First Jihad: Khartoum, and the Dawn of Militant Islam (18 page)

It was in this way that the Mahdi came to be the forebear, the archetype, of the militant Islamic fundamentalist who would come to plague the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
Convinced of his divine appointment and the infallibility of his beliefs, he abandoned all tolerance and with it any chance of peaceful co-existence with anyone who disagreed with him.
He eschewed any shadow of the idea that the “infidels” might be persuaded to embrace Islam by example, instead embracing coercion and the threat of death to make his converts and keep them in his sway.
It was an attitude that modern militant Islam would come to embrace in totality.

At the same time, in many ways, as much as the Mahdi’s sense of mission foreshadowed the fanaticism of militant Islam in the 21st century, the Mahdi also resembled the dictators of the 1930s and 1940s.
Although atrocities were committed in the name of God rather than politics, they still took place–“necessity” was the justification, in the Madhi’s case the necessity of retaining religious purity.
He surrounded himself with sycophants and tolerated neither dissent nor discussion.
He was at once petty and tyrannical, constantly interjecting himself into the daily lives of his followers, determined to so tightly control their actions so that they would be unable to entertain any independent thoughts or actions that could be interpreted as disloyal.
Wavering in faith in and devotion to the Mahdi was a sure guarantee of a death sentence at the hands of one of his clerical courts.

Yet there was one distinct difference between the methods of the Mahdi and those who a century later would choose to style themselves his successors.
The latter-day Islamic extremists rarely openly proclaim themselves before the world prior to their actions, nor do they strike openly, announcing their presence and their intent.
Instead they choose stealth, cunning and deception, hiding within the social fabric of their target, using a single individual or a small group to accomplish their “mission.” It is, to Western eyes and values, a cowardly way to act, but it is a way of war long honored among Arabs, who constitute the vast majority of Islamic terrorists.
The tradition of warfare as a contest between two individuals, or between an individual and his collective enemy, has roots that run back into Arab antiquity that precede Islam; the fear and dread induced by the Hashishim, the secret society of the Assassins, endured for more than four centuries and still exerts a powerful influence on Arabic culture.
In this way only did the Mahdi differ from those who would emulate him a century later: he was brazen not only in his defiance of his enemies, but in his open presence before them.

Yet for all the bluster among modern Islamic militants about the fear they will strike in their enemies’ hearts and the holy retribution they will bring down upon the infidels they despise, what the Mahdi was accomplishing in the Sudanese desert in 1884 was the goal that has consistently eluded modern Islam’s “terrorists”—spreading true terror.
“Terror” is an easily declared objective, but attaining it is difficult to achieve.
As both the Allies and the Axis powers learned in the Second World War, and the Palestinians and Israelis have discovered over the last half-century, tactics and strategies intended to produce terror often result instead in anger and an increased resolve to resist among those who are the targets of such attacks, especially when the would-be victims are able to rally around a strong, charismatic leader.
Gordon was just such a man, and for Khartoum his aura of leadership might well have provided the difference between victory and defeat.

His task, though difficult and, as it ultimately proved, impossible, was clearly defined.
His instructions from Baring were specific: “You will bear in mind that the main end to be pursued is the evacuation of the Sudan.” The Khedive’s commission was similarly explicit: “The object…of your mission to the Sudan is to carry into execution the evacuation of those territories and to withdraw our troops, civil officials, and such of the inhabitants…as may wish to leave for Egypt… and after the evacuation to take the necessary steps for establishing an organised Government in the different provinces.” Gordon admitted that he was under no misconception as to his role.
While still aboard the
Tanjore
he composed a memorandum in which he fully agreed to the wisdom of the decision to evacuate Khartoum and what remained of the Sudan still in Egyptian hands.
In fact he went even further, stating that attempting to retake the Sudan without reforming its governance in the process was a waste of time and effort: “No one who has ever lived in the Sudan can escape the reflection ‘What a useless possession is this land!’…I must say that it would be an iniquity to conquer these peoples and then hand them back to the Egyptians without guarantees of future good government.”

