunteer townsmen. They would man the 15-mile parameter that enclosed both the town and grazing for the cavalry horses and the farm animals that helped to feed the city. He ensured their morale by paying them with money printed on his own presses and signed by him. Gordon also ordered the armouring and equipping of his small fleet of nine steamers with Krupp breech-loading artillery and Nordenfeld machine-guns.

On 9 April Gordon received the now month-old warning from Baring that the British had no intention of sending a force to Berber. Angered and blaming Baring, he responded that this left him ‘free to act according to circumstances. I shall hold on here for as long as I can …’.⁶⁸ On 16 April, he sent a series of messages to Berber for transmission to Cairo, appointing Zubeir, who had already refused to go unless a series of impossible conditions were met, Deputy Governor General of the Sudan with orders to proceed southward. Heavy rains had raised the level of the river giving Khartoum better protection. Sorties into the countryside also brought in large quantities of grain and livestock. The Khartoum arsenal was producing large quantities of ammunition, and, at Gordon’s request, Khartoum ulema denounced the Mahdi as a false prophet. Gordon also made frequent (and false) statements about rescue missions on the way.

The British Cabinet met on 23 April to consider memoranda penned by Wolseley and supported by Hartington, demanding that the government determine its policy with respect to the Sudan: Wolseley wanted an army sent. After four hours of debate, during which Gladstone expressed his fear that Gordon’s rescue could be a cover for imperialist annexation, it was decided to ask Gordon about his intentions and what force it might take to bring him out. The inquiry would take three months to reach him. There were mass public meetings in Gordon’s support and on 12 May Gladstone’s government survived a vote of censure by just twenty-eight votes after Hartington assured the members that the government would spare no sacrifice to save Gordon.

Ansár forces overran Berber on 18 May, capturing two steamers, £60,000 and Gordon’s medals, which had been sent there for safekeeping. With Berber now in the Mahdi’s hands, Kitchener and Rundle organised an intelligence and courier network from Aswan. Indeed, on 20 July Gordon sent a message, via courier and telegram, through Kitchener in Dongola reporting that Khartoum and Sennar were still ‘en bonne defence’ and asking for information about relief forces. Some of Gordon’s messages were becoming garbled in transit and Kitchener had to interpret them before transmitting them to Cairo and London. On 2 September Kitchener reported that he thought Gordon was telling him that Khartoum could hold out until mid-November.

Gordon finally received Gladstone’s questionnaire in July. He answered in a long letter dated 30/31 July, stating that he couldn’t leave Khartoum because:

the Arabs have shut us up, and will not let us out…. I will conclude by saying that we will defend ourselves to the last, that I will not leave Khartoum, that I will try to persuade all Europeans to escape, and that I am still sanguine that, by some means not yet clear, God will give us the issue.⁶⁹

Gordon’s letter did not reach Baring until early October. Meanwhile, on 5 August, in response to a threat from Hartington to resign unless an effort was made to rescue Gordon, Gladstone asked the Commons to authorise a sum ‘not exceeding £300,000 to enable Her Majesty to undertake operations for the relief of General Gordon, should they become necessary’.⁷⁰ Though the sum was considered inadequate by military experts, the Commons did so and then began its summer adjournment.

Accordingly, on 8 August Gladstone authorised Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Stephenson, GOC in Egypt, to begin assembling transport and supplies, to concentrate a British force at Wadi Halfa and to begin contingency planning. Gladstone still hoped that Gordon might be induced to escape through Dongola, that the Mudir there might be induced to play the Zubeir role, that a small force might suffice to convince the Mahdi to withdraw and that the government would not become ‘enslaved’ to Gordon’s views. He further insisted that no further decisions be taken until every Cabinet member had been consulted. Despite Gladstone’s hesitancy, Hartington proceeded to spend £750,000 on military preparations. Again at Hartington’s insistence and despite the Duke of Cambridge’s strenuous objections, Wolseley was given command of the relief expedition on 26 August.

As the preparations began to be put in hand in Britain and Egypt, the Mahdi himself was moving towards Khartoum, arriving at Omdurman on 21 October. Slatin later estimated the force’s strength as 200,000 spear-carrying men.⁷¹ It was reported to Gordon that there were 40,000 riflemen but Gordon refused to believe it. Already, on 4 September, however, a force commanded by Mohammed Ali Pasha Husayn, who Gordon had ordered to break up an Ansár concentration at El Foun, 25 miles up the Blue Nile, went beyond the range of his steamer guns and was ambushed. He and over 1,000 of Gordon’s best infantry were killed. As a result, the Ansár tightened their noose around the city, and the resupply of the city from the surrounding countryside virtually ceased.

