Secret History of the English Occupation of Egypt Part 12

Malet's telegram, as it stands in the Blue Book (Egypt, No. 11, 1882), says even less than this. It runs thus: "The Khedive sent for M.

Sinkiewicz and me this morning and informed us that it had come to his knowledge that the military intended this afternoon to depose him and proclaim Halim Pasha as Khedive of Egypt.... The Khedive said he hardly believed the truth of this information." Yet on such a slender rumour Gladstone, who had declared to me that he never spoke lightly in Parliament and had bidden me wait for his spoken word in the House of Commons as a message of goodwill to the Egyptians, fires off, to give point to his speech, this quite untrue announcement, his first definite utterance since I had seen him on Egypt. It is a curious comment on the ways of Ministers and the processes of the Gladstonian mind. The immediate effect on me of the Prime Minister's speech was a complete and lasting disillusion. Never after this did I place the smallest trust in him, or find reason, even when he came forward as champion of self-government in Ireland and when I gave him my freest support, to look upon him as other than the mere Parliamentarian he in truth was. I do not say that on that wonderful 22nd of March he was not for the moment in earnest when he spoke to me so humanly, but it was clear that his sympathies with the cause of right, however unfeigned, were not the law of his public action, which was dictated, like that of all the rest of them, by motives of expediency. The discovery destroyed for me an illusion about him which I have never regained.

"_June 2._--Lord De la Warr, Gregory, Brand, and b.u.t.ton met at my house, and all but Brand seemed highly pleased at the situation. Harry still calls me a traitor, and declares that Arabi has made a gigantic fortune, and that he must and will be suppressed out of Egypt. b.u.t.ton then drew up with Sabunji a code of signals for him to telegraph us news; and I gave him 100 for his expenses, for which he will have to account. The telegrams are to be sent to me and I am to communicate them to b.u.t.ton for the 'Times.' I have given Sabunji my instructions, of which the two most important are that Arabi is to make peace with Tewfik and on no pretence to go to Constantinople. Now we have packed him off, anxious only lest he should be stopped at Alexandria. b.u.t.ton tells me that if I had persisted in going, orders would have been given to Sir Beauchamp Seymour to prevent my landing.... My mind is at rest."

If I had heard Gladstone's speech before agreeing with Hamilton to renounce my journey to Egypt I probably should have persisted in my intention, but, as things turned out, I doubt if it would have resulted in any good. Even if I had not been prevented from landing I could hardly have used more influence personally with Arabi and the other leaders than I succeeded in exercising through Sabunji. Sabunji was an admirable agent in a mission of this kind, and it is impossible I could have been better served. His position as ex-editor of the "Nahleh," a paper which, whether subsidized or not by Ismal, had always advocated the most enlightened views of humanitarian progress and Mohammedan reform, gave him a position with the Azhar reformers of considerable influence, and he was, besides, heart and soul with them in the National movement. As my representative he was everywhere received by the Nationalists with open arms, and they gave him their completest confidence. Nor was he unworthy of their trust or mine. The letters I sent him for them he communicated faithfully, and he faithfully reported to me all that they told him. These letters remain a valuable testimony, the only one probably extant, of the inner ideas of the time, and a _precis_ of them will be found at the end of this volume. Sabunji landed at Alexandria on the 7th of June and remained till the day before the bombardment.[15]

FOOTNOTES:

[14] This French spelling of Arabi's name used by the P. M. G. was due originally, I believe, to Colvin's French colleague, de Blignieres, and was adopted by him and by Baron Mallortie who, with Colvin, was Morley's princ.i.p.al correspondent that year at Cairo.

[15] Sabunji remained in my employment till the end of 1883. Then he left me and visited India, where he had relations, and after many vicissitudes of fortune drifted to that common haven of Oriental revolutionists, Yildiz Kiosk, where he obtained the confidential post with Sultan Abdul Hamid of translator for the Sultan's private eye of the European Press, a post which I believe he still holds, 1907.

CHAPTER XIII

DERVISH'S MISSION

I have now come to a point in the history of this wonderful intrigue where, if I had not semi-official published matter in large measure to support me, I should find it hopeless to convince historians that I was not romancing. It seems so wholly incredible that a Liberal English Government, owning that great and good man Mr. Gladstone as its head, should, for any reason in the world financial, political, or of private necessity, have embarked on a plan so cynically immoral as that which I have now to relate. John Morley in his published life of Gladstone slurs over the whole of his astonishing Egyptian adventure that year in a single short chapter of fifteen pages, out of the fifteen hundred pages of which his panegyric consists, and with reason from his point of view, for he could have hardly told it in any terms of excuse. It is necessary all the same that historians less bound to secrecy should have the details plainly put before them, for no history of the British Occupation will ever be worth the paper it is written on that does not record them.

