What if Charles George Gordon had not died in 1885?

maverick

Banned
General Charles George Gordon is the character most of us would dream of and love to have invented. British born Mercenary and General, he served with the British at Crimea, as a mercenary officer in the Taiping Rebellion and would eventually meet his maker at the siege of Khartoum in 1885, during the Mahdi's War.

But what if he had not died there?

Let's assume that Khartoum still falls, and with it Gladstone's Government, but that General Gordon and some of his men and family escape and eventually make it to a safe neighbor country or to Britain in 1885. What happens next?

How does this affect the Mahdist war, and what does Gordon do with his life after Sudan?
 
The easiest POD would be Wolseley's Relief Column making better time and reaching Khartoum a few days earlier. From there it would have to probably fight its way out, but Gordon would be rescued.

Chinese Gordon was a fascinating Victorian soldier. One military enterprise which he may prove good at, if not as a repeat of his situation in the Sudan, would be British ambassador to China during the Boxer Rebellion. He would be in charge of the consult quarter during its siege in Peking. Like Wolseley and Roberts he will probaby be dead by the outbreak of the Great War.
 
I touched on this in "Fight and Be Right", albeit briefly.

OTL King Leopold offered Gordon the military Governorship of the Congo, but he was too busy with the Sudan to accept. If Gordon lives somehow, he'd probably take the King up on his offer. This might be quite fun, as Gordon was such a religious idealist that unless Leopold manages somehow to pull the wool over his eyes, he would be pretty appalled at the goings on within the Free State.

Assuming he lives, Gordon will wipe out the Arab slavers in the East of the Congo broadly as OTL but will then return to Leopoldville to find out exactly how the Free State has been run. Leopold then has three very unnappealing options;

(1) He reluctantly lets Gordon run the Congo as the rest of the world thinks it's meant to be done- lots of missionaries, free trade, gentle civilising of the natives etc. Once this process is set in train it's impossible to reverse and he is never able to regain control. Leopold goes bankrupt in the mid 1890s, dies soon after and is remembered, ironically enough, as a saintly figure willing to throw away his fortune to help the poor benighted African. I love this option for its irony value.

(2) He sacks Gordon, takes a PR hit and moves on. Gordon will have to find something else to do, assuming Leopold's agents don't try and do away with him somnehow, and the episode is something of a historical footnote, only recalled by people as significant after the Congo is exposed as the hellhole it was.

(3) Leopold tries to pul the wool over Gordon's eyes, sends him deep into the jungle on repeated military expeditions, or perhaps at the head of a column aiming to reach the Nile from the Congo, and hopes he dies in the process. If he does, all well and good. If not, Gordon eventually discovers the severed hands and all, and exposes Leopold to the world. Fun ensues. This is the most likely option in my view.
 
For me, I'd like to see Gordon in South Africa, with the Cape Colony renewing its 1880 offer of Commandant of their forces.

Gordon in the Second Boer War - potential for a truly Ripping Yarn and maybe, just maybe, in that TL Gordon is the one to return a hero to the UK and found an organisation/movement for boys.
 
In a book I read for a history Practicum in college, it was a biography collection, said in rather certain terms that Gordon was Gay and was tortured by this for most of his life. Does this affect Gordon's life? Does taking the Congo job open him to criticism for this ( I don't have issues with homosexuality but the Victorians might have) that dieing at Khartoum protected him from?
 
In a book I read for a history Practicum in college, it was a biography collection, said in rather certain terms that Gordon was Gay and was tortured by this for most of his life. Does this affect Gordon's life? Does taking the Congo job open him to criticism for this ( I don't have issues with homosexuality but the Victorians might have) that dieing at Khartoum protected him from?

It affects Gordon insofar as that's where his religious streak comes into play. Beyond that, providing there's no obvious scandal a la Hector Macdonald, I can't see why it should have too much impact. I mean, half the British military establishment at the time seemed to be gay or bisexual, and it never did, say, Baden Powell (whose barracks-room party piece was transvestism and subsequent nickname was "bathing towel") any harm.
 
In a book I read for a history Practicum in college, it was a biography collection, said in rather certain terms that Gordon was Gay and was tortured by this for most of his life. Does this affect Gordon's life? Does taking the Congo job open him to criticism for this ( I don't have issues with homosexuality but the Victorians might have) that dieing at Khartoum protected him from?

Some modern writers seem to assume that any historical person who never married must have been homosexual. (I consider this as accurate as assuming every historical figure who did marry was heterosexual.) If Gordon was homosexual, he avoided saying or doing anything to reveal this, so there would be no criticism for it.
 
Some modern writers seem to assume that any historical person who never married must have been homosexual. (I consider this as accurate as assuming every historical figure who did marry was heterosexual.) If Gordon was homosexual, he avoided saying or doing anything to reveal this, so there would be no criticism for it.

True, this was a book written in 1920s by Strachey I think the title is Victorians or something to that effect. Covers Nightingale, Gordon among others. So not exactly modern, I am willing to bet Gordon was definitly Homosexual but that is neither here nor there, I mean Kitchener had one aide for years who went with him everywhere and never married so EdT is right just about everyone did it with everyone. I was just in question as to whether it would effect his future options.

Is this something Leopold could use against him?
 
In a book I read for a history Practicum in college, it was a biography collection, said in rather certain terms that Gordon was Gay and was tortured by this for most of his life. Does this affect Gordon's life? Does taking the Congo job open him to criticism for this (I don't have issues with homosexuality but the Victorians might have) that dieing at Khartoum protected him from?

The Victorians didn't care what you did so long as you didn't get caught.

If Gordon did have homosexual leanings, given his religious bent he probably just took lots of cold showers.
 
Have to agree with Flocculencio, if Gordon had homosexual urges it doesn't mean he went gallavanting around molly houses and indeed he probably just got on with some gardening to pass the time! :p

Its incredibly difficult to ascertain the sexuality (barring incriminating evidence for the few) of Victorian/Edwardian figures because of the unique social situation. You had the 'atmosphere' of the boarding school that a great deal of British major figures went through at the time, combined with a general repression of public sexuality and the pressure to be wed and multiply. There's plenty of major figures who seem to have experimented with homosexuality while young, then got married and had loads of babies. Does that make them gay, bi, a heterosexual who experimented?

Then there's those who don't seem to do anything in any direction - repressed homosexual? Asexual? Considering the attitude to sex at the time, there's nothing to suggest some were straight and never wed due to disinterest or dedication to their career. Confirmed bachelor maybe a euphemism but I'm sure quite a few sincere ones have existed.
 
Then there's those who don't seem to do anything in any direction - repressed homosexual? Asexual? Considering the attitude to sex at the time, there's nothing to suggest some were straight and never wed due to disinterest or dedication to their career. Confirmed bachelor maybe a euphemism but I'm sure quite a few sincere ones have existed.


Some people just have less sex drive than others. Former Prime Minister Edward Heath never married, but doesn't appear to have been queer - just not much interested.

As for the Victorians, I get the impression that if you were above a certain social standing, you had to practically do it in the street at high noon before they would take notice. Appearences must be preserved, that was the important thing.
 
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