Now more cut off than ever before and perhaps convinced that only direct information from Khartoum would finally move the British government to action, Gordon resolved on 9 September to send Stewart, Power and the French consul, Herbin, north on the specially refitted steamer Abbas, carrying letters, dispatches, Stewart’s journal, Gordon’s cipher books and a letter reproaching Baring for his inaction and silence. Gordon’s exact reasons remain a mystery since, in various places in letters and in his journal, Gordon implied both that he had decided to send Stewart and also that he accepted Stewart’s request to be sent. He sent the steamers Mansurah and Safia as well as two sailing boats loaded with nineteen heavily armed Greeks to escort them past Berber.

Wolseley arrived in Cairo on 9 September and, after three weeks’ debate, vetoed Stephenson’s plans to utilise the 480-mile Suakin–Berber route for the main force and to recruit 5,000 loyal tribesmen from Dongola to assemble native boats and drag them past the Nile Cataracts. Wolseley insisted that the falling Nile would not permit their use, choosing instead the 1,650-mile-long route up the Nile. Wolseley also determined to take some 1,600 men and 68 officers from crack mounted units to form a camel corps to race across the Bayuda desert shortcutting the Nile loop from Korti to Berber and El-Metemmeh, and then proceed upstream on Gordon’s steamers to relieve the city.

Gordon did not initially believe word smuggled into Khartoum of the first British infantry arriving at Wadi Halfa but more definite news was received on 22 September. The day before, Gordon had received two smuggled-in telegrams which he couldn’t read because he had sent his cipher books north with Stewart, some old photographed letters telling him that British senior officers were proceeding to Wadi Halfa and a message from Kitchener asking after Stewart’s health that puzzled him. Gordon ordered a gun salute and pamphlets printed and distributed informing the populace of the news to raise their morale. On 29 September Gordon recorded his thoughts on the role the troops would play and about the Sudan’s future:

My idea is to induce Her Majesty’s Government to undertake the extrication of all peoples or garrisons … and if that is not their programme, then resign my commission and do what I can to attain it…. Therefore, if her Majesty’s forces are not prepared to [do this], the General should consider whether it is worth coming up – in his place I would not.⁷²

On 3 October, he even drew up a detailed schedule for the progress of the relief force.

Anticipating the arrival of a relief force, Gordon sent Mohamad Nushi’s steamers Bordein and Tel el Hawein, each with 300 soldiers, north to Shendi or Metemmeh to await its arrival. They would wait for 112 days. Wolseley, however, was moving deliberately, faced as he was with logistical failures from the lack of experience of the boat crews, the overloaded boats and dromedaries, and the lack of coal for the steamers. He also believed the messages from Gordon, who, unable to understand Arabic, selected the most optimistic bits from the rumours picked up by his staff and transmitted them through Kitchener at the El-Debbah terminus of the telegraph line. In turn, Kitchener emphasised Gordon’s positive attitude to Cairo. In the messages transmitted the other way, Kitchener overestimated the speed and progress of the rescuing force. To staunch these overly optimistic reports, Wolseley himself sent ciphered messages to Gordon, reporting that the mission had fallen behind schedule, but without his cipher books, Gordon was unable to read them. Both Gordon and Wolseley felt that their opposites were not supplying them with sufficient or accurate intelligence, and the Nile was beginning to fall. In fact, Wolseley’s mission was closely defined in the instructions Baring transmitted to him on 8 October: ‘The primary object of the expedition up the valley of the Nile is to bring away General Gordon and Colonel Stewart from Khartoum. When that object has been secured, no further offensive operations of any kind are to be undertaken.’⁷³

