Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/882

876 son of his endeavour to reach Kartoum in a steamer for the purpose of communicating with General Gordon. Attached to this report is an interesting diary of events, and Sir Charles Wilson's proceedings upon that occasion.

"It is sad to think of how nearly averted was the fall of Kartoum, and how short was the interval of time between the death of General Gordon and the arrival of those steamers whose appearance before Kartoum with a few British soldiers on board would, he said, ensure his safety and that of the city also.

"This opinion so expressed by General Gordon, and other evidence lately obtained, leave little doubt that had Sir C. Wilson's steamers, with the small detachment of British soldiers they carried, reached Kartoum on the 25th instead of the 28th January, the place would not have been surrendered.

"In justice to the soldiers and sailors whom I have the honour to command, I feel bound to add that it was not through any lack of zeal or want of energy on their part that these steamers only reached Kartoum two days after it had fallen. I have no hesitation in saying that all ranks worked as hard as human beings could, hoping to render, the earliest possible assistance to their heroic comrade who was besieged in Kartoum."

Alongside these passages, implying such a heavy charge against Wilson, we will place some others from the end of Gordon's dairy, and, therefore, containing the last of his recorded opinions on the subject. Halfiyeh is an Arab village and fort on the right (east) bank of the Nile, about 8 to 10 miles below Kartoum, and Wilson's steamers had sustained a heavy fire from it in running past. Under date of the 28th November, Gordon's diary says –

"If the steamers do come up, and have not the sense to stop at Halfiyeh, I shall endeavour to warn them by a tremendous fire on the Arabs at Omdurman. The danger is at this point. [This is where Wilson stopped.] The proper thing to do would be to clear Halfiyeh camp of the Arabs before coming up here. You would then communicate with Kartoum by land, and avoid having to run the gauntlet of Arab guns in penny steamers."

And on the 14th December, when he wrote the last words of the Diary which has reached us, he says –

"If I were in command of the two hundred men of the expeditionary force which are all that are necessary for the movement, I should stop just below Halfiyeh, and attack the Arabs at that place before I came on here to Kartoum. I should then communicate with the North Fort [an outwork of Kartoum on the other side of the Blue Nile], and act according to circumstances."

Such was Gordon's plan for the action of the expeditionary force for his relief. It is entirely contradictory of the opinions which Lord Wolseley attributes to him. It does not relate at all to the attempt to communicate with him, of which he knew nothing, and which was Lord Wolseley's alone. Whether Wilson knew of these opinions of Gordon is doubtful: if he did, he could not have acted on them, his force on the Nile being already dangerously weak. It is impossible for us to reconcile, or to attempt to reconcile, Lord Wolseley's version of Gordon's opinions with Gordon's own.

As to the supposition, "had Sir C. Wilson's steamers reached Kartoum on the 25th instead of the 28th January," what possible object can be gained by stating it, when we know that the steamers were not reported by Lord C. Beresford as repaired and ready for a fresh start till 3 P.M. on the 22d, as testified by Lord Hartington in the House of Commons on the 14th April last? – and on that day they were used for the most necessary trip down the river. It was im-