Secret History of the English Occupation of Egypt Part 7

Two days later, 2nd February, Sherif Pasha, finding he could not bend the National Delegates to his will, and under the influence, I make little doubt, of Colvin's threat of intervention, resigned office, and was succeeded, at the choice of the Delegates, by Mahmud Pasha Sami as Prime Minister, with Arabi as Minister of War, a thoroughgoing Nationalist combination at which all Egypt rejoiced.[9] I heard the news at my retreat in the desert with mixed feelings of jubilation and anxiety, an anxiety which was only relieved when on the 27th I received an answer from Mr. Gladstone to my letter of six weeks before enclosing to him the National program. The long delay in replying was doubtless due to the embarra.s.sment and perplexity as to a policy which Lord Granville's deal with Gambetta had involved him in. Gambetta's providential fall, however, had now to a large extent freed our Government's hands, and a pa.s.sage was being inserted in the Queen's speech at the opening of Parliament which conveyed something like an expression of sympathy with the National Egyptian hopes. This, Mr.

Gladstone sent me later, and his letter concluded with the following rea.s.suring words: "I feel quite sure," he said, "that unless there be a sad failure of good sense on one or both, or as I should say, on all sides, we shall be able to bring this question to a favourable issue. My own opinions about Egypt were set forth in the 'Nineteenth Century' a short time before we took office, and I am not aware as yet of having seen any reason to change them."[10]

The reference thus made to his article "Aggression on Egypt," was of the very highest importance, for, as already mentioned, the article was a scathing denunciation of just that forward policy of intervention and annexation which Colvin had propounded to me. Armed with this proof of Gladstone's goodwill I went back joyfully to Cairo, and was able to tell Arabi that I had not a.s.sured him of my sympathy in vain. I found him at the War Office surrounded by his friends, and in converse with the Coptic Patriarch, and with a tribe of idle sycophants as well, Levantines and Europeans, come to salute the rising sun. Among these the new Minister moved with a certain dignified superiority which became him well. He was no longer the mere colonel of a regiment, but a man sobered by the sense of public responsibility, a fellah still, and still a patriot, but also with the manner of a statesman. He took me aside, and I showed him Gladstone's letter, and we rejoiced over it together as a message of good omen.

The first fruits of Colvin's hostility, nevertheless, we had not long to wait for. Who precisely was the originator of the lie I do not know, it was probably the Khedive, whose malicious jealousy was already at work against his Ministers, but a false report was telegraphed by Reuter to Europe that the action taken by the Notables against Sherif was due to military intimidation. A story was related and was repeated at some length in the "Times" to the effect that Sultan Pasha, the president of the Chamber, had only yielded to personal menace, and that Arabi had drawn his sword in his presence, and had threatened to make the old man's children fatherless. It was a foolish tale, for Sultan happened to be without offspring, and at Cairo it was laughed at by all who knew the truth, and how close an intimacy there was between the two, but it was sufficient as a weapon to "ruin the Nationalists," and easily pa.s.sed the censorship of the Agency, being reproduced even in Malet's despatches of the day, as was a similar tale, which had also been telegraphed, that the Khedive's acceptance of Sherif's resignation had been extorted under a like pressure.

Absurd, however, as the tale was, Sultan was offended by it, and, as I was now generally known to the Deputies as their friend, he begged me to call on him and convey to Malet his emphatic denial of the whole story.

I consequently went to Sultan's house, where he had a.s.sembled a large party of Deputies and other high personages, among whom were the Grand Mufti el Abbasi, Abd el Salaam Bey Mouelhy, Ahmed Bey Siouffi, Ahmed Effendi, Mahmud, Rahman Effendi, Hamadi, and El Shedid Butros, a leading Coptic deputy. All these, with Sultan, absolutely denied and repudiated the idea that they had acted under any kind of pressure, and Sultan spoke with indignation of the absurdity of the tale as regarded himself.

"Ahmed Arabi," he said, "is as a son to me, and knows what is due to me and due to himself. His place is at the War Office, mine with the Parliament. It is of me that he would ask advice rather than venture to give me any on my own concerns, and as to his drawing his sword in my presence he could only do so if I were attacked by enemies. These are stories which no one who knows us both could for an instant believe, and they are absolutely false. You may take it for certain that the least of the members present who represent the people are better judges of their wants than the greatest of the soldiers. We respect Ahmed Arabi because we know him to be a patriot and a man of political intelligence, not because he is a soldier." These words of Sultan Pasha's are quoted from a memorandum I made of them at the time. The old man also spoke bitterly of Malet for encouraging the newsmongers, and begged me to tell him the facts, and also to telegraph them to Mr. Gladstone, and make them known in the London press. This I did to the best of my ability. I sent a full account of it to the "Times," though, if I remember rightly, it was, for some reason, never printed, and I telegraphed in the same sense to Mr.

Gladstone, and also wrote him a long letter giving my view of the general situation.

