The Life of Gordon, Volume I

He left Constantinople on 1st May 1857 on board a Turkish steamer, Kars, bound for Trebizonde. The ship was overcrowded with dirty passengers, and the voyage was disagreeable, and might have been dangerous if the weather had not proved exceptionally favourable. On arriving at Trebizonde horses had to be engaged for the ten days' journey across the 180 miles of difficult country separating that port from Erzeroum, the Armenian capital. The total caravan of the English and French Commissioners – the latter being Colonel Pelissier, a relative of the Marshal – numbered ninety-nine horses; and the Turkish Commissioner, being unable to obtain any money from his Government, seized the horses necessary for his journey in a manner that first opened Gordon's eyes to the ways of Pashas. He stopped on the road every caravan he met, threw off their goods, put on his own, and impounded the animals for his journey. After a brief stay at Erzeroum – which Gordon describes as a very pretty place at a distance, but horribly dirty when entered, and where there are eight or nine months of very hard winter – the Commission passed on to Kars, which became its headquarters. The heroic defence of that fortress was then recent, and it is still of sufficient interest as a military episode to justify the quotation of the evidence Gordon, with his characteristic desire to be well informed, collected on the spot while the events themselves were fresh. For convenience' sake, his remarks on Kars and the whole campaign are strung together here, although they appeared in several letters: —

"Kars is, as you can easily imagine, a ruined city, and may perhaps never recover its former strength and importance. As far as the works of defence are concerned, they are excessively badly traced. A little pamphlet published by Kmety, a Hungarian, gives a graphic description of the siege. One thing difficult if not impossible to realise without seeing it, is the large extent of the position. Kars has been twice in the hands of the Russians during the last thirty years, Paskievitch having taken it by assault in 1829. We passed the battlefield at Kuyukdere, where the Russians in very small force under Bebutoff were attacked by a very superior force of Turks, under the direction of General Guyon, the Hungarian. By some mistake the Turkish left lost its way during the night, and was eight miles distant from the field when the right came into action. The battle was very hotly contested, but the Turks had at last to retire with the loss of several guns. Had the affair gone off as Guyon¹ intended, the Russians would have been licked. This battle, I should add, was fought in August 1854, before any English officer had arrived in this country. The Russian loss was very severe: there were 3,200 wounded alone brought into Gumri for treatment. The first day from Gumri we passed Baiandoor, where the Turks and Russians had a small battle in 1853, and where the former lost a splendid opportunity of taking Gumri, which was nearly denuded of troops. My Turkish colleague, Osman Bey (I believe this officer to be identical with Ghazi Osman, the defender of Plevna), was present, and got into Gumri as a spy, disguised in the character of a servant. The Russian army avenged the slight check they received from the Turks by taking all their artillery of the right wing."

As illustrating his professional zeal and powers of scientific examination, the following description of the fortress of Alexandropol or Gumri is a striking production from so young an officer: —

