Major-General Charles George Gordon, CB (28 January 1833 – 26 January 1885), also known as Chinese Gordon, Gordon Pasha, and Gordon of Khartoum, is a British army officer and administrator.
He sees action in the Crimean War as an officer in the British army, but he makes his military reputation in China, where he is placed in command of the "Ever Victorious Army", a force of Chinese soldiers led by European officers.
In the early 1860s, Gordon and his men are instrumental in putting down the Taiping Rebellion, regularly defeating much larger forces.
For these accomplishments, he is given the nickname "Chinese" Gordon and honors from both the Emperor of China and the British.
He enters the service of the Khedive in 1873 (with British government approval) and later becomes the Governor-General of the Sudan, where he does much to suppress revolts and the slave trade.
Exhausted, he resigns and returns to Europe in 1880.
Then a serious revolt breaks out in the Sudan, led by a Muslim reformer and self-proclaimed Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad.
Gordon is sent to Khartoum with instructions to secure the evacuation of loyal soldiers and civilians, and depart with them.
After evacuating about 2,500 British civilians he retains a smaller group of soldiers and non-military men.
As an ardent Christian evangelist, he is determined to stand up to the Mahdi, his Muslim nemesis.
In the buildup to battle, the two leaders correspond, attempting to convert the other to their respective faiths, but neither will comply.
Besieged by the Mahdi's forces, Gordon organizes a citywide defense lasting almost a year that gains him the admiration of the British public, though not the government, which had not wished to become involved (as Gordon had known before setting out).
Only when public pressure to act has become too great is a relief force reluctantly sent.
It arrives two days after the city had fallen and Gordon had been beheaded.
