66. The circumstances of Gordon’s death remain controversial. The first printed account, that of Bordeni Bey, who was not an eyewitness, was the least reliable. Cemented in the public imagination by William Joy’s painting, General Gordon’s Last Stand, it was endorsed in F. R. Wingate’s Mahdiism & the Egyptian Sudan (London: Frank Cass, 1891), 163–72. But two other accounts indicate that Gordon, true to character and intention, went down fighting, probably en route to the ammunition store. Kitchener’s investigation of 1885 found only one witness, a palace servant who reported that Gordon was shot while leading a party toward the house of Austrian consul Martin Hansal, which lay near the ammunition dump. Gordon’s bodyguard Khalil Agha Orphali corroborated this account; Orphali, the wounded man Gordon rescued from the palace steps, claimed to have been next to Gordon as they fought their way into the courtyard (SAD, 439/637/2). See Trench, 290–91; J. A. Reid, “The Death of Gordon: An Eyewitness Account,” in SNR, XX (1937), 172–73.
9: The New Caliphate: 1885–89
1. “Those that have”: The Koran, 5:31.
2. “The bullets”: Wilson, 170. “heavy feeling”: Ibid., 179. “loud, rushing”: Ibid., 174. “It seemed”: Ibid., 175.
3. “Khartoum is reported”: Wolseley to Hartington, No. 44, February 4, 1885 (PRO WO/33/34/II/224).
4. “Dreadful news”: Victoria, February 5, 1885, Buckle (ed.), III, 597. “These news”: Victoria to Gladstone, February 5, 1885, ibid., 598.
5. “The circumstances”: February 5, 1885, Gladstone, Diaries, XI, 289.
6. “Our power”: Victoria to Sir Henry Ponsonby, February 5, 1885, Buckle (ed.), III, 598.
7. “the effect”: Gladstone to Eddy Hamilton, February 7, 1885, Hamilton, II, 790. “The Candidate”: Gladstone, February 10, 1885, Diaries, XI, 293.
8. “How shall”: Queen Victoria to Augusta Gordon, February 11, 1885, cit. Blunt, Gordon, 204–05. “In his own death”: Tawfik to Sir Henry Gordon, cit. Nutting, 314. “sit in state”: B. Farwell, Prisoners of the Mahdi (London: Longmans, 1967), 100. “the disturbance”: Gladstone, February 12, 1885, Diaries, XI, 295.
9. “If anything”: February 4, 1885, Wolseley, In Relief, 135.
10. “Let all” and “He will”: February 6, 1885, ibid., 138. “fools”: February 4, 1885, ibid., 135. “a hideous,” “the most serious,” and “We shall”: February 24, 1885, ibid., 153.
11. “gone so completely” and “Oh!”: February 11 and 14, 1885, ibid., 141 and 145. “I never saw”: March 1, 1885, ibid., 159.
12. “The final”: Gladstone, February 27, 1885, Diaries, XI, 301. “The lowest”: Gladstone to Granville, April 1, 1885, cit. Gladstone, Political Correspondence, II, p. 354, it. 1616 (PRO 30/29/129).
13. “This has been”: Blunt, Gordon, 373. “treat”: Ibid., 384.
14. “Sir Charles”: March 11, 1885, Wolseley, In Relief, 164.
15. William McGonagall, “General Gordon, the Hero of Khartoum,” in Poetic Gems from the Works of William McGonagall (1890; London: Duckworth, 1954), 167–69.
16. “a moment”: Gladstone, June 25, 1885, Diaries, XI, 368.
17. “Know that”: Mahdi to the people of Fez, May 8, 1885, cit. Abu-Salim, IV, 481–88. “We will”: Mahdi to Tawfik, trans. P. M. Holt, “The Sudanese Mahdia and the Outside World: 1881–89,” in Bulletin SOAS, XXI (1958), vol.1, 281.
18. Division of slaves: Ohrwalder, 164–65.
19. Mahdi’s decline: Ibid., 181–83.
20. Mahdi’s treatment: Bermann, 290–91.
21. The Mahdi’s death: Slatin, 370.
22. “Friends of the Mahdi”: Ibid., 371–72.
23. “Ed-din”: Khalifa, cit. Ohrwalder, 187.
24. “a guidance,” “a long light,” and “Every rank”: “Manshur al-Sha’ra” (“The Proclamation of the Hair”), in Ms. Abd al-Rahman al-Nujumi (SOAS, London: photographed material from Sudanese State Archives, Box 9, File 11) ff.96–98, trans. Holt, Mahdist State, 123–24. “in his time,” “Mecca,” and “successors”: Abdullahi, cit. and trans. Nicoll, 233.
