Description

Egypt gained titular control of Sudan in 1820, but its hold over this vast and tumultuous land was always tenuous at best.  Egyptian troops, administrators and merchants had to either ascend the meandering Nile River, upon which boat travel was interrupted by several cataracts, or follow shorter (but still hundreds of kms-long) caravan routes across rugged, scorching desert to reached Sudan’s capital, Khartoum (which was located almost 1,000 km from the Egyptian border).  Moreover, much of countryside was controlled by warlike tribes that deeply resented the Egyptian presence.

 

Isma’il Pasha, the Khedive of Egypt (reigned 1863-79) was obsessed with modernizing and Westernizing his country.  He was famed for his infrastructure projects (he presided over the completion of the Suez Canal, 1869), and he sought to improve communications with Sudan, completing a telegraph route to Khartoum in 1866.  However, it was becoming clear that the only way that Cairo could hope to maintain control over Sudan going forward was to build a railway connecting Egypt and Khartoum (the Egyptian State Railway was about to be extended from Aswan to the Sudanese border, providing a direct connection to Cairo and Alexandria).

 

In 1869, the Khedive appointed the legendary English engineer Sir John Fowler (1817 – 1898), to conduct a detailed survey and feasibility study for an Egypt-Khartoum railway (paying him a stupendous sum).  Fowler was globally famous for designing London’s Metropolitan Line (completed in 1863), the world’s first subway system.

 

In 1873, Fowler submitted his final report to the Egyptian crown, which was predicated upon extensive mapping and reconnaissance of the region.   Fowler envisioned building the railway south from Wadi Halfa (just south of the Egyptian border, where the Sudan Railway could connect to the Egyptian system) up along the eastern bank of the Nile for around 250 kms, before building a bridge that would have the line cross the river to the west bank, at the point where its direction changed from a westerly to northerly orientation.  From there it would continue to follow the river up to Um Bakool, whereupon, to cut the distance of the Bend of the Nile, the line would head inland across the forbidding Bayuda Desert for 283 km, to arrive at Metnemmah, located about 190 km downriver from Khartoum.  From Metnemmah, Khartoum could be reached easily by either further extending the line or taking a river steamer.

 

While Fowler’s plan was technically feasible, it was estimated to cost at least £E 1.5 million (a colossal sum).  By comparison, creating a reliable stammer route form Wadi Halfa to Khartoum (with a series of short tram systems to bypass the Nile cataracts) was estimated to cost only £E 70,000, although the latter option was too slow to deploy Egyptian troops into the heart of Sudan in time to suppress any mass unrest.

Isma’il Pasha decided to move forward with Fowler’s plan, with the budget for materials alone being £E 600,000.  In February 1875, construction commenced on the first stretch of the line, running from Wadi Halfa to Saras, located 57 km south.

Rather optimistically, the Khedive planned for the railway to be financed by revenues derived exclusively from Sudan.  However, due to political instability and bureaucratic waste and corruption, only a tiny fraction of the expected revues was forthcoming (in 1876 Sudan produced no tax revenue at all!), such that by 1877, the project encountered severe financial difficulties.

What would transpire going forward needs the be seen within the greater context of Egypt’s growing financial crisis.  While Isma’il Pasha was a visionary ‘nation builder’, he and his ministers were simply terrible at accounting.  He spent on mega-projects (ex. the Suez Canal, roads, railways, and grand public buildings, etc.) with reckless abandon, borrowing money from British, French and German banks at usurious interest rates.  “Isma’il the Magnificent” even spent £E 2 million (equal to U.S. $300 million today) on the party for the opening of Suez Canal, described as the most lavish feast in modern history.  Moreover, the Egyptian bureaucracy was incredibly corrupt and inefficient, and much of budgeted tax revenue was siphoned off before it reached Cairo, while expenditures ballooned well above estimates due to graft and waste.  By 1877, Egypt was spending more than 60% percent of its public revenue on debt service alone (without ever touching the principal).  Egypt defaulted on its debt 1879, owing almost £E 93 million to European creditors (equivalent to roughly US$ 14 billion today!), leading Isma’il Pasha to be deposed, in favour of his pliable eldest son Tewfik I (whom Isma’il utterly despised).  This debt crisis gave Britain the excuse to invade Egypt in 1882, making the country a British Protectorate (a de facto colony).

