08 June 2003

It's morning and I check the papers and Funny Side still finished third in the Belmont Stakes. No Triple Crown. I was bummed a bit and up too early. Still gray outside. An endless cool wet Spring. I was looking through the Times- the New York version, not London, and ran across a  lyrical column datelined Bunia, Congo. He said that on the 59th anniversary of D-Day four planeloads of French troops landed as the vanguard of a brigade of peacekeeping fore dispatched by the UN. He described the Legionnaires roaring out of the airplanes in jeeps fitted with heavy machine guns. They carry a more muscular Security Council mandate to intervene in the conflict between the Kalishnakov-toting Hema ethnic militia and the Lendus who have largely left town. The French claim to have "robust rules of engagement." Maybe the grim-eyed Legionaires can make a difference. There are claims of another massacre south of Bunia this week where the Lendu hold sway. Disarmament is the only thing that would stop this and no one seems willing to take that on.

The object of the immediate conflict is possession of Bunia, capital of the mineral-rich Ituri region in northeastern Congo. Joseph Conrad would be comfortable there. It is heart of darkness in an unending series of miseries. There are somewhere around 500 dead in the fighting this week, and as many as 50,000 dead of a variety of causes in Ituri province since the Congo war erupted five years ago. Some NGOs are claiming millions have been displaced and killed in the casual brutality. There is no good or accurate count. What is clear is that a humanitarian disaster is in progress, and Secretary Thompson is interested in doing what we can, which appears to be not much. There are apparently some HHS people in the Congo, part of the ongoing surveillance that  the CDC folks conduct against outbreaks of hemorrhagic fever issues.

The new force is to stay on until Sept. 1, the date of my official retirement. Whether this short-timer presence can accomplish anything meaningful is unclear but in my view unlikely. Sengupta says it was the departure of Ugandan troops last month that kicked off the current round of fighting. He quotes a local Lentu farmer who has not fed his children in three days on his views of the foreign intervention. "They will arrive too late," he said, "We have already suffered so much."

Too late. There is a history of being just a little too late in Africa. I thought about it for a minute, vaguely recalling someone being "too late" at Khartoum. I read and listened to the rest of the harvest of misery this morning. We lost another couple American kids in the deteriorating security climate in Iraq, and this morning a joint team of the three Palestinian resistance groups disguised themselves as IDF troops and gained access to an Israeli checkpoint on the Gaza Border. They killed four Israeli before the three were gunned down. There was an unusual three-way joint communiqué claiming credit for the operation and the resistance seems to be united against the latest roadmap to peace.

Tthnic and religious wars. Some of them have some common history. I wonder aboutthe beginning of our current culture clash with Islam, where it began. I think it may be the robust rules fo engagement followed by the muscular Christianity of Victoria's times. Think of General Charles "Chinese" Gordon, and his doppleganger, Mohammed Ahmed, the first of many fighters for liberation against the Empire.  Gordon was the archetype of the English aesthete-mystic. Courageous, calm, utterly sure of himself. Contemptuous of the mountebanks who curried favor and personal glory and looted the subject peoples of the burgeoning Empire. The Mahdi burned with Sufi passion to expell the infidel. Holy war, a long time in progress.

We know a lot more about Gordon than we do aboutthe Mad Mahdi. Gordon (as a lieutenant) had served in the Crimea, where he participated in the assaults on Sevastopol, earning him the Crimea War medal and also a Turkish war medal and entrance into the French Legion of Honor. The "Chinese" in his name comes from his exploits in China from 1860 to 1864. Gordon commanded the "Ever Victorious Army," ex-regular army soldiers from France, Britain and America, from 1863 to 1864. Under his command it truly was ever victorious, and was of great use to the Emperor in quashing the rebellion. Upon Gordon's resignation of his command in 1864, the Emperor promoted him to the rank of Ti Tu, or Marshall, in the Imperial Army. He was still only a captain in the British Army.

Gordon was extremely religious, believing in a strict interpretation of the Bible, which he read for pleasure and for guidance at least one hour a day. There is some disagreement on his alcohol consumption - some accounts claim he only drank rarely, others have him consuming huge amounts of brandy. I like to think of him as the latter, though I think the former is more in keeping with his life and death. But each have a certain cinstituancy.

The Mahdi was born Mohammed Ahmed, like another prominent religious figure the son of a carpenter. A deeply religious youth like Gordon, he became a dervish and a student of the mystic Sufi doctrine. He began wandering the Sudan as a holy man, serving as doctor and scribe to the poor in exchange for food. His travels around the Sudan inspired him to begin preaching against the effete wine-drinking "Turks."

Gordon first came to the Sudan in 1874, after resigning from the Army in 1873. He first served as governor of Equatoria in Animist southern Sudan. He could to stamped out the slave trade in the province and feeling his ob was done, made preparations to return to England to in 1876, now a field marshal in the Turkish army. He irritated the Administration with comments on inept foreign policy, which were repeated in The Times.

Gordon first came to the Sudan in 1874, after resigning from the Army in 1873. He first served as governor of Equatoria in Animist southern Sudan. He could to stamped out the slave trade in the province and feeling his ob was done, made preparations to return to England to in 1876, now a field marshal in the Turkish army. He irritated the Administration with comments on inept foreign policy, which were repeated in  The Times.

Gordon returned to the Sudan in 1877 as governor of the entire region, again working for the Turkish government. The influence of the British government on the Egyptian government increased during this time, and by 1880 virtually all the Americans had been driven out. The Khedive was nearly a puppet of Britain. Gordon worked from 1877 to 1880 to bring the Sudan under control; there had been uprisings within the region, and trouble with Ethiopia. However, Gordon was not as successful as he had been as governor of Equatoria. The Administration he had offended with his earlier comments snubbed him or refused to support his actions. Consequently, the Khedive was unable to assist him.

Gordon resigned in 1880, and wandered from Switzerland to Bombay, out to China, and at last back to Britain, having managed to make the British government look very bad almost every step of the way. He increased his unpopularity with the British government by criticizing their policy in Ireland. In 1882, he returned to active duty, this time in South Africa, where he was called upon to settle problems between the British government and the Basutos. The government bungled the situation and Gordon returned to Britain in disgust in November 1882.

During this time, Mohammed Ahmed had built a considerable following, and preaching the message of liberation. Ahmed advocated that people should avoid the vices of envy, pride, and return with devotion to the five daily prayers. Although many recognized him as the Mahdi, he did not proclaim himself as such until 1881. He was devout, had flashing eyes, and came from the east. He appeared to be the Real Deal.

In 1881, he began sending out letters proclaiming his beliefs and urging others to follow his path. The Egyptian government, sensing trouble, sent officials to meet with the Mahdi to dissuade him of his beliefs. The mission was a failure. By August the government sent a military expedition to Sudan which was ambushed by Mahdist forces armed with clubs, rocks and spears and routed. The victory confirmed the status of the Mahdi as a popular hero. A second Egyptian expedition dispatched in December 1881was nearly annihilated. Yet a third expedition met the same fate and the Mahdi was feeling his oats. He declared Jihad against the Turk, and went on the offensive. The South was in flames and Egypt proper was reeling with the prospect of holy war against the apostate Ottomans and the infidel Europeans. Fifteen of the latter were murdered in Al Iskandria and the British intervened July 1882. By September, the British had defeated the head of the rebellious army forces, squashing the revolt in the process. The British were now in effective control of Egypt, maintaining the Khedive as a fig-leaf to placate Constantinople's sensibilities.

In 1883 the government organized an army to suppress the Mahdist forces. It was led by William Hicks Pasha, a former colonel in the British army. He led a force of around 10,000 men on a painfully slow advance to the south. When he reached El Obeid in Kordofan after nearly a year he was confronted by nearly ten times that number of  Mahdist fighters. They caught the Egyptian army by surprise and massacred them. In December 1883 another expedition was mounted against the Mahdi and it was defeated. British troops had better luck against a force of 6,000 under the control of a subordinate of the Mahdi, but they did not make any inroads into reconquering the Sudan.

