WARS IN AFRICA
Meanwhile Great Britain had been brought back into the tide of foreign affairs. Events were taking place abroad which must here be dealt with briefly. The ambitious Briton, who loves to carry the world on his shoulders, had made the control of the Suez Canal an excuse for meddling with the government of Egypt. The immediate results were a revolution that drove Ismail Pasha from this throne, and a revolt of the people under an ambitious leader named Arabi Pasha, who seized Alexandria and drove out the British, many of whom were killed.
Gladstone, who deprecated war, now found himself with a conflict thrust upon his hands. The British fleet bombarded Alexandria, and the British army occupied it after it had been half reduced to ashes. Soon after General Wolseley defeated Arabi and his army and the insurrection ended. A sequel to this affair was a formidable outbreak in the Soudan, under El Mahdi, a Mohammedan fanatic, who captured the city of Khartoum and killed the famous General Gordon. Years passed before Upper Egypt was reconquered, it being recovered only at the close of the century. Since then Egypt has remained under British control.
There were serious troubles also in South Africa. The British of Cape Colony had pushed their way into the Boer settlement of the Transvaal, claiming jurisdiction over it. The valiant Dutch settlers broke into war, and dealt the invaders a signal defeat at Majuba Hill. This was the opening step in a series of occurrences which led to the later Boer war, in which the British, with great loss, conquered the Boers, followed in later years by a practical reconquest of the country by its Boer inhabitants in peaceful ways.
Such were the wars of the Gladstone administration, events of which he did not approve, but into which he was irresistibly drawn. At home the Irish question continued in the forefront. The African wars having weakened the administration, a vigorous assault was made on it by the Irish party in 1885, and it fell. But its demise was a very brief one. After a short experience of a Tory ministry under Lord Salisbury, Parnell’s party rallied to Gladstone’s side, the new government was defeated, and on February 1, 1886, Gladstone became Prime Minister for the third time.