TRIUMPH OF THE REFORMERS IN EGYPT
It is difficult to determine the precise part played by the Khedive in
the final act of the revolutionary drama, the military demonstration of
the 9th September at Abdin Palace. According to Ninet and certain other
writers there was a complete pre-arrangement and community of action
between Tewfik that day and the military leaders with the object of
bringing about the fall of Riaz and with it of the Consular tutelage in
which Tewfik found himself enmeshed. But this is only true in a general
sense. Arabi himself has always assured me that during the summer of
1881 he had no personal relations with the Khedive beyond those official
ones which his service as colonel of one of the guard regiments
entailed. He only on three occasions had speech with His Highness, and
on these no political subject was touched on between them. At the same
time it is quite certain that the idea of a demonstration with the
objects named had been suggested from time to time during the summer by
Tewfik to the officers through the intermediary of his A. D. C., Ali
Fehmi. Ali Fehmi, though he had been concerned with Arabi in the affairs
of the Kasr-el-Nil and had been arrested with him, was none the less
received back into the Khedive's favour, who thought to make use of him
still in the double capacity of spy on the fellah officers and
intermediary, if he required it, with them. Ali Fehmi's connection with
the Court through his marriage seemed to Tewfik a guarantee of his
fidelity, and it was on account of his ultimately siding entirely with
Arabi, notwithstanding his Court connection, that Tewfik's resentment
was afterwards so bitter against him. Tewfik, however, was a man, as we
have seen him, of varying moods, and while he still counted on the help
of the army to rid himself of Riaz he was also swayed by occasional
fits of jealousy of Arabi's rapidly growing popularity. This popularity
was very marked all through the summer months and brought him into
communication with innumerable country sheykhs and Notables to whom the
idea of fellah emancipation which he preached was naturally congenial.
He began to be talked of in the provinces as "_el wahhíd_" the "only
one," and in truth he deserved the appellation, for he was the only man
of purely fellah origin who had for centuries been able to resist
successfully the tyranny of the reigning Turco-Circassian caste.
It cannot be too strongly emphasized that the National movement of 1881
was essentially a fellah movement, having for its object the
emancipation of the fellahin, and that it was directed primarily against
the iniquitous Turkish Government, which had ruined the country, and
only incidentally against the Anglo-French control when this last
declared itself openly the ally and supporter of that tyranny. Other
interests, however, naturally joined in with the movement; and besides
being sought out by the fellah Notables, Arabi soon found himself
approached as an ally by the professed Constitutionalists, many of whom
were members of the ruling caste, and were at heart as much opposed to
fellah liberty as was Riaz himself. The idea of a Constitution in the
minds of men of this class was one in which the supreme power,
though taken from the Khedive, should remain in the hands of the
Turco-Circassian oligarchy, the only ones they considered capable of
governing the country. The chief of these Turkish Constitutionalists was
Sherif Pasha, and the course of the summer found him in indirect but
close correspondence with Arabi as the means of bringing about the
Constitution which should be the road for him to a resumption of office.
Arabi, always sympathetic to the Constitutional plan, lent himself
readily to the idea, and the more so because Sultan Pasha, the most
powerful of the fellah Notables, was himself a strong Constitutionalist,
and acted as intermediary between him and Sherif. It was arranged
between them all that, when a favourable moment should occur, Arabi
should add the weight of the army's influence to any pressure that it
might be necessary to bring to bear upon the Khedive to obtain his
consent to the Constitutional demand. Nor was the Khedive by any means
averse from the thing demanded, as it necessarily included the dismissal
of Riaz, an object still to him of prime importance; and, at the time
when this feeling predominated in his mind, he, through Ali Fehmi,
encouraged Arabi to go forward with his plan and assured him of his
approval.
The first message received by Arabi in this sense was one very
characteristic of Tewfik's indirect and timid methods of intrigue.
Speaking one day with Ali Fehmi about the growing power of the army as a
political influence, he said: "You three, Arabi, Abd-el-Aal, and
yourself, are three soldiers--with me you make four." And he bade him
deliver this declaration as a message to Arabi. It was followed by hints
far more direct, so that it was soon accepted as certain that any
demonstration that might be made by the army which should demand Riaz'
dismissal would have the Khedive's secret approval if not his open
favour. It was necessary, in order to put constraint upon the Consuls,
that the Khedive should seem to yield to a physical necessity when
consenting to a change of Ministers.