25. “The cavalry”: Uthman wad Adam, February 1889, cit. Wingate, Mahdiism & the Egyptian Sudan, 457.
26. “The Prophet”: Abdullahi in a vision published January 6, 1888, trans. Holt, Mahdist State, 133.
27. “General Gordon”: Cromer, Modern Egypt, II, 369.
28. “Berlin”: Baring to Rosebery, No. 48, February 9, 1886 (FO633/6).
29. “the nature”: Cromer, Modern Egypt, II, 373. “in the elaboration” and “for English”: Ibid., 373–74. “tranquilising”: Ibid., 61.
30. “A delusion” and “the Mahdi”: Ibid., 374. “Internationalism”: Ibid., 442.
31. “appearance”: Ibid., 376–77.
32. “So long”: Salisbury to the sultan, ibid., 380.
33. “extraordinary expenditure”: Ibid., 449. “barbarous”: Baring to Salisbury, No. 318, October 9, 1888 (FO78/4147).
34. “After me”: Grenfell’s letter to al-Nujumi, trans. Holt, Mahdist State, 161.
35. “Our object”: Ibid., 162.
36. “It is my”: Grenfell to G.O.C. Egypt, enclosed in Clarke to Salisbury, No. 331, August 26, 1889 (FO78/4242).
37. “a whole crop” and “the most serious”: Baring to Salisbury, No. 101, December 11, 1889 (FO78/4243). “small but influential” and the 1886 prediction: Cromer, Modern Egypt, II, 80 and 81.
10: Gladstone’s Egg : 1889–96
1. “I had no”: Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness (1899; London: Everyman, 1993), 12.
2. “The classes”: Salisbury, Bentley’s Quarterly Review, 1869, cit. Roberts, 295.
3. “dirty, dunghill”: Wolseley to Lady Louisa, Dongola, November 24, 1884, Wolseley, In Relief, 31.
4. “Artless Dodger”: Title of a Salisbury article in the Saturday Review; Roberts, 199.
5. “splendid isolation”: Joseph Chamberlain, quoted by the Times, January 22, 1896.
6. “France”: Ferry, cit. W. L. Langer, The Diplomacy of Imperialism, 1890–1902 (New York: Knopf, 1935), I, 74.
7. “The other powers”: Rosebery, ibid.
8. “inconvenient” and “I heartily”: Salisbury to Scott, May 4, 1887, cit. Lady G. Cecil, Life of Robert, Marquis of Salisbury (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1924), IV, 43. “lunatics”: Salisbury to the earl of Lytton, December 1888, cit. Roberts, 530. “bastard”: Salisbury, cit. Roberts, 518.
9. “What a pity”: Sir H. Johnston, The Story of My Life (London: Chatto & Windus, 1923), 221.
10. “Great Britain’s Policy”: Times, August 22, 1888.
11. “Africa”: Salisbury, cit. Lady G. Cecil, Salisbury, II, 254.
12. “The Mahdi is the representative”: Slatin, 516.
13. “from light brown to deepest black”: Ibid., 521.
14. “nightly orgies”: Ibid., 520. Abdullahi’s slaves: Ibid., 525.
15. “As one walked”: Ohrwalder, 308–09. “an ear”: Ibid., 312. “like glass”: Ibid., 313.
16. “social life”: Slatin, 526.
17. Massacre of the Batahin: Ohrwalder, 335–37.
18. “I would not”: Salisbury to Baring, cit. Cromer, Modern Egypt, II, 75.
19. “When once” and “They were”: Salisbury to Baring, March 28, 1890, ibid., 75–76n.
20. “merely the surf”: Salisbury at the Mansion House, November 1888, cit. W. S. Churchill, The Story of the Malakand Field Force (London: Longmans, Green, 1901), title page. “a Machiavellian”: Blunt, Gordon, 505.
21. “tiresome little Power”: Salisbury to Lord Harrowby, 1889, cit. Roberts, 520.
22. “hard-baked” and “middle-aged”: Gladstone, June 25, 1892, Diaries, XI, 36.
23. “I thought”: Gladstone to Rosebery, September 17, 1892, cit. R. R. James, Rosebery: A Biography of Archibald Philip, 5th Earl of Rosebery (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1963), 262. “Jingoism”: Sir William Harcourt to Rosebery, September 23, 1892, cit. A. G. Gardiner, Life of Sir William Harcourt (London: Constable, 1923), II, 193–95.
