GORDON’S OPERATIONS, 1876-1879.
1876.Gessi navigates Lake Albert Nyanza, 1876.Early in 1876 Gordon made preparations for Gessi to proceed to Lake Albert Nyanza with two lifeboats, while he himself proceeded towards Lake Victoria.
He had now surveyed the river from Khartoum to Dufile, and from Foweira to Mruli. Gessi started in March, and succeeded in circumnavigating the lake in nine days, finding it to be only 140 miles long and 50 miles wide. The natives showed themselves hostile, and the west coast was inaccessible.
In January, Gordon had given up all idea of forming an expedition to meet that proposed from the Juba river; his reasons were that his troops were utterly untrustworthy and unfitted for such a task.
In July a steamer, brought up with much difficulty, was at length put together above the Dufile Falls, and the passage cleared to the Albert Lake.
A treaty was made with M’tesa recognising his independence, and Dr. Emin Effendi,[159] a German by birth, was sent to him as Gordon’s representative.
Gordon leaves for England, October, 1876.In October Gordon left for Khartoum and thence for England, having handed over the government of his province to Colonel Prout. He had during the three years successfully checked the slave trade in the Equatorial provinces, and established the basis of a sound government, if such could be found under Egyptian rule. That he could not entirely suppress the slave trade was due to its huge ramifications, the despicable quality of his troops, and the resistance offered to all his endeavours by the government of the Sudan under Ismail Yagub Pasha.
Gordon returns to Egypt, February, 1877.In February, 1877, Gordon, under pressure, returned to Egypt, and the Khedive made him Governor-General of the Sudan, uniting in one great province the Sudan, the Equatorial provinces, and the Red Sea provinces; thus giving him a district some 1,640 miles in length by an average of 660 in breadth, with three Wakils (deputy governors) for Sudan proper, Darfur, and the Red Sea provinces respectively. The Khedive drew his attention specially to the suppression of the slave trade and the improvement of the communications, and gave him powers to negotiate with Abyssinia in order to end the disputes with King John.
Gordon goes to Abyssinia, 1877.Gordon at once proceeded, viâ Massaua, to the Abyssinian frontier to make a treaty, if possible, with the King. He found that there was no hope of bringing the matter to a satisfactory result till a stop was put to the raids of Walad Mikael. Just now a large portion of Gordon’s troops were withdrawn for service in the Turco-Russian war, and it was useless for him to think of using force against Mikael, while the news of a serious revolt in Darfur required his presence elsewhere. He therefore agreed to supply Walad Mikael with money and provisions, on condition that he gave up his attacks on Abyssinia. King John, taking advantage of this temporary respite, proceeded to attack Menelik, King of Shoa.
Gordon having visited Bogos, Kassala, Gedaref, and Sennar, proceeded to Khartoum; here he spent some time in carrying out reforms, amongst others in giving back to the Ulema their ancient privileges of which they had been deprived by the late Governor, Ismail Yagub Pasha. In May, however, he found himself obliged to start for Darfur.
Harûn, a relative of the late Sultan of Darfur, and a claimant to the throne, took advantage of the discontent caused by the misgovernment of the province to raise a revolt in February, 1877.1877. He had a very large number of men with him as the nomad tribes, who had not helped the Sultan when Darfur was conquered in 1874, now joined his standard.
These tribes were semi-independent under their own Sheikhs, and each of them could put from 2,000 to 6,000 horse or camel-men into the field. They were largely engaged in the slave trade, making raids on the negro tribes to the south, or buying slaves from other nomad tribes who lived out of range to the west. Though the traffic of the large slave caravans had ceased, yet there was still an extensive trade carried on by small dealers, which it was impossible to put down.
The Governor of Darfur at this time was Hassan Hilmi Pasha, who showed no energy, as up to May he had failed to render assistance to the stations of El Fasher, Dara, Kolkol, and Kebkebia, where the followers of Harûn had hemmed in the Egyptian garrisons. A force had, it is true, been sent from Foga for the purpose, but seemed unable to accomplish the task.
Gordon arrives in Darfur, June, 1877.Gordon arrived himself at Foga on the 7th June, having dismissed, before his departure from Khartoum, Khaled Pasha, who had been sent to him as second in command.
