March 12, 1884.
Your letters are most interesting, though not comforting. The difficulty of keeping on friendly terms with France is not to be underrated.
I await with almost equal interest the news which we shall probably get this evening from [illegible] and that which I suppose will come in a few days from Bac-Ninh.
I am afraid victory will make the French Government very difficult to deal with; on the other hand, a defeat, which is not likely, will make the Chinese intolerable.
Our own troubles, especially in the Soudan, are great. If things could settle there, I am confident that Egypt would soon recover the state in which she was before Hicks's defeat, and this notwithstanding all the intrigues which are going on there.
Bismarck says he shall give us no trouble about the Law of Liquidation, but that other nations will. What will be the best way of approaching the French Government when we have made up our own minds?
As to protection, it will create a very angry feeling here. It will ruin the French and it will make us the monopolists of the neutral markets of the world so long as we can keep at peace.
The Egyptian blister has diverted public attention from Merv. The question was treated in excellent speeches in the Lords, but the debate was dull and flat.
We do not make you a very handsome present in Mohrenheim. He is like a diplomatist on the stage.
Baron Mohrenheim, a diplomatist of a very conventional type, had just been transferred to Paris from the Russian Embassy in London, and was generally credited with strong anti-English sentiments.
On the question of the financial condition of Egypt, the British Government finally decided to propose a European Conference, and the decision was communicated to the French Government. As was only to be expected, the English proposal produced a conflict of opinion in France. Some approved of calling in Europe generally, but others denounced the proposal as a new proof of the treachery of England, who, according to them, was bound to treat with France alone, and called loudly upon the French Government to refuse to go into a Conference on equal terms with other Powers. All seemed to think, however, that the moment had come for France to reassume a position equal with that of England, if not superior to it. The attitude of the French Government itself was more moderate. Jules Ferry accepted the Conference 'in principle,' and endeavoured to show that two absolutely false notions prevailed in England which seemed to be the great obstacles to an understanding between the two countries. One was that if the English withdrew their troops from Egypt, France would send hers in; the other, that France sought to re-establish the Control.
The position in which Gordon now found himself in Khartoum began to cause Her Majesty's Government serious misgivings, and many expedients were suggested for relieving Ministers from their embarrassment. Amongst them appears a serio-comic proposition from the Baron de Billing, a well-known figure in Anglo-French society.
Lord Lyons to Lord Granville.
Paris, May 4, 1884.
I send you copies of a letter written to me by Baron de Billing yesterday and of a memo annexed to it. I don't know what you will think of the offer to rescue Gordon which they contain, but I deem it right to lay it before you. Billing made it to me verbally yesterday, and I begged him to put it in writing. The inclosed papers are the result.
Billing did not tell me who the persons were by whom the rescue was to be effected, but I understand that they were Arab Sheikhs or something of that kind. Apparently they are in Paris, for he professed to go to consult them before he sent me the memo.
He says you have known him from a boy.
'Il se porte garant de l'honorabilité des personnes en jeu.' For my part 'Je ne me porte garant de rien' in the matter.
Billing insisted much on the importance of his receiving a speedy answer.
MEMO.
'Gordon Pasha sera remis aux autorités egyptiennes ou anglaises à un des ports de la Mer Rouge ou aux avant-postes de l'armée anglo-egyptienne moyennant: