Charles George Gordon

Gordon was born in Woolwich, London, a son of Major General Henry William Gordon (1786–1865) and Elizabeth (Enderby) Gordon (1792–1873). The men of the Gordon family had served as officers in the British Army for four generations, and as a son of a general, Gordon was brought up to be the fifth generation; the possibility that Gordon would pursue anything other than a military career seems never to have been considered by his parents.[2] All of Gordon's brothers also became Army officers.[2]

Gordon grew up in England, Ireland, Scotland and the Ionian Islands (which were under British rule until 1864) as his father was moved from post to post.[3] He was educated at Fullands School in Taunton, Taunton School, and the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich.[4]

In 1843, Gordon was devastated when his favourite sibling, his sister Emily, died of tuberculosis, writing years later "humanly speaking it changed my life, it was never the same since".[5] After her death, her place as Gordon's favourite sibling was taken by his very religious older sister Augusta, who nudged her brother towards religion.[6]

As a teenager and an army cadet, Gordon was known for his high spirits, a combative streak and tendency to disregard authority and the rules if he felt them to be stupid or unjust, a personality trait that held back his graduation by two years when teachers decided to punish him for flouting the rules.[7]

As a cadet, Gordon showed exceptional talents at map-making and in designing fortifications, which led to his choosing to become a Royal Engineer or a "sapper".[8] He was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Royal Engineers on 23 June 1852,[9] completing his training at Chatham, and he was promoted to full lieutenant on 17 February 1854.[10] The sappers were an elite who performed the "reconnaissance work, led storming parties, demolished obstacles in assaults, carried out rear-guard actions in retreats and other hazardous tasks."[11]

As an officer, Gordon showed strong charisma and leadership, but his superiors distrusted him on account of his tendency to disobey orders if he felt them to be wrong or unjust.[8] A man of medium stature, with striking blue eyes, the charismatic Gordon had the ability to inspire men to follow him anywhere.[12]

Gordon was first assigned to construct fortifications at Milford Haven, Pembrokeshire, Wales. During his time in Milford Haven, Gordon was befriended by a young couple, Francis and Anne Drew, who introduced him to evangelical Protestantism.[13] Gordon was especially impressed with Philippians 1:21 where St. Paul wrote: "For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain", a passage he underlined in his Bible and often quoted.[13] He attended diverse congregations, including Roman Catholic, Baptist, Presbyterian, and Methodist. Gordon, who once said to a Roman Catholic priest that "the church is like the British Army, one army but many regiments", never aligned himself with or became a member of any church.[14]

When the Crimean War began, Gordon was assigned to his boyhood home of Corfu, but after several letters to the War Office, he was sent to the Crimea instead.[15] He was sent to the Russian Empire, arriving at Balaklava in January 1855. He first displayed his death wish as he wrote at the time that he had gone "to the Crimea, hoping, without having a hand in it, to be killed".[16]

In the 19th century Russia was Britain's archenemy, with many people in both nations seeing an ideological conflict between Russian autocracy and British democracy, and Gordon was anxious to fight in the Crimea.[16] He was put to work in the Siege of Sevastopol and took part in the assault of the Redan from 18 June to 8 September. As a sapper, Gordon had to map out the Russian fortifications at the city-fortress of Sevastopol designed by the famous Russian military engineer Eduard Totleben, a highly dangerous job that frequently put him under enemy fire, and led him to being wounded for the first time when a Russian sniper put a bullet into him.[17] Gordon spent much time in "the Quarries", as the British called their section of the trenches facing Sevastopol.[17]

During his time in the Crimea, Gordon made a number of friendships that were to last for the rest of his life, most notably with Romolo Gessi, Garnet Wolseley and Gerald Graham, all of whom would cross paths with Gordon several times in the future.[17]

On 18 June 1855, the besieging British and French armies began what was intended to be the final assault that would take Sevastopol, which began with a huge bombardment. As a sapper, Gordon was in a front line trench where he was under intense fire, men fell all around him and he was forced to take cover so often that he was covered literally from head to toe with mud and blood.[18] Despite the best efforts of the Allies, the French failed to take the Malakhov fortress while the British failed to take the Redan fortress on 18 June.[18] The casualties on the Allied side were quite high that day.[18]

Gordon spent thirty-four consecutive days in the trenches around Sevastopol, and earned a reputation as an able and brave young officer.[19] It was said at the British HQ that "If you want to know what the Russians are up to, send for Charlie Gordon."[19]

Gordon took part in the expedition to Kinburn, and returned to Sevastopol at the war's end. During the Crimean war, Gordon picked up an addiction to Turkish cigarettes which was to last for his rest of his life, and many commented that smoking was Gordon's most conspicuous vice as he always seemed to have a cigarette at his lips.[20]

For his services in the Crimea, he received the Crimean war medal and clasp.[4] For the same services he was appointed a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour by the Government of France on 16 July 1856.[21]

Gordon, from a photograph taken shortly after the Crimea.

Following the peace, he was attached to an international commission to mark the new border between the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire in Bessarabia. When Gordon first arrived at the city of Galatz (modern Galați, Romania) in the Ottoman protectorate of Moldavia, he called the city "very dusty and not desirable at all as a place of residence".[22] As he travelled to Bessarabia, he commented in his letters home about the richness and fertility of the Romanian countryside, which produced delicious fruits and vegetables in great abundance, and the poverty of the Romanian peasants.[23]

After a visit to Jassy (modern Iași), Gordon wrote: "The boyers live most of their lives in Paris and society is quite French... The prince keeps a great state and I was introduced to him with much ceremony. The English uniform produces an immediate sensation".[24] Gordon did not speak Romanian, but his fluency in French allowed him to socialise with the Francophile Romanian elite, who were all fluent in French.[25] As the maps that delineated the Russian-Ottoman frontier were all old and inaccurate, Gordon spent much time clashing with his Russian counterparts about where precisely the frontier was and soon discovered that Russians were very keen to have the frontier on the Danube, which Gordon had orders from London to prevent.[25] Gordon called the Romanians the "most fickle and intriguing people on the earth. They ape the French in everything and are full of ceremony, dress, etc... The employees sent by the Moldovan government to take over the ceded territory have been receiving bribes and trafficking in the most disgraceful manner."[26]

Afterwards, Gordon was sent to delineate the frontier between Ottoman Armenia and Russian Armenia, the highlight of which was tobogganing down Mount Ararat.[27] Gordon continued surveying, marking off the boundary into Asia Minor. During his time in Anatolia, Gordon embraced the new technology of the camera to take what the Canadian historian C. Brad Faught called a series of "evocative photographs" of the people and landscape of Armenia.[27] Throughout his life, Gordon was always a keen amateur photographer and was elected a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society to honour him for his Armenian photographs.[28] Gordon returned to Britain in late 1858, and was appointed as an instructor at Chatham. He was promoted to captain on 1 April 1859.[29]

Charles Gordon as a tidu (Captain General).

Gordon was intensely bored with garrison duty in Chatham and often wrote to the War Office, begging them to send him anywhere in the world where British arms were seeing action.[30] In 1860 Gordon volunteered to serve in China, in the Second Opium War.[31] When Gordon arrived at Hong Kong, he was disappointed to learn he was "just too late for the fighting".[32] Gordon had heard of the Taiping Rebellion long before he had set sail for China, and he was at first sympathetic towards the Taipings, led by the charismatic madman Hong Xiuquan who proclaimed himself to be the younger brother of Jesus Christ, viewing them as somewhat eccentric Christians.[32]

After stopping in Shanghai, Gordon visited the Chinese countryside and was appalled at the atrocities committed by the Taipings against the local peasants, writing to his family he would love to smash this "cruel" army with its "desolating presence" that killed without mercy.[32] He arrived at Tianjin in September 1860. He was present at the occupation of Beijing and at the destruction of the Summer Palace. Gordon agreed with Lord Elgin that after the Chinese had killed a group of British and French officers travelling under a white flag to parley that a reprisal was in order, but called the burning of the beautiful Summer Palace "vandal-like" and told his sister in a letter "it made one's heart sore" to incinerate it.[33] The British forces occupied northern China until April 1862, then under General Charles William Dunbar Staveley, withdrew to Shanghai to protect the European settlement from the rebel Taiping army.[34]

Following the successes in the 1850s in the provinces of Guangxi, Hunan and Hubei, and the capture of Nanjing in 1853 the rebel advance had slowed. For some years, the Taipings gradually advanced eastwards, but eventually they came close enough to Shanghai to alarm the European inhabitants. A militia of Europeans and Asians was raised for the defence of the city and placed under the command of an American, Frederick Townsend Ward, and occupied the country to the west of Shanghai.[35] The British arrived at a crucial time. Staveley decided to clear the rebels within 30 miles (48 km) of Shanghai in co-operation with Ward and a small French force.[35] Gordon was attached to his staff as engineer officer. Jiading, northwest suburb of present Shanghai, Qingpu and other towns were occupied, and the area was fairly cleared of rebels by the end of 1862.[35]

A scene of the Taiping Rebellion. Estimates of the war dead from the Taiping Rebellion range from 20 to 70 million to as high as 100 million.[36]

Ward was killed in the Battle of Cixi and his successor H. A. Burgevine, an American, was disliked by the Imperial Chinese authorities.[37] Burgevine was an unsavory character known for his greed and alcoholism.[38] Moreover, Burgevine made little effort to hide his racism, and his relations with the Chinese were very difficult at the best of times.[38] Li Hongzhang, the governor of the Jiangsu province, requested Staveley to appoint a British officer to command the contingent. Staveley selected Gordon, who had been made a brevet major in December 1862 and the nomination was approved by the British government.[37] Given Burgevine's alcoholism, open corruption, and tendency to engage in acts of mindless violence when drunk, the Chinese wanted "a man of good temper, of clean hands and a steady economist" as his replacement.[39] These requirements led Staveley to choose Gordon.[39] Li was impressed with Gordon, writing:

It is a direct blessing from Heaven, the coming of this British Gordon. ... He is superior in manner and bearing to any of the foreigners whom I have come into contact with, and does not show outwardly that conceit which makes most of them repugnant in my sight...What an elixir for a heavy heart-to see this splendid Englishman fight! ... If there is anything that I admire nearly as much as the superb scholarship of Zeng Guofan, it is the military qualities of this fine officer. He is a glorious fellow!...With his many faults, his pride, his temper, and his never-ending demand for money – but he is a noble man, and in spite of all I have said to him or about him, I will ever think most highly of him. ... He is an honest man, but difficult to get on with.[40]

Gordon was honest and incorruptible, and unlike many Chinese officers, did not steal the money that was meant to pay his men, but rather insisted on paying the Ever Victorious Army on time and in full.[40] Gordon's insistence on paying his men meant that he was always pressing the Imperial government for money, something which often irritated the mandarins who did not understand why Gordon did not just let his men loot and plunder as a compensation for wages.[40] Gordon designed the uniform for the Ever Victorious Army, which consisted of black boots together with turbans, jackets and trousers that were all green while his personal bodyguard of 300 men wore blue uniforms.[41]

In March 1863 Gordon took command of the force at Songjiang, which had received the name of "Ever Victorious Army".[37] Without waiting to reorganise his troops, Gordon led them at once to the relief of Changsu, a town 40 miles northwest of Shanghai. The relief was successfully accomplished and Gordon quickly won the respect of his troops. Gordon made a point of treating POWs well to encourage the Taipings to surrender and many of his men were former Taipings who chose to enlist in the Ever Victorious Army.[39] Unlike Ward and Burgevine, Gordon realised that the network of canals and rivers that divided the Chinese countryside were not obstacles blocking an advance, but were rather "arteries" for allowing an advance as Gordon decided to move his men and supplies via the waterways.[42]

Gordon's task was made easier by innovative military ideas Ward had implemented in the Ever Victorious Army. Gordon was quite critical of the way Chinese generals fought the war, observing that the Chinese were willing to inflict and accept gargantuan losses in battle, an approach Gordon disapproved of.[43] Gordon wrote: "The great thing...is to cut off their retreat, and the chances are they will go without trouble; but attack them in the front, and leave their rear open, and they fight most desperately".[43] Gordon always preferred to outflank the Taiping lines rather to take them on frontally, an approach that caused much tension with his counterparts in the Chinese Imperial Army who did not share Gordon's horror at the huge numbers of dead caused by frontal assaults.[43]

On the morning of 30 May 1863, the Taiping forces guarding the town of Quinsan were astonished to see an armoured paddle streamer, the Hyson armed with a 32-pounder cannon on the bow, sailing up a canal, at whose prow stood Gordon. Following the Hyson was a fleet of 80 junks converted to gunboats.[44] Aboard the Hyson were 350 men from the elite 4th Regiment of the Ever Victorious Army.[43] Under fire from the Taiping forces, Gordon's men chopped up the wooden stakes the Taipings had placed in the canal, thereby allowing Gordon to outflank the main Taiping defence line and to enter the main canal connecting Quinsan to Suzhou.[43]

Gordon's breakthrough caught the rebel army off guard and caused thousands of the enemy to panic and flee.[43] Gordon disembarked the 4th Regiment with orders to take Quinsan while he sailed up and down the main canal in the Hyson, using the 32-pounder gun to blast apart the Taiping positions on the canal.[43] At times, Gordon feared that assaults by the Taiping would take the Hyson, but all the attacks were repulsed.[45] The next day, Quinsan fell to the 4th Regiment, which led a proud Gordon to write: "The rebels did not know its importance until they lost it".[46]

In its last years, the Taiping movement had oppressed the Chinese peasantry and as the Taipings retreated in the face of fire from the Hyson, Chinese peasants emerged from their homes to cut down and hack to death the fleeing Taipings.[46] After the battle, Gordon was hailed as a liberator from the Taipings by the ordinary Chinese people.[46] One British officer serving with the Ever Victorious Army described Gordon at this time as: "a light-built, wiry, middle-sized man, of about thirty two years of age, in the undress uniform of the Royal Engineers. The countenance bore a pleasant frank appearance, eyes light blue with a fearless look in them, hair crisp and inclined to curl, conversation short and decided".[47]

The Ever Victorious Army was entirely a mercenary force whose only loyalty was to money and whose men were interested in fighting only in order to gain the chance to plunder.[47] Gordon felt very uncomfortable commanding this force and at one point had to order the summary execution one of his officers when the latter tried to take the Ever-Victorious Army over to the Taipings, who had offered a generous bribe for switching sides.[47] Gordon had to impose strict discipline on the Ever Victorious Army and worked hard to prevent the Army from engaging in its tendency to loot and mistreat civilians.[40]

The mercenaries of the Ever Victorious Army, comprising some of the worst social elements of China, Britain and the United States, were notorious for their practice, whenever they marched into a new district, of stealing everything while raping all of the women, leading Gordon to impose harsh discipline, with those soldiers accused of looting and/or rape being summarily shot.[48] Gordon also had the pleasure of defeating Burgevine (whom Gordon detested), who had raised a mercenary force and joined the Taipings.[48] After Gordon had surrounded Burgevine's force outside of Suzhou, the latter had abandoned his own men and attempted to rejoin the Imperial side, leading Gordon to arrest him and send him to the American consul in Shanghai together with a letter asking that Burgevine be expelled from China.[49]

As Gordon travelled up and down the Yangtze River valley, he was appalled by the scenes of poverty and suffering he saw, writing in a letter to his sister: "The horrible furtive looks of the wretched inhabitants hovering around one's boats haunts me, and the knowledge of their want of nourishment would sicken anyone; they are like wolves. The dead lie where they fall, and are, in some cases, trodden quite flat by passers by".[47] The suffering of the Chinese people strengthened Gordon's faith, as he argued that there had to be a just, loving God who would one day redeem humanity from all this wretchedness and misery.[40]

