Siege of Khartoum: Difference between revisions

 

His first decisions were to reduce the injustices caused by the Egyptian colonial administration: arbitrary imprisonments were cancelled, [[torture]] instruments were destroyed, and taxes were remitted. To enlist the support of the population, Gordon legalised slavery, despite the fact that he himself had abolished it a few years earlier. This decision was popular in Khartoum, where the economy still rested on the slave trade, but caused controversy in Britain.<ref>Strachey, p.58</ref>

Gordon was determined to "smash up the Mahdi". He requested that a regiment of Turkish soldiers be sent to Khartoum as Egypt was still nominally a province of the [[Ottoman Empire]]. When this was refused, Gordon asked for a unit of [[British India|Indian]] [[Muslim]] troops and later for 200 British soldiers to strengthen the defenses of Khartoum. All these proposals were rejected by the Gladstone cabinet, since Britain was still intent on evacuation and refused absolutely to be pressured into military intervention in Sudan.