To Malet I went straight from Sultan's house and expostulated with him warmly. But he insisted on the truth of his tale, which he had got, he told me first, from Sultan himself, and then not from Sultan but at second hand from "some one on whom he could depend," and, when I pressed him further as to who this was, lost temper and said I had no right to cross-question him. This was my last talk with him on any political matter. Malet's new att.i.tude proved to me that he, like Colvin, had gone over to the enemy's camp, and was now no longer to be trusted. I saw that the situation was a very dangerous one, for between them they had the Press and the Foreign Office wholly in their hands, and though I possessed at home the Prime Minister's ear and a certain publicity for my views in the "Times," I felt that I was fighting against them at an extreme disadvantage. I consequently decided to delay no longer my return to England, where I could do more for the Egyptian interests than I could at Cairo, by word of mouth and by a personal appeal to Gladstone. Before going, however, I had numerous conversations with the leading Deputies and with my friends at the Azhar, to whom I communicated my design, of which they all approved; and I arranged with Sir William Gregory that after my departure he should continue to defend the National cause, in which he was as enthusiastic as I was, in the "Times" and by letter with his friends in England. My thought was to return to Egypt, perhaps, in a few weeks' time, and take part in any further developments that might arise.

I paid a last visit to Arabi the morning of the day I left for England, 27th February. I had been little more than three months in Egypt, and it seemed to me like a lifetime, so absorbing had been the interests they had brought me. I looked upon Egypt already like a second _patria_, and intended to throw in my lot with the Egyptians as if they were my own countrymen. I was estranged from those of my countrymen in blood, except Gregory, who formed the then little English colony at Cairo.

Following Colvin's lead they had all gone over like sheep to ideas of intervention, for be it noted that it was now no longer French intervention that was talked of, but English, and at once in English eyes the immorality of aggression had been transformed into a duty. What had been abominable when threatened by Gambetta now appealed to them as just and desirable and patriotic when proposed by Granville. Similarly the new Prime Minister at Paris, M. de Freycinet, having reversed his predecessor's policy of intervention, the French colony were for peace with the Nationalists, all except de Blignieres and those who had official posts they feared might be suppressed in the new reign of National economy.

Colvin and de Blignieres were industrious in spreading trepidation among the holders of sinecure offices, and it was amusing to note how suddenly and completely the poet Lord Houghton abandoned his first att.i.tude of romantic sympathy with Egyptian liberty when his son-in-law, Fitzgerald, who had one of these sinecures, represented to him that his daily bread was thereby threatened. It was well known, as part of the Nationalist program, that it was intended to reduce the expenditure on unnecessary salaries and to suppress the duplicated posts. This was ascribed by Colvin not to its true cause, a very legitimate economy, but to "fanaticism," a convenient word which began now to be freely used in describing the National movement. What, however, I think more than anything else was condemned just then by the little group of English officials was the "monstrous" determination which the Egyptian Chamber was said to have come to, if it could secure the right of voting the Budget, to cut down the subvention of 1,000 a year paid to Reuter's Agency. Without this it was felt that it would be impossible any longer to know at Cairo the odds on the Oxford and Cambridge boat race or even on the Derby or Grand Prix. There was a dark hint, too, thrown out that the charge of 9,000 a year then figuring in the Budget as a grant in aid to the European Opera House might be reduced, and on this astounding proof of "fanaticism," Fitzgerald, as a patron of the ballet, was especially insistent. These things, with others almost as trifling, were made a serious crime to the Notables and to the new Ministry, who were countenancing the reductions. I used to hear the tale of their complaints from Gregory, who was now in much closer touch with them than I any longer was. It was in answer to their threats of intervention, which were beginning to have an effect on the Stock Exchange in the lowered price of Egyptian Bonds and of property generally in Egypt, that I at this time resolved to give proof of my confidence in the national fortunes by buying a small estate for my future residence in the neighbourhood of Cairo, and the result was my purchase of Eheykh Obeyd Garden, a property of some forty acres, between Merj and Materieh.

It will be interesting to Egyptian readers to know what the prices of land in that neighbourhood then were. There was, as I have said, at that time not a single house built on the desert strip between Abba.s.siyeh and Kafr el Jamus, and the Government was willing to sell it to anybody who would buy it at the rate of a few piastres an acre. I thought at one moment of establishing myself on the land where my camp of the moment stood, and I made inquiry of my friend Rogers Bey, who was in the Land Department of the Ministry of Finance, and I find among my papers the draft of an application I sent in for a hundred acres, where now the suburb of Zeitoun stands, for which, at his suggestion, I offered fifteen piastres (three shillings) an acre. The same land is worth to-day, 1904, at least two hundred pounds an acre, ground value. But while I was in negotiation for it I chanced to hear that Sheykh Obeyd Garden was in the market, and I purchased it, so to say, "over the counter" from the Domains' Commission for 1,500. It was then the best fruit garden in Egypt, enclosed in a wall with a bountiful supply of water, and contained, on estimation, 70,000 fruit trees, all in splendid order.

