Charles George Gordon

Charles George Gordon

Charles George Gordon , also Chinese Gordon , Gordon Pascha and Gordon of Khartoum , (born January 28, 1833 in Woolwich near London , † January 26, 1885 in Khartoum ) was a British major-general and governor-general of the Egyptian province of Sudan .

Too late! Too late to save him,
In vain, in vain they tried.
His life was England's glory,
his death was England's pride.

( Kipling )

Youth and education

Charles Gordon was the fourth son and ninth child of Lieutenant General Henry William Gordon , Royal Artillery (1785 / 1786–1865) and his wife Elizabeth (1794–1873), daughter of the shipowner Samuel Enderby (1756–1829). He graduated from the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich and joined the Royal Engineers in June 1852 .

Crimean War and Opium War

From 1855 to 1856 he fought in the Crimean War and was wounded. After the end of the war, he worked for two years to determine the border between the Russian and Ottoman empires in Bessarabia .

In 1860 he went to China and took part in the Anglo-French expedition in the Second Opium War. In October 1860 he was involved in the storming of Beijing . After the peace (October 24, 1860) he toured a large part of the country. In 1862 he was promoted to major and in April 1863 succeeded the fallen General Ward as commander in chief of the "Always Victorious Army". As commander of the Always Victorious Army, Gordon played a key role in the victory over the Taiping rebels from 1863 to 1864 . Before the rebellion was finally put down, he fell out with his superior, Li Hongzhang , because the Taiping kings were murdered during a festival on Li's boat after taking Suzhou, regardless of the word of honor he had given them . Li Hongzhang denied giving orders. But Charles Gordon refused the award and decorations and left China.

From 1865 he lived as a pioneer commander of Gravesend in England and took care of the poor. He set up a small evening school where he taught himself. In 1871 Gordon was appointed British agent for the European Danube Commission in Galatz .

Sudan

Gordon took over the post of governor of Equatoria in 1873 in Sudan, which had come under the rule of the Ottoman viceroys of Egypt , the Khedives , from 1821 . In the 1870s, several Europeans were deployed in Sudan to organize the administration in the occupied territories and to put an end to the slave trade. Gordon was given the task of continuing the measures begun by Samuel Baker to subdue the upper Nile countries as far as the great equatorial lakes. He arrived in Cairo on February 6, 1874 and then traveled to Gondokoro . He found the garrison there in poor condition. He then traveled to Khartoum and achieved that Equatoria received a special status and he was directly subordinate to the Khedives. Gordon had a number of fortified posts built up to the equatorial lakes, fought the slave traders and laid a good basis for the rule of Egypt there.

In 1877 he was appointed governor of the Egyptian province of Sudan and pasha . During this time Gordon traveled frequently through the country, mostly without a large company. The legend of the camel rider who was always and everywhere was born. Gordon continued fighting the slavery of black Africans . In July 1879 he resigned for health reasons and because of personal differences with the new Khedive Tawfiq and Sir Evelyn Baring . Gordon found the deposition of the Khedive Ismail by the European powers and the Ottoman sultan as an affront. His last act was an expedition to meet the Negus of Abyssinia . However, this project failed. Gordon was captured by the Abyssinians and sent back.

From May 1880, Gordon became military secretary to Lord Ripon , the viceroy of India . After Ripon resigned from office a short time later, Gordon went to China, where he successfully mediated a diplomatic dispute with Russia as an advisor to the Chinese government .

Hardly returned to England, when he went to Mauritius as a pioneer commander for a comrade who was unable to work, from April 1881 to April 1882 , visited the Seychelles and, with his appointment as major general in 1882, received supreme command of the colonial troops of the Cape Colony . After only a few months he got into an argument with the local government and said goodbye. He returned to England in October 1882.

He then lived in Palestine for some time . During a stay in Jerusalem Gordon came to the conclusion that he had found the real tomb of Jesus . It is maintained by the supporters of his thesis to this day ( see garden tomb ).

Mahdi uprising

Siege money Khartoum 1885 signed by Gordon Pasha

The death of Gordon in Khartoum by JLG Ferris around 1895

George W. Joy's General Gordon's Last Stand from 1893

The grave of Charles George Gordon in London in 2006

In 1881, Muhammad Ahmad started the Mahdi uprising in Sudan . Because of the problems the Egyptian government had in combating this uprising, the British government under Gladstone recommended Egypt in December 1883 to give up Sudan. The country's task, however, was difficult in that thousands of Egyptian soldiers, civilian employees and their relatives had to be brought to safety from Sudan. The British government therefore instructed Gordon Pasha to go to Khartoum to organize the evacuation from there. Gordon left for Cairo in January 1884. There he received further instructions from the Consul General of Egypt, Evelyn Baring , and was appointed Governor General with executive powers. Gordon initially planned to use the influential former slave trader al-Zubayr Rahma as his successor. On January 26, 1884, Gordon, Evelyn Baring, Evelyn Wood and Giegler Pascha met with al-Zubayr Rahma to urge him to cooperate against the Mahdi uprising and to offer him the position of governor. The appointment of Zubayr was rejected by the government in London, which did not want to see a former slave trader at the head of Sudan. Gordon reached Khartoum on February 18, 1884 and was able to bring about 2500 women, children, the sick and wounded to Egypt to safety before the Mahdists enclosed the city on March 18 and began the ten-month siege of Khartoum .