Yet once he arrived in Khartoum, his attitude changed dramatically.
Whether by dint of his reception or his innate belief that his life was still being directed by God, the confidence the General felt in the power of his personal influence was renewed.
Reviewing the situation, he saw himself confronted with a vast array of obstacles, some of them tremendous: he was confronting a popular rebellion led by a leader every bit as charismatic as himself, with staggering numbers of followers at his disposal.
The relative handful of troops Gordon commanded were of questionable reliability; he was a foreigner in a land where foreigners were always objects of mistrust; the whole of the rebellion had assumed the fanatical character of Islam marching against the infidel—and Gordon was a Christian commanding Moslem troops.
Only a man either supremely confident or supremely foolhardy could have believed he could succeed in accomplishing an evacuation, let alone reversing the Islamic tide that threatened to overwhelm the city.
In Gordon’s case it might well have been both.

The same day that he arrived in Khartoum, Gordon again broached the issue of Zobeir Pasha with Cairo.
He still believed that the former slaver could be useful: Gordon was pragmatic enough to recognize that sooner or later the fact that he was a foreigner could undermine his authority; better to rule through a proxy like Zobeir than risk being undone by insubordination or mutiny.
In a telegram to Sir Evelyn Baring on March 1, Gordon declared: “I tell you plainly, it is impossible to get Cairo employees out of Khartoum unless the Government helps in the way I told you.
They refuse Zobeir…but it was the only chance.” A week later he pressed the point again: “If you do not send Zobeir, you have no chance of getting the garrisons away.” His deputy, Colonel Stewart, agreed, and so, strangely enough, did Baring.
“I believe,” said Sir Evelyn when passing Gordon’s telegrams on to London, “that General Gordon is quite right when he says that Zobeir Pasha is the only possible man.
Nubar is strongly in favor of him.
Dr.
Bohndorf, the African traveler, fully confirms what General Gordon says of the influence of Zobeir.” It is a mystery exactly what caused Baring to change his mind about Zobeir—these years were not exactly the most illustrious of Baring’s otherwise distinguished career, and his memoirs are perhaps understandably thin and reticent on the subject.
In any event the British Agent, whose relationship with Gordon was becoming increasingly turbulent, which is not to say hostile, brought all of his influence to bear in support of Gordon’s recommendation; even the Egyptian government concurred.
The merit of the idea seemed confirmed when even Queen Victoria approved after being privately consulted.
In Winston Churchill’s memorable phrase, “The Pasha was vile, but indispensable.”

Gladstone, however, would have none of it.
The Cabinet adamantly refused to consider the proposal and hardly bothered to discuss it.
Cairo was bluntly told that London would not permit the Egyptian government to send Zobeir to Khartoum.
It’s not known whether any attempt was made to genuinely determine the mood of the British public on this question, or if it was simply assumed that they would not accept an ex-slaver as the governor of the Sudan.
Certainly Gordon’s motives behind his suggestion were never made public.
Inevitably, though, the reason given by London was simply that Zobeir’s history as a slave-trader made him unacceptably suspect to Her Majesty’s government, no matter how he might protest as to his reformation.
From London’s perspective, it was all the justification needed; from Cairo’s perspective it seemed to further highlight the Cabinet’s near-total failure to understand what was actually happening in the Sudan.
The power and prestige of the name Zobeir Pasha was such that it was still one to be conjured with in the northern Sudan, and it was not inconceivable that even the Mahdi might have hesitated before advancing against him.

Gordon was flummoxed at London’s reaction.
To his journal he confided, “Had Zobeir Pasha been sent up when I asked for him, Berber would in all probability never have fallen, and one might have made a Sudan government in opposition to the Mahdi.
We choose to refuse his coming up because of his antecedents in re slave trade; granted that we had reason, yet, as we take no precautions as to the future of these lands with respect to the slave trade, the above opposition seems absurd.
I will not send up ‘A’ because he will do this, but I will leave the country to ‘B,’ who will do exactly the same!” Frustrated at the government’s intractability, he summoned Frank Powers, who was not only the British Consul in Khartoum but also a correspondent for the London
Times
, to the Governor’s Palace, and there laid out the whole story, which Powers promptly forwarded to his newspaper.

