Gordon : From China to Sudan

Egypt was nominally under the auspices of the Ottoman Empire but had a deal of autonomy. To the south lay the vast (a million square miles) waste of Sudan and then the jungle and and savanna of Uganda. The region had piqued the interest of the West through the mystery surrounding the source of the Nile and the talk of snow-capped mountains at the Equator. To the Egyptians, the only interest lay
in the slave-trade, a commerce the Victorians were dedicated to eradicating (at least it gave a good cover for colonizing and pillaging). Gordon's job was to organize the area and to his credit he did considerably better than his predecessor, Sir Samuel Baker. Taking a leaf out of past colonial experiences he set up a series of posts, or depots, up the Nile from Khartoum to the Ugandan frontier. The Nile became increasingly difficult to navigate in its upper reaches, cataracts and swamps meant boats spent more time being carried over difficult terrain than floating on water. Gordon built a station at Dufile so that steamships could be assembled to explore what the Victorians called Lake Albert. With
missionary zeal he also set about suppressing the slave trade which went overland from Uganda through the province of Darfur, this was actually the start of their troubles, we are still trying to resolve the mess 150 years later! Arab traders had taken over Darfur to facilitate this trade, greasing palms in Khartoum as well as Cairo. Thus Gordon's efforts, although entirely laudable, cut into one of Egypt's
main sources of revenue; the Khedive had not expected him to be quite so effective in stifling a lucrative business. It was over this subject that the next disagreement arose. The governor of Sudan and Gordon disagreed over the elimination of this loathsome traffic and the Khedive, although not openly supporting the trade, prevaricated in his support for Gordon. Unable to get his way Gordon threw a tantrum and stomped off to London.

The Khedive must have been desperate for British support for no sooner had Gordon arrived home than he received a letter reminding him of his promise to return which Gordon promptly did, negotiating his appointment as Governor-General of all the Sudanese provinces. The whole affair has the tone of a childish spat. In fact the Khedive was desperate; during Gordon's first tenure Egypt and Abyssinia
(Ethiopia) had gone to war resulting in Egypt suffering two humiliating defeats. Arriving back in Khartoum in 1877, Gordon promptly went south to negotiate peace with the Abyssinian king. The king was away fighting the Shoa. The next two years were spent racing around his territory; negotiating peace with the insurgents in Darfur, a quick check on two neighboring provinces, Berber and Dongola, back to the Abyssinian frontier and then returning to Khartoum where he promptly took a round trip to Cairo at the Khedive's behest. All this before air travel, indeed the journeys were long, arduous camel treks, often arriving to find the reported situation totally changed. In 1879 the Khedive was deposed, succeeded by his son, this seems to have had little effect on Gordon however. He went south to Harrar
province, fired the governor for incompetence and corruption, went back to Khartoum and on to Darfur where, once again, the slave-trading warlords had risen up. This time they were defeated in battle and Gordon returned to the Abyssinian border to deal with that problem. The Abyssinians were not impressed, however, instead they imprisoned him in Massawa where he was finally released and returned to Cairo to resign his position in early 1880.

Gordon was exhausted, or so he claimed, the problems of the world had enervated him, no matter that he actively sought those burdens. He retired for some R & R to Lausanne, recuperating on the lake, soothing the stress with the peace of the Alpine peaks. For three weeks; at least that is how long it took before he was cutting a deal with King Leopold of Belgium. I find it hard to believe the king was just wandering by so Gordon must have contacted him. The deal was to run what was then termed the Belgian Congo. The Congo was one of the great disgraces of the Imperialist 19th century. The Belgian throne had been offered as a sop to one of Victoria's close relatives with the effect that the king had ideas above his station, hey, everybody else was getting a piece of Africa, why couldn't he? With an amused tolerance, like dealing with a spoiled child, he was allowed to get a large piece of jungle pretty much slap in the middle, not a piece anybody else hankered after ( at least not until the diamonds were discovered), and seen by the other powers as a useful buffer between France, Germany and Britain. The country was run as the worst sort of plantation, Conrad's book exposed a lot of the atrocities, tens of thousands starved or were worked to death in appalling conditions, and of course, some of the natives were unappreciative. Gordon was offered the job of sorting out the Congo Free State - as it was laughingly called - by King Leopold. A month later, in April, Gordon was offered the position of Commandant in the Cape Colony (South Africa) and then in May the Marquis of Ripon, just appointed Governor-General of India, the jewel of the British Empire, offered him the role of private secretary! I can only imagine his reputation became self-fulfilling. Each offer proved his ability and meant everybody else wanted him to sort out there colonial headaches.

Pondering this plethora of offers, he chose the last, setting sail for India. He had hardly arrived, however, when he promptly resigned, yet another childish tantrum - maybe he didn't like the food. Anybody else would have been shipped home and shelved but instead he was invited to China by Sir Robert Hart, the inspector-general of customs. Once in Beijing he renewed old contacts - a Victorian networking, and did a little shuttle diplomacy between China and Russia to stop an outbreak of hostilities. Having staved off war he returned to England where he was quickly dispatched to Mauritius in the Indian Ocean as Commander of the Royal Engineers. Amazingly he stayed put on the island for a whole year. Promoted to Major-General, Gordon was sent to the Cape to 'sort out' Basutoland. By this
time he was pretty much the super-envoy, sent wherever there was a problem with the indigenous people (problem being defined by the colonial power, of course). Returning to London in the summer of 1882 he found a lull in the native insurrections so he took a sabbatical of a year to travel to Palestine,
the Holy Land at the 'center of the world'.