Charles Gordon

“ The tragic end at Khartoum was not an inappropriate conclusion for the career of Charles Gordon, whose life had been far removed from the ordinary experiences of mankind. No man who ever lived was called upon to deal with a greater number of difficult military and [Pg 173] administrative problems, and to find the solution for them with such inadequate means and inferior troops and subordinates. In the Crimea he showed as a very young man the spirit, discernment, energy, and regard for detail which were his characteristics through life. ”

“ Those who have been richly endowed by Nature have little difficulty in gaining the smiles of society; but in all classes there are a few unfortunate ones, who are not specially gifted and attractive, and who consequently often have the cold shoulder turned towards them. It was characteristic of Charles Gordon's father, as it was of himself in later years, that these were the ones he befriended and looked after. ”

“ No one knew better than he that, with the single exception of Sir Samuel Baker, who was far too prudent to take up a thankless task, and to remove the mountain of blunders others had committed, there was no man living who had the smallest pretension to say that he could cope with the Soudan difficulty, save Charles Gordon. ”

“ Two Royal Engineer officers, Lieutenants Chippendall and Charles Watson, joined him before the end of the year. He worked very hard himself, and he expected those under him to do the same. The astonished Egyptian officials looked on in amazement at one in high rank, who examined into every detail himself, and who took his turn of the hard work. One of Gordon's forms of recreation was to get out and help to pull his dahabeah. Tucking up his trousers, he would wade through the river fearlessly, having learnt from the natives that crocodiles never attack a person moving. ”

“ Had Sir Evelyn Baring done his duty, and given the only honest answer on 2nd December 1883, that if any one man could save the situation, that man was Charles Gordon, Gordon could have reached Khartoum early in January instead of late in February, and that difference of six weeks might well have sufficed to completely alter the course of subsequent events, and certainly to save Gordon's life, seeing that, after all, the Nile Expedition was only a few days too late. The delay was also attended with fatal results to the civil population of Khartoum. ”

“ I cannot help thinking 'The Gordon Boys' Home' will be ever associated with the name of General Charles Gordon.
"To obtain money is always a difficulty. I do not doubt the willingness of the public to give money, but their ability is not always so great, and I have a suggestion to make to you which may find favour in your eyes. ”

“ The tone adopted by some persons and papers at the time of the death of the great Charles Gordon, tended to imply their view that his death was a kind of traga intended to bring vengeance on those who had sacrificed him. [For a case in Greece, see Pausanias, X. i. 6. Another name for this self-sacrifice is Chandi, which is perhaps Skt. ćaṇḍa, 'passionate' (see Malcolm, Cent. India, 2nd ed. ii. 137) . Also compare the jūhar of the Rājputs (Tod, Annals, Calcutta reprint, i. 74) . And for Kūr, see As. Res. iv. 357 seqq.] ”

“ The maternal grandmother, Isabella C, wife of Angus Sutherland, was the daughter of Robert and Christina (Arnot) Gordon. Her father is said to have sprung from the same stock as the distinguished British general, Charles George Gordon, known as "Chinese Gordon"—born at Woolwich, England, in 1833, son of William H. and Elizabeth (Enderby) Gordon and grandson of William A. and Anna M. (Clarke) Gordon—whose great-grandfather, David Gordon, emigrated from Scotland after the battle of Culloden, and died in Halifax, N.S., in 1752. ”

“ He was to learn in his own person the weakness and falseness of his Government, and to find himself betrayed by the very persons who had only sought his assistance in the belief that by a miracle—and nothing less would have sufficed—he might relieve them from responsibilities to which they were not equal. Far better would it have been, not only for Gordon's sake, but even for the reputation of England, if he had carried out his original project on the Congo, where, on a less conspicuous scene than the Nile, he might still have fought and won the battle of humanity. ”