Nevertheless, when the moment for action actually arrived, it was far
from certain what line the Khedive would take. The crisis came about in
this way. In the month of August Riaz Pasha, who up to then had despised
the fellah movement too completely to think it at all dangerous, became
for the first time alarmed. The part in it played by the soldiers he had
thought to be able to cope with by some of those irregular methods which
are the time-honoured tradition of Turkish Government. He had beset
Arabi and his fellow colonels with spies and had sought constantly to
involve them through the police in some personal quarrel or street
disturbance which should put them in his power, but always in vain. The
soldiers invariably received warning of any serious design through their
friend at the War Office, Mahmud Sami, and were constantly on their
guard. It had been arranged, too, between Mahmud Sami and Arabi that if
ever the Minister should be forced to retire from the War Office, it
would be a sign to the fellah officers that they must expect the worst,
even if they should hear nothing of it from himself. When, therefore, in
August Riaz, losing patience, quarrelled with the War Minister and it
was announced that Mahmud Sami had resigned, the officers saw that the
moment for action, as far as they were themselves concerned, could not
long be delayed. Riaz had insisted with Mahmud Sami on the banishment of
the two leading colonels with their regiments from Cairo and had got the
Khedive, in one of his fits of jealousy at Arabi's popularity, to go
with him in ordering it, and when Mahmud Sami demurred, his dismissal
had been summarily announced to him. The Khedive and Riaz were at the
time away still for the summer season at Alexandria, and Mahmud Sami, in
his disgrace, had been ordered by letter to leave Cairo at once for his
village, and so had not had time to communicate with his military
friends. These, nevertheless, knew that trouble was in store for them,
and it was the more apparent because Mahmud Sami's successor was no
other than a certain Circassian general of the worst reactionary type,
Daoud Pasha Yeghen, the Khedive's brother-in-law, whom they knew to be
especially their enemy. In the first days of September the Court
returned to Cairo, and the colonels, having taken counsel only with
Sultan Pasha and their most intimate civilian allies, prepared for
immediate action. They were resolved that, which way soever the Khedive
might now be inclined towards them, they would carry out the projected
demonstration and insist on a change of Ministry as a guarantee of their
personal security. They saw plainly enough that if they allowed
themselves to be separated from each other and removed from Cairo it
would be an easy matter for Riaz to ruin them in detail. The least they
might expect at his hands would be dismissal from the service, and it
was far more likely that they would be arrested and tried for mutiny in
connection with their doings in February. It was part, too, of their
program to obtain an increase of the army, and they added to it a demand
of the Constitution, which seemed to all the only permanent guarantee
against arbitrary government.
The crisis came suddenly on the 8th of September. Daoud Pasha, who like
most men of his class held the fellah officers in supreme contempt and
who anticipated no resistance from them, issued his order for the
departure of the two regiments, Arabi's to Alexandria and Abd-el-Aal's
to Damietta, and on receiving it the colonels decided upon instant
action. That they counted upon the Khedive's tolerance, if not his
sympathy, is certain, and they knew his weak character too well to doubt
that, whatever he might have resolved on in counsel with Riaz the day
before, on the day of trial he would be found on the side of the
strongest battalions. All they were in any real anxiety about was the
attitude of Ali Fehmi, though on him too they counted as almost
certainly a friend. Ali Fehmi and his regiment, the first of the guard,
had been excepted from the Ministerial order of removal from Cairo, and
was still quartered at Abdin barracks, and if the Khedive was really
hostile to them, and Ali obedient to orders, the result might be a
conflict. Otherwise the demonstration had all the probability of
being a pacific one. In order, however, to minimize the risk of a
misunderstanding they sent word in writing to the Khedive apprising him
of their plans, and as a proof that there was no hostility intended to
himself declared that they would not march to his residence in the
Ismaïlyeh quarter but to Abdin, the official palace, and begged him
there to meet them and hear their complaints.
The rest may be best told in Arabi's own words: "The next morning," he
says in his most complete account of the affair, "I wrote a letter
stating our demands and sent it to the Khedive at Ismaïlyeh Palace
saying that we should march to Abdin Palace at the Asr (mid-afternoon)
there to receive his answer. And the reason of our going to Abdin, and
not to Ismaïlyeh where he lived, was that Abdin was his public
residence, and we did not wish to alarm the ladies of his household. But
if he had not come to Abdin we should have marched on to Ismaïlyeh.
When, therefore, the Khedive received our message he sent for Riaz Pasha
and Khairi Pasha and Stone Pasha (the American), and they went first to
Abdin barracks, where both the Khedive and Riaz Pasha spoke to the
soldiers, and they gave orders to Ali Fehmi that he should, with his
regiment, occupy the palace of Abdin. And Ali Fehmi assented, and he
posted his men in the upper rooms out of sight, so that they should be
ready to fire at us from the windows. But I do not know whether they
were given ball cartridge or not. Then the Khedive, with the Generals,
went on to the Kaláa (citadel), and they spoke to the soldiers there in
the same sense, calling on Fuda Bey to support the Khedive against us,
the Khedive scolding him and threatening 'I shall put you in prison.'