"The fortress of Alexandropol (40° 47' N. lat., 43° long. 45' E., 4500 feet above the sea) is situated on the left bank of the river Arpatchai, which here forms the boundary between Russia and Turkey. It is distant thirty-five miles from Kars and eighty-four miles from Tiflis. The plain on which it is situated is perfectly level and very peculiar. It has a stratum of alluvial soil for the depth of one foot six inches on the surface, and then a substratum of fine uniform lava, ten to fifteen feet thick, supposed to have issued from Mount Alagos (13,450 feet), an extinct volcano thirty miles from Alexandropol. The depth of the earth allows the growth of grain, but entirely prevents that of trees, which with their roots cannot penetrate into the lava. The Russians have taken advantage of this bed of lava in the ditch of the fortress. The fortress is well constructed and in perfect repair. There are upwards of 200 guns (varying from 36-pounders to 12-pounders) mounted on the works, and about 100 in reserve, of which 30 are field-guns with their equipment wagons, etc. The garrison would be 5000 to 6000, including artillery. There are large supplies of ammunition and military stores. The ditch, twelve feet deep, of the two western fronts has not been excavated near the flanks on account of the expense. The Russians have constructed in the centres of the two curtains a caponnière with two guns in each flank to defend the dead angles caused by the non-excavation of the whole of the ditch. In the centre of these two fronts is a large caponnière, mounting ten guns in the upper tier and eight in the lower tier. This caponnière is on a lower level than the enceinte of the place. The counterscarp at the north-west and south-west angles of these two fronts is for the distance of twenty yards composed of a crenellated wall four feet six inches thick. This was caused by the irregularity of the ground. The bomb-proof barracks of the northern fronts mount in casemate two tiers of fourteen guns at the curtains. The flanks have five guns in casemates open to the rear, in addition to the guns on the parapet above. The lunette in the ditch is eight feet deep. The eastern front has an escarp fourteen feet high cut in the lava, and well flanked by the caponnière defending the entrances, mounting four guns. The bomb-proof barracks in the northern fronts have one tier of eight guns in casemate at the curtains, and three guns in each flank in casemates open to the rear. The two outworks are closed at the gorge with a loopholed wall, flanked by a small guard-house. They have no ditches, but an escarp of ten feet in the lava. The tower marked A in my plan is sixty yards in diameter, with a well in the centre. It has its gorge closed with a ditch and loopholed wall. It mounts fifteen guns on the top, and fifteen guns in casemate. It is proposed to connect it by a crenellated wall with the main work. The tower marked B has a ditch and small glacis. It mounts eight guns in casemate, and eight on the top. Its object is to flank the long ravine which runs southward from it. All the buildings in the interior of the fortress are bomb-proof. The great fault of the fortress as it is constructed at present is that it does not so much as see the town with its population of 9310. It is now proposed, however, to make a large work on the site marked K with a view of meeting this want. During the war in 1853, when the Turks were 35,000 strong at Baiandoor, six miles from Alexandropol, and the Russians had only two battalions in the fortress, the latter demolished all the houses which were on this ground. I think that should it ever be in our power to besiege this place (which is not likely, from the enormous difficulty of getting a siege train there), that batteries might be established on the hillocks between the fortress and the river, to breach the large caponnière and the tower A which, from the formation of the ground, would not be opposed by more fire than the direct fire of the works they were intended to breach, and which would be limited by their circular form to about seven guns. The soil is not unfavourable on these hills. The hill on which the cemetery of the officers killed at Kars and Kuyukdere is situated is also favourable for batteries. The principal well, which is sunk to a good depth, is in the north-eastern bastion."

General Gordon's letters contain two or three interesting descriptions that, in view of more recent events, deserve quotation. Of the Kurds he thus speaks, and the description stands good at the present day: —

"We met on our road a great number of Kurds, who live as their fathers did, by travelling about, robbing, etc., with their flocks. Their children are short of clothing. In spite of the Cossacks, etc., they are as lawless as ever, and go from Turkey to Russia and back again as they like. They are fine-looking people, armed to the teeth, but are decreasing in numbers. They never live in houses, but prefer tents and caves. On the mountains we fell in with the tribes of Kurds, who live at this height during the summer months, quite isolated from the rest of mankind. I paid a visit to the chief of a tribe of 2000, and he passed a great number of compliments on the English. This Bey is all powerful with his tribe; he settles all disputes, divides the pasture land among the families, etc. Although living in such a deserted spot, they read the Turkish papers, and they asked several questions about the English war with Persia. They are very fanatical, and are much encouraged in their religious fervour by the Sultan's agents. Their houses consist of stone walls covered with camel's-hair tents, which are quite waterproof, and lined inside with capital carpets made by themselves. We encamped near them and obtained our milk, etc., from them; but, in order to let us know their habits, they stole the horse of the Russian officer's interpreter during the night. I should not mind trusting them at all, for the Bey would not allow them to take our horses; perhaps this was only from his hatred to the Russians."

 

He gives some particulars of the Lazes, to one of whose villages he paid a visit, and as he believed that he was the only Englishman who had ever done so, his remarks were based on special local knowledge: —

"On one side of it was Lazistan, and this part of Lazistan is peopled by the fiercest tribe of Lazes, who scarcely acknowledge even the Sultan. We had an escort of forty infantry, and were not molested. This tribe and the Kabouletians supply the Constantinople Turks with slaves, whom they kidnap from the Gourelians, who are on the Russian side. The Adjars (the tribe referred to) are most daring, and even proposed to us to bring any person we might choose out to Batoum for £40 to £120. In consequence of these kidnappings, etc., a deadly enmity exists between the two peoples, and whenever they get a chance they kill one another. During the last eighteen months sixty-two people have been kidnapped, sixteen killed, and twenty or thirty wounded on the part of the Gourelians. The Russian guards of the frontier are helpless against these people, for the latter are armed with a capital rifle and are also splendid shots, while the Cossacks have only a trumpery smooth bore. The country of the Adjars is very mountainous indeed, and quite impracticable except on foot, being covered with dense forests."

