Authorities.—The Journals of Major-General Gordon at Khartoum(1885); Lord Cromer,Modern Egypt(2 vols., 1908); F. R. Wingate,Mahdiism and the Egyptian Sudan(1891); theBritish Parliamentary Paper on Egypt(1884-1885); C. G. Gordon,Reflections in Palestine(1884); edited by D. C. Boulger,General Gordon’s Letters from the Crimea, the Danube, and Armenia(1884); edited by G. B. Hill,Colonel Gordon in Central Africa(1881);Letters of General C. G. Gordon to his Sister(1888); H. W. Gordon,Events in the Life of C. G. Gordon(1886); Commander L. Brine,The Taeping Rebellion in China(1862); A. Wilson,Gordon’s Campaigns and the Taeping Rebellion(1868); D. C. Boulger,Life of Gordon(1896); A. Egmont Hake,The Story of Chinese Gordon(1st vol. 1884, 2nd vol. 1885); Colonel Sir W. F. Butler,Charles George Gordon(1889); Archibald Forbes,Chinese Gordon(1884); edited by A. Egmont Hake,Events in the Taeping Rebellion(1891); S. Mossman,General Gordon’s Diary in China(1885); Lieutenant T. Lister, R.E.,With Gordon in the Crimea(1891); Lieutenant-General Sir G. Graham,Last Words with Gordon(1887); “War Correspondent,”Why Gordon Perished(1896).
Authorities.—The Journals of Major-General Gordon at Khartoum(1885); Lord Cromer,Modern Egypt(2 vols., 1908); F. R. Wingate,Mahdiism and the Egyptian Sudan(1891); theBritish Parliamentary Paper on Egypt(1884-1885); C. G. Gordon,Reflections in Palestine(1884); edited by D. C. Boulger,General Gordon’s Letters from the Crimea, the Danube, and Armenia(1884); edited by G. B. Hill,Colonel Gordon in Central Africa(1881);Letters of General C. G. Gordon to his Sister(1888); H. W. Gordon,Events in the Life of C. G. Gordon(1886); Commander L. Brine,The Taeping Rebellion in China(1862); A. Wilson,Gordon’s Campaigns and the Taeping Rebellion(1868); D. C. Boulger,Life of Gordon(1896); A. Egmont Hake,The Story of Chinese Gordon(1st vol. 1884, 2nd vol. 1885); Colonel Sir W. F. Butler,Charles George Gordon(1889); Archibald Forbes,Chinese Gordon(1884); edited by A. Egmont Hake,Events in the Taeping Rebellion(1891); S. Mossman,General Gordon’s Diary in China(1885); Lieutenant T. Lister, R.E.,With Gordon in the Crimea(1891); Lieutenant-General Sir G. Graham,Last Words with Gordon(1887); “War Correspondent,”Why Gordon Perished(1896).
(C. M. W.)
1With this estimate of Gordon’s character may be contrasted those of Lord Cromer (the most severe of Gordon’s critics), and of Lord Morley of Blackburn; in their strictures as in their praise they help to explain both the causes of the extraordinary influence wielded by Gordon over all sorts and conditions of men and also his difficulties. Lord Cromer’s criticism, it should be remembered, does not deal with Gordon’s career as a whole but solely with his last mission to the Sudan; Lord Morley’s is a more general judgment.Lord Cromer (Modern Egypt, vol. i., ch. xxvii., p. 565-571) says: “We may admire, and for my own part I do very much admire General Gordon’s personal courage, his disinterestedness and his chivalrous feeling in favour of the beleaguered garrisons, but admiration of these qualities is no sufficient plea against a condemnation of his conduct on the ground that it was quixotic. In his last letter to his sister, dated December 14, 1884, he wrote: ‘I am quite happy, thank God, and, like Lawrence, I have tried to do my duty’ ... I am not now dealing with General Gordon’s character, which was in many respects noble, or with his military defence of Khartoum, which was heroic, but with the political conduct of his mission, and from this point of view I have no hesitation in saying that General Gordon cannot be considered to have tried to do his duty unless a very strained and mistaken view be taken of what his duty was.... As a matter of public morality I cannot think that General Gordon’s process of reasoning is defensible.... I do not think that it can be held that General Gordon made any serious effort to carry out the main ends of British and Egyptian policy in the Sudan. He thought more of his personal opinions than of the interests of the state.... In fact, except personal courage, great fertility in military resource, a lively though sometimes ill-directed repugnance to injustice, oppression and meanness of every description, and a considerable power of acquiring influence over those, necessarily limited in numbers, with whom he was brought into personal contact, General Gordon does not appear to have possessed any of the qualities which would have fitted him to undertake the difficult task he had in hand.”Lord Morley (Life of Gladstone, vol. iii., 1st ed., 1903, ch. 9, p. 151) says: “Gordon, as Mr Gladstone said, was a hero of heroes. He was a soldier of infinite personal courage and daring, of striking military energy, initiative and resource; a high, pure and single character, dwelling much in the region of the unseen. But as all who knew him admit, and as his own records testify, notwithstanding an undercurrent of shrewd common sense, he was the creature, almost the sport, of impulse; his impressions and purposes changed with the speed of lightning; anger often mastered him; he went very often by intuitions and inspirations rather than by cool inference from carefully surveyed fact; with many variations of mood he mixed, as we often see in people less famous, an invincible faith in his own rapid prepossessions while they lasted. Everybody now discerns that to despatch a soldier of this temperament on a piece of business [the mission to the Sudan in 1884] that was not only difficult and dangerous, as Sir E. Baring said, but profoundly obscure, and needing vigilant sanity and self-control, was little better than to call in a wizard with his magic. Mr Gladstone always professed perplexity in understanding why the violent end of the gallant Cavagnari in Afghanistan stirred the world so little in comparison with the fate of Gordon. The answer is that Gordon seized the imagination of England, and seized it on its higher side. His religion was eccentric, but it was religion; the Bible was the rock on which he founded himself, both old dispensation and new; he was known to hate forms, ceremonies and all the ‘solemn plausibilities’; his speech was sharp, pithy, rapid and ironic; above all, he knew the ways of war and would not bear the sword for nought.”
