Secret History of the English Occupation of Egypt

I find also at this date that I had a talk with Lord Miltown, an Irish peer, which shows the curious connection between Egypt and Ireland in the political ideas of the day. "His, Miltown's, account of Ireland is singularly like that of Egypt by the European officials. He thinks the difficulty in Ireland got up by agitators; that the Irish fellahin are not really with the National Party, and that armed intervention would set things right."

On the 10th I saw Dilke at the Foreign Office, having first gone to his house in Sloane Street. He was in a hostile mood, and instead of listening to what I had to say, poured out a string of complaints against the new Egyptian ministry, telling me "that Arabi's government had spent half a million sterling on the army since they came into office," and other absurdities. I knew this story could not be true, as the Nationalists had only been in power six weeks, and went to Sanderson, who was then Lord Granville's private secretary (now Sir Thomas Sanderson and head of the Foreign Office), and made him look up the question of the fabulous half million, when, on referring to the despatch about it, we found that the sum had been spent, not as Dilke had told me in the last six weeks, but in the last year. This extraordinary misstatement of Dilke's, which he had made to me as a matter beyond dispute, may of course have been only a gross blunder, but it was repeated in the newspapers of the day, several of which were under Dilke's inspiration, and is a good example of the way in which news, however absurd, prejudicial to the Egyptian Nationalists, was then being circulated by him. Morley was one of the channels he principally used, and all through the spring and early summer of 1882, the "Pall Mall Gazette" (the only paper Gladstone read attentively) was, through Dilke's influence, and Colvin's, made a channel of preposterous lies and the most uncompromising advocate of intervention. Morley, I am willing to believe, persuaded himself that the things they told him were true, and acted in good faith, but it is nevertheless certain that on him more than on any other journalists of the time lies the responsibility of having persuaded Gladstone to the act of violence in Egypt which was the chief sin of Gladstone's public career. Morley's position, however, was then not an independent one, and he was hardly the master of his own published thoughts. He was not yet in Parliament, but waiting for a seat, and all his hope of a political career lay in the patronage of his political friends, Dilke and Chamberlain, so that he had practically no choice, if he was not to sacrifice his ambition, but to follow the lead Dilke gave him about Egyptian affairs. He was afterwards sorry for the evil he had done, and has never, I think, liked to recall to memory the part he then played. But without doubt his responsibility for bringing on the war was great. The whole of the Egyptian episode in Morley's "Life of Gladstone," it may be noticed, has been slurred over in a few pages. But history is history, and his mistake needs to be recorded.

This matter settled with Sanderson, Currie took me in to see Lord Granville, whom I did not as yet know, and another conversation followed. Lord Granville was a man of singularly urbane manners, and began by inquiries after my stud of Arab horses, paying me a number of polite compliments about them. Then, turning to the subject of Egypt, he "informed me plump that he had certain knowledge that Arabi had been bought by Ismaïl, and that the whole thing in Egypt was an intrigue to restore the ex-Khedive!" This was another of the preposterous stories that were being foisted on the Foreign Office and the public to prejudice opinion against the Egyptian cause. It had reached the Foreign Office, as far as I have been able to ascertain, in a despatch or private letter from Sir Augustus Paget, then British Ambassador at Rome, to whom the ex-Khedive appears to have boasted at Naples that he had "ce gaillard là," meaning Arabi, in his pocket.

It is hardly necessary to inquire what motive of the moment Ismaïl may have had for making this assertion, for his word was never of any value, while the whole tenor of Arabi's career proves it to have been the absolute reverse of fact. Arabi's attitude at the date in question was more than ever one of hostility to the Circassian pashas, Ismaïl's adherents, who were actively intriguing with Tewfik against him. Ismaïl, however, had purposes of his own to serve in making it appear that the trouble in Egypt had come about on his account. He always clung to the idea that the day would come when the Powers of Europe would repent of having deposed him, and would return to him as the only possible ruler of a country distracted because he was no longer there to control it. At the moment I did not know the quarter from which the story was derived, nor could I do more to refute it than by telling Lord Granville how utterly opposed to the ex-Khedive the National fellah leader had always been.11 This I did, and I delivered also the message Arabi had entrusted me with for Mr. Gladstone. His only answer was "Will they give up the claim of the Chamber to vote the Budget?" I told him that I feared it was hopeless to expect this, as the Deputies were all of one mind. "Then," he said, "I look upon their case as hopeless. It must end by their being put down by force." I told him I could not believe the English Government could really intervene, on such a plea, to put down liberty. But he maintained his ground, and I left him much dissatisfied, resolving that I would waste no more time upon trying to persuade the Foreign Office, but would put what pressure I could on them from the outside. "I must see Gladstone."

