DRAWING-ROOM IN BUCKINGHAM PALACE.
Very soon after Ministers took office Mr. Parnell exacted his price, and they had to pay it. The Crimes Act was abandoned. It was announced that the Irish Labourers’ Act would be pressed on. Lord Ashbourne[215] promised to bring in a Land Purchase Bill. The Maamtrasna murders, and the cases of those condemned on account of them, were to be reconsidered—a somewhat momentous decision, for Lord Spencer’s refusal to revise the sentence in these cases had been upheld by both Parties as a crucial point in the policy of maintaining law and order in Ireland. When the Government threw over Lord Spencer, and not only refused to defend him from Mr. Parnell’s attacks, but through Lord Randolph Churchill disparaged his resolute Irish policy, it was clear that great Party changes were impending. Obviously no English Minister could again feel confident in governing Ireland with a firm and dauntless hand, after the Tories had flung Lord Spencer to the lions of Nationalism. Supported by Mr. Parnell and his followers, Ministers had no difficulty in hurrying through Supply. The Budget was revised in terms of the decision of the 9th of June, and Lord George Hamilton discovered a gross blunder in the accounts at the Admiralty, where Lord Northbrook had spent £900,000—part of the Vote of Credit—in excess of his estimates without having the faintest suspicion that he was doing anything of the sort.[216] Lord Ashbourne’s Land Bill stipulated that when all the money was advanced by the State to the purchasing tenants, one-fifth of it should be retained by the Land Commission till the instalments were repaid. The Scottish Sanitary Bill passed. So did a Bill brought in by Lord Salisbury to embody the non-contentious points of the recommendations of the Commission on Housing the Poor. A Bill was also passed to relieve electors from disqualification on the ground that they had obtained Poor Law medical relief, and the Session closed with the demoralisation of parties on the 14th of August.
No event in 1885 gave the Queen more concern than the failure of Lord Wolseley’s attempt to relieve Khartoum. The story of General Gordon’s mission to the Soudan has already been partially told. It was on the 18th of January, 1884, that he was instructed by the Cabinet to proceed to Khartoum to extricate the beleaguered garrisons. He writes, “It cannot be said I was ordered to go. The subject was too complex for any order. It was, ‘Will you go and try?’ and my answer was ‘Only too delighted.’”[217] The truth is that Gordon doubted whether 20,000 Egyptian troops and colonists could be got out of the Soudan by a process of pacific evacuation. Still, if any one might achieve the feat he could, and to please the Government, he consented to “go and try.” His and their idea was that by restoring the old native families to power he might buy a safe-conduct for the garrisons. On the 8th of February, when he arrived at Abu Hamed, he found that the country was less disorganised than he had supposed it to be when discussing its prospects with Cabinet Ministers in London. Therefore he suggested that a light suzerainty should be exercised over the Soudan, for a time at least, by the Khedive’s officers. This conviction grew stronger when he reached Berber. He then said that his mission could not be carried out with credit to England unless some form of government less heterogeneous than that of the native chiefs were established, in place of the Egyptian administration which he was sent to withdraw. Hence, he suggested that Zebehr Pasha should be appointed Ruler of the Soudan under certain conditions, and he chose Zebehr because he was not such an atrocious slave-trader as the Mahdi; because he might be more easily curbed, and because his high descent from the Abbasides enabled him to exercise real authority over the Soudanese. Sir Evelyn Baring and Nubar Pasha agreed with Gordon. So did Lord Wolseley. Mr. Gladstone and Lord Kimberley too, though they had no love for Zebehr, thought that Gordon’s opinion ought to be deferred to, but Lord Hartington only gave them a feeble, half-hearted support, and Lord Granville’s opposition to Gordon’s policy carried the Cabinet against Mr. Gladstone. Hence Zebehr was not sent. Zebehr naturally took this decision of the Cabinet as an insult, and forthwith, opened up a treasonable correspondence with the Mahdi, the discovery of which led to his arrest and deportation to Gibraltar on the 14th of March, 1885.
