Gordon at Khartoum: Being a Personal Narrative of Events in Continuation of "a Secret History of the English Occupation of Egypt

by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt

Reprint of the 1911 edition. Oversized Octavo. xv, 665 p. Gordon was administrator of the Sudan between 1874 and 1880 and was instrumental in the ending of the slave trade in the country. In 1882, Mohammed Ahmad (the Mahdi) objected to Egyptian control of Sudan and rose in revolt. His forces defeated an Egyptian army and cut off British garrisons in the central Sudan. Gordon was sent back to Sudan in 1884 to rescue the isolated garrisons but became cut off in Khartoum. After a ten-month siege, the town fell and Gordon was killed. Public opinion saw Gordon as a hero of Empire and blamed the British government under Gladstone for failing to send a relief column. Sudan remained under local control untilKitchener was successful at the Battle of Omdurman in 1898. Blunt supported the Mahdi in his revolt against the British in Sudan, and when Khartoum fell and Gordon was killed, Gladstone's Liberal government was unravelling in London. Blunt advocated Afghani as "the one man who could speak directly to the Mahdi", although Afghani had never met him nor was he known to have any access to the self proclaimed messianic leader of the Sudan, and according to Blunt (see My Diaries), rather fantastically, "if the British would back down on Egypt, he could assure peace in the Sudan." Blunt had even more friends in the new conservative government of Salisbury, most notably Lord Randolph Churchill, to whom he eagerly promoted his grand plan. Theavowed radical and liberal champion was now considering seeking his own seat in (the new Conservative) government. A scarce title. Not in print for 60 years.

664 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 2004

About the author

Wilfred Scawen Blunt was born in Sussex and served in the Diplomatic Service from 1858 until 1870. In 1869 he married Annabella King-Noel, Byron's granddaughter.

Through his job Blunt travelled much in the East and interested himself in Egyptian and Indian political questions as a campaigner for liberation from British imperialism. Prose works such as The Future of Islam (1882), Ideas about India (1885), and The Secret History of the English Occupation of Egypt (1907) clearly reflect his sympathies. He also became closely connected with Irish politics and spent some time for his pains in an Irish prison where he wrote his In Vinculis sonnets.

A collected edition of his poetical works was published in 1914, which contains amongst others The Love Sonnets of Proteus (1880), romantic poems mostly set in his beloved Sussex countryside.