 

Enter General Sir Charles Gordon and his attempts to Save Sudan and its Railway

 

Sir Charles George Gordon (1833 – 1885) was undoubtably one of the most extraordinary, fascinating and psychologically complex figures of the Victorian era.  A soldier, adventurer, civil administrator and engineer-cartographer, he was a man of astounding technical competence and superhuman stamina.  He could be recklessly brave due to a reputed ‘death wish’, while his practical drive to solve problems was balanced by his intense evangelical Christianity and ardent opposition to slavery.

 

Gordon graduated from the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, in 1852, becoming a lieutenant in the Royal Engineers.  He soon gained a reputation as a fantastically talented engineer of fortifications and as a mapmaker, initially serving in Wales, designing defenses.  During the Crimean War (1853-6), Gordon gained a reputation as a daring and skilled frontline fighter, but also for a habit of insubordination (he doggedly followed orders he agreed with, while ignoring commands which he found foolish or unjust, whereupon he pursued his own course).

 

Gordon subsequently became a mercenary in China, and due to his unbelievable skill as a battle commander he came to be the head of the pro-imperial ‘Ever Victorious Army’ that suppressed the Taiping Rebellion (1850-64).  This made him a global celebrity, given the popular name of “Chinese Gordon”.  After a variety of engineering and diplomatic missions in the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire, in 1872, Gordon met the Egyptian prime minister Raghib Pasha, who asked Gordon if he would consider serving the Egyptian crown in a very senior role (Isma’il Pasha recruited many Westerners).

 

Gordon had an audience with Isma’il Pasha, who was highly impressed with the Englishman, so much so that he seemed to regard him as having superhuman powers.  With the permission of the British government, Gordon accepted the post of Governor of Equatoria (the southernmost province of Sudan, encompassing what is today South Sudan and northern Uganda), serving from 1873 to 1877.

 

Equatoria was a rough frontier, rife with slavery, murderous ethnic tensions and griding poverty, while being hopelessly remote from Cairo.  In a sign that Gordon was motivated by the mission and not money, he turned down the £E 10,000 annual salary offered to him, claiming that only £E 2,000 would serve his needs.  Gordon saw his mission as bringing good governance to Equatoria, improving the standard of living of its people and abolishing slavery (a cause for which he was fanatically dedicated).  While Gordon had some modest success suppressing slavery, he found his assignment frustrating due to the corruption and inefficiency of the Egyptian bureaucracy and the drunkenness and sloth of his Western advisors.

 

Gordon subsequently accepted Isma’il Pasha’s offer to become the Governor-General of Sudan, serving from May 1877 to December 1879, upon which he (perhaps naively) hoped that the major upgrade in his status and powers would give him the political clout to cut through the miasma of corruption and inefficiency and to achieve great things. 

 

A top priority for Gordon was building the Sudan Railway.  In addition to the obvious military imperative, of being the conduit for rushing Egyptian troops into the heart of Sudan, he believed that the railway would consolidate his administration and boost the economy by increasing local and international trade.  As a personal moral imperative, it was hoped that the newfound prosperity would allow paid jobs to replace slavery (which still thrived throughout Sudan).

 

Gordon successfully lobbied that the management of transportation in Sudan be separated from that of Egypt and placed under his direct auspices and given its own dedicated budget and accounts.  He wanted to take control of the file from the Egyptian bureaucracy, which he regarded as hopelessly corrupt and inefficient.  Isma’il Pasha was pleased to oblige, as he naively thought the Gordon was a miracle worker who would somehow sort out what seemed an intractable problem, while relieving him of the awesome financial liability.  Yet, Gordon was warned by the directors of the Egyptian State Railways that managing the Sudan Railways separately would not be financially viable (which turned out to be true).