“ 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. [1]
Authorities.—The Journals of Major-General Gordon at Khartoum (1885) ; Lord Cromer, Modern Egypt (2 vols., 1908) ; F. R. Wingate, Mahdiism and the Egyptian Sudan (1891) ; the British Parliamentary Paper on Egypt (1884–1885) ”

“ GORDON, GEORGE, fourth Marquis of Huntly and first Duke of Gordon (1643–1716) , was the eldest son of Lewis, third marquis of Huntly, by his wife Isabel, daughter of Sir James Grant of Grant. He succeeded his father in 1653, when about ten years of age. Charles II had nominally restored the titles and estates, which had been forfeited when his grandfather, George Gordon, second marquis [q. v.] ”

“ England may well feel proud of having produced so noble and so unapproachable a hero. She has had, and she will have again, soldiers as brave, as thoughtful, as prudent, and as successful as Gordon. She has had, and she will have again, servants of the same public spirit, with the same intense desire that not a spot should sully the national honour. But although this breed is not extinct, there will never be another Gordon. The circumstances that produced him were exceptional; the opportunities that offered themselves for the demonstration of his greatness can never fall to the lot of another ”

“ On the 27th, Halfiyeh, eight miles from Khartoum, was reached, and the Arabs along the banks shouted out that Gordon was killed and Khartoum had fallen. Still Sir Charles Wilson went on past Tuti Island, until he made sure that Khartoum had fallen and was in the hands of the dervishes. Then he ordered full steam down stream under as hot a fire as he ever wished to experience, Gordon's black gunners working like demons at their guns. ”

“ The personal glimpses obtainable of Gordon during these depressing years, while engaged on a task he foresaw would be undone by the weakness and indifference of the Egyptian authorities as soon as he gave it up, are very illustrative of his energy and inherent capacity for command. The world at large was quite indifferent to the heroism and the self-denial, amounting to self-sacrifice, which alone enabled him to carry on his own shoulders, like a modern Atlas, the whole administration of a scarcely conquered region, which covered ten degrees of latitude. ”

“ Gordon went to China only because he thought Li Hung Chang sent for him, but when he found that powerful persons were inciting him to revolt, he became the first and most strenuous in his advice against so imprudent and unpatriotic a measure. Sir Robert Hart knew exactly what was being done by the German Minister. He wished to save Gordon from being drawn into a dangerous and discreditable plot, and also in the extreme eventuality to deprive any rebellion of the support of Gordon's military genius. ”

“ When Gordon left Egypt, at the end of the year 1879, he was able to truthfully declare in the words of his favourite book: "No man could lift his hand or his foot in the land of the Soudan without me." Yet he was fully alive to the dangers of the future, although then they were no more than a little cloud on the horizon, for he wrote in 1878: "Our English Government lives on a hand-to-mouth policy. They are very ignorant of these lands, yet some day or other, they or some other Government, will have to know them, for things at Cairo cannot stay as they are. ”

“ When Gordon went so far as to write a letter of that character, which, it must be admitted, was far in excess of any authority he possessed, it must be clear that the envoy, who came to put forward counsels that were intended to restore harmony, but that by so doing might assume the aspect of palliating the Futai's conduct, could not count on a very cordial reception from a man of Gordon's temperament, whose sense of honour and good faith had been deeply injured by the murder of the rebel leaders. ”

“ He would not permit anyone to say that his suppression of the Taeping rebellion was a marvellous feat, and he evaded and resented all the attempts made by those in power to bring him into prominence as a national hero. Modesty is becoming as an abstract principle of human conduct, but Gordon carried it to an excess that made it difficult not so much for his fellow-men to understand him, as for them to hold ordinary workaday relations with him. ”

“ GORDON, PATRICK (fl. 1615–1650) , poet, published in London in 1614, 4to, 'Neptunus Britannicus Corydonis,' a Latin poem, deploring the death of Prince Henry, and congratulating Prince Charles on succeeding his brother as Prince of Wales and the Princess Elizabeth on her marriage with the elector palatine. In 1615 two long narrative poems by 'Patrick Gordon, gent.,' were issued at Dort by George Waters. ”

