The Egyptian campaigns, 1882 to 1885 Part 53

In the beginning of May the Merawi detachment moved down to Dongola, and on the 13th the evacuation of the latter place commenced.

The Soudan having to be abandoned, the Government evinced some desire to consider how far some sort of government could be set on foot for the province of Dongola.

Sir E. Baring, to whom a question was addressed on the subject, referred to Wolseley and General Buller. The former, regarding the matter from a military point of view, replied that a railway ought to be made to Hannek (just below the town of New Dongola), and the end of the line held by a British battalion, and Dongola itself should be garrisoned by 2,000 black troops. The present "Wekil," according to Wolseley, should be appointed Mudir. "It was safer," added his Lordship, "to attempt this than to hand Dongola over to the Mahdi and anarchy."

Buller replied that he did not think it possible to establish a government as proposed, and that the first thing to be considered was who was to take charge of it. His opinion was that no force of blacks that could be got together would be sufficient to hold the province. He added that he did not believe the railway to Hannek to be anything but a waste of money; it would besides require all the present force as a covering party; he believed the British were withdrawing just as the fruit was falling into their hands; concluding with the sentence, "I do not believe that when we leave Dongola any one else will keep the Mahdi out."

Sir E. Baring, in forwarding the above opinions, said that "in view of the decision of the Government he thought that instructions should be given to send down all troops, and as many of the civil population as wished to leave, to Wady Halfa," and concluded in the following words:--

"Your Lordship will understand that we make this recommendation only because we consider it to be the necessary consequence of the decision of Her Majesty's Government to abandon the province of Dongola at once, but that it must in no way be taken to imply our agreement with that decision.

"Nubar Pasha, on behalf of the Egyptian Government, requests me to make a final and most earnest appeal to the Government of Her Majesty to postpone the departure of the British troops from Dongola for, say, six months, in order that there may be at least a chance of establishing a government there.

"Nubar Pasha fears that the retreat of the British from Dongola will react on Egypt, and especially on the southern provinces, to such an extent as will render it impossible for the Khedive's Government to maintain order, and that they will be forced to appeal to Her Majesty's Government for help to preserve order in the country, and that thus the present system of government which Her Majesty's Government have been at so much trouble to maintain will be found no longer possible."

Nubar's appeal had no effect, and the question of the future government of Dongola occupied the British Cabinet no more. On the 14th May, Sir E.

Baring was informed that it was the intention to withdraw the whole force to Wady Halfa.

On the 16th Wolseley telegraphed his idea as to the British force which should remain at Korosko and Wady Halfa.

This was approved by the Government, and the troops continued their journey down the Nile.

The departure of the soldiers from Dongola was accompanied by the exodus of a large portion of the native population, who feared to be left exposed to the vengeance of the Mahdi.

Mr. Gladstone's Ministry retired from office on 12th June, and on the Conservative Cabinet coming into power, one of the first questions with which it occupied itself was that of Egypt.

It was impossible for the Ministry of Lord Salisbury to at once reverse the Egyptian policy of their predecessors, but the new Premier declared that "England had a mission in Egypt, and that until it was accomplished it was idle to talk of withdrawal."

The evacuation of the Soudan, however, stood on a different footing. The steps taken by Mr. Gladstone's Government were so far advanced that the measure was already practically a _fait accompli_. As Lord Salisbury stated, "the whole of the Soudan down to Dongola had been already evacuated, and the whole of the province of Dongola, with the exception of a rear-guard left at Debbeh, had been evacuated also; and 12,000 of the luckless population, to avoid the vengeance of the Mahdi, had fled from their houses and taken refuge in Upper Egypt."

It was not, however, without inquiry that Lord Salisbury's Cabinet determined to proceed with the evacuation. Wolseley was again consulted, and in a despatch of 27th June he wrote:--

"You cannot get out of Egypt for many years to come. If the present policy of retreat be persisted in the Mahdi will become stronger and stronger, and you will have to increase your garrisons and submit to the indignity of being threatened by him. Eventually you will have to fight him to hold your position in Egypt, which you will then do with the population round you ready on any reverse to rise against you. No frontier force can keep Mahdism out of Egypt, and the Mahdi sooner or later must be smashed, or he will smash you.

"To advance in the autumn on Khartoum and discredit the Mahdi by a serious defeat on his own ground would certainly finish him. The operation, if done deliberately, would be a simple one; and, as far as anything can be a certainty in war, it would be a certainty. Until this is done there will be no peace in Egypt, and your military expenditure will be large and increasing. My advice, therefore, is, carry out autumn campaign up the Nile, as originally intended. I would leave Souakim as it is."

On the 2nd July the Government telegraphed that--

"Her Majesty's Government, after a full consideration of all the circ.u.mstances, were not prepared to reverse the orders given by their predecessors by countermanding the retreat of the force from Dongola."

Thus the policy of evacuation was affirmed.

General Brackenbury with the last of the rear-guard left Dongola on the 5th, and followed the rest of the troops down to Cairo.

On the 6th July Wolseley handed over the command of the British troops to General Stephenson, and in a few weeks the greater part of the officers and men forming the expedition had left Egypt.

The services of the officers and men forming the Gordon Relief Expedition were referred to by Lord Salisbury on the 12th August in moving in the House of Lords a vote of thanks in the following words:--

"In considering their merits you must keep out of sight altogether the precise results and outcome of the labours they have gone through and the dangers they have incurred. Of course this is not the moment at which to broach controversial topics, and I only wish to say that you must look upon this fact--that they failed to fulfil the main purpose for which they were sent out through no fault of their own. The prize of success was taken from them, as it were by an overmastering destiny, by the action of causes, whatever their nature, over which they themselves had no more control than they would have over a tempest or earthquake."[138]

There can be no doubt that Lord Salisbury's eulogium was well deserved.

The merits of the officers and men were unquestionable. That they did not succeed was owing to the incapacity of those who sent them, at the wrong time, by the wrong route, on their fruitless errand.

CHAPTER LII.

CONTINUATION.

The preceding chapter brings the narrative down to the summer of 1885, at which period the First Edition of the present work was brought to a close.

In the final chapter the errors of British policy in Egypt were dealt with. It was pointed out how the dilatory fashion in which England intervened to suppress the Arabi revolt led to its indefinite prolongation; how when Alexandria had been destroyed, and ma.s.sacres had taken place all over the country, a British army was sent too late to avert these disasters; how when the Arabi insurrection had been put down, and that of the Mahdi took its place, England reduced the Army of Occupation, and left Egypt to attempt to cope single-handed with the revolt; how in 1884, when Tokar and Sinkat were cut off, England sent an army to the relief of those places only in time to find that they had already fallen; how when many British lives had been sacrificed, and thousands of Soudanese had been slaughtered in the Eastern Soudan, England, instead of crushing Osman Digna and opening the route to Berber, withdrew her troops only to send another expedition in the following year, when too late to accomplish those very objects; finally, how, having sent Gordon to bring away the garrisons in the Soudan, England, again too late, despatched an expedition to his rescue.

The feeble manner in which the reform of Egyptian inst.i.tutions had been taken in hand was also indicated, and it was pointed out how England, by declaring that her stay in the country was only to be short-lived, added to the difficulty of carrying any of such reforms into effect.

With regard to the Drummond-Wolff Convention of the 24th October, 1885, it was foretold that the inquiry provided for into Egyptian affairs would be illusory, and the withdrawal of the Army of Occupation, which the Convention was to effect, was one of those events which might safely be relegated to the remote future.

It was pointed out that, whatever the future of Egypt under British guidance might be, it was impossible that it could be marked by greater errors than had been witnessed in the past, and, in conclusion, advice was given in the words following:--

"Put the Administration really, instead of nominally and half-heartedly, under English control. Discard all idea of going away in two years, or twenty years, or two hundred years, if the country is not brought to order and prosperity by that time.

Declare that as long as England remains she will be responsible for Egyptian finances, and for the safety and property of Europeans. Simplify as much as possible the official staff and system, and take proper steps for securing whatever point may be needed as the frontier."

It is satisfactory to be able to observe that since the above was written much has been done in the way of following the Author's recommendations. The firm att.i.tude adopted with regard to Egypt by Lord Salisbury's Ministry on its accession to office in 1885 has been maintained by succeeding Governments, and with the happiest results. One Egyptian administration after another has been taken in hand, abuses have been suppressed, corruption reduced to a minimum, and order and regularity introduced. The finances have been placed on a sound footing; reforms have been everywhere inaugurated; and tranquillity reigns throughout the country, which has arrived at a pitch of prosperity such as in modern times it has never before attained. In addition, as a result of the improvements made in her military system, Egypt, with England's aid, has been enabled to suppress a formidable insurrection, and to regain the most valuable of her lost provinces.

The different steps by which all this has been brought about may be gleaned, partially at least, from the following pages.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER LIII.

THE MAHDIST INVASION.

It was not unnatural that the retirement of the Gordon Relief Expedition, in 1885, should have inspired the Mahdi with the idea that the moment had now arrived for the fulfilment of what he regarded as part of his Divine mission, viz., the invasion of Egypt. Two British armies had been sent, in two successive years, to the Eastern Soudan, and both, after a certain amount of fighting, had been withdrawn, whilst a third, despatched for the relief of Khartoum, had, when almost at the gates of Khartoum, been forced to retrace its steps, and retreat down the Nile. What ensued was only the result foretold by Lord Wolseley when he prophetically declared to Her Majesty's Government that "the struggle with the Mahdi, or rather with Mahdism, must come sooner or later.

Eventually you will have to fight him to hold your position in Egypt. No frontier force can keep Mahdism out of Egypt, and the Mahdi, sooner or later, must be smashed, or he will smash you."[139]

When, as stated in another chapter, the last of the British troops left Dongola on 5th July, 1885, an Egyptian frontier field force, composed of British and Egyptian troops, was formed, and placed under the command of Major-General Grenfell, Sir Evelyn Wood's successor as Sirdar of the Egyptian army. His head-quarters were fixed at a.s.souan, whilst Brigadier-General Butler commanded the advanced brigade at Wady Halfa, with outposts at Kosheh, about forty-two miles south of the railway terminus at Akasheh.

The Mahdi's plans for the invasion of Egypt were formed as early as May, in fact, as soon as he was able to make sure of the break-up of the Nile Expedition.

The idea was to make the advance in two river columns, under the command of the Emirs Abd-el-Medjid and Mohammed-el-Kheir respectively, who were to march on Wady Halfa, whilst a third column was to cross the desert from Abu Hamid to Korosko, thus cutting the communications of the defensive force at Wady Halfa.

The death of the Mahdi in the month of June by no means interfered with the carrying out of this programme, his successor, the Khalifa Abdullah-el-Taaishi, being almost as capable a leader as his predecessor, and even more oppressive and unscrupulous.