Gordon: Victorian Hero

Charles George Gordon was the preeminent military hero of the late-Victorian British Empire. A lifetime officer in the Royal Engineers, he served in several theaters of war and imperial contest, most notably China and the Sudan. His last assignment took him back to the dusty Sudanese capital, Khartoum, where he supervised the overmatched Anglo-Egyptian garrison’s evacuation in the face of imminent attack by Islamic extremists. He was killed there in January 1885, just two days before a Briti…