The history of the garden is worth recording. It was a piece of good land standing on the desert edge, belonging in the early part of the nineteenth century to the Imam of Ibrahim Pasha's army during the campaign of Arabia but the Imam falling into indigent circ.u.mstances, the Pasha bought it of him, enclosed thirty-three acres with a wall, dug the sakiehs, and laid it out as it now is some time in the early thirties.

The fruit trees with which it was planted were brought in part from Taif in the Hejaz, in part from Syria. Ibrahim had a pa.s.sion to make it the best of its kind, and in his time and the time of his nephew, Mustafa, to whom it descended, the fruit from it brought in a yearly revenue of 800, the labour being all done by _corvee_ of the fellahin of the neighbouring villages. The pomegranates of the garden were so large that it was a tradition with the gardeners there that thirty went to a camel load, and that they were sent yearly to Constantinople as a present to the Sultan. What is certain is that in the time of Ibrahim's grandson, Tewfik, when in his father's reign he was living in retirement at Koubba, the ladies of his household used to be carried there every Friday during the spring season to spend the day. In the ruin of Ismal's fortunes it came, in 1879, to the Domains Commissioners, and was one of the smaller properties scheduled by them for sale, and so it chanced into the market. On our way to Syria the year before we had camped one night outside its walls and had wondered at its beauty with the apricot trees in full flower. No sooner did I hear of it as a possible acquisition than I abandoned all other schemes of purchase; and in one of its shady walks I am writing my memoirs to-day.

But to return to my farewell visit to Arabi. On this occasion we talked all the questions over which were being debated at the moment by the Nationalists with their plans of reforms and their hopes and fears at home and abroad. The few weeks that Arabi had been in high office had matured him and strengthened him, and he discussed things with me with all possible sobriety of thought and language. He a.s.sured me emphatically that he and his fellow Ministers were most anxious to come to a friendly understanding with the English Government on all matters in dispute between them and the Agency at Cairo; and he begged me to convey to Mr. Gladstone a formal message to that effect. He complained, however, strongly of Malet and Colvin, whose recent action and the part they were taking in the campaign of misrepresentation being organized in the English Press proved their hostility. "There will never be peace at Cairo," he said, "as long as we have only these to deal with, for we know that they are working mischief against us in secret, if not openly.

We shall stand aloof from both of them. But we do not on that account wish to quarrel with England. Let Mr. Gladstone send us whom he will to treat with us, and we will receive him with open arms." He also talked at great length of the practical reforms Mahmud Sami and the other Ministers were contemplating, most of which have since been included in the list of benefits conferred on the country under British occupation, and which Lord Cromer has adopted as his own. Such were the abolition of the _corvees_ which the rich Turkish pashas levied on the villagers, their monopoly of the water at the time of the high Nile, the protection of the fellahin from the Greek usurers, who had them in their clutches through the iniquitous abuses of the International Tribunals, and even that latest remedy for agriculture distress on which Lord Cromer specially prides himself, an agricultural Bank under Government direction.

Other questions discussed were the reform of Justice, then fearfully corrupt, the education of men and also of women, the mode of election to be adopted for the new Parliament, and the question of slavery. On this point he dwelt at some length, because the European officials of the department concerned in its suppression were beginning, like the other foreign officials, to fear that in the new National scheme of economy their salaries would be reduced, and were pretending that the Mohammedan revival would mean a revival of the slave trade. Arabi showed me how little ground there was for this pretence, that the only persons in Egypt who still had slaves or wished to have slaves were just the Khedivial princes and rich pashas, against whose tyranny the fellah movement was directed, that according to the principles of the Liberal reform all men were to be henceforth equal, without distinction of race, or colour, or religion. The last thing compatible with these was the revival of slavery. Lastly, as to the necessity of military preparation for a possible war, which as a soldier and war minister he had uppermost in his mind, he spoke plainly and with energy. The National Government would not disarm or relax its precautions until the true Const.i.tutional _regime_ was firmly established and acknowledged by Europe. He hoped not to exceed the War Estimates agreed on with Colvin, or to be obliged to increase the number of men recruited beyond the 18,000 allowed by the Firmans. If, however, the menace of armed intervention were long continued they would adopt the Prussian system of short service, and so gradually bring a larger force as a reserve under arms. He asked my opinion of the chances of a conflict, and I told him plainly that from what Colvin had boasted to me of his intention to bring it about, and from the means of Press agitation he had already adopted with that end, I considered the danger a real one, and that it was to neutralize, as far as I could, the campaign of lies which had begun that I was going to England. My business there would be to preach the cause of peace and goodwill. At the same time I could not advise him to do otherwise than stand firmly to his ground. The best chance of peace was to be prepared for defence. The great enemies of Egypt were not so much the European governments as the European financiers, and these would think twice about urging an armed attack if they knew that they could not do so without the risk of ruining their own interests in Egypt by a long and costly war. An armed nation resolute and ready to defend its rights was seldom molested. I remember quoting to him Byron's lines, "Trust not for freedom to the Franks," of which he greatly approved; and these, I think, were our last words. I promised him that if it came to the worst I would return and throw in my lot with theirs in a campaign for independence.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] There were one or two weak points in the formation of the new Ministry, the most important being in the choice made of their Minister of Foreign Affairs. Neither Mahmud Sami nor Arabi, nor any other of the fellah leaders, knew any European language, and, as a knowledge of French was essential in dealing with the Consulates, a man not of their own party or way of thinking was taken in from the outside. This was Mustafa Pasha Fehmi, a man of fairly liberal notions, but a member of the old ruling cla.s.s, and a follower of Sherif's--the same who had been Ismal's A. D. C. in 1878 and had taken an unwilling part in the death of the Mufettish. It was his horror at this crime that had converted him to const.i.tutional ideas. But like Sherif he despised his fellah colleagues. He, when the pinch came two months later, did these much ill-service by his weak or hostile presentment of their case in the official correspondence. This, as they could not read his notes and despatches, they were unaware of till it was too late to remedy.

