First Jihad: Khartoum, and the Dawn of Militant Islam (16 page)

But for once Gladstone’s political acumen failed him, for the French leadership, in a rare display of perception that would elude French politics for the next century and a quarter, understood that a threat to any European power in Egypt was a threat to all of them, and should the Egyptians force the British to leave their country, the French would soon follow.
So while the British forces in Egypt crushed Colonel Arabi’s rebellion without French assistance, they also did so without French hindrance.

Meanwhile, as British troops entered Cairo in September 1882, the situation in the Sudan was growing more serious every day.
Gladstone was pressed by experts and authorities from all sides, most particularly by the British Consul-General in Cairo, Sir Evelyn Baring, probably the most knowledgeable man of Anglo-Egyptian affairs in either country, who warned that, having pacified Egypt, it was imperative to suppress the Mahdi’s revolt in the Sudan at once.
Had Gladstone listened, and then acted promptly, the rebellion could almost certainly have been crushed before it spread.
Gladstone, however, his head and heart filled with anathema toward imperialism, could only see such action as another form of conquest.
He wanted no part of further annexations or expansion.
It was to be Great Britain’s policy that the Sudan was Egypt’s province, therefore if action was to be taken, it would be taken by the Khedive’s government.
The first result of that policy was the utter disaster of Hicks’ expedition.

The massacre of that army at the Mahdi’s hands proved to be an acute embarrassment for Gladstone, as the whole issue of what to do about the Sudan simply would not go away; and although the British government reversed its position on staying out of Egypt’s affairs in the Sudan in December 1883, it only acted to declare that the Khedive must abandon the Sudan, or else leave Khartoum and the Egyptians garrisoned there to their fate.
Abandonment, however, proved not only difficult to accomplish, involving thousands of Egyptian soldiers, civilians, and their families, but politically dangerous as well.
Gordon’s replacement as Governor-General, Abdel Kader Pasha, was asked to undertake the work, but he found it a task beyond his abilities.
Sensing that he must do something to avoid a political uproar at home, Gladstone requested Gordon to go back to Khartoum to report on conditions there, believing that even the appearance of action would be better than nothing at all.
It was an idea that proved highly popular in England, although Sir Evelyn Baring was at first opposed to Gordon’s appointment.

It seems that Baring’s objections were purely personal, for although he and Gordon got on very well, and each held the other’s accomplishments in high esteem, they were very different in temperament and method.
Where Baring was deliberate, methodical, and logical, Gordon was impulsive, rash, and intuitive.
Both men were highly successful within their chosen professions, but their thinking and habits were so unalike that it’s possible that the two men could never have understood each other.
It was a situation that would bear bitter fruit in the months to come.

It was also at this point that both Gordon and Gladstone encountered a phenomenon which a century later would be all too familiar to leaders and officials striving to counter and suppress the radical extremists who were the spiritual descendents of the Mahdi.
This was the newly found power of the press.
William T.
Stead, the editor of the influential
Pall Mall Gazette
, unexpectedly took the question of what was to be Britain’s policy toward the Sudan out of the Cabinet’s hands and thrust it firmly into the forefront of public consciousness.
It was an intervention that would have decisive consequences for the fate of Khartoum, and he would continue to play a role in the drama that would unfold at the confluence of the two Niles.
For that reason, Stead himself, as well as his motives, deserves a closer look.

Stead was the first great modern journalist, characterized by Geoffrey Marcus as “half charlatan–half genius.” Barbara Tuchman called him “a human torrent of enthusiasm for good causes.
His energy was limitless, his optimism unending, his egotism gigantic.” The
Pall Mall Gazette
was an unashamedly pro-Liberal daily, and in it, Stead launched crusades that garnered a readership for the Gazette so great and wide-ranging that at one time it even included the Prince of Wales.
The scope of his campaigns included railing against life in Siberian labor camps, decrying Bulgarian atrocities in the Balkan wars, and denouncing slavery in the Congo.
He espoused with equal passion the causes of baby adoption, housing for the poor, and public libraries.
Stead became the center of a national scandal when he published an article titled “The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon,” in which he described how for £5 he was able to purchase the services of a thirteen-year-old prostitute.
The article resulted in Stead’s arrest and conviction on a charge of abduction, for which he was compelled to serve a brief prison term, but the resultant public outcry over his sensational revelation resulted in his quick release and a subsequent act of Parliament that raised the age of consent from thirteen to sixteen.

