1-150-949 - The Cartoon Collector/Heritage-Images

Too Late!, 1885. Britannia mourns the loss of General Gordon. When trouble started to loom in Egypt, the British government sent one of the country's finest soldiers to sort the matter out. Upon arrival in Cairo, Gordon had set off without an escort to the troublespot of Khartoum. However, he had then become stranded there without support and the Mahdi, the local government officer from Sudan, leading the revolt against Egyptian mismanagement of the Sudan, had eventually taken Gordon's citadel. Plans to relieve Gordon had been delayed in London by the government's concentration on the 1884 Reform Act. Gordon died at the hands of the Mahdi two days before help arrived on the 28th January 1855. From Punch, or the London Charivari February 14, 1885.