CHAPTER XVI

THE CAMPAIGN OF TEL-EL-KEBIR

It now remains for me to give an account of the chief incidents of the

brief campaign in which for two months native Egypt stood up in arms

against her English enemy. No true description of it will be found in

the works of any English writer, and still less are the French versions

of the story true. The reign of terror, which under the protection of

the English garrison for a year or more followed the re-establishment of

the Khedive and the Turco-Circassian _régime_ at Cairo, effectually

stopped the mouths of native Egyptians as to what had happened there

during the Khedive's absence, and though a momentary light was shed on

the facts by the publicity of Arabi's trial, no organ of the vernacular

press was found bold enough to allude to them otherwise than according

to the official version; while later, when under French protection the

organs of native opinion had gained courage, time had been given for

certain legends to grow up which still to a large extent influence the

educated Egyptian mind.

The first point to make clear, for it is denaturalized in the Blue Books

and has been ignored by all English writers, is the essentially National

character of the defence offered by native Egypt to the English

invasion. The official version, of course, is that it was the army alone

that offered resistance to Seymour's impossible demands at the time of

the bombardment, and afterwards to Wolseley's land invasion. This was

merely a continuance of the diplomatic fiction which had been built up

at the Foreign Office to excuse its determination to intervene in

financial interests, and may be read in its most grotesque form of

untruth in Lord Dufferin's opening speech to the European Conference at

Constantinople. According to the English Ambassador, Egypt--and this was

before the bombardment--was in a state of anarchy, where neither life

nor property was secure and where massacres were taking place, through

the action of the army headed by Arabi and other mutinous colonels,

which was making it impossible to carry on the government or secure

order and financial stability. How gross an exaggeration this statement

of the political case was, and how it had been gradually put together on

a basis of lies and inventions, I have already sufficiently shown. What

needs still to be explained is the precise share of responsibility for

the acceptance of Seymour's challenge to the artillery duel at

Alexandria, which commenced the war, assignable to Arabi, on whom the

whole of it has been unjustly laid.[22]

That Arabi had been, from the date of the publication of the Joint Note

of 6th January, a chief advocate of self-reliance and preparedness for

war is undoubted, but at the same time he had always been for

conciliation, if possible, rather than war. Resistance had always been

his political platform, but on it he by no means stood alone, and the

arrival of the fleets at Alexandria in May had immensely strengthened

his position with all sections of civilian opinion. With the example of

Tunis before Mohammedan eyes it was indeed impossible not to see what

was being prepared for Egypt by the European Powers, the creation of a

fictitious condition of anarchy and rebellion which should justify

intervention for the protection of the life and property of Europeans,

the seizure by persuasion or constraint of the person of the ruler on

the plea that he needed protection from his rebellious subjects, and the

forced acceptance by him of a military protectorate. This had been

effected by the French army in Tunis. It was to be repeated now exactly

on the same lines by the English in Egypt. Egyptian patriotism,

therefore, was not difficult to persuade that at last, with the dire

alternative before them, it was a less ignoble fate to yield after a

defeat than at once, at the first summons.

Arabi's voice was an important element in the decision arrived at on the

10th of July to reject the admiral's demands, but it had no need of his

insistence and still less of being imposed by menace. All the members of

the general Council convened to consider the answer declared themselves

equally of opinion that it was beyond the legal power of the Khedive to

yield any portion of Egyptian territory to the demand of a foreign

commander without striking a blow or at least without direct orders to

that effect having been received from the Sultan. Nor was the Khedive

himself of any other opinion. It included many representative men

besides the members of the Government--and the spectacle was witnessed

of all alike pressing the view that the forts must be defended, and of

the Khedive taking a specially prominent part in the patriotic talk and

being supported in it by Sultan's representative, Dervish Pasha. No

Moslem present, not even Sultan Pasha, who had definitely thrown in his

lot with the English, dared make the public declaration that another

answer than refusal was possible to Seymour's demands.

Arabi, as the result of their unanimous decision, received from the

Khedive precise orders as Minister of War and Marine to prepare the

forts for action and to reply with their artillery as soon as the

English fleet should have opened fire, while urgent instructions the

same evening, of the 10th, were sent to the Under-Secretary of War at

Cairo to proclaim throughout the provinces that war had been resolved

on, and to hasten the calling in of the reserves and the formation of

new battalions of recruits. It may be said that the Khedive was

insincere in the warlike attitude he adopted at the Council. Of course

he was insincere. No public action of his life showed Tewfik otherwise

than a double dealer. In all probability both he and Sultan Pasha, who

had spoken in the same sense, had agreed to make this show of patriotism

so as to cover themselves with public opinion in case it should so

happen that the forts should prove stronger than the fleets, nor must it

be forgotten that the Sultan's envoys were present at the Council, and

the avowed policy of the English Government at the moment was still to

get the Sultan to intervene. Tewfik, therefore, as usual was playing for

the double chance, and was resolved clearly on one thing only, to side

with the strongest party.

There is a curious despatch in the Blue Books which shows what he said

to his English advisers. As early as the 6th of July he was made

acquainted with Seymour's intention to bombard, and had apparently been

urged to place himself for safety on board one of the English ships. But

this did not suit his personal fears or the waiting game he was resolved

on, and he sent to Colvin to acquaint him with what his plan was in

regard to his safety during the firing. He could not do otherwise--so we

read--than remain in Egypt. He could not desert those who had stood by

him faithfully in the crisis, or abandon Egypt _when attacked by a

foreign Power_, merely, as it would be said, to secure his personal

safety. He would, therefore, retire to a palace on the Mahmoudieh Canal

with Dervish Pasha. And he remarked that the more rapidly the whole

affair was conducted, the less would be the danger to himself

personally. And this was the program he adhered to, except that he

finally decided on retiring, not to the Mahmoudieh Palace, but to his

country palace at Ramleh, eight miles farther from Alexandria, as a

still safer place from the chance firing of Seymour's guns.

Shortly after the war I had a curious confirmation of Tewfik's

indecision from no less authoritative a source than Lord Charles

Beresford, who had commanded the Condor at the bombardment and had acted

as Provost-Marshal in Alexandria after it, and who told me that in a

moment of unusual frankness the Khedive had one day explained to him the

reason of his remaining ashore during the fight, as being nothing else

than his extreme perplexity as to which of the combatants would prove

the better fighter. The general belief in Egypt had been that the

English ships would be sunk, and he had been in a state of panic doubt

all day at Ramleh, running every half hour to the roof of the palace to

see how it fared with them. It was only when he discovered in the

evening that they remained intact, while the forts had been silenced,

that he finally made up his mind to place himself under Seymour's

protection. Beresford's experience of the weeks he had then spent at

Alexandria, I may explain, had given him a profound contempt of Tewfik,

and a certain sympathy with Arabi and the fellahin who had carried on

the war in spite of their prince's defection.

Be this, however, as it may, the conduct of the Khedive at the Council

and the fact that he had given his name to the orders issued for a war

_à outrance_ imposed a perfectly legal aspect on the subsequent National

defence, and invalidated, according to all Mohammedan rule and practice,

the Khedive's counter orders when he had passed over to the enemy's

side. This must be remembered if we are rightly to understand the

Nationalists' legal case, and the view taken of the position by plain

patriotic minds when their prince's perfidy gradually became known. The

Mohammedan view about war is a simple one. When blows have been struck

and war publicly announced by the Chief of the State, it is his duty and

the duty of all his people to continue it until some definite victory

has been achieved or reverse sustained. A prince made captive during the

war by the enemy is by the fact incapacitated from giving any further

valid orders, and _à fortiori_ a prince who has turned traitor; and it

was in this light that Tewfik was considered by his subjects until

brought back by the force of English arms as their restored, but unloved

lord to Cairo. Nothing of this aspect of the case will, of course, be

found in any English narrative, but, in place of it, absurd laudations

of a prince to be admired as "loyal" for the sole illogical reason that

he showed himself loyal to England and served her through the war as her

unashamed accomplice. But I will return to these matters later.

A second point which it is necessary should be insisted on is the proper

apportionment of responsibility for the maintenance of law and order

throughout Egypt, and for the strategical conduct of the war, between

Arabi and the other Nationalist leaders who worked with him during

those eventful two months. The facts as I have been able to ascertain

them are these. With regard to the government of the country, as soon as

it was clearly demonstrated at Cairo that the Khedive could be no longer

looked upon as Chief of the State, exercising freely his right of

issuing orders, a General Council was assembled to consider the position

of affairs and decide what should be done. In this the lead was taken by

the religious and other civilian dignitaries, rather than by the

military element. Arabi was not himself present at the general meeting,

being absent with the army at Kafr Dawar, nor did he once during the war

pay any visit to Cairo or intervene personally in the management of

affairs there. The Council, however, was very fully attended, there

being present, besides the great religious sheykhs, the Turkish Grand

Cadi, the Grand Mufti, the Sheykh el Islam, and the heads of the four

orthodox sects. All the most representative Moslems of the country were

there, including four princes of the Viceregal House who had openly

espoused the National cause, many of the provincial Governors who had

been expressly summoned to Cairo for the occasion, and the chief country

Notables, and also, representing the non-Mussulman population, the

Patriarch of the Copts and the Chief Rabbi. The Council was, therefore,

fully entitled to any claim of validity in its decisions which

universality can give, for it comprised all sections of political

opinion and class divergency. Many of the chief men were of Circassian

origin, but endowed with sufficient patriotism as Moslems to see that,

now it had come to fighting against a European invader, no honest choice

was left but to defend Egypt against him irrespective of party feuds.

