5IO 



The Revihw of Reviews, 



all the best authorities recognised that General 

 Gordon was the best man to be sent to Khartoum, 

 everybody from Lord Hartington downwards was 

 paralysed by the refusal of Lord Cromer to allow 

 him to be sent. Mr. Stead then intervened. By 

 his interview with General Gordon at Southampton, 

 and by the use he made of it, he roused the 

 nation, supplied force to the intelligent but ineit 

 judgment of Lord Hartington, and so overbore Lord 

 Cromer's opposition. Mr. Blunt suggests that Mr. 

 Stead's intervention was due to an intrigue, and that 

 he acted on information received. That is simply 

 and absolutely false. 



IIL— THE GENESIS OF THE GORDON 

 MISSION. 



It is now possible, with the aid of these two books, 

 to trace the exact genesis of the Gordon idea from 

 start to finish. 



ITS ORIGINAL AUTHOR. 



The first mention of Colonel Gordon as a man 

 likely to be of use in the Soudan occurs in a 

 despatch from Lord Dufiferin. Sir Charles Wilson 

 had reported to Lord Dufiferin as to the future of the 

 Soudan: — "The result was a despatch, dated i8ih 

 November, 1882, in which, after repeating Wilson's 

 opinion . . ." Lord Dufferin referred to the objection 

 to the abandonment of the Soudan, and went on to 

 say : — " If only some person like Colonel Gordon 

 could be found to undertake its administration, fairly 

 good government might be maintained there without 

 drawing upon Egypt either for men or money." 



He added that the same energy and ability which 

 has gone so near to breaking up the slave trade 

 "ought to be sufficient to keep the country in order." 

 Nothing came of that wise suggestion. 



FIRST PROPOSED BV LORD GRANVILLE. 



Twelve months passed. General Hicks was sent 

 to his doom by the Government of Cherif Pasha, 

 who regarded Gordon as his deadly enemy. On 

 November 27 Lord Granville wrote to Gladstone: — 

 " Do you see any objection to using Gordon in some 

 way ? He has an immense name in Egypt, he is 

 popular at home, he is a strong but very sensible 

 opponent of slavery, he has a small bee in his bonnet. 

 If you do not object I could consult Baring by 

 telegraph." 



To this Gladstone consented, and the telegram, 

 which appears in the Blue Books, was dispatched 

 to Cromer, December ist : — "If General Charles 

 Gordon were willing to go to Egypt would he be of 

 any use to you or to the Egyptian Government, and 

 if so in what capacity ? " 



VETOED BV LORD CROMER. 



'Lord Cromer in "Modern Egypt" says, " I did 

 not at that time know General Gordon well, but I 

 had seen a little of him. I had of course heard 

 much of him." They had met in 1880 when Gordon 

 was employed by Ismail Pasha in a last desperate 



attempt to try and settle his financial affairs, when, 

 on leaving the Palace, General Gordon described the 

 incident as follows : — 



1 founil Baring. Now Baring is in the Rojai Artillery wliilc 

 1 am in Uie Royal Engineers. Baring was m the nursery wliilu' 

 I was in tlie Crimea. He has a pretentious grand patronising 

 way about him. We had a few words together. I said I 

 would do what His Highness asked me. He said it was unfair 

 to the creditors, and in a few moments all was over. When 

 oil mixes with water we will mix together 1 I went upstairs." 



A TELEGRAPHIC MISTAKE OF DESTINY. 



There was a curious complication about Gordon's 

 employment in the Array, which had probably more 

 to do with Lord Hartington's an.\iety to get Gordon 

 sent to the Soudan than any notion as to the effect 

 which his mission would have on the future of Egypt. 

 When Gordon was asked by the King of the Belgians 

 to go to the Congo he asked permission from the 

 War Office to accept the post. Lord Hartington, on 

 the advice of Lord Wolseley supported by Lord Gran- 

 ville, telegraphed, "Secretary of State declines to 

 allow you," etc. By an unexplained error in trans- 

 mission the telegram reached Gordon in Jerusalem, 

 "Secretary decides to allow you." The blunder 

 made by a telegraphic operator probably decided the 

 destiny of the Soudan. Gordon, having received 

 leave, as he thought, promised the King of the 

 Belgians to go to the Congo. When he arrived 

 in Europe he found that permission ha<l 

 been refused him. He was in high dudgeon 

 and demanded to be permitted to resign from the 

 .\riny in order to keep his promise to King Leopold. 



WHY LORD HARTINGTON WANTED TO EMPLOY 

 GORDON. 



This put Lord Hartington in a position of some diffi- 

 culty, and we find him trying to get out of it by 

 renewing the proposition to Lord Cromer that Gordon 

 should be eniiiloyed in Egypt. Mr. Holford pul>- 

 lishes the following letter dated January 8th, the day 

 on which I interviewed Gordon at Southampton. The 

 day before I demanded that Gordon should be sent 

 to the Soudan Lord Hartington wrote to Lord 

 Granville : — 



\'ou know that Gordon has. accepted employment in tlie 

 Congo. We, on your advice in the autumn, told him that we 

 declined to allow him to accept this. He will be privately told 

 that he ought under these circumstances to resign his commission 

 in the Army, but under our admirable regulations he will retire 

 on nothing. If he declines to retire we ought to remove him, 

 but this may be awkward. What do you say? 



Note that there is not a word here of sending 

 Gordon to Egypt. To Lord Hartington Gordon was 

 then merely a British officer who, by the error of a 

 telegraph clerk, was placed under the disagreeable 

 necessity of having to resign his commission and 

 retire on nothing, and thus, so far as Lord Hartingtoii 

 was concerned, the matter began and ended. 



SIR SAMUEL baker's QUESTION. 



On the day before Lord Hartington wrote that 

 lctlc;r to Lord (}ianville General Gordon -arrived iii 

 London and went straight through to Southampton. 



