[Footnote 341: See Parl. Papers, Central Asia, No. 1 (1885), for General Lumsden's refutation of Komaroff's misstatements; also for the general accounts, ibid. No. 5 (1885), pp. 1-7.]

The news of this outrage reached England on April 7, and sent a thrill of indignation through the breasts of the most peaceful. Twenty days later Mr. Gladstone proposed to Parliament to vote the sum of L11,000,000 for war preparations. Of this sum all but L4,500,000 (needed for the Sudan) was devoted to military and naval preparations against Russia; and we have the authority of Mr. John Morley for saying that this vote was supported by Liberals "with much more than a mechanical loyalty[342]." Russia had achieved the impossible; she had united Liberals of all shades of thought against her, and the joke about "Mervousness" was heard no more.

[Footnote 342: J. Morley, Life of Gladstone, vol. iii. p. 184.]

Nevertheless the firmness of the Government resembled that of Bob Acres: it soon oozed away. Ministers deferred to the Czar's angry declaration that he would allow no inquiry into the action of General Komaroff. This alone was a most mischievous precedent, as it tended to inflate Russian officers with the belief that they could safely set at defiance the rules of international law. Still worse were the signs of favour showered on the violator of a truce by the sovereign who gained the reputation of being the upholder of peace. From all that is known semi-officially with respect to the acute crisis of the spring of 1885, it would appear that peace was due solely to the tact of Sir Robert Morier, our ambassador at St. Petersburg, and to the complaisance of the Gladstone Cabinet.

Certainly this quality carried Ministers very far on the path of concession. When negotiations were resumed, the British Government belied its former promises of firmness in a matter that closely concerned our ally, and surrendered Panjdeh to Russia, but on the understanding that the Zulfikar Pass should be retained by the Afghans. It should be stated, however, that Abdur Rahman had already assured Lord Dufferin, during interviews which they had at Rawal Pindi early in April, of his readiness to give up Panjdeh if he could retain that pass and its approaches. The Russian Government conceded this point; but their negotiators then set to work to secure possession of heights dominating the pass. It seemed that Lord Granville was open to conviction even on this point.

Such was the state of affairs when, on June 9, 1885, Mr. Gladstone's Ministry resigned owing to a defeat on a budget question. The accession of Lord Salisbury to power after a brief interval helped to clear up these disputes. The crisis in Bulgaria of September 1885 (see Chapter X.) also served to distract the Russian Government, the Czar's chief pre-occupation now being to have his revenge on Prince Alexander of Battenberg. Consequently the two Powers came to a compromise about the Zulfikar Pass[343]. There still remained several questions outstanding, and only after long and arduous surveys, not unmixed with disputes, was the present boundary agreed on in a Protocol signed on July 22, 1887. We may here refer to a prophecy made by one of Bismarck's confidantes, Bucher, at the close of May 1885: "I believe the [Afghan] matter will come up again in about five years, when the [Russian] railways are finished[344]."

[Footnote 343: Parl. Papers, Central Asia, No. 4 (1885), pp. 41-72.]

[Footnote 344: Bismarck: Some Secret Pages, etc., vol. iii. p. 135.]

* * * * *

Thus it was that Russia secured her hold on districts dangerously near to Herat. Her methods at Panjdeh can only be described as a deliberate outrage on international law. It is clear that Alexander III. and his officials cared nothing for the public opinion of Europe, and that they pushed on their claims by means which appealed with overpowering force to the dominant motive of orientals—fear. But their action was based on another consideration. Relying on Mr. Gladstone's well-known love of peace, they sought to degrade the British Government in the eyes of the Asiatic peoples. In some measure they succeeded. The prestige of Britain thenceforth paled before that of the Czar; and the ease and decisiveness of the Russian conquests, contrasting with the fitful advances and speedy withdrawals of British troops, spread the feeling in Central Asia that the future belonged to Russia.

Fortunately, this was not the light in which Abdur Rahman viewed the incident. He was not the man to yield to intimidation. That "strange, strong creature," as Lord Dufferin called him, "showed less emotion than might have been expected," but his resentment against Russia was none the less keen[345]. Her pressure only served to drive him to closer union with Great Britain. Clearly the Russians misunderstood Abdur Rahman. Their miscalculation was equally great as regards the character of the Afghans and the conditions of life among those mountain clans. Russian officers and administrators, after pushing their way easily through the loose rubble of tribes that make up Turkestan, did not realise that they had to deal with very different men in Afghanistan. To ride roughshod over tribes who live in the desert and have no natural rallying-point may be very effective; but that policy is risky when applied to tribes who cling to their mountains.

[Footnote 345: In his Life (vol. i, pp. 244-246) he also greatly blames British policy.]

The analogy of Afghanistan to Switzerland may again serve to illustrate the difference between mountaineers and plain-dwellers. It was only when the Hapsburgs or the French threatened the Swiss that they formed any effective union for the defence of the Fatherland. Always at variance in time of peace, the cantons never united save under the stress of a common danger. The greater the pressure from without, the closer was the union. That truth has been illustrated several times from the age of the legendary Tell down to the glorious efforts of 1798. In a word, the selfsame mountaineers who live disunited in time of peace, come together and act closely together in war, or under threat of war.

Accordingly, the action of England in retiring from Candahar, contrasting as it did with Russia's action at Panjdeh, marked out the line of true policy for Abdur Rahman. Thenceforth he and his tribesmen saw more clearly than ever that Russia was the foe; and it is noteworthy that under the shadow of the northern peril there has grown up among those turbulent clans a sense of unity never known before. Unconsciously Russia has been playing the part of a Napoleon I.; she has ground together some at least of the peoples of Central Asia with a thoroughness which may lead to unexpected results if ever events favour a general rising against the conqueror.

Amidst all his seeming vacillations of policy, Abdur Rahman was governed by the thought of keeping England, and still more Russia, from his land. He absolutely refused to allow railways and telegraphs to enter his territories; for, as he said: "Where Europeans build railways, their armies quickly follow. My neighbours have all been swallowed up in this manner. I have no wish to suffer their fate."

His judgment was sound. Skobeleff conquered the Tekkes by his railway; and the acquisition of Merv and Panjdeh was really the outcome of the new trans-Caspian line, which, as Lord Curzon has pointed out, completely changed the problem of the defence of India. Formerly the natural line of advance for Russia was from Orenburg to Tashkend and the upper Oxus; and even now that railway would enable her to make a powerful diversion against Northern Afghanistan[346]. But the route from Krasnovodsk on the Caspian to Merv and Kushk presents a shorter and far easier route, leading, moreover, to the open side of Afghanistan, Herat, and Candahar. Recent experiments have shown that a division of troops can be sent in eight days from Moscow to Kushk within a short distance of the Afghan frontier. In a word, Russia can operate against Afghanistan by a line (or rather by two lines) far shorter and easier than any which Great Britain can use for its defence[347].

[Footnote 346: See Col. A. Durand's The Making of a Frontier (1899), pp. 41-43.]

[Footnote 347: Colquhoun, Russia against India, p. 170. Lord Curzon in 1894 went over much of the ground between Sarrakhs and Candahar and found it quite easy for an army (except in food supply).]

It is therefore of the utmost importance to prevent her pushing on her railways into that country. This is the consideration which inspired Mr. Balfour's noteworthy declaration of May 11, 1905, in the House of Commons:—

As transport is the great difficulty of an invading army, we must not allow anything to be done which would facilitate transport. It ought in my opinion to be considered as an act of direct aggression upon this country that any attempt should be made to build a railway, in connection with the Russian strategic railways, within the territory of Afghanistan.

It is fairly certain that the present Ameer, Habibulla, who succeeded his father in 1901, holds those views. This doubtless was the reason why, early in 1905, he took the unprecedented step of inviting the Indian Government to send a Mission to Cabul. In view of the increase of Russia's railways in Central Asia there was more need than ever of coming to a secret understanding with a view to defence against that Power.

Finally, we may note that Great Britain has done very much to make up for her natural defects of position. The Panjdeh affair having relegated the policy of "masterly inactivity" to the limbo of benevolent futilities, the materials for the Quetta railway, which had been in large part sent back to Bombay in the year 1881, were now brought back again; and an alternative route was made to Quetta. The urgent need of checkmating French intrigues in Burmah led to the annexation of that land (November 1885); and the Kurram Valley, commanding Cabul, which the Gladstone Government had abandoned, was reoccupied. The Quetta district was annexed to India in 1887 under the title of British Baluchistan. The year 1891 saw an important work undertaken in advance of Quetta, the Khojak tunnel being then driven through a range close by the Afghan frontier, while an entrenched camp was constructed near by for the storage of arms and supplies. These positions, and the general hold which Britain keeps over the Baluchee clans, enable the defenders of India to threaten on the flank any advance by the otherwise practicable route from Candahar to the Indus.