It was, accordingly, resolved by the Council, without a dissentient

voice, that the Khedive was no longer in a position legally to command,

and that his decrees, while he remained in English hands, were from that

very fact invalid. Tewfik's first announcement of his new attitude had

been to dismiss Arabi from his post of Minister of War. The Council

resolved that Arabi should be maintained in it, and instructed him as

such to continue the defence of the country. A permanent Council, or

rather it should perhaps be called "Committee of Defence," was named to

assist him in his work, and this under the able presidency of Yakub

Pasha Sami, the Under-Secretary for War, continued throughout the

campaign to organize the details of recruitment, provisioning and the

supply of military material. Similarly, with regard to the civil

administration of the country it was resolved that in the absence of

Ragheb and the other Ministers at Alexandria--for these had been

detained more or less under compulsion by the Khedive and his English

guard--the business of government should be carried on by the separate

departments without any change in the ordinary routine, nor did this

lead to the smallest confusion, seeing that the Ragheb Ministry had

never been a working one. Indeed, the Administration gained considerable

in efficiency, and it may safely be said that no Egyptian Government was

ever better managed in its details than was the National one during the

campaign. The Ministry of the Interior fell to the charge of the

Under-Secretary, Ibrahim Bey Fawsi, and the police, in its most

important section, to Ismaïl Eff. Jawdat, both very able administrators,

who, in spite of the excitement of the time, succeeded in maintaining

perfect order throughout the country. Two or three Circassian Mudirs,

who had sought to ingratiate themselves with Tewfik by imitating Omar

Lutfi and inciting to disturbance, were by them arrested and detained in

prison to the end of the war, and after this no further rioting

occurred. Such Europeans as remained at Cairo were carefully protected,

and all who wished to leave were forwarded under police escort to Port

Saïd.

Nothing could have been more untrue than Lord Dufferin's repeated

assertions at the Conference at Constantinople that massacres of

Christians were occurring daily in Egypt. And so, too, with the other

departments. There was no interruption in the regular gathering in of

the taxes, or in the regular distribution of civil expenditure. At the

end of the war the Treasury showed a perfectly clean balance, without

the smallest deficit, when its coffers were delivered over to the

Khedive's officers after Tel-el-Kebir. No smallest sum had been

extracted and the books were in their usual order. The ordinary course

of justice had been regularly maintained, and there was no visible sign

of the country having passed through any unusual crisis. Four months'

provision for the army remained in the magazines of the War Office when

Wolseley took possession of them.

As to Arabi, his position continued to be essentially a political one,

and it was as Minister of War that he worked with the supreme direction

of the forces and as popular leader till Wolseley's advance on

Tel-el-Kebir hurried him suddenly from the scene. His great prestige

with the country sheykhs and the fellahin of the Delta made it easy for

him to inspire these with enthusiasm for the war, and at his pleading

supplies flowed in gratuitously from all sides, and also volunteers for

the army. In this respect he proved himself of great service to the

national defence, and he was probably well advised in making no attempt

from first to last to take any personal part in handling troops in the

field. His abstention on this head has been attributed by his detractors

to physical cowardice, and it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that

there was some truth in this. Arabi was too pure and unadulterated a

fellah to have any of the strong fighting instincts which are found in

some races but are conspicuously absent in his own. His courage was of

another kind than that which prompts to daring action in war, and in

spite of his soldier's training he had never been present at any actual

battle. He was probably conscious of his deficiency on this head as he

certainly was of his complete lack of all the higher scientific

knowledge which modern warfare requires. He was absolutely without

military education of a modern type, or experience beyond that of the

common barrack-yard routine, and he would, I imagine, have been quite

unable to manoeuvre a division had he been called upon to do so even

on parade. The true explanation, however, of his personal inaction, I

think, is that Arabi, being for the moment practically Head of the

State, was not expected to lead the army in person. This does not,

however, excuse him altogether in my eyes, nor has it excused him in

those of his fellow countrymen who rightly blame him for not having

personally crossed swords with the enemy, at least in the last days of

the campaign.

With regard to the actual military operations I do not profess to have

full knowledge, but nevertheless will venture a short account of them as

I have been able to obtain them from Egyptian, and not English, sources.

My admirable correspondent, Sabunji, had unfortunately left Egypt with

the other fugitives just before the bombardment, and I remained without

knowledge of what was passing in the country till the end of the war.

Nor do the documents of the trial throw much light on this. What I have

been able to learn has been gathered piecemeal in after years from those

who took part in them, and accounts of this kind are never very accurate

as to dates or figures. The only European present with the army was that

excellent Swiss patriot and friend to Egyptian freedom, John Ninet, who

was in a position to know much of what went on, as he spent the first

month of the war with Arabi at Kafr Dawar, helping him with his foreign

correspondence; and with Ninet I have had many talks. But his

enthusiastic character injures him as a quiet safe historical witness,

and the book he published in 1884 is so carelessly written and so

controversial in its style that it is impossible for one to have full

confidence in regard to the details he records. Moreover, Ninet had

ceased to be at headquarters before the real campaign began, having

remained on at Kafr Dawar when these were transferred to Tel-el-Kebir.

Such knowledge as I have of the war I will nevertheless briefly give.

On the day of the bombardment the Egyptian artillerymen fought well, and

for a far greater number of hours than either Sir Beauchamp Seymour or

any of his officers had thought possible. They were, however, at a

terrible disadvantage through the antiquated character of the forts they

were called upon to defend. These dated from the reign of Mohammed Ali

and were faced as the fashion had then been with stone, a most dangerous

material for their defenders when exposed to modern shell fire, as the

stone work splinters and so increases the explosive effect of the

hostile missiles. The defect had not been foreseen even by so able an

engineer as was Mahmud Fehmi, and the loss among the defenders was

great. The total Egyptian garrison of Alexandria is given in the Blue

Books as from 8,500 to 9,500 men, and this figure corresponds fairly

well with native accounts, while a thousand has been named as the number

of the killed and wounded. If the figures are anything near correctness

the proportion is a very large one. The honour of the garrison was in

any case amply saved, and was the beginning of a reaction of opinion

against the war in England which in the following weeks became more and

more pronounced. Arabi's part in the defence was as on subsequent

occasions not a prominent one. He remained during the day at the

Ministry of Marine which is not far from Ras-el-Tin and so within the

range of the enemy's fire, but he made no personal inspection of the

defences until the bombardment was over, and contented himself with

being at hand to receive the news of the fight and give the necessary

orders. In the evening he went to Ramleh to announce the result to the

Khedive, where Tewfik, to hide his satisfaction, made a fool's quarrel

with him because he had not brought with him a detailed report of the

day's fight _in writing_.

It is difficult to understand that Arabi should not have seen which way

the Khedive's mind was already set. In all probability he did so, and

the danger there was of treachery, for in the morning he sent a strong

guard nominally for the Khedive's protection, but really to keep him

under surveillance, with a message informing him that as Seymour

threatened a renewal of the bombardment he should have to withdraw the

garrison, and inviting him to retire with them beyond range of the

English guns and so to Cairo. Arabi without doubt ought to have gone

himself a second time to see that the invitation was not on any pretext

evaded and have carried Tewfik, if necessary, by force as a prisoner

away with him, for the example of the Bey of Tunis was before him, and

he had sufficient experience of the Khedive's craft to make it

impossible to trust anything to his honour. Arabi's negligence in this

matter was a fatal error. Arabi was, however, apparently too occupied

that morning in arranging the military evacuation to give the time

necessary for another visit to Ramleh, and in the course of the

afternoon, by dint, according to Tewfik's account to his English

friends, of _bakshish_ and a liberal distribution of orders, he managed

to slip away from his guards to Alexandria in the train sent to convey

him to Cairo, and there placed himself, without any more disguise, under

Seymour's protection. He carried away with him, too, as all were in the

same train, both Dervish and his Ministers, and so secured them as in

some measure partners of his treachery. Once at Ras-el-Tin with a guard

of seventy English bluejackets the whole party were practically

prisoners. Dervish, five days later, having a swift steam yacht of his

own, and having received peremptory orders from Constantinople, put an

end to the disgrace for himself of the situation, and managed to evade

the English fleet which tried to stop him. But Ragheb and his fellow

Ministers, hopelessly compromised, ended by accepting the situation and

remained on at Ras-el-Tin as Tewfik's servants till such time as having

served their purpose as a simulacre of legal government, they had to

make room for a stronger and more decidedly English administration.

Arabi, in the meanwhile, ignorant how he had been befooled, was wholly

engrossed in the business of withdrawing the troops from their position

of danger, and taking up a new and better line of defence at Kafr Dawar.

The choice of this very strong post upon the Cairo railway, lying as it

does flanked by the shallow lake of Mariut and a series of marshes, was

due, I believe, to Mahmud Fehmi's engineering skill, and Arabi could not

have done better than he did by adopting it as the site of his new camp.

It lay well beyond the reach of Seymour's guns, and could not be

approached by a hostile army, except along the narrow causeway of the

railway line, and so was practically impregnable from the side of

Alexandria, while on the land side all the Delta lay open to the troops,

with its inexhaustible supplies and free communication with Cairo. Here

the Egyptian army was able to hold its own against the English

successfully for nearly five weeks, repulsing all attacks, and even

harassing the enemy with counter attacks almost to the gates of

Alexandria. Had there been no other gate of entry into Egypt than Kafr

Dawar the National game would have been won.

