The Siege of London (Posteritas)/Chapter 4
THE LIBERALS COME INTO POWER ONCE MORE.—WAR FEELING DISPLAYS INSELF IN FRANCE AGAINST ENGLAND.—THE WEAKNESS OF THE BRITISH NAVY IS STILL A SOURCE OF ANXIETY, BUT THE PEOPLE ARE DECEIVED BY THE RADICALS.—FRENCH DEMANDS.—FRENCH ULTIMATUM.—FRENCH DECLARATION OF WAR.
AS the Liberals once again took up the reins of Government, rumours were in the air of a secret alliance against England on the part of France, Russia, and Spain. The Conservative organs in the Press, and even some of the more moderate Liberals, pointed out, that if the rumour of this alliance was true it boded ill indeed for England. Spain had never forgotten Gibraltar, and never forgiven Trafalgar; while Russia still smarted from the scars inflicted in the Crimea. A coalition of the three powers, therefore, against England was not, under the circumstances, a matter that could create surprise, although it ought certainly to have aroused alarm. In the event of war between France and England, France could insure the assistance of Spain by holding out to her the hopes of regaining the Rock Fortress of the Mediterranean; while Russia, with one eye on Constantinople and the other on India, would give France her moral support in a war, if France engaged not to interfere with Russian designs.
It is worthy of remark, and remarkable as showing the temper of the Liberal party at this time, that they not only laughed to scorn the idea of a coalition of the powers named, but they openly avowed their determination to reverse in toto the work carried on by their predecessors. Amongst other things that Sir Stafford Northcote's Government had done was the placing of garrisons at Quettah in Afghanistan, and at Peshawar, and the commencement of a strong fort in the Khyber Pass. The Liberals, on their accession to office, lost no time in withdrawing the garrisons, and stopping the works that had been begun in the Khyber, and in accordance with their former traditions under the Gladstone régime they re-opened negotiations with Russia for pledges that she would not make any further advances towards Afghanistan. Of course, these pledges were readily given, and the Liberals, as they had always done, had faith in them.
If the Marquess of Hartington's policy of opposition to the course pursued by the Conservatives had ended here all might have been well. But, urged on by the extreme Radicals of his party, he pursued a still more fatal course. The Conservatives had, during their short term of office, endeavoured to restore the financial condition of Egypt, and, to protect that unhappy country from the Soudanese, they had, therefore, seized and held Souakim and Berber, besides strengthening the garrisons of Cairo and Alexandria. A promise had been made that the suspension of the Sinking Fund should be removed, a strong native Government had been placed in power, and it seemed probable that at last light would break through the darkness that had so long enveloped the country. But the Liberals at once abandoned Souakim and Berber, and seriously reduced the garrisons of Cairo and Alexandria. The result was, the Soudan once again rose in revolt and threatened Egypt, and matters were soon restored to the condition they were in when the Liberals went out of office. The Marquess of Hartington, inspired by the spirit of his old master, showed a nervous, fretful desire to be done with Egypt altogether,—to scuttle out of the country, in point of fact, and leave it to those who wished it. But in this he found that the majority of his followers were against him; for; £5,000,000 of British money had been lent to Egypt, and until that was paid back the scuttling policy was not acceptable to the huckstering spirit of the Radicals.
The native Government which the Conservatives had formed resigned, as a protest against the new policy of England,—or, rather, we should say, against the revival of the old policy of procrastination, uncertainty, delay, and want of vigour, which had before reduced Egypt to such sore straits.
But the worst result of this new move in the eternal Anglo-Egyptian game was, that it gave France a fresh chance to attempt once more to get a footing on the banks of the Nile. A year previously a change of Government had taken place in France, and the new Cabinet was decidedly warlike in its tendencies. For some years France had suffered from a colonising mania. She had conquered Tunis; had established herself in Madagascar; and, after a long and desultory war with China, had become possessed of the whole of Tonquin, and held the island of Formosa, pending the payment of an enormous war indemnity which she had exacted from the Government of Pekin. This success of the French arms seems to have filled the people with wild and Quixotic dreams, and they believed, and, in fact, openly proclaimed, that England's power was declining, and that France was destined to take England's place as a colonising nation.
To French minds, imbued with these views, it seemed more than ever vital to French interests that French power should be upheld in Egypt; and her interests in the Suez Canal were made the pretext for demanding in emphatic language that she should be allowed to take part in governing a country where these interests lay. England's vacillating policy had, it was declared in France, utterly ruined Egypt, which was liable at any moment to fall a prey to internecine revolt on the part of the Egyptian people, or be overrun by the Soudanese, who were growing bolder and bolder, and defying England since she had withdrawn from Souakim and Berber. If either of these two dangers should be realised, France maintained that the Suez Canal would be imperilled, and on those pounds she insisted that it was a national duty with her to safeguard her interests.
There can be no shadow of doubt that had a strong Government been in power in England, these pretensions of France would have been settled diplomatically. But the Liberals had seldom distinguished themselves in foreign policy, and since the Radicals had been in the ascendancy that policy had been the ridicule of the world. Even in the face of the threatened danger of a rupture with her Continental neighbour, the men at the head of English affairs continued to dally and shuffle, until the relations between the two countries had become exceedingly strained. Statements and warnings were constantly being made in the Conservative papers that a powerful French fleet was assembling in the harbours of Cherbourg and Brest, and that in the French naval dockyards the utmost activity prevailed. But these warnings were disregarded, and the Ministerial organs pronounced them "the nightmare fears of Jingo alarmists." But it was nevertheless a fact that France was secretly and silently making great preparations. For years she had been adding to her naval strength, and thoughtful men had foretold the day when she would contest with England the supremacy of the seas. But Radical statesmen in England had continued to gull the people into a belief that England's power was absolute and could not be broken. A few years previously fears had been expressed that the British navy was not as powerful as it ought to be, and when the Conservatives came into power they laid down several first-class ships, and distributed orders amongst private firms for a number of unarmoured cruisers, of an exceptional rate of speed, all of which were to be heavily armed. The work was pushed forward with great rapidity during the Conservative Administration; but, as soon as ever the Liberals got the reins again, they allowed the work to flag, and discharged immense numbers of men from the Government dockyards so as to reduce the estimates in their Budget. Dust was thus thrown into the eyes of the English people, who were content to live on in the fool's paradise which Democrats and Radicals had created for them.
While the British Government was trying to wriggle out of the difficulty they themselves had created, matters were fast approaching a crisis, and the very thing the French had expressed fears about occurred. Some three or four thousand Egyptian fellaheen, driven to desperation by famine, as it was said at the time, but as has since been proved really incited by French agents, rose in revolt and and attempted to injure the Suez Canal. The French immediately announced their intention of sending two men of war to each end of the Canal, and of landing a force of blue-jackets at Ismaila. But England opposed this and sent some of her own ships. This move in-the diplomatic game was a fatal one for England, and it exasperated France into a white heat of passion. Monster public meetings were held in Paris to protest against the "high-handed proceeding" of England, and to call upon the French Government to make it a casus belli. Enthusiasm rose to a tremendous pitch, and from one end of France to the other the cry resounded of "à bas Londres! à bas Londres!" Yielding to this public spirit of hatred for their hereditary enemy, and which had never displayed itself so forcibly since the days of the first Napoleon, the French Government demanded the withdrawal of the English ships or the right to send French ships. As neither demand was complied with, an Ultimatum was presented, giving seven days for the terms to be accepted; but, as the British Ministry did not condescend to even send a polite refusal to this Ultimatum, France declared war.