Certainly there is every need for careful preparations against any such enterprise. Lord Curzon, writing before Russia's strategic railways were complete, thought it feasible for Russia speedily to throw 150,000 men into Afghanistan, feed them there, and send on 90,000 of them against the Indus[348]. After the optimistic account of the problem of Indian defence given by Mr. Balfour in the speech above referred to, it is well to remember that, though Russia cannot invade India until she has conquered Afghanistan, yet for that preliminary undertaking she has the advantages of time and position nearly entirely on her side. Further, the completion of her railways almost up to the Afghan frontier (the Tashkend railway is about to be pushed on to the north bank of the Oxus, near Balkh) minimises the difficulties of food supply and transport in Afghanistan, on which the Prime Minister laid so much stress.

[Footnote 348: Op. cit. p. 307. Other authorities differ as to the practicability of feeding so large a force even in the comparatively fertile districts of Herat and Candahar.]

It is, however, indisputable that the security of India has been greatly enhanced by the steady pushing on of that "Forward Policy," which all friends of peace used to decry. The Ameer, Abdur Rahman, irritated by the making of the Khojak tunnel, was soothed by Sir Mortimer Durand's Mission in 1893; and in return for an increase of subsidy and other advantages, he agreed that the tribes of the debatable borderland—the Waziris, Afridis, and those of the Swat and Chitral valleys—should be under the control of the Viceroy. Russia showed her annoyance at this Mission by seeking to seize an Afghan town, Murghab; but the Ameer's troops beat them off[349]. Lord Lansdowne claimed that this right of permanently controlling very troublesome tribes would end the days of futile "punitive expeditions." In the main he was right. The peace and security of the frontier depend on the tact with which some few scores of officers carry on difficult work of which no one ever hears[350].

[Footnote 349: Life of Abdur Rahman, vol. i. p. 287.]

[Footnote 350: For this work see The Life of Sir R. Sandeman; Sir R. Warburton, Eighteen Years in the Khyber; Durand, op. cit.; Bruce, The Forward Policy and its Results; Sir James Willcock's From Cabul to Kumassi; S.S. Thorburn, The Punjab in Peace and War.]

In nearly all cases they have succeeded in their heroic toil. But the work of pacification was disturbed in the year 1895 by a rising in the Chitral Valley, which cut off in Chitral Fort a small force of Sikhs and loyal Kashmir troops with their British officers. Relieving columns from the Swat Valley and Gilgit cut their way through swarms of hillmen and relieved the little garrison after a harassing leaguer of forty-five days[351]. The annoyance evinced by Russian officers at the success of the expedition and the retention of the whole of the Chitral district (as large as Wales) prompts the conjecture that they had not been strangers to the original outbreak. In this year Russia and England delimited their boundaries in the Pamirs.

[Footnote 351: The Relief of Chitral, by Captains G.J. and F.E. Younghusband (1895).]

The year 1897 saw all the hill tribes west and south of Peshawur rise against the British Raj. Moslem fanaticism, kindled by the Sultan's victories over the Greeks, is said to have brought about the explosion, though critics of the Calcutta Government ascribe it to official folly[352]. With truly Roman solidity the British Government quelled the risings, the capture of the heights of Dargai by the "gay Gordons" showing the sturdy hillmen that they were no match for our best troops. Since then the "Forward Policy" has amply justified itself, thousands of fine troops being recruited from tribes which were recently daring marauders, ready for a dash into the plains of the Punjab at the bidding of any would-be disturber of the peace of India. In this case, then, Britain has transformed a troublesome border fringe into a protective girdle.

[Footnote 352: See The Punjab in Peace and War, by S.S. Thorburn, ad fin.]

* * * * *

Whether the Russian Government intends in the future to invade India is a question which time alone can answer. Viewing her Central Asian policy from the time of the Crimean War, the student must admit that it bears distinct traces of such a design. Her advance has always been most conspicuous in the years succeeding any rebuff dealt by Great Britain, as happened after that war, and still more, after the Berlin Congress. At first, the theory that a civilised Power must swallow up restless raiding neighbours could be cited in explanation of such progress; but such a defence utterly fails to account for the cynical aggression at Panjdeh and the favour shown by the Czar to the general who violated a truce. Equally does it fail to explain the pushing on of strategic railways since the time of the conclusion of the Anglo-Japanese Treaty of 1902. Possibly Russia intends only to exert upon that Achilles heel of the British Empire the terrible but nominally pacific pressure which she brings to bear on the open frontiers of Germany and Austria; and the constant discussion by her officers of plans of invasion of India may be wholly unofficial. At the same time we must remember that the idea has long been a favourite one with the Russian bureaucracy; and the example of the years 1877-81 shows that that class is ready and eager to wipe out by a campaign in Central Asia the memory of a war barren of fame and booty. But that again depends on more general questions, especially those of finance (now a very serious question for Russia, seeing that she has drained Paris and Berlin of all possible loans) and of alliance with some Great Power, or Powers, anxious to effect the overthrow of Great Britain.

If Great Britain be not enervated by luxury; if she be not led astray from the paths of true policy by windy talk about "splendid isolation"; if also she can retain the loyal support of the various peoples of India,—she may face the contingency of such an invasion with firmness and equanimity. That it will come is the opinion of very many authorities of high standing. A native gentleman of high official rank, who brings forward new evidence on the subject, has recently declared it to be "inevitable[353]." Such, too, is the belief of the greatest authority on Indian warfare. Lord Roberts closes his Autobiography by affirming that an invasion is "inevitable in the end. We have done much, and may do still more to delay it; but when that struggle comes, it will be incumbent upon us, both for political and military reasons, to make use of all the troops and war material that the Native States can place at our disposal."

[Footnote 353: See The Nineteenth Century and After for May 1905.]

POSTSCRIPT

On May 22, 1905, the Times published particulars concerning the Anglo-Afghan Treaty recently signed at Cabul. It renewed the compact made with the late Ameer, whereby he agreed to have no relations with any foreign Power except Great Britain, the latter agreeing to defend him against foreign aggression. The subsidy of L120,000 a year is to be continued, but the present Ameer, Habibulla, henceforth receives a title equivalent to "King" and is styled "His Majesty."



CHAPTER XV

BRITAIN IN EGYPT

It will be well to begin the story of the expansion of the nations of Europe in Africa by a brief statement of the events which brought Britain to her present position in Egypt. As we have seen, the French conquest of Tunis, occurring a year earlier, formed the first of the many expeditions which inaugurated "the partition of Africa"—a topic which, as regards the west, centre, and south of that continent, will engage our attention subsequently. In this chapter and the following it will be convenient to bring together the facts concerning the valley of the Nile, a district which up to a recent time has had only a slight connection with the other parts of that mighty continent. In his quaint account of that mysterious land, Herodotus always spoke of it as distinct from Libya; and this aloofness has characterised Lower Egypt almost down to the present age, when the events which we are about to consider brought it into close touch with the equatorial regions.

The story of the infiltration of British influence into Egypt is one of the most curious in all history. To this day, despite the recent agreement with France (1904), the position of England in the valley of the Lower Nile is irregular, in view of the undeniable fact that the Sultan is still the suzerain of that land. What is even stranger, it results from the gradual control which the purse-holder has imposed on the borrower. The power that holds the purse-strings counts for much in the political world, as also elsewhere. Both in national and domestic affairs it ensures, in the last instance, the control of the earning department over the spending department. It is the ultima ratio of Parliaments and husbands.

In order fully to understand the relations of Egypt to Turkey and to the purse-holders of the West, we must glance back at the salient events in her history for the past century. The first event that brought the land of the Pharaohs into the arena of European politics was the conquest by Bonaparte in 1798. He meant to make Egypt a flourishing colony, to have the Suez Canal cut, and to use Alexandria and Suez as bases of action against the British possessions in India. This daring design was foiled by Nelson's victory at the Nile, and by the Abercromby-Hutchinson expedition of 1801, which compelled the surrender of the French army left by Bonaparte in Egypt. The three years of French occupation had no great political results except the awakening of British statesmanship to a sense of the value of Egypt for the safeguarding of India. They also served to weaken the power of the Mamelukes, a Circassian military caste which had reduced the Sultan's authority over Egypt to a mere shadow. The ruin of this warlike cavalry was gradually completed by an Albanian soldier of fortune named Mohammed Ali, who, first in the name of the Sultan, and later in defiance of his power, gradually won the allegiance of the different races of Egypt and made himself virtually ruler of the land. This powerful Pasha conquered the northern part of the Sudan, and founded Khartum as the southern bulwark of his realm (1823). He seems to have grasped the important fact that, as Egypt depends absolutely on the waters poured down by the Nile in its periodic floods, her rulers must control that river in its upper reaches—an idea also held by the ablest of the Pharaohs. To secure this control, what place could be so suitable as Khartum, at the junction of the White and Blue Niles?