An inventory made by Gordon on 19 October now showed that he had 2,316 Sudanese regulars, 1,421 Egyptian regulars, 1,906 Bashi-Bazouks, 2,330 Shagiya tribesmen and 692 town militia, totalling 8,665 men at arms. For these, he had 2,165,000 rounds of Remington ammunition and his arsenal was producing 40,000 more each week. He had 12 artillery pieces on land and 11 in his remaining 7 steamers, and had 21,141 rounds of ammunition for them. But the food he needed for his soldiers and the 35,000 civilians in the city was running short. He estimated that he had nine weeks’ supply. As hunger spread, looting broke out. Through spies and defectors, the Mahdi was kept well informed of the food situation and, given the leisurely pace of the rescue mission, believed the city could be reduced through starvation. Then on 22 October Gordon received a letter from the Mahdi politely requesting his surrender, and informing him of the deaths of Stewart, Power and Herbin and, as proof, providing a detailed list of the papers recovered from them. Though Gordon refused to believe the report, it was true. North of Berber, the Abbas had hit a rock at full speed and foundered. Its passengers and crew were forced to wade to an island, from which, after two days, Stewart sent a message asking for transport to a seemingly friendly local sheikh, who invited them to his house. Stewart, Power and Herbin went unarmed to confirm their intentions. While eating, armed men accosted them and they were massacred, followed by the crew and other passengers.⁷⁴

On 12 November the Mahdi ordered his Nordenfelds and Krupp mountain guns, chronically short of ammunition and fired by locally recruited gunners, to disable or sink Gordon’s remaining steamers. The Ismailia was hit numerous times as she steamed back and forth firing at Ansár forces. The next day, the Husseinieh was holed below the waterline, was grounded to prevent her sinking and, once her guns were removed, was abandoned. Shortly thereafter, as the falling of the Nile enabled the Ansár to move ever closer, the systematic shelling of the city began. Telegraphic communication between Khartoum and Omdurman was cut on 13 November. Gordon believed that this was a minor concern. Nonetheless, on 13 December, Gordon decided to close his journal and send it, along with some last letters, downstream to safety. The next day, after writing letters to his sister and to his friend Colonel Watson, Gordon made his last journal entry: ‘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. Good bye. C. G. Gordon. You send me no information, though you have lots of money.’⁷⁵Two days later, he loaded them on to the Bordein and sent it through a gauntlet of fire to El-Metemmah. He also sent a small written message, ‘Khartoum all right 14.12.84,’⁷⁶ and a longer verbal message by messenger to Wolseley, who received it on 31 December and interpreted it as advice to come quickly, but without leaving a hostile Berber behind. Wolseley reacted by strengthening his advance column and supply depots, causing further delays. At this point, there were about 14,000 civilians left in the city.

Recognising that his forces and supplies would not be at full strength until 22 January and conscious of Gordon’s dire condition, Wolseley ordered Kitchener and his Arab scouts to lead the 1,100-man advance party of Herbert Stewart’s Desert Column from their camp at Korti on 30 December to establish an intermediate supply depot at the wells at Gakdul 100 miles away and halfway to El-Metemmeh. They arrived on 2 January to establish British control. Leaving the Camel Regiment and Royal Engineers to prepare and defend the place, Stewart returned to Korti to lead on the rest of the force and their supplies. Stewart left Korti again with the remaining 2,000 men and supplies on 8 January and arrived back at Gakdul on 12 January. During this period, additional British forces arrived at Korti and Wolseley estimated that he would be ready for a full-scale assault in early March.

After several unsuccessful sorties to draw Ansár forces away from Omdurman, Gordon ordered the garrison, led by Faragh Pasha, to attempt a break-out on 4 January. But the Ansár forced them back into the fort. Shortly thereafter, completely out of food, Gordon authorised the fort’s surrender. On the same day British units captured Hamdah and linked up with the River Column under General Earle. On 12 January the Mahdi again wrote to Gordon, pleading with him to surrender. Gordon did not reply.