With regard to the burning of Alexandria I have never been able to make

up my mind exactly what part, if any, the Egyptian army took in it.

Arabi has always persistently denied having ordered it, and an act of

such great energy stands so completely at variance with the rest of his

all too supine conduct of the war that I think it may be fairly

dismissed as improbable. At the same time it is equally clear that he

could not but regard it as a fortunate circumstance, for without it it

is very doubtful whether he could have made good his retreat to Kafr

Dawar. His army was a beaten army, and though not exactly demoralized

might easily have become so, had even a very small force been landed

from the fleet to hold the railway line and bar their retreat. It

certainly was in the English plan to entrap the army if possible, and

only the unexpected valour of the defence, and perhaps the _ruse_ of the

white flag seems to have prevented some attempt at a landing with this

purpose from being made by Seymour. As it was, the burning of Alexandria

made it possible for Arabi to establish himself quietly at Kafr Dawar

and gain those few days' breathing time needed by his army to recover

completely its _morale_.

Ninet, who was present at the whole affair, attributes the conflagration

primarily to Seymour's shells, and this is probably a correct account,

for without it it would be difficult to account for the panic which on

the 12th of July, made the whole population of Alexandria abandon their

homes and fly from the city. Had the artillery attack been restricted,

as was pretended, to the forts this hardly would have been the case, and

it is quite certain that it was not so restricted. Whether by intention

or by mistake the city received its share of the shell fire, and Ninet

speaks as an eyewitness in regard to its destructive effect. At the same

time it is equally certain that the conflagration was increased, and

especially in the European quarter, with purpose and intention, and that

this was the work to some extent of the rearguard of the army, which

left Alexandria in a state of disorder and shared in the plunder,

already begun by the Bedouins of the city. Nor is it less certain that

Suliman Pasha Sami, who commanded the rearguard, was called to account

in no way by Arabi for what his men had done. I do not consider the

question of any great importance as affecting the moral aspect of the

case, it being clearly a military measure which any commander would be

justified in adopting, thus to cover his retreat and make useless,

as far as in him lay, the enemy's base of operations on shore.

Historically, however, it is of importance, and I therefore say that on

a balance of evidence I am of opinion that the retreating army had its

share in it, not in consequence of any order, but as an act of disorder.

As there was a strong wind blowing at the time, the conflagration soon

spread, and by midnight the whole city was in a blaze. The fact,

however, in no way lessens the prime responsibility of our Government

for the destruction, every detail of which, but for the gross

miscalculation of our agents, might have been easily foreseen and ought

certainly to have been provided for.

Once established at Kafr Dawar, which was occupied on the 13th, the

Egyptian army was in clover and could wait events. Arabi established his

headquarters at Genjis Osman, one station farther on in the direction

of Cairo, and Mahmud Fehmi laid out the lines of defence, and all worked

heartily and confidence was restored. The mass of the Alexandrian

fugitives were gradually despatched by train to the interior, where for

awhile they gave great trouble, being in a state of fanatical anger and

despair, and ready to revenge their troubles on any European or native

Christian who might cross their path. At Tantah especially, where the

Circassian Mudir, Ibrahim Adhem, was an adherent of the Khedive, and who

knew that disturbances between Mohammedans and Christians had been

looked on favourably by the Court, something which was almost a massacre

occurred, and but for the timely intervention of the great local magnate

and friend of Arabi's, Ahmed Bey Minshawi, who put it down in spite of

the Governor with a band of his fellah adherents, the disorder might

have spread to other places. But the Mudir was summarily arrested

and sent a prisoner to Cairo, as were two other Mudirs equally

untrustworthy, and the trouble ended, nor was internal peace again

disturbed during the whole of the war.

On the evening of the 14th, a first communication reached Arabi from the

Khedive, the text of which is given by Ninet, but which will not be

found in the Blue Books. It is a valuable document, dictated evidently

by Colvin or some other of Tewfik's English advisers, as it is based in

every phrase on the English official view of the situation. It begins by

stating the cause of the quarrel, that the bombardment was the simple

consequence of a refusal to comply with the English admiral's demand for

the dismantling of the forts, and that he, the admiral, had no intention

of imposing a state of war on Egypt, that he now wished to renew

friendly relations with the country, and was ready to hand back the city

to any Egyptian army which should be disciplined and obedient, and in

default of such to Ottoman troops. In order to make the necessary

arrangements for their transfer, the Khedive invites his Minister of War

to return at once to Ras-el-Tin, there to confer with Ragheb Pasha and

the rest of his colleagues, and in the meanwhile to suspend all warlike

preparations, now become useless. We know from the Blue Books that this

friendly invitation to Arabi was merely a trap to lure him back into

English reach, and so secure his person, for on the 15th Cartwright

telegraphs to Granville, "The Khedive has summoned him [Arabi] here. If

he comes he will be arrested, if not, declared an outlaw." The incident

shows how entirely Tewfik had already made himself the unresisting

mouthpiece of English policy, and how entirely the English Government

had adopted as its own the treacherous methods of the Ottoman Government

in dealing with "rebels." Arabi's answer was to remind the Khedive that

it was His Highness himself and Dervish Pasha who had urged that the

admiral's demands should be rejected and that his menaces, if followed

by acts, should be answered with war; that as a matter of fact a state

of war existed, and that until the British fleet should have left

Alexandria it was impossible that the army could return to the city. The

refusal was followed a few days later by the receipt, at Kafr Dawar, of

a number of printed proclamations bearing the Khedive's signature, in

which it was announced to the various Mudirs, Notables, and others whom

it might concern, that Arabi, having refused to obey the Khedive's order

to go to Alexandria and confer with him, he was deprived of his

functions as Minister of War. It was the publication of these three

documents at Cairo, whither Arabi forwarded them, that led to the

summoning of the Great National Council already described, with the

result we have seen.

The month that followed was one full of hope and enthusiasm for the

Egyptians. Relieved by his strange defection to the enemy from all doubt

as to their allegiance to the Khedive, the citizens and country Notables

were able to display their patriotism without disguise, and the whole

country was aware that it was a war now in which, as Moslems, they were

concerned no less than a war for liberty. With the mass of the fellahin

so deeply in debt, it was understood besides as a war against their

Greek creditors, and there is no doubt that this was the chief motive

power that sent volunteers to the standard, and that unloosed the purse

strings of the Notables. A very few days proved that in establishing the

army at Kafr Dawar a wise choice had been made, for the English, under

General Alison who had landed with several thousand men, though often

attacking it, were always repulsed, and it was fondly hoped that the

resistance might thus be indefinitely prolonged.

At Genjis Osman, Arabi, now the chief personage in the state, though

still holding rank only as War Minister, held daily a kind of court, to

which the provincial magnates, the Cairo Ulema, and the great merchants

thronged. A huge tent, formerly belonging to the Viceroy Saïd, received

them, Saïd's widow having presented it to her husband's once A. D. C. as

a national offering, while Nazli Hanum and others of the princely ladies

showed also their enthusiasm by gifts to the hero of the day.[23] It

cannot be denied that Arabi's head was somewhat turned by these

flatteries, and that they were the occasion of military jealousies which

proved detrimental to the cause when soon after the pinch came. If Arabi

should succeed in repelling the English attack to the point of their

having to come to terms with him, it was felt that he would remain

master of Egypt; and officers far better educated than himself, and with

a better knowledge of the art of war, and who knew Arabi for what he

was--a very poor soldier--felt aggrieved at the thought of his future

fortunes and his present pre-eminence. Arabi himself was doubtless quite

unaware of this, and in his dreamy way followed where fortune led him,

and with an ever-growing superstitious belief in his high destiny and

his providential mission as saviour of his people. His religious tastes

led him to surround himself especially with holy men, and much of the

time which he should have given to the secular duty of organizing the

defence was wasted with them in chaunts and recitations. This seems to

have been continued by him to the very end. What his ultimate military

plan was it is difficult to determine. According to Ninet his

calculation was that if he could prolong the resistance for a few

months, Europe would be obliged to come to terms with him. The

Conference was sitting at Constantinople, and the Sultan was being

urged on all sides to intervene, and the worst that could happen was

that Ottoman troops would be landed, who were as likely as not to

fraternize with his own. He knew himself to be regarded throughout the

Mohammedan world as the champion of Islam, for the pilgrims just

returning from Mecca had brought the news, and it would be difficult for

the Sultan to take real part with England against him. He had, too, a

remnant of his trust in Gladstone, and of the traditional belief in

Englishmen's sympathy with liberty, which he believed might still

prevail if only the truth could be brought home to them by the spectacle

of Egyptian patriotism--dreams, of course, and most delusive ones, but

shared in by many others, and not altogether inexcusable, considering

the events of the past six months.

Nevertheless, on the 16th August, Wolseley, with the first instalments

of the British land expedition, disembarked at Alexandria, and, as it

was not to be supposed that he would confine himself to the thankless

task of bombarding the impregnable lines of Kafr Dawar, it became urgent

with the military committee sitting at Cairo to decide on providing new

lines of defence on the far more easily assailable side of the Suez

Canal. An Eastern army under Ali Fehmi was consequently got together at

Cairo, which occupied the Canal in force; and the lines of Tel-el-Kebir,

which, in spite of the warning I had sent through Sheykh Mohammed Abdu

in April, had never been more than traced, began to be dug in earnest.