Mohammed Ali was able to build up an army and navy, which in 1841 was on the point of overthrowing Turkish power in Syria, when Great Britain intervened, and by the capture of Acre compelled the ambitious Pasha to abandon his northern schemes and own once more the suzerainty of the Porte. The Sultan, however, acknowledged that the Pashalic of Egypt should be hereditary in his family. We may remark here that England and France had nearly come to blows over the Syrian question of that year; but, thanks to the firm demeanour of Lord Palmerston, their rivalry ended, as in 1801, in the triumph of British influence and the assertion of the nominal ascendancy of the Sultan in Egypt. Mohammed was to pay his lord L363,000 a year. He died in 1849.

No great event took place during the rule of the next Pashas, or Khedives as they were now termed, Abbas I. (1849-54), and Said (1854-63), except that M. de Lesseps, a French engineer, gained the consent of Said in 1856 to the cutting of a ship canal, the northern entrance to which bears the name of that Khedive. Owing to the rivalry of Britain and France over the canal it was not finished until 1869, during the rule of Ismail (1863-79). We may note here that, as the concession was granted to the Suez Canal Company only for ninety-nine years, the canal will become the property of the Egyptian Government in the year 1968.

The opening of the canal placed Egypt once more on one of the greatest highways of the world's commerce, and promised to bring endless wealth to her ports. That hope has not been fulfilled. The profits have gone almost entirely to the foreign investors, and a certain amount of trade has been withdrawn from the Egyptian railways. Sir John Stokes, speaking in 1887, said he found in Egypt a prevalent impression that the country had been injured by the canal[354].

[Footnote 354: Quoted by D.A. Cameron, Egypt in the Nineteenth Century, p. 242.]

Certainly Egypt was less prosperous after its opening, but probably owing to another and mightier event which occurred at the beginning of Ismail's rule. This was the American Civil War. The blockade of the Southern States by the federal cruisers cut off from Lancashire and Northern France the supplies of raw cotton which are the life-blood of their industries. Cotton went up in price until even the conservative fellahin of Egypt saw the desirability of growing that strange new shrub—the first instance on record of a change in their tillage that came about without compulsion. So great were the profits reaped by intelligent growers that many fellahin bought Circassian and Abyssinian wives, and established harems in which jewels, perfumes, silks, and mirrors were to be found. In a word, Egypt rioted in its new-found wealth. This may be imagined from the totals of exports, which in three years rose from L4,500,000 to considerably more than L13,000,000[355].

[Footnote 355: Egypt and the Egyptian Question, by Sir D. Mackenzie Wallace (1883), pp. 318-320.]

But then came the end of the American Civil War. Cotton fell to its normal price, and ruin stared Egypt in the face. For not only merchants and fellahin, but also their ruler, had plunged into expenditure, and on the most lavish scale. Nay! Believing that the Suez Canal would bring boundless wealth to his land, Ismail persisted in his palace-building and other forms of oriental extravagance, with the result that in the first twelve years of his reign, that is, by the year 1875, he had spent more than L100,000,000 of public money, of which scarcely one-tenth had been applied to useful ends. The most noteworthy of these last were the Barrage of the Nile in the upper part of the Delta, an irrigation canal in Upper Egypt, the Ibrahimiyeh Canal, and the commencement of the Wady Haifa-Khartum railway. The grandeur of his views may be realised when it is remembered that he ordered this railway to be made of the same gauge as those of South Africa, because "it would save trouble in the end."

As to the sudden fall in the price of cotton, his only expedient for making good the loss was to grow sugar on a great scale, but this was done so unwisely as to increase the deficits. As a natural consequence, the Egyptian debt, which at his accession stood at L3,000,000, reached the extraordinary sum of L89,000,000 in the year 1876, and that, too, despite the increase of the land tax by one-half. All the means which oriental ingenuity has devised for the systematic plunder of a people were now put in force; so that Sir Alfred Milner (now Lord Milner), after unequalled opportunities of studying the Egyptian Question, declared: "There is nothing in the financial history of any country, from the remotest ages to the present time, to equal this carnival of extravagance and oppression[356]."

[Footnote 356: England in Egypt, by Sir Alfred Milner (Lord Milner), 1892, pp. 216-219. (The Egyptian L is equal to L1:0:6.) I give the figures as pounds sterling.]

The Khedive himself had to make some sacrifices of a private nature, and one of these led to an event of international importance. Towards the close of the year 1875 he decided to sell the 177,000 shares which he held in the Suez Canal Company. In the first place he offered them secretly to the French Government for 100,000,000 francs; and the Foreign Minister, the Duc Decazes, it seems, wished to buy them; but the Premier, M. Buffet, and other Ministers hesitated, perhaps in view of the threats of war from Germany, which had alarmed all responsible men. In any case, France lost her chance[357]. Fortunately for Great Britain, news of the affair was sent to one of her ablest journalists, Mr. Frederick Greenwood, who at once begged Lord Derby, then Minister for Foreign Affairs, to grant him an interview. The result was an urgent message from Lord Derby to Colonel Staunton, the British envoy in Egypt, to find out the truth from the Khedive himself. The tidings proved to be correct, and the Beaconsfield Cabinet at once sanctioned the purchase of the shares for the sum of close on L4,000,000.

[Footnote 357: La Question d'Egypte, by C. de Freycinet (1905), p. 151.]

It is said that the French envoy to Egypt was playing billiards when he heard of the purchase, and in his rage he broke his cue in half. His anger was natural, quite apart from financial considerations. In that respect the purchase has been a brilliant success; for the shares are now worth more than L30,000,000, and yield an annual return of about a million sterling; but this monetary gain is as nothing when compared with the influence which the United Kingdom has gained in the affairs of a great undertaking whereby M. de Lesseps hoped to assure the ascendancy of France in Egypt.

The facts of history, it should be noted, lent support to this contention of "the great Frenchman." The idea of the canal had originated with Napoleon I., and it was revived with much energy by the followers of the French philosopher, St. Simon, in the years 1833-37[358]. The project, however, then encountered the opposition of British statesmen, as it did from the days of Pitt to those of Palmerston. This was not unnatural; for it promised to bring back to the ports of the Mediterranean the preponderant share in the eastern trade which they had enjoyed before the discovery of the route by the Cape of Good Hope. The political and commercial interests of England were bound up with the sea route, especially after the Cape was definitively assigned to her by the Peace of Paris of 1814; but she could not see with indifference the control by France of a canal which would divert trade once more to the old overland route. That danger was now averted by the financial coup just noticed—an affair which may prove to have been scarcely less important in a political sense than Nelson's victory at the Nile.

[Footnote 358: La Question d'Egypte, by C. de Freycinet, p. 106.]

In truth, the Sea Power has made up for her defects of position as regards Egypt by four great strokes—the triumph of her great admiral, the purchase of Ismail's canal shares, the repression of Arabi's revolt, and Lord Kitchener's victory at Omdurman. The present writer has not refrained from sharp criticism on British policy in the period 1870-1900; and the Egyptian policy of the Cabinets of Queen Victoria has been at times open to grave censure; but, on the whole, it has come out well, thanks to the ability of individuals to supply the qualities of foresight, initiative, and unswerving persistence, in which Ministers since the time of Chatham have rarely excelled.

The sale of Ismail's canal shares only served to stave off the impending crash which would have formed the natural sequel to this new "South Sea Bubble." All who took part in this carnival of folly ought to have suffered alike, Ismail and his beys along with the stock-jobbers and dividend-hunters of London and Paris. In an ordinary case these last would have lost their money; but in this instance the borrower was weak and dependent, while the lenders were in a position to stir up two powerful Governments to action. Nearly the whole of the Egyptian loans was held in England and France; and in 1876, when Ismail was floating swiftly down stream to the abyss of bankruptcy, the British and French bondholders cast about them for means to secure their own safety. They organised themselves for the protection of their interests. The Khedive consented to hear the advice of their representatives, Messrs. Goschen and Joubert; but it was soon clear that he desired merely a comfortable liquidation and the continuance of his present expenditure.