 

During the second half of 1877, Gordon redoubled work on the railway south of Wadi Halfa, drafting 3,000 laborers from Dongola.  Gordon cut costs by slashing salaries, firing superfluous employees and trimming inefficiencies.  He reengaged the English firm of Appleby Brothers to send supplies, opening a dedicated account for the railway in Cairo, into which the Governor of Dongola (who owed the Sudan government money) deposited £E 15,000.

 

By the beginning of 1878, the first stretch line was made operational, running 57 km from Wadi Halfa southwards to Saras, while a further 47 km of embankments and cuttings had been executed down towards Akasha.  However, Sudan’s general revenues proved disappointing, despite Gordon’s cost-saving measures, and the funding for the railway soon ran dry.

 

Gordon was compelled to halt construction on the railway, as he defaulted on an urgent payment of £E 30,000, towards the £E 79,000 he owed Appleby.  Moreover, Egypt’s finances were in a ruinous state, such that there was no possibility that Cairo could bail him out.  Meanwhile, the operational Wadi Halfa to Saras line was running a huge and growing deficit.  In the year 1878 it brough in only £E 6,488 of revenue against £E 22,258 in expenses.  Gordon promptly truncated service to only two trips per week, before shutting down the line completely.

 

The Sudan Railway project languished for over a year and a half, when, in the Autumn of 1879, in part due to Gordon’s financial reforms, Sudan’s finances improved.  While the provincial treasury was not flush, it now had sufficient funds to allow the resumption of construction of the railway beyond Saras.  However, Gordon understood that the original Fowler Plan, or anything like it, would never be financially feasible, at least not in the foreseeable future.  Employing his skills as a professional engineer, Gordon developed a new plan for a Wadi Halfa-Khartoum transport route that would be a combination of railway lines and steamboat runs, with tramways built to overcome the Nile’s cataracts.  While such a system would not be nearly as fast or as pleasant as a complete railway line, it would hopefully prove acceptably expeditious, and would be assuredly much cheaper.

The Present Manuscript in Focus

The present work is Gordon’s original manuscript report articulating his recommendations for saving the Sudan Railway/Wadi Halfa-Khartoum transportation route from being eviscerated by Egypt’s financial crisis.  The report, while undated, was written in the Autumn of 1879 and, addressed to “Excellence”, was clearly submitted to the Egyptian Minister of Public Works, who was then Ali Pasha Mubarak (1823/4-1893; serving in that office, August 1878 – September 1881, and again August 1882 to January 1884), who is today best known for being the first ethnic Arab Egyptian cabinet minister, as well as the founder of the country’s modern education system.

 

The report, with its 9 pages of text, is written in Gordon’s own hand, in French (the main business language of the Egyptian court) and is signed with his distinct signature on the final page.  Importantly, the report is illustrated, likewise in Gordon’s hand, by an additional full page sketch map showcasing the Wadi Halfa-Khartoum corridor with his railway/transportation proposals (Gordon, a great cartophile, not infrequently accompanied his technical letters with his own original maps).

 

Gordon starts out by recalling that, in 1874, Egypt and Sudan agreed to build a “grand scale railway” at a “grand expense” from Wadi Halfa to Khartoum, but that this dream is no longer realistic.  At the time, only the 57 km-long stretch from Wadi Halfa to Seras is fully operational, with recent renovations ensuring that it was in good order.

 

Gordon notes that it would be ideal if the railway could be continued from Seras to Koké

and then on to Hannek (today an insignificant place, across the river from the famous archeological site of Tombos), at the Nile’s Third Cataract.  However, the financial situation ensured that it was “right now… impossible to contemplate”.  Yet, Gordon asserted that it was entirely realistic to extend the railway from Seras another 150 kms south to Amara, at the Second Cataract of the Nile, so avoiding the worst stretch of the river, that was impassible for steamships.

 

However, as a precondition for continuing the line to Amara, the Sudan Railway needed to be released from its contract, signed in 1874, for materials supplied by Appleby Brothers.  Gordon notes that the original contract committed the Sudan Railway to buy £E 599,898 worth of supplies between 1875 and December 1879.  However, the railway had yet only taken possession of £E 150,000 worth of materials, which would be more than adequate for continuing the railway to Amara.  Gordon reveals that contract appointed Sir John Fowler to serve as the arbitrator in the event of any disputes between the Sudanese government and Appleby (for which he had already been paid the handsome retainer of £E 7,558).  It also stated that should Sudan wish to terminate contract early, Fowler would arrange that it would only have to pay a penalty of between 10 to 20% on the cost of the materials already received (in this case, being between £E 15,000 and £E 30,000), such that Sudan would be off the hook for the remaining £E 450,000.  Gordon hereby calls upon Cairo to instruct Fowler to formally terminate the contract with Appleby as proscribed, but that upon this task being accomplished, Fowler was to be relieved of his role as arbitrator, so that Sudan would not have to pay him any more consulting fees.

 

Returning to the building of the Wadi Halfa-Khartoum transportation route, Gordon asserts that the Sudanese government is in rough final shape, albeit in a better position than it was previously.  It received £E 97,000 in general revenues during most recent fiscal year (1878), although it had an existing debt load of £E 327,000 (which Gordon believed could be gradually retired with sound fiscal management).

 

Gordon states that for the cost of £E 20,000 (a sum that the Sudanese treasury could certainly manage), the railway could be extended to Amara, employing the famously reliable Holden locomotives.

 

Gordon next requests that the Public Works Minister “look at the map” that accompanies the report.  It traces the extent of the Nile from Wadi Halfa (upper left) down to Khartoum (lower right).  It shows the 57 km of line from Wadi Halfa to Seras as having already been completed, while tracing the intended 150 km-long continuation of the line to Amara, bypassing the worst part of the Nile (which is covered by hachures), noting the cost of the continuation as being £E 20,000, using Holden engines.  It also showcases the route of the further extension of the railway to Hannek.  The cataracts of the Nile, at Amara, Kagbar, Hannek, Merowe and Abu Hamad are represented by lines crossing the river and are labelled, along with descriptive notes.  It is recorded that between the cataracts the “river is good” for navigation and, in some places, Gordon has even drawn the tiny figures of steamboats, which were meant to travel up the river, in sections, from Amara.

 

While not as commodious as a complete railway from Wadi Halfa the Khartoum, as envisaged by Fowler, Gordon’s plan was viable and well-conceived.  If realized, it would render travel in Sudan reasonably expeditious and safe, while forming the basis for extending the railway line should the financial situation improved.

 

While manuscript letters by Charles Gordon appear from time to time on the market, the present work is exceptional, due to its important and engaging content, while the map is a stellar highlight.

 

Provenance

 

The present manuscript was at some point obtained by the School of Oriental Studies, University of Durham (their handstamp adorns the versos of the manuscript’s mounts).  Durham was involved in archaeology projects in the first half of the 20^th century, while it maintained close ties to the colonial government in Sudan.  The university decided to auction the manuscript, which were sold at Sotheby’s London on December 7, 1976, Lot 402.  Likely via a London dealer, the manuscript was acquired by Esmond Bradley Martin (1941 – 2018), the foremost conservationist of African elephants and an expert on the ivory trade.  He was also an avid and skilled collector of books and manuscripts on Africa.  Martin bravely opposed Africa’s poachers, making him many enemies.  Tragically, he was found murdered in his residence in Nairobi, and while his death was officially classified to a ‘botched robbery’, many believe that it was a targeted assassination.

