Episode III: Gordon Pasha (The Mahdist War Part 1)

The long 19th century was a time when racism was an adventure. In that age when yt ppl were at their most tricknological, quirked up kkkrackas were launching new expeditions in caucasity at unprecedented levels. This is the Yakubian Years...

Despite being known as the "Pax Brittania", the Victorian era was a time of great social upheaval and political change. The industrial revolution rapidly destroyed old feudal structures and the religious glue that had once held societies together began to come undone. In this time of monumental change, people around the world turned to religion as a form of rapidly degenerating palliative care. It was an opiate for the masses that everyone was beginning to develop a little too high of a tolerance for...

Against this backdrop, in 1853, Gog and Magog went to war. In a foreboding prequel to WWI, tensions over the rights of Christians in the Holy Land led to a showdown between the Allies (the British, French, and Ottomans) and their autocratic arch-nemesis, the Russian Empire, in Crimea. There was perhaps no better example in its age of the hellish folly of war than this incredibly stupid conflict, and you either had to be a professional butcher or a certified religiouis nut to volunteer to go fight there. This is the story of two such people...

Our story begins in Salem, Massachusetts; once the Puritan capital of America, it became the opium capital of America after the revolution when the former colony seized the Turkish opium monopoly from its British charter. "The old China trade", as it became known would make many prominent American families, like the Delanos, very wealthy.

Frederick Townsend Ward was born in Salem and, after getting kicked out of school for being too rebellious, found work on the Hamilton, a clipper ship bound for Hong Kong in 1847. Ward would travel the world for the next decade before becoming acquainted with a man named William Walker in Mexico. Walker was a filibuster, a mercenary who participated in the cold war between North and South in the decades leading up to the American Civil War. In the wake of the Missouri Compromise, wealthy planters funded private armies to take over Latin American countries and apply to join the Union as slave states.

Walker was, at the time, attempting to establish the "Republic of Sonora" in Baja California and hired ward to run the army. it was here that Ward learned how to manage mercenary troops, and also grew to dislike Walker's managerial style. He eventually quit and shipped off to join the French in Crimea...

Meanwhile, an incredibly religious lieutenant by the name of Charles George Gordon who was stationed in the British Ionian Isles was writing incessant letters to the war office begging to be sent to Crimea so he could get shot.

Gordon had a rather average British upbringing in Taunton, Somerset, but developed a particular distaste for living after his sister, Emily, died of consumption. From that point on, he regularly prayed for God to release his spirit from his "vile body" so that he could experience the joy of heaven. In 1855, Gordon took one step closer to getting his wish when he was shipped off to Crimea. There, he participated in the Siege of Sevastopol and did everything in his power to get shot. While Ward and the French were successfully attacking the Malakoff Redoubt, the British were dying by the thousands at the Great Redan.

Much to Gordon's disappointment, both men survived the war. Ward was allowed to "resign" from the French army after an episode of insubordination and disappeared. Gordon, on the other hand, was awarded the British Crimea medal as well as the French Legion of Honor before being sent to map the new border between Russia and the Ottoman Empire.

Meanwhile in China, the Great Qing had been disgraced in the First Opium War and Jesus' brother, Hong Xiuquan, was about to do the funniest thing possible...

The Taiping Rebellion was the largest conflict of the 19th century. Spanning from 1850-1864, as many as 100 million people died as the persecuted Han minority attempted to overthrow their Manchu overlords and establish a proto-communist state based around Renkun's interpretation of Christian doctrine.

Having lost control of half the country, the Great Qing could only really do two things to try to maintain a semblance of control, persecute Christians and crack down on opium. The Allies, fresh off their victory in Crimea, would have none of it and immediately launched the Second Opium War.

Getting bored of drawing maps in Armenia, Gordon once again begged the War Office to send him somewhere where he could get shot. Unfortunately for him, he was reassigned to China just as the fighting was dying down. While stationed in Shanghai, Gordon met Ward, who had initially come to China to return the remains of Ye Mingchen to Canton. It was here that Gordon, the legend, was born. With the Qing greatly weakened, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom threatened to overrun the European settlement at Shanghai.

With Taiping troops headed their way, the Europeans feared for their lives. Ward, using his mercenary experience, quickly organized a band of locals and began giving them western military training. They successfully repelled the rebels and became known as the "Ever Victorious Army". Ward was killed in battle, however, and though he intended to pass command of the army over to his Filipino subordinate, Macanaya, command was instead passed to the incredibly racist grifter Henry Andres Burgevine, who eventually defected to the Taiping side.