[10] For full text of this letter _see_ Appendix.

CHAPTER X

MY PLEADING IN DOWNING STREET

Such is the history faithfully and fully told of the part I played that winter in Egypt. In telling it I have relied for the accuracy of my memory of the main incidents on such letters and short notes as I have been able to find among my papers, and especially on an account of it drawn up by me while the war of 1882 was in progress, and published in the September number of the "Nineteenth Century Review" of that year. Of this, my present memoir is little more than an amplification. What follows will be comparatively new matter, for though most of it has long been written in a disjointed way, I have never found a moment suited to its completion. For dates and incidents, however, I am supplied with ample materials of a contemporary value, first in a brief diary which from the time of my arrival in England I now once more regularly kept, and next in the many published and unpublished letters still in my possession, which pa.s.sed between me and various public personages with whom I had found myself in correspondence during the four months which elapsed between my arrival in England and the bombardment of Alexandria; and again after Tel-el-Kebir with those who on my behalf were conducting Arabi's trial. These form a body of evidence which I shall quote where needful, either in the text of my narrative or in an appendix to it.

Taken together, with the necessary thread of explanation, they of themselves form an almost complete history of the causes of the war.

The political situation which I found on my arrival, 6th March, in London, was a wonderful contrast to that which I had left behind me a week before at Cairo. Gladstone had been now nearly two years in office, and the enthusiasm for Eastern nationalities and Eastern liberty, which at the elections of 1880 had carried him into power, had cooled down everywhere, and in official circles had given place to ideas of imperial coercion, especially in the case of the Nationalists of Ireland, which were by no means of good augury in regard to Egypt. The Cabinet was divided into two sections of opinion. The great Whig leaders who controlled the chief departments of the Administration, Hartington, Northbrook, Childers, and the rest were all for strong measures, Gladstone, with Harcourt and Bright, almost alone for conciliation, and the general feeling of the country was violent against all "lawlessness"

everywhere. The Habeas Corpus Act had been suspended in Ireland, and Parnell and a score more of the Nationalist members of Parliament were actually shut up, untried, in Kilmainham Gaol. Business in the House of Commons was being obstructed by the remainder of the Irish members, and the very name of Nationalism to the Liberal Party had become a byword and reproach. The atmosphere of Westminster and the public offices was therefore not at all favourable to my propaganda of nationalism on the Nile. The only persons really interested in Egypt were those few who held Egyptian bonds, and these had been persuaded by Colvin's manipulation of the Press that Arabi and the National Party were a set of fanatical incendiaries who would burn down the Stock Exchange if they could get the chance, and who had already succeeded in lowering the value of securities and making dividends precarious.

At the Foreign Office the position about Egypt was this. Granville, old and deaf and very idle, finding himself relieved from the incubus of Gambetta's forward policy, was following his instinct of doing nothing and letting things settle themselves as placidly as circ.u.mstances would allow him. He did not want to intervene or to take action hostile to the Nationalists or, indeed, action of any kind. He did not even give himself the trouble to read the despatches, and he left the work of learning what was going on to his private secretaries, and more especially to the Under-Secretary of State, Sir Charles Dilke, who was able to sift the news for him and set before him such facts as he selected, and such views as suited him. Dilke, who had been with Gambetta the responsible author of the Joint Note of 6th January, was, now that Gambetta had disappeared from the direction of affairs in France, become a prime mover on his own account in the policy of intervention, and was working with Colvin and the financiers to bring things to such a pa.s.s that his unwilling chief, in spite of himself, should be obliged to intervene. Though not himself a Cabinet Minister, Dilke in this had behind him the powerful support in the Cabinet of Chamberlain, a personal friend and ally, whom on foreign matters, which Chamberlain did not affect to understand, he could securely count on.

The two together had the reputation of being the most advanced Radicals in the Ministry, and so carried great weight with just that section of the Liberal Party which was least inclined on principle to foreign adventures. The ma.s.s of the Radicals in the House of Commons knew nothing and cared nothing for questions in dispute so far away.