Epilogue

 

By December 1879, Gordon had finally had enough of the corrupt, bankrupt Egyptian regime and, seeing his mission as hopeless, resigned his governor-generalship, returning to Britain.  With his departure, his plan to revive the Wadi Halfa-Khartoum travel route died.

 

Not long thereafter, the Mahdist War (1881-98) broke out in Sudan, being a rebellion against Egyptian rule led by Muhammad Ahmad bin Abd Allah (1844-85), who proclaimed himself the ‘Mahdi’ (the ‘Guided One’) of Islam.  He led the ‘Mahdist’ Islamist moment which included hundreds of thousands of loyal followers.

 

In 1882, Britain assumed military control over Egypt, making the country a British Protectorate.  The British soon realized that they would have to assert control over Sudan, lest the Mahdist turmoil expanded into Egypt.  By this time, the Egyptian Army had lost control over most of Sudan, although they managed to hold Khartoum, while maintaining a tenuous lifeline to Egypt.

In 1883, the Anglo-Egyptians lost all access to the Wadi Halfa-Seras railway line, as the area became unsafe due to Mahdist raids.  Shortly thereafter, the Mahdists proceeded to severely damage the rail works.

Early in 1884, to save the Anglo-Egyptian cause in Sudan, the British dispatched Major General Charles Gordon to Khartoum, to once again, serve as the Governor-General of Sudan, but this time under a (hopefully more competent) Anglo-Egyptian regime.  He arrived in Khartoum on February 18, 1884, only to find that his authority barely extended beyond the gates of the city.  Ominously, his relatively small garrison soon found itself surrounded by the Mahdists, leading to the Siege of Khartoum (March 13, 1884 to January 26, 1885), one of the most widely followed events of the late 19^th century.

 

General Garnet Wolseley (1833 – 1913), one of the most the most legendary of all Victorian commanders, led the ‘Gordon Relief Expedition’ to save the Khartoum garrison.  The force made herculean efforts to race 2,000 km up the Nile from Alexandria.  However, Khartoum fell to the Mahdists on January 26, 1885, whereupon Gordon and almost all his 7,000 troops, as well as 4,000 civilians, were slaughtered, so marking one of the greatest military defeats in British history.  Yet, Gordon, popularly known as “Gordon of Khartoum”, was lionized as a martyr of the British Empire.  Wolseley’s main force arrived in Khartoum on January 28, 1885, having made remarkably expeditious progress – but not fast enough.

 

The Mahdist War would continue for another 13 years, resulting in many stunning defeats and victories for both sides.  By 1895, almost all Sudan had fallen into Mahdist hands.  However, a more hawkish government in Westminster resolved to retake the country and from 1896 to 1898 General Herbert Kitchener led a massive Anglo-Egyptian force that like a juggernaut mowed down the Mahdists, conquering Sudan.  Britain and Egypt then proceeded to rule Sudan in a de jure condominium for the next two generations.

 

As for the fate of railways in Sudan, during and in the immediate wake of the Mahdist War, the awesome rescores of Britain were applied to completing the line from Wahid Halfa to Khartoum.  The Wadi Halfa-Saras line was restored and extended to Kerma (near Hannek) in May 1887.  It was then extended to Abu Hamad in 1897, while finally reaching Khartoum on December 31, 1899.  For several decades the Sudan Railway served as the anchor the Anglo-Egyptian regime in Sudan and the lifeblood of the country’s economy.

 

References: N/A – Present Manuscript seemingly not recorded.  Cf. Alice MOORE-HARELL, Gordon and the Sudan: Prologue to the Mahdiyya 1877-1880 (2013), pp. 91, 115-119, 175; H.A. MORRICE, ‘The Development of Sudan Communications – Part I’, Sudan Notes and Records, vol. XXX, part I (1949), pp. 1-38, esp. pp. 11-3.