704
EGYPT
some of the Courts of Justice international. The Caisse de la Dette, the result of the Cave Mission, established international control over a large portion of the revenue. By the Goschen Mission, the next in order of time, the State railways were internationalized. Then came the Rivers Wilson Mission, in consequence of which the control was extended to the enormous landed 'property of the Khedive. Driven to desperation, Ismail made a virtue of necessity and accepted, in September 1878, a Constitutional Ministry, under the presidency of Nubar Pasha, with Rivers Wilson as Minister of Finance and De Blignieres as Minister of Public Works. Professing to be quite satisfied with this arrangement, he pompously announced that Egypt was no longer in Africa, but a part of Europe; but before seven months had passed he found his Constitutional position intolerable, got rid of his irksome Cabinet by means of a secretly-organized military riot in Cairo, and reverted to his old autocratic methods of government. England and France could hardly sit still under this affront, and decided to administer chastisement by the hand of the Suzerain Power, which was delighted to have an opportunity of asserting its authority. On 26th June 1879 Ismail suddenly received from the Sultan a curt telegram, addressed to him as ex-Khedive of Egypt, informing him that his son Tewfik was appointed his successor. Taken unawares, he made no attempt at resistance, and Tewfik was at once proclaimed Khedive. After a short period of inaction, when it seemed as if the change were for the worse, England and France Re estab- slimmonecf UP courage to look the situation lishment boldly in the face, and re-established the Dual of Dual Control in the persons of Major Baring and M. Control. qe Blignieres. For two years the Dual Control governed Egypt, and initiated the work of progress that England was to continue alone. Its essential defect was what might be called insecurity of tenure. Without any efficient means of self-protection and coercion at its disposal, it had to interfere with the power, privileges, and perquisites of a class which had long misgoverned the country. This class, so far as its civilian members were concerned, was not very formidable, because these were not likely to go beyond the bounds of intrigue and passive resistance; but it contained a military element who had more courage, and who had learned their power when Ismail employed them for overturning his Constitutional Ministry. Among the mutinous soldiers on that Arab! and occasion was a fellah officer calling himself
- 0/1882“ Ahmed Arabi the Egyptian. He was not a
man of exceptional intelligence or remarkable powers of organization, but he was a fluent speaker, and could exercise some influence over the masses by a rude kind of native eloquence. Behind him were a group of men, much abler than himself, who put him forward as the figurehead of a party professing to aim at protecting the Egyptians from the grasping tyranny of their Turkish and European oppressors. The movement began among the Arab officers, who complained of the preference shown to the officers of Turkish origin; it then expanded into an attack on the privileged position and predominant influence of foreigners, many of whom, it must be confessed, were of a by no means respectable type; finally it was directed against all Christians, foreign and native. The Government, being too weak to suppress the agitation and disorder, had to make concessions, and each concession produced fresh demands. Arabi was first promoted, then made Under-Secretary for War, and ultimately a member of the Cabinet. The danger of a serious rising brought the British and French fleets in May 1882 to Alexandria, and after a massacre (11th June) had been perpetrated by the Arab mob in that city, the British Admiral bombarded the
[political history.
forts (11th July 1882). The leaders of the National Movement prepared to resist further aggression by force. A conference of Ambassadors was held in Constantinople, and the Sultan was invited to quell the revolt; but he hesitated to employ his troops against Mussulmans who were professing merely to oppose Christian aggression. At last the British Government determined to employ armed Sing]e force, and invited France to co-operate. The banded French Government declined, and a similar in- British vitation to Italy met with a similar refusal, interEngland therefore, having to act alone, landed v troops at Ismailia under Sir Garnet Wolseley, and suppressed the revolt by the battle of Tel-el-Kebir on 13th September 1882. The Khedive, who had taken refuge in Alexandria, returned to Cairo, and a Ministry was formed under Sherif Pasha, with Riaz Pasha as one of its leading members. On assuming office, the first thing it had to do was to bring to trial the chiefs of the rebellion. Had the Khedive and Riaz been allowed a free hand, Arabi and his colleagues would have found little mercy. Thanks to the intervention of the British Government, their lives were spared. Arabi pleaded guilty, was sentenced to death, the sentence being commuted by the Khedive to banishment ;• and Riaz resigned in disgust. This solution of the difficulty was brought about by Lord Dufferin, then British Ambassador at Constantinople, who had been sent to Egypt as High Commissioner to adjust affairs and report on the situation. One of his first acts, after preventing the application of capital punishment to the ringleaders of the revolt, was to veto the project of protecting the Khedive and his Government by means of a Praetorian guard recruited from Asia Minor, Epirus, Austria, and Switzerland, and to insist on the principle that Egypt must be governed in a truly liberal spirit. Passing in review all the departments of the administration, he laid down the general lines on which the country was to be restored to order and prosperity, and endowed, if possible, with the elements of self-government for future use. The laborious task of putting these general indications into a practical shape fell to Sir Evelyn Baring, who arrived as Consul-General and Diplomatic SjrEvelya Agent, in succession to Sir Edward Malet, in Baring January 1884. At that moment the situation appointed was singularly like that which had existed on Consultwo previous occasions: firstly, when Ismail ^gg^aI’ was deposed, and secondly, when the Dual Control had undermined the existing authority without having any power to enforce its own. For the third time in little more than three years the existing authority had been destroyed and a new one had to be created. But there was one essential difference: the power that had now to reorganize the country possessed in the British army of occupation a support sufficient to command respect. Without that support Sir Evelyn Baring could have done little or nothing; with it he did perhaps more than any other single man could have done. His method may be illustrated by an old story long current in Cairo. Mohammed Ali was said to have appointed as Mudir or governor in a turbulent district a young and inexperienced Turk, who asked, “But how am I to govern these people 1 ” “Listen,” replied the Pasha; “buy the biggest and heaviest Jcurbash you can find; hang it up in the centre of the Mudirieh, well within your reach, and you will very seldom require to use it.” The British army of occupation was Sir Evelyn’s kurbash; it was well within his reach, as all the world knew, and its simple presence sufficed to prevent disorder and enforce obedience. He had one other advantage over previous English reformers in Egypt: his position towards France was more independent. The Dual Control had been abolished by a Khedivial decree of 18th January 1883,