That year saw the institution of the "Caisse de la Dette," with power to receive the revenue set aside for the service of the debt, and to sanction or forbid new loans; and in the month of November 1876 the commission of bondholders took the form of the "Dual Control." In 1878 a Commission was appointed with power to examine the whole of the Egyptian administration. It met with the strongest opposition from the Khedive, until in the next year means were found to bring about his abdication by the act of the Sultan (June 26, 1879). His successor was his son Tewfik (1879-92).

On their side the bondholders had to submit to a reduction of rates of interest to a uniform rate of 4 per cent on the Unified Debt. Even so, it was found in the year 1881—a prosperous year—that about half of the Egyptian revenue, then L9,229,000, had to be diverted to the payment of that interest[359]. Again, one must remark that such a situation in an overtaxed country would naturally end in bankruptcy; but this was prevented by foreign control, which sought to cut down expenditure in all directions. As a natural result, many industries suffered from the lack of due support; for even in the silt-beds formed by the Nile (and they are the real Egypt) there is need of capital to bring about due results. In brief, the popular discontent gave strength to a movement which aimed at ousting foreign influences of every kind, not only the usurers and stock-jobbers that sucked the life-blood of the land, but even the engineers and bankers who quickened its sluggish circulation. This movement was styled a national movement; and its abettors raised that cry of "Egypt for Egyptians," which has had its counterpart wherever selfish patriots seek to keep all the good things of the land to themselves. The Egyptian troubles of the year 1882 originated partly in feelings of this narrow kind, and partly in the jealousies and strifes of military cliques.

[Footnote 359: England in Egypt, etc. p. 222. See there for details as to the Dual Control; also de Freycinet, op. cit. chap. ii., and The Expansion of Egypt, by A. Silva White, chap. vi.]

Sir D. Mackenzie Wallace, after carefully investigating the origin of the "Arabi movement," came to the conclusion that it was to be found in the determination of the native Egyptian officers to force their way to the higher grades of that army, hitherto reserved for Turks or Circassians. Said and Ismail had favoured the rise of the best soldiers of the fellahin class (that is, natives), and several of them, on becoming colonels, aimed at yet higher posts. This aroused bitter resentment in the dominant Turkish caste, which looked on the fellahin as born to pay taxes and bear burdens. Under the masterful Ismail these jealousies were hidden; but the young and inexperienced Tewfik, the nominee of the rival Western Powers, was unable to bridle the restless spirits of the army, who looked around them for means to strengthen their position at the expense of their rivals. These jealousies were inflamed by the youthful caprice of Tewfik. At first he extended great favour to Ali Fehmi, an officer of fellah descent, only to withdraw it owing to the intrigues of a Circassian rival. Ali Fehmi sought for revenge by forming a cabal with other fellah colonels, among whom a popular leader soon came to the front. This was Arabi Bey.

Arabi's frame embodied the fine animal qualities of the better class of fellahin, but to these he added mental gifts of no mean order. After imbibing the rather narrow education of a devout Moslem, he formed some acquaintance with western thought, and from it his facile mind selected a stock of ideas which found ready expression in conversation. His soft dreamy eyes and fluent speech rarely failed to captivate men of all classes[360]. His popularity endowed the discontented camarilla with new vigour, enabling it to focus all the discontented elements, and to become a movement of almost national import. Yet Arabi was its spokesman, or figure-head, rather than the actual propelling power. He seems to have been to a large extent the dupe of schemers who pushed him on for their own advantage. At any rate it is significant that after his fall he declared that British supremacy was the one thing needful for Egypt; and during his old age, passed in Ceylon, he often made similar statements[361].

[Footnote 360: Sir D.M. Wallace, Egypt and the Egyptian Question, p. 67.]

[Footnote 361: Mr. Morley says (Life of Gladstone, vol. iii. p. 73) that Arabi's movement "was in truth national as well as military; it was anti-European, and above all, it was in its objects anti-Turk."—In view of the evidence collected by Sir D.M. Wallace, and by Lord Milner (England in Egypt), I venture to question these statements. The movement clearly was military and anti-Turk in its beginning. Later on it sought support in the people, and became anti-European and to some extent national; but to that extent it ceased to be anti-Turk. Besides, why should the Sultan have encouraged it? How far it genuinely relied on the populace must for the present remain in doubt; but the evidence collected by Mr. Broadley, How We Defended Arabi (1884), seems to show that Arabi and his supporters were inspired by thoroughly patriotic and enlightened motives.]

The Khedive's Ministers, hearing of the intrigues of the discontented officers, resolved to arrest their chiefs; but on the secret leaking out, the offenders turned the tables on the authorities, and with soldiers at their back demanded the dismissal of the Minister of War and the redress of their chief grievance—the undue promotion of Turks and Circassians.

The Khedive felt constrained to yield, and agreed to the appointment of a Minister of War who was a secret friend of the plotters. They next ventured on a military demonstration in front of the Khedive's palace, with a view to extorting the dismissal of the able and energetic Prime Minister, Riaz Pasha. Again Tewfik yielded, and consented to the appointment of the weak and indolent Sherif Pasha. To consolidate their triumph the mutineers now proposed measures which would please the populace. Chief among them was a plan for instituting a consultative National Assembly. This would serve as a check on the Dual Control and on the young Khedive, whom it had placed in his present ambiguous position.

A Chamber of Notables met in the closing days of 1881, and awakened great hopes, not only in Egypt, but among all who saw hope in the feeling of nationality and in a genuine wish for reform among a Moslem people. What would have happened had the Notables been free to work out the future of Egypt, it is impossible to say. The fate of the Young Turkish party and of Midhat's constitution of December 1877 formed by no means a hopeful augury. In the abstract there is much to be said for the two chief demands of the Notables—that the Khedive's Ministers should be responsible to the people's representatives, and that the Dual Control of Great Britain and France should be limited to the control of the revenues set apart for the purposes of the Egyptian public debt. The petitioners, however, ignored the fact that democracy could scarcely be expected to work successfully in a land where not one man in a hundred had the least notion what it meant, and, further, that the Western Powers would not give up their coign of vantage at the bidding of Notables who really represented little more than the dominant military party. Besides, the acts of this party stamped it as oriental even while it masqueraded in the garb of western democracy. Having grasped the reins of government, the fellahin colonels proceeded to relegate their Turkish and Circassian rivals to service at Khartum—an ingenious form of banishment. Against this and other despotic acts the representatives of Great Britain and France energetically protested, and, seeing that the Khedive was helpless, they brought up ships of war to make a demonstration against the de facto governors of Egypt.

It should be noted that these steps were taken by the Gladstone and Gambetta Cabinets, which were not likely to intervene against a genuinely democratic movement merely in the interests of British and French bondholders. On January 7, 1882, the two Cabinets sent a Joint Note to the Khedive assuring him of their support and of their desire to remove all grievances, external and internal alike, that threatened the existing order[362].

[Footnote 362: For Gambetta's despatches see de Freycinet, op. cit. pp. 209 et seq.]

While, however, the Western Powers sided with the Khedive, the other European States, including Turkey, began to show signs of impatience and annoyance at any intervention on their part. Russia saw the chance of revenge on England for the events of 1878, and Bismarck sought to gain the favour of the Sultan. As for that potentate, his conduct was as tortuous as usual. From the outset he gave secret support to Arabi's party, probably with the view of undermining the Dual Control and the Khedive's dynasty alike. He doubtless saw that Turkish interests might ultimately be furthered even by the men who had imprisoned or disgraced Turkish officers and Ministers.

Possibly the whole question might have been peaceably solved had Gambetta remained in power; for he was strongly in favour of a joint Anglo-French intervention in case the disorders continued. The Gladstone Government at that time demurred to such intervention, and claimed that it would come more legally from Turkey, or, if this were undesirable, from all the Powers; but this divergence of view did not prevent the two Governments from acting together on several matters. Gambetta, however, fell from power at the end of January 1882, and his far weaker successor, de Freycinet, having to face a most complex parliamentary situation in France and the possible hostility of the other Powers, drew back from the leading position which Gambetta's bolder policy had accorded to France. The vacillations at Paris tended alike to weaken Anglo-French action and to encourage the Arabi party and the Sultan. As matters went from bad to worse in Egypt, the British Foreign Minister, Lord Granville, proposed on May 24 that the Powers should sanction an occupation of Egypt by Turkish troops. To this M. de Freycinet demurred, and, while declaring that France would not send an expedition, proposed that a European Conference should be held on the Egyptian Question.