In addition to the revolt in Darfur, Suleiman, son of Zubeir, was now at the head of the slave dealers to the south, and, having a large force at his command, was displaying a threatening attitude. Shakka was his headquarters, and the nest of the slave trade in that part. Gordon, considering the country was scarcely worth keeping, determined to call in all the outlying stations of Darfur, and merely maintain garrisons along the trunk road through El Fasher. Harûn was at Tine, and Gordon intended to move against him with the force at his disposal, reinforced by the garrisons of Taweisha, Dara, and Kagmar, in all about 3,000 men. In July he was at Dara, and Harûn retreated to Tura, whence he ravaged the country to the north, but, seeing Gordon was too strong for him, disappeared for the time.
Meeting with Suleiman, August, 1877.Gordon was at El Fasher in August, but soon after left for Dara, where he heard that the slave dealers were gathering in force. Here he met Suleiman and ordered him to lay down his arms; after some hesitation Suleiman left a large number of his men with Gordon and returned to Shakka; to this place Gordon followed him about the middle of September, and sent him to the Bahr El Ghazal, while the other chiefs he dismissed to various places. The slave trade was thus broken up for the time being in this direction, and very large numbers of slaves were liberated. There were, however, upwards of 4,000 more slave hunters to be dealt with in the Bahr El Ghazal, but Idris, the chief of these, was friendly to Gordon.
Mikael again giving trouble, 1877.Gordon now returned to Khartoum, viâ El Obeid, and proceeded immediately to Bogos, where he heard that Mikael had resumed hostilities. In March, Gordon had proposed to King Johannes that Egypt should retain Bogos, but be answerable for the conduct of Mikael. Now, however, seeing that the latter was not to be trusted, he proposed to King Johannes to join him in seizing and sending him to Cairo. To this Gordon received no answer, and Mikael continued his aggressive action.
On December 26th Gordon writes:—“I am now waiting for a letter from Ras Barion, the frontier General . . . I want to get Johannes to give a pardon to Walad Mikael’s men, in order that, if I have to attack them, I may be able to give them the chance of getting away. If I attack them now, with Abyssinia closed to them, they would fight desperately.”
Visit of Gordon to Harrar, and dismissal of Rauf Pasha, the Governor, April, 1878.At the end of the year Gordon, getting no satisfaction, returned to Khartoum by Suakin and Berber, and, having paid a visit to Cairo, again started for the Red Sea provinces. Having touched at Zeila, he went on in April, 1878, to Harrar. Here he found Rauf, the Governor, had been guilty, not only of oppression, but also of illegal trading on his own account, and immediately dismissed him.
Fresh trouble now arose on the Abyssinian frontier. In March, Walad Mikael attacked, defeated, and killed Johannes’s general, Ras Barion, and got possession of Gordon’s letters, which revealed his real intentions. Mikael had been enabled to make this raid by the assistance rendered to him by Osman Pasha, Gordon’s Wakil, who supplied him with ammunition, and in addition received a congratulatory letter from the Khedive’s Minister of War, urging him to press on his conquest. However, he did not follow this advice; before long he came to terms with the King, and all seemed quiet for a time, though further troubles were soon to crop up.
In July, 1878, Gordon heard of the revolt of Suleiman, Zubeir’s son, and despatched an expedition under Gessi to put it down. The history of Gessi’s campaign will be narrated later on.
The railway scheme at this time occupied the Governor-General’s attention. He considered that the natural outlet for the Sudan trade was from Berber to Suakin, and that the Nile railway idea was visionary. Under Ismail Pasha the work had been commenced, but had come to a standstill in 1877, after an expenditure of some £450,000, and the completion of about 50 miles of line from Wadi Halfa southward. Gordon’s proposal was to use the river where navigable, for small steamers, and to lay tramways in the intervening spaces. The Controllers, however, did not take up his scheme, and the other affairs of his Government prevented him from giving further attention to the subject.
At this time the operations for stopping the slave trade were in active progress, as shown by the fact that within two months 14 caravans had been taken.
1878.Towards the end of 1878, the Khedive determined to take the Harrar and Zeila districts out of Gordon’s control.