It became also a question of imminent importance to block the Suez Canal

towards its northern extremity, lest British ships should be beforehand

with the defence and should land at Ismaïlia. The opinion was unanimous

among the military chiefs that this was a strategic necessity, and that

at any cost of quarrel with the French Canal authorities it should be

done. Arabi, however--and this was his second great mistake--could not

make up his mind to the act. His hesitation was due to French influence.

M. de Lesseps had arrived at Alexandria towards the end of July and,

having learned something of the English design of using the Canal for an

attack on Egypt, became alarmed for its safety, and he had gone on to

Port Saïd and set himself to work to prevent, as far as in him lay, this

design by appealing to Arabi's sense of honour. De Lesseps was a man of

great self-confidence, and believed himself able, by the mere fact of

his presence, to intimidate our Government, and represented that the

Canal was neutral ground and excluded from the operations of

belligerents. After the war, when I was carrying on the defence of

Arabi, I wrote to M. de Lesseps to obtain from him what evidence he

might be able to give in the prisoner's favour as a humanitarian and

friend of progress, and he placed in my possession copies of the letters

he had received from Arabi in relation to this matter, though not of

those he had himself written.[24] From this it is clear how Arabi was

misled.

After some preliminary correspondence, we find Arabi on the 4th of

August giving his decision plainly. Several English men-of-war, under

the command of Admiral Hewett, were in the Canal between Ismaïlia and

Suez, and Lesseps had written to complain that they were giving orders

and issuing proclamations to the inhabitants on shore. Their right to do

this Arabi repudiates, saying, that it is by direction of the Council

that he sends him the answer, and adds, apparently in reply to some

further appeal made to him personally by Lesseps, to respect the Canal's

neutrality: "As I scrupulously respect the neutrality of the Canal,

especially in consideration of its being so remarkable a work, and one

in connection with which your Excellency's name will live in history, I

have the honour to inform you that the Egyptian Government will not

violate that neutrality, except at the last extremity, and only in the

case of the English having committed some act of hostility at Ismaïlia,

Port Saïd, or some other point of the Canal." Here the principle is

clearly and well laid down, but the weak point of it is to be perceived

in its leaving to the enemy to commit the first act of hostility instead

of forestalling and preventing him.

Nevertheless we have Ninet's assurance, which has been confirmed to me

from other quarters, that every preparation was made secretly for the

blocking of the Canal at a certain point between Ismaïlia and Port Saïd,

and that it was only due to Arabi's extreme personal unwillingness to

sign the final order that, in opposition to the opinion of all his

colleagues in the Council, the hour of grace was allowed to slip by.

Lesseps, on the arrival of the British fleet at Port Saïd conveying

Wolseley and the army, had sent Arabi a last bombastical telegram,

which Ninet quotes as follows: "Ne faites aucune tentative pour

intercepter mon Canal. Je suis là. Ne craignez rien de ce côté. Il ne se

débarquera pas un seul soldat anglais sans être accompagné d'un soldat

français. Je réponds de tout." This occasioned a final council of war at

Kafr Dawar on the 20th at which all but Arabi were resolved to disregard

Lesseps' message. Arabi, however, suffered himself to be deceived still

by the boast about the French troops, and argued against it, and though

orders were given that evening for the "temporary" destruction of the

Canal, the delay caused by the discussion had already been fatal, and

Wolseley had steamed through the Canal before they had been executed.

Arabi's weakness in this matter is a most serious blot on his strategic

fame, and stamps him also with political inefficiency. Wolseley

alluding, long after, to it in a speech made by him in connection with

the proposed Channel Tunnel between England and France, said: "If Arabi

had blocked the Canal, as he intended to do, we should be still at the

present moment on the high seas blockading Egypt. Twenty-four hours

delay saved us."

The date of Wolseley's occupation of Ismaïlia was the 21st of August,

and from this point the defence of Egypt entered into a new and

practically hopeless phase, though the campaign was not so wholly a walk

over for the English as has been pretended. The British army was over

30,000 strong, and though probably of no great fighting value had it

been opposed to European troops, was sufficient to deal with the scanty

forces at Arabi's command. The whole strength at Kafr Dawar had never

been more than 8,000 regulars, with 80 Krupp guns, nor in all Egypt

could it be counted at more than 13,000 disciplined men, while the new

levies got together within a month were unfit as yet for any service

except that of manual labour at the trenches. Wolseley, therefore, had a

comparatively easy job before him when once he found himself ashore with

no obstacle between him and Cairo, except the unfinished lines of

Tel-el-Kebir. The English intelligence department had, however, to make

assurance doubly sure, already taken secret measures for success of a

kind which is always employed in modern warfare but never avowed, and

which it is right that I should here put on record, having by a curious

accident the details of the most important of them in my possession.

That Wolseley's advance was helped by bribery has always been

indignantly denied by English writers, but it is time the truth should

be authoritatively told.

The attack on Egypt from the side of the Suez Canal had been resolved on

by our War Office and Admiralty early in the year, and it was determined

about the middle of June to prepare the way betimes by a large operation

of bribery, especially among the Eastern Bedouins. The credit of the

particular _modus operandi_ belongs personally to Lord Northbrook, who,

as I heard at the time of its first supposed success from Gregory, took

a special pride in it, and the more so because it was based upon a hint

I had originally thrown out, with no thought when I did so that it might

be ever seriously acted upon or used against any who were to be my

friends. It will be remembered that in the spring of 1881 I had

travelled through the desert east of the Canal, and had interested

myself in certain unfortunate Sheykhs of the Teyyaha and Terrabin tribes

held in captivity at Jerusalem, and that in order to persuade our

Embassy at Constantinople to solicit their release I had represented

that it might one day be found of importance to have these Bedouins

friendly to England. Lord Northbrook had heard of this, and, now that I

was in such disfavour with the Government, thought it would be amusing

to "hoist me with my own petard," and by using my name in addition to

more solid inducements to get the help of these Arabs against Arabi.

At that time hardly any Englishman could speak a word of Arabic, and it

was difficult to discover an emissary capable and willing to undertake

the job. Northbrook consequently called into his counsels the then

professor of Oriental languages at Cambridge, Edward Palmer, a

distinguished Arabic scholar, who also had some personal acquaintance

with the district intended to be operated in, as he had been connected

at one time with the Palestine Exploration Society. Palmer was then

living in London, an impecunious man, making a poor living by

journalism, and weighted in his struggle for life by a recent marriage.

When, therefore, on the 24th of June he received an invitation, through

Captain Gill, R. E., of the Intelligence Department, to breakfast the

next morning with Lord Northbrook at the Admiralty, and was met there

with an offer from Lord Northbrook that he should undertake the task,

represented to him as an honourable and patriotic one, of ascertaining

the bribable character of the Bedouins east of the Canal, and securing

their services for the British Army, and with it the further offer of

£500 down for preliminary expenses, and promises of large pecuniary

reward in case of success, poor Palmer did not hesitate and agreed to

start at once. Just before his departure, however, on the 26th, he

called on me, representing himself to be on his way to Alexandria, where

he had been appointed correspondent of the "Standard" newspaper, and

asking introductions to my Nationalist friends there for whom he felt,

he said, a strong sympathy and would favour in his writings. This, of

course, was a cover to his real business, as to which he was silent, and

inclined me to granting his request, and, though I did not trust his

countenance, which was far from sincere, I gave him introductions to

Sabunji and one or two others, though not, I think, to Arabi.

Palmer's true programme traced out for him at the Admiralty was to go

first to Alexandria, where he was to discuss his plans with Admiral

Seymour, and then without delay to proceed to Jaffa where he should

assume an Eastern disguise and visit the desert south and west of Gaza,

and put himself into communication with precisely those Teyyaha and

Terrabin tribes whose interests I had espoused eighteen months before.

His journals, portions of which have been published, are on this point

very instructive. In them the details of his arrangement with Lord

Northbrook are constantly alluded to. He describes going on board

Admiral Seymour's yacht at Alexandria, where he was told to proceed at

once to the desert and begin work, the Admiral giving him "a revolver, a

rifle, and plenty of cartridges," and where he finds it "expected there

will be war at once, and perhaps it may begin tomorrow." "I am glad," he

says, "there is really to be fighting, because, though I shall be a long

way off, I shall be able to get a great deal of good out of it and do

something towards winning it for our side...." The Admiral said to me he

"congratulated the country on finding so able a man to undertake such a

difficult task." Palmer also sees "Sir Sidney Auckland [_sic_] the

political agent"; and we learn later in the journal that the Admiral

told him Alexandria was to be bombarded soon. Then he goes, much elated,

in the Admiral's steam launch, on board the steamer for Jaffa, with the

British flag flying, and "two sailors to carry the gun and revolver."

At Jaffa he lodges with the British Consul, the Jew Shapira, who sends

his son down to Gaza to help his preparations for the desert journey and

find an Arab to go with him, and he buys himself Arab dress and other

things he may require. He laments the heat and the difficulty of his

mission, but consoles himself with dreams of rich rewards and possible

honours. On the 15th, just before leaving for the desert, he hears

secretly of the bombardment, and decides to go through to Suez where he

writes for a ship's boat to take him off at a safe place.

