I.
At the beginning of 1881 the form of government which Europe had set up in Egypt was but young. Tewfik, the Khedive chosen by the French and British Governments to replace Ismail, had occupied his position for less than two years. Riaz Pasha, head of the Ministry after the fall of his predecessor Nubar, [Footnote: There is a note of October 13th, 1880: 'I saw Nubar Pasha about Egypt, and I had received an extremely able long letter from Rivers Wilson asking me to interfere to restore Nubar to power, but I did not as a fact discuss Egypt with the French.'] had brought about a mutiny of officers early in 1879, and was carrying on public affairs with difficulty. He had been forced to sacrifice his War Minister to the second mutiny (of February, 1881) which followed on the arrest and secured the release of Arabi. In the spring of the year the smouldering discontent of the army was fanned into flame by the advance of the French to Tunis.
'On May 12th' (1881—the very date on which the French Expeditionary Force constrained the Bey of Tunis to accept French suzerainty) 'steps were taken on behalf of Lord Hartington, Lord Granville, and myself to see whether, now that France had knocked another bit out of the bottom of the Ottoman Empire by her attack on Tunis, we ought to try to get any compensation in Egypt for ourselves. Hartington was to consult the India Office upon the question, and I wrote to Sir Edward Hertslet, asking him to consider how we stood with reference to the despatch of troops through Egypt in the event of (1) a rising in India, (2) an invasion of India by Russia.'
On July 28th, 1881, there took place at the Foreign Office the first
meeting of a Committee 'to consider the affairs of Egypt, consisting of
Tenterden, myself, Pauncefote, Malet, Scott the Judge, young Maine, and
Reilly.' Sir Charles Rivers Wilson, who had been Finance Minister under
Ismail, was called in from time to time.
'My own endeavours on this Committee were directed against increasing
internationally in Egypt, as I thought the Governments of England and
France would be driven sooner or later to occupy the country with a
joint force, and that internationality (which would mean German
influence) would then be a great difficulty in the way.'
The need for intervention soon grew urgent. On September 9th, 1881, a large body of troops, headed by Arabi, threatened the Khedive's palace, demanding the dismissal of all the Ministers, the convocation of a parliament, and a great increase of the army. Again the mutiny succeeded, and this time, in Sir Edward Malet's words, "it was more than a mutiny, it was a revolution." Riaz Pasha was replaced by Cherif, but all real power was in the hands of the soldiery.
The question now came to be, Who should step in to establish order? The Sultan of Turkey, who saw a chance of making his nominal suzerainty real, proposed to despatch troops, but confined himself to sending envoys. As a counter-demonstration, France and England each sent a warship to Alexandria; and Gambetta's accession to power in November meant a great reinforcement to the policy of joint intervention.
Sir Charles was then in Paris engaged in the commercial negotiations already described, and he chronicled in his diary a sporting suggestion:
"September 19th, 1881.—After the seventeenth sitting of the Treaty Joint Commission I had an interview with Delia Sala, the Italian who is an Egyptian General, and governs the Soudan. He is a great fencer, and has killed his man before now. He declares himself willing to put down insubordination in the Egyptian Army by calling out three of the Colonels in succession. A more practical but hardly less bold suggestion of his is that he should be allowed to increase his anti- slavery regiment of 600 men, and then to use it as a bodyguard for Malet instead of the putting down of slavery."
'On December 27th, 1881, Lord Granville asked me by letter to discuss with Gambetta all the possible alternatives, and especially joint occupation (to which Lord Granville saw objection), and a Turkish intervention under the control of England and France (to which French opinion was opposed): "The more you can get out of Gambetta without committing us the more grateful we shall be." I have no recollection of having discussed Egypt with Gambetta.'
Shortly afterwards
'Malet wrote from Cairo to Paris, telling me that he still had confidence in the moderation of the progressist party represented by Arabi and the Colonels, and that he was managing them through Wilfrid Blunt, who was acting as a go-between; but a little later on the relations between Blunt and Malet became such as to show that each had thought he was using the other as a tool.'
"Moderation" is an ambiguous term. When the Chamber of Notables met at the end of December, 1881, the army put forward through the Minister for War a demand for an increase of 18,000 men. This increase the European controllers refused to sanction, on the ground that the country could not afford it. Thus came to pass a conflict between the national movement and the joint European control upon an issue which united the interests of the military party with the aspirations of the parliamentarian Nationalists for the power of the purse. Gambetta, however, was now dominant in France, and Gambetta had no tolerance for the pretensions of what he called a "sham assembly." A Joint Note, dated January 6th, 1882, was issued by the two Powers, in which England and France declared their intention to "guard by their united efforts against all cause of complication, internal or external, which might menace the order of things established in Egypt." Another phrase in the Note attributed the exchange of views between the Powers to "recent circumstances, especially the meeting of the Chamber of Notables convoked by the Khedive," and this was naturally construed by Nationalists to mean that parliamentary institutions were internal causes of complication.
The issue of this Note is one of the marking-points of modern Egyptian history. It asserted the determination of the joint Powers to make their will obeyed in Egypt, by force if necessary. According to general admission, its issue was due to the overmastering influence of Gambetta. Dilke, whom everyone knew to be Gambetta's intimate, was in France almost continuously from the time when Gambetta became Prime Minister on November 10th, 1881, till the eve of the issue of the Joint Note. In 1878, while in Opposition, he had publicly advocated a policy of annexation in Egypt, and it was inevitable that critics should fasten upon him a special responsibility for the course pursued.
Yet, as the Memoir makes clear, in 'this weighty affair' Dilke had virtually no voice. He was not in the Cabinet, and he was absent from Paris for nearly the whole of December, taking a holiday in Provence from commercial negotiations. Only on his return, on December 27th, did he receive Lord Granville's letter—which was dated December 21st—asking him to discuss with Gambetta the possible alternatives. But although the two men met repeatedly between December 27th and January 2nd, when Dilke left Paris, Gambetta refrained from discussing Egypt. The Memoir says, under date January 7th, 1882:
'The Cabinet had before it the state of affairs in Egypt, and resolved upon agreeing on Gambetta's policy of a Joint Note on the part of England and of France in support of the Khedive against the revolutionary party. Mr. Ashmead Bartlett, misled by the dates of interviews, has asserted from that time to this (1890) that the Joint Note was arranged in Paris between Gambetta and myself. I have repeatedly denied that statement, for curiously enough it so happens that the Joint Note was the only important matter relating to Foreign Affairs which happened while I was at the Foreign Office in which I was not consulted. Gambetta never broached the subject with me, and I knew nothing of it until it was done. As we talked a little about Egypt, I suppose that he had reasons for not wishing to speak of the Joint Note to me, but I do not know what they were.'