Nevertheless I found that personally I could command considerable attention. My letters to the "Times" had been widely read, and there was a certain curiosity to hear what I had to say. Gregory and I had managed to invest Arabi with that halo of romance which as champion of the fellah wrongs was certainly his due, and on that ground, if no other, I could always obtain a hearing. Rumours of all kinds were afloat about him, ludicrous tales which portrayed him as a Frenchman or a Spaniard in Egyptian guise, as the paid agent, in turn of the ex-Khedive Ismal, of the pretender Halim, and of the Sultan--as everything in fact but what he really was. I, who had seen him, could explain. It was a matter not of serious interest with anybody, but, as I have said, of considerable curiosity. And so I was listened to.

My first visit on arrival was to 10, Downing Street. Here, though I did not see Mr. Gladstone himself, I found my friend Hamilton, his private secretary, and had with him an altogether satisfactory talk. I was a little doubtful, seeing that I had quarrelled with Malet, how I might be received. But he hastened to a.s.sure me that my "interference" with Malet's diplomacy was in no way resented by his chief. On the contrary, Mr. Gladstone was very much obliged to me for my letters, and for the line I had taken in Egypt. It was a busy time for him, however, just then, the busiest of the official year, the weeks before Easter, and the thoughts of ministers were elsewhere than in Egypt. The Irish question was priming everything in Mr. Gladstone's mind. I might, however, make my own mind comfortable about the dangers which seemed to threaten at Cairo. They could not lead to serious trouble. Whatever might be the ideas "over the way" (meaning the Foreign Office), Mr. Gladstone would see that they were not put in practice. Armed intervention with Mr.

Gladstone in power was an "impossibility." The mere thought of it was ridiculous. We would talk of it again and I should see Mr. Gladstone later. In the meanwhile Hamilton would let Lord Granville know that I was come. I left him entirely rea.s.sured.

Another visit I paid the same morning was to my cousin, Algernon Bourke (then generally known as "b.u.t.ton" to his friends). His role in Egyptian affairs that year was destined to be an important one, and his name, or rather his pseudo-name, constantly recurs in my diary. His position in life was that of a young man of fashion, closely connected with the official world, for he was a younger son of the Lord Mayo who had been Viceroy of India, and was nephew to the Rt. Hon. Robert Bourke (afterwards Lord Connemara), who had been Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and was now, in 1882, leader of the Tory opposition in the House of Commons on all questions of foreign politics. b.u.t.ton had also a position on the staff of the "Times," not as a writer, but as an intermediary for Chenery, the editor, with political personages. As a peer's son he had the _entree_ to the galleries of both Houses of Parliament, knew everybody and everything that was going on there, was intimate with people about the Court, with the high world of finance, and generally with the wire-pullers in the various departments of the State. Our friendship was a close one, and throughout the trying months that followed he was my chief confidant and adviser, having more worldly wisdom than I then could boast, and a fertility of resource in action altogether admirable. To him I owed three parts of the publicity I obtained for my views in the Press, and of the help given me in parliament. On arrival I narrated to him all that had happened during the past winter in Egypt as well as my plans for the future. His view of the position was a very different one from Hamilton's, for his intimacy with the Rothschilds made him aware of the financial strings that were being pulled in the City to bring about intervention, and he had a low opinion of Gladstone's ability to understand foreign questions or deal with a case where the money interests of all the Stock Exchanges of Europe were so largely concerned. Still he advised me to maintain the footing I had acquired in Downing Street, and use my influence there to the best of my ability, holding in reserve, if Gladstone should fail me, his own friends of the Opposition, whose a.s.sistance, in case of need, he promised me. For the moment the best I could do would be to talk to everybody I knew who was in Parliament on both sides of the House, and to go on writing letters to the "Times." This sound advice I accordingly proceeded without delay to follow.

I find in my diary that on the 9th of March I went to see George Howard and his wife (now Lord and Lady Carlisle), and succeeded in enlisting their sympathies, especially hers, to my plans. She was then, as now, a strong politician, and was an absolute believer in Gladstone, and she advised me to put my whole trust in him and he would certainly prevent any mischief being done to liberty. Her husband was less sanguine, but he readily agreed to take me to the House of Commons, of which he was a member, that afternoon, and introduce me to his friends there of the Liberal Party, such as he thought could help me best. And so together we went, and I made the acquaintance of Dilwyn, Bryce, and other influential members who had been specially interested in the affairs of Bulgaria and Armenia at the time of the Berlin Congress. These all promised me their a.s.sistance, as did that excellent man Mr. Chesson, with whom, and with Howard's brother-in-law, Lyulph Stanley, we had a long talk in the tea-room. Chesson, though not a Member of Parliament, was a person of considerable political power, as he made it his business, as secretary of the Aborigines Protection Society, to organize agitations on all questions where aggression on non-European peoples was threatened, and he proved throughout of the greatest a.s.sistance to me, as he was in daily communication with the best of the Radical members.