1With this estimate of Gordon’s character may be contrasted those of Lord Cromer (the most severe of Gordon’s critics), and of Lord Morley of Blackburn; in their strictures as in their praise they help to explain both the causes of the extraordinary influence wielded by Gordon over all sorts and conditions of men and also his difficulties. Lord Cromer’s criticism, it should be remembered, does not deal with Gordon’s career as a whole but solely with his last mission to the Sudan; Lord Morley’s is a more general judgment.
Lord Cromer (Modern Egypt, vol. i., ch. xxvii., p. 565-571) says: “We may admire, and for my own part I do very much admire General Gordon’s personal courage, his disinterestedness and his chivalrous feeling in favour of the beleaguered garrisons, but admiration of these qualities is no sufficient plea against a condemnation of his conduct on the ground that it was quixotic. In his last letter to his sister, dated December 14, 1884, he wrote: ‘I am quite happy, thank God, and, like Lawrence, I have tried to do my duty’ ... I am not now dealing with General Gordon’s character, which was in many respects noble, or with his military defence of Khartoum, which was heroic, but with the political conduct of his mission, and from this point of view I have no hesitation in saying that General Gordon cannot be considered to have tried to do his duty unless a very strained and mistaken view be taken of what his duty was.... As a matter of public morality I cannot think that General Gordon’s process of reasoning is defensible.... I do not think that it can be held that General Gordon made any serious effort to carry out the main ends of British and Egyptian policy in the Sudan. He thought more of his personal opinions than of the interests of the state.... In fact, except personal courage, great fertility in military resource, a lively though sometimes ill-directed repugnance to injustice, oppression and meanness of every description, and a considerable power of acquiring influence over those, necessarily limited in numbers, with whom he was brought into personal contact, General Gordon does not appear to have possessed any of the qualities which would have fitted him to undertake the difficult task he had in hand.”
Lord Morley (Life of Gladstone, vol. iii., 1st ed., 1903, ch. 9, p. 151) says: “Gordon, as Mr Gladstone said, was a hero of heroes. He was a soldier of infinite personal courage and daring, of striking military energy, initiative and resource; a high, pure and single character, dwelling much in the region of the unseen. But as all who knew him admit, and as his own records testify, notwithstanding an undercurrent of shrewd common sense, he was the creature, almost the sport, of impulse; his impressions and purposes changed with the speed of lightning; anger often mastered him; he went very often by intuitions and inspirations rather than by cool inference from carefully surveyed fact; with many variations of mood he mixed, as we often see in people less famous, an invincible faith in his own rapid prepossessions while they lasted. Everybody now discerns that to despatch a soldier of this temperament on a piece of business [the mission to the Sudan in 1884] that was not only difficult and dangerous, as Sir E. Baring said, but profoundly obscure, and needing vigilant sanity and self-control, was little better than to call in a wizard with his magic. Mr Gladstone always professed perplexity in understanding why the violent end of the gallant Cavagnari in Afghanistan stirred the world so little in comparison with the fate of Gordon. The answer is that Gordon seized the imagination of England, and seized it on its higher side. His religion was eccentric, but it was religion; the Bible was the rock on which he founded himself, both old dispensation and new; he was known to hate forms, ceremonies and all the ‘solemn plausibilities’; his speech was sharp, pithy, rapid and ironic; above all, he knew the ways of war and would not bear the sword for nought.”