"I altogether decline the imputation that the projected expedition has come to relieve me. It has come to save our National honour in extricating the garrisons, etc., from a position in which our action in Egypt has placed these garrisons. I was Relief Expedition No. 1; they are Relief Expedition No. 2. As for myself, I could make good my retreat at any moment, if I wished. Now realise what would happen if this first relief expedition was to bolt, and the steamers fell into the hands of the Mahdi. This second relief expedition (for the honour of England engaged in extricating garrisons) would be somewhat hampered. We, the first and second expeditions, are equally engaged for the honour of England. This is fair logic. I came up to extricate the garrison, and failed. Earle comes up to extricate garrisons, and I hope succeeds. Earle does not come to extricate me. The extrication of the garrisons was supposed to affect our "National honour." If Earle succeeds, the "National honour" thanks him, and I hope recommends him, but it is altogether independent of me, who, for failing, incurs its blame. I am not the rescued lamb, and I will not be."
Lord Wolseley, still possessed with the idea that, now that an expedition had been sanctioned, the question of time was not of supreme importance, and that the relieving expedition might be carried out in a deliberate manner, which would be both more effective and less exposed to risk, did not reach Cairo till September, and had only arrived at Wady Halfa on 8th October, when his final instructions reached him in the following form:—"The primary object of your expedition is to bring away General Gordon and Colonel Stewart, and you are not to advance further south than necessary to attain that object, and when it has been secured, no further offensive operations of any kind are to be undertaken." These instructions were simple and clear enough. The Government had not discovered a policy. It had, however, determined to leave the garrisons to their fate, despite the National honour being involved, at the very moment that it sanctioned an enormous expenditure to try and save the lives of its long-neglected representatives, Gordon and Colonel Stewart. With extraordinary shrewdness, Gordon detected the hollowness of its purpose, and wrote:—"I very much doubt what is really going to be the policy of our Government, even now that the Expedition is at Dongola," and if they intend ratting out, "the troops had better not come beyond Berber till the question of what will be done is settled."
The receipt of Gordon's and Power's despatches of July showed that there were, at the time of their being written, supplies for four months, which would have carried the garrison on till the end of November. As the greater part of that period had expired when these documents reached Lord Wolseley's hands, it was quite impossible to doubt that time had become the most important factor of all in the situation. The chance of being too late would even then have presented itself to a prudent commander, and, above all, to a friend hastening to the rescue of a friend. The news that Colonel Stewart and some other Europeans had been entrapped and murdered near Merowe, which reached the English commander from different sources before Gordon confirmed it in his letters, was also calculated to stimulate, by showing that Gordon was alone, and had single-handed to conduct the defence of a populous city. Hard on the heels of that intelligence came Gordon's letter of 4th November to Lord Wolseley, who received it at Dongola on 14th of the same month. The letter was a long one, but only two passages need be quoted:—"At Metemmah, waiting your orders, are five steamers with nine guns." Did it not occur to anyone how greatly, at the worst stage of the siege, Gordon had thus weakened himself to assist the relieving expedition? Even for that reason there was not a day or an hour to be lost.
But the letter contained a worse and more alarming passage:—"We can hold out forty days with ease; after that it will be difficult." Forty days would have meant till 14th December, one month ahead of the day Lord Wolseley received the news, but the message was really more alarming than the form in which it was published, for there is no doubt that the word "difficult" is the official rendering of Gordon's, a little indistinctly written, word "desperate." In face of that alarming message, which only stated facts that ought to have been surmised, if not known, it was no longer possible to pursue the leisurely promenade up the Nile, which was timed so as to bring the whole force to Khartoum in the first week of March. Rescue by the most prominent general and swell troops of England at Easter would hardly gratify the commandant and garrison starved into surrender the previous Christmas, and that was the exact relationship between Wolseley's plans and Gordon's necessities.
The date at which Gordon's supplies would be exhausted varied not from any miscalculation, but because on two successive occasions he discovered large stores of grain and biscuits, which had been stolen from the public granaries before his arrival. The supplies that would all have disappeared in November were thus eked out, first till the middle of December, and then finally till the end of January, but there is no doubt that they would not have lasted as long as they did if in the last month of the siege he had not given the civil population permission to leave the doomed town. From any and from every point of view, there was not the shadow of an excuse for a moment's delay after the receipt of that letter on 14th November.
