A Prisoner of the Khaleefa/Appendix 4
Appendix IV
IBRAHIM PASHA FAUZI-GORDON'S FAVOURITE OFFICER
When Gordon arrived in Khartoum, in 1874, Ibrahim Pasha Fauzi was then a second-lieutenant. Gordon had applied to the then Governor-General of the Soudan, Ismail Pasha Ayoub, for four companies of soldiers to accompany him to the Equatorial Provinces. Ayoub was not at all pleased at Gordon's mission, as he took it as a slight upon his administration, so that when Gordon's application for troops was received, Ayoub selected for the purpose his most worthless men, with the double object of getting rid of them, and making Gordon's mission a failure. Fauzi, anxious to see some service, had volunteered to accompany Gordon, and, for doing so, Ayoub placed him under arrest. Gordon, hearing of the matter, sent to Ayoub demanding that the officer who had volunteered his services should be sent to him immediately. Fauzi was sent to Gordon's head-quarters, when Gordon first asked him, "Are you the officer who volunteered your services?" following up the question, when Fauzi in reply said, "Yes, sir," the only two words he then knew of English, by asking why he had done so. On learning that Fauzi wished to see service, he promised that his wish should be gratified. "But," added Gordon, "I wish you to answer me as an officer — why did the Governor place you under arrest?" Fauzi gave the reason — Ayoub was afraid that
Gordon would discover, before departure, that he had been sent the worst troops. Sending back the four companies, he requisitioned four companies indicated by Fauzi, and, Fauzi being too young for a command, he appointed him commandant of his body-guard, and a sort of adjutant-major to the little force.
Fauzi accompanied Gordon to the Albert Nyanza, returned with him to Khartoum, was gazetted major in consideration of his services, and appointed Mudir (Governor) of Bohr, but given two months' leave of absence before taking up his post. Gordon left for England, and Fauzi came to Cairo for his leave, on the expiration of which he set out for the Soudan, but, on reaching Berber, he found a telegram awaiting him from Gordon telling him not to go further than Khartoum, as he (Gordon) was returning as Governor-General. When Gordon reached Khartoum, it was to hear that Darfur was in revolt, and that the Bahr-el-Ghazal province was joining the rebels. A council of war was held, when Gordon asked the officers present to select one of themselves to head an expedition to the Bahr-el-Ghazal province, while he took another into Darfur; he had expected all of them to volunteer for the command, but they believed that such an expedition had more the elements of defeat and death in it than of glory and distinction. Told that they must name an officer, they named Fauzi, who was not present, and Gordon at once accepted him, sending him off with 4000 troops and the clerks for the civil administration. Fauzi succeeded in setting the province to rights without fighting, and while travelling about setting the administration right in the districts, he often met, and assisted with food and money, a holy man then living as a sort of hermit at Abba and the neighbourhood. The man's name was Mohammed Ahmed — whom the world was to hear of six years later as the Mahdi.
Breaking down in health, Gordon ordered Fauzi to Khartoum, for rest, promoted him to the rank of full colonel, and named him Governor of Equatoria, in which province he spent about a year carrying out Gordon's instructions to the letter, and making a host of enemies amongst the officials whose peculations and interest in the slave-trade he put a stop to. He accompanied Gordon to Cairo in 1879, and when Gordon decided upon resigning, he asked Fauzi whether he would prefer to remain in Cairo or return to the Soudan. Fauzi saw that, without Gordon to back him up, his tenure of office would be but of short duration, unless he engaged himself in the maladministration of the provinces; he elected to remain in Cairo, where, at Gordon's request, he was gazetted Colonel commanding the 1st Regiment of the 3rd Brigade. Gordon made it a point to be present at Fauzi's first parade, congratulated him on the handling of his men, and bidding him farewell, gave him three hundred pounds as a souvenir of their days together in the Soudan. At the outbreak of the Arabist rebellion, Fauzi's regiment, with others under the command of Kourschid Pasha, was ordered to Rosetta, and after the defeat of Arabi, at Tel-el-Kebir, he was, with other colonels, ordered to surrender to Sir Evelyn Wood at Kafr Dawar. Sent to Alexandria, he was tried, degraded, and then dismissed in disgrace.
Some days before the arrival of Gordon, in 1884, H. E. Nubar Pasha and Sir Evelyn Wood sent for Fauzi, and told him to be in readiness to proceed to the Soudan, as Gordon had asked for his services. When Fauzi said that he had been dismissed, and was no longer on the army-list, Nubar Pasha replied, "General Gordon will see to the matter." It had not been Gordon's intention to call at Cairo, and Fauzi was to have gone to Suez or viâ the Nile, as Gordon might decide. However, Gordon was stopped at Port Said, and asked to come through Cairo; Fauzi went to the station to meet him, and Gordon, on alighting, went up to his old Soudan lieutenant, and asked how it was that he was not in uniform, Fauzi detailed his dismissal, upon which Gordon turned to Sir Evelyn Wood, and asked him how it was. It appears that when Gordon saw Fauzi's name amongst the names of the colonels to be tried, he wired, or wrote — or both — to Sir Evelyn Wood, asking him to look after Colonel Ibrahim Fauzi. General Wood did do so, but there was another Colonel Ibrahim Fauzi; and while Gordon's Fauzi was dismissed in disgrace, the other Fauzi retired in glory and with a pension.
