First Jihad: Khartoum, and the Dawn of Militant Islam (26 page)

There, the Sultan, who had barely escaped being toppled from his throne when much of the Ottoman Empire’s European territories had been stripped away in the Russo-Turkish War just six years earlier, was still looking nervously eastward, as the Russian border was only a few days’ march from his capital.
Such a revolt would be all the distraction the Tsar’s armies would need to launch an offensive toward Constantinople, which the Russians had coveted for centuries.
The Sultan did not have enough reliable troops of his own to be able to defend the city and at the same time put down a rebellion.
This was a concern in London as well, for the British government had entered into an alliance with the Ottoman Turks in 1878, with the express purpose of keeping the Russians out of Constantinople.
Should the Mahdi’s rebellion spread beyond the Sudan, it had the potential to precipitate a major European war.

There is no way to know if the Mahdi was aware of any of this.
Just how extensive were his education, his knowledge of the larger world, and his grasp of politics can only be estimated.
Certainly he had some knowledge of the geography of the Middle East, as well as an understanding of the literally Byzantine politics of the Ottoman Empire.
But what he truly knew of Europe and Asia, as opposed to the legend and myth that was—and often still is-part of the “education” process in the Islamic world, cannot be determined.
What was evident to anyone who had any dealings with him at length was that Muhammed Ahmed possessed a first-class intellect.
Here was no “noble savage” as was often the Europeans’ characterization of the peoples of Africa, nor was he simply a rabble-rousing demagogue.
By all accounts he possessed a charisma equaled in European leaders only by Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler.
That is not to lump him together with either of them, because though they did share many common traits, in other ways the Mahdi stood apart.
He never descended to the depths of unbounded ambition or malignant prejudice as did the two European leaders.
Though the Mahdi thought his calling divine, and his person semi-divine, he still bowed before Allah, and it could be argued that nothing he ever undertook was entirely inconsistent with the will of Allah as presented in the Koran and
hadiths
.
If the Mahdi had one overarching fault it was excess—he carried his sense of mission to an extreme interpretation.
While he might seek to make himself the equal of the Prophet, he never sought to usurp the position of the Prophet or rewrite the Koran.

It was in May that the Mahdi’s charismatic nature revealed itself to General Gordon, as the two men began one of the most peculiar episodes in the entire history of the Mahdi’s rebellion: their correspondence.
There was little in its content that was actually novel or unique: for the most part it was the expected exhortations and urgings of each to the other to give up their vain effort and either surrender or depart.
What made it notable was the mutual respect, possibly even admiration, that the two men developed for each other.
Each recognized their mirror image and at the same time a kindred spirit: their deep spirituality, their shared sense of mission, their loyalty to their respective causes, their determination not to capitulate to the other.
While it might not be entirely correct to say that Gordon and the Mahdi each perceived that the other was an honorable man—the concepts of “honor” in their respective cultures were too different for such an appreciation to have fully developed—they certainly recognized that they were two opponents worthy of mutual respect, and so it was given.
A passing remark in his journal reveals how well Gordon understood the Mahdi’s ability to inspire his followers: “The meanest of the Mahdi’s followers is a determined warrior, who could undergo thirst and privation, who no more cared for pain or death than if he were stone.”

In Arabic culture there is a wonderfully telling phrase: “It is written.” Its implication is that there are aspects of life—events, characteristics, fates—that are ordained by God or Allah that cannot be changed, no matter what the efforts of men to do so.
In all of its power and import this phrase applied to the Mahdi and Gordon.
Each would be firm, even forceful, in their statements and positions, and there was little acrimony or antagonism in their exchanges.
It was as if they recognized that they were fated to be foes, even enemies, but that could not and would not prevent them from coming to respect each other.
It was written….

At the end of July the Arab tribes around the town of Shendy, directly across the Nile from Metemma, halfway between Khartoum and Berber, finally rose up and openly sided with the Madhi.
Berber soon followed, but while the capture of Shendy had been achieved quickly and with relatively little bloodshed, the fall of Berber was a far different affair.
Because of its loyalty to the Egyptian government, the city was sacked in an orgy of looting, rape and slaughter that lasted for days.
When the town fell, the telegraph line to Cairo was permanently cut, and for months nothing more would be heard directly from Khartoum.

