Major General Charles George Gordon, or Chinese Gordon as he was known, died in Khartoum today in 1885. He made his reputation 20 years before in the Taiping Rebellion. He was sent to the Sudan to safeguard the country and Egypt from the Mahdi, a Muslim fanatic with an enormous following. The Prime Minister, Gladstone, was in the process of arranging a relief force and Gordon was told he could leave the city. He refused.
What happened next is etched on my memory(and perhaps other schoolboys’ minds) as the garrison fell and Gordon, unarmed, was struck down by countless spears.
The relief force arrived on the 28th, Gordon’s 52nd birthday.
Gordon was born in London in 1833, the son of a Major General and was commissioned a Lieutenant in 1852. He saw service in the Crimea as well as in China. He never married and was a Christian Evangelist, who spend much time helping orphans. He welcomed death.
His effigy can be found in St Paul’s Cathedral, London; his body was never found.
26th April 1937: Guernica and the Condor Legion make the news
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The 26th April 1937 saw Hitler’s Condor Legion bomb the Northern Spanish Basque town of Guernica. It was seen as a proving ground for the Nazi party’s new Luftwaffe and much experience was to be garnered from the Spanish Civil War. The Condor Legion was led by Oberstleutnant Wolfram Freiherr Von Richthofen(The Red Baron’s cousin) and under Nationalist control. Guernica was behind the front lines and was a town of about 7000 population. The bombing was in waves and exact casualty reports are unknown, but probably numbered around 1000. The Legion was a mix of Fighters and Medium Bombers, all names we know: 109s(B not Es), HE 51s (biplanes), DO 17s, JU52s and HE111s. There were also some Italian Fiat Fighters and the versatile SM79.
The outcome of the bombing was to demoralise the townsfolk and lead to its falling to Franco’s Nationalists on the 29th April.
This bombing raid was to be a preview of what was to happen between 39-45 to larger cities like Warsaw, London,Berlin, Dresden and finally Tokyo.