By Kerry Rodgers, Bank Note Reporter January 20, 2010

Americans still recall the gallant defeat that was the Alamo. For the British it once was Khartoum. From my scant knowledge of history, and as a Kiwi from Down Under, I strongly suspect America has the best of the deal.

Khartoum is but one of many over-hyped heroic failures that so embellish Britain’s Imperial history. The important aspect for any notaphillist is the series of emergency notes issued by the commanding officer, Gen. Gordon, in the course of a protracted siege that ran from March 13, 1884 to Jan. 26, 1885.

Gordon needed these notes to pay his few thousand Egyptian and Sudanese troops who had retreated within the city as it came under siege from a 50,000-strong Sudanese army led by the Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad.

Toward the end of 2009 and in January 2010 two collections of these notes went up for sale. In Sydney, in November last, Noble Numismatics offered 51 examples spanning most of the piastre denominations. In January Ponterio auctioned nine, all in top grade.

Together these notes recall one of those chapters in history of human conflict that need never have happened. Indeed it would not have taken place but for Gordon’s pigheadedness and his blatant disregard of orders. It was the culmination of events set in train earlier in the decade.



Gordon knows best

In the early 1880s Egypt was nominally part of the Ottoman Empire but was in effect a de facto British protectorate. The Egyptians laid claim to the Sudan. London regarded that country’s administration a domestic matter and was happy to leave it to the Egyptians who did so with ineffective brutality. In 1881 the southern Sudanese revolted, led by the inspirational Mohammed Ahmad who declared himself Mahdi, the reincarnation of The Prophet.

In November 1883 the Egyptian army suffered two bloody defeats by the Mahdi’s forces. The aftermath saw great chunks of Sudan, including Darfur, occupied by the revolutionaries.

The British government was less than happy at this turn of events, but neither Prime Minister Gladstone nor War Secretary Hartington wished to become involved. Orders went out for all Egyptian garrisons to vacate the Sudan and Maj. Gen. Gordon, then gainfully unemployed, was appointed to oversee this task.

Gordon had been governor of the Sudan for Egypt in 1876. He held views diametrically opposed to Gladstone. He believed the Mahdi had to be stopped in his tracks and not allowed to take control of Sudan which he could use as a base to strike at Egypt. Given the repeated failures of the Egyptian army, Gordon wanted a direct British attack. He argued his case for such a venture in the columns of The Times.

Although Gordon had agreed to undertake the evacuation, as soon as he reached Khartoum on Feb. 18, 1884 he set about administering the place as if he had never left. He made no effort to withdraw the garrisons. He sought to get the population on-side by canceling arbitrary imprisonments, putting an end to torture and remitting taxes. He even legalized slavery which still played an important role in the local economy. His actions did not go down well in the Mother Country nor did his enlisting the support of a despised ex-slaver, Zubayr Pasha. It is clear Gordon’s strategy was to manipulate Gladstone into smashing the Mahdi once and for all.



Under siege

Gordon’s numerous requests for additional troops were rejected both in Egypt and Britain. Acrimonious telegrams bounced back and forth between Khartoum, Cairo and London while the Mahdi’s forces closed in. A complete evacuation was soon impossible and it became clear that Gordon had no intention of even a partial pull out.

Instead Gordon ordered lock down of the city and set about strengthening its fortifications. He seeded the open desert to the south with makeshift mines and laced it with trenches and wire entanglements. To north lay the Blue Nile and to the west the White Nile. These he defended with a flotilla of gunboats cobbled together from nine small paddle-steamers. But then in April tribes north of Khartoum rose in support of the Mahdi. They cut Egyptian traffic on the Nile and the telegraph to Cairo.

The siege started badly. On March 16 an abortive sortie from Khartoum saw 200 Egyptian troops die. As the besieging forces grew to more than 30,000 supplies within the city dwindled. Gordon estimated the combined garrison and the civilian population of some 34,000 had sufficient food for no more than five or six months.

A second sortie on Sept. 16 was also routed, this time with the death of more than 800 garrison troops. The Mahdi now moved up the bulk of his army effectively doubling the number at his disposal.

Back in Britain the press had become overexcited at Gordon’s plight. Queen Victoria intervened and the government ordered his return. Gordon refused, saying he was honor bound to defend the city. In July 1884 Gladstone reluctantly agreed to send a relief force. However, this took half a year to organize by which stage Gordon’s plight had become desperate.

A battle between this relief column and Mahdists on Jan. 17, 1885 led the Mahdi to launch an all-out attack on Khartoum. On the night of Jan. 25, 50,000 of his troops rushed the town when the low level of the Nile allowed them to cross on foot.

With the garrison physically weakened by starvation only patchy resistance was possible. Within a few hours all the defenders were slaughtered, along with 4,000 of the town’s inhabitants. Others were taken into slavery.



Islamic state

Accounts differ as to how Gordon was killed. A popular but perhaps jingoistic view has him arrayed in full dress uniform meeting the Mahdi’s troops as they broke into the governor’s palace. After disdaining to fight he was speared to death—in defiance of the Mahdi’s orders. What appears certain is that his head was cut off, stuck on a pike, and brought to the Mahdi as a trophy.

Advance elements of the relief expedition arrived within sight of Khartoum two days later. Seeing that the city had fallen they withdrew along with all surviving British and Egyptian troops in the Sudan, except those in Suakin on the Red Sea. Muhammad Ahmad now controlled the country which he established as religious state, the Mahdiyah, ruled by Sharia law.

More than 90,000 siege notes had been printed by Gordon. The denominations ranged from five to 5,000 piastres, PS 102-110. With the fall of Khartoum, the Mahdi decreed possession of any a capital offense. Some were smuggled out to Egypt where they lay stashed in the vaults of Caisse de la Dette for 30 odd years. They were subsequently sold to raise money for a fund to memorialize Gordon. Some were possibly destroyed during World War II and no exact census of the remaining notes has been made.

The Mahdi survived Gordon by only six months. He died in June 1885 of typhus but the state he founded continued until the Kitchener reconquered the country in 1899.



Recent sales

And for those with a hankering to perhaps add some Khartoum siege notes to their collection, the prices realized at Noble Numismatics’ November auction were quite manageable. The notes on offer varied not only with condition but also as to whether Gordon’s signature appeared in manuscript or as a hectograph (gelatin transfer print). Most were stamped on their back.

The rarest of those on offer was the five piastres (P-S102). In VF it took $1,001. The 10 piastres (P103) made $325 in F with the manuscript signature and $216 in about VF with a hectograph.

Top price for 20 piastres (P-S104) were $216 in VF for either signature type, for the 100 piastres (P-S105) $541 in about EF (manuscript) and $270 in good VF (hectograph), and for the 500 piastres (P-S106) $866 in EF (manuscript) and $277 in good VF (hectograph).

The sole manuscript 1,000 piastres (P-S107a) took $216 in F and the best hectograph example (P-S107b) $402 in EF. In the 2,000 piastres (P-S108) a manuscript made $272 in about F while the hectograph equivalent in VF fetched $325.

The top 2500 piastres in EF realized $303 and the nicest 5,000 piastres $325 also in EF.

Ponterio’s offerings ranged from EF to UNC and prices were commensurate with these grades. The five piastres (P-S102b) and 10 piastres (P-S103b) both in UNC made $1,265, two 100 piastres (EF, P-S105a) $403, (UNC, P-S105b) $575, two 500 piastres both P-S106b $431 and $305, 1,000 piastres (UNC, P-S107a) $1,265, 2,500 piastres (UNC, P-S109) $253, and 5,000 piastres (UNC, P-S110) $230.



Full details of the notes offered and the prices realized can be found at www.noble.com.au and www.bowersandmerena.com.



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