Gordon was now entirely cut off from the outside world and compelled to rely entirely upon his own resources.
Knowing this, he was willing to try any stratagem, any subterfuge, that might increase the odds of the city holding out until the relief expedition—in which he passionately believed—could arrive.
At one point he sent out black Sudanese to mingle with the slaves of the Arabs in the Mahdi’s camps, encouraging them to run away or even come into the city, assuring them that they would be given their freedom once the siege was lifted.
The threat of rebellion or desertion among their slaves might, he hoped, prompt defections among the Arab sheiks who supported the Mahdi.
The effort accomplished little, for among the slaves the fear of retribution by the Mahdi and his followers was for the most part more powerful than the lure of what might only be a temporary freedom.

While he was exchanging letters with the Madhi, Gordon was carrying on a separate correspondence with one of the Mahdi’s European captives, Rudolf Slatin, the Austrian officer who had been Governor of Darfur.
Given the Egyptian rank of Bey, Slatin had fought the Mahdi for almost four years in the western Sudan.
Having been wounded several times, his courage was unquestionable, as had been his determination to hold out as long as possible.
In the end, he had been defeated by the same fearful weapon that had subdued El Obeid and was slowly eroding Khartoum’s will to resist—starvation.
Somehow, though, Gordon felt that Slatin’s capitulation at Darfur was something disgraceful, and as a consequence he held little respect for the unfortunate Viennese.
He might have paid closer attention, for Slatin’s experience could have been instructive.

During the fighting in Darfur, after suffering a series of setbacks, Slatin’s Moslem soldiers became demoralized, attributing their defeats to the fact that they were fighting fellow Moslems, and, what was worse, were being led by an infidel.
It seemed to them that in resisting the Madhi they were fighting for a Christian cause against their own faith.
Sensing that a revolt or an outright mutiny was brewing, Slatin suddenly announced that he had chosen to follow the way of the Prophet and, outwardly at least, embraced the practices of Islam.
This simple act—which Slatin would maintain, until the end of his life, was nothing more than an elaborate charade—inspired his rather simpleminded troops, and they defended Darfur with a renewed belief in themselves, their leader, and their cause.

But Slatin’s stratagem only delayed the inevitable, and in January 1884 Darfur fell.
Slatin, taken captive, was brought before the Madhi, who was sufficiently pleased to learn of his alleged conversion as to allow his life to be spared, but not sufficiently impressed by it to allow Slatin’s release.
Instead, the young Austrian would spend the next twelve years a captive of the Madhi and his successors, some of that time in chains.
When the Madhi made his encampment south of the city of Khartoum, Slatin was compelled to accompany him, and it was there he began his correspondence with General Gordon.

In his letters he attempted to explain the reasons for his surrender, while at the same time excusing his conversion to Islam.
At several points he begged Gordon for permission to escape into the city.
Gordon, however, wasn’t inclined to be sympathetic or accommodating, questioning just how desperate conditions in Darfur had become before the city was surrendered.
He noted in his journal that, “The Greek [one of the city’s merchants]…says Slatin had 4,000 ardebs [measures] of dura [wheat], 1,500 cows, and plenty of ammunition.” Before the correspondence between the two began, he made slighting references to Slatin in his journal, at one point writing, “One cannot help being amused at the Mahdi carrying all the Europeans about with him—nuns, priests, Greeks, Austrian officers—what a medley, a regular Etat-Major!”

It is possible that Gordon didn’t understand the danger in which Slatin had placed himself with his letters; certainly they confused him.
Ordered by the Madhi and the Khalifas to write demanding the surrender of the city, Slatin instead wrote a carefully worded appeal to Gordon for permission to escape into Khartoum, but when the first arrived on October 16, Gordon’s only comments were: “The letters of Slatin have arrived.
I have no remarks to make on them, and cannot make out why he wrote them.” While admitting “one feels sorry for him,” Gordon was adamant in his refusal to allow Slatin into Khartoum: “I shall have nothing to do with Slatin’s coming here to stay, unless he has the Mahdi’s positive leave, which he is not likely to get; his doing so would be the breaking of his parole which should be as sacred when given to the Mahdi as to any other power, and it would jeopardize the safety of all these Europeans, prisoners with Mahdi.”

