The 'confidential, personal, private, and academic' character of M. de Freycinet's conversation was, of course, merely intended to conceal his own vacillation and fear of having to communicate to the Chambers any announcement that he had sanctioned Turkish intervention in any shape whatever. A little later, however, he nerved himself to make a proposal that there should be a joint Anglo-French Naval Demonstration off Alexandria. An allied squadron consequently proceeded to that port, and its appearance produced a temporary panic in the ranks of the Nationalists; the latter, however, speedily recovered when it was realized that there were no troops on board, and that the Sultan, far from approving of the demonstration, had protested against it. The ultimatum of the allies was practically rejected, and Arabi, who had been compelled to resign, was reinstated in office nominally as Minister of War, in reality as dictator. To make Freycinet's position still worse, he got into difficulties in the Chamber.
Lord Lyons to Lord Granville.
Paris, May 26, 1882.
The explosion has come, and if the irritation that prevails in Paris to-day continues, Freycinet will be out of office, or will, per fas et nefas, back out of his proposal that Turkish intervention may be resorted to in Egypt. His Chauvin speech in the Chamber about French preponderance, and what not, is now of course turned against him.
There is an impression here that in order to keep Gambetta out of office, Bismarck may help Freycinet to eat his words.
I am afraid that now, whether Freycinet stays in or goes out, it will be next to impossible to have any comfortable understanding with France about intervention in Egypt.
Even supposing all the other Powers cordially united with us, to repeat the experiment of 1840 would be dangerous, and would produce a scarcely ever to be remedied coldness (to call it by a mild name) between us and France.
Then I share all Dufferin's misgivings as to the possibility of either controlling the Turks if they set foot in Egypt, or of ever getting them out. I have also a very strong fear of my own as to the mischief they would do to the country. Even if they went with the acquiescence of France, I think we should be constantly in hot water with the French as long as they stayed.
If Gambetta comes in he will no doubt again propose joint Anglo-French intervention. Unless the Porte is backed up very strongly indeed, he will very likely make its intervention in Egypt something like a casus belli with Turkey—or in fact do as the French did with regard to Tunis—declare that he will oppose by force the despatch of Turkish troops to Egypt.
The Anglo-French Naval Demonstration had been intended as a compromise between the two Governments over the question of Turkish intervention, but when it was seen to be useless, it was agreed that the Sultan should be asked to send a Special Commission to Cairo, and communications were made to the other Powers with a view to convoking a European Conference on Egypt; M. de Freycinet, who had for three months opposed the English proposal for Turkish intervention, suddenly discovering that there was no danger about it, if requested jointly by England and France. The Turkish Commission which proceeded to Egypt was not more successful in restoring order than the Anglo-French Naval Demonstration. It consisted of three persons; one of whom, Dervish Pasha, was instructed to support the Khedive and to threaten the Nationalist leaders; the second Commissioner was instructed to support Arabi and his associates; and the duty of the third Commissioner was to spy upon his two colleagues. In order to make everything quite safe, the latter was accompanied by a fourth official, whose duty it was to spy upon him, and it was perhaps owing to these over-elaborated precautions that the mission proved to be a complete failure.
On June 11, the massacre at Alexandria took place, and armed intervention became more and more inevitable, but some Governments still entertained the hope that diplomacy might yet be successful, and the Conference assembled at Constantinople towards the end of the month. The chief advantage of the Conference was that it disclosed the views of the various Great Powers, and the conditions which were to govern the despatch of Turkish troops to Egypt were of so engrossing a nature that they were still being discussed when the battle of Tel-el-Kebir was fought two months subsequently, and the victorious British troops entered Cairo.
The vacillations and dilatoriness of M. de Freycinet irritated even the easy-going Lord Granville, who complained of having twice been put in a hole by him, and was justifiably anxious as to how he could defend his Egyptian policy successfully in Parliament if the French Government could not be relied upon for any consistent line of action. But while admitting that nearly everything had gone wrong up till now, and that the failure of the Sultan's Special Mission made the outlook still more gloomy, he consoled himself with the reflection (which was shortly afterwards shown in one respect to be quite erroneous) that, 'we have avoided a rupture with France, a rupture with Europe, and a possible war.' Within a few weeks, the error of this last assumption was to be conclusively established.