CHARLES GORDON
His letter containing an account of
his visit to Ani in the year 1857


Charles George Gordon was born in Woolwich, England, in 1833. He was the son of a Royal Artillery officer and was one of 11 children, 5 girls and 6 boys. In 1848 Gordon entered the Royal Military Academy in Woolwich, graduating in 1852 as a second lieutenant in the Corp of Royal Engineers. In 1854, during the Crimean war, Gordon was posted to the Crimea where he had a front line job mapping the Russian trenches. After the war, and the 1856 Treaty of Paris, Gordon's ability as a surveyor gained him the post of a Boundary Commissioner for the new frontier to be drawn between Russia and the Romanian principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia. After this, and a short stay in Constantinople, he was posted to serve on the Boundary Commission deciding on the Russo-Turkish frontier in Armenia.

He left Constantinople on 1st May 1857 on the Turkish steamer "Kars" bound for Trebizond. Then he made a difficult journey, lasting 10 days, to reach Erzurum, staying there briefly. He and the Commission's Russian and Turkish members then traveled on to Kars. The next six months were spent surveying and marking the new border. He visited Ani at the end of June: he wrote that he made drawings of the ruins, (do they still survive?), and in a letter from 1858 he also mentions taking photographs of Kars.

He spent the winter of 1857-1858 back in England, during which he was elected to the Royal Geographical Society. He returned to Armenia in March 1858, finding that most of the cairns erected to mark out the border had been destroyed by the local inhabitants: for them the whole point of the border was that it should be inaccurately marked to guarantee work for both smugglers and customs officers! By this time he had realised the pointlessness of the project, the Russians admitting they planned to take back everything they had lost. He returned to England in December 1858.

This letter is taken from the book "General Gordon's Letters from the Crimea, etc.", edited by D. C. Boulger, London, 1884, pages 156 to 160.


Hadji Birami, July 2, 1857

I have been here three days, having finished my examination of the frontier for sixty versts in five days in extremely hot weather. The first day from Gumri we passed Baiandoor, where the Turks and Russians had a small battle in 1853, and where the former lost a splendid opportunity of taking Gumri, which was nearly denuded of troops. My Turkish colleague, who is delegated to verify the frontier with me, was present, and got into Gumri as a spy disguised in the character of a servant. The Russian army avenged the slight check they received from the Turks by taking all their artillery of the right wing soon after, and with this affair the campaign of 1853 ended.

At the place from which I am writing there are seltzer water springs, which I took care not to drink. My Russian colleague is a very good fellow as far as I can make out, not being able to speak to him. The third day of our tour we passed through Ani the ancient capital of Armenia. This city is completely deserted, and has splendid churches still standing in it. These churches are capitally built and preserved. Some coloured drawings on their walls are to be seen even now. I have obtained some views for you from this interesting place. The towers and walls are almost intact; but the most extraordinary thing about so large a place is the singular quietness. The country around is perfectly barren, very mountainous, and quite destitute of trees. There are many ruined cities in the neighbourhood, and all dating from about the eleventh century. At that period Ani itself contained 100,000 inhabitants and 500 churches, which shows that more people went to church among them than with us. Before the end of that century it passed into the hands of the Greeks and Saracens. Afterwards the Mongols took it, and at last an earth-quake drove out the remaining inhabitants in 1339; since which time it has been perfectly deserted.

I leave tomorrow for another sixty versts of examination of the frontier. I think there is no doubt of our being able to ascend Ararat, which is eighty versts distant. The Russian engineers, when they triangulated the Caucasus, lived there for a week. Ararat is 16,953 feet high: The weather is very hot, and the mosquitoes extremely venomous. The conspicuous feature of the country is beautiful mountain scenery, but for villages and trees one must look in vain. It is quite a desert.

The churches of Ani were built with lava, and crosses of black lava were let in very curiously into the red lava. With the exception of the churches and king's palace, the city is level with the ground; the foundations of the houses being alone discernible. These churches were covered with Armenian inscriptions cut on the walls. I feel myself unable to describe this extraordinary place as it ought to be done. We should have a photographic machine for it.

I do not think we shall be very long about the commission, as we have already done a quarter of the whole frontier, 100 versts. The work here is mostly done by us, the Turks looking on. Colonel Simmons does not anticipate being longer than this summer, and I hope it will so turn out. We are now in the province of Erivan, which you remember was taken from Persia in 1829 by Paskievitch. The inhabitants are Persian. We met on our road a great number of Kurds, who live as their fathers did, by travelling about robbing, etc., with their flocks. Their children are short of clothing. In spite of the Cossacks, etc., they are as lawless as ever, and go from Turkey to Russia and back again as they like. They are fine-looking people, armed to the teeth, but are decreasing in numbers. They never live in houses, but prefer tents and caves. The number of foxes in these regions is enormous. At Ani itself there are great numbers, and not very wild. There are roebucks also in the mountains. The Russian subjects here are not half so abject as the Moojik or Russian peasant - all of the former carry arms, for instance - and the Government is not so strong as in other parts in putting down robbery, etc. We camp here also, as there are no houses fit to go into, and every day is taken up in surveying and drawing plans without any circumstance occurring worth mentioning. I was never better in health, in spite of mosquitoes, heat, etc. We get up very early, and go to bed the same. We are now on the Aras - a large river that flows into the Caspian sea. I hope to get a very good map of this country.


Gordon's Later History

In 1860, Gordon was posted to China as part of the Allied Expeditionary Force that was fighting the 2nd Opium War. Once peace was made with the Chinese Emperor, Gordon was appointed as the Commander of the 'Ever Victorious Army', a force of mercenaries that was led by European Officers. He was promoted to the rank of Mandarin in the Chinese army and became known as 'Chinese Gordon' in Britain.

In 1873 he entered the service of the khedive of Egypt, and in 1874 he was appointed lieutenant Governor, then full Governor General of the Sudan. His chief job there was to suppress the slave trade. In 1879 Gordon resigned and was replaced. During the period from 1874 to 1884 he championed the cause of 'native rule' in many countries, including Ireland. This was the chief cause of his unpopularity in government circles, in fact Gordon never had command of British combat troops.

In 1884 the Mahdi, a Muslim fundamentalist leader, began a revolt in the Sudan against Anglo-Egyptian rule. The British Government needed someone to go to the country and conduct an orderly withdrawal of British and Egyptian troops. Gordon was seen by the public as the natural choice to go to the Sudan as Governor General again. After some hesitation the government appointed him to the post and he arrived in Khartoum in February 1884, with orders to conduct an orderly evacuation of the troops.

Gordon did not obey his orders: not wishing to see the Sudan return to the state he found it in 1874 he decided to stay in Khartoum in order to force a British intervention. The Mahdi then besieged Gordon in Khartoum. The British Government was implored by everyone to send a relief mission. However, Gladstone, the British prime minister, was furious at Gordon for disobeying his orders and resisted sending a mission until October 1884. The relief column, perhaps moving deliberately slowly, reached Khartoum two days after it fell to the Mahdi on 26th January 1885. General Gordon was killed at some point during or just after the final attack, the exact circumstances are unknown. His death contributed to the collapse of the Gladstone government in 1885.