During his time in China, Gordon was well known and respected by friend and foe alike for leading from the front and going into combat armed only with his rattan cane (Gordon always refused to carry a gun or a sword), a choice of weapon that almost cost him his life several times.[40] Gordon's bravery in battle, his string of victories, apparent immunity to bullets and his intense, blazing blue eyes led many Chinese to believe that Gordon had supernatural powers and had harnessed the Qi (the mystical life-force traditionally believed in China to govern everything) in some extraordinary way.[43]

Gordon then reorganised his force and advanced against Kunshan, which was captured at considerable loss. Gordon then took his force through the country, seizing towns until, with the aid of Imperial troops, capturing the city of Suzhou in November.[37] After its surrender, Gordon personally guaranteed that any Taiping rebel who laid down his arms would be humanely treated.[50] The Ever-Victorious Army – which was inclined to looting – had been ordered not to enter Suzhou, and only Imperial forces entered the city.[47] Gordon was thus powerless when the Imperial forces executed all of the Taiping POWs, an act that enraged him.[51]

A furious Gordon wrote that executing POWs was "stupid", writing "if faith had been kept, there would have been no more fighting as every town would have given in".[51] In China, the penalty for rebellion was death. Under the Chinese system of familial responsibility, all family members of a rebel were equally guilty even if they had nothing to do with the rebellious individual's acts. The mandarins were thus much inclined to execute not only Taipings, but also their spouses, children, parents and siblings as being all equally guilty of treason.[51]

Gordon believed this approach was militarily counterproductive, as it encouraged the Taipings to fight to the death, which Gordon felt to be very unwise as the Taiping leader Hong Xiuquan had become murderously paranoid, conducting bloody purges of his followers. Many Taipings were willing to surrender only if the Imperial government would spare the lives of themselves and their families. Even more importantly, Gordon had given his word of honour that all of the Taipings who surrendered would be well treated, and regarded the massacre as a stain on his honour.[51]

On 1 January 1864, Gordon was informed that a messenger from the Tongzhi Emperor was coming to see him and that he should put on his finest uniform.[51] When the Emperor's messenger arrived, he had with him servants carrying boxes of silver taels (coins) numbering 10,000 in total, together with banners written in the most eloquent calligraphy celebrating Gordon as a great general and a letter from the Emperor himself written in the best calligraphy on yellow silk thanking Gordon for taking Suzhou and offering all these presents as rewards.[51]

Gordon refused all these gifts and wrote on the Emperor's silk message: "Major Gordon receives the approbation of His Majesty the Emperor with every gratification, but regrets most sincerely that owing to the circumstances which occurred since the capture of Soochow, he is unable to receive any mark of His Majesty the Emperor's recognition".[51] The Emperor was much offended when he received Gordon's message at the Forbidden City, and Gordon's military career in China was effectively over for a time.[51] A Scotsman who knew Gordon in China wrote: "he shows the Chinese that if even an able and reliable man, such as he is, is unmanageable".[51] Following a dispute with Li over the execution of rebel leaders, Gordon withdrew his force from Suzhou and remained inactive at Kunshan until February 1864.[37]

Gordon then made a rapprochement with Li and visited him in order to arrange for further operations. The "Ever-Victorious Army" resumed its high tempo advance, leading to the Battle of Changzhou, and culminating in the capture of Changzhou Fu, the principal military base of the Taipings in the region. Gordon wrote in his diary: "The HOUR GLASS BROKEN" and predicted that the war would soon be won.[52] The Ever Victorious Army did not take part in the final offensive that ended the war with the Sack of Nanking as the "Imps", as Gordon called the Imperial Army, wanted the honour of taking Nanking, the Taiping capital, for themselves.[52]

Instead, the Ever Victorious Army was given the task of taking the secondary cities of Yesing, Liyang and Kitang.[52] At Kitang, Gordon was wounded for a second time on 21 March 1864 when a Taiping soldier shot him in the thigh. The wound was only slight and Gordon was soon back in action, fighting his last battle at Chang-chou in May 1864.[52] Gordon then returned to Kunshan and disbanded his army in June 1864.[51] During his time with the Ever Victorious Army, Gordon had won thirty-three battles in succession.[51] Gordon wrote a letter home that his losses were "no joke" as 48 of his 100 officers and about 1,000 of 3,500 soldiers had been killed or wounded in action.[53]

The Emperor promoted Gordon to the rank of tidu (提督: "Chief commander of Jiangsu province" – a title equal to field marshal), decorated him with the imperial yellow jacket, and raised him to Qing's Viscount first class, but Gordon declined an additional gift of 10,000 taels of silver from the imperial treasury.[54][55] Only forty men were allowed to wear the Yellow Jacket, which was the Emperor's ceremonial bodyguard, and it was thus a signal honour for Gordon to be allowed to wear it.[56] The British Army promoted Gordon to lieutenant-colonel on 16 February 1864[57] and he was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath on 9 December 1864.[58]

The traders of Shanghai offered Gordon huge sums of money to thank him for his work commanding the Ever Victorious Army. Gordon declined all honours of financial gain, writing: "I know I shall leave China as poor as I entered it, but with the knowledge that, through my weak instrumentality, upwards of eighty to one hundred thousand lives have been spared. I want no further satisfaction than this".[56] The British journalist Mark Urban wrote: "People saw a brave man who acted with humanity in an otherwise ghastly conflict, standing out from the other mercenaries, adventurers and cut-throats in wanting almost nothing for himself".[56]

In a leader in August 1864, The Times wrote about Gordon: "the part of the soldier of fortune is in these days very difficult to play with honour...but if ever the actions of a soldier fighting in foreign service ought to be viewed with indulgence, and even with admiration, this exceptional tribute is due to Colonel Gordon".[56] The savage Taiping Rebellion – which was the bloodiest war of the entire 19th century taking somewhere between 20 and 30 million lives – is largely forgotten in the West today, but at the time the civil war in China attracted much media attention in the West, and Gordon's command of the Ever Victorious Army received much coverage from British newspapers.[56] Gordon also gained the popular nickname "Chinese" Gordon.[56]

As governor, Gordon faced a variety of challenges. Besides working to end slavery, Gordon carried out a series of reforms such as abolishing torture and public floggings where those opposed to the Egyptian state were flogged with a whip known as the kourbash made of buffalo hide.[111] Gordon was well known for being utterly obstinate, joking that: "The Gordons and the camels are of the same race. Let them take an idea into their heads and nothing will take it out. I have a splendid camel-none like it; it flies along and quite astonishes the Arabs".[111] The reforms that Gordon wanted would have changed the basic nature of Ottoman-Egyptian rule, by replacing a system based on exploitation of the people by the state with one where the state would work for the betterment of the people. These aims eluded him.[90][111]

Gordon himself was honest and incorruptible, but he was almost alone in possessing these qualities, and the venal and corrupt Egyptian bureaucrats usually ignored his orders when they conflicted with the chance to make money.[90] The Europeans whom the Egyptians had hired to work as civil servants in the Sudan were no better and proved to be just as corrupt as the Egyptians.[90] The bribes that the slave traders offered for bureaucrats to turn a blind eye to the slave trade had far more effect on the bureaucrats than did any of Gordon's orders to suppress the slave trade, which were simply ignored.[90] Licurgo Santoni, an Italian hired by the Egyptian state to run the Sudanese post office wrote about Gordon's time as Governor-General that:

as his exertions were not supported by his subordinates his efforts remained fruitless. This man's activity with the scientific knowledge which he possesses is doubtless able to achieve much, but unfortunately no one backs him up and his orders are badly carried out or altered in such a way as to render them without effect. All the Europeans, with some rare exceptions, whom he has honoured with his confidence have cheated him.[90]

