Excerpt from Gordon at Khartoum: Being a Personal Narrative of Events, in Continuation of a Secret History of the English Occupation of Egypt On one point only have I thought it necessary to reconsider at any length my attitude of the 'time. This is in respect of the blame laid by me on Gordon for the failure of his mission on lines of peace. As will be seen from my diary I was one of the few Englishmen who, with a strong feeling of esteem and affection for Gordon, disapproved from the first of his mission, suspecting what was indeed the fact, that there was in it a political intrigue connected with the continued occupation of Egypt, and I Was one of the very few who rejoicedat the failure of the relief expedition and the fall of Khartoum. My belief, however, at the time, that Gordon was himself through his soldier's obstinacy mainly responsible for thefailure, and that he did, as was being pretended by Ministers, exceed his instructions, wantonly changing the character of his mission from a peaceful one to one of war, was unjust, and I recognize the necessity of correcting my misjudgement. The publication of Lord Cromer's book four years ago, with' its ex aggerated attack on Gordon on these very heads, roused my suspicion and caused me to re-examine the evidence connected with the whole matter, and I speedily discovered that, though Gordon made with out doubt many mistakes in its discharge, the prime responsibility of the mission as one necessarily of war was certainly not his, but that of those who sent him; also, on further examination, that m spite of Lord Cromer' s denial the failure of the mission was principally due to no other than Lord Cromer' 5 self. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.