The British press had a field day with the incompetence and there was an outcry for someone to take on the Mahdi. As early as November 1882, there were calls for Gordon to be sent to Khartoum. The British government vacillated until January 1884, when they could no longer tolerate the pressure from press, public and even Queen Victoria herself. Gordon's new mission was simply to evacuate Khartoum, not to hold it against the Mahdi. He did evacuate the dependents who would not be pressed into defense of the city. But then Gordon Pasha started his crusade. He did it without army or escort. He rode with a single companion, Col. Stewart, and sped across the desert to Khartoum.

On Feb. 18th, his first act was to put out a proclamation in the name of the Anglo-Egyptian power, in the following words:

The Gladstone ministry was horrified by what Gordon had done, when the word eventually returned, and immediately repudiated the idea that they authorized or sanctioned any such pledge. Gordon's friends in Whitehall pleaded for time, hoping that later reports would prove this to be some sort of strategic move on his part.

It did not. This was one from Gordon's heart. Curiously, the Mahdi and Gordon held mutual admiration for each other's strategic abilities. Gordon tried to convince the Mahdi to become a Christian, or at least a less rebellious Muslim; the Mahdi tried to convince Gordon to become a Muslim and join his army. The Mahdi had around 8,000 men, and Gordon was safely ensconced in Khartoum, setting up earthworks, mines and the like to protect the city, along with a fleet of armored steam boats patrolling the Nile. A long waiting game began. The Mahdi began encircling Khartoum, and Gordon waited for relief forces.

Gordon had doomed himself through his criticisms of the Administrations in both London and Cairo. While the press reported on his exploits, the government declined to send relief until July 1884, when Lord Hartington, the Minister of War for Great Britain, declared that he would resign if relief were not sent to Gordon. The column did not reach Egypt until September 1884 to begin the long trek to Khartoum. Gordon sent four of his steamers down the Nile to meet the expedition just below the 6th cataract of the Nile.

The level of the Nile kept dropping as the dry season continued and the Mahdist forces would be able to cross the Nile on foot, completely encircling Khartoum. On December 14, Gordon sent his last steamer downstream containing the last dispatches. The seige began in earnest, and daily rations of food dwindled. A bridge to the neighboring town of Omdurman was destroyed on January 5, 1885.

The relief column found the four steamers Gordon sent down the river over 100 days before patiently waiting for them but did not embark until January 23. The Nile was now shallow enough near Khartoum to cross on foot, enabling the Mahdist forces to surround all sides of the city simultaneously. The Mahdi issued orders to prepare for an attack on January 26. The drop in the level of the river left one portion of the city unprotected by either wall or ditch. It was through this breach that the Mahdist forces poured on the morning of January 26. The city was taken easily and Gordon was killed.

In her epic trilogy about the Empire "Pax Briyannica," Jan Morris describes the situation at the end very nicely. She paints Gordon as Galahad, standing guiless, unarmed, fresh-faced, almost radiant at the head of the stairs in his palace while the ferocious Mahdists in the hall below brandish their assegains, preparing to murder him. There was another version in the penny press, she notes, and that was of Gordon on the landing, blazing with a revolver at the advancing savages. Depends on which version of martyrdom you prefer.

Two days later, on January 28, the relief forces arrived to find the city in the hands of the Mahdi.

Gordon's death caused a global firestorm. Her Majesty's government released a Blue Book proving that no one was to blame. The Egyptian government released a Red Book proving that the British were to blame. Gladstone, the British Prime Minister, was vilified, and forced to resign.

The Mahdi died on June 28, 1885, reportedly from natural causes. The Mahdists, under the control of his successor, retained control until General Kitchener reconquered Sudan 1898, along with a young calvary officer named Winston Churchill. There was final Calvary charge of the Royal Army at Omdurman, and despite the feat of arms, Britain would probably have rather left the Sudan alone. The embarrassment over the loss of Gordon was too profound to ignore. 

Copyright 2003 Vic Socotra