Lord Wolseley, and stating
that it is too fearful to consider that the fall of Khartoum might
have been, prevented and many precious lives saved by earlier
action. Mr. Gladstone does not presume to estimate the means of
judgment possessed by your Majesty, but so far as his information
and recollection at the moment go, he is not altogether able to
follow the conclusion which your Majesty has been pleased thus to
announce. Mr. Gladstone is under the impression that Lord
Wolseley's force might have been sufficiently advanced to save
Khartoum, had not a large portion of it been detached by a
circuitous route along the river, upon the express application of
General Gordon, to occupy Berber on the way to the final
destination. He speaks, however, with submission on a point of
this kind. There is indeed in some quarters a belief that the
river route ought to have been chosen at an earlier period, and
had the navigation of the Nile in its upper region been as well
known as that of the Thames, this might have been a just ground of
reproach. But when, on the first symptoms that the position of
General Gordon in Khartoum was not secure, your Majesty's advisers
at once sought from the most competent persons the best
information they could obtain respecting the Nile route, the
balance of testimony and authority was decidedly against it, and
the idea of the Suakin and Berber route, with all its formidable
difficulties, was entertained in preference; nor was it until a
much later period that the weight of opinion and information
warranted the definitive choice of the Nile route. Your Majesty's
ministers were well aware that climate and distance were far more
formidable than the sword of the enemy, and they deemed it right,
while providing adequate military means, never to lose from view
what might have proved to be the destruction of the gallant army
in the Soudan. It is probable that abundant wrath and indignation
will on this occasion be poured out upon them. Nor will they
complain if so it should be; but a partial consolation may be
found on reflecting that neither aggressive policy, nor military
disaster, nor any gross error in the application of means to ends,
has marked this series of difficult proceedings, which, indeed,
have greatly redounded to the honour of your Majesty's forces of