urgent news that reached Lord Wolseley after
its departure would have justified the despatch of a messenger to urge
it to press on at all costs to Metemmah. In such a manner would a
Havelock or Outram have acted, yet the garrison of the Lucknow
Residency was in no more desperate case than Gordon at Khartoum.

It does not need to be a professor of a military academy to declare
that, unless something is risked in war, and especially wars such as
England has had to wage against superior numbers in the East, there
will never be any successful rescues of distressed garrisons. Lord
Wolseley would risk nothing in the advance from Korti to Metemmah,
whence his advance guard did not reach the latter place till the 20th,
instead of the 7th of January. His lieutenant and representative, Sir
Charles Wilson, would not risk anything on the 21st January, whence
none of the steamers appeared at Khartoum until late on the 27th, when
all was over. Each of these statements cannot be impeached, and if so,
the conclusion seems inevitable that in the first and highest degree
Lord Wolseley was alone responsible for the failure to reach Khartoum
in time, and that in a very minor degree Sir Charles Wilson might be
considered blameworthy for not having sent off one of the steamers
with a small reinforcement to Khartoum on the 21st January, before
even he allowed Cassim el Mousse to take any part in the attack on
Metemmah. He could not have done this himself, but he would have had
no difficulty in finding a substitute. When, however, there were
others far more blameworthy, it seems almost unjust to a gallant
officer to say that by a desperate effort he might at the very last
moment have snatched the chestnuts out of the fire, and converted the
most ignominious failure in the military annals of this country into a
creditable success.

* * * * *

The tragic end at Khartoum was not an inappropriate conclusion for the
career of Charles Gordon, whose life had been far removed from the
ordinary experiences of mankind. No man who ever lived was called upon
to deal with a greater number of difficult military and
administrative problems, and to find the solution for them with such
inadequate means and inferior troops and subordinates. In the Crimea
he showed as a very young man the spirit, discernment, energy, and
regard for detail which were his characteristics through life. Those
qualities enabled him to achieve in Chin