By the 1st of June it was generally acknowledged that the policy of intimidation by mere threat, even though backed by the presence of the fleets, had ignominiously failed. Mahmud Sami's Ministry indeed had resigned, but the initial success had been immediately followed only by a more complete discomfiture. The Ultimatum had expressly demanded that Arabi should leave Egypt, and not only had Arabi not obeyed, but the Khedive had been obliged by the popular voice to reinstate him as Minister of War, with even larger responsibilities than before, and in even more conspicuous honour. Our Foreign Office, therefore, found itself in the position of having either to eat its empty words in a very public manner, or to make them good against one who was now very generally recognized in Europe as a National hero. Its colleague in the matter, France, had long shown a desire to be out of the sordid adventure, and Mr. Gladstone's Government was left practically to act alone, if it insisted on going on, according to its own methods. The method resolved on was certainly one of the most extraordinary ever used by a civilized government in modern times, and the very last which could have been expected of one owning Mr. Gladstone as its chief. It was to beg a.s.sistance from the Sultan and persuade him to intervene to "get rid of Arabi," not by a mere exercise of his sovereign command nor yet by openly bringing in against him those Ottoman _gens d'armes_ which had been talked of, but by one of those old-fashioned Turkish acts of treachery which were traditional with the Porte in its dealings with its Christian and other subjects in too successful rebellion against it.

A first hint of some such possible plan may be found in the "Pall Mall Gazette," in one of its little inspired articles, as far back as the 15th May, in which John Morley, explaining with satisfaction the Government policy of "bottle holding" the Khedive, adds that "Ourabi may before long be quietly got rid of." The full plan is of course not divulged in the Blue Books, but it is navely disclosed a little later in the "Pall Mall," where, without the slightest apparent sense of its impropriety, the dots are put plainly on the i's. The idea as I learned it at the time was that the Sultan should send a military Commissioner to Egypt, a soldier of the old energetic unscrupulous type, who, by the mere terror of his presence, should frighten the Egyptians out of their att.i.tude of resistance to England, and that as to Arabi, if he could not be lured on ship-board and sent to Constantinople, the Commissioner should invite him to a friendly conference, and there shoot him, if necessary, with his own hand. The suggestion was so like the advice Colvin had given to the Khedive, and had boasted that he gave, nine months before, that there is nothing improbable in its having been again entertained. A Commissioner was consequently asked for at Constantinople, and one Dervish Pasha was chosen, a man of character and antecedents exactly corresponding to those required for such a job, and despatched to Cairo.

The excellent Morley, in an enthusiastic paragraph describing the arrival of this new Ottoman _deus ex machina_, grows almost lyrical in his praise.

"The Egyptian crisis," he says, "has reached its culminating point, and at last it seems that there is a man at Cairo capable of controlling events. There is something very impressive in the calm immovable dignity of Dervish Pasha, who is emphatically the man of the situation. After all the shiftings and twistings of diplomatists and the pitiful exhibition of weakness on the part of the leading actors in this Egyptian drama, it is an immense relief to find one 'still strong man'

who, by the mere force of his personal presence, can make every one bow to his will. Nothing can be more striking than his a.s.sertion of authority, and nothing more skilful than his casual reference to the ma.s.sacre of the Mamelukes. Dervish is a man of iron, and Arabi may well quail before his eye. One saucy word, and his head would roll upon the carpet. Dervish is quite capable of 'manipulating' Arabi, not in the Western but in the Eastern sense of that word. In this strong resolute Ottoman it seems probable that the revolution in Egypt has found its master."

And again, 15th June: "The past career of Dervish Pasha is filled with incidents which sustain the impression of vigour he has laid down at Cairo. He is at once the most vigorous and unscrupulous of all the Generals of the Ottoman army. Although he is now seventy years old, his age has not weakened his energy or impaired his faculties. His will is still as iron as it was of old, and he is quite as capable of ordering a ma.s.sacre of the Mamelukes as was Mehemet Ali himself.... His early military experience was acquired fighting the Montenegrins, who always regarded him as the most dangerous Commander whom they had had to meet.

In one of the last acute fits of hostility (about 1856) between the Porte and Montenegro, Dervish penetrated to Grakovo, the northernmost canton of the Vladikate, as it then was; and the Voivode of the district, cut off from retreat to the South, took refuge in a cave, the habitual hiding-place of the people against sudden raids, it being so situated that the usual expedient of attack, smoking out by fires kindled at the mouth, was inapplicable. The attempts of the Turks to force a pa.s.sage were easily repulsed, and Dervish entered into negotiations, the result of which was a surrender on condition of the lives, liberty and property of the besieged being respected. The Turkish engagements were kept by the extermination of the entire family of the Voivode. The prisoners were marched off to Trebinji and thrown into the dungeon of the fortress, tied back to back, one of each couplet being killed and the survivor not released for a moment from the burden of his dead comrade.... Dervish's _modus operandi_ during the late Albanian campaign is not generally understood. He went into Albania to enforce the conscription in which he utterly failed, though he had very slight military opposition, most of the battles he reported being purely mythical. But he was very successful in another plan of operation, which consisted in quartering himself on the Estates of the princ.i.p.al Beys, and extorting from them the last pound which could be squeezed out, when he moved on to the next one. He sent quant.i.ties of coin to Constantinople, but no recruits. If any prediction of the latest result of Dervish's mission may be based upon the history of those in which he was formerly engaged, we should say he would succeed with Arabi as he succeeded with the Lazis and Albanians.... Egyptians are less warlike than Albanians and Lazis, but even in Egypt the Gordian knot may have to be severed with the sword."