On the 16th he sees a number of the Terrabin tribe: "They were very

curious to know who I was and what I wanted. My man said I was a Syrian

officer on the way to Egypt. Of course I am dressed in full costume like

a Mohammedan Arab of the towns. I found out more about them than they

did about me. I now know where to find and get at every Sheykh in the

desert, and I have already got the Teyyaha, the most warlike and

strongest of them all, ready to do anything for me. When I come back I

shall be able to raise 40,000 men. It was very lucky that I knew such an

influential tribe.... I get on capitally with my mission, and am longing

to get instructions from Suez and know if our troops have landed. I did

not expect to find out as much as I have done this first trip. I think

our fortune will be made." On the 18th "I had an exciting time, having

met the great Sheykh of the Arabs hereabouts. I, however, quite got him

to accept my views."

And again, 19th July, "It is wonderful how I get on with them. I have

got hold of some of the very men Arabi Pasha has been trying in vain to

get over to his side, and when they are wanted I can have every Bedawi

at my call from Suez to Gaza.... Of course I know nothing of what has

been done in Egypt since I left, except that Alexandria was bombarded as

the Admiral told me it would be soon. But I hear from the Arabs that the

Egyptian military party are still in arms, so I suppose our troops must

have landed by now." On the 20th "The Sheykh, who is the brother of

Suliman, is the one who engages all the Arabs not to attack the caravan

of pilgrims which goes to Mecca every year from Egypt, so that he is the

_very man_ I wanted. He has sworn by the most solemn Arab oath that, if

I want him to, he will guarantee the safety of the Canal even against

Arabi Pasha, and he says that if I can get three Sheykhs out of prison,

which I hope to do through Constantinople and our Ambassador, all the

Arabs will rise and join me like one man."

On the 21st, "I am anxious to get to Suez, because I have done all I

wanted by way of preliminaries, and as soon as I can get precise

instructions I can settle with the Arabs in a fortnight or three weeks

and get the whole thing over. As it is, the Bedouins will keep quite

quiet and will not join Arabi, but will wait for me to give them the

word what they are to do. They look upon Abdallah Effendi, which is what

they call me, as a very grand personage indeed!" On the 22nd, "I hear

from a Bedouin, who has just come on from Egypt, that Arabi Pasha has

got 2,000 horsemen from the Nile Bedouins and brought them to the Canal.

But when they get to Suez they will soon go back, for my men know them,

and if fair means won't do I shall send 10,000 of the Teyyaha and

Terrabin fighting men to drive them back. I have got the man who

supplies the pilgrims with camels on my side, too, and as I have

promised my big Sheykh £500 for himself, he will do anything for me. I

am very glad that the war has actually come to a crisis because now I

shall really have to do my big task, and _I am certain of success_. I

shall know almost directly what I am to get. Lord Northbrook told me I

was to have the £500 for this first trip, and that as soon as I began

negotiations with the Arabs they would enter on a fresh arrangement with

me. I shall save at least £280 out of this, which is not a bad month's

work!... I don't think they can give me less than £2,000 or £3,000 for

the whole job...." And again on the 26th, "I find it is possible to get

to the ships near Suez, and I start to-morrow, and hope to be on board

in four or five days. I have been so successful that I shall write for

more money, saying I have been obliged to spend all mine on presents--a

few hundred pounds is a great deal to us and nothing to the Government,

who would, I know, have given thousands for what I have already done--of

course I shall make the most of the difficulties and they have been

really great. I will send you a hundred or so as soon as I get the

chance from Suez.... I have had to give away a great deal, but have

still nearly £300 left after paying my journey to Suez! That is better

than newspaper work, £300 in a month!" "I have had a great ceremony

to-day, eating bread and salt with the Sheykhs in token of protecting

each other to the death!" On the 28th, "I have got the great Sheykh of

the Haiwath Arabs with me now, and get on capitally with him. In fact I

have been most wonderfully successful throughout. I have been sitting

out in the moonlight repeating Arabic poetry to the old man till I have

quite won his heart."

At last Palmer reaches Suez, August 1. "I am safe on board the P. and O.

boat," he writes, "and have got your letter. I got here by going to a

part of the coast above Suez, and got on board at midnight. It cost me a

lot of money, nearly £10, but I escaped the Egyptian sentries. The

troops are coming on Thursday, and this is Tuesday!... I have just seen

the Admiral. He is delighted with the result of my work and has

telegraphed to Lord Northbrook. He had three boat crews watching the

coast for me, but I got here by myself." August 2, "I am off again to

the desert for a short trip in about two days. I have been asked to go

to the coast and cut the telegraph wires and burn the poles on the

desert line so as to cut off Arabi's communications with Turkey! Captain

Gill arrived at Port Said yesterday and will be here this morning.

Yesterday I had a most interesting day. I called on the captains of all

the men-of-war and met with a most pleasant reception. They all insisted

upon my drinking iced champagne with them, and in the evening the

Admiral gave a dinner party on board the flagship in my honour. It was a

beautiful dinner and I did not get back to my ship until one this

morning." August 4, "On Monday I was ordered to accompany the commanding

officer and take Suez. We landed with three guns and 500 men. The

Egyptian soldiers ran away, so we had no fighting to do. I was in the

first boat which landed. We then made the Governor give us up the town

and £50,000 which he had, and we took possession. The day before

yesterday Lord Northbrook telegraphed to the Admiral to congratulate me

on my safe arrival, and informing me that I was appointed 'Interpreter

in Chief to Her Majesty's Forces in Egypt,' and placed on the Admiral's

Staff. I am here [Suez] in great state at the hotel at Government

expense, and have all my meals with the Admiral. I am going up to

Ismaïlia the day after to-morrow on a gunboat, and the Admiral here

said, 'Don't let the other Admiral keep you--you are on the books of the

"Euryalus," his flagship.' I have got a staff of about forty men working

under me. The Admiral told me the other night that I was sure of the

Egyptian medal and the 'Star of India.' They won't let me go to the

desert, for the present at least, as they want me here.... I am one of

the Chief Officers of the Expedition and an awful swell. The 72nd

regiment are coming to-morrow and I have got to see about camels for

them.... The pay is to be what I suggest, but I haven't settled it yet."

And then suddenly the splendid climax, "Captain Gill has just come, and

placed twenty thousand pounds at my disposal for the Arabs."

The rest is a mere dream of gold and glory. August 6, "Suez ... I start

to-morrow for a few days in the desert to buy camels. Captain Gill and

the Admiral's Flag Lieutenant go with me, and we shall be all safe and

jolly. My position seems like a dream. The Admiral said as I preferred

leaving the Government to settle my pay, that in the meantime I might

draw _to any amount_ for private expenses--so I will send you another

£500 as soon as I come back. I could do it now, but do not want to look

hard up. I have got £260 left, after paying all expenses of my journey,

etc., in hard money in my despatch box, and to-day _twenty thousand

pounds in gold were brought by ship and paid into my account here!_ I

have _carte blanche_ to do everything. I give passes to the sentries. If

I see a dozen horses I buy them off-hand. Yesterday I found thirty

camels and gave a man £360 for them by just writing on a slip of paper.

To-night I have been interpreting while the Governor dined with the

Admiral. I have servants, clerks, and interpreters at my beck and call,

and in short I could not be in a higher position. We are very securely

entrenched here and the enemy is eighty miles off, and to-morrow the

Indian troops are coming. Of course it is war time, but as I am on the

staff of the Commander-in-Chief, I am not likely to get into risky

places. I have seen active service though, having been one of the first

to land when Suez was taken. The Admiral is such a nice man, and I am

told he never forgets his officers, but pushes them on to promotion. He

_told me_ I should get the 'Star of India'! good-bye."

This is the last pathetic entry in a very human document. The next day

Palmer started with Gill and Charrington for Nakhl in the eastern

desert, Gill's mission and Charrington's being to destroy the telegraph

wire between Egypt and Syria, for which purpose they took with them a

box of dynamite, while Palmer's mission was announced as that of "buying

camels." The two officers, like Palmer, were dressed in Arab costume,

but they had with them uniforms to add dignity to their proceedings when

they should reach the friendly tribes. The amount of money taken with

them out of Palmer's £20,000 has been variously stated at £3,000 to

£8,000. Gill has recorded his dissatisfaction at the nature of the

mission on which he was called to serve. It cannot have been the

purchase of camels, an official euphemism which now that Palmer had

become a high officer of Her Majesty he seems to have adopted, but

beyond a doubt to carry out his original avowed purpose and fulfil his

promises to his Bedouin friends, by paying them the large sums agreed

on. He would have taken all the £20,000 for his 40,000 fighters but that

the Admiral expostulated.

The party, however, was foredoomed to disaster. The Bedouin escort, men

of the Haiwat and Howeytat, got scent of the gold they were carrying,

and were determined to be beforehand with the Teyyaha, for whom it was

intended--the Egyptian governor of Nakhl, an isolated fort halfway

between Suez and Akabah, there is good reason to believe, being their

accomplice and instigator. They had hardly therefore, got more than a

few miles on their way before they were attacked, made prisoners,

despoiled, stripped and bound, and finally shot at the edge of a ravine

in the Wady Sudr. And so poor Palmer's dreams of fortune ended. The

catastrophe was too conspicuous a one to save the Government from

questions asked in Parliament, and that worthy gentleman, Sir Henry

Campbell-Bannerman, as Under-Secretary, was put up in the House of

Commons to give answer and to deny roundly the whole affair of Palmer's

secret mission, or of any dealings on his part with the Bedouins, except

as buyer of camels.

