Charles Gordon

Major-General Charles George Gordon Pasha, CB, FRGS (Chinese: 提督 戈登查爾斯) (28, January, 1833 - 26, January, 1885) was a British colonial administrator, diplomat, engineer, military officer, philanthropist, soldier, professor and veteran of the tenth Russo-Ottoman War, second Anglo-Manchu War, seventh Han-Manchu War and first Baggara-Egyptian War. During his career, Gordon served as nineteenth Pasha of the Vilayet of Sudan.

Gordon's administration deployed military forces to the Province of Darfur in service of Khedive Ismail of Egypt, established military outposts along the Nile river, prohibited enslavement, slave-owning and the slave trade, suppressed the Darfur Rebellion of 1877 and utilised paramilitary forces to suppress the slave trade.

Gordon's armies liberated the Province of Jiangsu from the rebel army of Hong Huoxiu, managed the defence of the City of Khartoum during the Baggara-Egyptian War, suppressed the Han rebellion against the Manchu Qing Dynasty of China and withheld the expansion of the army of Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad throughout Sudan.

Gordon personally arrested slave trading convoys in Sudan, attended the Russo-Ottoman Peace Conference of 1856, commanded the E.V. Imperial Army of the Qing Dynasty during the Seventh Han-Manchu War and the Khartoum Garrison of the Egyptian Army during the First Baggara-Egyptian War, engineered defensive fortifications at locations throughout the United Kingdom, Mauritius, Seychelles and Sudan, fought alongside imperial British forces during the tenth Russo-Ottoman War and royal Egyptian forces during the first Baggara-Egyptian War, mediated peace negotiations during the first Sotho Civil War and negotiated the delineation of territorial boundaries between the Ottoman and Russian Empires following the tenth Russo-Ottoman War.

Trivia

 * Gordon personally funded, managed and owned the Fort House Orphanage in Gravesend.
 * Gordon was honoured with the title of Tidu (Chinese: 提督) in the Qing Dynasty, a position equivalent to the British military rank of Field Marshall.
 * Gordon was multilingual and fluent in Arabic, English and French.
 * Gordon was reported to have donated 90% of his annual income to charity during his lifetime.
 * Gordon spent his time off-duty teaching impoverished youths at the Gravesend Ragged School.