Of Ani, the ancient, once famous, and now deserted capital of Armenia, he gives the following picture: —

"We passed through Ani, the ancient capital of Armenia. This city is completely deserted, and has splendid churches still standing in it. These churches are capitally built and preserved. Some coloured drawings on their walls are to be seen even now. The towers and walls are almost intact, but the most extraordinary thing about so large a place is the singular quietness. There are many ruined cities in the neighbourhood, and all dating from about the eleventh century. At that period Ani itself contained 100,000 inhabitants and 500 churches, which shows that more people went to church among them than with us. Before the end of that century it passed into the hands of the Greeks and Saracens. Afterwards the Mongols took it, and at last an earthquake drove out the remaining inhabitants in 1339, since which time it has been perfectly deserted. The churches of Ani were built with lava, and crosses of black lava were let in very curiously into the red lava. With the exception of the churches and the king's palace, the city is level with the ground, the foundations of the houses being alone discernible. These churches were covered with Armenian inscriptions cut on the walls."

The delimitation work in itself was uninteresting, being carried on in barren and solitary regions where there was nothing but rock, without either grass or inhabitants. Gordon said he would not take thirty square miles for a gift, and yet the Turks and Russians clung to it, bringing witnesses from among the tribes who would swear whatever they were paid for. The question at issue was where the old frontier between the Persian province of Erivan and the Pashalik of Baizeth was fixed. The Persians ceded the province of Erivan to Russia in 1828, and both the Turks and Russians had their own, and necessarily conflicting, views as to where the frontier was. General Gordon's own belief that there had never been any real frontier at all was no doubt the right one. The English officers, without any assistance from their Turkish colleagues, who merely looked on when they were not keeping up the supply of witnesses, had to effect the best arrangement they could with the Russians. In the course of his survey of the frontier, which he said he examined almost foot by foot, Gordon came to Mount Ararat, which he very nearly ascended, as he tells the reader in the following graphic narrative: —

"When we arrived at the foot of Mount Ararat we were unable to proceed along the frontier any further because the ground becomes extremely broken by the innumerable streams of lava which have run down from it. The ground is black with cinders. They look as if quite recently emitted, and no one would imagine from their appearance that Ararat had been extinct so long. Our road went along the northern or Russian slope of Ararat, and passed through a very old city called Kourgai, where there are still the remains of a church and part of an old castle. Even the Armenians do not pretend to know its history, but some of them say that Noah lived there. It is situated half-way up the mountain, and there is no living person within twelve miles of it. There used to be a populous village named Aralik, with 5000 inhabitants, a little above it, but in 1840 an earthquake shook Mount Ararat, and in four minutes an immense avalanche had buried this place so completely as to leave scarcely any vestige of its site. Not a single person escaped, which is not to be wondered at, considering the mass that fell. Stones of twenty or thirty tons were carried as far as fifteen to twenty miles into the plain. It has left a tremendous cleft in Ararat itself. Other villages were destroyed at the same time, but none so completely as this. The village immediately below Aralik was also destroyed, but the graveyard remained untouched, and the tombstones stand up intact in the midst of the ruins. The common people say that it was saved on account of a saint who was buried there. All these places have a very lonely look. Both the Kurds and the Armenians, if they can possibly help it, never pass near Mount Ararat, while they think it a great sin to ascend it.

"I must now tell you of my ascent, or rather my near ascent, of Great Ararat.

"I and my interpreter and three sappers went up to a Kurdish encampment where an old Kurd lived who assisted five of our countrymen to ascend about two years ago. The only assistance, however, that he appeared able to give us was to show us where these Englishmen had encamped the night before their ascent. We consequently pitched our tents there, and settled ourselves for the night. The night proved to be very stormy, with thunder and rain, which was a bad lookout for us. However, we started at 4 a. m. the next morning, and had some very hard work up to the line of perpetual snow. My interpreter and two of the sappers gave it up before this, but I and the other, Corporal Fisher, held on.

"The whole of this time there was a thick fog, which now and then cleared away, though only for brief moments, and enabled us to get a splendid view of the country spread out as a map beneath us, with cumuli clouds floating about. The snow which I mounted was at a very steep slope, and quite hard, nearly ice, on the surface. It was so steep that we could not sit down without holding on tightly to our poles. Corporal Fisher was about half a mile to my left, and had a better ascent as it was not quite so steep. About two o'clock I began to get very tired, not able to get up more than two yards without resting. This was caused by the rarefication of the air. The mist cleared just at this time for a minute, and I was enabled to see the summit about 1000 feet above me, but still a further very steep ascent. Little Ararat was also visible 3000 feet below me. It began to snow soon after this, and became intensely cold. The two together settled me, and I turned round, although very reluctantly, and sitting down, slid over in a very few minutes the distance which had taken me so many hours to clamber up. Corporal Fisher managed to get up to the top, and describes the crater to be very shallow, although the top is very large. The Kurd told me afterwards that the road I took was very difficult, and that the other English explorers went up a road which was comparatively easy. I believe, however, that if the weather had been more favourable I should have succeeded."

This was not his only mountaineering experience. Some weeks later he ascended Mount Alagos – that is, the Motley Mount, from its various colours. It is 13,480 feet above the sea, or about 3000 feet lower than Ararat.

"We started with some Kurdish guides to the mountain, and after a good deal of delay got to the place where the only path to the summit commences. Here we were obliged to dismount and take to our legs. After about two hours and a half we got to the summit, and were extremely glad of it, for although it is not to be compared to Mount Ararat, it is still rather difficult. Trusting to my Ararat experience, I thought of descending in the snow, and started. I was much astonished at finding the slope far steeper than I expected, and consequently went down like a shot, and reached the bottom one hour and a half before the others. A Russian doctor tried it after me, and in trying to change his direction was turned round, and went to the bottom sometimes head foremost. He was not a bit hurt. There was no danger, as we had only to keep ourselves straight. My trousers are the only sufferers! I was the first up. None of the Russians succeeded!"

With one more quotation, Gordon's description of Etchmiazin, the celebrated monastery where the Armenian Catholicos resides, the extracts from these early letters may be concluded: —

"We passed through the oldest of the Armenian churches and monasteries, a place called Etchmiazin. It professes to be 1500 years old, and certainly has the appearance of great antiquity; it was existing during the time of the ruined city of Ani, and is built in a similar style. The relics there are greatly esteemed. People make pilgrimages to this monastery from all parts. There is, firstly, an arm of St Gregory, which is enclosed in a gold case covered with precious stones; next the piece of the ark, which is necessarily of great antiquity; a piece of the cross and of the spear, and a finger-nail of St Peter complete the relics. All these are enveloped in gold cases, and richly ornamented with every sort of precious stones. The monastery owns ten villages and a great deal of land. The monks gave us a grand dinner, and their feeding certainly was not bad. The monks' council chamber was splendidly got up, all the ceiling being carved and gilded."

The concluding stages of the delimitation work were rapidly concluded, and before the end of September 1857 Colonel Simmons and his staff had returned to Constantinople. The illness of all the English officers except Gordon detained them some weeks in the Turkish capital, and he wrote home that his surveying duties had been superseded by those of sick nurse. But before the end of October he was back again in England, and met his father and the other members of his family after a still longer interval. While engaged on the frontier commission, his comrade in the trenches, Lieutenant William Christian Anderson, of his own Corps, had married one of his sisters, but, after a very short period of wedded happiness, he died suddenly. After his death a son was born who bore the same name, is now an officer in the Royal Artillery, and served on General Graham's staff at Souakim. Charles Gordon summed up his comrade's character in these words: —

"I am extremely distressed to hear of poor Willie Anderson's death, and every one who knew him will be so. He was a sterling good comrade and officer, greatly liked by both officers and men, and our Corps has sustained a great loss in him. I am so very sorry for poor dear – . It is such a sudden blow to her, and I am sure they must have been so happy together during their short married life."

Gordon, therefore, found a certain amount of gloom in the family circle during the Christmas of 1857, and as his desire to join the staff of the army was not immediately attainable, the orders he suddenly received in April 1858 to again proceed to the Caucasus, in consequence of a slight frontier dispute with Russia, were not altogether disagreeable to him as a return to that active work which he loved. For some reason, which was probably the wish to save a little money by economy in travelling, with the view of carrying out his generous plans towards others, he took his passage to Constantinople in a slow steamer from the Thames, touching at Havre. He described his fellow-passengers as not very select, but amusing, and the voyage as "a yachting excursion, time being apparently no object." He only remained ten days at Constantinople, and reached Redout Kaleh in the Caucasus on 3rd June, visiting Sebastopol on the way. He described it as still an utter ruin; "the grass had so overgrown the place where the camps stood that it was with difficulty I found my hut."

On 12th June Gordon joined his Russian colleague, Ogranovitch, at Ozurgeth; but the Turkish representative did not arrive for a month later, which interval Gordon employed in recording his impressions of Russian and Georgian society in the Caucasus: —

"I dined with the Governor-General, Prince Eristaw, who left the next day for Swaneti to overawe the subjects of the late Prince (he was shot at Kutais for stabbing Prince Gagarin, the predecessor of Prince Eristaw), who do not seem to have realised his death. The Prince takes two battalions of infantry and two guns nominally as an escort. There are some very pretty ladies at Kutais who dance their national dances capitally. They dance alone, and all the gentlemen beat time with their hands. I was surprised at seeing the ladies wear a sort of bracelet of black beads, to which they attached great value. I am sure they are nothing more than bog oak… I have since discovered they are cannel coal, not bog oak. The ladies are very pretty, but have not very cleanly habits in general; they prefer their nails tipped, and do not hesitate at taking a bone and gnawing it. They live in extremely dirty houses, or rather huts. They are generally all princesses, and the men all princes, who, however, do not hesitate to accept small donations. I am always in fear and trembling lest they should give me anything, as it is necessary to give in return. I, unfortunately, happened to notice a certain glass letterweight with the Queen on it, and observed that it was like Her Majesty. I was given it on the spot, and with deep regret had to part with my soda-water machine the next day. I admire nothing now, you may be sure. The servants of Prince Dimitri Gouriel have made a good thing out of my visit, for each time they bring anything – butter, fruit, etc. – orders are given that an equivalent be given them in money. My hands get quite sticky with shaking hands with so many princes, but I have hitherto borne up like a martyr under my trials. On being invited to the house of a prince, you would figure yourself invited to a palace; but it is not the case here, and you would find it out to your cost if you did not take something to eat in your pockets."

The work of this Commission proved exceedingly fatiguing – Gordon breaking in characteristically with the statement: "I do not complain when there is no occasion" – and consisted chiefly in replacing the pyramids carefully removed by the population during the twelve months since they were erected. The successful result of this Commission was entirely due to Gordon's energy and untiring labour. His Russian and Turkish colleagues were always quarrelling, and Gordon had to play the part of peacemaker – for which, he said, "I am naturally not well adapted" – an admission that may be commended to those who think that Gordon was a meek and colourless individual, with more affinity to a Methodist parson than the dauntless and resolute soldier he really was.

Early in October the whole delimitation was concluded, and without a hitch, much to Gordon's satisfaction. By 17th November he had reached Constantinople on his way home, but notwithstanding the special hardships of his work and his long absence from England, with one brief interval, he was still anxious for work and action. In the closing letter of his correspondence he said: "I do not feel at all inclined to settle in England and be employed in any sedentary way, and shall try and get employed here (Constantinople) if it is possible."

While these letters contain a very vivid account of the striking and remarkable events that occurred during the long military and diplomatic struggle with Russia, they are not less interesting or important for the many unconscious glimpses Gordon gives into his own character. In them may be found references to habits and things which show that the young officer was a sportsman, and by no means indifferent to creature comforts; and as the most careful search through all his later writings of every kind will bring no similar discovery, these acquire a special importance as showing that the original Gordon only differed from his comrades in being more earnest, more active, and more enthusiastic. I take at random such statements as "Our feeding is pretty good, but the drinking is not," "The Russians gave a spread [vulgar] on Saturday, noisily and badly got up. Their wine was simply execrable," and "How I wish I could get some partridge shooting! My bag up to the present (on the Danube) is 200 – not bad! eh?" Then again, on a more delicate subject, there are numerous references to ladies, and to his appreciation of beauty. In a chaffing passage in one of his letters, he wrote that one of his sisters "wants me to bring home a Russian wife, I think; but I am sure you would not admire the Russian ladies I have seen." Again, the ladies of the Caucasus are pronounced "very pretty," and "the Gourelians are beautiful – in fact, I never saw so many handsome women as the peasants among them." At this time Gordon was certainly not a misogynist, but I am assured that the rumours as to his having met with an early disappointment in love are quite baseless of truth. From a very early period of his life, certainly before the Crimea, Gordon had made up his mind not to marry, and was in the habit of going even further, and wishing himself dead. This sentiment led him to constantly refer to himself as "the dead man"; and some years later he wrote, "There is a Miss – here, the nicest girl I ever met; but don't be afraid, the dead do not marry." His own secret opinion seems to have been that marriage spoilt both men and women, and it will be at least admitted that if he had married he could never have lived the disinterested, heroic life which remains a marvel for the world.