After the refusal to send Zebehr to the Soudan, the Government seem to have treated Gordon as if they desired to provoke him to take the bit in his mouth, and in a fit of indignation leave Khartoum without definite orders. Had he done so Ministers could have successfully argued that having deserted his post without authority, they were no longer responsible for him. This game was keenly played between Gordon at Khartoum and Mr. Gladstone’s Cabinet in London, aided by the Egyptian Government and its English advisers, Egerton and Baring, at Cairo. But every point in it was won by Gordon, who in March warned Egerton and Baring that they must decide quickly, for the sands were running fast in the hour-glass. He also put in their hands a plan for getting the Government out of the difficulty without sending a relief expedition. He had not at that time so far committed the people at Khartoum against the Mahdi that it would be dangerous to leave them to make terms with the False Prophet. He had to prevent his armed steamers from falling into the Mahdi’s hands, and Khartoum from being utilised as a base of operations against Lower Egypt. He therefore told the Government that if they held Berber, and accepted his proposal as to Zebehr, it was worth while to keep him (Gordon) at Khartoum. But if not, then he warned his masters that it was useless to hold on to Khartoum, for, he wrote, “it is impossible for me to help the other garrisons, and I shall only be sacrificing the whole of the troops and employés here. In the latter case your order to me had better be to evacuate Khartoum.” On receipt of that order he proposed to send his intrepid lieutenant, Colonel Stewart, and the fugitives who wished to return to Egypt, down the Nile to Berber. He himself, and as many of his black troops as would go with him, were then to take the armed steamers, and the munitions of war from the arsenal of Khartoum, and make their escape southwards up the White Nile. He guaranteed, in that event, to hold the Bahr Gazelle country and Equatorial regions against the slave-traders, and pin the Mahdi in Khartoum by organising a negro State in his rear, which, like the Congo Free State, he suggested might be put under Belgian protection. But he warned the Government that if this plan were to be attempted he must get the order to quit Khartoum at once, for in a few days the way of retreat to Berber would be closed. The order never came. In fact, the only order he got from his superiors at this time, was to hold on to Khartoum till further notice. Had the instructions which he asked for been sent, there would have been no Nile Expedition with its many disasters, including the fall of Khartoum, and the massacre of its inhabitants.[218]
The tardy resolution to send a Relief Expedition to Khartoum has already been alluded to. On the 16th of December, 1884, Lord Wolseley joined the camp which had been pitched at Korti by Brigadier-General Sir Herbert Stewart, and received intelligence from Gordon, informing him that four steamers with their guns were waiting for the expedition at Metamneh, and that Khartoum could hold out with ease for forty days after the date of the letter (November 4th). It was not till the 30th of December that Stewart was able to dash into the desert with the Camel Corps to seize the wells of Gakdul. On the 31st a message from Gordon, dated the 29th of October, arrived, showing that Khartoum still held out, but that he was in dire straits, and, on the 1st of January, 1885, the first boats with the Black Watch reached Korti. On the 3rd General Earle left to join his force which was proceeding up the river to Berber. On the 5th the Naval Brigade arrived, and Sir Herbert Stewart returned from Gakdul. On the 8th he began his march across the Bayuda Desert with a motley force of 120 officers and 1,900 men. The Mahdi, on hearing of the occupation of Gakdul on the 2nd of January, resolved to crush Stewart’s force at the end of its Desert march, and Lord Wolseley’s eccentric tactics gave him thirteen clear days in which to concentrate his forces at Abu Klea, where he barred the way to Metamneh.[219] It was not till the 16th of January that Stewart got touch of the enemy at Abu Klea. During the night our men were harassed by the Arab sharp-shooters, and next day Stewart was artfully drawn into a difficult position, and forced to march out in square formation and give his antagonist battle. When our skirmishers were within 200 yards of the enemy’s flags, the square was halted to let its rear close up. Then, to the amazement of everybody, the Arabs sprang forth from the ravine where they had been hiding, as Roderick Dhu’s warriors rose from the heather. Stewart’s skirmishers ran back in hot haste. The Arabs charged furiously, and, when slightly checked at a distance of about 80 yards, they suddenly swept round to the right and broke the rear face and angle of the British square. For a moment there was dreadful confusion, and had the camels not checked the Arab onset Stewart’s force would have been annihilated, like the army of Hicks Pasha at El Obeid. However, the enemy were beaten back with great loss of life, and the day was saved. It was in this affray that Colonel Fred Burnaby lost his life. The square was broken first, because the Gardner gun at the corner jammed, and was useless after the tenth round; secondly, because General Stewart foolishly trusted cavalry men and seamen to hold the exposed angles;[220] thirdly, because the cartridges of some of the rifles jammed, and shook the soldier’s confidence in his weapon.
