WI: Garnet Wolseley Given Command of "Ever Victorious Army" Instead Of Charles Gordon

Anaxagoras

Banned
The "Ever Victorious Army" was a force of Chinese soldiers trained and led by European and American officers to fight the Taiping rebels. It numbered between 2,000 and 5,000 men at different times. After the death of its original commander, the American Frederick Ward, the Imperial Court asked the British to appoint a new commander.

Charles Gordon, mystical, fervently religious and perhaps slightly mad, was chosen. He led the Ever Victorious Army on a series of lightning campaigns that defeated Taiping forces of vastly greater numbers and played a crucial role in defeating the Taiping Rebellion. In doing so, he became famous as "Chinese" Gordon and went on to his amazing and ultimately tragic career in the Sudan.

However, another officer was considered for the command: Garnet Wolseley. The man who would, IOTL, go on to brilliantly lead many of the most famous campaigns of the Victorian army was a military leader of the highest order and one of the most brilliant minds of military logistics to have ever lived.

What consequences might there have been had Wolseley, rather than Gordon, been given the command?
 
In other words you want to replace a highly successful commander (Gordon, at least in China) with another, probably also highly successful commander (Wolseley). I do not see any change for China - Taiping are defeated anyway; I do not know what would Gordon's career have been without his Chinese adventure which gave him a lot of popularity.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
One issue here, however;

Wolseley's successes - even in Africa against the Ashanti - came largely with British troops.

He was not an "Indian" army type, for example, like Roberts was...

Now, Gordon was not either, but there's the basic question of whether Sir Garnet was suited for service as a) leader of non-British forces, and b) mercenary service.

He was the son of an Irish major, IIRC; proving himself as a commander of "British" troops seems to be a sine qua non.

It's also worth considering that his service against the Ashanti was the first time Wolseley had commanded anything in combat larger than a battalion, and it took until the 1882 expedition against Egypt for him to reach command of anything approximating a corps- or army-level command...

And he never seems to have done real well with the political considerations of commanding allied or colonial forces (even whites), even in the few instances where (Natal, for example) where they figured into his command.

Best,
 
Am I mad for thinking it was another of these mens' friends who was offered the job before Gordon? I have it in my head that Gerald Graham was offered the position but suggested Gordon instead...
 
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