With the British Exchequer at a commander's back, it is easy to organise an expedition on an elaborate scale, and to carry it out with the nicety of perfection, but for the realisation of these ponderous plans there is one thing more necessary, and that is time. I have no doubt if Gordon's letter had said "granaries full, can hold out till Easter," that Lord Wolseley's deliberate march—Cairo, September 27; Wady Halfa, October 8; Dongola, November 14; Korti, December 30; Metemmah any day in February, and Khartoum, March 3, and those were the approximate dates of his grand plan of campaign—would have been fully successful, and held up for admiration as a model of skill. Unfortunately, it would not do for the occasion, as Gordon was on the verge of starvation and in desperate straits when the rescuing force reached Dongola. It is not easy to alter the plan of any campaign, nor to adapt a heavy moving machine to the work suitable for a light one. To feed 10,000 British soldiers on the middle Nile was alone a feat of organisation such as no other country could have attempted, but the effort was exhausting, and left no reserve energy to despatch that quick-moving battalion which could have reached Gordon's steamers early in December, and would have reinforced the Khartoum garrison, just as Havelock and Outram did the Lucknow Residency.
Dongola is only 100 miles below Debbeh, where the intelligence officers and a small force were on that 14th November; Ambukol, specially recommended by Gordon as the best starting-point, is less than fifty miles, and Korti, the point selected by Lord Wolseley, is exactly that distance above Debbeh. The Bayuda desert route by the Jakdul Wells to Metemmah is 170 miles. At Metemmah were the five steamers with nine guns to convoy the desperately needed succour to Khartoum. The energy expended on the despatch of 10,000 men up 150 miles of river, if concentrated on 1000 men, must have given a speedier result, but, as the affair was managed, the last day of the year 1884 was reached before there was even that small force ready to make a dash across the desert for Metemmah.
The excuses made for this, as the result proved, fatal delay of taking six weeks to do what—the forward movement from Dongola to Korti, not of the main force, but of 1000 men—ought to have been done in one week, were the dearth of camels, the imperfect drill of the camel corps, and, it must be added, the exaggerated fear of the Mahdi's power. When it was attempted to quicken the slow forward movement of the unwieldy force confusion ensued, and no greater progress was effected than if things had been left undisturbed. The erratic policy in procuring camels caused them at the critical moment to be not forthcoming in anything approaching the required numbers, and this difficulty was undoubtedly increased by the treachery of Mahmoud Khalifa, who was the chief contractor we employed. Even when the camels were procured, they had to be broken in for regular work, and the men accustomed to the strange drill and mode of locomotion. The last reason perhaps had the most weight of all, for although the Mahdi with all his hordes had been kept at bay by Gordon single-handed, Lord Wolseley would risk nothing in the field. Probably the determining reason for that decision was that the success of a small force would have revealed how absolutely unnecessary his large and costly expedition was. Yet events were to show beyond possibility of contraversion that this was the case, for not less than two-thirds of the force were never in any shape or form actively employed, and, as far as the fate of Gordon went, might just as well have been left at home. They had, however, to be fed and provided for at the end of a line of communication of over 1200 miles.
Still, notwithstanding all these delays and disadvantages, a well-equipped force of 1000 men was ready on 30th December to leave Korti to cross the 170 miles of the Bayuda desert. That route was well known and well watered. There were wells at, at least, five places, and the best of these was at Jakdul, about half-way across. The officer entrusted with the command was Major-General Sir Herbert Stewart, an officer of a gallant disposition, who was above all others impressed with the necessity of making an immediate advance, with the view of throwing some help into Khartoum. Unfortunately he was trammelled by his instructions, which were to this effect—he was to establish a fort at Jakdul; but if he found an insufficiency of water there he was at liberty to press on to Metemmah. His action was to be determined by the measure of his own necessities, not of Gordon's, and so Lord Wolseley arranged throughout. He reached that place with his 1100 fighting men, but on examining the wells and finding them full, he felt bound to obey the orders of his commander, viz. to establish the fort, and then return to Korti for a reinforcement. It was a case when Nelson's blind eye might have been called into requisition, but even the most gallant officers are not Nelsons.
The first advance of General Stewart to Jakdul, reached on 3rd January 1885, was in every respect a success. It was achieved without loss, unopposed, and was quite of the nature of a surprise. The British relieving force was at last, after many months' report, proved to be a reality, and although late, it was not too late. If General Stewart had not been tied by his instructions, but left a free hand, he would undoubtedly have pressed on, and a reinforcement of British troops would have entered Khartoum even before the fall of Omdurman. But it must be recorded also that Sir Herbert Stewart was not inspired by the required flash of genius. He paid more deference to the orders of Lord Wolseley than to the grave peril of General Gordon.