He had requested Turkish troops. Turkish troops were refused.
He had asked for Mohammedan regiments from India. The Government regretted
their inability to comply. He asked for a Firman from the Sultan to
strengthen his position. It was 'peremptorily refused.' He proposed to go
south in his steamers to Equatoria. The Government forbade him to proceed
beyond Khartoum. He asked that 200 British troops might be sent to Berber.
They were refused. He begged that a few might be sent to Assuan. None were
sent. He proposed to visit the Mahdi himself and try to arrange matters
with him personally. Perhaps he recognised a kindred spirit.
The Government in this case very naturally forbade him.
At last the quarrel is open. He makes no effort to conceal his disgust.
'I leave you,' he says, the 'indelible disgrace of abandoning the
garrisons.' [Major-General Gordon to Sir E. Baring (telegraphic), received
at Cairo April 16.] Such abandonment is, he declares, 'the climax of
meanness.' [Ibid, despatched April 8.] He reiterates his determination
to abide with the garrison of Khartoum. 'I will not leave these people
after all they have gone through.' [Major-General Gordon to Sir E. Baring,
Khartoum, July 30; received at Cairo October 15.] He tosses his commission
contemptuously from him: 'I would also ask her Majesty's Government to
accept the resignation of my commission.' [Major-General Gordon to Sir E.
Baring (telegraphic), Khartoum, March 9.] The Government 'trust that he
will not resign,' [Earl Granville to Sir E. Baring, Foreign Office,
March 13.] and his offer remains in abeyance. Finally, in bitterness and
vexation, thinking himself abandoned and disavowed, he appeals to Sir
Evelyn Baring personally: 'I feel sure, whatever you may feel
diplomatically, I have your support - and that of every man professing
himself a gentleman - in private'; [Major-General Gordon to Sir E. Baring
(telegraphic), received at Cairo April 16.] and as a last hope he begs
Sir Samuel Baker to appeal to 'British and American millionaires'
to subscribe two hundred thousand pounds to enable him to carry out the
evacuation without, and even in spite of, the Governments of Cairo and
London; and Sir Samuel Baker writes a long letter to the Times in
passionate protest and entreaty.
Such are the chief features in the wretched business. Even the Blue-books
in their dry recital arouse in the reader painful and indignant emotions.
But meanwhile other and still more stirring events were passing outside
the world of paper and ink.
The arrival of Gordon at Khartoum had seriously perplexed and alarmed
Mohammed Ahmed and his Khalifas. Their following was discouraged,
and they themselves feared lest the General should be the herald
of armies. His Berber proclamation reassured them, and as the weeks
passed without reinforcements arriving, the Mahdi and Abdullah,
with that courage which in several great emergencies drew them to the
boldest courses, determined to put a brave face on the matter and blockade
Khartoum itself.