These are pretty sayings which, if he remembers them, should, I think, sometimes make John Morley a little ashamed of the part he was persuaded by his Foreign Office friends to play that summer as apologist of their iniquities. No wonder he has dismissed the whole Egyptian episode from his history in a few pages. Pretty doings, too, for Gladstone to explain to his non-professional or even his professional conscience! The shade of Disraeli may well have smiled!

The Sultan's new mission, nevertheless, was not, as arranged by Abdul Hamid, quite so simple a piece of villainy as our Foreign Office imagined. The Emir el Mumenin had no real idea of lending himself as the mere cat's paw of the Western Powers to do their evil work for them. He was pleased to intervene, but not blindly, and he was much in the dark as to the real situation in Egypt, and desired to be prepared for all contingencies. Arabi still had friends at Court who represented him as championing the faith at Cairo, and in Tewfik, Abdul Hamid had never had any kind of confidence. He still desired to replace him with Halim.

Following, therefore, the method usual with him of checking one agent by another agent, he added to his appointment of Dervish as chief commissioner a second commissioner more favourable to Arabi, Sheykh Ahmed a.s.sad, the religious Sheykh of one of the confraternities (_tarikat_) at Medina, whom he had at Constantinople with him, and was in the habit of employing in his secret dealings with his Arabic speaking subjects, consulting him on all matters connected with his Pan-Islamic propaganda. Thus it happened that on its arrival at Alexandria the Ottoman mission in reality bore a double character, the one of menace in the person of Dervish, the other of conciliation in that of a.s.sad. This Sheykh had it for his special present business to inform the Sultan of the tone of Arab feeling in Egypt, and especially of the Ulema of the Azhar, and he was provided with a private cipher, unknown to Dervish, with which to correspond with his imperial master.

Arabi and his intimates gained knowledge of this and were consequently prepared beforehand to receive the mission as one not wholly unfavourable to them, and the spectacle was witnessed of both parties in the state showing pleasure at its arrival--the Turks and Circa.s.sians at the appearance of Dervish, and the Egyptians at that of the Medina Sheykh.

Both the Khedive as head of the State, and Arabi as head of the Government, sent their delegates to Alexandria to receive the mission, Zulfikar Pasha on the part of the Khedive, Yakub Pasha Sami, the Under-Secretary for War, on that of the Minister, and both were well received. Arabi, too, had commissioned Nadim the Orator to go down some days before to prepare public opinion to give the envoys a flattering reception, and at the same time to protest aloud against the Ultimatum delivered by Malet and his French colleague. Consequently, when the procession was formed to drive through the streets to the railway station, the two envoys in their respective carriages, having with them each a delegate, there was general acclamation on the part of the crowd.

"_Allah yensor el Sultan_," was shouted, "G.o.d give victory to the Sultan"; and at the same time "_El leyha, marfudha, marfudha_," "The Ultimatum, reject it, reject it!" "Send away the fleet!" These cries had their effect at once upon the Chief Commissioner, and made Dervish cautious. Both at Alexandria and at Cairo deputations waited on him at his levees from the Notables, merchants, and officials. To all alike Dervish gave a general answer. The Sultan will do justice. He, Dervish, was come to restore order and the Sultan's authority. Only to the Turks he announced Arabi's speedy departure for Constantinople, to the Egyptians the as speedy departure of the fleets. Sheykh a.s.sad meanwhile in private rea.s.sured Arabi, declaring to him that the Sultan meant him no evil.

As to the fire-eating att.i.tude attributed by our Foreign Office to Dervish, and alluded to by Morley with so much praise in the pa.s.sage already quoted, it was not in reality of a very determined kind. Dervish was old and was far more intent on filling his pockets than on engaging in a personal struggle with the fellah champion. Tewfik had managed to get together 50,000 for Dervish as a _backshish_, and that with 25,000 more in jewels secured him to the Khedive's side, but he made no serious attempt at any _coup de main_ against Arabi. A single unsuccessful attempt at brow-beating the Nationalists showed him that the task would be a dangerous one. On the Friday after his arrival at Cairo he made a round of the mosques and expressed his annoyance at the boldness of certain of the Ulema, who, on his leaving the Azhar, presented him with a pet.i.tion, and still more clearly in the afternoon when the main body of the religious Sheykhs called and stated their views to him with a freedom he was unaccustomed to. All these, with the exception of the ex-Sheykh el Islam, el Abbasi, of the Sheykhs Bahrawi and Abyari and the Sheykh el Saadat, who had espoused the Khedive's cause, declared themselves strongly in favour of Arabi and urged him to reject the Ultimatum, and especially that part of it which demanded Arabi's exile.