But the soldiers surrounded the carriage, and the Khedive was afraid and
drove away. And he went on by the advice of Riaz to Abbassiyeh to speak
to me. But I had already marched with my regiment by the Hassaniyeh
quarter to Abdin. And they stopped to ask about the artillery and were
told that it also had gone to Abdin.
"And when the Khedive arrived at Abdin he found us occupying the square,
the artillery and cavalry being before the west entrance and I with my
troops before the main entrance. And already when I arrived before the
Palace I had sent to Ali Fehmi who, I had heard, was there and had
spoken with him and he had withdrawn his men from the Palace, and they
and Ali Fehmi stood with us. And the Khedive entered by the back door on
the east side, and presently he came out to us with his Generals and
aides-de-camp, but I did not see Colvin with him though he may have been
there. And the Khedive called on me to dismount and I dismounted. And he
called on me to put up my sword, and I put up my sword; but the
officers, my friends, approached with me to prevent treachery, about
fifty in number, and some of them placed themselves between him and the
palace. And, when I had delivered my message and made my three demands
to the Khedive, he said 'I am Khedive of the country and I shall do as I
please' (in the Egyptian patois) '_ana Khedeywi el beled, wa amal zay ma
inni awze_.' I replied, 'We are not slaves and shall never from this day
forth be _inherited_' (_nahnu ma abid, wa la nurithu bad el yom_). That
is to say, 'We shall never be, as slaves are, subject to being
bequeathed by will from one master to another.' He said nothing more,
but turned and went back into the palace. And presently they sent out
Cookson to me with an interpreter, and he asked why, being a soldier, I
made demand of a parliament. And I said that it was to put an end to
arbitrary rule, and I pointed to the crowd of citizens supporting us
behind the soldiers. Then he threatened me, saying 'But we will bring a
British army'; and much discussion took place between us. And he
returned six or seven times to the palace, and came out again six or
seven times to me, until finally he informed me that the Khedive had
agreed to all. And the Khedive mentioned Haidar Pasha to replace Riaz,
but I would not consent. And when it was put to me to say it, I named
Sherif Pasha, because he had declared himself in favour of a _Mejliss-el
Nawwab_, Council of Notables. I had known Sherif a little in former
years when he was serving in the army. And the same evening the Khedive
sent for me, and I went to him at the Ismaïlia Palace, and I thanked him
for having agreed to our requests, but he said only: 'That is enough, go
now and occupy Abdin, but let it be without music in the streets.'"
This seems to me a very straightforward account and agrees with
everything else that I have been able to learn about the events of the
day from native evidence, and even in a general way with the Blue Books.
The Khedive's part in it was, according to its showing, hardly heroic,
but it was less a case with him of physical cowardice than the English
official account suggests. He knew perfectly well that he ran no danger
from the soldiers, nor was there anything they had asked of him that he
was not quite willing to grant or at least to promise. He stood, as they
say, to win in either event, and was in the secret of much that, to
Cookson and Colvin, was altogether a mystery.
These two Englishmen, mentioned by Arabi, were respectively Sir Charles
Cookson, the British Consul at Alexandria temporarily in charge of the
English Agency in Malet's absence on leave at Cairo, and Sir Auckland
Colvin, the English Financial Controller. They were almost the sole
representatives of the Foreign official body then in Egypt--for M. de
Sinkiewicz, the new French Minister, had not yet arrived, and M. de
Blignières, Colvin's French colleague, was also away. They had,
therefore, the leading part to play in advising the Khedive and
reporting the matter home. Colvin, an Indian official with the
traditions of the Anglo-Indian art of government, and being quite
unsuspicious of the semi-understanding there was between Tewfik and the
officers, was all for violent measures, and recommended that the Khedive
should adopt such an attitude towards them as might have been taken
successfully by Mohammed Ali sixty years before, but was quite unsuited
to the actual circumstances. His advice was that he should without more
than a short parley shoot Arabi with a pistol with his own hand.
Cookson, who knew Tewfik's timidity better, though he also was ignorant
of his partial collusion with the officers, was for compromise, and
effected precisely that solution which Tewfik had schemed so long to
obtain, namely, the dismissal of Riaz and the recall of Sherif. His
account of the affair may be read with profit in the Blue Books, as also
Colvin's narrative of it in the "Times," to which he communicated the
account published, and in the "Pall Mall Gazette," of which he was the
regular correspondent. The publicity thus given to their action gained
the thanks of the English Government for both officials, and for Colvin
the honour of a knighthood and a political position in Egypt he did not
till that time possess. And so the matter ended. Riaz, who with the
recollection of Nubar's and Osman Rifky's adventures had taken no part
in the discussion with the soldiers but had remained prudently inside
the Palace, received that evening his dismissal and retired to
Alexandria and thence to Europe to remain there till help should come to
him from the protecting Powers; and Sherif Pasha, after some show of
reluctance, was installed Prime Minister in his stead. All Egypt woke
next morning to learn that not merely a revolt but a revolution had been
effected, and that the long reign of arbitrary rule was, as it hoped,
for ever at an end. The Khedive had promised to assemble the Notables
and grant a Constitution, and henceforth the land of the Pharaohs and
the Mamelukes and the Turkish Pashas was to be ruled according to
the laws of justice and administered not by aliens but by the
representatives of the Egyptian people themselves.
The three months which followed this notable event were the happiest
time, politically, that Egypt has ever known. I am glad that I had the
privilege of witnessing it with my own eyes and so that I know it not
merely by hearsay, or I should doubt its reality, so little like was it
to anything that I had hitherto seen or am likely, I fear, ever to see
again. All native parties and, for the moment, the whole population of
Cairo were united in the realization of a great national idea, the
Khedive no less it seemed than the rest. He was delighted, now the
crisis was over, in the success of his plot for getting rid of Riaz, and
with him the most irksome features of the Dual Control, and he trusted
in Sherif to rid him sooner or later of Arabi. Sherif and the Turkish
liberal magnates were no less elated at their return to power, and even
the reactionary Turks, who were by no means at one with Riaz, shared in
what they considered a triumph against Europe. The soldiers were
relieved of the incubus of danger which had so long weighed on them, and
the civilian reformers rejoiced at the civil liberties they now looked
on as assured. Those who had most doubted and held back longest
acknowledged that the appeal to force with its bloodless victory had
been justified by results. Throughout Egypt a cry of jubilation arose
such as for hundreds of years had not been heard upon the Nile, and it
is literally true that in the streets of Cairo men stopped each other,
though strangers, to embrace and rejoice together at the astonishing new
reign of liberty which had suddenly begun for them, like the dawn of day
after a long night of fear. The Press, under Sheykh Mohammed Abdu's
enlightened censorship, freed more than ever from its old trammels,
spread the news rapidly, and men at last could meet and speak fearlessly
everywhere in the provinces without the dread of spies or of police
interference. All classes were infected with the same happy spirit,
Moslems, Christians, Jews, men of all religions and all races, including
not a few Europeans of those at all intimately connected with native
life. Even the foreign Consuls could not but confess that the new
_régime_ was better than the old, that Riaz had made mistakes, and that
Arabi, if he had not been wholly right, had at least not been wholly
wrong.
Arabi's attitude both towards the Khedive and towards the new Ministers
was correct and dignified. He had several interviews with Tewfik which,
at any rate on Arabi's side, were of a most cordial character, while
with the Sherif and Mahmud Sami (restored as Minister of War) he showed
himself perfectly willing, now his work was done and the liberty of the
country obtained, to stand aside and leave its development to his
civilian friends. All his speeches of that time--and some of them are to
be read in the Blue Books--are in this reasonable sense and reveal him
as deeply imbued with those lofty and romantic humanitarian views which
were a leading feature of his political career. There is not a trace in
them of anything but a large-minded sympathy with men of all classes and
creeds, nor is it possible to detect unfriendliness even to the European
financial control whose beneficial influence on Egypt he, on the
contrary, cheerfully acknowledges. The old _régime_ of Turkish
absolutism is past and done with--that is the theme of most of the
speeches--and a new era of national freedom, peace, and goodwill to all
men has begun. On the 2nd of October, a fortnight after Sherif's
installation at the Ministry, we find Arabi leaving Cairo with his
regiment for Ras-el-Wady amid the universal enthusiasm of a grateful
city.
There was only one cloud at that date visible on the Egyptian horizon,
the possible hostility of the Sultan to the idea of a Constitution.
Abdul Hamid, after playing for a while with Constitutionalism at
Constantinople, had shown himself at last its implacable enemy, and that
very summer had ordered the mock trial and condemnation of Midhat, its
most prominent advocate. The appearance, therefore, of a Special
Commission at Cairo early in October representing the Sultan and
instructed to inquire into what was happening in Egypt disturbed, to a
certain extent, men's minds, and doubtless hastened the departure both
of Arabi to Ras-el-Wady and of Abd-el-Aal to Damietta. The visit,
however, of the Commissioners passed off quietly. The new Ministers were
able to explain that in the political movement which was now avowedly a
national one, no disloyalty was intended to the Sultan. On the contrary,
the fate of Tunis had convinced the Egyptians that their only safety
from European aggression lay in strengthening, not loosening, the link
which bound them to the Ottoman Empire, and that in reality the object
of the Revolution had been to prevent further encroachments by the
Financial Control of France and England on Egypt's political
independence. All was for the best, and the country was now content and
pacified. Ali Pasha Nizami, the chief commissioner, was consequently
able to take back with him a favourable report of the situation, and
this was strengthened by the second commissioner, Ahmed Pasha Ratib,
who had an opportunity of personal talk with Arabi on his way to Suez
and Mecca.