In December, Walad Mikael started to make his submission to King Johannes, and the latter entered into further negotiations with Gordon about the frontier.
One of the King’s demands was for an Abuna, or Archbishop. An Abuna was and is always obtained from the Coptic Church at Alexandria, and was the only person in Abyssinia who could ordain priests.
Gordon had some difficulty just then as to the disposal of 1,300 slave soldiers (“Bazingers”) who had remained faithful to the Government, and finally decided on sending them under Nur Bey Angara,[160] their chief, accompanied by two Europeans, to a zone of country between Wadai and Darfur. These soldiers had been originally kidnapped by Zubeir and trained to arms.
Though Gordon had pointed out that the destruction of Zubeir’s force was the turning point in the slave trade question, he could get no assistance from Cairo.
The Slave Convention of August 4th, 1877.On August 4th, 1877, a Convention had been concluded between Great Britain and Egypt, by which all public traffic in slaves was at once prohibited, while the private trade in Egypt was to be suppressed in 1884, and in the Sudan in 1889. It is curious to note that although it was well known that Zubeir was mainly responsible for the slave trade of the past 10 years, yet he was now at Cairo being treated as an honoured guest, and Nubar Pasha even offered to send him to assist Gordon. The latter, however, declined the offer, and occupied himself by appointing European Wakils to all the frontier posts.
Gordon starts for Kordofan, March, 1879.In March, 1879, Gordon set out for Kordofan. Not only was the revolt in full vigour in Bahr El Ghazal, but there were also risings in Darfur and Kordofan. In the former, Harûn had once more appeared on the scene, and in the latter, the insurgents were led by Subahi, formerly one of Zubeir’s chiefs, who had taken to slave dealing on his own account, had murdered the governor whom Gordon left at Edowa (Eddaiya?), and gone to the hills, where the Egyptian troops under Hassan Hilmi Pasha were making no efforts to attack him.
Gordon’s reasons for undertaking his present expedition were to help Gessi, to prevent partisans of Zubeir in Kordofan sending aid to the slave dealers, to cut off runaways, and to hinder Zubeir’s bands breaking into Darfur and joining Harûn. At the end of March he went to Edowa (Eddaiya), from which station Subahi with 400 men was only four days distant. Many captures of slave caravans now took place, the total number captured since June, 1878, being 63. Shakka was reached on 7th April, where a message was received from Gessi, asking for more troops and ammunition. Gordon now decided that it would be prudent to reinstate the Sultan’s family in Darfur, in the person of the son of Sultan Ibrahim, and telegraphed to the Khedive to send him down, as at that time he was kept at Cairo. In December, 1877, Gordon had found, imprisoned at Suakin, an ex-Vizier of Darfur; he had liberated him and sent him back to the province. Now he appointed him regent until the son of the deceased Sultan arrived from Cairo, and wrote to Harûn pointing out the uselessness of his further opposition, and inviting him to come in and assist to establish the new Sultan. In a letter written at this time he makes the following observation:—“If the liberation of slaves takes place in 1884 [in Egypt proper], and the present system of government goes on, there cannot fail to be a revolt of the whole country. . . . It is rather amusing to think that the people of Cairo are quite oblivious that in 1884 their revenue will fall to one-half, and that the country will need more troops to keep it quiet. Seven-eighths of the population of the Sudan are slaves, and the loss of revenue in 1889 (the date fixed for the liberation of the slaves in Egypt’s outlying territories) will be more than two-thirds, if it is ever carried out.”
SUDANESE MAIDEN.
Gordon, leaving Shakka in April, went by Kalaka, Dara, El Fasher, to Kolkol, which he reached on 26th May; here he relieved the garrison, and returned to El Fasher. At the latter place he heard from Gessi of the capture of Suleiman’s stronghold, and was about to start for Khartoum, when learning that a force of Zubeir’s men was en route for Darfur, he returned to Taweisha, and, Gordon meets Gessi, June 25th, 1879.on June 25th, he met Gessi who informed him that the last of the rebel bands had been crushed. Leaving Gessi to follow up Suleiman, Gordon now left for Khartoum.