Dervish upon this told them to hold their tongues, saying that he had come to give orders, not to listen to advice, and dismissed them, at the same time decorating with the "Osmanieh" the Sheykh el Islam and the other dissentients.

Popular feeling, however, immediately manifested itself in a way he could not mistake. The Sheykhs returned from their audience in great anger, and informed every one of the turn things were taking, and the very same evening messengers were despatched by the Nationalist leaders by the evening trains to the provinces to organize remonstrance. Private meetings of a strong character were held during the night at Cairo, denouncing the Commissioner, and the next morning, Sat.u.r.day, a monster meeting of the students was held in the Azhar mosque to protest against the insult offered the Sheykhs. There Nadim was invited to address the meeting from the pulpit, and he did so with the eloquence habitual to him and with its usual effect. The report of this shook Dervish's self-confidence, and within a few hours of its reaching him he sent for Arabi, whom he had hitherto refused to see, and Mahmud Sami, and addressed them both through an interpreter in terms of conciliation, Sheykh a.s.sad being with him and supporting him in Arabic. At this meeting, though no coffee or cigarettes were offered (an omission remarked by them) Dervish adopted towards them a tone of friendliness.

He made the Nationalist Chiefs sit beside him and expounded the situation with apparent frankness. "We are all here," he said, "as brothers, sons of the Sultan. And I with my white beard can be as a father to you. We have the same object in view, to oppose the Ghiaour, and to obtain the departure of the fleet, which is a disgrace to the Sultan and a menace to Egypt. We are all bound to act together to this end, and show our zeal for our master. This can best be done,"

addressing Arabi, "by your resigning your military power into my hands--at least in appearance--and by your going to Constantinople to please the Sultan." To this Arabi replied that he was ready to resign his command. But that, as the situation was very strained, and as he had a.s.sumed the great responsibility of keeping order he would not consent to any half measure; if he resigned, he would resign in fact as well as name, but he would do neither without a written discharge in full.

Moreover, he would not be held responsible for things laid already to his charge of which he was innocent. He had been falsely accused of tyrannical acts, of malversation and other matters, and he would not leave office without a full discharge in writing from all complaints.

Also he would defer his voyage to Constantinople till a time when things should be more settled, and then go as a private Moslem to pay his respects to the Caliph. Dervish was not prepared for this answer and he did not like it. His countenance changed. But he said, "Let us consider the matter as settled." Then, alluding to the excitement there was at Alexandria, he added, "You will telegraph at once to Omar Pasha Lutfi [the Governor of Alexandria] and the commander of the garrison at Alexandria to say you have resigned your charge on me, and that you are acting as my agent, and on Monday there will be a meeting of the Consuls and the Khedive, and we will give you your discharge." Arabi, however, refused to do this, declaring that until he had received his written discharge he should retain his post and his responsibility. And so, without a definite understanding having been come to between them, he and Mahmud Sami withdrew.

Such is the account, I believe a true one, told by Ninet and confirmed by others who should know of this important interview. It took place about noon on Sat.u.r.day, the 10th of June, and is of importance in many ways and especially for its bearing on what followed the next day, as is notorious, a riot, originating in a quarrel between an Egyptian donkey boy and a Maltese, broke out there about one o'clock in the forenoon and continued till five, with the result that over two hundred persons lost their lives, including a petty officer of H. M. S. "Superb," and some two hundred more Europeans. Also Cookson, the English Consul, was seriously hurt, and the Italian and Greek Consuls received minor injuries, the disturbance being only quelled by the arrival of the regular troops. It was the first act of popular violence which, during the whole history of the year's revolution in Egypt, had been committed, and the news of it, spread throughout Europe by telegraph, produced, especially in England, a great sensation.

As the responsibility for this affair, so unfortunate for the National cause in Egypt, was afterwards laid upon the person it had most injured, Arabi, and as the incident was made use of by our Foreign Office and Admiralty, with other excuses not less unjust, to bring about the bombardment of Alexandria and the war that followed, the plea being that Egypt was in a "proved state of anarchy," it will be well here, before we go any further, to place upon the right shoulders what criminality there was in the whole incident. When I heard of it in London my first instinct was that, if not the accident the papers said it was, it was part of the plot I knew to have been designed through Dervish Pasha at the Foreign Office to entrap and betray Arabi, but it was not till after the war that I came into possession of the full particulars concerning it, or had it in my power to refute the false accusations made a little later against the Nationalists of having themselves devised and brought it about. The very contrary to this was then shown to be truth. As we now all know, who are in the secrets of that time, the riot, though perhaps accidental in its immediate origin, had for some weeks previously been in the designs of the Court party as a means at the proper moment to discredit Arabi as one capable of preserving order in the country.