This interview, which had important consequences later for the growth of
the political situation, took place in the train between Zagazig and
Tel-el-Kebir, Arabi had assured me on his part an accidental one, he
having gone to Zagazig to visit his friends Ahmed Eff. Shemsi and
Suliman Pasha Abaza and being on his way home. "As I was returning," he
has told me, "by train to Ras-el-Wady it happened that Ahmed Pasha Ratib
was on his way to Suez, for he was going on to Mecca on pilgrimage. And
I found myself in the same carriage with him, and we exchanged
compliments as strangers, and I asked him his name and he asked me my
name, and he told me of his pilgrimage and other things. But he did not
speak of his mission to the Khedive, nor did I ask. But I told him I was
loyal to the Sultan as the head of our religion, and I also related to
him all that had occurred, and he said, 'You did well.' And at
Ras-el-Wady I left him, and he sent me a Koran from Jeddah, and later,
on his return to Stamboul, he wrote to me, saying that he had spoken
favourably of me to the Sultan, and finally I received the letter
dictated by the Sultan to Sheykh Mohammed Zaffer telling me the things
you know of." The Ottoman Commission therefore passed off without
leading to any immediate trouble. It was coincident with the arrival at
Alexandria of a French and an English gunboat, which had been ordered
there by the two Governments at the moment of receiving the news of the
demonstration at Abdin; and the gunboats and the commissioners left on
the same day in October. Malet by this time had returned to his post,
and so had Sinkiewicz, and it was agreed between them that the situation
needed no active intervention. Malet indeed wrote at that time in the
most favourable terms to his Government both of the new Ministers and of
Arabi, whose honesty and patriotism, though he had had no personal
communication with him, he was now inclined to believe in.
It was at this junction of affairs in Egypt that early in November I
returned to Cairo. I had had no recent news from my Azhar friends, and
was ignorant of what had happened there during the summer beyond what
all the world knew, and it was not even my intention when leaving
London to do more than pass through the Suez Canal on my way back (for
such was again my plan for the winter) to Arabia. I had been deeply
interested in the crisis which was being witnessed throughout the
Mohammedan world, and I still hoped to be able to take some personal
part in the great events I saw impending--I hardly knew what, except
that it should be as a helper in the cause of Arabian and Mohammedan
liberty. When the revolt took place in Algeria in connection with the
French aggression on Tunis, I had written to my friend Seyyid Mohammed
Abd-el-Kader at Damascus asking him for an introduction to its leader,
Abu Yemama, but this he had not been able to give, and I had also tried
in vain to discover Sheykh Jemal-ed-din Afghani's whereabouts in
America, where, after wandering two years in India, he was said to be,
and now my thoughts were once more turned to Arabia which I had come to
look upon as a sacred land, the cradle of Eastern liberty and true
religion. Strangely enough, I did not suspect that in the National
movement in Egypt the chief interest for me in Islam already lay, as it
were, close to my hand, and it was a mere accident that determined my
taking any part in what was coming there, even as a spectator.
The reason for my blindness and indifference was that in England the
events of September had been represented in the Press as purely
military, and even at the Foreign Office there was no knowledge of their
true significance. I share with most lovers of liberty a distrust of
professional soldiers as the champions of any cause not that of tyranny,
and I found it difficult to believe, even as far as Malet did, that
Arabi had an honest purpose in what he had done. I knew also that Sheykh
Mohammed Abdu and the rest of my Azhar friends were for other methods
than those of violence, and that the reforms they had so long been
preaching would in their opinion take a lifetime to achieve. It seemed
impossible to understand that the events of a single summer should have
brought them already to maturity. As to the promised Constitution, the
London Press declared that it was mere talk, a pretext of the kind that
the ex-Khedive Ismaïl had made use of against Wilson, and Malet was
reported to have declared that it would remain a promise only because
the Sultan whom he had seen at Constantinople on his way back to Egypt
would never allow it.
The Ottoman Commission added to my distrust of the whole movement and
the fact that Arabi had demanded an increase of the army to the number
of 18,000 men. These were the common views of the day in England and I
had no special knowledge in correction of them. I remember shortly
before leaving London, that when I called on my cousin Philip Currie at
the Foreign Office, he surprised me by expressing an opinion that
perhaps there was something more in the National Movement in Egypt than
appeared on the surface. "Malet," he said, "is rather inclined now to
believe in it. I wonder you do not go there. Perhaps you might find in
Arabi just the man you have been looking for." He knew of course my
ideas, which he had never taken quite seriously or as more than a
romantic fancy, and his words were lightly spoken and we laughed
together without discussion. Yet afterwards I recalled them to memory
and wondered that I had been so little responsive. My thoughts, however,
were fixed elsewhere.