Reflecting these realities, Gordon had to undertake much of the administrative work himself, travelling ceaselessly and constantly all over the Sudan via camel in attempts to make the bureaucracy actually obey his orders, something that occurred when he was present, but stopped as soon as he left.[84] Gordon's reforming zeal made him popular with the ordinary people of the Sudan. As one observer noted that whenever he left and entered the Governor's Palace in Khartoum: "Government officials, consular agents and native people awaited him in large numbers. They celebrated H.E's [His Excellency] arrival with an indescribable uproar".[90]

During the 1870s, European initiatives against the Arab slave trade caused an economic crisis in northern Sudan, precipitating increasing unrest. Relations between Egypt and Abyssinia (later renamed Ethiopia) had become strained due to a dispute over the district of Bogos, and war broke out in 1875. An Egyptian expedition was completely defeated near Gundet. A second and larger expedition under Prince Hassan was sent the following year and was routed at Gura. Matters then remained quiet until March 1877, when Gordon proceeded to Massawa, hoping to make peace with the Abyssinians. He went up to Bogos and wrote to the king proposing terms. He received no reply as the king had gone southwards to fight with the Shoa. Gordon, seeing that the Abyssinian difficulty could wait, proceeded to Khartoum.[112]

In 1876, Egypt went bankrupt. A group of European financial commissioners led by Evelyn Baring took charge of the Egyptian finances in an attempt to pay off the European banks who had lent so much money to Egypt. With Egypt bankrupt, the money to carry out the reforms Gordon wanted was not there.[84] With over half of Egypt's income going to pay the 7% interest on the debt worth 81 million Egyptian pounds that Isma'il had run up, the khedive was supportive of Gordon's plans for reform, but unable to do very much as he lacked the money to pay his civil servants and soldiers in Egypt, much less in the Sudan.[113]

Gordon travelled north to Cairo to meet with Baring and suggest the solution that Egypt suspend its interest payments for several years to allow Isma'il to pay the arrears owned to his soldiers and civil servants, arguing that once the Egyptian government was stabilised, then Egypt could start paying its debts without fear of causing a revolution.[113] Faught wrote Gordon's plans were "farsighted and humane", but Baring had no interest in Gordon's plans to suspend the interest payments.[114] Gordon disliked Baring, writing he had "a pretentious, grand, patronizing way around him. We had a few words together...When oil mixes with water, we will mix together".[114]

Slavery was the basis of the Sudanese economy, and Gordon's attempts to end the slave trade meant taking on very powerful vested interests, most notably Rahama Zobeir, known as the "King of the Slavers" as he was the richest and most powerful of all the slave traders in the entire Sudan. An insurrection had broken out in Darfur province led by associates of Zobeir and Gordon went to deal with it. The insurgents were numerous, and he saw that diplomacy had a better chance of success. On 2 September 1877, Gordon clad in the full gold-braided ceremonial blue uniform of the Governor-General of the Sudan and wearing the tarboush (the type of fez reserved for a pasha), accompanied by an interpreter and a few bashi-bazouks, rode unannounced into the enemy camp to discuss the situation.[115]

Gordon carried no weapons except for his rattan cane (though the bashi-bazouks were armed with rifles and swords), but Gordon showed utterly no fear while his interpreter and the bashi-bazouks were visibly nervous as the rebels numbered about 3,000.[116] Gordon was met by Suleiman Zobeir, the son of Rahama Zobeir and demanded in the name of the Khedive of Egypt that the rebels end their rebellion and accept the authority of their lord and master, telling Zobeir that he would "disarm and break them" if the rebellion did not end at once.[116] Gordon also promised that those rebels who laid down their arms would not be punished and would all be given jobs in the administration.[93]

A tense stand-off ensued, and though the rebels could have easily killed Gordon and his party, as Gordon wrote in a letter to his sister that the rebels were all "...dumbfounded at my coming among them".[93] This bold move proved successful, as one chief then another pledged his loyalty to the Khedive including Suleiman Zobeir himself, though the remainder retreated to the south.[93] Gordon visited the provinces of Berber and Dongola, and then returned to the Abyssinian frontier, before ending up back in Khartoum in January 1878. Gordon was summoned to Cairo, and arrived in March to be appointed president of a commission. The Khedive Isma'il was deposed in 1879 in favour of his son Tewfik by the Ottoman Sultan Abdul-Hamid II following heavy diplomatic pressure from the British, French and Italian governments after Isma'il had quarrelled with Baring.[117]

Gordon returned south and proceeded to Harrar, south of Abyssinia, and, finding the administration in poor standing, dismissed the governor. In 1878, Gordon fired the governor of Equatoria for corruption and replaced him with his former chief medical officer from his time in Equatoria, Dr. Emin Pasha, who had earned Gordon's respect.[118] Gordon then returned to Khartoum, and went again into Darfur to suppress the slave traders. His subordinate, Gessi Pasha, fought with great success in the Bahr-el-Ghazal district in putting an end to the revolt there. In July 1878, Suleiman Zobeir had rebelled again, leading Gordon and his close friend Gessi to take to the field.[119]

In March 1879, Gessi had inflicted a sharp defeat on Zobeir even before Gordon had joined him to pursue their old enemy.[119] After several months of chasing Zobeir, Gessi and Gordon met at the village of Shaka in June 1879 when it was agreed that Gessi would continue the hunt while Gordon would return to Khartoum.[120] On 15 July 1879, Gessi finally captured Zobeir together with 250 of his men.[121] As Zobeir had broken his oath to the khedive by rebelling, Gordon had given Gessi orders to execute Zobeir, and so later that day Gessi had Zobeir and his men publicly beheaded as an example of what happened to those who broke their oaths.[121]

Gordon then tried another peace mission to Abyssinia. The matter ended with Gordon's imprisonment and transfer to Massawa. Thence he returned to Cairo and resigned his Sudan appointment. He was exhausted by years of incessant work. Gordon had gone to the Sudan with high hopes that via his iron will and Christian faith he would defeat the Ottoman-Egyptian system of rule, that he would act as a reformer who would change the system from within to make what was unjust, just, and that he would make things better for the ordinary people of the Sudan.[84]

Instead, the Ottoman-Egyptian system had defeated him with almost all of Gordon's reforms having failed owing to the venality of the bureaucracy who shared absolutely none of Gordon's moral outrage at slavery and injustice, and Gordon's dreams of making things better for the ordinary people were dissolved in the face of greed and self-interest of others; the system remained the same creaking slow, utterly corrupt and oppressive apparatus trampling down ordinary people that it had always been.[84]

At the end of his Governor-Generalship of the Sudan, Gordon had to admit that he had been a failure, an experience of defeat that so shattered him that he had a nervous breakdown.[84] As Gordon travelled via Egypt to take the streamer back to Britain, a man who met him in Cairo described Gordon as a broken man who was "rather off his head".[84] Before Gordon boarded the ship at Alexandria that was to take him home, he sent off a series of long telegrams to various ministers in London full of Biblical verse and quotations that he claimed offered the solution to all of the problems of modern life.[84] After Gordon resigned, Muhammad Rauf Pasha succeeded him as governor general of Sudan.[122]

In March 1880, Gordon recovered for a couple of weeks in the Hotel du Faucon in Lausanne, 3 Rue St Pierre, famous for its views on Lake Geneva and because several celebrities had stayed there, such as Giuseppe Garibaldi, one of Gordon's heroes,[123] and possibly one of the reasons Gordon had chosen this hotel. In the hotel's restaurant, now a pub called Happy Days, he met another guest from Britain, the reverend R.H. Barnes, vicar of Heavitree near Exeter, who became a good friend. After Gordon's death Barnes co-authored Charles George Gordon: A Sketch (1885), which begins with the meeting at the hotel in Lausanne. The Reverend Reginald Barnes, who knew him well, describes him as "of the middle height, very strongly built".[124]

