It was not until August 1884 that the government decided to take steps to relieve Gordon, with the British relief force, called the Nile Expedition, or, more popularly, the Khartoum Relief Expedition or Gordon Relief Expedition (a title that Gordon strongly deprecated). The relief force, under the command of Gordon's old friend Field Marshal Sir Garnet Wolseley, was not ready until November 1884. Wolseley had earlier served in Canada where he had commanded the Red River expedition of 1870, during which time he gained considerable respect for the skills of French-Canadian "voyageurs", and now insisted he could not travel up the Nile without the "voyageurs" to assist his men as river pilots and boatmen.