The position of things at Alexandria was this: Alexandria, more than any other town in Egypt, was in large part a European city, inhabited, besides the Moslem population, by Greek, Italian and Maltese colonists, all engaged in trade and many of them money-lenders. At no time had there been much love between the two cla.s.ses and the arrival of the fleets, avowedly with the intention of protecting European interests, greatly increased the ill-feeling. It needed much loyalty, firmness, and tact on the part of the Governor of the town to preserve order, and great discretion on the part of the fleet. Unfortunately the Governor, Omar Pasha Lutfi, was a man entirely opposed to the Nationalist Ministry. He was a Circa.s.sian, a member of the Court party, and a partisan of the ex-Khedive Ismal's, and at the time of the Circa.s.sian plot had done service to Tewfik by entering into communication with the Western Bedouins to gain them to the Khedive's side. He had, therefore, rather encouraged than repressed the element of disorder in the Mohammedan population. The Greeks, on the other hand, had proceeded to arm themselves, with the a.s.sistance of the head of their community, Ambroise Sinadino, a rich banker, who was also agent of the Rothschilds in Egypt; and the Maltese, a numerous community, did likewise through the connivance of Cookson, the English Consul. Things, therefore, were all it may be said, prepared for a riot as early as the last week of May, in expectation of that "civil war" which, it will be remembered, the "Pall Mall Gazette" foresaw as an approved alternative, should the Nationalist Ministry refuse to resign and Arabi to accept suppression.

There is no doubt that disturbance, as a proof of anarchy, was a thing looked forward to by our diplomacy at Cairo as probable, and even not undesirable in the interests of their "bottle-holding" policy. That Omar Lutfi had a personal interest in the suppression of Arabi is also easily proved. In the telegrams of the day, when the Ultimatum was about to be launched, a list is given of the purely Circa.s.sian and Khedivial Ministry which it was intended should succeed that of Mahmud Sami, and Omar Lutfi is named in it as the probable successor of Arabi at the War Office. Nor was this announcement unfounded, for a few days later we know that Omar Lutfi was, in fact, sent for by the Khedive to the Ismalia Palace and offered the post.[16] The Ultimatum was delivered on the 1st of June, and the Ministers resigned on the 2nd, having waited a day because the Khedive had told them he would first telegraph for advice to Constantinople, though on the following morning, when they again came to him, he informed them that his mind was made up to accept the Ultimatum notwithstanding that he had received no answer. When, therefore, on the 3rd the Khedive had been obliged, through the popular demonstration in Arabi's favour, backed by the German and Austrian Consuls, who saw in Arabi the man best capable in Egypt of maintaining order, to rename Arabi Minister of War, the disappointment to Omar Lutfi is easily understood, and the temptation he was under of creating practical proof that the German Consuls were wrong. We have, besides this, evidence that on the 5th of June the Khedive, who, no less than Omar Lutfi, had received a great rebuff, sent him a telegram in the following words: "Arabi has guaranteed public order, and published it in the newspapers, and has made himself responsible to the Consuls; and if he succeeds in his guarantee the Powers will trust him, and our consideration will be lost. Also the fleets of the Powers are in Alexandrian waters, and men's minds are excited, and quarrels are not far off between Europeans and others. Now, therefore, choose for yourself whether you will serve Arabi in his guarantee or whether you will serve us." On this hint Omar Lutfi immediately took his measures. As civil governor he was in command of the Mustafezzin, the semi-military police of Alexandria, and through them directed that quarterstaves, (_nabuts_) should be collected at the police stations to be served out at the proper moment, and other preparations made for an intended disturbance. Ample proof may be found in the evidence printed in the Blue Books of the complicity of the police in the affair, though a confusion is constantly made by those who give the evidence between these and the regular soldiers by speaking of the police, as is often loosely done in Egypt, as _soldiers_. The regulars were not under the civil, but the military governors, and took no part in the affair until called in at a late hour by Omar Lutfi when he found the riot had a.s.sumed proportions he could not otherwise control. It is to be noted that the chief of the Mustafezzin, Seyd Kandil, a timid adherent of Arabi's, refused to take part in the day's proceedings, excusing himself to Omar Lutfi on the ground of illness.

The disturbance was therefore prepared already for execution when Dervish and his fellow Commissioner landed on the 8th at Alexandria. It was probably intended to synchronize with the plot of Arabi's arrest, and to prove to the Sultan's Commissioner, more than to any one else, that Arabi had not the power to keep order in the country that he claimed. I am not, however, at all convinced that Dervish was in ignorance of what was intended, and I think there is a very great probability that he had learned it before his interview with Arabi, and that if he had succeeded in getting Arabi to resign his responsibility the riot would have been countermanded. As it is, there is some evidence that the outbreak took place earlier than was intended. It is almost certain that the immediate occasion of it, the quarrel between the donkey boy and the Maltese, was accidental, but probably the police had received no counter-orders, and so the thing was allowed to go on according to the program. What is certain is that the Khedive and Omar Lutfi, the one at Cairo, the other at Alexandria, monopolized telegraphic communication between the two cities, that Omar Lutfi put off on one and another pretext, from hour to hour, calling in the military, who could not act without his orders as civil governor in a case of riot, and that the occurrence was regarded at the Palace as a subject of rejoicing and by Arabi and the Nationalists as one to be regretted and minimized. Also, and this is a very important matter, the committee named to inquire into the causes of the affair by the Khedive was composed almost entirely of his own partisans, while he secured its being of no effective value as throwing light on the true authors, by appointing Omar Lutfi himself to be its president. The connection of Omar Lutfi and the Khedive, moreover, is demonstrated in the fact that, while given leave of absence when suspicion was too strong against him among the Consuls, he nevertheless reappeared after the bombardment and, joining the Khedive, obtained the post he coveted of Minister of War, a post which he held until May, 1883, when Lord Randolph Churchill having brought the case against him and the Khedive forward in Parliament, he at the end of the year retired into private life. Fuller proof of their complicity will be found in the Appendix.