The intensely religious Gordon had been born into the Church of England, but he never quite trusted the Anglican Church, instead preferring his own personal brand of Protestantism.[111] In his worn out state, Gordon had some sort of religious rebirth, leading him to write to his sister Augusta: "Through the workings of Christ in my body by His Body and Blood, the medicine worked. Ever since the realisation of the sacrament, I have been turned upside down".[125] The eccentric Gordon was very religious, but he departed from Christian orthodoxy on a number of points. Gordon believed in reincarnation. In 1877, he wrote in a letter: "This life is only one of a series of lives which our incarnated part has lived. I have little doubt of our having pre-existed; and that also in the time of our pre-existence we were actively employed. So, therefore, I believe in our active employment in a future life, and I like the thought."[126] Gordon was an ardent Christian cosmologist, who also believed that the Garden of Eden was on the island of Praslin in the Seychelles.[127] Gordon believed that God's throne from which He governed the universe rested upon the earth, which was further surrounded by the firmament.[12]

Gordon believed in both predestination - writing that "I believe that not a worm is picked up by a bird without the direct intervention of God" - and free will with humans choosing their own fate, writing "I cannot and do not pretend to reconcile the two".[128] These religious beliefs mirrored differing aspects of Gordon's personality as he believed that he could choose his own fate through the force of his personality and a fatalistic streak often ending his letters with D.V (Deo volente-Latin for "God willing" i.e. whatever God wants will be).[128] Gordon's very strong religious feelings led him to devote much time and money to charity both at home and abroad and he was well known for sticking Christian tracts onto city walls and to throw them out of a train window.[12] The Romanian historian Eric Tappe described Gordon as a man who developed his own "very personal peculiar variety of Protestantism".[59]

On 2 March 1880, on his way from London to Switzerland, Gordon had visited King Leopold II of Belgium in Brussels and was invited to take charge of the Congo Free State. Leopold tried very hard to convince Gordon to enter his service, not least because Gordon was known to be modest in his salary demands, unlike Leopold's current agent in the Congo, Henry Morton Stanley, who received a monthly salary of 300,000 Belgian francs.[129] Gordon rejected Leopold's offers, partly because he was still emotionally attached to the Sudan and partly because he disliked the idea of working for Leopold's Congo Association, which was a private company owned by the King.[129] In April, the government of the Cape Colony offered him the position of commandant of the Cape local forces, which Gordon declined.[130] A deeply depressed Gordon wrote in his letter declining the offer that he knew, for reasons that he refused to explain, that he had only ten years left to live, and he wanted to do something great and grand in his last ten years.[130]

In May, the Marquess of Ripon, who had been given the post of Governor-General of India, asked Gordon to go with him as private secretary. Gordon accepted the offer, but shortly after arriving in India, he resigned. In the words of the American historian Immanuel C. Y. Hsu, Gordon was a "man of action" unsuitable for a bureaucratic job.[131] Gordon found the life of a private secretary to be in his words a "living crucifixion" that was unbearably boring, leading him to resign with the intention of going to East Africa, particularly Zanzibar, to suppress the slave trade.[131]

Hardly had Gordon resigned when he was invited to Beijing by Sir Robert Hart, inspector-general of customs in China, saying his services were urgently needed in China as Russia and China were on the verge of war. Gordon was nostalgic for China, and knowing of the Sino-Russian crisis, he saw a chance to do something significant.[132] The British diplomat Thomas Francis Wade reported "The Chinese government still holds Gordon Pasha in high regard", and were anxious to have him back to fight against Russia if war should break out.[133]

An exchange of telegrams ensued between the War Office in London and Gordon in Bombay about just what exactly he was planning on doing in China, and when Gordon replied that he would find out when he got there, Gordon was ordered to stay.[12] Gordon disobeyed orders and left on the first ship to China, an action that very much angered the Army's commander, the Duke of Cambridge.[134] Gordon arrived in Shanghai in July and met Li Hongzhang, and learned that there was risk of war with Russia. After meeting his old friend, Gordon assured Li that if Russia should attack he would resign his commission in the British Army to take up a commission in the Chinese Army, an action that if taken risked prosecution under the Foreign Enlistments Act.[135] Gordon informed the Foreign Office that he was willing to renounce his British citizenship and take Chinese citizenship as he would not abandon Li and his other Chinese friends should a Sino-Russian war begin.[136] Gordon's willingness to renounce his British citizenship in order to fight with China in the event of war did much to raise his prestige in China.[137]

Gordon proceeded to Beijing and used all his influence to ensure peace. Gordon clashed repeatedly with Prince Chun, the leader of the war party in Beijing who rejected Gordon's advice to seek a compromise solution as Gordon warned that the powerful Russian naval squadron in the Yellow Sea would allow the Russians to land at Tianjin and advance on Beijing.[138] At one point during a meeting with the Council of Ministers, an enraged Gordon picked up a Chinese-English dictionary, looked up the word idiocy, and then pointed at the equivalent Chinese word 白痴 with one hand while pointing at the ministers with the other.[138]

Gordon further advised the Qing court that it was unwise for the Manchu elite to live apart from and treat the Han Chinese majority as something less than human, warning that this not only weakened China in the present, but would cause a revolution in the future.[139] After speaking so bluntly, Gordon was ordered out of the court and Beijing, but was allowed to stay at Tianjin.[140] After meeting with him there, Hart described Gordon as "very eccentric" and "spending hours in prayer", writing that: "As much I like and respect him, I must say he is 'not all there'. Whether religion or vanity, or the softening of the brain-I don't know, but he seems to be alternatively arrogant and slavish, vain and humble, in his senses and out of them. It's a great pity!".[140] Wade echoed Hart, writing that Gordon had changed since his last time in China, and was now "unbalanced", being utterly convinced that all of his ideas came from God, making him dangerously unreasonable since Gordon now believed that everything he did was the will of God.[140]

Gordon was ordered home by London as the Foreign Office was not comfortable with the idea of him commanding the Chinese Army against Russia if war should break out, believing that this would cause an Anglo-Russian war and Gordon was told that he would be dishonorably discharged if he remained in China.[141] Though the Qing court rejected Gordon's advice to seek a compromise with Russia in the summer of 1880, Gordon's assessment of China's military backwardness and his stark warnings that the Russians would win if a war did break out played an important role in ultimately strengthening the peace party at the court and preventing war.[142]

Gordon returned to Britain and rented a flat on 8 Victoria Grove in London. In October 1880 Gordon paid a two-week visit to Ireland, landing at Cork and travelling over much of the island.[143] Gordon was sickened by the poverty of the Irish farmers, which led him to write a six-page memo to the Prime Minister, William Gladstone, urging land reforms in Ireland.[144] Gordon wrote: "The peasantry of the Northwest and Southwest of Ireland are much worse off than any of the inhabitants of Bulgaria, Asia Minor, China, India or the Sudan".[145] Having been to all of those places and thus speaking with some authority, Gordon announced the "scandal" of poverty in Ireland could only be ended if the government were to buy the land of the Ascendency families, as the Anglo-Irish elite was known, and give it to their poor Irish tenant farmers.[145]

Gordon compared his plans for rural reform in Ireland to ending slavery in the British Empire in 1833, and ended his letter with the claim that if this was done, the unity of the United Kingdom would be preserved as the Irish would appreciate this great act of justice and the Irish independence movement would cease to exist as "they would have nothing more to seek from agitation".[145] Somewhat tactlessly, Gordon reminded Gladstone that his father had owned a slave plantation in Jamaica and had been one of those slave-owners compensated by the Crown in 1833 for the freeing of his slaves, a bit of Gladstone family history that the Prime Minister did not like to have discussed.[145] Besides championing land reform in Ireland, Gordon spent the winter of 1880–81 in London socialising with his family and his few friends such as Florence Nightingale and Alfred Tennyson.[145]

Gordon caricatured by Ape in Vanity Fair in 1881.