He invented the modern “interview” and subjected men as diverse as Tsar Alexander III, Cecil Rhodes, Admiral John A.
“Jackie” Fisher, and General William Booth of the Salvation Army to this particular form of legalized interrogation.
He was a friend of men like Henry Edward Cardinal Manning and James Bryce, and even had lunch with the future king, Edward VII.
His mission, as Stead saw it, was to champion all “oppressed races, ill-treated animals, underpaid typists, misunderstood women, persecuted parsons, vilified public men, would-be suicides, hot-gospellers of every sort and childless parents.” Short, ruddy-complected, with piercing blue eyes and a reddish beard, habitually dressed in tweeds, Stead presented almost a caricature of the quintessential English eccentric.
“He was very nearly a great man,” the magazine
Truth
would later declare of him, “and certainly a most extraordinary one.” To T.P.
Connor, he was “a Peter the Hermit preaching the Crusades out of his time.”

Understandably then, Stead was drawn to the situation in Khartoum as a moth to a flame: here was yet another great crusade, replete with righteous cause and moral stance, to enjoin.
How dare the government of Mr.
Gladstone stand by and allow the Mahdi to overrun Khartoum and leave the Europeans living there, as well as the Egyptian population, to a bloody fate, all in the name of anti-imperialism?
To Stead, the Mahdi was another Zobeir, a rebel who should be crushed as quickly and ruthlessly as possible, for unless he was stopped in his tracks, he presented a real danger to Egypt, the Suez, and the whole of the Middle East.
Gordon had already shown what he could do with Egyptian troops once he had licked them into shape, and it seemed only proper that he be given the chance to do it again, this time standing against the Mahdi.
“Why not,” he wrote in the
Gazette
, “send General Gordon with full powers to Khartoum to assume absolute control over the territory, to relieve the garrisons, and do what can be done to save what can be saved from the wreck of the Sudan?” He then turned to the example of James Brooke, who had been given a free hand in Sarawak, on Borneo’s north coast some years earlier, in similar circumstances.
Stead called his solution “Sarawaking the Sudan.” The essential point is that when Stead ranted, people listened.

Gordon had his own opinions about what should be done, and it is illuminating to see how clearly he perceived the deeper danger the Mahdi represented, not only to British interests but to the Christian world in general.
“The danger to be feared is not that the Mahdi will march northward through the Wadi Halfa; on the contrary, it is very improbable that he will ever go that far north.
The danger is altogether of a different nature.
It arises from the influence of the spectacle that a conquering Mohammedan power, established close to your frontier, will exercise upon the population which you govern.
In all the cities in Egypt it will be felt that what the Mahdi has done they may do; and as he has driven out the intruder and the infidel, they may do the same.
Nor is it only England that has to face this danger.
The success of the Mahdi has already excited dangerous fermentation in Arabia and Syria.
Placards have been posted in Damascus calling upon the population to arise and drive out the Turks.
If the whole of the eastern Sudan is surrendered to the Mahdi, the Arab tribes on both sides of the Red Sea will take fire.
In self defense the Turks are bound to do something to cope with so formidable a danger, for it is quite possible that if nothing is done the whole of the Eastern Question may be reopened by the triumph of the Mahdi.”

In short, a “triumph by the Mahdi” could result in an open conflict between Britain, France, and Russia, as each nation would be confronted with open revolts in several parts of their respective empires, offering possible advantages to the others in moments of distraction or weakness.
The Great Game would suddenly assume entirely new dimensions and take on new threats.