The Gladstone Cabinet at once agreed to this, and the Conference met for a short time at the close of June, but without the participation of Turkey[363]. For the Sultan, hoping that the divisions of the Powers would enable him to restore Turkish influence in Egypt, now set his emissaries to work to arouse there the Moslem fanaticism which he has so profitably exploited in all parts of his Empire. A Turkish Commission had been sent to inquire into matters—with the sole result of enriching the chief commissioner. In brief, thanks to the perplexities and hesitations of the Western Powers and the ill-humour manifested by Germany and Russia, Europe was helpless, and the Arabi party felt that they had the game in their own hands. Bismarck said to his secretary, Busch, on June 8: "They [the British] set about the affair in an awkward way, and have got on a wrong track by sending their ironclads to Alexandria, and now, finding that there is nothing to be done, they want the rest of Europe to help them out of their difficulty by means of a Conference[364]."

[Footnote 363: Morley, Life of Gladstone, iii. p. 79.]

[Footnote 364: Bismarck: Some Secret Pages of his History, vol. iii. p. 51.]

Already, on May 27, the Egyptian malcontents had ventured on a great military demonstration against the Khedive, which led to Arabi being appointed Minister of War. His followers also sought to inflame the hatred to foreigners for which the greed of Greek and Jewish usurers was so largely responsible. The results perhaps surpassed the hopes of the Egyptian nationalists. Moslem fanaticism suddenly flashed into flame. On the nth of June a street brawl between a Moslem and a Maltese led to a fierce rising. The "true believers" attacked the houses of the Europeans, secured a great quantity of loot, and killed about fifty of them, including men from the British squadron. The English party that always calls out for non-intervention made vigorous efforts at that time, and subsequently, to represent this riot and massacre as a mere passing event which did not seriously compromise the welfare of Egypt; but Sir Alfred Milner in his calm and judicial survey of the whole question states that the fears then entertained by Europeans in Egypt "so far from being exaggerated, . . . perhaps even fell short of the danger which was actually impending[365]."

[Footnote 365: England in Egypt, p. 16. For details of the massacre and its preconcerted character, sec Parl. Papers, Egypt, No. 4 (1884).]

The events at Alexandria and Tantah made armed intervention inevitable. Nothing could be hoped for from Turkey. The Sultan's special envoy, Dervish Pasha, had arrived in Egypt only a few days before the outbreak; and after that occurrence Abdul Hamid thought fit to send a decoration to Arabi. Encouraged by the support of Turkey and by the well-known jealousies of the Powers, the military party now openly prepared to defy Europe. They had some grounds for hope. Every one knew that France was in a very cautious mood, having enough on her hands in Tunis and Algeria, while her relations to England had rapidly cooled[366]. Germany, Russia, and Austria seemed to be acting together according to an understanding arrived at by the three Emperors after their meeting at Danzig in 1881; and Germany had begun that work of favouring the Sultan which enabled her to supplant British influence at Constantinople. Accordingly, few persons, least of all Arabi, believed that the Gladstone Cabinet would dare to act alone and strike a decisive blow. But they counted wrongly. Gladstone's toleration in regard to foreign affairs was large-hearted, but it had its limits. He now declared in Parliament that Arabi had thrown off the mask and was evidently working to depose the Khedive and oust all Europeans from Egypt; England would intervene to prevent this—if possible with the authority of Europe, with the support of France, and the co-operation of Turkey; but, if necessary, alone[367].

[Footnote 366: For the reasons of de Freycinet's caution, see his work, ch. iii., especially pp. 236 et seq.]

[Footnote 367: See, too, Gladstone's speech of July 25, 1882, in which he asserted that there was not a shred of evidence to support Arabi's claim to be the leader of a national party; also, his letter of July 14 to John Bright, quoted by Mr. Morley, Life of Gladstone, vol. iii. pp. 84-85. Probably Gladstone was misinformed.]

Even this clear warning was lost on Arabi and his following. Believing that Britain was too weak, and her Ministry too vacillating, to make good these threats, they proceeded to arm the populace and strengthen the forts of Alexandria. Sir Beauchamp Seymour, now at the head of a strong squadron, reported to London that these works were going on in a threatening manner, and on July 6 sent a demand to Arabi that the operations should cease at once. To this Arabi at once acceded. Nevertheless, the searchlight, when suddenly turned on, showed that work was going on at night. A report of an Egyptian officer was afterwards found in one of the forts, in which he complained of the use of the electric light by the English as distinctly discourteous. It may here be noted that M. de Freycinet, in his jaundiced survey of British action at this time, seeks to throw doubt on the resumption of work by Arabi's men. But Admiral Seymour's reports leave no loophole for doubt. Finally, on July 10, the admiral demanded, not only the cessation of hostile preparations, but the surrender of some of the forts into British hands. The French fleet now left the harbour and steamed for Port Said. Most of the Europeans of Alexandria had withdrawn to ships provided for them; and on the morrow, when the last of the twenty-four hours of grace brought no submission, the British fleet opened fire at 7 A.M.

The ensuing action is of great interest as being one of the very few cases in modern warfare where ships have successfully encountered modern forts. The seeming helplessness of the British unarmoured ships before Cronstadt during the Crimean War, their failure before the forts of Sevastopol, and the uselessness of the French navy during the war of 1870, had spread the notion that warships could not overpower modern fortifications. Probably this impression lay at the root of Arabi's defiance. He had some grounds for confidence. The British fleet consisted of eight battleships (of which only the Inflexible and Alexandra were of great fighting power), along with five unarmoured vessels. The forts mounted 33 rifled muzzle-loading guns, 3 rifled breech-loaders, and 120 old smooth-bores. The advantage in gun-power lay with the ships, especially as the sailors were by far the better marksmen. Yet so great is the superiority of forts over ships that the engagement lasted five hours or more (7 A.M. till noon) before most of the forts were silenced more or less completely. Fort Pharos continued to fire till 4 P.M. On the whole, the Egyptian gunners stood manfully to their guns. Considering the weight of metal thrown against the forts, namely, 1741 heavy projectiles and 1457 light, the damage done to them was not great, only 27 cannon being silenced completely, and 5 temporarily. On the other hand, the ships were hit only 75 times and lost only 6 killed and 27 wounded. The results show that the comparatively distant cannonades of to-day, even with great guns, are far less deadly than the old sea-fights when ships were locked yard-arm to yard-arm.



Had Admiral Seymour at once landed a force of marines and bluejackets, all the forts would probably have been surrendered at once. For some reason not fully known, this was not done. Spasmodic firing began again in the morning, but a truce was before long arranged, which proved to be only a device for enabling Arabi and his troops to escape. The city, meanwhile, was the scene of a furious outbreak against Europeans, in which some 400 or 500 persons perished. Damage, afterwards assessed at L7,000,000, was done by fire and pillage. It was not till the 14th that the admiral, after receiving reinforcements, felt able to send troops into the city, when a few severe examples cowed the plunderers and restored order. The Khedive, who had shut himself up in his palace at Ramleh, now came back to the seaport under the escort of a British force, and thenceforth remained virtually, though not in name, under British protection.

The bombardment of Alexandria brought about the resignation of that sturdy Quaker, and friend of peace, Mr. John Bright from the Gladstone Ministry; but everything tends to show (as even M. de Freycinet admits) that the crisis took Ministers by surprise. Nothing was ready at home for an important campaign; and it would seem that hostilities resulted, firstly, from the violence of Arabi's supporters in Alexandria, and, secondly, from their persistence in warlike preparations which might have endangered the safety of Admiral Seymour's fleet. The situation was becoming like that of 1807 at the Dardanelles, when the Turks gave smooth promises to Admiral Duckworth, all the time strengthening their forts, with very disagreeable results. Probably the analogy of 1807, together with the proven perfidy of Arabi's men, brought on hostilities, which the British Ministers up to the end were anxious to avoid.

In any case, the die was now cast, and England entered questioningly on a task, the magnitude and difficulty of which no one could then foresee. She entered on it alone, and that, too, though the Gladstone Ministry had made pressing overtures for the help of France, at any rate as regarded the protection of the Suez Canal. To this extent, de Freycinet and his colleagues were prepared to lend their assistance; but, despite Gambetta's urgent appeal for common action with England at that point, the Chamber of Deputies still remained in a cautiously negative mood, and to that frame of mind M. Clemenceau added strength by a speech ending with a glorification of prudence. "Europe," he said, "is covered with soldiers; every one is in a state of expectation; all the Power are reserving their future liberty of action; do you reserve the liberty of action of France." The restricted co-operation with England which the Cabinet recommended found favour with only seventy-five deputies; and, when face to face with a large hostile majority, de Freycinet and his colleagues resigned (July 29, 1882)[368]. Prudence, fear of the newly-formed Triple Alliance, or jealousy of England, drew France aside from the path to which her greatest captains, thinkers, and engineers had beckoned her in time past. Whatever the predominant motive may have been, it altered the course of history in the valley of the Nile.

