Charles George Gordon
Major-General; Governor-General of the Sudan
"I decline to be the man to give up Khartoum."
Biography
'Chinese' Gordon was the most famous soldier-adventurer of Victorian England — hero of the Taiping war in China, a mystic and evangelical Christian, and a former governor of the Sudan who had fought the slave trade there. In 1884 the British government, having decided to abandon the Sudan to the Mahdi, sent Gordon to evacuate the Egyptian garrisons from Khartoum. Instead, the headstrong and disobedient Gordon resolved to hold the city, defying his orders and fortifying Khartoum as the Mahdi's army closed in. For ten months he held out, sending increasingly desperate appeals for relief while public pressure at home forced a reluctant Gladstone to send an expedition. It arrived two days too late: on January 26, 1885, the Mahdists stormed the city and killed Gordon on the palace steps. His death made him an imperial martyr and Gladstone a villain, and it fixed the Sudan in the British imagination as a debt of blood to be repaid.
Did you know?
His death inspired one of the most famous Victorian paintings, 'General Gordon's Last Stand,' though no one knows exactly how he died — the dramatic image of him facing his killers on the steps may be legend.
Key Battles
The Siege of Khartoum
Mahdist Sudan (the Ansar) victoryMarch 1884 – January 26, 1885 · 12,000 total casualties
The fall of Khartoum and the death of Gordon shocked the British Empire and disgraced Gladstone's government. It made Gordon a martyr, left the Sudan wholly in Mahdist hands, and planted a thirst for vengeance that would be satisfied only at Omdurman thirteen years later.
Life Journey
Timeline
January 28, 1833
🌅 Birth
Born at Woolwich
February 1884
📍 Posting
Arrives to hold Khartoum against orders
January 26, 1885
✝️ Death
Killed as Khartoum falls