That may be so; yet there are indications that a more
definite influence was at work. There was a section of the
Government which had never become quite reconciled to the policy
of withdrawing from the Sudan. To this section--we may call it
the imperialist section--which was led, inside the Cabinet, by
Lord Hartington, and outside by Lord Wolseley, the policy which
really commended itself was the very policy which had been
outlined by General Gordon in his interview with Mr. Stead and
his
letter to Sir Samuel Baker. They saw that it might be necessary
to abandon some of the outlying parts of the Sudan to the Mahdi;
but the prospect of leaving the whole province in his hands was
highly distasteful to them; above all, they dreaded the loss of
Khartoum. Now, supposing that General Gordon, in response to a
popular agitation in the Press, were sent to Khartoum, what would
follow? Was it not at least possible that, once there, with his
views and his character, he would, for some reason or other,
refrain from carrying out a policy of pacific retreat? Was it not
possible that in that case he might so involve the English
Government that it would find itself obliged, almost
imperceptibly perhaps, to substitute for its policy of withdrawal
a policy of advance? Was it not possible that General Gordon
might get into difficulties, that he might be surrounded and cut
off from Egypt'? If that were to happen, how could the English
Government avoid the necessity of sending an expedition to rescue
him? And, if an English expedition went to the Sudan, was it
conceivable that it would leave the Mahdi as it found him? In
short, would not the dispatch of General Gordon to Khartoum
involve, almost inevitably, the conquest of the Sudan by British
troops, followed by a British occupation? And, behind all these
questions, a still larger question loomed.
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