Where Gordon gained the impression that Slatin was an officer released on parole is unknown, for he was clearly being treated as a prisoner of war in the enemy camp.
As such, he had the right, if not the actual duty, to try to escape.
Sudanese and Egyptian soldiers who had been captured in the Mahdi’s earlier victories and then forced to fight in his army were daily escaping to the city and being welcomed into it.
Why he perceived Slatin’s circumstance as different Gordon never explained, nor did he give any reasons for his presumption that Slatin’s escape might endanger the rest of the Europeans being held by the Madhi.
In point of fact, the Madhi never took reprisals against any of his European prisoners whenever one of them attempted to escape, or even succeeded.

The whole of Slatin’s correspondence with Gordon reflects little credit on the General, which makes the entire episode worth noting, for it seems out of character with Gordon’s widely-recognized generosity.
Gordon’s animosity toward Slatin seems to have stemmed more from his apparent conversion to Islam than to his surrender of Darfur.
Slatin sensed this, and endeavored to explain that he had feigned becoming a Moslem in order to maintain his troops’ morale and prolong their resistance.
In his heart, he declared, he had never abandoned his allegiance to Christianity.
“Whether by my conversion I committed a dishonourable step is a matter of opinion—it was made more easy to me, perhaps, because I had, perhaps unhappily, not received a strict religious education at home.” If the source of Gordon’s disapproval was that Slatin ultimately surrendered to the Mahdi, the young Viennese was prepared to answer that charge as well:

Does your Excellency believe that to me, an Austrian officer, the surrender was easy?
It was one of the hardest days of my life.
By submission and obedient behavior I have attained a certain degree of confidence amongst the local magnates and thus have received permission to write to you, because they are of the opinion that by these lines I am requesting your Excellency to surrender.
Should your Excellency not despise my feeble services and small knowledge of tactics, I beg to offer you my help, with no desire for a higher post of honour, only from a devotion and friendship with your Excellency.
I am ready to serve with or under you, for victory or death….

When Gordon did not respond, Slatin again tried to make his case to the General, writing a few days later:

Your Excellency, I have fought twenty-seven times for the government against the enemy, and they have beaten me twice, and I have done nothing dishonorable, nothing which should hinder your Excellency from writing me an answer, that I may know what to do….
If there are letters from Europe for meat the post I beg you to send them me, because it is almost three years since I have had any news of my family.
I entreat your Excellency to honour me with an answer.

There would be no answer from Gordon, and no further exchanges between the two men, as Slatin’s correspondence with Gordon was discovered by one of the Khalifas.
He was immediately thrown into chains, where he remained for several months, while for some days he was threatened with execution—not for writing to Gordon, but for failing to write what the Madhi had instructed him to set down.
News of Slatin’s misfortune reached Gordon, but the General had little sympathy for him.
Yet he could never completely suppress acknowledging Slatin’s abilities or bravery: “What one has felt so much here is the want of men like Gessi, or Messadaglia, or Slatin, but I have no one to whom I could entrust expeditions….”

Little news of the situation within the city was reaching the outside world.
On September 29, a telegram from Khartoum dated July 31 was received by the
London Times
.
From it the circumstances in the Sudanese capital became a bit clearer, although decidedly dated.
Gordon was now entirely on the defensive, his only aggressive action being trying to clear a route up the Nile to reestablish communications and evacuate anyone who wanted to leave, and launching the occasional sortie intended to bring supplies into the city from the surrounding countryside.
Otherwise he was trapped, with no way out.
If he had possessed a single reliable regiment, he said, the Mahdi’s lines might have been cleared with ease, but his impotence encouraged the Arabs, and they were gathering in ever-increasing numbers.
To Gordon it was only a matter of time until at last they crushed his resistance under the weight of their numbers.