Gordon had been watching the situation with great interest. Initially sympathetic to the ostensibly Christian Taiping rebels, now that white people were in danger, their anticolonial nonsense just wouldn't do. Taking command of the Ever Victorious Army in 1863, Gordon was instrumental in crushing the rebellion.

While Gordon chased glory and death across the world, yet another religious uprising was brewing, this time in Turco-Egyptian-occupied Sudan...

Shortly after Napoleon withdrew from Egypt, an upstart Albanian pasha by the name of Muhammad Ali rose to prominence in the former Mamluk territory. He wished to reshape Egypt into a Western-style colonial power. He did so by invading Sudan. His dynasty would rule Egypt until 1952. Ali's grandson, Khedive Isma'il, continued his modernization efforts, driving Egypt deeply into debt. One of his biggest projects, the revival of the Suez Canal, which Napoleon's expedition had discovered the ancient remains of, was a financial disaster.

Egyptian cotton was a hot commodity in Europe ever since the American Civil War dramatically decreased exports from southern states. British control of the market could be incredibly profitable, and control of the Suez Canal would make passage to India much, much easier. To that end, the British government sent Gordon to "supervise" Isma'il, eventually earning him the title of Pasha. Gordon became Governor-General of Sudan in the late 1870s. His rule was marked by intense efforts to stamp out the Arab slave trade.

The Sudanese were tired of foreign rule, from Egypt or Britain. They wanted Islamic slave institutions reinstated and they wanted the Christian Gordon out. In 1881, Muhammad Ahmad, a Nubian cleric, announced that he was the prophesied Mahdi and declared an Islamic State in Sudan. Gordon had finally found his crusade. Having spent most of his time in the Sahel searching for the biblical Garden of Eden, Gordon was filled with religious fervor and begged Parliament to allow him to fight the infidels. The British Government, aware of his eccentricities, was less than enthused but gave him leave.

Gordon, at the time, was preparing to support Belgian King Leopold II's attempt to claim the Congo basin for himself, but couldn't resist the chance to wage a holy war against those he romantically dubbed "mahomatens", harkening back to the tragi-poetic celebration of Roland's heroic sacrifice at Roncevaux Pass. With Gordon out of the running, the task of mapping the Congo fell to Henry Morton Stanley, instead...

Parliament was already uneasy about sending more support to Sudan, which Prime Minister Gladstone, a liberal anti-imperialist, had given up on after the Ansar (the Mahdist army) decapitated William Hicks and expropriated an arsenal of British guns.

Because of the clearly hostile environment and the lack of resources with which to fight the Ansar, Parliament sent Gordon to Khartoum with orders to organize an evacuation of British and Egyptian personnel from the region. Instead, he sent a letter to the Mahdi demanding he accept the authority of the secular Khedivate of Egypt. The Mahdi responded by demanding Gordon convert to Islam. The Mahdist forces converged on Khartoum and laid siege to the city, demanding that Gordon leave. Gordon refused, certain without a doubt that the full might of the British Empire stood behind him. Unfortunately for him, it didn't. He had disobeyed orders and no help was coming.

Gordon's stubbornness did eventually paid off, in a way. The media adored him and cast him as a modern day crusader; the last bulwark against Islamic tyranny. Public opinion shifted so much that Parliament was forced to send a belated relief expedition. Garnet Wolseley was tasked with leading the expedition down the Nile to relieve Gordon but progress was slow. The "desert column" attempted to take an overland shortcut to reach Gordon sooner. They faced resistance at the Battle of Abu Klea but defeated the Ansar in a fight that lasted 15 minutes. Unfortunately, the relief efforts were too late. Gordon had been killed by the Ansar a mere two days prior to their arrival.

Gordon's death sparked controversy back home. The public saw him as a martyr and Queen Victoria was furious with Parliament's reluctance to intervene in a timely manner. To make matters worse, Gladstone ordered all British soldiers out of Sudan, prompting people to throw stones at 10 Downing Street. This incident was an early example of the power of celebrity culture. The press and public opinion had pushed Britain to intervene in Sudan and, after that was deemed a failure, the press and public opinion kicked Gladstone out of office. Individuals with enough clout could now shape foreign policy.

Gordon was seen by many as a hero of the Empire and a martyr, with numerous memorials erected in his honor around the world. The veneer surrounding his image wouldn't start to crack until Lytton Strachey, of the Bloomsbury Group, published a less-than-favorable biography of the man in Eminent Victorians.

Britain was done with Sudan (for now) but the Mahdists only grew in power, paving the way for more upheavals in the near future. This story will be continued...

In the meantime, however, tune in next time for another installment of the Yakubian Years featuring an all-American tale of settler colonialism, railroads, and themed entertainment...