Stewart’s losses, especially in camels, were so heavy that his first idea was to halt at Abu Klea for reinforcements. But he decided to push on, even at the risk of leaving his wounded behind him. The wells of Abu Klea were occupied, and it was then ascertained that the 10,000 Arabs who had been defeated, were but the advanced guard of a great army near Metamneh. Papers were discovered, among which was a letter from the Emir of Berber to the Mahdi, showing that Stewart’s occupation of Gakdul had caused the concentration of the Arabs in force at Abu Klea. The expedition was thus at the outset marred by a fatal blunder in generalship. If Stewart had gone straight across the Bayuda Desert, without wasting time at Gakdul, he would have had no enemy barring his path to Metamneh. By letting the Mahdi’s troops concentrate at Abu Klea, he met with the check that delayed his progress till it was too late to save Khartoum.[221]
On the 18th of January Stewart made a forced night march towards the Nile, which he hoped to strike three miles above Metamneh. His column got into terrible disorder in the dark, for men and cattle were utterly exhausted from hunger and want of sleep. At 7 a.m. it came within sight of Metamneh—men and horses and camels being scarcely able to walk. It was resolved to rest for breakfast before attacking the town, but the Arabs closed round Stewart’s zareba, and poured in a dropping fire, which did serious execution. At 10.15 a.m. Stewart himself was shot, and the command was assumed by Sir Charles Wilson, Chief of the Intelligence Department, who happened to be the senior colonel on the field. Sir Charles Wilson, though an officer in the Royal Engineers, was really a scholar and diplomatist who had spent most of his life in civil employment. Still, he did not shrink from the task which an unforeseen accident imposed on him. He undertook the strategic direction of the column, but prudently handed over the tactical control to Colonel Boscawen of the Guards. Having fortified the zareba, Wilson quickly formed his main body into a square, and determined to make a dash for the Nile. Had he not ventured on this perilous step, the whole column must have perished from thirst. Every inch of the way had to be contested, but happily Wilson’s frigid temperament seemed to have in some degree communicated itself to his men. Hence, the same troops who at Abu Klea under Stewart’s showy but exciting leadership got out of hand and fired wildly, were soon calm and steady, and held in complete check by their officers. They had not proceeded far when swarms of Arabs, as at Abu Klea, charged down upon the square from a ridge at a place known as Abu Kru. At first Wilson’s troops began to fire at random as at Abu Klea, and no shot told. Then he ordered the bugles to sound “Cease firing,” and the officers coolly kept the men at rest for five minutes, which steadied their nerves. By this time the enemy had come within 300 yards of the square, from which volley after volley was now suddenly poured forth, and with such deliberation that the Arab spearmen turned and fled, not one of them getting within fifty yards of Wilson’s position. This is the only instance where British troops in the Soudan won a complete victory without being themselves touched by sword or spear. The square now hastened on to the river, and camped for the night. Next day (20th) they carried water to their wounded comrades in the zareba. They then conveyed them down to the camp by the Nile,[222] where they found some of Gordon’s steamers waiting for them. Wilson’s force was now in a sorry plight, and before he took command discontent was smouldering in its ranks. It had been kept toiling and fighting for four days with little food and less sleep. It had lost in killed and wounded one-tenth of its number. And now with its General disabled, it found itself encumbered by a heavy train of wounded, without means of communication with its base, menaced by a formidable fortress, and assured that two great armies were closing on it from Berber and Khartoum. Little wonder that the soldiers murmured sulkily that they had been led into a trap. Wilson’s orders were, that on arriving at the river he must proceed to Khartoum with a small detachment, the mere exhibition of whose red coats Lord Wolseley imagined would cause the Mahdi to raise the siege. But Wilson was not to let his men even sleep in Khartoum, and he was only to stay there long enough to confer with Gordon! In plain English, Lord Wolseley ordered him to march twenty or thirty men into Khartoum and come away again, after telling Gordon, who was every day awaiting his doom, that he must expect no effective succour till far on in March. Wilson, however, resolved, like a loyal commander, not to desert his comrades until he had seen them safely entrenched—and till he had, by reconnoitring, allayed their dread of an attack from Berber. The Naval Brigade was so disabled that he was forced to use Gordon’s crews for the steamers, and, in obedience to Gordon’s instructions, he had to weed out of these crews all untrustworthy Egyptians. He had also to reconnoitre the fortress of Metamneh.