GAMBETTA'S POLICY. THE JOINT NOTE
On the 6th of December Arabi, who up to this time had been in retirement
at Ras-el-Wady, a military post close to Tel-el-Kebir, arrived at Cairo
and on the 12th for the first time I saw him. He had hired a house close
to his friend Ali Fehmi's, who was now wholly with him, and not far from
the Abdin Barracks. It was in company, if I remember rightly, with Eïd
Diab, and taking Sabunji with me, that I went to him, it having been
arranged beforehand that I should do so by some of our mutual friends.
Arabi was at that time at the height of his popularity, being talked of
through the length and breadth of Egypt as "El Wahíd," the "only one,"
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 attitude 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 repetition 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 worship of the one true God 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 circumstances 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 Ismaïl
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 Assembly 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 God's help, to
justify our guardianship 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 canals 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 asserted, 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 Ismaïl 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 Circassian 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 hitherto 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
"Assemblies 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
document.
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 pronounced 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
censorship. 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 assurance 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 passing 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 establishing 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
pricked 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
circumstances 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 censorship, 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 Constitution had met at Cairo, and had been
opened formally with a reassuring speech by the Khedive in person, whose
attitude 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 attitude of the Deputies in regard
to the details of the Constitution they had been assembled 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 document, 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
documents, 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 Ismaïl, 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 passed 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 Ambassador 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 Ismaïl 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 "assurance to Tewfik Pasha of the sympathy and
support of France and England, and to encourage His Highness to maintain
and assert his proper authority."
This identity 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 précis 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 documents 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
circumstance 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 assistance 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 document 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 pass 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 passed 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 attitude. 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 assured 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 Circassians, 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
assembled 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.