24. “put a torch
”: Gladstone, cit. James, 279–80.
25. “The time has arrived”: Rosebery to J. R. Rodd, ex-consul at Zanzibar, later Cromer’s assistant at Cairo, March 5, 1894 (FO10/625).
26. “knife”: E. C. H. Phipps to Lord Kimberley, No. 24, August 9, 1894 (FO10/618). “He is attempting”: Rosebery to Queen Victoria, August 15, 1894, Buckle (ed.), II, 420.
27. “The advance”: Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates (IV series; London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1894), vol. 32, col. 405–06.
28. “We shall counter”: Francis Deloncle, cit. C. Michel, Mission de Bonchamps: Vers Fachoda à la Rencontre de la Mission Marchand (Paris: Plon, 1905), 5.
29. “If we settle”: Sir Samuel Baker, May 1893, Langer, I, 127.
30. “Il faut”: Carnot to Monteil, Souvenirs Vécus: Quelques Feuillets de l’Histoire Coloniale (Paris: Société d’Editions Géographiques; Maritimes et Coloniale, 1924), 65–68. V. Prompt, “Soudan Nilotique,” in Bulletin de l’Institut Egyptien, III, iv (1893), 71–116.
31. “l’intrigue” and “created”: Deloncle to the Chamber, February 28, 1895, cit. Sanderson, Upper Nile, 272n. “to force,” “France’s,” and “Is it not”: Marchand, November 10, 1895, Documents Diplomatiques Français, 1871–1914 (First Series; Paris: Alfred Costes, 1951), vol. XII, no. 192, 280 (Note du Capitaine Marchand).
32. “It is obvious”: Cromer to Rosebery, Rosebery, April 1895, cit. H. Temperley andL. M. Penson, Foundations of British Foreign Policy from Pitt to Salisbury, or, Documents Old & New (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1938), 504–05.
33. “The Italian”: Salisbury to Cromer, No. 17, March 12, 1896 (FO78/4863).
34. “We desired”: Salisbury to Cromer, March 13, 1896, cit. marquess of Zetland, Lord Cromer: Being the Authorised Life of Evelyn Baring (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1932), 223.
35. “We have been”: Salisbury to Dufferin, No. 130, March 12, 1896 (FO78/4893).
36. “Would give”: Cromer to Salisbury, No. 1, January 13, 1896 (FO78/4986). “The Sudan is worth”: Temperley and Penson, loc. cit.
37. “His behaviour”: Cromer to Salisbury, No. 69, March 28, 1896 (FO78/4863).
38. Kitchener dancing: Arthur, Life, I, 187.
11: The House of War: 1896–99
1. “He has no age”: Steevens, 45–46.
2. “unbounded”: Kitchener to Augusta Gordon, October 16, 1885, BL Add. Ms. 51300, f. 156.
3. “slaying niggers”: Kitchener to Millie Kitchener, December 3, 1873 (Parker Papers, private collection), Pollock, 29. “What a glorious”: Kitchener to Millie, March 7, 1875 (Parker Papers), ibid., 34. “sober”: Undated article (c. 1910) by Reverend F. Penny, from the Archives of the Guild of St. Helena, ibid., 37.
4. “Though a little”: Margot Asquith, More Memories (London: Cassell, 1933), 122.
5. “dear friend”: Kitchener to his father, May 14, 1884 (Parker Papers), Pollock, 87. “If any harm”: Arthur, I, 88. “I can hardly” and “taken the heart”: Kitchener, March 17, 1885, ibid., I, 105.
6. “mismanagement”: Kitchener to E. A. Floyer, March 17, 1885, Royal Engineers Archives, Chatham, file 5001.4/3 (ES41).
7. “laden with black”: “An Officer” (H. L. Pritchard), The Sudan Campaign, 1886–1899 (London: Chapman & Hall, 1899), 70.
8. “His campaign”: Salisbury to Cromer, November 27, 1896, Salisbury Papers (Hatfield House), 109, Magnus, 107.
9. “the production”: Cromer to Salisbury, Salisbury Papers (Hatfield House), 110, ibid., 114.
10. “You have no idea”: Kitchener to Clinton Dawkins, October 6, 1897, Arthur, I, 217.
11. “a swarm”: Steevens, 31. “a white”: Ibid., 30.
12. “two horses”: Ibid., 32. “the man”: Ibid., 52. “a full military”: Ibid., 86.