Howard, however, advised me not to put my case into the hands of the "professional non-interventionists," but rather to work my propaganda on an independent basis. I was at that time quite new and inexperienced in English politics, so new that though I was forty-one years of age this was the first time I had ever been inside the lobbies of the House of Commons. I was, however, from that date a frequent visitor there, across to the inner lobby being at that time almost free.

The same day I had a talk with Philip Currie at the Foreign Office, and a long discussion about Egypt. I found him at first rather put out with me at what I had been doing at Cairo, the effect of Malet's complaints of me, and affecting to believe that I had been playing a "large practical joke at the expense of the Foreign Office." But this did not last, and I was able to convince him of the seriousness of the matter, and of my own earnestness, if not that I was right in my views, and he arranged that I should see Dilke the next day, and also Granville.

I find also at this date that I had a talk with Lord Miltown, an Irish peer, which shows the curious connection between Egypt and Ireland in the political ideas of the day. "His, Miltown's, account of Ireland is singularly like that of Egypt by the European officials. He thinks the difficulty in Ireland got up by agitators; that the Irish fellahin are not really with the National Party, and that armed intervention would set things right."

On the 10th I saw Dilke at the Foreign Office, having first gone to his house in Sloane Street. He was in a hostile mood, and instead of listening to what I had to say, poured out a string of complaints against the new Egyptian ministry, telling me "that Arabi's government had spent half a million sterling on the army since they came into office," and other absurdities. I knew this story could not be true, as the Nationalists had only been in power six weeks, and went to Sanderson, who was then Lord Granville's private secretary (now Sir Thomas Sanderson and head of the Foreign Office), and made him look up the question of the fabulous half million, when, on referring to the despatch about it, we found that the sum had been spent, not as Dilke had told me in the last _six weeks_, but in the last _year_. This extraordinary misstatement of Dilke's, which he had made to me as a matter beyond dispute, may of course have been only a gross blunder, but it was repeated in the newspapers of the day, several of which were under Dilke's inspiration, and is a good example of the way in which news, however absurd, prejudicial to the Egyptian Nationalists, was then being circulated by him. Morley was one of the channels he princ.i.p.ally used, and all through the spring and early summer of 1882, the "Pall Mall Gazette" (the only paper Gladstone read attentively) was, through Dilke's influence, and Colvin's, made a channel of preposterous lies and the most uncompromising advocate of intervention. Morley, I am willing to believe, persuaded himself that the things they told him were true, and acted in good faith, but it is nevertheless certain that on him more than on any other journalists of the time lies the responsibility of having persuaded Gladstone to the act of violence in Egypt which was the chief sin of Gladstone's public career. Morley's position, however, was then not an independent one, and he was hardly the master of his own published thoughts. He was not yet in Parliament, but waiting for a seat, and all his hope of a political career lay in the patronage of his political friends, Dilke and Chamberlain, so that he had practically no choice, if he was not to sacrifice his ambition, but to follow the lead Dilke gave him about Egyptian affairs. He was afterwards sorry for the evil he had done, and has never, I think, liked to recall to memory the part he then played. But without doubt his responsibility for bringing on the war was great. The whole of the Egyptian episode in Morley's "Life of Gladstone," it may be noticed, has been slurred over in a few pages. But history is history, and his mistake needs to be recorded.

This matter settled with Sanderson, Currie took me in to see Lord Granville, whom I did not as yet know, and another conversation followed. Lord Granville was a man of singularly urbane manners, and began by inquiries after my stud of Arab horses, paying me a number of polite compliments about them. Then, turning to the subject of Egypt, he "informed me plump that he had certain knowledge that Arabi had been bought by Ismal, and that the whole thing in Egypt was an intrigue to restore the ex-Khedive!" This was another of the preposterous stories that were being foisted on the Foreign Office and the public to prejudice opinion against the Egyptian cause. It had reached the Foreign Office, as far as I have been able to ascertain, in a despatch or private letter from Sir Augustus Paget, then British Amba.s.sador at Rome, to whom the ex-Khedive appears to have boasted at Naples that he had "ce gaillard la," meaning Arabi, in his pocket.

It is hardly necessary to inquire what motive of the moment Ismal may have had for making this a.s.sertion, for his word was never of any value, while the whole tenor of Arabi's career proves it to have been the absolute reverse of fact. Arabi's att.i.tude at the date in question was more than ever one of hostility to the Circa.s.sian pashas, Ismal's adherents, who were actively intriguing with Tewfik against him. Ismal, however, had purposes of his own to serve in making it appear that the trouble in Egypt had come about on his account. He always clung to the idea that the day would come when the Powers of Europe would repent of having deposed him, and would return to him as the only possible ruler of a country distracted because he was no longer there to control it. At the moment I did not know the quarter from which the story was derived, nor could I do more to refute it than by telling Lord Granville how utterly opposed to the ex-Khedive the National fellah leader had always been.[11] This I did, and I delivered also the message Arabi had entrusted me with for Mr. Gladstone. His only answer was "Will they give up the claim of the Chamber to vote the Budget?" I told him that I feared it was hopeless to expect this, as the Deputies were all of one mind. "Then," he said, "I look upon their case as hopeless. It must end by their being put down by force." I told him I could not believe the English Government could really intervene, on such a plea, to put down liberty. But he maintained his ground, and I left him much dissatisfied, resolving that I would waste no more time upon trying to persuade the Foreign Office, but would put what pressure I could on them from the outside. "I must see Gladstone."