One point only in this sinister affair is still a matter for me of much perplexity, and that is to determine the exact amount of responsibility a.s.signable in it to our agent at Cairo and Alexandria. There are pa.s.sages in Malet's despatches which seem to show that he was looking forward, about the time when the disturbance was first contemplated, to some violent solution of his diplomatic difficulties, and there is no doubt that it had been for some time past part of his argument against the Nationalist Government that it was producing anarchy. Also it is certain that Cookson had connived at the arming of the Maltese British subjects at Alexandria. Still, from that to complicity in a design to create a special riot there is a wide difference, and everything that I know of Malet's character and subsequent conduct in regard to the riot convinces me that he did not know this one at Alexandria was intended.

Malet honestly believed in Tewfik as a trustworthy and amiable prince, and accepted whatever tales he told, and his undeception about him after the war I know to have been painfully complete. With regard to Colvin much the same may be said. He was probably as ignorant of the exact plan as he had been of the Khedive's true action the year before at Abdin, though it is difficult to understand that either he or Malet should not have soon afterwards guessed the truth. They had both allied themselves to the party of disorder, and when disorder came they accepted the Khedive's story without any close inquiry because it suited them to accept it, and they made use of it as an argument for what they wanted, the ruin of Nationalist Egypt and armed intervention. That is all the connection with the crime I personally lay at their doors.

What followed may be briefly sketched here before I return to my journal. The immediate effect of the riot was not exactly that which the Khedive and his friends intended. It had been allowed to go much farther than was in their plan, so much farther that the regular army had been obliged to be called in, and instead of discrediting Arabi it so seriously frightened the Levantine population of Alexandria, who were a chicken-hearted community, that they began to look to him as their only protector. Even the Foreign Consuls, all but the English, came round to this view of the case, and the perfect order which the army from this time on succeeded in maintaining, both there and at Cairo, largely increased his prestige. I believe that then, late though it was in the day, Arabi, if he had been really a strong ruler, which unfortunately he was not, and if he had been a better judge of men and judge of opportunity--in a word, if he had been a man of action and not what he was, a dreamer, he might have won the diplomatic game against his unscrupulous opponents. For this, however, it was necessary that he should denounce and punish the true authors of the riot; and that he should have proved with a strong arm that in Egypt he was really master, and that any one who dared disturb the peace should feel the weight of it. Then he would have appealed to Europe and to the Sultan in the words of a strong man and they would not have been disregarded; nor would our Government in England, who, after all, were no paladins, have stood out against the rest. Unfortunately for liberty Arabi was no such strong man, only, as I have said, a humanitarian dreamer, and with little more than a certain basis of obstinacy for the achievement of his ideals. He was absolutely ignorant of Europe, or of the common arts and crafts of its diplomacy. Thus he missed the opportune moment, and presently the Europeans, frightened by Malet and Colvin, who were playing a double game with him, getting him to preserve order while they were preparing the bombardment, lost confidence in him and his chance was over. From that moment there was no longer any hope of a peaceful solution. A wolf and a lamb quarrel was picked with him by Sir Beauchamp Seymour, who had sworn to be revenged on the Alexandrians for the death of his body-servant, a man of the name of Strackett, who had been killed in the riot; and the bombardment followed. A greater man than Arabi might, I say, have possibly pulled it through. But Arabi was only a kind of superior fellah, inspired with a few fine ideas, and he failed. He does not however, for that deserve the blame he has received at the hands of his countrymen. Not one of them even attempted to do better.[17]

Now to return to London and my journal:

"_June 3._--To Lady Granville's party at the Foreign Office. All the political people there. Everybody connected with the Foreign Office ostentatiously cordial. Talked about the situation to Wolseley, Rawlinson, the American Minister (Lowell) and others. Also had a long talk with Sir Alexander and Lady Malet, who were very kind in spite of my political quarrel with their son. People seem relieved at the crisis in Egypt being postponed. But Wolseley tells me the Sultan has refused the Conference. The Khedive's cousin, the fat Osman Pasha, was there, and the Princes of Wales and Edinburgh and Prince Leopold and the Duke of Cambridge and other bigwigs. I was surprised to find Henry Stanley, too, quite cordial. He said he had a great admiration for Arabi as champion of the Faith, and that they would promote him, and both he and Tewfik remain at Cairo. So, as he represents Constantinople views, I conclude there is no danger from that quarter. The game seems won now, barring new accidents."