13. “The Sirdar”: C. Repington, Vestigia (London: Constable, 1919), 33.
14. “a line”: Steevens, 145.
15. “Give it him”: Burleigh, Sirdar, 235.
16. “A very”: Repington, 166. “clean-jointed” and “Black spindle”: Steevens, 151.
17. “Are you”: Ibid., 153.
18. “a pair of English lads”: Henty, The Dash for Khartoum (1885).
19. “Medal-Hunter”: Churchill, My Early Life, 177. “deeply”: Ibid., 176.
20. “It is understood”: Ibid., 182.
21. “The movement”: Ibid., 183.
22. “filmy world”: Ibid., 186. The French flag: Holt, Mahdist State, 209.
23. “a dark”: Churchill, My Early Life, 189.
24. “Come along” and “many bottles”: Ibid., 192–93. “only a sporting” and “steel flail”: Ibid., 195.
25. “By Allah”: Digna, according to the accounts of Sheikh Amin Ahmad Sharfi, nephew of Amhad Abdel Karim, who attended the council as an emir of the Red Flag, and the emirs Yunus al Dikaim and Ismail Ahmad, via Said Musa Yacub, the Khalifa’s nephew; Zilfu, 152.
26. “The whole”: Churchill, The River War, II, 87. “Crusaders”: Churchill, dispatch of September 6, 1898, Churchill, Winston’s Wars, 105.
27. “Cease fire!”: E. W. C. Sandes, The Royal Engineers in Egypt & the Sudan (Chatham: Institute of Royal Engineers), 264.
28. “dark, cowled”: Churchill, My Early Life, 201.
29. “Of course”: Ibid., 203.
30. “The scene”: Ibid., 205.
31. “Bright flags”: Ibid.
32. “exactly like”: Churchill, River War, II, 142.
33. “succession”: Churchill, My Early Life, 208. “His face”: Churchill, dispatch of September 6, 1898, Churchill, Winston’s Wars, 111.
34. “Can’t he”: Sandes, 268.
35. “MacDonald”: Burleigh, Khartoum Campaign, 285.
36. “A good dusting”: Churchill, River War, II, 162.
37. “I thank”: Magnus, 133.
38. “Tell some”: Churchill, dispatch of September 9, 1898, Churchill, Winston’s Wars, 123.
39. “valiant warriors”: Churchill, dispatch of September 10, 1898, ibid., 128.
40. “All was filthy,” “a large bucket,” and “a nameless man”: Churchill, dispatch of September 10, 1898, ibid., 127.
41. “No corpses”: Salisbury to Kitchener, D. Bates, The Fashoda Incident of 1898: Encounter on the Nile (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), 140.
42. “Le blanc”: Emily, 226.
43. “Sir Herbert” and “another example”: The Sketch, September 7, 1898.
44. “a wicked act”: Churchill, River War, II, 214.
45. “the destruction” and “It savours”: Victoria to Kitchener, March 24, 1899, Buckle (ed.), III, 353–54.
46. “When I returned”: Kitchener to Victoria, ibid., 352–53.
47. “How strange” and “It is like”: Churchill, dispatch of September 12, 1898, Churchill, Winston’s Wars, 139 and 140. “paid the bill” and “The destruction”: Ibid., 122.
48. “I bid good-bye”: W. S. Blunt, My Diaries: 1888–1914 (2 vol., New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1921), I, 380.
Epilogue: Cairo, 1899
1. Fuzzy-Wuzzy: Published in the Scots Observer, March 15, 1890, collected in Departmental Ditties, Barrack Room Ballads & Other Verse (New York: U.S. Book Co., 1890), 63–66. The British soldiers nicknamed the Hadendowa of the Red Sea hills “Fuzzy-Wuzzies” for their hairstyles.
2. “The winding-up of the estate”: Dicey, 225. “the great high priest”: Cromer, Modern Egypt, II, 443.
3. “I had made”: Blunt, My Diaries: 1888–1914 (2 vol.; New York: Alfred A. Knopf, (1921), I, 340.
4. “tottering,” “fond,” and “courteous”: Jackson’s introduction to Zubeir Pasha, Black Ivory, or, The Story of Zubeir Pasha, Slaver & Sultan, as Told by Himself (trans. and ed.H. C. Jackson; Khartoum: Sudan Press, 1913), 1.
5. “The rubbish”: Osama bin Laden to Robert Fisk, Independent, December 6, 1996.
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