[Footnote 368: De Freycinet, op, cit. pp. 311-312.]

After the refusal of France to co-operate with England even to the smallest extent, the Conference of the Powers became a nullity, and its sessions ceased despite the lack of any formal adjournment[369]. Here, as on so many other occasions, the Concert of the Powers displayed its weakness; and there can be no doubt that the Sultan and Arabi counted on that weakness in playing the dangerous game which brought matters to the test of the sword. The jealousies of the Powers now stood fully revealed. Russia entered a vigorous protest against England's action at Alexandria; Italy evinced great annoyance, and at once repelled a British proposal for her co-operation; Germany also showed much resentment, and turned the situation to profitable account by substituting her influence for that of Britain in the counsels of the Porte. The Sultan, thwarted in the midst of his tortuous intrigues for a great Moslem revival, showed his spleen and his diplomatic skill by loftily protesting against Britain's violation of international law, and thereafter by refusing (August 1) to proclaim Arabi a rebel against the Khedive's authority. The essential timidity of Abdul Hamid's nature in presence of superior force was shown by a subsequent change of front. On hearing of British successes, he placed Arabi under the ban (September 8).

[Footnote 369: For its proceedings, see Parl. Papers, Egypt, 1882 (Conference on Egyptian Affairs).]

Meanwhile, the British expedition of some 10,000 men, despatched to Egypt under the command of Sir Garnet Wolseley made as though it would attack Arabi from Alexandria as a base. But on nearing that port at nightfall it steered about and occupied Port Said (August 15). Kantara and Ismailia, on the canal, were speedily seized; and the Seaforth Highlanders by a rapid march occupied Chalouf and prevented the cutting of the freshwater canal by the rebels. Thenceforth the little army had the advantage of marching near fresh water, and by a route on which Arabi was not at first expecting them. Sir Garnet Wolseley's movements were of that quick and decisive order which counts for so much against orientals. A sharp action at Tel-el-Mahuta obliged Arabi's forces, some 10,000 strong, to abandon entrenchments thrown up at that point (August 24).

Four days later there was desperate fighting at Kassassin Lock on the freshwater canal. There the Egyptians flung themselves in large numbers against a small force sent forward under General Graham to guard that important point. The assailants fought with the recklessness begotten by the proclamation of a holy war against infidels, and for some time the issue remained in doubt. At length, about sundown, three squadrons of the Household Cavalry, and the 7th Dragoon Guards, together with four light guns, were hastily sent forward from the main body in the rear to clinch the affair. General Drury Lowe wheeled this little force round the left flank of the enemy, and, coming up unperceived in the gathering darkness, charged with such fury as to scatter the hostile array in instant rout[370]. The enemy fell back on the entrenchments at Tel-el-Kebir, while the whole British force (including a division from India) concentrated at Kassassin, 17,400 strong, with 61 guns and 6 Gatlings.

[Footnote 370: History of the Campaign in Egypt (War Office), by Col. J.F. Maurice, pp. 62-65.]

The final action took place on September 13, at Tel-el-Kebir. There Arabi had thrown up a double line of earthworks of some strength, covering about four miles, and lay with a force that has been estimated at 20,000 to 25,000 regulars and 7000 irregulars. Had the assailants marched across the desert and attacked these works by day, they must have sustained heavy losses. Sir Garnet therefore determined to try the effect of a surprise at dawn, and moved his men forward after sunset of the 12th until they came within striking distance of the works. After a short rest they resumed their advance shortly before the time when the first streaks of dawn would appear on the eastern sky. At about 500 yards from the works, the advance was dimly silhouetted against the paling orient. Shortly before five o'clock, an Egyptian rifle rang out a sharp warning, and forthwith the entrenchments spurted forth smoke and flame. At once the British answered by a cheer and a rush over the intervening ground, each regiment eager to be the first to ply the bayonet. The Highlanders, under the command of General Graham, were leading on the left, and therefore won in this race for glory; but on all sides the invaders poured almost simultaneously over the works. For several minutes there was sharp fighting on the parapet; but the British were not to be denied, and drove before them the defenders as a kind of living screen against the fire that came from the second entrenchments; these they carried also, and thrust the whole mass out into the desert[371]. There hundreds of them fell under the sabres of the British cavalry which swept down from the northern end of the lines; but the pursuit was neither prolonged nor sanguinary. Sir Garnet Wolseley was satisfied with the feat of dissolving Arabi's army into an armed or unarmed rabble by a single sharp blow, and now kept horses and men for further eventualities.

[Footnote 371: Life, Letters, and Diaries of General Sir Gerald Graham (1901). J.F. Maurice, op. cit. pp. 84-95.]

By one of those flashes of intuition that mark the born leader of men, the British commander perceived that the whole war might be ended if a force of cavalry pushed on to Cairo and demanded the surrender of its citadel at the moment when the news of the disaster at Tel-el-Kebir unmanned its defenders. The conception must rank as one of the most daring recorded in the annals of war. In the ancient capital of Egypt there were more than 300,000 Moslems, lately aroused to dangerous heights of fanaticism by the proclamation of a "holy war" against infidels. Its great citadel, towering some 250 feet above the city, might seem to bid defiance to all the horsemen of the British army. Finally, Arabi had repaired thither in order to inspire vigour into a garrison numbering some 10,000 men. Nevertheless, Wolseley counted on the moral effect of his victory to level the ramparts of the citadel and to abase the mushroom growth of Arabi's pride.

His surmise was more than justified by events. While his Indian contingent pushed on to occupy Zagazig, Sir Drury Lowe, with a force mustering fewer than 500 sabres, pressed towards Cairo by a desert road in order to summon it on the morrow. After halting at Belbeis the troopers gave rein to their steeds; and a ride of nearly 40 miles brought them to the city about sundown. Rumour magnified their numbers; while the fatalism that used to nerve the Moslem in his great days now predisposed him to bow the knee and mutter Kismet at the advent of the seemingly predestined masters of Egypt. To this small, wearied, but lordly band Cairo surrendered, and Arabi himself handed over his sword. On the following day the infantry came up and made good this precarious conquest.

In presence of this startling triumph the Press of the Continent sought to find grounds for the belief that Arabi, and Cairo as well, had been secretly bought over by British gold. It is somewhat surprising to find M. de Freycinet[372] repeating to-day this piece of spiteful silliness, which might with as much reason be used to explain away the victories of Clive and Coote, Outram and Havelock. The slanders of continental writers themselves stand in need of explanation. It is to be found in their annoyance at discovering that England had an army which could carry through a difficult campaign to a speedy and triumphant conclusion. Their typical attitude had been that of Bismarck, namely, of exultation at her difficulties and of hope of her discomfiture. Now their tone changed to one of righteous indignation at the irregularity of her conduct in acting on behalf of Europe without any mandate from the Powers, and in using the Suez Canal as a base of operations.

[Footnote 372: Op. cit. p. 316.]

In this latter respect Britain's conduct was certainly open to criticism[373]. On the other hand, it is doubtful whether Arabi would have provoked her to action had he not been tacitly encouraged by the other Powers, which, while professing their wish to see order restored in Egypt, in most cases secretly sought to increase her difficulties in undertaking that task. As for the Sultan, he had now trimmed his sails by declaring Arabi a rebel to the Khedive's authority; and in due course that officer was tried, found guilty, and exiled to Ceylon early in 1883. The conduct of France, Germany, and Russia, if we may judge by the tone of their officially inspired Press, was scarcely more straightforward, and was certainly less discreet. On all sides there were diatribes against Britain's high-handed and lawless behaviour, and some German papers affected to believe that Hamburg might next be chosen for bombardment by the British fleet. These outbursts, in the case of Germany, may have been due to Bismarck's desire to please Russia, and secondarily France, in all possible ways. It is doubtful whether he gained this end. Certainly he and his underlings in the Press widened the gulf that now separated the two great Teutonic peoples.

[Footnote 373: It is said, however, that Arabi had warned M. de Lesseps that "the defence of Egypt requires the temporary destruction of the Canal" (Traill, England, Egypt, and the Sudan, p. 57). The status of the Canal was defined in 1885. Ibid. p. 59.]