This last reference, which is to Lord Stanley of Alderley, is of importance. He was a very old and close friend of mine, but we had hitherto differed about Egypt, and on this ground. He had been many years before, in the time of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, Attache to our Emba.s.sy at Constantinople, and had imbibed there the extreme philo-Turkish views then in fashion with Englishmen. In 1860, while travelling in the East Indies, he had become a Mohammedan, and I had first made his acquaintance in a rather singular way. I was on my way in the autumn of that year from Athens and Constantinople to England, and was travelling up the Danube when there came on board our steamer at one of the Roumanian ports the family of an ex-hospodar, and with them an Englishman of no very distinguished appearance, and of rather plain, brusque manners, whom I took to be their tutor or secretary. As our journey lasted several days, I made friends with my fellow traveller, and found him interesting from his great knowledge of the East, but he did not tell me his name. On our arrival, however, at Vienna, he proposed to go with me to the Emba.s.sy, and I then discovered who he was, and we travelled on together to Munich, where his younger brother, Lyulph Stanley, a Balliol undergraduate, was learning German, and in this way I became acquainted little by little with all his family. I came to know him very well, and I take this opportunity of saying that, though he was undoubtedly eccentric in his ideas, he remained through life one of the sincerest and least selfish men I have known. As a Moslem he was entirely in earnest, and in many ways he sympathized with my views, but he would not hear of my preference of the Arabs to the Turks, whom he considered the natural leaders of Islam. In London he was always in close relations with the Ottoman Emba.s.sy, and his view of the position as between the Sultan and Arabi--the Dervish mission was already in the air--has on this account considerable historical value.

"_June 4._--Sunday at Crabbet. The first day for weeks I have not thought about Egypt. I consider the whole matter settled now, and have played tennis all the afternoon with a light heart. The Wentworths, Noels, Frank Lascelles, Henry Cowper, Molony, and others came down from London. Lovely weather.

"_June 5._--To London again.... Lady Gregory tells me they are displeased now with Colvin--consider him not suited to his place in Egypt--this from Lord Northbrook. Lord Granville has sent to consult him (Sir William Gregory)." Lady Gregory, be it noted, had remained more staunch than had her husband to the National cause; and later they both rendered once more important services to Arabi, especially at the time of his trial. The London newspapers at this time were beginning to take a more intelligent interest in Egyptian affairs, most of them having sent special correspondents to Cairo or Alexandria, among them the "Daily Telegraph," whose correspondent became a strong Arabist.

"_June 6._--The 'Daily News' is already preparing itself for a renewal of the _status quo ante ultimatum_, and the other papers seem likely to follow suit,--all but the 'Times' and 'Pall Mall," just the two papers which had the truth preached to them and which rejected it. English opinion, however, is hardly now a straw in the balance.... I had another long talk with Lascelles, and hope that I have more or less converted him. In the evening I rode with Bertram Currie, who offers to wager Arabi will have been extinguished in a fortnight." (_N. B._--Bertram was the elder brother of Philip Currie, a banker, and strong practical supporter of Gladstone, with whom he was personally intimate. His opinion, no doubt, reflects that of Downing Street at the moment.)

"_June 7._--Lady Gregory came in and gave me news. She tells me that Lord Granville told her husband that all their hopes now rested on Dervish's mission from Constantinople. 'Dervish,' Lord Granville said, 'is quite unscrupulous, and he will get rid of Arabi one way or other.'

I suppose this means by bribing;[18] indeed, Lord Granville seems to have said as much, but it may also mean by 'coffee.' I do not, however, fear the latter. The Sultan's object will be to get Arabi to Constantinople, not to kill, but to keep him as a hostage. I am anxious all the same Sabunji should arrive. I cannot help fancying they may try and prevent his landing, knowing his connection with me. A note has come from him written in the train, with additions to our code of signals which are rather amusing.... Later saw Gregory, who confirms all his wife told me of his interview with Granville. He thinks Colvin and Malet must be recalled.... Pembroke writes to John Pollen that the Foreign Office is unbounded in its anger against me. Never mind.... I met Austin Lee, Dilke's secretary, at the Club, and he asked me the latest news from Egypt. I said, 'I hear you are sending a barrel of salt to put on Arabi's tail.' 'No,' he answered with some readiness, 'the salt is to pickle him.' ... Rode in the evening with Cyril Flower (who had married a Rothschild) advised him to sell his Egyptian Bonds.... Dined with Bertram, whom I found much more humane. He believes in Gladstone, and the eventual independence of Ireland. 'Only,' he says, 'Gladstone has the misfortune of being a generation before his age. We shall all believe in attending to our own affairs in another twenty years.'