Nor does Professor Palmer's journal stand alone as documentary

evidence. Captain Gill also left a diary amply confirming the main

facts. His business under the Intelligence Department was of the same

nature west of the Suez Canal as Palmer's had been east of it. The diary

begins at Alexandria and the writer speaks of having gone to see Sir

Frederick Goldsmid, the head of his department, and he expresses his

hope to be soon at work among the Bedouins west of the Canal. He

describes having received, in the Khedive's own handwriting, a list of

the principal Sheykhs between the Canal and the cultivation, of whom he

mentions two by name, Saoud el Tihawi at Salahieh, and Mohammed el

Baghli at Wady Tumeylat. He understood the Bedouins to be waiting to

side with whomever they found it their best interest to follow. At Port

Saïd Gill hears from the ex-Governor that these Bedouins can be bought

at from £2 to £3 per man. On 4th August he mentions reading Palmer's

report to Sir B. Seymour. He says, "Had I known the report would go

direct to the Admiral, I would have asked Hoskyns whether he had the

money for Palmer." He adds, "Palmer says he can buy fifty thousand

Bedouins for £25,000, and I shall certainly urge that the money be given

him." He mentions a report of his own as to blocking the Canal, which he

says could only be effectively done by the Egyptians at one point, which

he names, and gives as his reason the want of stones elsewhere to sink

the barges with. He talks of Lesseps as having it in his power to do

real mischief, as he has all the dredges and boats belong to the Canal

at his disposal. August 5th: Gill goes down the Canal with another

officer to Suez, taking with them £20,000 in gold for Palmer. They stop

at Ismaïlia, and he sees there Mr. Pickard, with whom he discusses the

best route to choose for cutting the telegraph. He says there are three

ways: (1) from the coast near el Arish, which both agree would be

dangerous, (2) from Gisr or Kantara, objectionable as violating the

neutrality of the Canal, and (3) from Suez, the only practicable route.

He does not seem to trust Pickard, and decides to cut the wire himself

from Suez. August 6th: He mentions the fact that he is glad to get rid

of the £20,000 on its being made over to Palmer. He talks of going with

Palmer to a great meeting of Shekyhs he is to attend at Nakhul, and

remarks that if he goes so far with him he shall be able to judge how

far "Palmer's rather rose-coloured expectations" are justified. These

two documents between them amply prove the reality of the bribery

resorted to before Tel-el-Kebir.

I was much connected with this affair at the time it occurred, as I was

applied to by members of the families of all the three victims of it, to

aid in their researches, and to make the matter public and in one

instance to obtain from the Government a proper recognition of services

rendered and as yet unacknowledged. The case, after being denied in the

House of Commons, was at my instance brought on by my brother-in-law,

Lord Wentworth, in the House of Lords, and was the occasion of much

anger among the Ministerial peers, and an astonishing display of

untruth. Lord Granville, Lord Northbrook, and their colleagues, got up

one after the other and roundly denied the whole story of Palmer's

mission, and of his having received any money for the purpose of bribery

among the Arabs. It is a curious fact that Lord Salisbury, to whom I

went just before the debate to try to enlist his aid in opposition to

the Government, excused them in some measure to me on the ground that in

cases where secret service money was concerned, it was conventionally

permitted to Ministers to lie. He nevertheless aided Lord Wentworth to

the extent of securing him a fair hearing, which the others would have

prevented.

Palmer's and Gill's were nevertheless but crude dealings, and would by

themselves, I think, have done little to further Wolseley's objects but

for the far more efficacious intervention in support of them given by

the Khedive. Saoud el Tihawi was the only Arab Sheykh who systematically

or at all efficiently betrayed Arabi, and it was the Khedive who

procured his defection. Saoud received in payment for his work as spy in

Arabi's camp 5,000 Austrian crowns, and betrayed him throughout, from

the date of the removal of the Egyptian headquarters from Kafr Dawar to

Tel-el-Kebir. Saoud was an Arab of a naturally superior type, and with a

good head on his shoulders, but he had long been perverted by his

association with Lesseps and the French, having his land and permanent

camp within a day's journey only of the Suez Canal, and had been

accustomed to hunt the gazelle with them, and play the part of fine

gentleman, which is the ruin of Bedouin morality. That he did indeed

play the part of spy and traitor in the English interest I have his own

half admission, for passing by Salahieh in the spring of 1887, I stopped

a night at his tents, and he seeing me to be English, and knowing

nothing of my political sympathies, spoke of his doings during the war

in terms there was no mistaking. Acting as scout for Arabi, it was easy

for his men to pass from camp to camp, and so convey intelligence. There

was nothing specially to be ashamed of in this treachery, according to

Bedouin morals, for to the Arab tribes Egyptians and Turks and Franks

are equally outside the sphere of their allegiance, and in serving them

it is merely a question of what suits their interest best. On the east

of the Nile the Bedouins have exceedingly little religious feeling to

prevent their siding with the infidel, if their advantage lies that way,

and no love was ever yet lost between Bedouin and Fellah.

What did Arabi infinitely more harm than this and facilitated the

rapidity of Wolseley's advance, was the tampering with his officers

through the instrumentality of certain emissaries despatched in disguise

to Cairo and Tel-el-Kebir, who, armed with money and promises of

promotion and advancement when the "rebellion" should have been put

down, succeeded in detaching not a few from their loyalty. This was not

done directly by Wolseley or the English intelligence Department,

though, perhaps the funds were furnished by them, but by the Khedive,

who was far better aware whom to approach with success than any

Englishman could be. His most intelligent and active agent in this work

was his A. D. C., Osman Bey Rifaat, who knew well the temper of most of

the officers, and the jealousies which inspired them. To these,

especially to those of Circassian origin, he represented the futility of

the National resistance and the advantage there would be for them in

being beforehand in reconciling themselves to the Khedive instead of

awaiting the punishment which would certainly follow. Wolseley and the

English were only acting as the Khedive's servants and in concert with

the Sultan, who also was about to send troops, having declared Arabi a

rebel. With the Circassians this line of argument naturally had weight,

and with the baser class of Egyptian officers the money argument was

added. Arabi, for the reasons already stated, although enthusiastically

followed by the rank and file of the army, had incurred no little

jealousy among the superior officers, who judged themselves to be all

better soldiers than he, and his procrastination in the matter of

blocking the Canal had still further increased their dissatisfaction.

All confidence in his military leadership was destroyed among them from

the day of the landing of the English at Ismaïlia without the promised

opposition of the French, and without adequate preparations to oppose

them on that side having been made.

With the civilian chiefs of the Nationalists another agent was employed,

also not without effect. This was none other than the old leader of the

fellah movement, Sultan Pasha, who, having thrown his lot in now wholly

with the English, was not ashamed to lend himself to the work of

spreading disunion among those who still retained their patriotism. To

the new generation of the Egyptians it seems difficult to understand how

a man of such initial high conduct as a lover of his country should have

sunk to so mean a pass. But I think it is not really difficult to

explain. Sultan was a proud man of great wealth and importance, and used

to being given the first place everywhere--the "king," as he was

called, of Upper Egypt, the first and foremost of the great fellah

proprietors--and with what seemed to him a natural right to leadership

in the fellah party. Arabi he had patronized as a younger man and one of

no social standing, who might help him in his ambitions, but who should

never have presumed to supplant him in the popular affections. He was

disappointed on the formation of the Sherif Ministry in September, 1881,

that he was given no place in it, and was only half consoled with the

presidency assigned him of the new Parliament. Still less was he pleased

when on the formation of the more purely fellah administration of

February, 1882, he was again left out, and the lack of what he

considered the due consideration shown him caused him to drift gradually

into opposition. Then came the arrival of the fleets at Alexandria, and,

as we know, he was partly cajoled, partly frightened by Malet into

declaring himself in favour of the English demands, and threw in his lot

finally with the Court party against his former associates. There is

nothing difficult to understand, more than in the Khedive's case, in the

downward grade he was obliged to follow. It became with him, I imagine,

a matter of obstinacy rather than any longer of ambition, and his

patriotic scruples had been allayed by the promise made him that the

English intervention was intended only to restore the condition of

things previous to the Mahmud Sami Ministry, and that Egypt should still

have her claim to Constitutional government respected. In this sense he

addressed letters to his numerous former friends at Cairo, putting

forward the explanation that the alliance between the Khedive and the

English was a merely temporary necessity, as the English troops would

not stay in Egypt when once the Khedive's authority had been

re-established; and that Arabi had lost the confidence of the Sultan,

and that the continued resistance at Cairo was generally condemned by

Moslems. These letters, distributed carefully, were not without their

influence, and money again played its powerful part. Sultan indeed seems

to have advanced the money out of his own pocket, for the very first

financial act of the restored Khedivial Government after Tel-el-Kebir

was to make him a public present of £10,000 under the title of an

indemnity for losses sustained by him during the war, while he also

received an order of English knighthood. The sums actually given away by

Sultan were not, as far as I can learn, very large, being supplemented

with more considerable promises, which after the war remained

unfulfilled, and very likely the £10,000 more than covered the sums

Sultan actually disbursed. Be this as it may, there is no question that

with the Khedive's help Wolseley's path of victory was made a very easy

one.[25]

In spite, however, of all these disadvantages of internal intrigue, the

National defence might still have been prolonged, if the end could not

be averted, but for the bad luck which from this point throughout

attended the army. As soon as it was quite clear that Egypt would be

attacked from the East, Mahmud Fehmi, the engineer, the ablest of all

Arabi's lieutenants, was despatched to Tel-el-Kebir, to carry out and

finish the lines there, which had never been more than lightly traced.