In April 1881 Gordon left for Mauritius as Commander, Royal Engineers. He remained in Mauritius until March 1882. The American historian John Semple Galbraith described Gordon as suffering from "utter boredom" during his time in Mauritius.[146] Gordon saw his work in building forts to protect Mauritius from a possible Russian naval attack as pointless, and his main achievement during his time there was to advise the Crown to turn the Seychelles islands, whose beauty had greatly moved Gordon, into a new crown colony as Gordon argued it was impossible to govern the Seychelles from Port Louis.[145]

In a memo to London, Gordon warned against over-reliance on the Suez Canal, where the Russians could easily sink one ship to block the entire canal, thus leading Gordon to advise upon improving the Cape route to India with Britain developing a series of bases in Africa and in the Indian Ocean.[145] Gordon visited the Seychelles in the summer of 1881 and decided the islands were the location of the Garden of Eden.[145] On the island of Valle de Mai, Gordon believed that he found the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the form of a coco de mer tree that bore a close resemblance to a woman's body.[147]

Promoted to major-general on 23 March 1882,[148] Gordon was sent to the Cape to aid in settling affairs in Basutoland, but he returned to the United Kingdom after only a few months.[149] The principle problem faced by Gordon in South Africa was Basutoland (modern Lesotho), a small kingdom whose ruler, King Moshoeshoe had decided to have his nation become a British protectorate rather than be annexed by the Orange Free State.[150] One of Moshoeshoe's sons, Prince Masupha had rebelled in protest against his father's plans.[150] Before settling out on a trip to mediate the end of the civil war in Basutoland, Gordon met with Cecil Rhodes in Cape Town to seek his advice. Rhodes later recalled he and Gordon got along "capitally together".[150]

After arriving in Basutoland, Gordon met with Prince Masupha to persuade him to lay down his arms and to accept his father's protectorate plan rather than have his kingdom annexed to the Orange Free State.[151] Faught wrote that Gordon was only in South Africa for a short time, but one of his enduring legacies is the existence of Lesotho, which otherwise would have been annexed to the Orange Free State.[151] After his return from South Africa, Galbraith remarked that Gordon had a "strange combination of melancholia, resignation and mysticism" that he was destined by God both to do something great and to die soon.[146] During this time, Leopold who was most anxious to fire Stanley with his ever-increasing demands for more money, constantly wrote to Gordon asking him to be his agent in the Congo.[146] Gordon had come to distrust Leopold, but he came to believe that perhaps he could do some good in the Congo.[146]

Being unemployed, Gordon decided to go to Palestine which at the time was part of the Ottoman vilayet of Syria,[152] a region he had long desired to visit, where he would remain for a year (1882–83). During his "career break" in the Holy Land, the very religious Gordon sought to explore his faith and biblical sites.[153] In Jerusalem, Gordon lived with an American lawyer Horatio Spafford and his wife Anna Spafford, who were the leaders of the American Colony in the Holy City.[154] The Spaffords had lost their home and much of their fortune in the Great Chicago Fire and then had seen one of their sons die of scarlet fever, four of their daughters drowned in a shipwreck followed by the death of another son from scarlet fever, causing them to turn to religion as consolation for unbearable tragedy, making them very congenial company for Gordon during his stay in Jerusalem.[155] After his visit, Gordon suggested in his book Reflections in Palestine a different location for Golgotha, the site of Christ's crucifixion. The site lies north of the traditional site at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and is now known as "the Garden Tomb", or sometimes as "Gordon's Calvary".[156] Gordon's interest was prompted by his religious beliefs, as he had become an evangelical Christian in 1854.[67]

King Leopold II then asked Gordon again to take charge of the Congo Free State.[157] He accepted and returned to London to make preparations, but soon after his arrival the British requested that he proceed immediately to the Sudan, where the situation had deteriorated badly after his departure—another revolt had arisen, led by the self-proclaimed Mahdi, Mohammed Ahmed. The Mahdi is a messianic figure in Islam which tradition holds will appear at the dawn of every new (Islamic) century to strike down the enemies of Islam.[158]

The year 1881 was the Islamic year 1298, and to mark the coming of the new century, Ahmed announced that he was the Mahdi, and proclaimed a jihad against the Egyptian state. The long exploitation of the Sudan by Egypt led many Sudanese to rally to the Mahdi's black banner as he promised to expel the Egyptians, whom Ahmed denounced as apostates and he announced he would establish an Islamic fundamentalist state marking a return to the "pure Islam" said to have been practised in the days of the Prophet Mohamed in Arabia.[158]

Additionally, Baring's policy of raising taxes to pay off the debts Isma'il had run up sparked much resentment in both Egypt and the Sudan.[159] In 1882, nationalist rage in Egypt against Baring's economic policies led to the revolt by Colonel Urabi Pasha, which was put down by British troops. From September 1882 onwards, Egypt was a de facto British protectorate effectively ruled by Baring, through in theory Egypt remained an Ottoman province with a very wide degree of autonomy until 1914. With Egypt under British rule, the British also inherited the problems of Egypt's colony, the Sudan, which the Egyptians were losing control of to the Mahdi.[160]

General Gordon's Last Stand, by George W. Joy.

The manner of Gordon's death is uncertain, but it was romanticised in a popular painting by George William Joy – General Gordon's Last Stand (1893, currently in the Leeds City Art Gallery), and again in the film Khartoum (1966) with Charlton Heston as Gordon. The most popular account of Gordon's death was that he put on his ceremonial gold-braided blue uniform of the Governor-General together with the Pasha's red fez and that he went out unarmed, except with his rattan cane, to be cut down by the Ansar.[12] This account was very popular with the British public as it contained much Christian imagery with Gordon as a Christ-like figure dying passively for the sins of all humanity.[12]

Gordon was apparently killed at the Governor-General's palace about an hour before dawn. The Mahdi had given strict orders to his three Khalifas not to kill Gordon.[214] The orders were not obeyed. Gordon's Sudanese servants later stated that Gordon for once did not go out armed only with his rattan cane, but also took with him a loaded revolver and his sword, and died in mortal combat fighting the Ansar.[215]

Gordon died on the steps of a stairway in the northwestern corner of the palace, where he and his personal bodyguard, Agha Khalil Orphali, had been firing at the enemy. Orphali was knocked unconscious and did not see Gordon die. When he woke up again that afternoon, he found Gordon's body covered with flies and the head cut off.[216]

A merchant, Bordeini Bey, glimpsed Gordon standing on the palace steps in a white uniform looking into the darkness. The best evidence suggests that Gordon went out to confront the enemy, gunned down several of the Ansar with his revolver and after running out of bullets drew his sword only to be shot down.[12]

Reference is made to an 1889 account of the General surrendering his sword to a senior Mahdist officer, then being struck and subsequently speared in the side as he rolled down the staircase.[217] Rudolf Slatin, the Austrian governor of Darfur who had been taken prisoner by the Ansar, wrote that three soldiers showed him Gordon's head at his tent before delivering it to the Mahdi.[218] When Gordon's head was unwrapped at the Mahdi's feet, he ordered the head transfixed between the branches of a tree ". . . where all who passed it could look in disdain, children could throw stones at it and the hawks of the desert could sweep and circle above."[219] His body was desecrated and thrown down a well.[219]

Gordon's head shown to Slatin.

