[Opinion] Siege of Khartoum: Last Stand of General Gordon

Siege of Khartoum: Last Stand of General Gordon

General Gordon believed that if he could hold Khartoum for long enough against the Mahdi's siege, the British government would be obliged sooner or later, under the force of public opinion and despite Prime Minister Gladstone’s reluctance, to send an imperial relief force. As the historian Lawrence James notes: “All his life Gordon had been a fighter looking for moral battlefields and Khartoum was one” (85). Gordon’s return had been welcomed by …