Secret History of the English Occupation of Egypt Part 17

The rest is a mere dream of gold and glory. August 6, "Suez ... I start to-morrow for a few days in the desert to buy camels. Captain Gill and the Admiral's Flag Lieutenant go with me, and we shall be all safe and jolly. My position seems like a dream. The Admiral said as I preferred leaving the Government to settle my pay, that in the meantime I might draw _to any amount_ for private expenses--so I will send you another 500 as soon as I come back. I could do it now, but do not want to look hard up. I have got 260 left, after paying all expenses of my journey, etc., in hard money in my despatch box, and to-day _twenty thousand pounds in gold were brought by s.h.i.+p and paid into my account here!_ I have _carte blanche_ to do everything. I give pa.s.ses to the sentries. If I see a dozen horses I buy them off-hand. Yesterday I found thirty camels and gave a man 360 for them by just writing on a slip of paper.

To-night I have been interpreting while the Governor dined with the Admiral. I have servants, clerks, and interpreters at my beck and call, and in short I could not be in a higher position. We are very securely entrenched here and the enemy is eighty miles off, and to-morrow the Indian troops are coming. Of course it is war time, but as I am on the staff of the Commander-in-Chief, I am not likely to get into risky places. I have seen active service though, having been one of the first to land when Suez was taken. The Admiral is such a nice man, and I am told he never forgets his officers, but pushes them on to promotion. He _told me_ I should get the 'Star of India'! good-bye."

This is the last pathetic entry in a very human doc.u.ment. The next day Palmer started with Gill and Charrington for Nakhl in the eastern desert, Gill's mission and Charrington's being to destroy the telegraph wire between Egypt and Syria, for which purpose they took with them a box of dynamite, while Palmer's mission was announced as that of "buying camels." The two officers, like Palmer, were dressed in Arab costume, but they had with them uniforms to add dignity to their proceedings when they should reach the friendly tribes. The amount of money taken with them out of Palmer's 20,000 has been variously stated at 3,000 to 8,000. Gill has recorded his dissatisfaction at the nature of the mission on which he was called to serve. It cannot have been the purchase of camels, an official euphemism which now that Palmer had become a high officer of Her Majesty he seems to have adopted, but beyond a doubt to carry out his original avowed purpose and fulfil his promises to his Bedouin friends, by paying them the large sums agreed on. He would have taken all the 20,000 for his 40,000 fighters but that the Admiral expostulated.

The party, however, was foredoomed to disaster. The Bedouin escort, men of the Haiwat and Howeytat, got scent of the gold they were carrying, and were determined to be beforehand with the Teyyaha, for whom it was intended--the Egyptian governor of Nakhl, an isolated fort halfway between Suez and Akabah, there is good reason to believe, being their accomplice and instigator. They had hardly therefore, got more than a few miles on their way before they were attacked, made prisoners, despoiled, stripped and bound, and finally shot at the edge of a ravine in the Wady Sudr. And so poor Palmer's dreams of fortune ended. The catastrophe was too conspicuous a one to save the Government from questions asked in Parliament, and that worthy gentleman, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, as Under-Secretary, was put up in the House of Commons to give answer and to deny roundly the whole affair of Palmer's secret mission, or of any dealings on his part with the Bedouins, except as buyer of camels.

Nor does Professor Palmer's journal stand alone as doc.u.mentary evidence. Captain Gill also left a diary amply confirming the main facts. His business under the Intelligence Department was of the same nature west of the Suez Ca.n.a.l as Palmer's had been east of it. The diary begins at Alexandria and the writer speaks of having gone to see Sir Frederick Goldsmid, the head of his department, and he expresses his hope to be soon at work among the Bedouins west of the Ca.n.a.l. He describes having received, in the Khedive's own handwriting, a list of the princ.i.p.al Sheykhs between the Ca.n.a.l and the cultivation, of whom he mentions two by name, Saoud el Tihawi at Salahieh, and Mohammed el Baghli at Wady Tumeylat. He understood the Bedouins to be waiting to side with whomever they found it their best interest to follow. At Port Sad Gill hears from the ex-Governor that these Bedouins can be bought at from 2 to 3 per man. On 4th August he mentions reading Palmer's report to Sir B. Seymour. He says, "Had I known the report would go direct to the Admiral, I would have asked Hoskyns whether he had the money for Palmer." He adds, "Palmer says he can buy fifty thousand Bedouins for 25,000, and I shall certainly urge that the money be given him." He mentions a report of his own as to blocking the Ca.n.a.l, which he says could only be effectively done by the Egyptians at one point, which he names, and gives as his reason the want of stones elsewhere to sink the barges with. He talks of Lesseps as having it in his power to do real mischief, as he has all the dredges and boats belong to the Ca.n.a.l at his disposal. August 5th: Gill goes down the Ca.n.a.l with another officer to Suez, taking with them 20,000 in gold for Palmer. They stop at Ismalia, and he sees there Mr. Pickard, with whom he discusses the best route to choose for cutting the telegraph. He says there are three ways: (1) from the coast near el Arish, which both agree would be dangerous, (2) from Gisr or Kantara, objectionable as violating the neutrality of the Ca.n.a.l, and (3) from Suez, the only practicable route.

He does not seem to trust Pickard, and decides to cut the wire himself from Suez. August 6th: He mentions the fact that he is glad to get rid of the 20,000 on its being made over to Palmer. He talks of going with Palmer to a great meeting of Shekyhs he is to attend at Nakhul, and remarks that if he goes so far with him he shall be able to judge how far "Palmer's rather rose-coloured expectations" are justified. These two doc.u.ments between them amply prove the reality of the bribery resorted to before Tel-el-Kebir.

I was much connected with this affair at the time it occurred, as I was applied to by members of the families of all the three victims of it, to aid in their researches, and to make the matter public and in one instance to obtain from the Government a proper recognition of services rendered and as yet unacknowledged. The case, after being denied in the House of Commons, was at my instance brought on by my brother-in-law, Lord Wentworth, in the House of Lords, and was the occasion of much anger among the Ministerial peers, and an astonis.h.i.+ng display of untruth. Lord Granville, Lord Northbrook, and their colleagues, got up one after the other and roundly denied the whole story of Palmer's mission, and of his having received any money for the purpose of bribery among the Arabs. It is a curious fact that Lord Salisbury, to whom I went just before the debate to try to enlist his aid in opposition to the Government, excused them in some measure to me on the ground that in cases where secret service money was concerned, it was conventionally permitted to Ministers to lie. He nevertheless aided Lord Wentworth to the extent of securing him a fair hearing, which the others would have prevented.

Palmer's and Gill's were nevertheless but crude dealings, and would by themselves, I think, have done little to further Wolseley's objects but for the far more efficacious intervention in support of them given by the Khedive. Saoud el Tihawi was the only Arab Sheykh who systematically or at all efficiently betrayed Arabi, and it was the Khedive who procured his defection. Saoud received in payment for his work as spy in Arabi's camp 5,000 Austrian crowns, and betrayed him throughout, from the date of the removal of the Egyptian headquarters from Kafr Dawar to Tel-el-Kebir. Saoud was an Arab of a naturally superior type, and with a good head on his shoulders, but he had long been perverted by his a.s.sociation with Lesseps and the French, having his land and permanent camp within a day's journey only of the Suez Ca.n.a.l, and had been accustomed to hunt the gazelle with them, and play the part of fine gentleman, which is the ruin of Bedouin morality. That he did indeed play the part of spy and traitor in the English interest I have his own half admission, for pa.s.sing by Salahieh in the spring of 1887, I stopped a night at his tents, and he seeing me to be English, and knowing nothing of my political sympathies, spoke of his doings during the war in terms there was no mistaking. Acting as scout for Arabi, it was easy for his men to pa.s.s from camp to camp, and so convey intelligence. There was nothing specially to be ashamed of in this treachery, according to Bedouin morals, for to the Arab tribes Egyptians and Turks and Franks are equally outside the sphere of their allegiance, and in serving them it is merely a question of what suits their interest best. On the east of the Nile the Bedouins have exceedingly little religious feeling to prevent their siding with the infidel, if their advantage lies that way, and no love was ever yet lost between Bedouin and Fellah.

What did Arabi infinitely more harm than this and facilitated the rapidity of Wolseley's advance, was the tampering with his officers through the instrumentality of certain emissaries despatched in disguise to Cairo and Tel-el-Kebir, who, armed with money and promises of promotion and advancement when the "rebellion" should have been put down, succeeded in detaching not a few from their loyalty. This was not done directly by Wolseley or the English intelligence Department, though, perhaps the funds were furnished by them, but by the Khedive, who was far better aware whom to approach with success than any Englishman could be. His most intelligent and active agent in this work was his A. D. C., Osman Bey Rifaat, who knew well the temper of most of the officers, and the jealousies which inspired them. To these, especially to those of Circa.s.sian origin, he represented the futility of the National resistance and the advantage there would be for them in being beforehand in reconciling themselves to the Khedive instead of awaiting the punishment which would certainly follow. Wolseley and the English were only acting as the Khedive's servants and in concert with the Sultan, who also was about to send troops, having declared Arabi a rebel. With the Circa.s.sians this line of argument naturally had weight, and with the baser cla.s.s of Egyptian officers the money argument was added. Arabi, for the reasons already stated, although enthusiastically followed by the rank and file of the army, had incurred no little jealousy among the superior officers, who judged themselves to be all better soldiers than he, and his procrastination in the matter of blocking the Ca.n.a.l had still further increased their dissatisfaction.

All confidence in his military leaders.h.i.+p was destroyed among them from the day of the landing of the English at Ismalia without the promised opposition of the French, and without adequate preparations to oppose them on that side having been made.

With the civilian chiefs of the Nationalists another agent was employed, also not without effect. This was none other than the old leader of the fellah movement, Sultan Pasha, who, having thrown his lot in now wholly with the English, was not ashamed to lend himself to the work of spreading disunion among those who still retained their patriotism. To the new generation of the Egyptians it seems difficult to understand how a man of such initial high conduct as a lover of his country should have sunk to so mean a pa.s.s. But I think it is not really difficult to explain. Sultan was a proud man of great wealth and importance, and used to being given the first place everywhere--the "king," as he was called, of Upper Egypt, the first and foremost of the great fellah proprietors--and with what seemed to him a natural right to leaders.h.i.+p in the fellah party. Arabi he had patronized as a younger man and one of no social standing, who might help him in his ambitions, but who should never have presumed to supplant him in the popular affections. He was disappointed on the formation of the Sherif Ministry in September, 1881, that he was given no place in it, and was only half consoled with the presidency a.s.signed him of the new Parliament. Still less was he pleased when on the formation of the more purely fellah administration of February, 1882, he was again left out, and the lack of what he considered the due consideration shown him caused him to drift gradually into opposition. Then came the arrival of the fleets at Alexandria, and, as we know, he was partly cajoled, partly frightened by Malet into declaring himself in favour of the English demands, and threw in his lot finally with the Court party against his former a.s.sociates. There is nothing difficult to understand, more than in the Khedive's case, in the downward grade he was obliged to follow. It became with him, I imagine, a matter of obstinacy rather than any longer of ambition, and his patriotic scruples had been allayed by the promise made him that the English intervention was intended only to restore the condition of things previous to the Mahmud Sami Ministry, and that Egypt should still have her claim to Const.i.tutional government respected. In this sense he addressed letters to his numerous former friends at Cairo, putting forward the explanation that the alliance between the Khedive and the English was a merely temporary necessity, as the English troops would not stay in Egypt when once the Khedive's authority had been re-established; and that Arabi had lost the confidence of the Sultan, and that the continued resistance at Cairo was generally condemned by Moslems. These letters, distributed carefully, were not without their influence, and money again played its powerful part. Sultan indeed seems to have advanced the money out of his own pocket, for the very first financial act of the restored Khedivial Government after Tel-el-Kebir was to make him a public present of 10,000 under the t.i.tle of an indemnity for losses sustained by him during the war, while he also received an order of English knighthood. The sums actually given away by Sultan were not, as far as I can learn, very large, being supplemented with more considerable promises, which after the war remained unfulfilled, and very likely the 10,000 more than covered the sums Sultan actually disbursed. Be this as it may, there is no question that with the Khedive's help Wolseley's path of victory was made a very easy one.[25]

In spite, however, of all these disadvantages of internal intrigue, the National defence might still have been prolonged, if the end could not be averted, but for the bad luck which from this point throughout attended the army. As soon as it was quite clear that Egypt would be attacked from the East, Mahmud Fehmi, the engineer, the ablest of all Arabi's lieutenants, was despatched to Tel-el-Kebir, to carry out and finish the lines there, which had never been more than lightly traced.

Had they been finished as they ought to have been, they should have proved a formidable obstacle to the advance of the English army, but by an extraordinary fatality, which was hardly within the range of the common hazards of war, the General, within a few days of his arrival, was captured and made prisoner by a small party of English Life Guards, who, far in advance of the English position, happened to be pa.s.sing near. The accident was a strange one. Mahmud Fehmi, attended only by an A. D. C., and having put off his uniform on account of the heat, had pa.s.sed one evening to the other side of the Wady Tumeylat, and partly to get a breath of air, partly, too, for a better view of the desert in the direction of Ismalia, had climbed alone, on foot, a low sandhill, of which there are several, running into the cultivated land, when suddenly the small English party pounced on him. As Mahmud was not in uniform, Colonel Talbot, in command of the party, was doubtful how to treat him, and was near accepting his explanation that he was an Effendi with property in the neighbourhood, but finally decided to carry him off with them, which they accordingly did, the A. D. C., having remained in a village hard by not knowing what had happened, nor had Talbot any notion of the value of his capture until some time after the return of the party to the English headquarters. As a matter of fact, however, it was one of the greatest possible importance, and a blow to the defence of Tel-el-Kebir for which there was no remedy.[26]

The second misfortune was the disabling at Ka.s.sa.s.sin of the two generals, first and second in command, at a critical moment of that not altogether unequal combat. These were Ali Fehmi, Arabi's tried companion, and Ras.h.i.+d Pasha, two officers who were both good soldiers, with courage and some experience of war, and who took the initiative against Wolseley first by a reconnaissance, and then by a renewed attack on him in force at Ka.s.sa.s.sin. It was the best and last chance the Egyptians had of checking the English advance, and it was not very far from being successful. According to the Egyptian account of the affair, the enemy was taken by surprise, and for a long time the issue remained doubtful, the Duke of Connaught being at one moment near being made prisoner. Had this happened and had the Egyptians maintained their advantage, there is no knowing what terms might not have been granted them of recognition and peace, for already public opinion had veered round in England, and people were becoming ashamed of a war waged against peasants fighting for their freedom from an ancient tyranny. Two things, however, failed them in their plans, first Mahmud Sami was to have advanced from Salahieh with a couple of thousand men to join them in the morning and take the enemy on his right flank, but misled by Saoud's Bedouins in the night he missed the point of rendezvous; and secondly, it is certain that Arabi, if he had had any soldierly instincts, ought to have taken the field in person with them, if not in the front line of attack, at least as commanding a strong reserve. As it was, the whole force employable did not appear on the battlefield, and by a still further stroke of ill fortune both the commanders were wounded, and put for the rest of the campaign _hors de combat_. It is also certain that one of the Egyptian generals, Ali Bey Yusuf, purposely betrayed his comrades.

From this point all was confusion at Tel-el-Kebir, and the pitiful end became certain. Arabi had lost his best generals and knew not where to replace them. There were not many he could trust, and those men only of quite inferior ability. One man indeed there was who might still have given consistency to the defence, but for some inexplicable reason he was left away from the field of action. This was the third of the original "three colonels," Abd-el-Aal Helmi, a valiant fighting man as any in the army. For some time past he had been employed in what was at one moment the important duty of defending Damietta from a possible British landing, and he had with him some of the very best troops, notably the Soudanese regiment which had been Abd-el-Aal's own. Had these, with their commander, been brought at once to Tel-el-Kebir, they might have saved at least the honour of the army, for Abd-el-Aal was one who could be relied upon for forward action, and his troops were full of spirit and undiscouraged by defeat. It seems, however, still to have been thought that Damietta needed its garrison, for I cannot find that the Military Committee so much as suggested Abd-el-Aal as Ali Fehmi's successor. I have sometimes thought that Yakub Pasha Sami, the President of the Military Committee at Cairo, good service as he had done in organizing the war, had at this time been tampered with by the Khedive's agents. He was a Mussulman, of Greek origin, and so one of the ruling cla.s.s, and there are doc.u.ments in my possession which show him, though Arabi's right-hand man at the War Office, as always a Khedive's man rather than a Nationalist. The Khedive seems to have counted him as such, and as in other instances after the war, treated him for that reason with exceptional rigour, and he was one of the seven Pashas exiled to Ceylon, though the att.i.tude he adopted before the Judges had been one of servile repentance and protestations of loyalty. Of his deep jealousy of Arabi the papers give ample evidence, and it is quite possible that after the disabling of Ali Fehmi, he did his best to isolate Arabi and hasten his ruin at Tel-el-Kebir. Instead of Abd-el-Aal the command was given to a very worthy but quite incompetent man, Ali Pasha Roubi, one of Arabi's old companions of the early days of the National movement, but who had no other qualification for so responsible a post.

Arabi himself meanwhile, in spite of the imminence of the English attack, remained stolidly on in camp surrounded, as always, by the country Notables, who still flocked to see him, and by religious men, with whom he pa.s.sed the time in prayers and recitations. He relied implicitly on Saoud el Tihawi to give him news of any further advance by Wolseley, and Saoud always lured him into security. The army at Tel-el-Kebir was the most incoherent one imaginable. Of regular, well-disciplined troops, infantry of the line, there cannot have been more than 6,000 to 7,000, with, perhaps, 2,000 cavalry and a corresponding number of guns served by good artillerymen. This was all the really reliable force. The rest were a half-clothed and wholly undisciplined rabble of recruits and volunteers, good, honest fellahin, hardworking as labourers in the trenches, but of no fighting value whatever. Their total number may have been 20,000, but I have no accurate statistics to go by. Day and night they worked valiantly to complete the unfinished lines, but this was all the military service they possibly could render. Stone Pasha, the American, after the war stated it freely as his opinion that not one of the whole number had even as yet fired a ball cartridge, and this was probably true.

The end came suddenly at dawn on the morning of the 13th of September.

There has been much romance written by English military writers of the silent and hazardous night march from Mehsameh under guidance of the stars and of a young naval officer, and doubtless to those who took part in it it seemed that the English army was groping its way blindly to the unknown, but in reality the road had been made plain for them by the secret means I have alluded to. Two of Arabi's minor officers, both holding responsible positions, had accepted, a few days before, the bribes offered them by the Khedivial agents. The names of these two deserve, to their eternal shame, to be put on record. The first was Abd-el-Rahman Bey Ha.s.san, commander of the advanced guard of cavalry, who was placed with his regiment outside the lines in a position commanding the desert road from the east, but who on the night in question s.h.i.+fted his men some considerable distance to the left, so as to leave the English advance un.o.bstructed. The second was the already mentioned Ali Bey Yusuf, in command of a portion of the central lines where the trenches were so little formidable that they could be surmounted by any active artillery. By the account generally given, and Arabi's own, he not only left the point that night unguarded, but put out a lantern for the guidance of the a.s.sailants. Other names have been mentioned to me, but not with the authority of these two, and I therefore prefer not to put them down. As to the two I have given, their position as traitors was notorious for years at Cairo, as little secret was made of it by them, especially by Ali Bey Yusuf, who complained freely of the scurvy treatment he had received for his services. 1,000 indeed had been paid him down in gold before the battle, but a further promise of 10,000 had never been kept to him, nor did he succeed in obtaining more from the Government, when he had spent his first round sum, than a poor pension of 12 a month, which was paid him to his death.

Arabi and the rest of the army, deluded by Saoud into a false security as to that night at least, slept profoundly, the poor men in their trenches and Arabi at his headquarters, about a mile to the rear. Thus, without any warning, they suddenly found the enemy upon them, the lines crossed at their weak point by the English, and a little later artillery in their rear. The vast number of the recruits fled without firing a shot, half-naked as they were sleeping, worn out with their constant labour of entrenchment, and having thrown their arms away across the open plain, and were cut down in hundreds as they ran. It was a mere butchery of peasants, too ignorant of the ways of war even to know the common formulas of surrender. This was in the centre and to the right of the position. To the left a more gallant stand was made, especially where Mohammed Obeyd was in command, and here and there all along the lines by the Egyptian artillery. The whole thing lasted hardly more than forty minutes. Mohammed Obeyd fell gallantly fighting, and with him the flower of the regular army, and many gunners too who had stuck obstinately to their guns. But at the end of an hour the fighting was wholly over, and what remained of the National army was a mere broken rabble.

As to the part played personally by Arabi that fatal morning, I have the evidence, besides his own, of a very worthy man, Mohammed Sid Ahmed, his body-servant, who in 1888 entered my service as manager at Sheykh Obeyd and remained two years with me. From him I have over and over again heard the events narrated. According to Sid Ahmed, the whole camp that night was in profound slumber, having been a.s.sured by the scouts that the English were making no movement, his master's headquarters at about the centre of the whole camp, but more than a mile in rear of the front line of trenches, as undisturbed as the rest. The Pasha had undressed and gone to bed as usual and slept soundly through the night, nor was any one awake before the sound of the guns announced the attack. Arabi then threw hastily on his uniform and got on horseback and rode towards the firing, followed, among others, by his servant, also mounted. They had not, however, got far when they were met by a crowd of fugitives, who declared that all was lost, while Saoud's Bedouins also were galloping wildly about, adding to the general confusion. The Pasha, Sid Ahmed a.s.sured me, did his best to rally the men, and continued to advance towards that part of the lines where Mohammed Obeyd was still holding out, but was gradually borne away with the rest, and yielded to his (Sid Ahmed's) prayers that he would seek his safety in flight. The idea that his master had any duty of dying on the field of battle was always wholly absent from Sid Ahmed's mind, and he prided himself on having succeeded in persuading him. They were both well mounted on horses, which had been sent to Arabi by one of the Bedouins of the Western Fayoum, and reached the Tel-el-Kebir station just before it was occupied by the English, and though unable there to take train, got across the small ca.n.a.l bridge before it closed, and so by the causeway to the other side of Wady Tumeylat, whence they galloped their best for Belbeis. They were alone, Arabi having been separated from his staff in the confusion. Arabi's one idea now was to get to Cairo before the news of the disaster should arrive and prepare the city for defence. At Belbeis they took train and reached the capital not long after noon.[27]

Arabi, on his arrival in Cairo, seems to have had hopes still of continuing the patriotic struggle by defending the city. He went straight to the Kasr el Nil and a.s.sisted at a council being held there by the members of the War Committee, but a compromise of opinion was all that he could obtain, namely, that while it was decided in principle to make submission to the Khedive, the question of defending Cairo against the English army was reserved. Nor had the matter got any forwarder next day when Drury Lowe with his Indian cavalry arrived at Abba.s.siyeh. The truth is all heart had been taken out of the official resistance by the intrigues of the Khedive's agents, and by Arabi's proclamation by the Sultan as a rebel having become known. Only the rabble of the streets, as yet ignorant of all, were still in favour of a defence. The military circ.u.mstances of Cairo were that it possessed nominally a large garrison, but these were all the newest of new recruits, and although they would probably have been sufficient to hold the citadel and so dominate the town, they could not have made a long defence without great destruction of property in the lower city. For this no one was prepared, and the sudden arrival of Drury Lowe decided the question with the War Committee for capitulation, and it was resolved to send him, according to his demand, the keys of the citadel. Arabi then seeing that all was over, and on the advice of John Ninet, with whom he had spent the night in anxious debate at the house of Ali Fehmi, drove to Abba.s.siyeh, and there surrendered his sword as prisoner of war to the English general.[28]

FOOTNOTES:

[22] "It is no exaggeration," Lord Dufferin a.s.serted, "to say that during the last few months absolute anarchy has reigned in Egypt. We have seen a military faction, without even alleging those pretences to legality with which such persons are wont to cloak their designs, proceed from violence to violence, until insubordination has given place to mutiny, mutiny to revolt, and revolt to a usurpation of the supreme power. As a consequence the Administration of the country has been thrown into confusion; the ordinary operations of the merchant have come to a standstill; the fellahin, no longer finding purchasers for their produce, are unable to pay the land-tax, and the revenues of Egypt are failing. This state of things has placed in extreme jeopardy those commercial interests in which the subjects of all the Powers are so deeply concerned. Not only so, but those special engagements into which the Governments of France and England had entered with Egypt have been repudiated; the officers appointed to carry them into effect have been excluded from the control they were authorized to exercise, and the system which had begun to work so greatly to the advantage of the industrious cultivators of Egypt has been broken up and overthrown.

"But these effects form only a portion of the deplorable situation which has excited the anxiety of Europe. It is not merely the public creditor who has suffered extensive damage. The life and property of every individual European in the country have become insecure. Of this insecurity we have had a most melancholy and convincing proof in the brutal ma.s.sacre by an insolent mob of a number of unoffending persons at Alexandria, and in the sudden flight from Cairo and the interior (a flight which implies loss to all and ruin to many) of thousands of our respective citizens.

"It is evident that such a condition of affairs requires a prompt and energetic remedy."

[23] The following is from my journal of 1887: "_January 31_, Cairo.--Called on Princess Nazli. She is at least as clever as she is pretty. Her conversation would be brilliant in any society in the world.

She told us a great deal that interested us about Arabi, for whom she had, and I am glad to see still has, a great _culte_, talking of his singleness of mind and lamenting his overthrow. 'He was not good enough a soldier,' she said, 'and has too good a heart. These were his faults.

If he had been a violent man like my grandfather, Mehemet Ali, he would have taken Tewfik and all of us to the citadel and cut our heads off--and he would have been now happily reigning, or if he could have got the Khedive to go on honestly with him he would have made a great king of him. Arabi was the first Egyptian Minister who made the Europeans obey him. In his time at least the Mohammedans held up their heads, and the Greeks and Italians did not dare transgress the law. I have told Tewfik this more than once. Now there is n.o.body to keep order.

The Egyptians alone are kept under by the police, and the Europeans do as they like.'"

[24] See Appendix.

[25] I find the following in my diary of 1887: "_February 13._--A visit from Abd-el-Salaam Moelhy (one of the original Const.i.tutionalists, and member of the Chamber of 1882). He told me that he had been an intimate friend and partisan of Sultan Pasha's, and had been one of those who joined Sultan in his quarrel with Arabi, but they were all very sorry now for not having held together; and he did not approve Sultan's conduct during the war. Sultan had been deceived by Malet, who induced him to act as he did on a distinct promise that the Egyptian Parliament should be respected in its rights. Malet gave this verbally, and Sultan asked to have it in writing, but was dissuaded from insisting by the Khedive, who a.s.sured him that the English Agent's word was as good as his bond. The old man, when he found out after the war how much he had been deceived, took it to heart and died expressing a hope that Arabi would forgive him, and that his name would not be handed down to posterity as the betrayer of his country. It was jealousy and anger at Arabi having become Minister that caused the quarrel."

[26] I give this version of the capture as being that of Mahmud Fehmi himself, but some have recounted it otherwise, accusing him of desertion. This is, however, not credited by those who knew him personally.

[27] In 1884 I received an account of Arabi's conduct at Tel-el-Kebir, almost identical with Sid Ahmed's, from his army doctor, Mustafa Bey, who was sleeping near him that night. His own account of his flight will be found in the Appendix.

[28] I find in my journal of 1884 that on the 29th October the Egyptian princes, Osman and Kiamyl, came to see me, and that they talked patriotically about the late war, and gave me much information. "Osman was not actually there. He was too fat a prince to do anything physically, but he sympathized with the cause, and behaved with some dignity after it was over. Kiamyl was a member of the provisional government, and saw a good deal of Arabi during the war, and while bearing testimony to his honest patriotism, blamed him for his too easy conduct of affairs. He ought, he said, to have shot Ali Yusuf after Ka.s.sa.s.sin, for it was perfectly well known he was a traitor, having received five thousand pounds before the battle, which was thus lost. At one moment there were 18,000 Egyptians close to 2,500 English, who had with them the Duke of Connaught. If Ali Yusuf, who commanded the centre, had advanced then, the English must have been crushed and the prince taken, but he left the field of battle, and allowed the wings to be broken. The money paid by the English was most of it false St. George sovereigns and Egyptian pounds with lead inside. Cairo was full of them after Tel-el-Kebir, but they were bought up for the Government by the bankers at five and ten francs apiece in a few days. The money orders were also mostly forgeries, but Ali Yusuf insisted upon having an order with a signature he knew. Abd-el-Ghaffar was paid in false St. George sovereigns, some of which his wife took to Ismal Jawdat's wife to change. Prince Kiamyl had himself broken open some of these pieces and found them to contain lead. The Bedouins would not be taken in thus, and Saoud el Tihawi had told him after the war that he had received--I forget the sum--in silver dollars from one of the English generals. The whole state of things was very disgraceful, and Kiamyl was under orders to go in three days to Tel-el-Kebir to arrest Ali Yusuf when the collapse came. Arabi was betrayed by all about him, some for gold, others for jealousy. Mahmud Sami was jealous of Arabi, and spoilt the second battle of Ka.s.sa.s.sin because he was not in chief command. He was to advance from Salahieh, and did not keep his rendezvous with Ali Fehmi--the latter was an honest and good soldier, but most of them were very worthless. Arabi would not put any Turk into high command, and the fellah officers were incapable and cowardly. Mahmud Sami was the only Turk, and he was playing a selfish game throughout. Kiamyl was present at the council at the Kasr-el-Nil when Arabi returned and when he explained the destruction of the army with floods of tears. He said he had fought till he was alone, which was hardly true, and that all was over. Kiamyl then reproached him, saying, 'A man who embarks in a great enterprise ought first to count the cost.' 'Arabi ought never,' he said, 'to have been at the head of the army. If he had hanged or shot a dozen men in the early part of the war, all would have gone well.' Prince Kiamyl would not hear of the campaign having been a complete walk over for the English."

According to Mohammed Sid Ahmed Arabi had with him a body of about 1,000 encamped near him at Tel-el-Kebir, most of whom were slain before his master left the field. But I do not attach full credit to this, at least as to numbers. There seem to have been some 10,000 Egyptians in all killed or wounded in the battle--mostly killed, for little quarter was given--but I do not pretend to answer for any of the figures named. The immense mounds of the buried dead tell their own tale perhaps best.

CHAPTER XVII

THE ARABI TRIAL

While these great events were happening on the Nile, I at my home at Crabbet spent the summer sadly enough. My sympathies were, of course, still all with the Egyptians, but I was cut off from every means of communication with them, and the war fever was running too strongly during the first weeks of the fighting for further words of mine to be of any avail. Publicly I held my peace. All that I could do was to prepare an "Apologia" of the National movement and of my own connection with it--for this was now being virulently attacked in the press[29]--and wait the issue of the campaign.

Nevertheless, though in dire disgrace with the Government, I did not wholly lose touch with Downing Street. I saw Hamilton once or twice, and submitted proofs of my "Apologia" to him and Mr. Gladstone before it was published, and this was counted to me by them for righteousness. It appeared in the September number of "The Nineteenth Century Review,"

and at a favourable moment when the first sparkle of military glory had faded, and reasonable people were beginning to ask themselves what after all we were fighting in Egypt about. Written from the heart even more than from the head, my pleading had a success far beyond expectation and, taken in connection with an anti-war tour embarked on in the provinces by Sir Wilfrid Lawson, Mr. Seymour Keay and a few other genuine Radicals, touched at last what was called the "Nonconformist"

conscience of the country and turned the tide of opinion distinctly in my favour. This encouraged me. About the same time, too, a letter reached me from General Gordon, dated "Cape Town, the 3rd of August," in which he avowed his sympathy with the cause I had been advocating, and which elated me not a little. It was as follows:

"Cape Town, 3, 8, 82.

"_My Dear Mr. Blunt_,

"You say in 'Times' you are going to publish an account of what pa.s.sed between you and the Government. Kindly let me have a copy addressed as enclosed card. I have written a MS. bringing things down from Cave's mission to the taking of office by Cherif, it is called 'Israel in Egypt,' and shall follow it with a sequel, 'The Exodus.' I do not know whether I shall print it, for it is not right to rejoice over one's enemies. I mean _official_ enemies.

What a fearful mess Malet and Colvin have made, and one cannot help remarking the _finale_ of all Dilke's, Colvin's, and Malet's secretiveness. Dilke, especially, in the House evaded every query on the plea that British interests would suffer. Poor thing. I firmly believe he knows no more of his policy than the Foreign Office porter did; he had none. Could things have ended worse if he had said everything? I think not. No more Control--no more employes drawing 373,000 a year--no more influence of Consuls-General, a nation hating us--no more Tewfik--no more interest--a bombarded town, Alexandria--these are the results of the grand secret diplomacy. Colvin will go off to India, Malet to China--we shall know no more of them. All this because Controllers and Consuls-General would not let Notables see the Budget when Cherif was in office. As for Arabi, whatever may become of him individually, he will live for centuries in the people; they will never be 'your obedient servants' again.

"Believe me, yours sincerely,

"C. G. GORDON."

The value to me of this letter I saw at once was great, for, though out of favour with the Foreign Office, Gordon's name was one to conjure with in the popular mind, and especially with that "Nonconformist conscience"

which, as I have said, was beginning now to support me, and consequently I knew with Gladstone; and it was on the text of it that I began a fresh correspondence with Hamilton. Mr. Gladstone had stated in Parliament that I was the "one unfortunate exception," among Englishmen who knew Egypt, to the general approval of the war; and I sent him, through Hamilton, a copy of Gordon's letter, and at the same time invited his attention to accounts which had begun to appear in the newspapers of certain atrocities of vengeance which had been indulged in by Tewfik and his new Circa.s.sian Ministers at Alexandria on Nationalist prisoners made during the war. Torture had, it was related, been inflicted on Mahmud Fehmi, the engineer General, and the thumbscrew and kurbash were being used freely. I asked whether such was the state of things Mr. Gladstone had sent troops to Egypt to re-establish. The letter brought a prompt and interesting answer, and one which proved of value to me a few days later when it came to my pleading that Arabi should not be done to death by the Khedive without fair trial.

"10, Downing Street, Whitehall,

"_September 8th, 1882_.

"I need hardly say that Mr. Gladstone has been much exercised in his mind at the rumours about these 'atrocities.' I can call them by no other name. Immediate instructions were sent out to inquire into the truth of them, and to remonstrate strongly if they were confirmed. I am glad to say that, as far as our information at present goes, the statements appear to be unfounded. The strictest orders have been given for the humane treatment of the prisoners.

There seems to be some doubt as to whether thumbs.c.r.e.w.i.n.g was not inflicted on a spy in one case; and searching inquiries are to be inst.i.tuted with peremptory demands of explanation and guarantees against recurrence. You may be quite sure that Mr. Gladstone will denounce 'Egyptian atrocities' as strongly as 'Bulgarian atrocities.'

"I cannot help thinking that your and Chinese Gordon's opinion of Arabi would be somewhat modified if you had seen some of the doc.u.ments I have read.