I also, the same day, saw Morley at his newspaper office, to try to neutralize the effect of the falsehoods with which he was being flooded, but I feared without success. He believed implicitly in Colvin, who was his regular correspondent at Cairo, and there were other influences besides, as we have seen, at work upon him and which were too strong for me to combat in his mind.

On the 11th I dined with Button, who had invited a party specially to meet me. These were Sir Francis Knollys, the Prince of Wales's secretary, Reginald Brett (now Lord Esher), who was then Lord Hartington's secretary, Clifford, a leader writer of the "Times," and General Sir John Adye, who was a friend of Wolseley's and served under him that year in the Egyptian Campaign, remaining, nevertheless, a warm sympathizer with the Egyptians throughout, and, as will be seen, rendering good service to the cause of humanity after Tel-el-Kebir. We had a pleasant evening, and all showed themselves interested in my Egyptian views, and I remained talking with some of them till one in the morning. Knollys I know was impressed by what I told him, but Brett, who was a friend of the Rothschilds and other financiers who were clamouring for intervention, proved afterwards one of our bitterest enemies. He was working at the time for Morley in the "Pall Mall Gazette," and inspired, if he did not write, some of the articles which so influenced Gladstone.

On the 13th I saw Goschen, having been sent to him by Hamilton, on Mr. Gladstone's suggestion, as a man who, though not a member of the Government, was much trusted by them and advised them, especially on Egyptian affairs. With him I went more thoroughly than with either Dilke or Granville into the details of the National case. He affected much sympathy with me, more probably than he felt, and was particularly anxious to impress on me the notion that he was not taking a financial view of the situation. This was, doubtless, because his past connection with Egypt had been as representative of Ismaïl's creditors. I found him agreeable in manner, with much charm of voice, and I was with him quite two hours. His last words to me were: "You may be sure at least of one thing, and that is, that whatever the Government may do in Egypt they will do on general grounds of policy, not in the interests of the Bondholders." This was satisfactory and seemed to be in harmony with the situation of the moment, for that very morning the news had been published of de Blignières' resignation of his post at Cairo of French Financial Controller. The event had been interpreted in London as signifying a quarrel between the French Government and the Nationalist Ministry, but I knew that this was not the case. De Blignières had been even more and earlier than Colvin a worker for intervention, and I read his resignation for what it really was, a sign that his Government had thrown him over. If Colvin at the same time had been made to resign – and things, I believe, were very near it – all the subsequent trouble might have been avoided. Colvin, however was too strongly backed up by Dilke just then to be displaced.

I went on from Goschen's to lunch with Button, and found him with Lord De la Warr, a very worthy Tory peer and country neighbour of my own in Sussex, who had been the year before in Tunis, and had there imbibed, during the French invasion, a certain sympathy with the Arabs. Later we worked a good deal together on the Egyptian question, and he proved of considerable assistance when things came, in July, to a crisis. I was at that time urging that a Commission of Inquiry should be sent to Cairo, and it seemed that he, perhaps, might fill the post.

