Khartoum journal

Egypt, a province of the corrupt and decadent Ottoman Empire had misgoverned or non-governed the Sudan for many years. Proclaiming against the slave trade the Khedive took yearly tributes from the greatest slave trader Africa had ever seen. In the late 1870's Colonel Gordon had been hire by the Khedive to attack the slave trade, possibly as a pretence. But Gordon, one of the most capricious temperaments in a century of strong characters took the job seriously. In The River War, Winston Churchill wrote: "In a climate usually fatal to Europeans he discharged the work of five officers. Careless of his methods, he bought slaves himself, drilled them, and with the soldiers thus formed pounced on the caravans of the hunters. Traversing the country on a fleet dromedary--on which in a single year he is said to have covered 3,840 miles--he scattered justice and freedom among the astonished natives. He fed the infirm, protected the weak, executed the wicked. To some he gave actual help, to many freedom, to all new hopes and aspirations. Nor were the tribes ungrateful. The fiercest savages and cannibals respected the life of the strange white man. The women blessed him. He could ride unarmed and alone where a brigade of soldiers dared not venture. But he was, as he knew himself, the herald of the storm." At this time Mohammed Ahmed "The Madhi" arose and united the Arabs against the greatest slave trader African had ever known, Zubehr Rahamna. When the Khedive imprisoned Zubehr for failing to pay his tribute. The Mahdi swept through the Sudan. With the British unwilling to get involved Egypt wanted to release Zubehr to tackle the Mahdi. The British "advised" against and Gordon was eventually sent on his own to evacuate the Egyptians from Khartoum with the promise of £100,000. The Egyptian troops were swept aside but all further assistance to Gordon was refused. He was told to save himself and abandon Khartoum and absolutely refused. With no resources he held out for 317 days before being killed. Gladstone had reluctantly sent British troops to the rescue days too late. This is Gordon's journal of the defence of Khartoum. He was played by Charleton Heston in a film of the historical episode.