Had they been finished as they ought to have been, they should have

proved a formidable obstacle to the advance of the English army, but by

an extraordinary fatality, which was hardly within the range of the

common hazards of war, the General, within a few days of his arrival,

was captured and made prisoner by a small party of English Life Guards,

who, far in advance of the English position, happened to be passing

near. The accident was a strange one. Mahmud Fehmi, attended only by an

A. D. C., and having put off his uniform on account of the heat, had

passed one evening to the other side of the Wady Tumeylat, and partly to

get a breath of air, partly, too, for a better view of the desert in the

direction of Ismaïlia, had climbed alone, on foot, a low sandhill, of

which there are several, running into the cultivated land, when suddenly

the small English party pounced on him. As Mahmud was not in uniform,

Colonel Talbot, in command of the party, was doubtful how to treat him,

and was near accepting his explanation that he was an Effendi with

property in the neighbourhood, but finally decided to carry him off with

them, which they accordingly did, the A. D. C., having remained in a

village hard by not knowing what had happened, nor had Talbot any notion

of the value of his capture until some time after the return of the

party to the English headquarters. As a matter of fact, however, it was

one of the greatest possible importance, and a blow to the defence of

Tel-el-Kebir for which there was no remedy.[26]

The second misfortune was the disabling at Kassassin of the two

generals, first and second in command, at a critical moment of that not

altogether unequal combat. These were Ali Fehmi, Arabi's tried

companion, and Rashid Pasha, two officers who were both good soldiers,

with courage and some experience of war, and who took the initiative

against Wolseley first by a reconnaissance, and then by a renewed attack

on him in force at Kassassin. It was the best and last chance the

Egyptians had of checking the English advance, and it was not very far

from being successful. According to the Egyptian account of the affair,

the enemy was taken by surprise, and for a long time the issue remained

doubtful, the Duke of Connaught being at one moment near being made

prisoner. Had this happened and had the Egyptians maintained their

advantage, there is no knowing what terms might not have been granted

them of recognition and peace, for already public opinion had veered

round in England, and people were becoming ashamed of a war waged

against peasants fighting for their freedom from an ancient tyranny. Two

things, however, failed them in their plans, first Mahmud Sami was to

have advanced from Salahieh with a couple of thousand men to join them

in the morning and take the enemy on his right flank, but misled by

Saoud's Bedouins in the night he missed the point of rendezvous; and

secondly, it is certain that Arabi, if he had had any soldierly

instincts, ought to have taken the field in person with them, if not in

the front line of attack, at least as commanding a strong reserve. As it

was, the whole force employable did not appear on the battlefield, and

by a still further stroke of ill fortune both the commanders were

wounded, and put for the rest of the campaign _hors de combat_. It is

also certain that one of the Egyptian generals, Ali Bey Yusuf, purposely

betrayed his comrades.

From this point all was confusion at Tel-el-Kebir, and the pitiful end

became certain. Arabi had lost his best generals and knew not where to

replace them. There were not many he could trust, and those men only of

quite inferior ability. One man indeed there was who might still have

given consistency to the defence, but for some inexplicable reason he

was left away from the field of action. This was the third of the

original "three colonels," Abd-el-Aal Helmi, a valiant fighting man as

any in the army. For some time past he had been employed in what was at

one moment the important duty of defending Damietta from a possible

British landing, and he had with him some of the very best troops,

notably the Soudanese regiment which had been Abd-el-Aal's own. Had

these, with their commander, been brought at once to Tel-el-Kebir, they

might have saved at least the honour of the army, for Abd-el-Aal was one

who could be relied upon for forward action, and his troops were full of

spirit and undiscouraged by defeat. It seems, however, still to have

been thought that Damietta needed its garrison, for I cannot find that

the Military Committee so much as suggested Abd-el-Aal as Ali Fehmi's

successor. I have sometimes thought that Yakub Pasha Sami, the President

of the Military Committee at Cairo, good service as he had done in

organizing the war, had at this time been tampered with by the Khedive's

agents. He was a Mussulman, of Greek origin, and so one of the ruling

class, and there are documents in my possession which show him, though

Arabi's right-hand man at the War Office, as always a Khedive's man

rather than a Nationalist. The Khedive seems to have counted him as

such, and as in other instances after the war, treated him for that

reason with exceptional rigour, and he was one of the seven Pashas

exiled to Ceylon, though the attitude he adopted before the Judges had

been one of servile repentance and protestations of loyalty. Of his deep

jealousy of Arabi the papers give ample evidence, and it is quite

possible that after the disabling of Ali Fehmi, he did his best to

isolate Arabi and hasten his ruin at Tel-el-Kebir. Instead of Abd-el-Aal

the command was given to a very worthy but quite incompetent man, Ali

Pasha Roubi, one of Arabi's old companions of the early days of the

National movement, but who had no other qualification for so responsible

a post.

Arabi himself meanwhile, in spite of the imminence of the English

attack, remained stolidly on in camp surrounded, as always, by the

country Notables, who still flocked to see him, and by religious men,

with whom he passed the time in prayers and recitations. He relied

implicitly on Saoud el Tihawi to give him news of any further advance by

Wolseley, and Saoud always lured him into security. The army at

Tel-el-Kebir was the most incoherent one imaginable. Of regular,

well-disciplined troops, infantry of the line, there cannot have been

more than 6,000 to 7,000, with, perhaps, 2,000 cavalry and a

corresponding number of guns served by good artillerymen. This was all

the really reliable force. The rest were a half-clothed and wholly

undisciplined rabble of recruits and volunteers, good, honest fellahin,

hardworking as labourers in the trenches, but of no fighting value

whatever. Their total number may have been 20,000, but I have no

accurate statistics to go by. Day and night they worked valiantly to

complete the unfinished lines, but this was all the military service

they possibly could render. Stone Pasha, the American, after the war

stated it freely as his opinion that not one of the whole number had

even as yet fired a ball cartridge, and this was probably true.

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

There has been much romance written by English military writers of the

silent and hazardous night march from Mehsameh under guidance of the

stars and of a young naval officer, and doubtless to those who took part

in it it seemed that the English army was groping its way blindly to the

unknown, but in reality the road had been made plain for them by the

secret means I have alluded to. Two of Arabi's minor officers, both

holding responsible positions, had accepted, a few days before, the

bribes offered them by the Khedivial agents. The names of these two

deserve, to their eternal shame, to be put on record. The first was

Abd-el-Rahman Bey Hassan, commander of the advanced guard of cavalry,

who was placed with his regiment outside the lines in a position

commanding the desert road from the east, but who on the night in

question shifted his men some considerable distance to the left, so as

to leave the English advance unobstructed. The second was the already

mentioned Ali Bey Yusuf, in command of a portion of the central lines

where the trenches were so little formidable that they could be

surmounted by any active artillery. By the account generally given, and

Arabi's own, he not only left the point that night unguarded, but put

out a lantern for the guidance of the assailants. Other names have been

mentioned to me, but not with the authority of these two, and I

therefore prefer not to put them down. As to the two I have given, their

position as traitors was notorious for years at Cairo, as little secret

was made of it by them, especially by Ali Bey Yusuf, who complained

freely of the scurvy treatment he had received for his services. £1,000

indeed had been paid him down in gold before the battle, but a further

promise of £10,000 had never been kept to him, nor did he succeed in

obtaining more from the Government, when he had spent his first round

sum, than a poor pension of £12 a month, which was paid him to his

death.

Arabi and the rest of the army, deluded by Saoud into a false security

as to that night at least, slept profoundly, the poor men in their

trenches and Arabi at his headquarters, about a mile to the rear. Thus,

without any warning, they suddenly found the enemy upon them, the lines

crossed at their weak point by the English, and a little later artillery

in their rear. The vast number of the recruits fled without firing a

shot, half-naked as they were sleeping, worn out with their constant

labour of entrenchment, and having thrown their arms away across the

open plain, and were cut down in hundreds as they ran. It was a mere

butchery of peasants, too ignorant of the ways of war even to know the

common formulas of surrender. This was in the centre and to the right of

the position. To the left a more gallant stand was made, especially

where Mohammed Obeyd was in command, and here and there all along the

lines by the Egyptian artillery. The whole thing lasted hardly more than

forty minutes. Mohammed Obeyd fell gallantly fighting, and with him the

flower of the regular army, and many gunners too who had stuck

obstinately to their guns. But at the end of an hour the fighting was

wholly over, and what remained of the National army was a mere broken

rabble.

As to the part played personally by Arabi that fatal morning, I have the

evidence, besides his own, of a very worthy man, Mohammed Sid Ahmed, his

body-servant, who in 1888 entered my service as manager at Sheykh Obeyd

and remained two years with me. From him I have over and over again

heard the events narrated. According to Sid Ahmed, the whole camp that

night was in profound slumber, having been assured by the scouts that

the English were making no movement, his master's headquarters at about

the centre of the whole camp, but more than a mile in rear of the front

line of trenches, as undisturbed as the rest. The Pasha had undressed

and gone to bed as usual and slept soundly through the night, nor was

any one awake before the sound of the guns announced the attack. Arabi

then threw hastily on his uniform and got on horseback and rode towards

the firing, followed, among others, by his servant, also mounted. They

had not, however, got far when they were met by a crowd of fugitives,

who declared that all was lost, while Saoud's Bedouins also were

galloping wildly about, adding to the general confusion. The Pasha, Sid

Ahmed assured me, did his best to rally the men, and continued to

advance towards that part of the lines where Mohammed Obeyd was still

holding out, but was gradually borne away with the rest, and yielded to

his (Sid Ahmed's) prayers that he would seek his safety in flight. The

idea that his master had any duty of dying on the field of battle was

always wholly absent from Sid Ahmed's mind, and he prided himself on

having succeeded in persuading him. They were both well mounted on

horses, which had been sent to Arabi by one of the Bedouins of the

Western Fayoum, and reached the Tel-el-Kebir station just before it was

occupied by the English, and though unable there to take train, got

across the small canal bridge before it closed, and so by the causeway

to the other side of Wady Tumeylat, whence they galloped their best for

Belbeis. They were alone, Arabi having been separated from his staff in

the confusion. Arabi's one idea now was to get to Cairo before the news

of the disaster should arrive and prepare the city for defence. At

Belbeis they took train and reached the capital not long after noon.[27]

Arabi, on his arrival in Cairo, seems to have had hopes still of

continuing the patriotic struggle by defending the city. He went

straight to the Kasr el Nil and assisted at a council being held there

by the members of the War Committee, but a compromise of opinion was all

that he could obtain, namely, that while it was decided in principle to

make submission to the Khedive, the question of defending Cairo against

the English army was reserved. Nor had the matter got any forwarder next

day when Drury Lowe with his Indian cavalry arrived at Abbassiyeh. The

truth is all heart had been taken out of the official resistance by the

intrigues of the Khedive's agents, and by Arabi's proclamation by the

Sultan as a rebel having become known. Only the rabble of the streets,

as yet ignorant of all, were still in favour of a defence. The military

circumstances of Cairo were that it possessed nominally a large

garrison, but these were all the newest of new recruits, and although

they would probably have been sufficient to hold the citadel and so

dominate the town, they could not have made a long defence without great

destruction of property in the lower city. For this no one was

prepared, and the sudden arrival of Drury Lowe decided the question with

the War Committee for capitulation, and it was resolved to send him,

according to his demand, the keys of the citadel. Arabi then seeing that

all was over, and on the advice of John Ninet, with whom he had spent

the night in anxious debate at the house of Ali Fehmi, drove to

Abbassiyeh, and there surrendered his sword as prisoner of war to the

English general.[28]

FOOTNOTES:

[22] "It is no exaggeration," Lord Dufferin asserted, "to say that

during the last few months absolute anarchy has reigned in Egypt. We

have seen a military faction, without even alleging those pretences to

legality with which such persons are wont to cloak their designs,

proceed from violence to violence, until insubordination has given place

to mutiny, mutiny to revolt, and revolt to a usurpation of the supreme

power. As a consequence the Administration of the country has been

thrown into confusion; the ordinary operations of the merchant have come

to a standstill; the fellahin, no longer finding purchasers for their

produce, are unable to pay the land-tax, and the revenues of Egypt are

failing. This state of things has placed in extreme jeopardy those

commercial interests in which the subjects of all the Powers are so

deeply concerned. Not only so, but those special engagements into which

the Governments of France and England had entered with Egypt have been

repudiated; the officers appointed to carry them into effect have been

excluded from the control they were authorized to exercise, and the

system which had begun to work so greatly to the advantage of the

industrious cultivators of Egypt has been broken up and overthrown.

"But these effects form only a portion of the deplorable situation which

has excited the anxiety of Europe. It is not merely the public creditor

who has suffered extensive damage. The life and property of every

individual European in the country have become insecure. Of this

insecurity we have had a most melancholy and convincing proof in the

brutal massacre by an insolent mob of a number of unoffending persons at

Alexandria, and in the sudden flight from Cairo and the interior (a

flight which implies loss to all and ruin to many) of thousands of our

respective citizens.

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

energetic remedy."

[23] The following is from my journal of 1887: "_January 31_,

Cairo.--Called on Princess Nazli. She is at least as clever as she is

pretty. Her conversation would be brilliant in any society in the world.

She told us a great deal that interested us about Arabi, for whom she

had, and I am glad to see still has, a great _culte_, talking of his

singleness of mind and lamenting his overthrow. 'He was not good enough

a soldier,' she said, 'and has too good a heart. These were his faults.

If he had been a violent man like my grandfather, Mehemet Ali, he would

have taken Tewfik and all of us to the citadel and cut our heads

off--and he would have been now happily reigning, or if he could have

got the Khedive to go on honestly with him he would have made a great

king of him. Arabi was the first Egyptian Minister who made the

Europeans obey him. In his time at least the Mohammedans held up their

heads, and the Greeks and Italians did not dare transgress the law. I

have told Tewfik this more than once. Now there is nobody to keep order.

The Egyptians alone are kept under by the police, and the Europeans do

as they like.'"

[24] See Appendix.

[25] I find the following in my diary of 1887: "_February 13._--A visit

from Abd-el-Salaam Moëlhy (one of the original Constitutionalists, and

member of the Chamber of 1882). He told me that he had been an intimate

friend and partisan of Sultan Pasha's, and had been one of those who

joined Sultan in his quarrel with Arabi, but they were all very sorry

now for not having held together; and he did not approve Sultan's

conduct during the war. Sultan had been deceived by Malet, who induced

him to act as he did on a distinct promise that the Egyptian Parliament

should be respected in its rights. Malet gave this verbally, and Sultan

asked to have it in writing, but was dissuaded from insisting by the

Khedive, who assured him that the English Agent's word was as good as

his bond. The old man, when he found out after the war how much he had

been deceived, took it to heart and died expressing a hope that Arabi

would forgive him, and that his name would not be handed down to

posterity as the betrayer of his country. It was jealousy and anger at

Arabi having become Minister that caused the quarrel."

[26] I give this version of the capture as being that of Mahmud Fehmi

himself, but some have recounted it otherwise, accusing him of

desertion. This is, however, not credited by those who knew him

personally.

[27] In 1884 I received an account of Arabi's conduct at Tel-el-Kebir,

almost identical with Sid Ahmed's, from his army doctor, Mustafa Bey,

who was sleeping near him that night. His own account of his flight will

be found in the Appendix.

[28] I find in my journal of 1884 that on the 29th October the Egyptian

princes, Osman and Kiamyl, came to see me, and that they talked

patriotically about the late war, and gave me much information. "Osman

was not actually there. He was too fat a prince to do anything

physically, but he sympathized with the cause, and behaved with some

dignity after it was over. Kiamyl was a member of the provisional

government, and saw a good deal of Arabi during the war, and while

bearing testimony to his honest patriotism, blamed him for his too easy

conduct of affairs. He ought, he said, to have shot Ali Yusuf after

Kassassin, for it was perfectly well known he was a traitor, having

received five thousand pounds before the battle, which was thus lost. At

one moment there were 18,000 Egyptians close to 2,500 English, who had

with them the Duke of Connaught. If Ali Yusuf, who commanded the centre,

had advanced then, the English must have been crushed and the prince

taken, but he left the field of battle, and allowed the wings to be

broken. The money paid by the English was most of it false St. George

sovereigns and Egyptian pounds with lead inside. Cairo was full of them

after Tel-el-Kebir, but they were bought up for the Government by the

bankers at five and ten francs apiece in a few days. The money orders

were also mostly forgeries, but Ali Yusuf insisted upon having an order

with a signature he knew. Abd-el-Ghaffar was paid in false St. George

sovereigns, some of which his wife took to Ismaïl Jawdat's wife to

change. Prince Kiamyl had himself broken open some of these pieces and

found them to contain lead. The Bedouins would not be taken in thus, and

Saoud el Tihawi had told him after the war that he had received--I

forget the sum--in silver dollars from one of the English generals. The

whole state of things was very disgraceful, and Kiamyl was under orders

to go in three days to Tel-el-Kebir to arrest Ali Yusuf when the

collapse came. Arabi was betrayed by all about him, some for gold,

others for jealousy. Mahmud Sami was jealous of Arabi, and spoilt the

second battle of Kassassin because he was not in chief command. He was

to advance from Salahieh, and did not keep his rendezvous with Ali

Fehmi--the latter was an honest and good soldier, but most of them were

very worthless. Arabi would not put any Turk into high command, and the

fellah officers were incapable and cowardly. Mahmud Sami was the only

Turk, and he was playing a selfish game throughout. Kiamyl was present

at the council at the Kasr-el-Nil when Arabi returned and when he

explained the destruction of the army with floods of tears. He said he

had fought till he was alone, which was hardly true, and that all was

over. Kiamyl then reproached him, saying, 'A man who embarks in a great

enterprise ought first to count the cost.' 'Arabi ought never,' he said,

'to have been at the head of the army. If he had hanged or shot a dozen

men in the early part of the war, all would have gone well.' Prince

Kiamyl would not hear of the campaign having been a complete walk over

for the English."

According to Mohammed Sid Ahmed Arabi had with him a body of about 1,000

encamped near him at Tel-el-Kebir, most of whom were slain before his

master left the field. But I do not attach full credit to this, at least

as to numbers. There seem to have been some 10,000 Egyptians in all

killed or wounded in the battle--mostly killed, for little quarter was

given--but I do not pretend to answer for any of the figures named. The

immense mounds of the buried dead tell their own tale perhaps best.