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Updated: May 25, 2025
The various positions at Khartoum held by Gordon's force may be briefly described. First, the town itself, on the left bank of the Blue Nile, but stretching almost across to the right bank of the White Nile, protected on the land side by a wall, in front of which was the triple line of mines, and on the water side by the river and the steamers.
The only direct result of Yusuf's defeat in June 1882 was that two of the Black regiments were sent up to Khartoum, and as their allegiance to the Government was already shaken, their presence, as Gordon apprehended, was calculated to aggravate rather than to improve the situation. Matters remained very much in this state until the Mahdi's capture of the important town of El Obeid.
There is another little book to which I am indebted "Letters from Khartoum," written by the late Frank Power, correspondent of the Times at Khartoum during the siege. It gives a good insight into Gordon's life in the beleaguered city.
I had given the prisoners their choice, of either enlisting in the government service, or returning to Khartoum. Of course they ought to have been shot in a batch; but I could not afford to shoot them. I had to catch and tame my wild beasts instead of destroying them. A considerable number agreed to serve under Wat-el-Mek.
"She is not really so wild as she seems." Uthoug himself walked up and down the room, chatting to Peer and asking a great many questions about conditions in Egypt. He knew something about the Mahdi, and General Gordon, and Khartoum, and the strained relations between the Khedive and the Sultan.
It was in vain that he explained the motives of his conversion, in vain that he pointed out that it had been made easier for him since he had, 'PERHAPS UNHAPPILY, not received a strict religious education at home'. Gordon was adamant. Slatin had 'denied his Lord', and that was enough. His communications with Khartoum were discovered and he was put in chains.
They also threatened to shoot my vakeel, who now, through fear of punishment at Khartoum, exerted his influence to induce them to start. Altogether, it was a pleasant state of things.
The additional burden of a considerable foreign garrison and a crowd of rapacious officials increased the severity of the economic conditions. Scarcity was frequent. Famines were periodical. Corrupt and incapable Governors-General succeeded each other at Khartoum with bewildering rapidity. The constant changes, while they prevented the continuity of any wise policy, did not interrupt the misrule.
That night my thoughts were full of bygone scenes and doings in the most heroic campaign of modern history, Stewart's magnificent ride from Korti to Metemmeh. There came back to me the pain felt on the receipt of the evil news of Gordon's death, brought to us by Stuart Wortley, and of the slaughter at Khartoum, all of which might so easily have been averted but for
A strong man Sir Samuel Baker, perhaps must be sent to Khartoum, with a large contingent of Indian and Turkish troops and with two millions of money. He would very soon overpower the Mahdi, whose forces would 'fall to pieces of themselves'. For in Gordon's opinion it was 'an entire mistake to regard the Mahdi as in any sense a religious leader'; he would collapse as soon as he
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