The annoyance of France was more natural. She had made the Suez Canal, and had participated in the Dual Control; but her mistake in not sharing in the work of restoring order was irreparable. Every one in Egypt saw that the control of that country must rest with the Power which had swept away Arabi's Government and re-established the fallen authority of the Khedive. A few persons in England, even including one member of the Gladstone Administration, Mr. Courtney, urged a speedy withdrawal; but the Cabinet, which had been unwillingly but irresistibly drawn thus far by the force of circumstances, could not leave Egypt a prey to anarchy; and, clearly, the hand that repressed anarchy ruled the country for the time being. It is significant that on April 4, 1883, more than 2600 Europeans in Egypt presented a petition begging that the British occupation might be permanent[374].

[Footnote 374: Sir A. Milner, England in Egypt, p. 31.]

Mr. Gladstone, however, and others of his Cabinet, had declared that it would be only temporary, and would, in fact, last only so long as to enable order and prosperity to grow up under the shadow of new and better institutions. These pledges were given with all sincerity, and the Prime Minister and his colleagues evidently wished to be relieved from what was to them a disagreeable burden. The French in Egypt, of course, fastened on these promises, and one of their newspapers, the Journal Egyptien, printed them every day at the head of its front columns[375]. Mr. Gladstone, who sought above all things for a friendly understanding with France, keenly felt, even to the end of his career, that the continued occupation of Egypt hindered that most desirable consummation. He was undoubtedly right. The irregularity of England's action in Egypt hampered her international relations at many points; and it may be assigned as one of the causes that brought France into alliance with Russia.

[Footnote 375: H.F. Wood, Egypt under the British, p. 59 (1896).]

What, then, hindered the fulfilment of Mr. Gladstone's pledges? In the first place, the dog-in-the-manger policy of French officials and publicists increased the difficulties of the British administrators who now, in the character of advisers of the Khedive, really guided him and controlled his Ministers. The scheme of administration adopted was in the main that advised by Lord Dufferin in his capacity of Special Envoy. The details, however, are too wide and complex to be set forth here. So also are those of the disputes between our officials and those of France. Suffice it to say that by shutting up the funds of the "Caisse de la Dette," the French administrators of that great reserve fund hoped to make Britain's position untenable and hasten her evacuation. In point of fact, these and countless other pin-pricks delayed Egypt's recovery and furnished a good reason why Britain should not withdraw[376].

[Footnote 376: The reader should consult for full details Sir A. Milner, England in Egypt (1892); Sir D.M. Wallace, The Egyptian Question (1883), especially chaps, xi.-xiii.; and A. Silva White, The Expansion of Egypt (1899), the best account of the Anglo-Egyptian administration, with valuable Appendices on the "Caisse," etc.

A far more favourable light is thrown on the conduct of Arabi and his partisans by Mr. A.M. Broadley in his work How We Defended Arabi (1884).]

But above and beyond these administrative details, there was one all-compelling cause, the war-cloud that now threatened the land of the Pharaohs from that home of savagery and fanaticism, the Sudan.

NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION

For new light on the nationalist movement in Egypt and the part which Arabi played in it, the reader should consult How we defended Arabi, by A.M. Broadley (London, 1884). The same writer in his Tunis, Past and Present (2 vols. 1882) has thrown much light on the Tunis Question and on the Pan-Islamic movement in North Africa.



CHAPTER XVI

GORDON AND THE SUDAN

What were my ideas in coming out? They were these: Agreed abandonment of Sudan, but extricate the garrisons; and these were the instructions of the Government (Gordon's Journal, October 8, 1885).

It is one of the peculiarities of the Moslem faith that any time of revival is apt to be accompanied by warlike fervour somewhat like that which enabled its early votaries to sweep over half of the known world in a single generation. This militant creed becomes dangerous when it personifies itself in a holy man who can make good his claim to be received as a successor of the Prophet. Such a man had recently appeared in the Sudan. It is doubtful whether Mohammed Ahmed was a genuine believer in his own extravagant claims, or whether he adopted them in order to wreak revenge on Rauf Pasha, the Egyptian Governor of the Sudan, for an insult inflicted by one of his underlings. In May 1881, while living near the island of Abba in the Nile, he put forward his claim to be the Messiah or Prophet, foretold by the founder of that creed. Retiring with some disciples to that island, he gained fame by his fervour and asceticism. His followers named him "El Mahdi," the leader, but his claims were scouted by the Ulemas of Khartum, Cairo, and Constantinople, on the ground that the Messiah of the Moslems was to arise in the East. Nevertheless, while the British were crushing Arabi's movement, the Mahdi stirred the Sudan to its depths, and speedily shook the Egyptian rule to its base[377].

[Footnote 377: See the Report of the Intelligence Department of the War Office, printed in The Journals of Major-General C.G. Gordon at Khartum, Appendix to Bk. iv.]

There was every reason to fear a speedy collapse. In the years 1874-76 the Province of the White Nile had known the benefits of just and tactful rule under that born leader of men, Colonel Gordon; and in the three following years, as Governor-General of the Sudan, he gained greater powers, which he felt to be needful for the suppression of the slave-trade and other evils. Ill-health and underhand opposition of various kinds caused him to resign his post in 1879. Then, to the disgust of all, the Khedive named as his successor Rauf Pasha, whom Gordon had recently dismissed for maladministration of the Province of Harrar, on the borders of Abyssinia[378]. Thus the Sudan, after experiencing the benefits of a just and able government, reeled back into the bad old condition, at the time when the Mahdi was becoming a power in the land. No help was forthcoming from Egypt in the summer of 1882, and the Mahdi's revolt rapidly made headway even despite several checks from the Egyptian troops.

[Footnote 378: See Gordon's letter of April 1880, quoted in the Introduction to The Journals of Major-General C.G. Gordon at Khartum (1885), p. xvii.]

Possibly, if Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues had decided to crush it in that autumn, the task might have been easy. But, far from doing so, they sought to dissuade the Khedive from attempting to hold the most disturbed districts, those of Kordofan and Darfur, beyond Khartum. This might have been the best course, if the evacuation could have been followed at once and without risk of disaster at the hands of the fanatics. But Tewfik willed otherwise. Against the advice of Lord Dufferin, he sought to reconquer the Sudan, and that, too, by wholly insufficient forces. The result was a series of disasters, culminating in the extermination of Hicks Pasha's Egyptian force by the Mahdi's followers near El Obeid, the capital of Kordofan (November 5, 1883).

The details of the disaster are not fully known. Hicks Pasha was appointed, on August 20, 1883, by the Khedive to command the expedition into that province. He set out from Omdurman on September 9, with 10,000 men, 4 Krupp guns and 16 light guns, 500 horses and 5500 camels. His last despatch, dated October 3, showed that the force had been greatly weakened by want of water and provisions, and most of all by the spell cast on the troops by the Mahdi's claim to invincibility. Nevertheless, Hicks checked the rebels in two or three encounters, but, according to the tale of one of the few survivors, a camel-driver, the force finally succumbed to a fierce charge on the Egyptian square at the close of an exhausting march, prolonged by the treachery of native guides. Nearly the whole force was put to the sword. Hicks Pasha perished, along with five British and four German officers, and many Egyptians of note. The adventurous newspaper correspondents, O'Donovan and Vizetelly, also met their doom (November 5, 1883)[379].

[Footnote 379: Gordon's Journals, pp. 347-351; also Parl. Papers, Egypt, No. 12 (1884), pp. 85 and 127-131 for another account. See, too, Sir F.R. Wingate's Mahdism, chaps. i.-iii., for the rise of the Mahdi and his triumph over Hicks.]

This catastrophe decided the history of the Sudan for many years. The British Government was in no respect responsible for the appointment of General Hicks to the Kordofan command. Lord Dufferin and Sir E. Malet had strongly urged the Khedive to abandon Kordofan and Darfur; but it would seem that the desire of the governing class at Cairo to have a hand in the Sudan administration overbore these wise remonstrances, and hence the disaster near El Obeid with its long train of evil consequences[380]. It was speedily followed by another reverse at Tokar not far from Suakim, where the slave-raiders and tribesmen of the Red Sea coast exterminated another force under the command of Captain Moncrieff.

[Footnote 380: J. Morley, Life of Gladstone, vol. iii. p. 146; Sir A. Lyall, Life of Lord Dufferin, vol. ii. chap. ii.]

