Yet He Was Sustained By Two Great Moral And Mental Stimulants:
His Honour As A Man, His Faith As A Christian.
The first had put all
courses which he did not think right once and for all out of the question,
and so allayed many doubts and prevented many vain regrets.
But the
second was the real source of his strength. He was sure that beyond this
hazardous existence, with all its wrongs and inequalities, another life
awaited him - a life which, if he had been faithful and true here
upon earth, would afford him greater faculties for good and wider
opportunities for their use. 'Look at me now,' he once said to a
fellow-traveller, 'with small armies to command and no cities to govern.
I hope that death will set me free from pain, and that great armies will
be given me, and that I shall have vast cities under my command.'
[Lieut.-Colonel N. Newham Davis, 'Some Gordon Reminiscences,' published
in THE MAN OF THE WORLD newspaper, December 14, 1898.] Such was
his bright hope of immortality.
As the severity of military operations increases, so also must the
sternness of discipline. The zeal of the soldiers, their warlike
instincts, and the interests and excitements of war may ensure obedience
of orders and the cheerful endurance of perils and hardships during a
short and prosperous campaign. But when fortune is dubious or adverse;
when retreats as well as advances are necessary; when supplies fail,
arrangements miscarry, and disasters impend, and when the struggle is
protracted, men can only be persuaded to accept evil things by the lively
realisation of the fact that greater terrors await their refusal. The ugly
truth is revealed that fear is the foundation of obedience. It is certain
that the influence of General Gordon upon the garrison and townspeople
of Khartoum owed its greatest strength to that sinister element. 'It is
quite painful,' he writes in his Journals in September, 'to see men
tremble so, when they come and see me, that they cannot hold the match to
their cigarette.' Yet he employed all other methods of inspiring
their efforts. As the winter drew on, the sufferings of the besieged
increased and their faith in their commander and his promises of relief
diminished. To preserve their hopes - and, by their hopes, their courage
and loyalty - was beyond the power of man. But what a great man in the
utmost exercise of his faculties and authority might do, Gordon did.
His extraordinary spirit never burned more brightly than in these last,
gloomy days. The money to pay the troops was exhausted. He issued notes,
signing them with his own name. The citizens groaned under the triple
scourge of scarcity, disease, and war. He ordered the bands to play
merrily and discharged rockets. It was said that they were abandoned,
that help would never come, that the expedition was a myth - the lie of
a General who was disavowed by his Government.
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