Now I really think if Egerton was to turn over the “archives” (a delicious word) of his office, he would see we had been in difficulties for provisions for some months. It is as a man on the bank, having seen his friend in river already bobbed down two or three times, hails, “I say, old fellow, 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 really are in extremis, and I want to know exactly, for I am a man brought up in a school of exactitude, though I did forget (?) to date my June telegram about that Bedouin escort contract.”
He is a strict disciplinarian, and never hesitates to rebuke laxness in others. “If Abdel Kader is at Kassala,”[5] he says, “what on earth are our people about not to tell me! for of course I could help him. We seem to have lost our heads in the Intelligence Department, though it costs enough money.”
His bluntness and honesty are often combined with subtle humour, and an excellent notion of all three may be gathered from the last words in this volume of the Journals:—
As for “evacuation” it is one thing; as for “ratting out” it is another. I am quite of advice as to No. 1 (as we have not the decision to keep the country), but I will be no party to No. 2 (this “rat” business), 1st, because it is dishonourable; 2nd, because it is not possible (which will have more weight); therefore, if it is going to be No. 2, the troops had better not come beyond Berber till the question of what will be done is settled.
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The interest of the second volume is great from a military point of view, but its value is somewhat lessened by the fact that Gordon’s instructions and suggestions were based on the assumption that the relieving force would reach him some two months earlier than it did. During those two months the conditions around Kartoum materially changed, and with these altering conditions Gordon had to reconsider many of the manœuvres he at first suggested. The political interest chiefly consists in the strong recommendation that the country should be given to the Turks, or that Zubair should be established as Governor-General at Kartoum, and that the Equator should be given to himself. “I will (d.v.) keep it,” he says, “from Zubair;” that is to say, he will guard the country against all slave-hunters. In this volume Gordon declines the imputation that the Expeditionary Force has come for him, and shows how, to save our national honour, it has come to extricate the garrisons of the Soudan. Of the troubles these garrisons were causing him we get a fair notion, but his complaints seem to be only a safety-valve for his humour. He knows the men about him are treacherous and liars, but he almost seeks excuse for them when he says: “Man is essentially a treacherous animal; and although the Psalmist said in his haste ‘all men are liars,’ I think he might have said the same at his leisure.” This volume concludes with a new effort to solve the Soudan problem by suggesting the Khedive should replace him at once by appointing Abdel Kader Governor-General.
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This solution is fully discussed in the opening of Vol. III. It is not one in which Gordon will participate, but it may prevent his being antagonistic to the relieving force. Unless he is deposed nothing will induce him to leave the Soudan until he can extricate the garrisons. In removing him from the Governor-Generalship and in replacing him by Abdel Kader, the Government would be utilising a man whom they could mould to their own shape. Of course this solution was, as Gordon says, in some degree “a trap,” but it recommended itself as the only way out of the difficulty, if the Government decided to abandon the garrisons.
The only creditable solution, Gordon still affirms, is to be found in handing the country over to the Turks with a subsidy or a sum down; and he supplements his argument by a programme showing how by this action Her Majesty’s troops could leave the Soudan with honour before January 1885. “I think this would read well in history,” he says. “Her Majesty’s Government, having accepted duties in Egypt, and consequently in the Soudan, sent up a force to restore tranquillity, which having been done, Her Majesty’s Government handed over the government of the Soudan to the Sultan.” The necessity for this solution is the result, in Gordon’s opinion, of the indecisions of Her Majesty’s Government, and he enumerates with great care the causes which have hampered his action and thus required the despatch of a relieving force. This volume is perhaps more cheerful in its tone than any of the others. The presentiment that the expedition will be too late to prevent disaster is rarely evident, and the advance of the Mahdi promises to decide, at all events, the fate of those who are shut up in Kartoum. “A month will see him defeated or victorious, as God may will it,” and with this philosophical consolation Gordon ceases to discuss the future of the Soudan, and begins an interesting detailed account of the offensive and defensive manœuvres which are taking place in and around Kartoum.
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