The Gladstone Ministry and the British advisers of the Khedive, among whom was Sir Evelyn Baring (the present Lord Cromer), again urged the entire evacuation of the Sudan, and the limitation of Egyptian authority to the strong position of the First Cataract at Assuan. This policy then received the entire approval of the man who was to be alike the hero and the martyr of that enterprise[381]. But how were the Egyptian garrisons to be withdrawn? It was a point of honour not to let them be slaughtered or enslaved by the cruel fanatics of the Mahdi. Yet under the lead of Egyptian officers they would almost certainly suffer one of these fates. A way of escape was suggested—by a London evening newspaper in the first instance. The name of Gordon was renowned for justice and hardihood all through the Sudan. Let this knight-errant be sent—so said this Mentor of the Press—and his strange power over men would accomplish the impossible. The proposal carried conviction everywhere, and Lord Granville, who generally followed any strong lead, sent for the General.

[Footnote 381: Morley, Life of Gladstone, vol. iii. p. 147.]

Charles George Gordon, born at Woolwich in 1833, was the scion of a staunch race of Scottish fighters. His great-grandfather served under Cope at Prestonpans; his grandfather fought in Boscawen's expedition at Louisburg and under Wolfe at Quebec. His father attained the rank of Lieutenant-General. From his mother, too, he derived qualities of self-reliance and endurance of no mean order. Despite the fact that she had eleven children, and that three of her sons were out at the Crimea, she is said never to have quailed during that dark time. Of these sons, Charles George was serving in the Engineers; he showed at his first contact with war an aptitude and resource which won the admiration of all. "We used always to send him out to find what new move the Russians were making"—such was the testimony of one of his superior officers. Of his subsequent duties in delimiting the new Bessarabian frontier and his miraculous career in China we cannot speak in detail. By the consent of all, it was his soldierly spirit that helped to save that Empire from anarchy at the hands of the Taeping rebels, whose movement presented a strange medley of perverted Christianity, communism, and freebooting. There it was that his magnetic influence over men first had free play. Though he was only thirty years of age, his fine physique, dauntless daring, and the spirit of unquestionable authority that looked out from his kindly eyes, gained speedy control over the motley set of officers and the Chinese rank and file—half of them ex-rebels—that formed the nucleus of the "ever victorious army." What wonder that he was thenceforth known as "Chinese Gordon"?

In the years 1865-71, which he spent at Gravesend in supervising the construction of the new forts at the mouth of the river, the religious and philanthropic side of his character found free play. His biographer, Mr. Hake, tells of his interest in the poor and suffering, and, above all, in friendless boys, who came to idolise his manly yet sympathetic nature. Called thereafter by the Khedive to succeed Sir Samuel Baker in the Governorship of the Sudan, he grappled earnestly with the fearful difficulties that beset all who have attempted to put down the slave-trade in its chief seat of activity. Later on he expressed the belief that "the Sudan is a useless possession, ever was so, ever will be so." These words, and certain episodes in his official career in India and in Cape Colony, revealed the weak side of a singularly noble nature. Occasionally he was hasty and impulsive in his decisions, and the pride of his race would then flash forth. During his cadetship at Woolwich he was rebuked for incompetence, and told that he would never make an officer. At once he tore the epaulets from his shoulders and flung them at his superior's feet. A certain impatience of control characterised him throughout life. No man was ever more chivalrous, more conscientious, more devoted, or abler in the management of inferiors; but his abilities lay rather in the direction of swift intuitions and prompt achievement than in sound judgment and plodding toil. In short, his qualities were those of a knight-errant, not those of a statesman. The imperious calls of conscience and of instinct endowed him with powers uniquely fitted to attract and enthral simple straightforward natures, and to sway orientals at his will. But the empire of conscience, instinct, and will-power consorts but ill with those diplomatic gifts of effecting a timely compromise which go far to make for success in life. This was at once the strength and the weakness of Gordon's being. In the midst of a blase, sceptical age, his personality stood forth, God-fearing as that of a Covenanter, romantic as that of a Coeur de Lion, tender as that of a Florence Nightingale. In truth, it appealed to all that is most elemental in man.

At that time Gordon was charged by the King of the Belgians to proceed to the Congo River to put down the slave-trade. Imagination will persist in wondering what might have been the result if he had carried out this much-needed duty. Possibly he might have acquired such an influence as to direct the "Congo Free State" to courses far other than those to which it has come. He himself discerned the greatness of the opportunity. In his letter of January 6, 1884, to H.M. Stanley, he stated that "no such efficacious means of cutting at root of slave-trade ever was presented as that which God has opened out to us through the kind disinterestedness of His Majesty."

The die was now cast against the Congo and for the Nile. Gordon had a brief interview with four members of the Cabinet—Lords Granville, Hartington, Northbrooke, and Sir Charles Dilke,—Mr. Gladstone was absent at Hawarden; and they forthwith decided that he should go to the Upper Nile. What transpired in that most important meeting is known only from Gordon's account of it in a private letter:—

At noon he, Wolseley, came to me and took me to the Ministers. He went in and talked to the Ministers, and came back and said, "Her Majesty's Government want you to undertake this. Government are determined to evacuate the Sudan, for they will not guarantee future government. Will you go and do it?" I said, "Yes." He said, "Go in." I went in and saw them. They said, "Did Wolseley tell you our orders?" I said, "Yes." I said, "You will not guarantee future government of the Sudan, and you wish me to go up to evacuate now?" They said, "Yes," and it was over, and I left at 8 P.M. for Calais.

Before seeing the Ministers, Gordon had a long interview with Lord Wolseley, who in the previous autumn had been named Baron Wolseley of Cairo. That conversation is also unknown to us, but obviously it must have influenced Gordon's impressions as to the scope of the duties sketched for him by the Cabinet. We turn, then, to the "Instructions to General Gordon," drawn up by the Ministry on Jan. 18, 1884. They directed him to "proceed at once to Egypt, to report to them on the military situation in the Sudan, and on the measures which it may be advisable to take for the security of the Egyptian garrisons still holding positions in that country and for the safety of the European population in Khartum." He was also to report on the best mode of effecting the evacuation of the interior of the Sudan and on measures that might be taken to counteract the consequent spread of the slave-trade. He was to be under the instructions of H.M.'s Consul-General at Cairo (Sir Evelyn Baring). There followed this sentence: "You will consider yourself authorised and instructed to perform such other duties as the Egyptian Government may desire to entrust to you, and as may be communicated to you by Sir Evelyn Baring[382]."

[Footnote 382: Parl. Papers, Egypt, No. 2 (1884), p. 3.]

After receiving these instructions, Gordon started at once for Egypt, accompanied by Colonel Stewart. At Cairo he had an interview with Sir Evelyn Baring, and was appointed by the Khedive Governor-General of the Sudan. The firman of Jan. 26 contained these words: "We trust that you will carry out our good intentions for the establishment of justice and order, and that you will assure the peace and prosperity of the people of the Sudan by maintaining the security of the roads," etc. It contained not a word about the evacuation of the Sudan, nor did the Khedive's proclamation of the same date to the Sudanese. The only reference to evacuation was in his letter of the same date to Gordon, beginning thus: "You are aware that the object of your arrival here and of your mission to the Sudan is to carry into execution the evacuation of those territories and to withdraw our troops, civil officials, and such of the inhabitants, together with their belongings, as may wish to leave for Egypt. . . ." After completing this task he was to "take the necessary steps for establishing an organised Government in the different provinces of the Sudan for the maintenance of order and the cessation of all disasters and incitement to revolt[383]." How Gordon, after sending away all the troops, was to pacify that enormous territory His Highness did not explain.

[Footnote 383: Parl. Papers, Egypt, No. 12 (1884), pp. 27, 28.]

There is almost as much ambiguity in the "further instructions" which Sir Evelyn Baring drew up on January 25 at Cairo. After stating that the British and Egyptian Governments had agreed on the necessity of "evacuating" the Sudan, he noted the fact that Gordon approved of it and thought it should on no account be changed; the despatch proceeds:—

You consider that it may take a few months to carry it out with safety. You are further of opinion that "the restoration of the country should be made to the different petty Sultans who existed at the time of Mohammed Ali's conquest, and whose families still exist"; and that an endeavour should be made to form a confederation of those Sultans. In this view the Egyptian Government entirely concur. It will of course be fully understood that the Egyptian troops are not to be kept in the Sudan merely with a view to consolidating the powers of the new rulers of the country. But the Egyptian Government has the fullest confidence in your judgment, your knowledge of the country, and your comprehension of the general line of policy to be pursued. You are therefore given full discretionary power to retain the troops for such reasonable period as you may think necessary, in order that the abandonment of the country may be accomplished with the least possible risk to life and property. A credit of L100,000 has been opened for you at the Finance Department[384]. . . .