[GORDON'S OWN MEDITATIONS (1884).]
Source.—General Gordon's Journal, pp. 46, 56, 59, 93, 112. (Kegan Paul.)
September 17.—Had Zobeir Pasha been sent up when I asked for him, Berber would in all probability never have fallen, and one might have made a Soudan Government in opposition to the Mahdi. We choose to refuse his coming up because of his antecedents in re slave trade; granted that we had reason, yet as we take no precautions as to the future of these with respect to the slave trade, the above opposition seems absurd. I will not send up A. because he will do this, but will leave the country to B., who will do exactly the same.
September 19.—I was engaged in a certain work—i.e., to take down the garrisons, etc. It suited me altogether to accept this work (when once it was decided on to abandon the Soudan), which, to my idea, is preferable to letting it be under those wretched effete Egyptian Pashas. Her Majesty's Government agreed to send me. It was a mutual affair; they owe me positively nothing, and I owe them nothing. A member of Parliament, in one of our last received papers, asked "whether officers were not supposed to go where they were ordered?" I quite agree with his view, but 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." As for all that may be said of our holding out, etc., etc., it is all twaddle, for we had no option; as for all that may be said as to why I did not escape with Stewart, it is simply because the people would not have been such fools as to have let me go, so there is an end of those great-coats of self-sacrifice, etc. I must add in re "the people not letting me go," that even if they had been willing for me to go, I would not have gone, and left them in their misery.
September 19.—Anyone reading the telegram 5th May, Suakin, 29th April, Massowah, and without date, Egerton saying, "Her Majesty's Government does not entertain your proposal to supply Turkish or other troops in order to undertake military operations in the Soudan, and consequently if you stay at Kartoum you should state your reasons," might imagine one was luxuriating up here, whereas, I am sure, no one wishes more to be out of this than myself; the reasons are those horribly plucky Arabs. I own to having been very insubordinate to Her Majesty's Government and its officials, but it is my nature, and I cannot help it.
September 24.—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 our action in Egypt has placed those garrisons. As to myself, I could make good my retreat at any moment if I wished.
September 29.—My idea is to induce Her Majesty's Government to undertake the extrication of all people or garrisons, now hemmed in or captive, and that if this is not their programme then to resign my commission and do what I can to attain it (the object).... I say this, because I should be sorry for Lord Wolseley to advance from Dongola without fully knowing my views. If Her Majesty's Government are going to abandon the garrisons, then do not advance. I say nothing of evacuating the country; I merely maintain that if we do so, everyone in the Soudan, captive or hemmed in, ought to have the option and power of retreat.
[THE FRANCHISE AND REDISTRIBUTION (1884).]
Source.—The Times, November 19.