A history of England

by Charles Oman

Arabi's rebellion.

Soon after the Transvaal war had reached its disastrous conclusion, fresh troubles broke out in Egypt. Since Lord Beaconsfield first interfered in that country by buying for England the Suez Canal shares of the Khedive Ismail, Egyptian affairs had been going from bad to worse. After driving the country to the verge of bankruptcy, the old Khedive abdicated in 1879, in favour of his son Tewfik; but England and France joined to establish the "Dual Control" over the young sovereign, and appointed ministers to take charge of the finances of Egypt. Tewfik himself made little or no objection to this assertion of foreign domination, but some of his officers and ministers resented it, and in 1882, Arabi Pasha, an ambitious soldier, executed a coup d'êtat, drove away the foreign ministers, and raised the cry of "Egypt for the Egyptians." It was expected that the two powers who had established the Dual Control would unite to put down Arabi. But the French ministry, jealous of England, and hoping to draw its private profit out of the complication, refused to join in any action against him. It is probable that the Gladstone cabinet had no intention at first of provoking a war. But the English Mediterranean squadron was ordered to Alexandria, which Arabi was busily engaged in fortifying. On June 11, a great riot broke out in that city, and the mob massacred many hundreds of European residents. This made hostilities inevitable; when the Egyptian authorities refused to dismantle their new forts, Admiral Seymour bombarded the place (July 11), and drove out the garrison. Shortly after, English troops landed and seized the ruined city.

The Egyptian war.

The struggle which followed was brought to a prompt end by the quick and decisive action of Sir Garnet Wolseley, who seized the Suez Canal, and marched across the desert on Cairo, while the Egyptians were expecting him on the side of Alexandria. By a daring night-surprise, he carried the lines of Tel-el-Kebir (September 13), and routed Arabi's host. A day later, his cavalry seized Cairo by a wonderful march of fifty miles in twelve hours, and the rebellion was at an end. Arabi was exiled to Ceylon, and the Khedive was restored to his palace in Cairo; but for all intents and purposes the war left England supreme in Egypt—a very anomalous position, which Mr. Gladstone soon proceeded to make yet more so, by promising France and Turkey that the English troops should be withdrawn so soon as order and good government should be restored.

The war in the Soudan.—Gordon at Khartoum.

He might, perchance, have carried out his engagement but for the outbreak of the disastrous Soudan war of 1883. During Arabi's rebellion troubles had broken out in the Egyptian provinces on the Upper Nile, where the pashas had been subjecting the wild Arab tribes to cruel oppression. A fanatic named Mohamed Ahmed, of Dongola, put himself at the head of the rising, proclaiming that he was the Mahdi, the prophet whom Mussulmans expect to appear in the last days before the end of the world. When the English had put down Arabi, they found themselves forced to cope with the insurrection in the Soudan. Accordingly General Hicks was despatched with a raw native army to attack the Mahdi; but he and all his troops were cut to pieces (October 3, 1883). The government then resolved to send to the Soudan Charles Gordon, a brave and pious engineer officer, who had won much credit for his wise administration of the land in the days of the old Khedive Ismail. But he was given no troops to aid him, and was merely told to withdraw the Egyptian garrisons from the Upper Nile, as the cabinet did not wish to reconquer the lost provinces, and thought that the insurgents had been justified in their rebellion by the atrocious misgovernment of their Egyptian masters. Gordon reached Khartoum, the capital of the Soudan, but, immediately on his arrival there, was beleaguered by the hordes of the Mahdi (February, 1884). With two or three Europeans only to aid him, and no troops but the cowed and dispirited Egyptians, who had been driven into Khartoum from their other posts in the lost provinces, Gordon made a heroic defence. But as he could not withdraw his garrison without help from outside, he besought the cabinet for English troops, pointing out that the Soudanese enemy were not patriots struggling to be free, but ferocious fanatics, who massacred all who refused to acknowledge the Mahdi, and believed themselves destined to conquer the whole world.

The fall of Khartoum.

The English ministry ultimately sent a small force, under Lord Wolseley, the victor of Tel-el-Kebir, with orders to rescue Gordon and his garrison, and then to retire. But the expedition was despatched too late. After forcing their way in small boats up the Nile, and marching 180 miles across the waterless Bayuda desert, the main column of the relieving army beat the Mahdi's hordes at the hard-fought fight of Abu-Klea (January 22, 1885), and forced their way to within 100 miles of Khartoum, but there learnt that the place had been stormed, and Gordon, with the 11,000 men of his garrison, cut to pieces, four days after the battle of Abu-Klea (January 26, 1885).

Progress of the Mahdi.

The English then retired and abandoned the whole Soudan to the Mahdi's wild followers, who soon threatened Egypt itself. Two successive expeditions were sent to Suakim, on the Red Sea, to endeavour to attack the Mahdists from that side. Both had to withdraw after advancing a few miles inland, foiled by the waterless desert and the incessant harassing of the rebels. Somewhat later the fanatics twice endeavoured to force their way up the Nile from the south, and were only cast back after heavy fighting at Wady Halfa, on the very frontier of Egypt.