THE NILE, 1884–85.
Reading edition
The British Government having decided to abandon the Soudan, General Gordon, C.B., R.E., of Chinese celebrity, and who had been Governor of the equatorial provinces of Africa, under the Khedive, was sent to Khartoum to withdraw the Egyptian garrisons from the country, and to make the best arrangements he could for its future government. He had no connection with the Egyptian Government, which he declined to serve under any circumstances. He was accompanied by Colonel J. D. Stewart, who had been at Khartoum in the preceding year. On February 18th. they reached Khartoum, where they were received by the inhabitants with the greatest joy and enthusiasm. But General Gordon soon found that his mission to carry out the evacuation of the Soudan by the Egyptian garrisons, numbering about thirty thousand men, was impracticable. In March, the whole country south of Berber declared for the Mahdi; in May, Berber was taken by the enemy, and Gordon, with Colonel Stewart and Mr. Power, the British Consul, was closely besieged in Khartoum. For months he defended himself with the greatest skill and valour against overwhelming odds, but it was not until August that the British Government decided to despatch an expedition for his relief, under the command of General Lord Wolseley.
Regiments were then ordered from India, Malta, and other places, to Egypt; eight hundred boats, at a cost of £75 each, were built in England for the conveyance of the troops up the Nile; steam pinnaces and light steamers were provided for towing purposes; and five hundred Canadian boatmen, and three hundred Kroomen, were engaged to navigate the boats and steamers over the cataracts of the river. British troops were pushed on to Wady Haifa, and on September 10th. Lord Wolseley reached Cairo,[222] with instructions to 618advance up the Nile and bring away General Gordon and Colonel Stewart from Khartoum, and to undertake no further offensive operations of any kind.
On his arrival at Cairo the General formed a camel corps from volunteers from the Guards and Cavalry, consisting of over one thousand two hundred officers and men, divided into three bodies, called, the Guards, Heavy, and Light camel regiments. These chosen men sailed from England on September 26th., and by their conduct in the desert march to the Nile, in January following, amply justified their organization. For nearly four months a British army of nine thousand men, with their baggage and matériel were toiling hundreds of miles up the broken and tortuous course of the Nile, tugging at the oar, transporting stores, and dragging boats by main force through rapids and over cataracts.[223] On November 3rd. Lord Wolseley and his Staff reached Dongola, and on December 16th. arrived at Korti, one thousand two hundred and fifty miles from Cairo. The situation of Khartoum was known to be critical, and on December 30th., 1884, General Sir Herbert Stewart was despatched, with about one thousand six hundred men and two thousand camels, across the desert to Metammeh, on the Nile, one hundred and seventy miles from Korti; from whence he was to proceed in Gordon’s steamers to Khartoum, one hundred miles further up the river.
Sometime previous, Colonel Stewart and Mr. Power had been sent by Gordon down the Nile to Dongola, to endeavour to open communications with the British, but their steamer was wrecked near Berber on October 6th., and the two Europeans with most of their party were massacred by the natives. Two days before Lord Wolseley reached Korti, on December 14th., Gordon wrote in his diary—“Now mark this: If the Expeditionary Force—and I ask no more than two hundred men—does not come in ten days, the town may fall, and I have done my best for the honour of our country. Good bye.”[224]
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