The uproar doomed any possibility of the British government reconsidering its position.
The Anti-Slavery Society declared that naming Zobeir the new governor of Khartoum would be “a degradation for England and a scandal for Europe.” Up and down the country, Gordon’s popularity was temporarily eclipsed by the furor as Britons condemned the entire idea.
When it became known that at one point Gladstone had actually considered following Gordon’s advice–a notion which he soon dismissed–the Conservative Opposition in the House of Commons lost no time in using it as a new stick with which to flog the government.
Zobeir’s usefulness came to an abrupt, bitter end.

With the possibility of governing Khartoum and the northern Sudan through Zobeir eliminated, Gordon quickly realized that there was no hope of carrying out the instructions given to him by the Gladstone government—to evacuate the Egyptian garrison and civilians from the city.
To do so meant abandoning the city and its Sudanese populace, the majority of whom had little or no sympathy for the Mahdist cause, to the Mahdi’s vengeance.
To Gordon that was a moral impossibility: he regarded his presence in the city as a sort of personal pledge that he would see that the garrison and civil servants were evacuated–in essence he felt that his honor was involved in their safety.
From this point on, nothing would induce him to leave Khartoum unless the city was relieved.

Her Majesty’s government, on the other hand, was just as determined to do nothing that might get Britain further involved in the middle of Africa, not even to save Khartoum and its inhabitants.
Gladstone was adamant in his refusal to send troops to the city, a position to which he would stubbornly cling until the overwhelming tide of public opinion threatened to bring down his government.
The trap that Hartington and Granville had cunningly laid for Gordon now sprang shut, but it would be some months before it dawned on the Cabinet that it had trapped them just as surely as Gordon.

For his part, even as he prepared to defend the city, Gordon was determined not to nurse a viper in his bosom, so one of his first acts after arriving was to order the gates of the city thrown open for six hours, so that anyone who wanted to leave, either because they sympathized with the Mahdi or because they feared his vengeance should the city fall, could depart in peace.
Once the allotted time expired, the gates were shut, and henceforth would only be opened at Gordon’s specific orders.
Just what effect this act had on the defense of the city is debatable.
Perhaps ten thousand of Khartoum’s forty thousand inhabitants left under Gordon’s amnesty, but it remains a mystery whether or not there remained a Mahdist “fifth column” within Khartoum.
There were a handful of Mahdist sympathizers who stayed behind, whose treachery would ultimately cost Gordon dearly, but they were careful to not make themselves known.
If nothing else, the incident demonstrated the essential charity which was a cornerstone of Gordon’s character, and which contrasted so greatly with that of the Mahdi.
Unlike Muhammed Ahmed, Gordon would not condemn a man to punishment simply because of his beliefs.

Gordon’s arrival at Khartoum had caught the Mahdi by surprise.
Alarmed, Muhammed Ahmed and his Khalifas at first were fearful that his appearance heralded a direct intervention by the British Empire.
While never wavering in his conviction that he was fulfilling a divinely appointed mission, Muhammed Ahmed knew that facing the disciplined, veteran battalions of the British Army was a far different prospect than overrunning brigades of ill-trained and unwilling Egyptian conscripts.
There were sufficient tribal leaders in the Mahdi’s ranks who had fought the British in the past to be able to impress on Muhammed Ahmed the folly of seeking battle with British infantry.
Muhammed Ahmed himself was perceptive enough to understand that while he might order his followers to repeatedly throw themselves at British squares, fully confident that they would obey, he knew that the consequent slaughter would be so great as to possibly undermine his authority, or cause sufficient numbers of his followers to waver in their loyalty so that the survival of the rebellion might be endangered.

Gordon’s Berber proclamation that his mission was only to evacuate the city and not confront the Mahdists also gave them pause, although the Mahdi had doubts about its sincerity; but after some weeks had passed and no reinforcements made their way up the Nile, the Mahdi’s forces began to move against Khartoum itself.
Like water that finds a weak spot in the hull of a ship, and then proceeds to flow wherever it encounters no resistance, the Mahdi’s army began to move past and around Khartoum, gradually cutting the city off from Egypt.