“ This mode of living was due, not to any peculiarity about General Gordon—although I trace to this period the opinion that he was mad—but mainly to his honest wish not to be biassed by any European's judgment, and to be able to give the Khedive absolutely independent advice, as if he himself were an Egyptian, speaking and acting for Egypt. Enough has been said to explain why he failed to accomplish a really impossible task. ”

“ Gordon himself thought that his force could fight very well, and that his officers, if somewhat lacking in polish, were not to be surpassed in dash and devilry. For the Taepings, especially behind walls, and when it was impossible to out-manœuvre them, he had also the highest opinion, and his first object on every occasion was to discover a weak point in their position, and his patience and perspicuity were generally rewarded. ”

“ But Gordon was not to be discouraged. Already he liked his work, amid the heat and mosquitoes day and night all the year round, and already he was convinced that he could do a good deal to ameliorate the lot of the unfortunate people. He reached Gondokoro on 16th April, where not only was he not expected, but he found them ignorant even of his appointment. He remained there only a few days, as he perceived he could do nothing without his stores, still en route from Cairo, and returned to Khartoum, which he reached in eleven days. ”

“ The French Government, more discerning than his own, awarded him the Legion of Honour.
The letters from the Crimea are specially interesting for the light they throw on General Gordon's character. They illustrate better than anything else he wrote during his career the soldierly side of his character. The true professional spirit of the man of war peers forth in every sentence, and his devotion to the details of his work was a good preparatory course for that great campaign in China where his engineering skill, not less than his military genius, was so conspicuously shown. ”

“ The publication of General Gordon's views in the Pall Mall Gazette of 9th January 1884 had roused public opinion to the importance and urgency of the matter. It had also revealed that there was at least one man who was not in terror of the Mahdi's power, and who thought that the situation might still be saved. There is no doubt that that publication was the direct and immediate cause of Lord Granville's telegram of 10th January; but Sir Evelyn Baring, unmoved by what people thought or said at home, coldly replied on [Pg 121] 11th January that Gordon is not the man he wants. ”

“ This picture of Gordon lighting a cigarette in the press of a doubtful battle may well be coupled with that already given during the Taeping rebellion, of his standing unarmed in the breach of an assaulted stockade, while around him pressed on or wavered the individuals of a forlorn hope. It will be difficult for anyone to find in all the annals of war another instance of human courage more nearly approaching the sublime. ”

“ Like his father and grandfather, William Henry Gordon chose the profession of a soldier, and entered the Royal Artillery. He saw a great deal of active service, being with his corps in the Peninsula and at Maida, commanding at a later period the Artillery at Corfu and Gibraltar, and attaining before his death in 1865 the rank of Lieutenant-General. He was also connected with the Woolwich Arsenal as Director of the Carriage Department. He has been described as an excellent officer if a somewhat strict disciplinarian, and his firm character of noble integrity lived again in his sons. ”

“ On his return to Sungkiang, Major Gordon devoted himself to the thorough reorganisation of his force. He began by abolishing the system of rewards for the capture of towns, and he forbade plundering on pain of death. These were strong steps to take with a force such as that he had under him, but he succeeded in making them acceptable by increasing the pay of the men, and by substituting [Pg 81] on his staff English officers—the services of a few being lent him by the commanding officer at Shanghai—for the adventurers who had followed Ward and Burgevine. ”

“ When it is remembered that Gordon was of a different nationality and religion to the garrison and population, that he had only one British officer to assist him, and that the town was badly fortified and insufficiently provided with food, it is just to say that the defence of Khartum is one of the most remarkable episodes in military history. The siege commenced on the 18th of March, but it was not until August that the British government under the pressure of public opinion decided to take steps to relieve Gordon. ”