The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 Part 33

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

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

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

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

[Footnote 350: For this work see _The Life of Sir R. Sandeman_; Sir R.

Warburton, _Eighteen Years in the Khyber_; Durand, _op. cit._; Bruce, _The Forward Policy and its Results_; Sir James Willc.o.c.k's _From Cabul to k.u.ma.s.si_; S.S. Thorburn, _The Punjab in Peace and War_.]

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

[Footnote 351: _The Relief of Chitral_, by Captains G.J. and F.E.

Younghusband (1895).]

The year 1897 saw all the hill tribes west and south of Peshawur rise against the British Raj. Moslem fanaticism, kindled by the Sultan's victories over the Greeks, is said to have brought about the explosion, though critics of the Calcutta Government ascribe it to official folly[352]. With truly Roman solidity the British Government quelled the risings, the capture of the heights of Dargai by the "gay Gordons"

showing the st.u.r.dy hillmen that they were no match for our best troops.

Since then the "Forward Policy" has amply justified itself, thousands of fine troops being recruited from tribes which were recently daring marauders, ready for a dash into the plains of the Punjab at the bidding of any would-be disturber of the peace of India. In this case, then, Britain has transformed a troublesome border fringe into a protective girdle.

[Footnote 352: See _The Punjab in Peace and War_, by S.S. Thorburn, _ad fin._]

Whether the Russian Government intends in the future to invade India is a question which time alone can answer. Viewing her Central Asian policy from the time of the Crimean War, the student must admit that it bears distinct traces of such a design. Her advance has always been most conspicuous in the years succeeding any rebuff dealt by Great Britain, as happened after that war, and still more, after the Berlin Congress.

At first, the theory that a civilised Power must swallow up restless raiding neighbours could be cited in explanation of such progress; but such a defence utterly fails to account for the cynical aggression at Panjdeh and the favour shown by the Czar to the general who violated a truce. Equally does it fail to explain the pushing on of strategic railways since the time of the conclusion of the Anglo-j.a.panese Treaty of 1902. Possibly Russia intends only to exert upon that Achilles heel of the British Empire the terrible but nominally pacific pressure which she brings to bear on the open frontiers of Germany and Austria; and the constant discussion by her officers of plans of invasion of India may be wholly unofficial. At the same time we must remember that the idea has long been a favourite one with the Russian bureaucracy; and the example of the years 1877-81 shows that that cla.s.s is ready and eager to wipe out by a campaign in Central Asia the memory of a war barren of fame and booty. But that again depends on more general questions, especially those of finance (now a very serious question for Russia, seeing that she has drained Paris and Berlin of all possible loans) and of alliance with some Great Power, or Powers, anxious to effect the overthrow of Great Britain.

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

[Footnote 353: See _The Nineteenth Century and After_ for May 1905.]

POSTSCRIPT

On May 22, 1905, the _Times_ published particulars concerning the Anglo-Afghan Treaty recently signed at Cabul. It renewed the compact made with the late Ameer, whereby he agreed to have no relations with any foreign Power except Great Britain, the latter agreeing to defend him against foreign aggression. The subsidy of 120,000 a year is to be continued, but the present Ameer, Habibulla, henceforth receives a t.i.tle equivalent to "King" and is styled "His Majesty."

CHAPTER XV

BRITAIN IN EGYPT

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

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

In order fully to understand the relations of Egypt to Turkey and to the purse-holders of the West, we must glance back at the salient events in her history for the past century. The first event that brought the land of the Pharaohs into the arena of European politics was the conquest by Bonaparte in 1798. He meant to make Egypt a flourishing colony, to have the Suez Ca.n.a.l cut, and to use Alexandria and Suez as bases of action against the British possessions in India. This daring design was foiled by Nelson's victory at the Nile, and by the Abercromby-Hutchinson expedition of 1801, which compelled the surrender of the French army left by Bonaparte in Egypt. The three years of French occupation had no great political results except the awakening of British statesmanship to a sense of the value of Egypt for the safeguarding of India. They also served to weaken the power of the Mamelukes, a Circa.s.sian military caste which had reduced the Sultan's authority over Egypt to a mere shadow.

The ruin of this warlike cavalry was gradually completed by an Albanian soldier of fortune named Mohammed Ali, who, first in the name of the Sultan, and later in defiance of his power, gradually won the allegiance of the different races of Egypt and made himself virtually ruler of the land. This powerful Pasha conquered the northern part of the Sudan, and founded Khartum as the southern bulwark of his realm (1823). He seems to have grasped the important fact that, as Egypt depends absolutely on the waters poured down by the Nile in its periodic floods, her rulers must control that river in its upper reaches--an idea also held by the ablest of the Pharaohs. To secure this control, what place could be so suitable as Khartum, at the junction of the White and Blue Niles?

Mohammed Ali was able to build up an army and navy, which in 1841 was on the point of overthrowing Turkish power in Syria, when Great Britain intervened, and by the capture of Acre compelled the ambitious Pasha to abandon his northern schemes and own once more the suzerainty of the Porte. The Sultan, however, acknowledged that the Pashalic of Egypt should be hereditary in his family. We may remark here that England and France had nearly come to blows over the Syrian question of that year; but, thanks to the firm demeanour of Lord Palmerston, their rivalry ended, as in 1801, in the triumph of British influence and the a.s.sertion of the nominal ascendancy of the Sultan in Egypt. Mohammed was to pay his lord 363,000 a year. He died in 1849.

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

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

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

Certainly Egypt was less prosperous after its opening, but probably owing to another and mightier event which occurred at the beginning of Ismail's rule. This was the American Civil War. The blockade of the Southern States by the federal cruisers cut off from Lancashire and Northern France the supplies of raw cotton which are the life-blood of their industries. Cotton went up in price until even the conservative fellahin of Egypt saw the desirability of growing that strange new shrub--the first instance on record of a change in their tillage that came about without compulsion. So great were the profits reaped by intelligent growers that many fellahin bought Circa.s.sian and Abyssinian wives, and established harems in which jewels, perfumes, silks, and mirrors were to be found. In a word, Egypt rioted in its new-found wealth. This may be imagined from the totals of exports, which in three years rose from 4,500,000 to considerably more than 13,000,000[355].

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

But then came the end of the American Civil War. Cotton fell to its normal price, and ruin stared Egypt in the face. For not only merchants and fellahin, but also their ruler, had plunged into expenditure, and on the most lavish scale. Nay! Believing that the Suez Ca.n.a.l would bring boundless wealth to his land, Ismail persisted in his palace-building and other forms of oriental extravagance, with the result that in the first twelve years of his reign, that is, by the year 1875, he had spent more than 100,000,000 of public money, of which scarcely one-tenth had been applied to useful ends. The most noteworthy of these last were the Barrage of the Nile in the upper part of the Delta, an irrigation ca.n.a.l in Upper Egypt, the Ibrahimiyeh Ca.n.a.l, and the commencement of the Wady Haifa-Khartum railway. The grandeur of his views may be realised when it is remembered that he ordered this railway to be made of the same gauge as those of South Africa, because "it would save trouble in the end."

As to the sudden fall in the price of cotton, his only expedient for making good the loss was to grow sugar on a great scale, but this was done so unwisely as to increase the deficits. As a natural consequence, the Egyptian debt, which at his accession stood at 3,000,000, reached the extraordinary sum of 89,000,000 in the year 1876, and that, too, despite the increase of the land tax by one-half. All the means which oriental ingenuity has devised for the systematic plunder of a people were now put in force; so that Sir Alfred Milner (now Lord Milner), after unequalled opportunities of studying the Egyptian Question, declared: "There is nothing in the financial history of any country, from the remotest ages to the present time, to equal this carnival of extravagance and oppression[356]."

[Footnote 356: _England in Egypt_, by Sir Alfred Milner (Lord Milner), 1892, pp. 216-219. (The Egyptian is equal to 1:0:6.) I give the figures as pounds sterling.]

The Khedive himself had to make some sacrifices of a private nature, and one of these led to an event of international importance. Towards the close of the year 1875 he decided to sell the 177,000 shares which he held in the Suez Ca.n.a.l Company. In the first place he offered them secretly to the French Government for 100,000,000 francs; and the Foreign Minister, the Duc Decazes, it seems, wished to buy them; but the Premier, M. Buffet, and other Ministers hesitated, perhaps in view of the threats of war from Germany, which had alarmed all responsible men.

In any case, France lost her chance[357]. Fortunately for Great Britain, news of the affair was sent to one of her ablest journalists, Mr.

Frederick Greenwood, who at once begged Lord Derby, then Minister for Foreign Affairs, to grant him an interview. The result was an urgent message from Lord Derby to Colonel Staunton, the British envoy in Egypt, to find out the truth from the Khedive himself. The tidings proved to be correct, and the Beaconsfield Cabinet at once sanctioned the purchase of the shares for the sum of close on 4,000,000.

[Footnote 357: _La Question d'egypte_, by C. de Freycinet (1905), p.

151.]

It is said that the French envoy to Egypt was playing billiards when he heard of the purchase, and in his rage he broke his cue in half. His anger was natural, quite apart from financial considerations. In that respect the purchase has been a brilliant success; for the shares are now worth more than 30,000,000, and yield an annual return of about a million sterling; but this monetary gain is as nothing when compared with the influence which the United Kingdom has gained in the affairs of a great undertaking whereby M. de Lesseps hoped to a.s.sure the ascendancy of France in Egypt.

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

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

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

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

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

On their side the bondholders had to submit to a reduction of rates of interest to a uniform rate of 4 per cent on the Unified Debt. Even so, it was found in the year 1881--a prosperous year--that about half of the Egyptian revenue, then 9,229,000, had to be diverted to the payment of that interest[359]. Again, one must remark that such a situation in an overtaxed country would naturally end in bankruptcy; but this was prevented by foreign control, which sought to cut down expenditure in all directions. As a natural result, many industries suffered from the lack of due support; for even in the silt-beds formed by the Nile (and they are the real Egypt) there is need of capital to bring about due results. In brief, the popular discontent gave strength to a movement which aimed at ousting foreign influences of every kind, not only the usurers and stock-jobbers that sucked the life-blood of the land, but even the engineers and bankers who quickened its sluggish circulation.

This movement was styled a national movement; and its abettors raised that cry of "Egypt for Egyptians," which has had its counterpart wherever selfish patriots seek to keep all the good things of the land to themselves. The Egyptian troubles of the year 1882 originated partly in feelings of this narrow kind, and partly in the jealousies and strifes of military cliques.

[Footnote 359: _England in Egypt_, etc. p. 222. See there for details as to the Dual Control; also de Freycinet, _op. cit_. chap. ii., and _The Expansion of Egypt_, by A. Silva White, chap. vi.]

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

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

[Footnote 360: Sir D.M. Wallace, _Egypt and the Egyptian Question_, p.

67.]