The same afternoon I saw Hamilton in Downing Street. A violent article, headed "Smouldering Fires in Egypt," had just appeared in the "Pall Mall," which was little better from beginning to end than a tissue of the old malicious stories, with some new ones prejudicial to the Nationalists. To these Hamilton pointed as a convincing proof, seeing they were in the "Pall Mall," that I must be wrong, "Or why," he said, "should Morley, who is so good a Liberal, take such a very illiberal line?" I explained to him Colvin's position in regard to Morley, which I had not yet done, and urged him again to let me speak with his chief. Up to this point, from a feeling of loyalty to men who had been my friends, and with whom I had acted during the earlier stages, I had refrained from making complaints against them, though Malet had not scrupled to complain of me. But now I saw that further silence on my part would be only mischievous, and I was resolved to tell Gladstone all the truth about them. Morley had the day before warned me of the impending article as one to which I would not assent, and had invited an answer to it. But I was too angry to reply, except with a short private note, which I followed next day by a visit to Northumberland Street, where I reproached him with printing the malicious nonsense. The evil, however, had been done, for the publication had immediately preceded a motion in the House of Commons brought forward by Sir George Campbell in regard to Egypt where the defamatory tales had been made use of. I was present at the debate on the motion, in which the principal speaker for the Government was Goschen, who adopted a conciliatory attitude, but less than a quite friendly one to Egyptian Nationalism. My conversation with him in the morning may have saved us from a worse pronouncement. Still there was no definite declaration made favourable to liberty.

My diary for 14th March notes a talk with Sir Henry Rawlinson, the former Minister to Persia, a distinguished Oriental historian, his views being of the strongest Anglo-Indian official type. The Egyptians had always, he said, been slaves, and slaves they would remain. Their country would be absorbed with the rest of Asia by England or Russia. He knew Asiatics too well to believe they had any taste for self-government. Also another talk with Walter, the proprietor of the "Times," whom Button had suggested I should see. He conversed in platitudes for half an hour, and in the end, promised he would send a special correspondent to Cairo for independent news. (This, however, was not done, Macdonald, the manager, objecting on the score of needless expense.)

On the 15th I went to see Sir Garnet Wolseley at the Horse Guards, and had with him a conversation which needs special mention. "After a little talk about Cyprus, we got upon Egypt and the chance of resistance on the part of the Nationalists in the case of intervention, and he asked me my opinion. I said, of course, they would fight, and not only the soldiers but the people also, and afterwards, perhaps, use other methods. He refused to believe that the army would fight at all. But I maintained the contrary, and told him if they sent him out to conquer Egypt in its present mood, he must be prepared to take with him at least 60,000 men." In this I no doubt exaggerated the case, for my object was to represent it as a very difficult one, which the Government should think twice about before attempting. "He volunteered the information that he had been consulted two or three times during the winter with a view to immediate occupation. He assured me, however, that nobody wanted to intervene, that the occupation of Egypt would be most unpopular with the army, and that he himself should be very sorry to have to go there. He would far rather the Egyptians should disband their army and trust to European protection. But I told him I could not advise them to do that, and that people were not often attacked who really meant fighting. He said, 'Well, of course there is no such thing as honour in war, and if there were really any question of fighting, they ought not to trust us more than other people.'" He then talked about the various military routes to Cairo, Bonaparte's, by the left bank of the Nile, and especially the desert way between the Suez Canal and the Delta, so that I felt pretty sure that if troops were landed it would be on that side. But I was careful to give him no information which could be of the least use to him, and I only laughed when he half seriously asked me whether I would go with him and show him the way if it came to a campaign. My impression of Wolseley was of "a good smart soldier, an Irishman, with a rough touch of brogue, good humoured, and I should fancy enterprising. But he does not impress me as a man of genius – what Napoleon used to call a 'général à dix mille hommes.'" It is worth noting that in writing to Sheykh Mohammed Abdu, through my secretary, Sabunji, soon after this conversation, I alluded to the danger there might be, in case of intervention, of their being attacked from the Ismaïlia side, and I believe it was in consequence of this hint that the lines of Tel-el Kebir were begun to be traced by Arabi's order.