In the hours following Gordon's death an estimated 10,000 civilians and members of the garrison were killed in Khartoum.[219] The massacre was finally halted by orders of the Mahdi. Many of Gordon's papers were saved and collected by his two sisters, Helen Clark Gordon, who married Gordon's medical colleague in China, Dr. Moffit, and Mary Augusta and possibly his niece Augusta, who married Gerald Henry Blunt. Gordon's papers, as well as some of his grandfather's (Samuel Enderby III), were accepted by the British Library around 1937.[220]

The failure to rescue General Gordon's force in Sudan was a major blow to Prime Minister Gladstone's popularity. Queen Victoria sent him a telegram of rebuke which found its way into the press.[221] Victoria's telegram was not coded as usual which suggests she wanted it to appear in the press. Critics said Gladstone had neglected military affairs and had not acted promptly enough to save the besieged Gordon. Critics inverted his acronym, "G.O.M." (for "Grand Old Man"), to "M.O.G." (for "Murderer of Gordon"). Gladstone told the Cabinet that the public cared much about Gordon and nothing about the Sudan, so he ordered Wolseley home after learning of Gordon's death.[222] Wolseley, who had been led to believe that his expedition was the initial phase of the British conquest of the Sudan, was furious, and in a telegram to Queen Victoria contemptuously called Gladstone "...the tradesman who has become a politician".[222]

In 1885, Gordon achieved the martyrdom he had been seeking at Khartoum as the British press portrayed him as a saintly Christian hero and martyr who had died nobly resisting the Islamic onslaught of the Mahdi.[223] As late as 1901 on the anniversary of Gordon's death, The Times wrote in a leader (editorial) that Gordon was "that solitary figure holding aloft the flag of England in the face of the dark hordes of Islam".[202] Gordon's death caused a huge wave of national grief all over Britain with 13 March 1885 being set aside as a day of mourning for the "fallen hero of Khartoum".[221] In a sermon, the Bishop of Chichester stated: "Nations who envied our greatness rejoiced now at our weakness and our inability to protect our trusted servant. Scorn and reproach were cast upon us, and would we plead that it was undeserved? No; the conscience of the nation felt that a strain rested upon it".[221]

Baring – who deeply disliked Gordon – wrote that because of the "national hysteria" caused by Gordon's death, saying anything critical about him at present would be equal to questioning Christianity.[221] Stones were thrown at the windows at 10 Downing Street as Gladstone was denounced as the "Murderer of Gordon", the Judas figure who betrayed the Christ figure Gordon.[12] The wave of mourning was not just confined to Britain. In New York, Paris and Berlin, pictures of Gordon appeared in shop windows with black lining as all over the West the fallen general was seen as a Christ-like man who sacrificed himself resisting the advance of Islam.[12]

Despite the popular demand to "avenge Gordon", the Conservative government that came into office after the 1885 election did nothing of the sort. The Sudan was judged to be not worth the huge financial costs it would have taken to conquer it, the same conclusion that the Liberals had reached.[12] After Khartoum, the Mahdi established his Islamic state which restored slavery and imposed a very harsh rule that according to one estimate caused the deaths of 8 million people between 1885 and 1898.[224] In 1887, the Emin Pasha Relief Expedition under Henry Morton Stanley set out to rescue Dr. Emin Pasha, still holding out in Equatoria against the Ansar. Many have seen the attempt to save Emin Pasha, a German doctor-biologist-botanist who had converted from Judaism first to Lutheranism and then (possibly) to Islam, and who had not been particularly famous in Europe until then, as a consolation prize for Gordon.[225]

Egypt had been in the French sphere of influence until 1882 when the British had occupied Egypt. In March 1896 a French force under the command of Jean-Baptiste Marchand left Dakar with the intention of marching across the Sahara with the aim of destroying the Mahdiyah state. The French hoped that conquering the Sudan would allow them to lever the British out of Egypt, and thus restore Egypt to the French sphere of influence.[12]

To block the French, a British force under Herbert Kitchener was sent to destroy the Mahdiyah state and annihilated the Ansar at the Battle of Omdurman in 1898. It was thus imperial rivalry with the French, not a desire to "avenge Gordon" that led the British to end the Mahdiyah state in 1898.[12] However the British public and Kitchener himself saw the expedition as one to "avenge Gordon". As the Mahdi was long dead, Kitchener had to content himself with blowing up the Mahdi's tomb as revenge for Gordon.[226] After the Battle of Omdurman, Kitchener opened a letter from the Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, and for the first time learned the real purpose of the expedition had been to keep the French out of the Sudan and that "avenging Gordon" was merely a pretext.[227]

Rebuilt Gordon Hall near Haihe River in Tianjin, China

General Charles George Gordon Statue in Gravesend

Statue in Gordon Reserve, Melbourne, Australia

Statue of General Gordon on the Victoria Embankment, London

General Gordon's Memorial at Queen's Park Southampton

News of Gordon's death caused an outpouring of public grief across Britain. A memorial service, conducted by the Bishop of Newcastle, was held at St. Paul's Cathedral on 14 March. The Lord Mayor of London opened a public subscription to raise funds for a permanent memorial to Gordon; this eventually materialised as the Gordon Boys Home, now Gordon's School, in West End, Woking.[228][229]

Statues were erected in Trafalgar Square, London, in Chatham, Gravesend, Melbourne (Australia), and Khartoum. Southampton, where Gordon had stayed with his sister, Augusta, in Rockstone Place before his departure to the Sudan, erected a memorial in Porter's Mead, now Queen's Park, near the town's docks.[228] On 16 October 1885, the structure was unveiled; it comprises a stone base on which there are four polished red Aberdeen granite columns, about twenty feet high. The columns are surmounted by carved capitals supporting a cross. The pedestal bears the arms of the Gordon clan and of the borough of Southampton, and also Gordon's name in Chinese. Around the base is an inscription referring to Gordon as a soldier, philanthropist and administrator and mentions those parts of the world in which he served, closing with a quotation from his last letter to his sisters: "I am quite happy, thank God! and, like Lawrence, I have tried to do my duty."[230] The memorial is a Grade II listed building.[231]

Gordon's memory, as well as his work in supervising the town's riverside fortifications, is commemorated in Gravesend; the embankment of the Riverside Leisure Area is known as the Gordon Promenade, while Khartoum Place lies just to the south. Located in the town centre of his birthplace of Woolwich is General Gordon Square, formerly known as General Gordon Place until a major urban landscaped area was developed and the road name changed. In addition, one of the first Woolwich Free Ferry vessels was named Gordon in his memory.[232]

In 1888 a statue of General Gordon by Hamo Thornycroft was erected in Trafalgar Square, London, exactly halfway between the two fountains. It was removed in 1943. In a House of Commons speech on 5 May 1948, then opposition leader Winston Churchill spoke out in favour of the statue's return to its original location: "Is the right honorable Gentleman [the Minister of Works] aware that General Gordon was not only a military commander, who gave his life for his country, but, in addition, was considered very widely throughout this country as a model of a Christian hero, and that very many cherished ideals are associated with his name? Would not the right honorable Gentleman consider whether this statue [...] might not receive special consideration [...]? General Gordon was a figure outside and above the ranks of military and naval commanders." However, in 1953 the statue minus a large slice of its pedestal was reinstalled on the Victoria Embankment, in front of the newly built Ministry of Defence main buildings.[233]

An identical statue by Thornycroft—but with the pedestal intact—is located in a small park called Gordon Reserve, near Parliament House in Melbourne, Australia.[234]

The Corps of Royal Engineers, Gordon's own Corps, commissioned a statue of Gordon on a camel. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1890 and then erected in Brompton Barracks, Chatham, the home of the Royal School of Military Engineering, where it still stands.[235] Much later a second casting was made. In 1902 it was placed at the junction of St Martin's Lane and Charing Cross Road in London. In 1904 it was moved to Khartoum, where it stood at the intersection of Gordon Avenue and Victoria Avenue, 200 metres south of the new palace that had been built in 1899. It was removed in 1958, shortly after the Sudan became independent. This is the figure which, since April 1959, stands at the Gordon's School in Woking.[236]

Gordon's Tomb, which was carved by Frederick William Pomeroy, lies in St Paul's Cathedral, London.[237][238]

The Church Missionary Society (CMS) work in Sudan was undertaken under the name of the Gordon Memorial Mission. This was a very evangelical branch of CMS and was able to start work in Sudan in 1900 as soon as the Anglo-Egyptian Condominium took control after the fall of Khartoum in 1899. In 1885 at a meeting in London, £3,000 were allocated to a Gordon Memorial Mission in Sudan.[239]

In the Presidential Palace in Khartoum (built in 1899), in the west wing on the ground floor, there was, at least until 1936, a stone slab against the wall on the left side of the main corridor when coming from the main entrance with the text: "Charles George Gordon died—26 Jan 1885", on the spot where Gordon was killed, at the foot of the stairs in the old Governor-General's Palace (built around 1850).[240]

Charlton Heston played Gordon in the 1966 epic film Khartoum, which deals with the siege of Khartoum. Laurence Olivier played Muhammad Ahmad.[241] The British historian Alex von Tunzelmann criticised the film for portraying Gordon and the Mahdi regularly meeting and as frères ennemis, though she added that it is true that Gordon and the Mahdi did exchange letters.[242]

For the six months after the British public learned of Gordon's death, newspapers and journals published hundreds of articles celebrating Gordon as a "saint".[202] The American historian Cynthia Behrman wrote the articles all commented upon "...Gordon's religious faith, his skill with native peoples, his fearlessness in the face of danger (a recurrent motif is Gordon's habit of leading his troops into battle armed with no more than a rattan cane), his honor, his resourcefulness, his graciousness to subordinates, his impatience with cant and hypocrisy, his hatred of glory and honors, his dislike of lionization and social rewards, and on and on. One begins to wonder whether the man had any faults at all".[202] "The reading public wanted heroes, it wanted to read about one lone Englishmen sacrificing himself for glory, honour, God, and the Empire."[243]

Such was the popularity of Gordon that the first critical book by a British author was not published until 1908, when Baring – by this time raised to the peerage as Viscount Cromer – published his autobiography, which was notable as the first British book to portray Gordon in an unflattering manner, though Lord Cromer also tried to be fair and emphasised what he felt were Gordon's positive, as well as his negative, traits.[244] About the charge that if only Gladstone had listened to Gordon the disaster would have been avoided, Cromer wrote that in the course of one month, he received five telegrams from Gordon offering his advice, each one of which completely contradicted the previous telegram, leading Cromer to charge that Gordon was too mercurial a figure to hold command.[245]

As a young man, Winston Churchill shared in the national consensus that Gordon was one of Britain's greatest heroes.[222] During a meeting in 1898 in Cairo where Churchill interviewed Baring to gather material for his 1899 book The River War, Baring challenged Churchill about his belief that Gordon was a hero. After his conversation with Baring, Churchill wrote: "Of course there is no doubt that Gordon as a political figure was absolutely hopeless. He was so erratic, capricious, utterly unreliable, his mood changed so often, his temper was abominable, he was frequently drunk, and yet with all that he had a tremendous sense of honour and great abilities".[222]

Many biographies have been written of Gordon, most of them of a highly hagiographic nature. The British Sinologist Demetrius Charles Boulger published a biography of Gordon in 1896 which depicted him as a staunch patriot and a Christian of immense virtue who displayed superhuman courage in the face of danger.[246] By contrast, Gordon is one of the four subjects discussed critically in Eminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey, one of the first texts about Gordon that portrays some of his characteristics which Strachey regards as weaknesses. Notably, Strachey emphasises the claims of Charles Chaillé-Long that Gordon was an alcoholic, an accusation dismissed by later writers like Alan Moorehead[247] and Charles Chenevix Trench.[248]

Strachey, a member of the Bloomsbury Group of intellectuals, depicted Gordon as a ludicrous figure, a bad-tempered, deranged egomaniac with a nasty habit of knocking out Arabs whenever he was unhappy, and who led himself into disaster.[249] Even more devastatingly, Strachey depicted Gordon as a monumental hypocrite, noting the contrast between Gordon's lofty Christian ideas of love, compassion, charity, grace and hope vs. a career full of hate, war, carnage, death and destruction.[249] Strachey ended his essay on Gordon on a cynical note: "At any rate, it all ended very happily-in a glorious slaughter of twenty thousand Arabs, a vast addition to the British Empire and a step in the Peerage for Sir Evelyn Baring".[244]

Long after his death and despite the popularity of Strachey's essay in Eminent Victorians, the appeal of the Gordon legend lived on. As late as 1933, the French historian Pierre Crabitès wrote in his book Gordon, le Soudan et l'esclavage (Gordon, the Sudan and Slavery) that as a Frenchman the Gordon legend had meant nothing to him when he began researching his book, but after examining all of the historical evidence, he could not help but admire Gordon who "died as he lived, a Christian, a gentleman and a soldier".[244]

In the 20th century, many British military leaders came to have a critical view of Gordon with Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery writing that Gordon was "unfit for independent command, mentally unbalanced, a fanatic, self-imposed martyr", adding that he should never been sent to the Sudan and the Gladstone-Gordon relationship was a case study in dysfunctional civil-military relations.[250] In 1953, the British novelist Charles Beatty published a Gordon biography His Country was the World, A Study of Gordon of Khartoum, which focused on Gordon's religious faith, but for the first time noted what a tormented figure Gordon was; a man of deeply felt Christian convictions, full of guilt and self-loathing over his own sinfulness and inability to live up to his own impossibly high standards over what a Christian should be and desperately longing to do something to expiate his sinfulness.[251] Like Strachey, Beatty found Gordon a ridiculous figure, but unlike Strachey who had nothing but contempt for Gordon, Beatty's approach was a compassionate one, arguing that Gordon's many acts of charity and self-sacrifice were attempts to love others since he was unable to love himself.[251]

Another attempt to debunk Gordon was Anthony Nutting's Gordon, Martyr & Misfit (1966). Nutting's book was noteworthy as the first book to argue that Gordon had a death wish.[252] Nutting noted that Gordon had often recklessly exposed himself to Russian fire while fighting in the Crimea and stated he hoped to die in battle against the Russians before leaving for the Crimea.[252] On the basis of such statements and actions, Nutting argued that Gordon's suicidal courage of going into battle armed only with his rattan cane, which so impressed the Victorian public, reflected darker desires. Nutting made the controversial claim that the basis of Gordon's death wish was that he was gay, noting that Gordon never married, is not known to had a relationship with any women, and often wished that he been born a eunuch, which strongly suggested that Gordon wished to have no sexual desires at all.[252]

Statue of Gordon, seated on a camel, which stood in front of the palace in Khartoum prior to Sudanese independence in 1956

Nutting contended that the conflict between Gordon's devoutly held Christian ideals and his sexuality made Gordon deeply ashamed of himself and he attempted to expiate his wretched, sinful nature by seeking a glorious death in battle.[252] Behrman wrote that the first part of Nutting's thesis, that Gordon had a death wish is generally accepted by historians, but the second part, that Gordon was a homosexual is still the subject of much debate.[252] In his Mission to Khartum—The Apotheosis of General Gordon (1969) John Marlowe portrays Gordon as "a colourful eccentric—a soldier of fortune, a skilled guerrilla leader, a religious crank, a minor philanthropist, a gadfly buzzing about on the outskirts of public life" who would have been no more than a footnote in today's history books, had it not been for "his mission to Khartoum and the manner of his death", which were elevated by the media "into a kind of contemporary Passion Play".[253]

More balanced biographies are Charley Gordon—An Eminent Victorian Reassessed (1978) by Charles Chenevix Trench and Gordon—the Man Behind the Legend (1993) by John Pollock. Mark Urban argued that Gordon's final stand was "significant" because it was "...a perversion of the democratic process" as he "managed to subvert government policy", making the beginning of a new era where decision-makers had to consider the power of media.[254] In Khartoum—The Ultimate Imperial Adventure (2005), Michael Asher puts Gordon's works in the Sudan in a broad context. Asher concludes: "He did not save the country from invasion or disaster, but among the British heroes of all ages, there is perhaps no other who stands out so prominently as an individualist, a man ready to die for his principles. Here was one man among men who did not do what he was told, but what he believed to be right. In a world moving inexorably towards conformity, it would be well to remember Gordon of Khartoum."[255]

• Battle of Omdurman

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Charles George Gordon (category)

• Original Letters Written by Charles Gordon from the Near East Shapell Manuscript Foundation
• Chinese Gordon on the Soudan Gordon's famous interview to the Pall Mall Gazette, 1884
• Gordon's tactics: an alternative view analysis of Gordon's war strategy by Gary Brecher (the War Nerd)
• The Journals of Major-Gen. C. G. Gordon, C.B., at Kartoum Project Gutenberg
• Newspaper clippings about Charles George Gordon in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW