Secret History of the English Occupation of Egypt Part 6

and people were flocking from all sides to Cairo to lay their grievances before him. His outer room was full of suppliants, as was indeed the entrance from the street, and this was every day the case. He had already heard of me as a sympathizer and friend of the fellah cause, and received me with all possible cordiality, especially, he told me, on account of what he had also heard, my family connection with Byron, whom, though he knew nothing of his poetry, he held in high esteem for his work for liberty in Greece. The point is worth noting, as it is very characteristic of Arabi's att.i.tude towards humanity at large without distinction of race or creed. There was nothing in him of the fanatic, if fanaticism means religious hatred, and he was always ready to join hands in the cause of liberty with Jew, Christian, or infidel, notwithstanding his own, by no means lukewarm, piety.

I talked to him long and without reserve on all the questions of the day, and found him equally frank and plain spoken. Towards the Khedive he expressed his perfect loyalty "so long as he kept to his promises and made no attempt to baulk the Egyptians of their promised freedom." But it was clear that he did not wholly trust him, and considered it his duty to keep a strict eye over him lest he should swerve from the path.

In a letter that I wrote soon after, 20th December, to Mr. Gladstone, when I had had several other conversations with him, I said of him: "The ideas he expresses are not merely a repet.i.tion of the phrases of modern Europe, but are based on a knowledge of history and on the liberal tradition of Arabian thought, inherited from the days when Mohammedanism was liberal. He understands that broader Islam which existed before Mohammed, and the bond of a common wors.h.i.+p of the one true G.o.d which unites his own faith with that of Judaism and Christianity. He disclaims, I believe, all personal ambition, and there is no kind of doubt that the army and country are devoted to him.... Of his own position he speaks with modesty. 'I am,' he says, 'the representative of the army because circ.u.mstances have made the army trust me; but the army itself is but the representative of the people, its guardian till such time as the people shall no longer need it. At present we are the sole national force standing between Egypt and its Turkish rulers, who would renew at any moment, were they permitted, the iniquities of Ismal Pasha. The European Control only partially provides against this, and makes no provision whatever by national education in self-government for the day when it shall abandon its financial trust. This we have to see to. We have won for the people their right to speak in an a.s.sembly of Notables, and we keep the ground to prevent their being cajoled or frightened out of it. In this we work not for ourselves but for our children and for those that trust us.... We soldiers are for the moment in the position of those Arabs who answered the Caliph Omar when, in old age, he asked the people whether they were satisfied with his rule, and whether he had walked straightly in the path of justice. "O son of El Khattab," said they, "thou hast indeed walked straightly and we love thee. But thou knewest that we were at hand and ready, if thou hadst walked crookedly, to straighten thee with our swords." I trust that no such violence will be needed. As Egyptians we do not love blood, and hope to shed none; and when our Parliament has learned to speak, our duty will be over. But until such time we are resolved to maintain the rights of the people at any cost and we do not fear, with G.o.d's help, to justify our guardians.h.i.+p if need be against all who would silence them.'"

This kind of language, so different from that usually used by Eastern politicians in their conversations with Europeans, impressed me very deeply, and I made a strong mental contrast between Arabi and that other champion of liberty whom I had met and talked with at Damascus, Midhat Pasha, altogether in Arabi's favour. Here was no nonsense about railroads and ca.n.a.ls and tramways as nostrums that could redeem the East, but words that went to the root of things and fixed the responsibility of good government on the shoulders which alone could bear it. I felt that even in the incredulous and trifling atmosphere of the House of Commons words like these would be listened to--if only they could be heard there!

With regard to the Sultan and the connection of Egypt with Turkey, Arabi was equally explicit. He had no love, he told me, for the Turks who had mis-governed Egypt for centuries, and he would not hear of interference from Constantinople in the internal affairs of the country. But he made a distinction between the Ottoman Government and the religious authority of the Sultan, whom, as Emir el Mumenin, he was bound, as long as he ruled justly, to obey and honour. Also the example of Tunis, which the French had first detached from the Empire, and then taken possession of, showed how necessary it was to preserve the connection of Egypt with the Head of the Moslem world. "We are all," he said, "children of the Sultan, and live together like a family in one house. But, just as in families, we have, each of us provinces of the Empire, our separate room which is our own to arrange as we will and where even the Sovereign must not wantonly intrude. Egypt has gained this independent position through the Firmans granted, and we will take care that she preserves it. To ask for more than this would be to run a foolish risk, and perhaps lose our liberty altogether."[7] I asked him rather bluntly whether he had been, as was then currently a.s.serted, in personal communication with Constantinople, and I noticed that he was reserved in answering and did so evasively. Doubtless the recollection of his conversation with Ahmed Ratib, of which I then knew nothing, crossed his mind and caused his hesitation, but he did not allude to it.

Finally we talked of the relations of Egypt with the Dual Government of France and England. As to this he admitted the good that had been done by freeing the country of Ismal and regularizing the finances, but they must not, he said, stand in the way of the National regeneration by supporting the Khedive's absolute rule or the old Circa.s.sian Pashas against them. He looked to England rather than to France for sympathy in their struggle for freedom, and especially to Mr. Gladstone, who had shown himself the friend of liberty everywhere--this in response to what I had explained to him of Gladstone's views--but like everybody else just then at Cairo he distrusted Malet. I did what I could to ease his mind on this point, and so we parted. This first interview gave me so favourable an opinion of the fellah Colonel that I went immediately to my friend, Sheykh Mohammed Abdu, to tell him how he had impressed me, and suggested that a program, in the sense of what Arabi had told me, ought to be drawn up which I might send to Mr. Gladstone, as I felt certain that if he knew the truth as to the National aspirations, in an authoritative way, he could not fail to be impressed by it in a sense favourable to them. I spoke, too, to Malet on the same subject, and he agreed that it might do good, and I consequently, in conjunction with Sheykh Mohammed Abdu and others of the civilian leaders, drew up, Sabunji being our scribe, a manifesto embodying succinctly the views of the National party. This Mohammed Abdu took to Mahmud Pasha Sami, who was once again Minister of War, and gained his adhesion to it, and it was also shown to and approved by Arabi. This done I forwarded it, with Malet's knowledge and approval, to Gladstone, explaining to him the whole situation and inviting his sympathy for a movement so very much in accordance with his avowed principles. "I cannot understand," I said, in concluding my letter to Gladstone, "that these are sentiments to be deplored or actions to be crushed by an English Liberal Government. Both may be easily guided. And I think the lovers of Western progress should rather congratulate themselves on this strange and unlooked for sign of political life in a land which has. .h.i.therto been reproached by them as the least thinking portion of the stagnant East. You, sir, I think, once expressed to me your belief that the nations of the East could only regenerate themselves by a spontaneous resumption of their lost national _Will_, and behold in Egypt that _Will_ has arisen and is now struggling to find words which may persuade Europe of its existence."

While sending this "Program of the National Party" to Gladstone, I also at the same time, by Sir William Gregory's advice, sent it to the "Times." Of this course Malet disapproved as he thought it might complicate matters at Constantinople, an idea strongly fixed in his cautious diplomatic mind. But Gregory insisted that it ought to be published, as otherwise it might be pigeon-holed at Downing Street and overlooked; and I think he was right. Gregory was a personal friend of the then excellent editor of the "Times," Chenery, whose services to the National cause in Egypt at this date were very great. Chenery was a man of a large mind on Eastern affairs, being a considerable Arabic scholar, and had published a most admirable English translation of the "a.s.semblies of Hariri"; and he was able thus to take a wider view of the Egyptian question than the common journalistic one that it was a question primarily concerning the London Stock Exchange--this although he was himself an Egyptian Bondholder. He consequently gave every prominence to the letters Gregory and I wrote to him during the next few months in support of the National movement, and to the last, even when the war came, continued that favour. In the present instance, indeed, Chenery somewhat overdid his welcome to our program, stating that it had been received from Arabi himself, an inaccuracy which enabled Malet, who knew the facts, to disown it through Reuter's Agency as an authentic doc.u.ment.

It will perhaps be as well to explain here the way in which the London Press and especially Reuter's News Agency was at this time manipulated officially at Cairo and made subservient to the intrigues of diplomacy.

Very few London newspapers had any regular correspondent in Egypt, the "Times" and the "Pall Mall Gazette" being, as far as I know, the only two that were thus provided. Both, as far as politics were concerned, were practically in the hands of Sir Auckland Colvin, the English Financial Controller, an astute Indian official, with the traditions of Indian diplomacy strongly developed in his political practice. He had some experience of journalism, having been connected with the "Pioneer"

in India, an Anglo-Indian journal of p.r.o.nounced imperialistic type with which he was still in correspondence. He was also Morley's regular correspondent in the "Pall Mall Gazette," and had through him the ear of the Government. The importance of this unavowed connection will be seen later when he made it his business to bring about English intervention.

Lastly, on all important diplomatic matters he inspired the "Times,"

whose regular correspondent, Scott, depended on him for his information.

With regard to Reuter and Havas, the Telegraphic Agencies, both were heavily subventioned by the Anglo-French Financial Control, receiving 1,000 a year each, charged on the thin resources of the Egyptian Budget. Reuter especially was the servant and mouthpiece of the English Agency, and the telegrams despatched to London were under Malet's censors.h.i.+p. This sort of manipulation of the organs of public news in the interests of our diplomacy exists in nearly all the capitals where our agents reside, and is a potent instrument for misleading the home public. The influence is not as a rule exercised by any direct payment, but by favour given in regard to secret and valuable information, and also largely by social amenities. In Egypt it has always within my knowledge been supreme, except at moments of extreme crisis when the body of special Press correspondents at Cairo or Alexandria has been too numerous to be kept under official control. In ordinary times our officials have had complete authority both as to what news should be sent to London, and what news, received from London, should be published in Egypt. It is very necessary that this, the true condition of things, should be steadily borne in mind by historians when they consult the newspaper files of these years in search of information.

Down, however, to near the end of the year 1881, except for this small difference of opinion, my relations with Malet remained perfectly and intimately friendly. He made me the confidant of his doubts and troubles, his anxiety to follow out the exact wishes of the Foreign Office, and his fears lest in so difficult a situation he should do anything which should not gain an official approval. He professed himself, and I think he was, in full sympathy with my view of the National case, and he leaned on me as on one able, at any rate, to act as buffer between him and any new violent trouble while waiting a decision in Downing Street as to clear policy. Thus I find a note that on the 19th December I was asked by him and Sir Auckland Colvin, whose acquaintance I had now made and who affected views hardly less favourable than Malet's to the Nationalists, to help them in a difficulty they were in about the Army Estimates.

It was the time of year when the new Budget was being drafted, and the Nationalist Minister of War, Mahmud Sami, had demanded 600,000 as the amount of the year's estimates for his department. It was an increase of I forget how many thousand pounds over the estimate of 1881, and was necessitated, Mahmud Sami said, by the Khedive's promise of raising the army to the full number of men allowed by the Firman, 18,000. The Minister had explained his insistence on the plea that a refusal would or might cause a new military demonstration, the bug-bear of those days; and I was asked to find out what sum the army would really be satisfied with for their estimates. Colvin authorized me to go as far as 522,000, and to tell Arabi and the officers that it was financially impossible to give more. He had no objection, he said, to the army's being increased so long as the estimates were not exceeded. He thought, however, the sum proposed would suffice for an increase up to 15,000 men. I consequently went to Arabi and argued the matter with him and others of the officers; and persuaded them, on my a.s.surance that Colvin's word could be trusted, to withdraw all further objection. They said they would accept the increased sum of 522,000 as sufficient, and make it go as far in the increase of soldiers as it could. They meant to economize, they said, in other ways, and hoped to get their full complement of men out of the balance. They promised me, too, on this occasion to have patience and make no further armed demonstrations, a promise which to the end they faithfully fulfilled. Arabi's last words to me on this occasion were "_men sabber dhaffer_," "he who has patience conquers." I sent a note the same day to Colvin informing him of the result, and I was also thanked by Malet for having helped them both out of a considerable difficulty.

Nevertheless Malet, about a week later, surprised me one afternoon, 28th December, when I had been playing lawn tennis with him, as I often did at the Agency, by showing me the draft of a despatch he had just sent to the Foreign Office mentioning my visit to Egypt and the encouragement I had given to the Nationalists, and without mentioning what I had done to help him, complaining only of my having sent the Program against his wishes to the "Times." As we had up to that moment been acting in perfect cordiality together, and nothing whatever had occurred beyond the publication of the manifesto, I took him pretty roundly to task for his ill faith in concealing my other services rendered to his diplomacy, and insisted that he should cancel this misleading despatch, and with such energy that he wrote in my presence a cancelling telegram, and also a second despatch repairing in some measure the injustice he had done me. I have never quite understood what Malet's motive was in this curious manoeuvre. I took it at the time to be a pa.s.sing fit of jealousy, a dislike to the idea that it should be known at the Foreign Office that he owed anything to me in the comparatively good relations he had succeeded in establis.h.i.+ng with the Nationalists; but on reflection I have come to the conclusion, as one more in accordance with his cautious character, that he was merely guarding himself officially against public responsibility of any kind being fixed on him for my Nationalist views, should these be condemned in Downing Street. It is the more likely explanation because his private conscience evidently p.r.i.c.ked him about it to the extent of avowing to me what he had officially done. The insincerity, however, though repented of, was a warning to me which I did not forget, and while I continued for some weeks more to go to the Agency it was always with a feeling of possible betrayal at Malet's hands. I was ready, nevertheless, to help him, and it was not long before he was again obliged, by the extreme circ.u.mstances of his political isolation at Cairo, to resort to my good offices, and, finding himself in flood water altogether beyond his depth, to send me once more as his messenger of peace to Arabi and the other Nationalist leaders.

All had gone well so far, as far as any of us knew, in the political situation at Cairo down to the end of the year, and during the first week of the new year, 1882. There was a good understanding now between all parties in Egypt, the army was quiescent, the Press was moderate under Mohammed Abdu's popular censors.h.i.+p, and the Nationalist Ministers, undisturbed by menace from any quarter, were preparing the draft of the Organic Law which was to give the country its civil liberties. On the 26th of December, the Chamber of Delegates summoned to discuss the articles of the promised Const.i.tution had met at Cairo, and had been opened formally with a rea.s.suring speech by the Khedive in person, whose att.i.tude was so changed for the better towards the popular movement that Malet was able, on the 2nd of January, to write home to Lord Granville: "I found His Highness, for the first time since my return in September, cheerful in mood and taking a hopeful view of the situation. The change was very noticeable. His Highness appears to have frankly accepted the situation." Arabi had ceased to busy himself personally with the redress of grievances, and it had been arranged with the approval of the French and English agents that Arabi should, as they expressed it, "regularize"

his position and accept the responsibility of his acknowledged political influence by taking office as Under-Secretary at the War Office. This it had been thought would be putting the dangerous free lance in uniform and securing him to the cause of order.

The only doubtful point was now the att.i.tude of the Deputies in regard to the details of the Const.i.tution they had been a.s.sembled to discuss; and the majority of them, as were my reforming friends at the Azhar, seemed disposed to moderation. "We have waited," said Sheykh Mohammed Abdu, "so many hundred years for our freedom that we can well afford now to wait some months." Certainly at that date Malet and Colvin, and I think also Sinkiewicz, were favourably disposed to the claim of the Nationalists to have a true Parliament. They had begun to see that it was the universal national desire, and would act as a safety-valve for ideas more dangerous. A frank public declaration of goodwill at that moment on the part of the English and French Governments towards the popular hopes would have secured a workable arrangement between the Nationalist Government and the Dual Control, which would have safeguarded the bondholders' interests no less than it would have secured to Egypt its liberty. Nor did we think that this would be long delayed.

On the first day of the New Year the National Program I had sent to Mr.

Gladstone was published in the "Times," with a leading article and approving comments, and in spite of Malet's prognostication of evil had been well received in Europe, and even at Constantinople where it had drawn down no kind of thunderbolt. Its tone was so studiously moderate, and its reasoning so frank and logical that it seemed impossible the position in Egypt should any longer be misunderstood. Especially in England, with an immense Liberal majority in the House of Commons, and Mr. Gladstone at the head of affairs, it was almost inconceivable that it should not be met in a friendly spirit--quite inconceivable to us who were waiting anxiously for Gladstone's answer at Cairo, that at that very moment the English Foreign Office should be proceeding to acts of menace and the language of armed intervention. Unfortunately, however, though none of us, not even Malet, at the time knew it, the decision, adverse to the Egyptian hopes, had already been half taken. The program reached Mr. Gladstone, as nearly as I can calculate it, a fortnight too late. We were all expecting a message of peace, when, like thunder in a clear sky, the ill-omened Joint Note of January 6th, 1882, was launched upon us. It upset all our hopes and calculations and threw back Egypt once more into a sea of troubles.

It is right that the genesis of this most mischievous doc.u.ment, to which is directly due the whole of the misfortunes during the year, with the loss to Egypt of her liberty, to Mr. Gladstone of his honour, and to France of her secular position of influence on the Nile, should be truly told. Something regarding it may be learned from the published doc.u.ments, both French and English, but only indirectly, and not all; and I am perhaps the only person not officially concerned in its drafting who am in a position to put all the dots with any precision on the i's. In Egypt it has not unnaturally been supposed that, because in the event it turned to the advantage of English aggression, it was therefore an instrument forged for its own purposes at our Foreign Office, but in reality the reverse is true and the note was drafted not in Downing Street but at the Quai d'Orsay, and in the interests, so far as these were political--for they were also financial--of French ambition.

I have told already how I travelled with Sir Charles Dilke from London to Paris, and of our conversation on the way and of the impression left on me by it that he would "sell Egypt for his Commercial Treaty"; and this is precisely what in fact had happened. The dates as far as I can fix them were these: On the 15th of November St. Hilaire had gone out of office, and had been succeeded by Gambetta, who found himself faced with a general Mohammedan revolt against the French Government in Tunis and Algeria. He was alarmed at the Pan-Islamic character it was taking, and attributed it largely to the Sultan Abdul Hamid's propaganda, and he thought he saw the same influence at work in the National movement in Egypt, as well as the intrigues of Ismal, Halim, and others. France had been traditionally hostile to the sovereign claims of the Porte in North Africa, and Gambetta came into office determined to thwart and deal with them by vigorous measures. He was besides, through his Jewish origin, closely connected with the _haute finance_ of the Paris Bourse, and was intimate with the Rothschilds and other capitalists, who had their millions invested in Egyptian Bonds. Nubar Pasha and Rivers Wilson were then both living at Paris, and his close friends and advisers in regard to Egyptian matters, and it was from them that he took his view of the situation.

He had, therefore, not been more than a few days in office before he entered into communication with our Foreign Office, with the object of getting England to join him in vigorous action against the National movement, as a crusade of civilization and a support to the established order at Cairo of Financial things. In London at the same time there was a strong desire to get the Commercial Treaty, which was about to expire, renewed with France as speedily as possible, and advantage was taken at the Foreign Office of Sir Charles Dilke's personal intimacy with the new French Premier to get the negotiation for it finished. A commission for this purpose, of which Dilke and Wilson were the two English members, had been sitting at Paris since the month of May, and so far without result. Dilke's visit to Paris was in connection with both matters, and was resolved on within a week of Gambetta's accession to power.

Reference to newspapers of that date, November 1881, will show that the negotiations between the two Governments about the Commercial Treaty were just then in a highly critical state, and it was even reported that they had been broken off. Dilke's presence, however, gave them new life, or at least prevented their demise. Between the 22nd of November and the 15th of December he pa.s.sed to and fro between the two capitals; and at the latter date we find Gambetta (Blue Book Egypt 5, 1882, page 21) approaching Lord Lyons, our Amba.s.sador at Paris, with a proposal to take common action in Egypt. He considers it to be "extremely important to strengthen the authority of Tewfik Pasha; every endeavour should be made to inspire him with confidence in the support of France and England, and to infuse into him firmness and energy. The adherents of Ismal and Halim and the Egyptians generally should be made to understand that France and England would not acquiesce in his being deposed.... It would be advisable to cut short the intrigues of Constantinople," etc. This language is communicated by Lord Lyons to the Foreign Office, and on the 19th Lord Granville "agrees in thinking that the time has come when the two Governments should consider what course had better be adopted," etc.

Thus encouraged, Gambetta on the 24th proposes to take occasion of the meeting of the Egyptian Notables to make "a distinct manifestation of union between France and England so as to strengthen the position of Tewfik Pasha and discourage the promoters of disorder." The Egyptian Chamber meets on the 26th, and on the 28th Dilke, who has returned the day before to Paris, has a long conversation with Gambetta about the Treaty of Commerce ("Times"), while on precisely the same day Lord Granville agrees to give "a.s.surance to Tewfik Pasha of the sympathy and support of France and England, and to encourage His Highness to maintain and a.s.sert his proper authority."

This ident.i.ty of date alone suffices to fix the connection between the two negotiations, and shows the precise moment at which the fatal agreement was come to, and that my communication of the National Program to Gladstone, which was posted on the 20th, must have been just too late to prevent the disaster. Letters then took a week to reach London, and Gladstone was away for the Christmas holidays, and cannot have had time, however much he may have been inclined to do so, to forward it on to the Foreign Office. Our Government thus committed to Gambetta's policy, Gambetta on the 31st (Blue Book Egypt 5, 1882) presents to Lyons the draft, drawn up with his own hand, of the Joint Note to be despatched to Cairo in the sense of his previous communication of the 24th--and, be it noted, on the same day negotiations for a renewal of the Commercial Treaty are announced as formally renewed. On the 1st of January the Paris correspondent of the "Times" sends a precis of the Joint Note to London, explaining that he only now forwards it, having been instructed by M. Gambetta only to divulge it "at the proper moment." This is understood to mean the final success of Dilke's commercial mission, and the following day, 2nd January, he returns to London. I trace, nevertheless, the influence of my appeal to Gladstone in the delay of five days, still made by Granville before he unwillingly signs the Note, and the reservation he stipulates for on the part of Her Majesty's Government that "Her Majesty's Government must not be considered as committing themselves thereby to any particular mode of action," a postscript typical of Granville's character, and, as I think too, of a conflict in ideas, afterwards very noticeable, between the Foreign Office, pushed on by Dilke, and Gladstone as Prime Minister.

Such is the evidence which, intelligently read, can be gathered from the published doc.u.ments of the day. I have, however, a letter from Sir Rivers Wilson dated a few days later, 13th January, in answer to one of mine, which explains in a few words the whole situation. "I am above all pleased," he writes, "at the interest you are taking in Egyptian politics. You confirm what I believe to be the case in two particulars at least, viz., that the soldiers express the feeling of the population, and that Tewfik has been working with the Sultan. As regards the latter circ.u.mstance I must say there is nothing surprising in it. Six weeks ago Gambetta said to me, 'Le Khedive est aux genoux du Sultan.' But the reason is plain. Tewfik is weak and cowardly. His army is against him.

The Harems hate him. He found no support there where he naturally might have looked for it, viz., at the hands of the English and French Governments, and so he turned to the only quarter where sympathy and perhaps material a.s.sistance were forthcoming. It was to remedy this state of things that the idea of the Joint Declaration was conceived, whatever gloss or subsequent explanation may be now put forward, and I shall be disappointed if it does not produce the desired effect and cause the officers, Ulemas, and Notables to understand that renewed disturbance means armed intervention in Europe. Our Government may not like it, but they are bound now by formal engagement to France and cannot withdraw."

This letter, coming from Wilson at Paris, holding the official position there he did, and being, as he was, on intimate terms both with Dilke and Gambetta, is a doc.u.ment of the highest historical importance, and fixes beyond the possibility of doubt on the French Government the initiative in the designed intervention, though the Yellow Books also are not altogether silent. These, though most defective in their information, do not hide Gambetta's initial responsibility. I heard at the time, and I believe that the form of joint intervention he designed for Egypt was that England should demonstrate with a fleet at Alexandria while France should land troops. Had that come to pa.s.s we cannot doubt that French influence would now be supreme in Egypt. It was only frustrated that winter by the accident of Gambetta's unlooked-for fall from power by an adverse vote on some domestic matter in the Chamber at the end of the month, for Gladstone at that time was far too averse from violent measures to have sent an English fleet with a French army, and the landing of troops would have been certainly needed.

There is more than one moral to be drawn from this historic episode, and the most instructive is, perhaps, the fact that neither of the two Ministers, with all their cleverness and in spite of their apparent success each in his own scheme, really effected his purpose. Gambetta and Granville in the first weeks of January doubtless plumed themselves on having gained an important object and strengthened the friendly link between their two Governments by a common agreement. Gambetta had got his note, Granville his treaty. But neither rogue was really able to bring home his booty. Gambetta, though he exerted all his influence with the Chamber to get the Commercial Treaty with England renewed, failed to obtain a majority and the treaty lapsed, and with it the Liberal argument that Free Trade was not isolating England. On the other hand, though he had got Granville unwillingly to sign the Note, which he intended to use for the glory of France, Gambetta found that he had forged a weapon which he could not himself wield and which within six months pa.s.sed into his rival's hand, while the friendly arrangement proved almost as soon as it was come to, to be the destruction of all cordial feeling between the two nations for close on a generation.

Personally, in the disappointment of the two intriguers and the rival interest of the two nations, I am able to hold a detached att.i.tude. What seems to me tragic in the matter is that for the sake of their paltry ambitions and paltrier greeds a great national hope was wrecked, and the cause of reform for a great religion postponed for many years. The opportunity of good thrown away by the two statesmen between them can hardly recur again in another half century.

The effect of Gambetta's menace to the National Party was disastrous at Cairo to the cause of peace. I was with Malet soon after the note arrived, and he gave it me to read and asked me what I thought of it. I said: "They will take it as a declaration of war." He answered: "It is not meant in a hostile sense," and explained to me how it might be interpreted in a way favourable to the National hopes. He asked me to go to the Kasr el Nil and persuade Arabi, who had just been made Under-Secretary of War, to accept it thus, authorizing me to say, "that the meaning of the Note as understood by the British Government was that the English Government would not permit any interference of the Sultan with Egypt, and would also not allow the Khedive to go back from his promises or molest the Parliament." He also told me, though he did not authorize me to repeat this on his authority, that he hoped to get leave to add to the Note a written explanation in the sense just given. I know that he telegraphed repeatedly for some such permission, and that he wrote strongly condemning the note as impolitic and dangerous. Not a word, however, of these important protests and requests is to be found in the Blue Books, though the Blue Books show that Lord Granville must have paid attention to them to the extent of expressing himself willing to give some such explanation of the Note but being prevented from doing so by Gambetta. Sinkiewicz seems also to have asked his Government to be allowed to explain the Note, but was forbidden. Sir Auckland Colvin, too, condemned the Note in conversation with me quite as strongly as Malet had done.

I went accordingly to the Kasr el Nil about noon on the 9th (the text of the Note had reached us on the 8th) and found Arabi alone in his official room. For the first and only time I have seen him so, he was angry. His face was like a thundercloud, and there was a peculiar gleam in his eye. He had seen the text of the Note though it had not been published--indeed, it had only as yet been telegraphed--and I asked him how he understood it. "Tell me, rather," he said, "how you understand it." I then delivered my message. He said: "Sir Edward Malet must really think us children who do not know the meaning of words." "In the first place," he said, "it is the language of menace. There is no clerk in this office who would use such words with such a meaning." He alluded to the reference to the Notables made in the first paragraph of the Note.

"That," he said, "is a menace to our liberties." Next, the declaration that French and English policy were one meant that, as France had invaded Tunis, so England would invade Egypt. "Let them come," he said, "every man and child in Egypt will fight them. It is contrary to our principles to strike the first blow, but we shall know how to return it." Lastly, as to the guarantee of Tewfik Pasha's throne. "The throne,"

he said, "if there is one, is the Sultan's. The Khedive needs no foreign guarantees. You may tell me what you will, but I know the meaning of words better than Mr. Malet does." In truth, Malet's explanation was nonsense, and I felt a fool before Arabi and ashamed of having made myself the bearer of such rubbish. But I a.s.sured him I had delivered the message as Sir Edward had given it me. "He asks you to believe it," I said, "and I ask you to believe him." At leaving he softened, took me by the arm to lead me down and invited me still to come as before to his house. I said: "I shall only come back when I have better news for you,"

by which I intended to hint at a possible explanation of the Note such as Malet had telegraphed for permission to give. None however came. Nor did I see Arabi again till more than three weeks later, when a letter from Mr. Gladstone reached me which I interpreted in a more hopeful sense and which caused us great rejoicing.

On returning to the Residency, Malet asked me how I had fared. "They are irreconcilable now," I answered. "The Note has thrown them into the arms of the Sultan." Such indeed was the effect, and not with the soldiers alone, but as soon as the Note was published with all sections of the National Party, even with the Khedive. Gambetta, if he had expected to strengthen Tewfik's hands, had missed his mark entirely. The timid Khedive was only frightened, and the Nationalists, instead of being frightened, were enraged. The Egyptians for the first time found themselves quite united. Sheykh Mohammed Abdu and the cautious Azhar reformers from that point threw in their lot wholly with the advanced party. All, even the Circa.s.sians, resented the threat of foreign intervention, and on the other hand the most anti-Turkish of the Nationalists, such as my friend Hajrasi, saw that Arabi had been right in secretly leaning upon the Sultan. Arabi thus gained immensely in popularity and respect, and for many days after this I hardly heard anything from my Egyptian friends but the language of Pan-Islamism. It was a Roustan[8] policy over again, they said.

I did my best to smooth down matters with them till the explanation should arrive which Malet had promised us; but I found my efforts useless. It was an alarming three weeks for us all, from the delivery of the Note till Gambetta's fall. News came that a French force was being a.s.sembled for embarkation at Toulon, and that was the form of intervention generally expected. Indeed, I think it is not too much to say that Gambetta's resignation on 31st January alone saved Egypt from the misfortune, even greater perhaps than what afterwards befell her, of a French invasion avowedly anti-Mohammedan and in purely European interests.

FOOTNOTES:

[7] Sir William Gregory, who saw Arabi about the same date as I did, has recorded in the "Times" very similar language as used by him.

[8] Roustan was the French diplomatist at Tunis who had engineered the French designs on the Regency.

CHAPTER IX

FALL OF SHERIF PASHA

The political crisis at Cairo, by the middle of January, was evidently approaching fast. Indeed it had become inevitable. The publication of the Joint Note happened to coincide with the drafting of the new _Leyha_ or Organic Law, which was to define the power of the Representative Chamber in the promised Parliament. In regard to this, the Financial Controllers had been insisting with the Ministry that the power they had been exercising for the last two years of drawing up the yearly Budget, according to their own view of the economic requirements of the country, should remain intact, that is to say, that it should not be subject to discussion or a vote in the Chamber; and to this Sherif Pasha had agreed, and had already drafted his project of law without a.s.signing to the Chamber any right in money matters. The majority of the delegates, however, were not unnaturally dissatisfied at this, arguing that the Foreign Financial Control, having its sole status in the country as guardian of the foreign obligations, and as the interest on the debt amounted only to one-half of the revenue, the remaining half ought to be at the disposal of the nation.

Nevertheless, there is no reason to suppose that the point would not have been conceded by them, especially as Sultan Pasha, who had been named their President, was with Sherif in considering it prudent to yield, had things remained during the month as they were at the beginning. It has been seen how readily the War Office had come to terms with the Controllers in the matter of the Army Estimates. Now, however, under the menace of the Note, the Notables were no longer in a mood of conciliation, and met Sherif's draft with a counterdraft of their own, adding a number of new articles to the Leyha, largely extending the Parliamentary powers, and subjecting the half of the Budget not affected to the interest of the debt to vote by the Chamber. This brought the Controllers into active conflict with them, M. de Blignieres taking the lead in it and bringing Colvin into line with him. The Controllers declared it absolutely necessary that the Budget should remain whole and undivided in their hands, and denounced the counter-draft as being a project, not of a Parliament, but of a "Convention." The phrase, founded on memories of the French Revolution, was doubtless de Blignieres', but it was adopted by Colvin, and pressed by him on Malet. The dispute was a serious one, and might lead to just such mischief as Malet feared, and give excuse to the French Government for the intervention it was seeking. Sherif having already committed himself to the Controllers' view, was being persuaded by them to stand firm, and the Khedive's att.i.tude was doubtful. A quarrel between the Khedive and his Parliament on a financial question involving European bondholding interests was just such a case as the French Government--for Gambetta was still in office--might be expected to take advantage of for harm.

In this emergency Malet--and Colvin, who though he wished to get his way as Financial Controller had no mind for French intervention--joined in asking me yet once again to help them, and to make a last effort to induce the extreme party among the Notables to yield something of their pretensions, and after consultation with Sheykh Mohammed Abdu, who as usual was for prudence and conciliation, it was arranged that I should have a private conference at his house with a deputation from them, and argue the case with them, and show them the probable consequences of their resistance--namely, armed intervention. Accordingly, I got up the case of the Controllers with Colvin, and drew up with Malet the different points of the argument I was to use. These I have by me in a paper headed, "Notes of what I have to say to the Members of the Egyptian Parliament, 17th January, 1882."

According to this my instructions were to represent to the Members of the Deputation that the existing procedure respecting the Budget was an international affair, which neither Sherif nor the Parliament had any right to touch without gaining the consent of the two controlling Governments. I was to recite the history of the Control's establishment, and show them a private Note which had been appended by Malet and Monge (the French Consul-General), 15th November, 1879, to the Decree inst.i.tuting it. I was to invite the members to consider whether an alteration in the form of determining the Budget was not an international matter, and, as such, outside the sphere of their action.

They had admitted that international matters must be left untouched by them. The control of the Budget was an international matter. Therefore it should be left untouched by them. I was, however, authorized by Colvin to say that personally he had no objection to a slight modification of the present arrangement, such as should give the Parliament a consultative voice which might later become a right of voting. Should they accept such a compromise, Malet would represent the matter favourably to his Government, though he had no authority to promise its acceptance by France or England. All other differences with Sherif they must settle with him themselves, etc., etc.

On this basis, with Sabunji's help and Mohammed Abdu's, I argued the case thoroughly with them, and convinced myself that there was no possibility of their yielding. They agreed, indeed, to modify three or four of the articles which the Controllers had princ.i.p.ally objected to as giving the Chamber powers of a "Convention," and the amendments I proposed in these were in fact incorporated later in the published Leyha. But on the Article of the Budget they were quite obdurate, notwithstanding the support Sheykh Mohammed Abdu gave me. They would not yield a line of it, and I returned crestfallen to report my failure, nor did I again undertake any mission of mediation between Malet and the Nationalists. I had done my best to help him to a peaceful solution of his difficulties, but our points of view from this time forth became too divergent for me any longer to be able to work with him. Although I had done my very best to persuade the Notables to give way--for I was then firmly convinced that they were menaced with intervention--I could not help in my inner mind agreeing with them in their claim of controlling the free half of the Budget as a sound one, if Parliamentary Government was to be a reality for them, not a sham. Malet's despatches of the time show that they were all of one mind on this point, and even Sultan Pasha, who was a timid man and easily frightened, declared roundly that Sherif's draft was "like a drum; it made a great sound but was hollow inside." As between Sherif and the Notables in the quarrel which followed, my anti-Turkish sympathies put me on their side rather than on his. At Malet's suggestion I had a little before called on Sherif and had discussed the matter with him, and had been unfavourably impressed.

Sherif was a Europeanized Turk of good breeding and excellent manners, but with all that arrogant contempt of the fellahin which distinguished his cla.s.s in Egypt. Malet had a high opinion of him because he was a good French scholar and so was easy to deal with in the ordinary diplomatic way, but to me he showed himself for this very reason in disagreeable contrast with the sincere and high-minded men who were the real backbone of the National movement, and for whom he expressed nothing but the superior scorn of a fine French gentleman. He was cheerfully convinced of his own fitness to govern them and of their incapacity. "The Egyptians," he told me, "are children and must be treated like children. I have offered them a Const.i.tution which is good enough for them, and if they are not content with it they must do without one. It was I who created the National Party, and they will find that they cannot get on without me. These peasants want guidance." When, therefore, a fortnight later the quarrel became an open one between him and them I had no difficulty in deciding which way my sympathies lay.

I was no longer at Cairo when the news of Sherif's resignation on the 2nd of February reached me. The failure of my negotiation, just described, with the Notables, had depressed my spirits. I felt that by undertaking it I had risked much of my popularity with my European friends, and that they perhaps distrusted me for the pains I had taken to convince them against a course on which their hearts were set; and I had retired to a distance from the conflict which I could no longer control or help in to any good purpose. While living at the Hotel du Nil during the winter I had all the time had a camp with tents and camels and attendant Arabs, pitched outside the city, to which I had occasionally gone, and now I retired to it altogether. The camp was pitched on the desert land between Koubba Palace and Matarieh, then a wholly desert region at a point now called Zeitoun, where there were the insignificant ruins of what had once been a _shaduf_, the sole sign of human habitation. Here we were completely alone, except that at the distance of a mile there was another camp, that of Prince Ahmed, outside Materieh. There was no communication then by any form of public conveyance with Cairo, and when at rare intervals we went in, we rode our camels to a point between Abba.s.siyeh and f.a.ggalah where donkeys were to be hired. There was not a single house on the sands beyond Abba.s.siyeh to the north-east. For a moment thus I was able to forget politics and to enjoy what I have always loved best, life in the open air. I had, however, rendered a last service to my friends by writing a warm defence of the Egyptian National policy in the "Times." To this I was urged by my friend, Sir William Gregory, who had himself sent more than one powerful letter in the same sense to what was then emphatically the leading journal of Europe.

It is hardly possible to exaggerate the importance a letter on any subject had in those days when published by the "Times," and the certainty there was, if it was on any political question, of its being read by the statesmen concerned and treated with full attention. Nor is it, perhaps, too much to say that Gregory's letters and mine, especially his, were largely the means of obtaining a respite for Egypt from the dangers that threatened her. As they came back to Cairo and were reproduced in Arabic by the native Press, our Egyptian friends were rea.s.sured about us and their confidence in me revived. It was at the expense, however, of Malet's goodwill. Like all diplomatists he hated publicity, and he was angry with us both because we, who had both been in the Government service, had appealed as it were over the head of the Foreign Office and his own to the Press. With the regular Press correspondents he knew how to deal, but he could not deal with us who were independent writers, or exercise the smallest censors.h.i.+p on our opinions. There was an end therefore to the close intimacy I had, up to that point, in spite of small disagreements, had with the Agency. This was unfortunate, as it threw Malet, who always needed to lean on some one stronger than himself, into other and less conciliatory hands.

On the 31st of January, the very day of the change of Ministry at Paris, I find a note to the effect that I went in to Cairo and saw Colvin and had a remarkable conversation with him. This has become of great historical importance through subsequent events, for it marks the date within a few days of the change of the temper of the English Financial Control, and with it of our diplomacy towards Egyptian Nationalism, and also fixes upon Colvin, what is indeed his due, the chief responsibility of the rupture which afterwards through his contriving came about. I have already said something of Sir Auckland Colvin's character. He was a typical Anglo-Indian official, strong, self-reliant, hard, with the tradition of methods long practised in India, but which were still new to our European diplomacy, endowed with just enough sympathy with Oriental character to make use of it, without loving it, for English purposes; but cold in manner and unattractive. I had at an earlier stage of affairs taken Sheykh Mohammed Abdu to call on him, thinking to bring about a _rapprochement_, and I had also tried to do the same with the officers. But his manner had repelled the Sheykh, and the officers had been too shy to come with me. He was sometimes astonis.h.i.+ngly frank in speech. I remember his telling me, on one occasion, when we were talking of Eastern duplicity, that it was a mistake to suppose that in this Orientals were our masters. An Englishman who knew the game, he said, could always beat them at their own weapons, and they were mere children in deceit when it came to a contest with us.

In the present instance he was more than usually outspoken. The quarrel between the Notables and Sherif was at its acutest stage; and I asked him what he thought of the situation. He said he considered it most grave. It was evident that the Nationalists were resolved upon the fall of Sherif, and, if they succeeded, he (Colvin) would have no more to do with them. He told me he had completely changed his mind about them. He had thought them amenable to reason, but he found them quite impracticable, and he would do his best to ruin them if ever they came into office. I asked him how he proposed to do this, or stop a movement which he had so lately approved, but which had gone quite beyond his or anybody's control--how, except by that very intervention we had all along been trying to avoid. He said he had changed his mind about intervention too; that he believed it now to be necessary and inevitable, and that he would spare no pains to bring it about. I expostulated with him, urging that intervention meant only war and war meant only annexation. He said he quite understood it in that sense. The same thing had been seen over and over again in India. England would never give up the footing she had got in Egypt, and it was useless to talk about the abstract rights and wrongs of the Egyptians. These would not be considered. He repeated what he had said about ruining the National Party, and added that he had made no secret of his view. He should work for intervention and, if it must be so, for annexation. I am quite sure I am not mis-quoting this conversation in any essential feature. It was not merely half a dozen words spoken in haste, but an argument which lasted half an hour; and it affected me so strongly that I decided to warn my Egyptian friends, to whom I had pledged my word for Colvin's good feeling towards them, that they must now expect the worst of him. They answered that they knew it, as they had received information already in the same sense about him.

This conversation opened my eyes to a new danger. Only the day before I had received two letters, written the one from the Liberal, the other from the Tory camp in England, and both conveying the same warning. John Morley, in answer to a letter I had written asking his sympathy with the National cause, wrote: "Whether your schemes will come to much I am at this moment inclined to doubt. Egypt, unluckily for its people, is the battlefield of European rivalries; and an honest settlement in the interests of its population will be prevented to suit the convenience of France. I don't see my way out of it. It is that curse of the world, _la haute politique_, which will spoil everything." Lytton also had written: "That small portion of the British public which thinks at all of foreign affairs is much pre-occupied and disturbed in mind by the false position into which we are drifting in Egypt, and almost too frightened to speak loudly on the subject. It seems to me, however, that their ideas are very hazy. In my own mind there is no doubt that this is only the first fruits of a radically wrong policy which has lost us the co-operation of Germany and Austria, and placed us practically at the mercy of France, a power with which we can never have any sound or safe alliance." Both letters had been written before the fall of Gambetta, and here I seemed to hear an echo of their words, especially Morley's words, "la haute politique," from the man who had it most in his power to spoil an honest settlement, and that to suit the convenience, not of France merely, but of England. I was very much alarmed. I have often regretted my last words to Colvin on this occasion. "I defy you," I said, "to bring about English intervention or annexation." I regret it because I think it added a personal as well as a political stimulus to his subsequent action. It had become a trial of strength between us.