"Frederic Harrison has written to protest in the 'Pall Mall' against intervention in Egypt." This was a powerful article headed "Money, Sir, Money," which was followed by other letters. I have always regretted that I had not earlier become acquainted with the writer, the soundest and most courageous man on foreign policy then in the Liberal Party, and by far their most vigorous pamphleteer. Had we met a month or two before, I feel sure that he might have prevented the war, for though not in Parliament, he wielded great influence. The misfortune of the public position that Spring was that there was not a single man of great intellectual weight in the party, Harrison excepted, free from official bondage.... "Party at Lady Salisbury's. Talked with Miltown, who was rather angry, I thought, at my handiwork in Egypt, and not quite polite about my telegrams. Also with old Strathnairn, who would like 'to go out with 10,000 men and hang Arabi.' Also with Osman and Kiamil Pashas, the Khedive's cousins, though not about politics.... The Sultan's Commission has arrived in Egypt.

"_June 8._--A telegram from Sabunji at Alexandria announcing his arrival. Now I feel relieved from anxiety. He says the Turkish Commission has gone to Cairo.... Harry Brand refuses to come to my lawn-tennis party at Crabbet till he sees how things go at Cairo. I fear he has much of his money in Egypt and will lose it.

"_June 9._--There is another letter from Frederic Harrison in the 'Pall Mall.' Wrote to propose to show him my correspondence with Gladstone.

Saw the Gregorys. The Commission is hailed with a great flourish of trumpets at Cairo, but we fancy this is only to herald a compromise.

Sabunji telegraphs that Arabi has declared publicly he will resist the landing of Turkish troops. He is still at Alexandria, which disquiets me. He ought to be in Cairo. Dined at Wentworth House to meet Sir Bartle Frere, a soft-spoken, intelligent man.

"_June 10._--Luncheon with Mr. and Mrs. Green, very superior and sympathetic about Egypt." (_N. B._--This was Green the historian. He was already in failing health. I have a clear recollection of his emotional sympathy with me and with the cause I was pleading. His loss to an honest understanding of statesmanship was a great one.) "I am anxious about things there for the first time for a fortnight. The evening papers announced that Dervish has won--bought over--a part of the army and has proclaimed himself Commander-in-Chief, summoning Arabi to submit. Unless he stands firm now all is lost. After much consideration I have sent the following telegram to Sabunji: '7 p. m. Arrest Commission. Fear not but G.o.d.' This partly in cipher. My trouble is lest Sabunji should not have gone to Cairo. Or why does he not telegraph? Can he have come to grief?... Dinner at Lyulph Stanley's where, besides others, we met Bright. I found him most humane about Egypt, and spoke a few words with him, I hope, in season. I spoke my mind pretty freely. It is now a question of boldness on the part of the National Party. I fancy Dervish's orders have been to test this, and, if he finds them determined, to support them. He will crush them, if he can, through the Circa.s.sians. But I trust they may crush him, or at any rate frighten him. The Sultan dares not put them down by force.

"_June 11_, Sunday.--By early train to Crabbet. I was very nervous looking into the papers lest some _coupe de main_ should have been made.

But the 'Observer' shows that nothing has yet happened. There are the same stories of Dervish's swagger to the Ulema and the officers. But that is nothing.... At 2 o'clock the Princes Osman and Kiamil and their cousin ---- and their alem Aarif Bey and an English bear-leader, one Lempriere, came down to see our horses. While we were showing them these a telegram came in cipher from Sabunji as follows: 'Cairo, 12 p. m., June 10. I have just had an interview with Arabi. He is supported by the Parliament, the University, and the Army, all except Sultan Pasha and the Sheykh el Islam. The nation is decided to depose the Khedive. The Porte dislikes the proposals of Europe. Arabi insists there will be no peace while Malet and Colvin are here. Arabi will resist a Turkish invasion. He will not go to Constantinople. Sheykh Aleysh has been made head of the Azhar. The Porte has decided to depose the Khedive. Malet has urged the proposals of Europe on the Commission. Abdallah Nadim at a public meeting of 10,000 spoke against these proposals and against the Khedive.' If the Khedive's cousins whom we were entertaining could have read it, it would have spoiled their appet.i.tes. We have talked the matter over and are going to telegraph them to proclaim a republic in case they depose Tewfik. I am relieved of all anxiety now that I know Sabunji is with them."

In what I here say of Princes Osman and Kiamil I do them less than justice. They had no love for Tewfik, their father Mustafa having been driven out of Egypt and despoiled of much of his possessions by Ismal, and they also had a considerable amount of patriotism. At least they gave proof of it during the war when they were among Arabi's strongest adherents. Their sister, Nazli Hanum, did much to help us at the time of the trial. Aarif Bey was a young man of great ability, a Kurd by birth but with Arab blood, well educated and of high distinction. He afterwards became Secretary to Mukhtar Pasha at Cairo, and edited a literary newspaper, but lost himself in intrigues of all kinds and has disappeared. The fourth person on this occasion was a Europeanized Turk and member of the Sultan's household, but his name in my diary is not recorded. We talked Eastern politics, though not Egyptian, freely at dinner, politics of a Pan-Islamic kind which included the hope that France as well as England would sooner or later be driven out of North Africa.

I may here insert a letter I wrote to Sabunji on the 9th, and one I received from him of the same date as his telegram just given.