After resting the exhausted animals for 60 hours, the Desert Column resumed its march toward the wells at Abu Klea, 20 miles north of the Nile at El-Metemmeh on 14 January. Colonel Sir Charles Wilson accompanied the column as its intelligence officer. He had warned, contrary to Wolseley’s assumptions, that a considerable Ansár force blocked its way. Alerted by cavalry scouts that Abu Klea was occupied by a strong Ansár force, Stewart prepared a strong fortified position on 17 January and marched his column forward in a large battle square which absorbed attacks from the north and the east by some 10,000 onrushing Ansár warriors. Largely due to jamming problems in both the rapid-fire artillery and the soldiers’ rifles, Ansár succeeded in penetrating the square, but the British emerged victorious. However, the man who Wolseley had selected to lead the advance from El-Metemmeh, Lieutenant Colonel Fred Burnaby, was killed. The next morning, the British began their march from the wells straight through to El-Metemmeh. They were confronted by another Ansár force near Abu Kru. Fire from the advancing Ansár mortally wounded Stewart, and Wilson, who had never commanded in combat before, took over. Fending off furious attacks, the force reached the river after nightfall and, succumbing to thirst and exhaustion, collapsed for the night. The next day, the Mahdi ordered a 101-gun salute to be fired outside Khartoum, signalling a great victory, but Gordon, watching the Ansár camps through his rooftop telescope, saw women wailing and recognised it as a ruse to convince him that the British advance had been halted. That evening the Mahdi held a war council where he determined to assault the city by way of a route suggested by a deserter, at the western end of the ditch and rampart where the river had lowered to dry land which the sun had dried into a soft bog. As the river receded, it took many of the protective mines with it.

On 21 January Wilson led an attack on El-Metemmeh, but finding a strong, well-entrenched Ansár force waiting there for him, ordered it halted. The British returned to Gubat. They were met by Gordon’s armoured steamers: the El Mansureh had been sunk by Ansár guns, but the Bordein had by now joined the little fleet that also included Tel el Hawein and Safia. Wilson thus received Gordon’s letters and journal but Abu Klea had convinced him that the Ansár were truly formidable, and his small force was exhausted and in disarray. Burnaby was dead, Stewart lay dying – he died on 28 February – and Lord Charles Beresford and he himself were wounded. Besides, a message from Gordon, perhaps intended to deceive the Mahdi and dated 29 December, stated ‘Khartoum all right, could hold out for years.’⁷⁷Wilson spent the next two days reorganising his forces, before deciding to load two of the steamers for a run to Khartoum on 24 January. Some 240 Egyptian and Sudanese soldiers and 20 men of the Royal Sussex Regiment in red tunics, led by Wilson, steamed upriver from Gubat toward Khartoum aboard the Bordein and the Telahwiya, which towed a grain-filled barge. With the river low, the boats moved slowly in daylight for three days, often running aground and engaging in fire-fights. Wilson approached the city under heavy fire on 28 January. When he observed the smouldering ruins of the Governor’s Palace where he had expected to see an Egyptian flag flying, he ordered the steamers to turn northward. Under heavy fire, he retreated tortuously down the lowering Nile to Gubat. On 5 February Wolseley reported the fall of the city to the War Office.

On 25 January Gordon had observed the Ansár preparing to attack and called every able-bodied man to arms. The Mahdi ordered that Gordon not be killed in the attack and that night skirmishers crept through the city’s southern defences. Before daybreak on 26 January, several thousand men overran the Egyptian defenders, while another attack was launched at the northern end of the rampart. By midday, most of the city’s remaining male inhabitants had been killed along with Gordon himself. The varying accounts of his death, fighting to the last, attempting to detonate explosives in the Governor’s Palace, serenely confronting his attackers (in the style of a Christian martyr), became the stuff of legend. Slatin reported that his severed head was presented to the Mahdi.

Gladstone’s first response to the disaster – he barely survived another vote of censure on 27 February – was to call for a second, larger Sudan expedition to avenge Gordon. The Desert Column was reinforced and the River Column proceeded southward and successfully thwarted another attempt by the Ansár to delay it at Jebel Kirbekan on 10 February, though Earle was killed. Gerald Graham, who returned to Suakin on 12 March with a new expeditionary force, proceeded inland and won several hard-fought battles. Then, on 21 April, using Graham’s securing of the Red Sea ports as his excuse, Hartington ordered Wolseley to withdraw, leaving all of the Sudan except for Suakin to the Mahdi. Gladstone’s government resigned on 8 June, succumbing to its own internal rivalries. On 20 June, the Mahdi died, probably of typhus, and was succeeded by the Khalifa Abdullahi. Poor harvests, epidemics, tribal rebellions, Ansár misrule and enforced isolation combined to bring the Sudan to a sorry state, while the British compensated by idolising Gordon. Sensing the popular mood, the House of Commons awarded his family £20,000 and declared a national day of mourning. A final battle was fought at Ginnis on the Sudan-Egyptian border, where Ansár raids had been taking place: the British, under Stephenson, won, marking the end of the 1885 campaign.