Statue on the Victoria Embankment , London

British Prime Minister Gladstone wanted Gordon to return home and so did not send relief troops. Gordon replied: " I am in honor bound to the people ". The premier finally gave in and sent troops under Garnet Joseph Wolseley , the so-called Gordon Relief Expedition . Although the British government ordered troops to be deployed in August, they were not ready to march until November. At the end of December these 7,000 men reached Korti . In Khartoum the supplies were meanwhile exhausted and the defenders exhausted. The Mahdi himself, coming from El Obeid, had taken command of the siege. Against the background of the threatened relief of the city by British troops, the attack was scheduled for January 26, 1885. In the morning, 50,000 Mahdists attacked, around three o'clock they stormed into the city and killed Gordon, presumably in the governor's palace . The Mahdists displayed Gordon's head as a trophy in their camp. Two days later, the advance guard of British troops under Colonel Wilson arrived. Under heavy artillery and rifle fire, they came within sight of the governor's palace and found that any help had come too late. After the failure of the Gordon Relief Expedition , Gladstone, despite Wolseley's protests, had British troops withdraw from Sudan, except for the Suakin area .

The public and the authorities mourned their dead folk hero. Memorial masses were held at St Paul's Cathedral and other churches. His grave is in St. Paul's.

Gordon and the Calvary

After visiting Palestine in 1882–83, Gordon suggested another location for Golgotha , the site of Christ's crucifixion . To the north of the previously assumed place, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher , this place is known today as the garden tomb , sometimes also called "Gordon's Calvary", and is still regarded by some Christians as the Calvary. Gordon's interest in this was rooted in his religious beliefs, having become an Evangelical Christian in the middle of his life .

Fonts (selection)

• Provinces of the Equator. Summary of Letters and Reports of his Exellency the Governor-General. Part 1: 1874 (= Publications of the Egyptian General Staff. ). Cairo Office of the General Staff, Cairo 1877.
• Reflections in Palestine. 1883. Macmillan and Co., London 1884, ( digitized ).
• General Gordon's Letters from the Crimea, the Danube and Armenia, August 16, 1884 to November 17, 1858. Edited by Demetrius C. Boulger. Chapman and Hall, London 1884, ( digitized ).
• General Gordon's Private Diary of his Exploits in China. Amplified by Samuel Mossmann. Sampson, Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, London 1885, ( digitized ).
• The Journals of Major Gen. CG Gordon, CB, at Kartoum. Printed from the original mss. Introduction and Notes by A. Egmont Hake. Kegan Paul, Trench & Co, London 1885, ( digitized ).
• Events in the Taeping Rebellion. Being Reprints of mss. Copied by Gordon, CB in his own handwriting. With Monograph, Introduction, and Notes by A. Egmont Hake. Allen and Co., London 1891, ( digitized version ).
• Letters and diary sheets of General Charles Gordon of Khartoum. Sebastopol - On the Danube - In Armenia and the Caucasus - Against the Taipings - Gravesend - Sudan - Palestine - Khartoum (= library of valuable memoirs. 8, ZDB -ID 989815-3 ). Selected and translated by Max Goos. Gutenberg-Verlag, Hamburg 1908, (In German; digitized version ).

Movie and TV

• 1966: in the British film Khartoum , Gordon is portrayed by Charlton Heston .
• Gordon of Khartoum . GB 1982, documentary, 75 min., Script and direction: Robert Hardy, production: Malcom Brown.

literature

• Demetrius Charles Boulger: The Life of Gordon, Major-General, RECB 2 volumes. Unwin, London 1896, (Single volume reprint as: Gordon. The Career of Gordon of Khartoum. Leonaur, Driffield 2009, ISBN 978-1-84677-677-9 ).
• Lord Elton: Gordon of Khartoum. The Life of General Charles George Gordon. Collins, London 1954, (Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1955).
• Richard Garrett: General Gordon. Barker, London 1974, ISBN 0-213-16482-5 .
• Roy MacGregor-Hastie: Never to be taken alive. A biography of General Gordon. St. Martin's Press, New York NY 1985, ISBN 0-312-56478-3 .
• Robin Neillands : The Dervish Wars. Gordon and Kitchener in the Sudan 1880–1898. John Murray Ltd., London 1996, ISBN 0-7195-5631-7 .
• Anthony Nutting: Gordon. Martyr and Misfit. Constable, London 1966, (CN Potter, New York 1966; Reprint Society 1967. Published in German translation under the title Gordon von Khartoum. Adventurer and Martyr. Molden, Vienna et al. 1967).
• John Pollock: Gordon. The man behind the legend. Constable, London 1993, ISBN 0-09-468560-6 . Later edition: Gordon of Khartoum. To Extraordinary Soldier. Christian Focus Publications, Fearn 2005, ISBN 1-84550-063-6 .
• Charles Chenevix Trench: The road to Khartoum. A life of General Charles Gordon. Norton, New York NY 1979, ISBN 0-393-01237-9 (multiple editions).
• John H. Waller: Gordon of Khartoum. The Saga of a Victorian Hero. Atheneum, New York NY 1988, ISBN 0-689-11812-0 .

Web links

Commons : Charles George Gordon  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Literature by and about Charles George Gordon in the catalog of the German National Library
• Newspaper article about Charles George Gordon in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ The Dervish Wars p. 23
2. ↑ John Duncan: Heroes for Victoria . Spellmount LTD, Tunbridge Wells 1991, ISBN 0-946771-38-3 , pp. 137 .
3. ↑ The Dervish Wars p. 27
4. ^ Hartwig A. Vogelsberger: Slatin Pascha. Between desert sand and royal crowns. Styria, Graz et al. 1992, ISBN 3-222-12113-3 , p. 35 ff.
5. ^ Charles Gordon's Charitable Works: An Appreciation

predecessor	Office	successor
Samuel White Baker	Governor of the Province of Equatoria 1874–1877	Emin Pasha
Isma'il Pasha	Governor General of Sudan 1877–1879	Up Pasha
Ala al-Din Pasha Siddiq	Governor General of Sudan 1884–1885	Muhammad Ahmad , as a Mahdi