I also, the same day, saw Morley at his newspaper office, to try to neutralize the effect of the falsehoods with which he was being flooded, but I feared without success. He believed implicitly in Colvin, who was his regular correspondent at Cairo, and there were other influences besides, as we have seen, at work upon him and which were too strong for me to combat in his mind.

On the 11th I dined with b.u.t.ton, who had invited a party specially to meet me. These were Sir Francis Knollys, the Prince of Wales's secretary, Reginald Brett (now Lord Esher), who was then Lord Hartington's secretary, Clifford, a leader writer of the "Times," and General Sir John Adye, who was a friend of Wolseley's and served under him that year in the Egyptian Campaign, remaining, nevertheless, a warm sympathizer with the Egyptians throughout, and, as will be seen, rendering good service to the cause of humanity after Tel-el-Kebir. We had a pleasant evening, and all showed themselves interested in my Egyptian views, and I remained talking with some of them till one in the morning. Knollys I know was impressed by what I told him, but Brett, who was a friend of the Rothschilds and other financiers who were clamouring for intervention, proved afterwards one of our bitterest enemies. He was working at the time for Morley in the "Pall Mall Gazette," and inspired, if he did not write, some of the articles which so influenced Gladstone.

On the 13th I saw Goschen, having been sent to him by Hamilton, on Mr.

Gladstone's suggestion, as a man who, though not a member of the Government, was much trusted by them and advised them, especially on Egyptian affairs. With him I went more thoroughly than with either Dilke or Granville into the details of the National case. He affected much sympathy with me, more probably than he felt, and was particularly anxious to impress on me the notion that he was not taking a financial view of the situation. This was, doubtless, because his past connection with Egypt had been as representative of Ismal's creditors. I found him agreeable in manner, with much charm of voice, and I was with him quite two hours. His last words to me were: "You may be sure at least of one thing, and that is, that whatever the Government may do in Egypt they will do on general grounds of policy, not in the interests of the Bondholders." This was satisfactory and seemed to be in harmony with the situation of the moment, for that very morning the news had been published of de Blignieres' resignation of his post at Cairo of French Financial Controller. The event had been interpreted in London as signifying a quarrel between the French Government and the Nationalist Ministry, but I knew that this was not the case. De Blignieres had been even more and earlier than Colvin a worker for intervention, and I read his resignation for what it really was, a sign that his Government had thrown him over. If Colvin at the same time had been made to resign--and things, I believe, were very near it--all the subsequent trouble might have been avoided. Colvin, however was too strongly backed up by Dilke just then to be displaced.

I went on from Goschen's to lunch with b.u.t.ton, and found him with Lord De la Warr, a very worthy Tory peer and country neighbour of my own in Suss.e.x, who had been the year before in Tunis, and had there imbibed, during the French invasion, a certain sympathy with the Arabs. Later we worked a good deal together on the Egyptian question, and he proved of considerable a.s.sistance when things came, in July, to a crisis. I was at that time urging that a Commission of Inquiry should be sent to Cairo, and it seemed that he, perhaps, might fill the post.

The same afternoon I saw Hamilton in Downing Street. A violent article, headed "Smouldering Fires in Egypt," had just appeared in the "Pall Mall," which was little better from beginning to end than a tissue of the old malicious stories, with some new ones prejudicial to the Nationalists. To these Hamilton pointed as a convincing proof, seeing they were in the "Pall Mall," that I must be wrong, "Or why," he said, "should Morley, who is so good a Liberal, take such a very illiberal line?" I explained to him Colvin's position in regard to Morley, which I had not yet done, and urged him again to let me speak with his chief. Up to this point, from a feeling of loyalty to men who had been my friends, and with whom I had acted during the earlier stages, I had refrained from making complaints against them, though Malet had not scrupled to complain of me. But now I saw that further silence on my part would be only mischievous, and I was resolved to tell Gladstone all the truth about them. Morley had the day before warned me of the impending article as one to which I would not a.s.sent, and had invited an answer to it. But I was too angry to reply, except with a short private note, which I followed next day by a visit to Northumberland Street, where I reproached him with printing the malicious nonsense. The evil, however, had been done, for the publication had immediately preceded a motion in the House of Commons brought forward by Sir George Campbell in regard to Egypt where the defamatory tales had been made use of. I was present at the debate on the motion, in which the princ.i.p.al speaker for the Government was Goschen, who adopted a conciliatory att.i.tude, but less than a quite friendly one to Egyptian Nationalism. My conversation with him in the morning may have saved us from a worse p.r.o.nouncement. Still there was no definite declaration made favourable to liberty.

My diary for 14th March notes a talk with Sir Henry Rawlinson, the former Minister to Persia, a distinguished Oriental historian, his views being of the strongest Anglo-Indian official type. The Egyptians had always, he said, been slaves, and slaves they would remain. Their country would be absorbed with the rest of Asia by England or Russia. He knew Asiatics too well to believe they had any taste for self-government. Also another talk with Walter, the proprietor of the "Times," whom b.u.t.ton had suggested I should see. He conversed in plat.i.tudes for half an hour, and in the end, promised he would send a special correspondent to Cairo for independent news. (This, however, was not done, Macdonald, the manager, objecting on the score of needless expense.)

On the 15th I went to see Sir Garnet Wolseley at the Horse Guards, and had with him a conversation which needs special mention. "After a little talk about Cyprus, we got upon Egypt and the chance of resistance on the part of the Nationalists in the case of intervention, and he asked me my opinion. I said, of course, they would fight, and not only the soldiers but the people also, and afterwards, perhaps, use other methods. He refused to believe that the army would fight at all. But I maintained the contrary, and told him if they sent him out to conquer Egypt in its present mood, he must be prepared to take with him at least 60,000 men."

In this I no doubt exaggerated the case, for my object was to represent it as a very difficult one, which the Government should think twice about before attempting. "He volunteered the information that he had been consulted two or three times during the winter with a view to immediate occupation. He a.s.sured me, however, that n.o.body wanted to intervene, that the occupation of Egypt would be most unpopular with the army, and that he himself should be very sorry to have to go there. He would far rather the Egyptians should disband their army and trust to European protection. But I told him I could not advise them to do that, and that people were not often attacked who really meant fighting. He said, 'Well, of course there is no such thing as honour in war, and if there were really any question of fighting, they ought not to trust us more than other people.'" He then talked about the various military routes to Cairo, Bonaparte's, by the left bank of the Nile, and especially the desert way between the Suez Ca.n.a.l and the Delta, so that I felt pretty sure that if troops were landed it would be on that side.

But I was careful to give him no information which could be of the least use to him, and I only laughed when he half seriously asked me whether I would go with him and show him the way if it came to a campaign. My impression of Wolseley was of "a good smart soldier, an Irishman, with a rough touch of brogue, good humoured, and I should fancy enterprising.

But he does not impress me as a man of genius--what Napoleon used to call a '_general a dix mille hommes_.'" It is worth noting that in writing to Sheykh Mohammed Abdu, through my secretary, Sabunji, soon after this conversation, I alluded to the danger there might be, in case of intervention, of their being attacked from the Ismalia side, and I believe it was in consequence of this hint that the lines of Tel-el Kebir were begun to be traced by Arabi's order.

The same day I saw Lyall, whom I found just starting for India, where he had been named Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Provinces. I found him much less sceptical about the National Party in Egypt than was the case then with most Anglo-Indians. In the evening I dined with Hamilton and G.o.dley, Gladstone's two private secretaries, and showed them the draft of a letter I had written to Lord Granville, in which I had formally delivered Arabi's message of goodwill to the English Government, and also his complaint against Colvin and Malet, which I had not mentioned to him, for the reason already given, when I saw him at the Foreign Office. Of this draft the two secretaries highly approved, and especially G.o.dley, who was the senior of the two, and he made me strike out a phrase I had introduced of apology for my interference in this important public matter. He said emphatically, "Your interference needs no excuse." G.o.dley was a singularly high-minded man, representing the better and more enthusiastic side of Gladstone's public character, the large sympathy with what was good in the world and the scorn of what was base. Except that he had great practical ability for his official work, he was absolutely unlike the men usually found in our public offices, and throughout the Egyptian crisis he gave me his warmest support and sympathy. Hamilton, though also sympathetic, was more so because he was my personal friend than from any natural enthusiasm for the kind of cause I was defending. My letter ended with a suggestion that something in the nature of an official inquiry should be sent to Cairo to examine into the facts in a spirit friendly to the Egyptians.

They both urged me to send in the letter, and I consequently did so four days later, under the date 20th March. Its importance justifies my giving it here _in extenso_:

"London, _March 20th_, 1882.

"The kindness with which your Lordship was good enough to listen to me on certain points of the political situation in Egypt, encourages me to offer you the following suggestions for your further consideration:

"If I rightly understood your Lordship, Her Majesty's Government are not desirous of precipitating matters in that direction, but would be willing to accept a peaceable solution, could such be found, of the question in dispute between the Control and the Egyptian Government, and would only resort in the last instance to force were the political interests of England to be seriously impaired, or international engagements actually broken by the National Party now in power.

"Now, I am sufficiently well acquainted with the views of that party, or, at least, of their most prominent leaders, to be able to speak positively to the fact that there is nothing nearer to their wishes than a good understanding with Her Majesty's Government.