Suddenly the views of the “Imperialists” in Gladstone’s Cabinet, particularly Lords Hartington and Granville, gained new stature, and the shift in public opinion in favor of some form of British intervention in the Sudan became so marked that Gladstone knew that whatever gesture he made—for he was unwilling to commit to more than a gesture—toward saving Khartoum and the Sudan had to contain some element that would convince everyone that it was more substantial than in truth it was.
He knew that sending General Gordon would send such a message to his Cabinet and the public alike.
All the while, however, Gladstone adamantly refused to send Gordon to the Sudan with plenipotentiary powers, which would allow him to act as military commander and governor.
At this point Lord Granville thought that he had a compromise solution that would be both workable and politically palatable.

He proposed sending Gordon to Khartoum in order to provide accurate reports on conditions there, while at the same time his personal prestige might be sufficient to bring about a peaceful solution to the developing confrontation.
It was a dreadful miscalculation, for it underestimated both Gordon and the Mahdi.
Once in Khartoum, no matter what his official status, Gordon could not help but take over the reins of power—rather than “report” he would defend.
For his part, the Mahdi was not another desert brigand to be bought off with gold and guns: his fanatical dedication to his cause, as well as that of his followers, stemmed not from greed but from conviction.
A man who truly believes that he is doing God’s work will not be swayed by talks of compromise and concession.
Both Gordon and the Mahdi believed, in their own way, that they were meant for such a calling.
Should they ever meet it would be the irresistible force against the immovable object.
When they did meet, it was a clash of titans.

It was Sir Garnett Wolseley who first offered this compromise position to Gordon, doing so in the War Office in Whitehall on January 15.
Gordon accepted the offer immediately, and the next day he was in Brussels, seeking an audience with King Leopold to secure a postponement of his Congo appointment.
Two days later he was back in London, and at noon met with the Cabinet.
Gordon’s diary described what transpired.

At noon he, Wolseley, came to me and took me to the Ministers.
He went in and talked to the Ministers, and came back and said, “Her Majesty’s Government want you to understand this.
Government are determined to evacuate the Sudan, for they will not guarantee future government.
You will go and do it?” I said: “Yes.” He said, “Go in.” I went in and saw them.
They said: “Did Wolseley tell you our ideas?” I said: “Yes, he said ‘You will not guarantee future government of Sudan, and you wish me to go and evacuate it.’” They said: “Yes,” and it was over, and I left at 8 p.m.
for Calais.

Gordon departed from Charing Cross Station, where Wolseley, Granville, and the Duke of Cambridge gathered to see him off.
Accompanying him was Colonel J.D.H.
Stuart, who had been assigned to serve as Gordon’s second-in-command.
Stuart, an officer of the 11th Hussars on detached duty, was later described as energetic and able, but he was also imbued with the typical British disdain for “natives,” a characteristic that was a distinct counterpoint to Gordon’s open affection for the people over whom he had been given authority.
The relationship between the two men in the months ahead, while never strained, was to prove a fascinating study in contrasting conceptions of the idea of “duty.”

A small incident occurred just before the train pulled out, touching in its humanity: Gordon discovered that he had prepared in such haste for his departure that he had only a few shillings on him, and Wolseley pressed all of his own spare cash, along with his pocket watch, on Gordon.
The train departed precisely at 8:00 PM, and none of the men left standing on the platform would ever see Charles Gordon alive again.

The train deposited Gordon and Stuart at Southampton, where they caught the steamer S.S.
Tanjore
, which took them to Egypt, arriving at Port Said on January 24.
On the journey Gordon had bombarded Stuart with a steady stream of ideas about how he would accomplish his mission.
Zobeir was on his mind, and it occurred to him that the old former slaver might actually be in communication with the Mahdi.
Zobeir was dangerous, then—it might be best if he were removed from Cairo, possibly to Cyprus.
Would it be possible to administer the Sudan as Britain had ruled India, through a chain of Sudanese sheiks set up as petty rulers in the territory, all clients of the British?
How was the evacuation to be accomplished—what transport was available, and how soon could more be obtained?
At the same time, Khartoum couldn’t simply be abandoned—some sort of government must be left behind when the Egyptians departed—what was that to be?
Most pressing of all, how close were the Mahdi’s forces to the city?
All the way to Port Said, Gordon fretted and pondered.
It was clear that he was already beginning to think beyond the restrictions of his orders, and giving serious thought to defending, rather than evacuating, Khartoum.