Читать книгу The Times Great Events - Группа авторов - Страница 31
Оглавление9 February 1885
Sir C. Wilson, with a detachment of the Sussex Regiment and Soudanese, and accompanied by Lieutenant Stuart-Wortley and Captain Trafford, left Metammeh in two steamers on the morning of the 24th ultimo. At Gandabe they stopped for a supply of wood. Here the Sheikh of the Shageya sent them word that his tribe was ready to join the English when their power was established. Our victories had produced a great effect, the enemy saying that their total loss was 3,000 men. They have heard of another English army advancing up the Nile. Next day a few shots were fired from the west bank. One of the steamers ran on a rock.
On the 26th the steamer cleared the rock, and the men landed in order to pass the rapid, but the steamer grounded again and was delayed all day. The party stopped for the night on an island. Two Shageyas who came aboard reported that General Gordon had been fighting for 15 days. The advance of the English was greatly feared, and they repeated that they were only awaiting the turn of events to join us.
On the 27th they passed the Shabluka cataract, where the passage is 30 yards wide between the rocks. On the south side of the east bank at the village of Nefida, an Arab stated that some camelmen had passed that day from Omdurman reporting the fall of Khartoum and the death of General Gordon, but the rumour was generally disbelieved. Shots were fired from the west bank all day.
They started at dawn on the 28th. A man of the Shageya tribe stated that Khartoum had fallen two days before. At noon Lieutenant Stuart-Wortley saw Khartoum through his telescope, but no flag was flying on the Government House. The houses seemed wrecked.
Soon after the guns from Halfiyeh opened on the steamers, together with heavy musketry. The steamers answered with guns and volleys. The firing ceased until the steamers were abreast of Tuti Island, which they expected to find occupied by General Gordon’s troops, but a heavy fire was opened at 160 yards, and two guns shelled them from Khartoum. Presently musketry and four guns opened from Omdurman, and the enemy showed in large numbers in Khartoum. The steamers being protected by armour suffered little loss, only one killed and five wounded.
Sir Charles Wilson, seeing Khartoum occupied, ordered the steamers to go at full speed down the river, and they were soon out of range. They stopped at an island some miles down, and sent to collect news. The man soon returned, saying Khartoum had fallen on the night of the 26th by the treachery of Farag Pasha, who opened the gates for the Mahdi’s troops, and General Gordon was killed with all his men.
Britain’s involvement in Egypt’s affairs presented it with an unwelcome problem when an Islamist revolt broke out in the Sudan, which was administered by Cairo. General George Gordon, who had made his reputation fighting for China’s emperor during the Taiping Rebellion, was sent to Khartoum early in 1884 to organize its evacuation.
Gordon, who had strong religious convictions and no lack of self-belief, decided instead to prepare the city for a siege, with the eventual aim of defeating the army of the rebel leader, the Mahdi. The British Government initially left Khartoum to its fate but was forced by public opinion later in the year to mount an expedition to relieve Gordon.
Commanded by Garnet Wolseley, this made slow progress up the Nile by boat. Wolseley divided his force, sending part across the desert in the hope of reaching Khartoum more quickly. Using steamers, a group from this force reached the city on 28 January 1885 – two days after it had fallen to the Mahdi.
Gordon had been among the 10,000 inhabitants massacred and his death became an abiding image of the imperial era. Sudan was abandoned to the Mahdi and only reconquered in 1898 with victory at Omdurman.