The same day I saw Lyall, whom I found just starting for India, where he had been named Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Provinces. I found him much less sceptical about the National Party in Egypt than was the case then with most Anglo-Indians. In the evening I dined with Hamilton and Godley, Gladstone's two private secretaries, and showed them the draft of a letter I had written to Lord Granville, in which I had formally delivered Arabi's message of goodwill to the English Government, and also his complaint against Colvin and Malet, which I had not mentioned to him, for the reason already given, when I saw him at the Foreign Office. Of this draft the two secretaries highly approved, and especially Godley, who was the senior of the two, and he made me strike out a phrase I had introduced of apology for my interference in this important public matter. He said emphatically, "Your interference needs no excuse." Godley was a singularly high-minded man, representing the better and more enthusiastic side of Gladstone's public character, the large sympathy with what was good in the world and the scorn of what was base. Except that he had great practical ability for his official work, he was absolutely unlike the men usually found in our public offices, and throughout the Egyptian crisis he gave me his warmest support and sympathy. Hamilton, though also sympathetic, was more so because he was my personal friend than from any natural enthusiasm for the kind of cause I was defending. My letter ended with a suggestion that something in the nature of an official inquiry should be sent to Cairo to examine into the facts in a spirit friendly to the Egyptians. They both urged me to send in the letter, and I consequently did so four days later, under the date 20th March. Its importance justifies my giving it here in extenso:

"The kindness with which your Lordship was good enough to listen to me on certain points of the political situation in Egypt, encourages me to offer you the following suggestions for your further consideration:

"If I rightly understood your Lordship, Her Majesty's Government are not desirous of precipitating matters in that direction, but would be willing to accept a peaceable solution, could such be found, of the question in dispute between the Control and the Egyptian Government, and would only resort in the last instance to force were the political interests of England to be seriously impaired, or international engagements actually broken by the National Party now in power.

"Now, I am sufficiently well acquainted with the views of that party, or, at least, of their most prominent leaders, to be able to speak positively to the fact that there is nothing nearer to their wishes than a good understanding with Her Majesty's Government. Indeed, I have the authority of Arabi Bey to assure your Lordship that, if addressed in a friendly manner, he will use his utmost influence with his party, and it is very great, to allay the bitter feelings which have arisen between the Egyptians and the English and other officials employed in the country, and that he would meet half-way any negotiations which may be entered into with a view to a peaceable arrangement. He has begged me, however, to lay before you the difficulties of the position in which he is placed by the attitude of personal hostility displayed towards him by the English Controller-General, and to a certain extent also by Her Majesty's Minister.

"Sir Auckland Colvin, as your Lordship is well aware, has taken a prominent political part in the various ministerial changes, and in what it is perhaps necessary to call the revolution, which the last six months have witnessed in Egypt. On the 9th of September it was he who advised the Khedive to arrest and shoot this very Arabi Bey, now Minister of War; and he has taken no pains to conceal the fact, having himself, as I understand, communicated the details of what then happened to the English newspapers. It is also well known to the Egyptians that he has been and still is in communication with the press in a sense hostile to the National Party, and especially to the army, and that on the occasion of Sherif Pasha's resignation he unreservedly stated his intention to 'use every means in his power to ruin the National Party and bring about intervention.' If these things were known only to Arabi, he might, he assures me, overlook them; but, unfortunately, they are matters of public notoriety, a fact which makes it impossible for him to show himself on terms of intimacy with their author.

"Of Sir Edward Malet he has expressed himself less decidedly, but still partly in the same sense. It has been a misfortune of Sir Edward's position with the Egyptians that his visit to Constantinople closely coincided with the strong advocacy of Turkish intervention which the English press displayed last autumn, and I am myself convinced that the French Government are responsible for the belief, which is ineradicable in all minds at Cairo, that he has at various times suggested military action. I know, myself, that this is untrue, and that Sir Edward has, on the contrary, deprecated any such solution of his difficulties; but certain facts remain, which lend a colour to the idea. Thus to the very date of the assembling of the Egyptian Chamber he refused to recognize the National demand for Constitutional Government as a serious matter; again, he joined Sir Auckland Colvin in displaying a marked partisanship for Sherif in his quarrel with the deputies; and he has since given offence by expressing his belief in a story, wholly unfounded and peculiarly irritating to those deputies, namely, that their President, Sultan Pasha, a man universally respected, had been personally insulted by Arabi.

"Be this as it may, it is certain both Sir Edward Malet and Sir Auckland Colvin, instead of being in a position to advise and restrain are practically 'in Coventry' with the Egyptian Government. They are shut out from all true sources of information regarding their plans, and are compelled to leave the field open to intriguers of other nationalities who have no interest in advising moderation or desire to avert a rupture.

"If your Lordship should find that there is any reason in my argument thus stated, I may perhaps be permitted to make the following suggestion.

"The National Ministers are now engaged in preparing a series of grave complaints against the working of the system established by England and France and sanctioned by the Control, some of which complaints are certainly well founded. They are willing to approach the inquiry in a moderate and friendly spirit, but they will certainly approach it in a hostile one if the Control and diplomacy continue hostile. The matters in dispute are largely matters of fact which, if justice is to be observed and an undoubted moral standing ground acquired by Her Majesty's Government, should be examined in an absolutely impartial mood and on the evidence no less of the Egyptians than of the Europeans. That evidence, I submit, it is out of the reach of Her Majesty's representatives, diplomatic and financial, to procure, and that impartiality will certainly be suspected in their case by the Egyptians. Would it not then be advisable, during the six months which must elapse before the Egyptian Parliament reassembles and the conflict be engaged, to send something in the nature of a commission of inquiry to examine into the facts complained of in a friendly spirit, the only spirit which can possibly avert disaster."

To continue from my diary I find that on the 16th I wrote, with Sabunji's help as scribe, a long letter to Arabi, telling him that I was asking for a Commission to be appointed and that I was in good hopes, but entreating him to be cautious; and also to Gregory, who was still at Cairo. The situation in Egypt then was that the Chamber of Delegates, having insisted upon the right they had claimed to vote that half of the Budget which was not affected to the payment of the interest on the debt, a new Leyha, or organic law, granting a Constitution on European models had been signed, as we have seen, by the Khedive and published. The Ministers had also presented to the Chamber of Deputies a list of practical reforms, all of which were much needed and most of which have since, after many years, been carried out. Which done, the Chamber had been adjourned till the autumn. Absolute tranquillity had meanwhile prevailed throughout the country, and the sole cause of quarrel with Europe was the financial one of the vote, a dispute which could not become acute for at least six months, when the next new budget would be framed. There is not the smallest doubt that if Colvin had been induced to join his French colleague, de Blignières, in retiring from Egypt, and my suggestion of the Commission had been adopted, things in Egypt would have quieted down and all cause for armed intervention would have disappeared. The Egyptian Ministry desired nothing more than to live at peace with the whole world and to come to an understanding with the Dual Governments on all disputed questions.

On 20th March I lunched at Button's to meet his uncle, Robert Bourke, who was to bring forward the Egyptian question next week formally in Parliament. With him was another Tory member, Montague Guest, who had interested himself in the cause of Tunis. These were among the second strings to my bow, if Gladstone should fail me. Then I attended a meeting of the Asiatic Society, to which I had just been elected, and in the evening dined with Rivers Wilson. With Wilson I "quarrelled fearfully about Egypt." He told me he had helped to draw up a new Note, at the Foreign Office, which was now being despatched to Malet, "insisting on the fulfilment of all International engagements," a Note intended to be a new menace to the National Party, but which I think was never sent, or perhaps cancelled, as it does not appear in the Blue Book. My letter to Granville may have been the cause of its suppression. Wilson insisted that the whole National movement was an invention of Ismaïl's, and that "if the ex-Khedive were to land to-morrow at Alexandria, every Egyptian would come to him on his hands and knees." From this dinner I went on to a party at Lady Kenmare's, where I met Lady Salisbury, who took me aside, and cross-questioned me with much appearance of sympathy about the Egyptian cause, and I laid it before her to the best of my ability, knowing that what I said would be repeated to her husband. Of course there could be no real sympathy in any of the Tories, especially in Lord Salisbury, for my views on Egyptian liberty, but it suited the Opposition to take me up to just the extent that would help them to bring the Government into discredit, Salisbury himself was throughout a thoroughgoing advocate of intervention. I walked home that evening with Hamilton, whom I had found at the party, and told him of Wilson's boast about the new Note, and entreated him to get me immediate audience of his chief, and he urged me to send in my letter at once to Granville, and also a copy of it to Gladstone. This I did the following morning, entrusting both to Hamilton for delivery. He had already, 21st March, arranged an interview for me with his chief for the next day. A dinner in the evening at Robert Bourke's, General Taylor, the Opposition Whip, Lady Ely, and a number more Tories.