Gordon: Victorian Hero (review)

Potomac's Military Profiles series seeks to provide a 'concise blend of analysis and well-crafted writing', with its books providing 'a starting point for those who wish to pursue a more advanced study of the subject'. In fulfilling these restricted parameters, Faught's biography of Major-General Charles "Chinese" Gordon is likely to have only limited appeal. It is a well-written book by a Canadian scholar who has undertaken archival research in the voluminous Gordon correspondence held by the British Library. Having also read the principal biographies of this Victorian hero, he alludes to the various controversies about Gordon in both the text and the brief bibliographical essay. He gives short shrift to critics of Gordon, whether missionaries criticising the treatment of Taiping prisoners after the victory at Taitsan or the uncorroborated smears of Gordon by Chaille-Long during the Equatorial campaign or biographers alleging 'subconscious' homosexuality in Gordon's support of boys' schools, robustly dismissed as 'groundless speculation' by a generation 'introduced to Gordon by the loose musings of Lytton Strachey' (p. 40). Although he also accepts the claim of Gordon that he had authority in his final, fatal campaign to 'evacuate the Sudan', Faught admits that Gordon was over sanguine about his prospects, underestimated the religious impulse and fervour of the Mahdist revolt and was unwise in the phrasing of his telegrams from Khartoum.

The book provides excellent contextualisation in respect of the historical events in which Gordon was involved: the Crimean War in which he honed his skills as an engineer; imperial China, where he commanded the Ever Victorious Army; and Egypt and the Sudan, where he explored the upper reaches of the Nile, broke the slave trade in the southern provinces and later conducted his ill-fated mission to Khartoum. Where the biography is less convincing is in depicting how Victorians idealised Gordon as hero both during his life and after his death. More could have been said, had space permitted, about the mid-century revival of the concept of the Christian soldier, coupled as it was with the cult of chivalry, notions of manliness, the widely revered virtues of patriotism, duty and honour, and the perceived value of war as the ultimate test of character. As a 'soldier of fortune', often depicted serving (and dying) alone, Gordon embodied these notions more fully than any other Victorian general, and, as Douglas Johnson has argued, many of these notions crystallised in the mythologizing of Gordon after his death. Unfortunately this dimension is not really addressed in a book that concentrates on Gordon's life itself.

Nevertheless, Faught has demonstrated rare gifts of concise and perceptive commentary within a nicely illustrated work. Unfortunately, the maps are both sparse and indistinct. Given the extent and diversity of Gordon's military services, the provision of more and better maps would have helped the reader, particularly in following Gordon's remarkable travels in southern Sudan.