| More about this programme: www.bbc.co.uk Imperial conflict in the Sudan threw up two very different kinds of British hero. General Charles Gordon, sent out to evacuate Khartoum was rash, idealistic and foolhardy. He decided to hold out against the Sudanese - and was killed in the process. The man sent out to avenge him, on the other hand, Horatio Herbert Kitchener was known as "the machine of the Sudan". He was successful where Gordon had failed -- but it was the romantic, half - crazed Gordon who lived on in the British imagination. |