Gordon had some difficulty in seeing Fauzi reinstated, for his enemies were powerful; but, not to be thwarted, he took Fauzi direct to His Highness the Khedive, and carried his point. Two days later, Fauzi took his seat in the carriage with Gordon and Stewart, and left Bulac Dacroor station on that journey from which he only was to return alive, and that fourteen years later.
On the way to Khartoum, Gordon named Stewart sub-Governor-General of the Soudan, and Fauzi Director of Military and Marine, and, in communicating these appointments to Cairo, he wrote of Fauzi, "I especially recognize in Fauzi Bey the desired activity which he has displayed with me while previously in the Soudan; he has already given proof of his abilities, and I am more than ever satisfied with him."
Soon after his arrival at Khartoum, Fauzi was entrusted with the clearing out of the rebels from Khor Shambat and Halfeyeh, and the restoring of the telegraphic communications which they had cut. Fauzi won his dual victory, and restored the line, but, in leading his men, he was hit in the right leg with a bullet fired from an elephant-gun, which split and shattered the bone. Owing to want of skill on the part of the Greek doctor, the broken bone was allowed to overlap, and a suppurating wound set in from the un-extracted fragments, which kept Fauzi confined to his official residence for about six months, although he was able to transact the executive part of his duties. On the departure of Stewart, Gordon named Fauzi Governor of Khartoum and Commandant of Troops, calling a special parade for the occasion. Fauzi Pasha must be left to relate, at some future date, the incidents of the siege of Khartoum; I pass on to January 25, 1885.
About three o'clock in the afternoon, Gordon called Fauzi to the roof of the palace, to see the activity taking place i the dervish camp. He had a large tripod telescope fixed on the roof immediately over his room.[1]
About 3.30, Fauzi, riding a donkey, accompanied Gordon on what proved to be his last visit to the lines. Most of the troops were lying down exhausted and hungry; as they saw Gordon approach, they wished to present arms, but he kept calling out to them, "Rest, rest; but keep your eyes open." At sunset they regained the palace, and walked up and down for some time discussing the situation. As the dinner-hour approached, Gordon told Fauzi that he was sorry he could not invite him to dinner, as he had nothing to eat. Fauzi said he had, for himself and guards, the hearts of four date trees, and would send one to the palace, upon which Gordon ran in and brought out his dinner — also the heart of a date tree. This was the last Fauzi was to see of Gordon.
At midnight, Fauzi Pasha, as usual, went his rounds of the posts in the town, reaching his guards at about 2 a.m. While ceiving orders in the courtyard of his official residence, a sound as of shouts in the distance was heard. This was towards dawn. Fauzi went to the roof, and, through his binoculars, could faintly make out hand-to-hand fighting going on in the lines. Hurrying down, he drew up his men, and set off for the palace, being joined by ten Greeks who had been on duty. On coming in sight of the palace, they were met by two bands of dervishes, but succeeded in cutting their way through one, only to be met by a troop of dervish horse. The little party was forced back, fighting every step, and when close to his house all rushed inside, closed the doors, and commenced to fight through the windows, but for every shot they fired, a score came back in reply. The little garrison assembled in the courtyard for a last stand as the dervishes were then beating down the doors. Fortunately, the sight of other dervishes rushing past with loot drew the besiegers off on a similar errand, and the party was able to hold its own against successive parties until the Mahdi sent word to stop the massacre. When Fauzi was taken before the Mahdi, he was asked, "Why is it that you, a good Muslim, have never written to me when every one else has done so, expressing their loyalty? Have you forgotten the days at Abba, and the instruction I gave you? If you have, I have not;" and, kissing him, the Mahdi told him to "go in peace." The Mahdi was very wroth at the death of Gordon, for he really admired and respected him, and he had given strict orders that he was not to be harmed in any way.
As, during his captivity, Fauzi used to receive moneys from Cairo, he had, to explain his being able to live, to engage in some occupation, and took to lime-burning, a business which cost him more than he ever got out of it. As an Egyptian, he was under the surveillance of Youssef Mansour, who, after the escape of Slatin, refused to be responsible for Fauzi any longer. Failing to get him executed for having assisted in Slatin's escape, he succeeded in getting him committed to the Saier, where he remained as a prisoner for four years, until released by the Sirdar.
- ↑ It has been repeatedly stated that Gordon had a gun on the roof of the palace, with which he used to shell the dervish camp. In one account of the fall of Khartoum, it is averred that Gordon, in his sleeping-suit, served this gun for an hour until it was rendered useless, as it could not be depressed sufficiently to bear upon the dervishes surrounding the palace. There never was a gun on the roof of the palace, for the roof would not have supported its dead weight, much less the shock of its recoil.