THE TRUTH ABOUT GORDON.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 8603, 9 June 1908, Page 7

THE TRUTH ABOUT GORDON.

The most striking figure in tiie history of modern Egypt is that strange coinpound of saint> soldier, and visionary, General Gordon In Lord Cromer's re-cently-published volumes on ''Modern Egypt," we get for the first time the truth about Gordon, as nearly, perhaps, as we shall ever get it. It is a sad story, mainly of incompetence- on the part of Mr Gladstone's Government. It shows that Gordon was the last man who should have been chosen for such a mission to Khartoum. It reveals many weaknesses in one who was a demi-god in the popular esteem, and yet it leaves him* at the. end a choice and noble spirit, one whom the world will over account one of its greatest heroes. Lord Cromer does not urge that after the destruction of Hicks's army in the Soudan in 1883 the English Government were wrong in advising the Egyptian Government to abandon the Soudan. It was evident that it was simply impossible for them to keep it. The agitation of the Pall Mall Gazette was mainly responsible for the decision to send Gordon to Khartoum to bring objections entertained by the Egyptian garrison. Lord Cromer, when consulted, twice rejected tho proposal to send Gordon, lie did so mainly because he thought Gordon was personally unlit to carry out such a task, but in his olKcial correspondence he dwelt mainly <n the objections entetained by the Y.i - ptian Government, which wore rcasona: ' and, he thought, calculated to produce .'.i impression in London, without bringing in the awkward question of personal fitness. Popular clamour continued, and Lord Cromer being appealed to a third time, gave a qualified approval. In a private telegram to Lord Granville he .said: "Gordon would be the best, man if he will pledge himself to carry out the ■policy of withdrawing from the Soudan as quickly as possible consistently with saving life. He must, also fully understand that he must take his instructions from tho British representative in Egypt and report to him." When it was announced that Gordon was. to go, his appointemnt was applauded enthusiastically by the Press all over the country. Lord Cromer was reproached for having "too tardily discovered that Gordon was the best man," arid the Government were sharply criticised for not having utilised his services at an earlier date. Lord domer now bitterly regrets that he did not reject the proposal a third time when it was submitted to him. Two points are now, to his mind, clear. The first is that no Englishman should have been sent to Khartoum. The second is that if anyone had to be sent, General Gordon was not the right to send. Why Gordon, great and noble as was his character in many respects, was unsuited for such a difficult and dangerous mission, is abundantly clear from Lord Cromer's splendidly lucid and impartial narrative. To say that Gordon was impulsive and erratic is to put it very mildly. He was flighty, almost to the verge of mental instability. Lord Cromer used to receive some twenty or thirty telegrams in the course of the day when Gordon wa.s at Khartoum, those in the evening often giving opinions which it wa.s impossible to reconcile with others despatched during the day. Although he was to carry out the policy which he himself had suggested, namely, that of evacuation, as soon as he got to the Soudan, he proposed several widely different policies, .some of thorn naturally contradictory. At one time he went to treat with'the Mahdi, and made him Emir of Kordofan; in the next breath he insisted that the Mahdi must be "smashed up." Lord Cromer, with unwearied patience and calm, sober judgment used, in his communications to the Home Government, to insist that there was generally a line of common-sense running throughout Gordon's suggestions, and it would be a mistake to attach too much importance to their wording. But if Gordon's communications were erratic, it i.s infinitely more pamful to read of the pitiable helplessness- and vacillation of the Government at Home, blown about by every passing gust of public opinion. Whenever an emergency arose- which necessitated pro nipt, action, they sent out for reports which it would take weeks to prepare —on one occasion, at least, when the information was already in their own blue books. Their crowning infamy --we can use no other word —was the delay which took place in sending the relief expedition when it was evident that an attempt- must be made to rescue Gordon and his gallant- companion. Colonel Stewart, and that there wa.s no other way of achieving' this result. Lord Cromer says that there can scarcely bea doubt that if the decision to sent! the expedition had been taken in April or May. instead of in August, its objects would have been attained. But. at a time when Gordon and Stewart were bcleagttred in a remote African town by hordes of warlike savages who were half-

f mad with fanaticism and elated at their recent successes, Mr Gladstone wanted further proofs that the British officers were really in danger. As Lord Cromer says, the facts spoke for themselves, and General Gordon, in a passage of his "Journal." which would be humorous if it were not pathetic, himself described Mr Gladstone's attitude in tho following cutting terms: —"It is," he wrote on September 23rd. "as if a man on the bank, having seen his friend in the river already bobbed down two or three times, hails, 'I say, old follow, let. us know when we are to throw you the life-buoy; I know you have bobbed down two or three times, but it is a pity to throw you the life-buoy until you are really in extremis.' and I want to know exactly, for I am a man brought up in a school of exactitude."'

The 'key to Gordon's contradictory policies when ho got to .the Soudan is to be found in the fact that he was above all things a fighter, and, therefore, could not. bring himself to work heartily in the interests of peace. \ Ho longed to "smash the Mahdi," or at any rate " to give the Arabs one good defeat," as he admitted, "to wipe out Hicks's disasters and defeats." And he died a soldier's death. We know of nothing more moving in all history than the story of the last days of Khartoum and the manner in which this soldiermartyr met his end. "Hordes of savage fanatics." says Lord Cromer, "surged around him. Shot and shell poured into the town which he was defending against fearful odds. Starvation stared him in the face. The soldiers had to cat dogs, donkeys, skins of animals, gum and palm fibre, and famine prevailed. The soldiers stood on tho fortifications like pieces of wood. The civilians were even worse off. Many died of hunger, and copses filled tho streets—no one had even tho energy to bury them! Treachery and internal dissension threatened liim from within, whilst, a waste of burning African desert separated him from the outward help which his countrymen, albeit tardily, were straining every nerve to afford. 'All the anxiety he had undergone had gradually turned his hair to silvery white.' 'Yet.' said an eye-witness, 'in spite of all the danger by which he was surrounded, GordoVi Pasha had no fear.' " His end showed that this was no idle boast. When the Dervishes stormed tho town and broke into the palace, Gordon stood in front of the entrance to his office. Ho had on a white uniform. His sword was girt around him, but he did not draw it. He carried a revolver in his hand, but he disdained to use it. One of the Dervishes dashed forward with a curse —"0 cursed one. your time is corao!"—and plunged his spear into his body. Gordon, it is said, made a motion of scorn with his right hand and turned his back, when he received another spear wound which caused him to fall forward, and was most likely his mortal wound. Then his foes cut and slashed at his body with their swords, and as Lord Cromer says: "Foul creatures were not wanting to kick tho dead lion." Bordeini Bey testifies: — "I saw Gordon's head exposed in Oradurman. It was. fixed between the branches of a tree, and all who passed by throw stones at it." Gordon was no politician, no diplomatist. But. as a man of strong and simple faith, who laid down his life in the pursuit of what, he believed to be his duty, his name will ever shine, emblazoned in letters of gold, so long as the British nation ] is in existence and has not lost tho love of valour. —Press. i