It is worth recording that the night before I started I entertained at
dinner at the Travellers' Club three of my then rather intimate friends,
John Morley, who had recently become editor of the "Pall Mall Gazette"
besides being editor of the "Fortnightly Review," Sir Alfred Lyall, and
our Consul at Jeddah, Zohrab. With these I had a long talk about
Mohammedan and Eastern affairs, and it was agreed between me and Morley
that, if I found the champion of Arabian reform that I was seeking, I
should let him know and he would do his best to put his claims
prominently before the English public. Morley was not as yet in
Parliament, but he already held a position of high influence with the
Government through his personal connection with Chamberlain; his paper,
the "Pall Mall," was one of the few Mr. Gladstone read, the only one, I
believe, in the soundness of whose views he had any confidence. It was a
pleasant dinner and we all took rather enthusiastic views as to the
possibilities of the future of Islam. On the subject of Egypt, however,
Morley was unfortunately already under other influences than mine. His
correspondent for the "Pall Mall Gazette" was no other than the
Financial Controller, Sir Auckland Colvin, and so it happened that when
the crisis came in the spring he was found, contrary to what might have
been expected of him, on the English official and financial side, and
one of the strongest advocates of violent measures for the suppression
of liberty.
On my way to Egypt an incident occurred which I shall have to return to
when its full importance comes to be considered. At Charing Cross
Station I found Dilke and his private secretary, Austin Lee, on their
way, as I was, to Paris, and I made the whole journey in their company.
Dilke that day was in the highest possible spirits. His intimate friend
Gambetta had just, 15th November, succeeded St. Hilaire as French Prime
Minister; and Dilke, who had been for the last six months the English
Commissioner at Paris for the negotiation of a renewal of the Commercial
Treaty with France without having succeeded in concluding it, was now
returning to his work confident that with the change at the Quai d'Orsay
he should no longer have any difficulty. Gambetta, on his side, had a
plan of his own in which Dilke as Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office
could be of the greatest use to him. St. Hilaire had made a terrible
mess of the Tunis invasion and had left all North Africa in a blaze for
his successor to deal with. Gambetta had come into office determined to
use strong measures, and, as they say, to "grasp the nettle" with both
hands. He was filled with apprehension of a general Pan-Islamic rising,
and saw in the National movement at Cairo only a new and dangerous
manifestation of Moslem "fanaticism." He was closely connected, too,
through his Jewish origin with the great financial interests involved in
Egypt, and had made up his mind to better St. Hilaire's halting
aggression on Tunis by forcing our intervention also in Egypt. In this
he wanted our Government to go with him and join in an anti-Islamic
crusade in the name of civilization, and as a first measure to
strengthen the hold of the European Joint Control at Cairo. On both
these matters, the Commercial Treaty and Egypt, Dilke was most
communicative, though he did not put all the dots upon the i's, treating
the former as a special English interest, the latter as specially a
French one. It was a point of party honour with the Liberal Government,
which was essentially a Free Trade Government, to show the world that
their Free Trade declarations did not prevent them from getting
reciprocity from other nations, or favorable commercial terms from
protectionist governments, and Dilke knew that it would be a feather in
his cap if he could obtain a renewal of the French concessions. So eager
indeed was he about it that I distinctly remember saying to myself, half
aloud, as we parted at the Gare du Nord: "That man means to sell Egypt
for his Commercial Treaty." Nor did the event prove it otherwise than
exactly a true prophecy. It will be seen a little later that to the
trivial advantage of obtaining certain small reductions of the import
duties levied on English goods in France, the whole issue of liberty in
Egypt, and to a large extent of Mohammedan reform throughout the world,
was sacrificed by our Liberal Government. But of all this in its place.
My going at all to Cairo that winter was, as I have explained, somewhat
fortuitous, providential I might almost say, if I was not afraid of
giving my personal action in Egypt too much importance and too high a
meaning. The ship which was to bring me out my servants and camp
equipage, after nearly foundering in the Bay of Biscay, ran aground in
the Canal and I was obliged to wait at Suez. I left it for Cairo,
meaning to be there for a few days only. It had been reported in England
that the Azhar Ulema had been won back from their ideas of reform and
had adopted the Sultan's reactionary Pan-Islamic views. Half distrustful
of the result, I sent a message to my first friend, at the University,
Sheykh Mohammed Khalil, and then another curious accident occurred. In
answer to my note begging him to come and see me at the Hôtel du Nil,
where I had alighted, behold, instead of the young Alem whom I knew so
well, another Azhar Sheykh of the same name, Sheykh Mohammed Khalil el
Hajrasi, a perfect stranger who greeted me with a stranger's welcome.
The newcomer had received my message, and, thinking it had come from a
European merchant with whom he had dealings in connection with his
native village in the Sherkieh, had followed close upon the heels of the
messenger. This Mohammed el Hajrasi, though a man of less intrinsic
worth than my real friend, was a person of some importance at the Azhar,
and proved to be perhaps of even more interest to me at the moment than
the other could have been from the fact that he was intimate with the
chiefs of what was then called the military party at Cairo and was
personally acquainted with Arabi. This my own Mohammed Khalil was not,
and, as I presently found, neither he nor his chief Sheykh Mohammed
Abdu, would have served me as an intermediary with these, for, as
already said, they had disapproved of the immixture of the army in
political affairs in September and, though rejoicing at the result, were
still to a certain extent holding aloof. Hajrasi, however, when he had
recovered from his surprise at finding me an Englishman and not the man
he had expected, was nothing loath to talk of Arabi and his doings, and
when I went on to explain my views to him of reform upon an Arab basis
he at once became confidential and explained to me his own views which
were not very different from mine. He was one of the principal Sheykhs,
he told me, of the Shafeite rite, and had close relations with the
Liberal party of reform at Mecca, who were then in avowed opposition to
Abdul Hamid and were looking forward to a new Arabian Caliphate. This
was a great point of sympathy between us, and it was not long before we
had made a full exchange of our ideas; and I think no better proof could
be given of the wonderful liberty of thought and speech which marked
those days in Egypt than that this eminent religious Sheykh, who
certainly a year before would have locked his secrets jealously in his
bosom, even perhaps from a friend, should suddenly have thus unloosened
his tongue in eloquent response to my questions and should have unfolded
to me, a European and a complete stranger, his most dangerous
aspirations in politics. It no doubt, however, was in some part due to
the presence with me of my learned Arabic professor, Sabunji, whom I had
had the happy inspiration to bring with me from London to help out my
poor resources of that language.
It was thus from Hajrasi that I first learned the details of what had
been going on at Cairo during the summer and the true position of the
soldiers in regard to the National Party, facts which I soon after had
confirmed to me from a number of other sources including my original
friends, Mohammed Khalil and Mohammed Abdu. Sabunji, moreover, who had a
real genius for this kind of work, was presently busy all the city over
seeking out news for me, so that in a very few days we knew between us
pretty nearly everything that was going on. Nor were we long before we
had made acquaintance with some of the fellah officers who had taken
part with Arabi in the demonstration, especially with Eïd Diab and Ali
Fehmi, with whom I was pleasantly impressed. The matters being
principally discussed at the moment were, first, the character of the
Khedive--was he to be trusted, or was he not, to fulfil the promises he
had given? He had promised a Constitution, but was this to be a real
transfer of power to Ministers responsible to a Representative Chamber,
or only the summoning of a Chamber of Notables with common consultative
powers? Tewfik was mistrusted on this point, and it was generally
believed that he was being advised to shuffle in this way out of his
engagement by Malet who, as already said, had just come from
Constantinople and had declared that the Sultan would never agree to
real Constitutional government.
The more advanced section of the Nationalists were bitter against the
whole house of Mohammed Ali and especially of the branch of it to which
Tewfik belonged, his father Ismaïl and his grandfather Ibrahim, a cruel
and treacherous race which had brought untold woes upon the fellahin and
had ruined the country morally and financially, and had, by their
misconduct, brought about foreign intervention. Secondly, there was the
question of reforms. Now that the Press was free, attacks were beginning
to be made upon various gross abuses, the injustice of the taxation
which, under the foreign Financial Control, favoured Europeans at the
expense of the native population; of the unnecessary multiplication of
highly paid offices held by foreigners, French and English; of the hold
obtained by these over the railway administration and the administration
of the domains which had passed into the hands of representatives of the
Rothschilds; of the scandal of £9,000 a year subvention being granted
still, in spite of the poverty of the land, to the European Opera House
at Cairo. A campaign was being carried on, especially by the "Taif"
newspaper, edited by a hot-headed young man of genius, Abdallah Nadim,
against the brothels and wine-shops and disreputable cafés chantants
which under protection of the "Capitulations" had invaded Cairo to the
grief and anger of pious Moslems. There was an echo, too, of the
bitterness felt by all Mohammedans just then on account of the French
raid in Tunis where it was affirmed that mosques had been profaned and
Moslem women outraged. Nevertheless the feeling at Cairo between native
Christian and native Mohammedan was altogether friendly. The Copts were
as a rule wholly with the revolution, and their Patriarch was on the
best of terms with the Ministry of which Butros Pasha was a prominent
and respected member. Even the native Jews with their Chief Rabbi were
all for the Constitutional reform. With the officers the point of
principal concern was naturally that of the promised increase of the
army, which they affirmed was necessary in view of what had taken place
in Tunis, where the Bey had been found quite unprepared with a military
force sufficient to defend his country. The legal maximum allowed by the
Sultan's Firman in Egypt was 18,000 men and the army must be raised to
that point.
My earliest intervention in the affairs of the Nationalists of any
active kind came about in this way. About the end of November my friend
Sheykh Mohammed el Hajrasi informed me of an agitation which was going
on among the students of the Azhar, especially those of the Shafeite and
Malekite rites, to depose the actual Sheykh el Islam, or as he is more
generally called, Sheykh el Jama, the head of the Hanefite rite,
Mohammed el Abbasi. The reason given me for this was that, as a nominee
of the Khedive, he could not be relied on to give an honest _fetwa_
(legal opinion) as to the legality of constitutional government, and
that it was believed that he would be made use of to refuse a _fetwa_ in
its favour and so give the Khedive an excuse for withdrawing from his
full promise. The Hanefite rite has always been the Court rite in Egypt,
the Turkish Viceroys, even since the time of Sultan Selim, having
usurped the privilege of Court appointment, and the Government has
always named a Hanefite to the supreme religious office. At the same
time by far the larger number of the students, who amount in all to some
15,000, have been and are of the other two rites, and an attempt was now
to be made in accordance with the revolutionary ideas of the day to
revert to the more ancient form of nomination, namely by general
election. He had come, el Hajrasi said, to consult me about this because
the idea was prevalent that Malet was behind the Khedive in the
support he was giving to el Abbasi and in the plan of evading his
constitutional promise. The difficulty he thought I might be able to
remove, if I went to Malet and used my influence with him in their
favour. To this I very readily assented, and with the result that I
found Malet entirely ignorant of the whole matter and quite ready to say
that the religious disputes of the Ulema were outside his province; and
that he should interfere on neither side. On the 5th of December,
therefore, el Abbasi was by vote of the students deposed from his office
and a Sheykh of the Shafeite rite, el Embabeh, named in his place. El
Embabeh had not been the most popular candidate, for the majority of the
students had been for the Malekite el Aleysh, a man of high courage and
religious authority, who afterwards played a leading part during the war
and died in the first months of the English occupation in prison, it is
generally believed poisoned from his outspoken evidence at the time of
Arabi's trial. Embabeh, a man altogether his inferior, obtained the vote
only as the result of a compromise, the Khedive having refused el
Aleysh. Four thousand students voted at this election and there were
only twenty-five dissentients. The little service thus rendered them
gave my friends among the Nationalists confidence in my will and power
to serve them, and they asked me to delay my departure and stay on at
least some weeks to see them through their farther difficulties. To this
I readily agreed, seeing in the development of a movement so congenial
to my ideas work of the very kind that I was seeking and one in which I
could be of real use, as interpreter of their perfectly legitimate
ambitions, both with Malet at the Agency and at home with Gladstone.
In the following few weeks I saw Malet almost daily, and acquired
considerable influence over him. Though not unsympathetic towards the
Nationalists, I found him very ill informed as to their views and
objects. He knew none of their leaders personally except Sherif Pasha,
and depended in regard to the general drift of affairs on what Sherif
and the Khedive thought fit to tell him. For what was passing in the
street he had nobody on whom he could rely except his Greek dragoman
Aranghi who picked up his news at the cafés of the European quarter.
Thus he had little means of understanding the situation, nor was
Sinkiewicz, his new French colleague, much better informed. Malet was
also in terrible perplexity as to the real wishes of his own Government.
Lord Granville had just written him the well-known despatch of November
4th, in which he had stated in vague terms the sympathy of Her Majesty's
Government for reforms in Egypt. But this might mean almost anything,
and was no guide as to the attitude he should observe if any new
conflict should arise between the Khedive and the Nationalists, or
between these united and the Financial Controllers. Above all he was in
doubt as to Mr. Gladstone's mind in the affair of the Constitution. It
was, therefore, a real relief to him to find in me some one who had a
definite policy to suggest, and mine was very clearly that he should
support the Nationalists.
I was able, too, to assure him about Gladstone that he need not doubt
that when the Prime Minister came to know the facts he _must_ be on the
Constitutional side. I received support, too, with Malet on this point
from certain English friends of mine whom I found at Cairo, winter
visitors, whom I was able to influence to my views. Among these the most
prominent were two ex-Members of the House of Commons, Lord Houghton,
who in early life had been an enthusiastic advocate of freedom in the
East, and Sir William Gregory, an old follower of Gladstone's and a
well-known Liberal. By the middle of December I had succeeded in
bringing round nearly all the English element at Cairo to my view of the
case. Even Sir Auckland Colvin, the English Financial Controller, who
had three months before given the Khedive the heroic advice to shoot
Arabi, professed himself converted and half inclined to come to terms
with the revolution.