The Egyptian campaigns, 1882 to 1885

by Charles Royle

The difference between the power of steam and sails in connection with military operations may be seen from the following examples:—

On the 19th May, 1798, Napoleon sailed for Egypt from Toulon with favouring winds; nevertheless, it was not until the 10th June (according to some reports the 15th) that he reached even his first port of call, Malta, thus occupying no less than twenty-three days on this short voyage, and it was not till the 1st July that he arrived off Alexandria.

In 1800, when Indian troops were despatched to assist in expelling the French from Egypt, the first detachment sailed from Bombay on the 28th December, but did not get to Suez till the end of April, 1801, and the remainder, following some days later, only arrived at Kosseir, on the Red Sea, en route to Keneh, on the Nile, on the 8th June, nearly six months later. As a contrast to the above, the head of the column of British transports left England on the 30th July, 1882, and arrived at Alexandria on the 10th August, thus completing the voyage in only eleven days.

Much has been made of the rapidity of the French invasion of Egypt, but, after all, Napoleon only entered Cairo on the 23rd July, that is, sixty-five days after leaving France, whereas Wolseley left England on the 2nd August, made the long sea-voyage by way of Gibraltar, and arrived in Cairo forty-five days after, viz., on the 15th September.

With regard to Tel-el-Kebir, the shortness of the time occupied in storming the intrenchments has been made use of, more especially by foreign critics, to lessen the credit of the victory. Without pretending that the battle was more than, comparatively speaking, a small affair, exceedingly well-managed, the number of casualties relatively to the number of the attacking force shows that there was a real resistance, and that the fighting on both sides was more serious than is generally supposed.

The news of the victory of Tel-el-Kebir, the capture of Cairo, and the close of the war, produced a profound sensation in Europe. In England the greatest enthusiasm was manifested, and to the events of the campaign was given an importance perhaps in excess of their actual merits.[77]

On the Continent, however, the opposite was the case. The very journals which only a week before had declared that, in undertaking to subdue Arabi, England had assumed a task the difficulties of which she had scarcely calculated, now went to the other extreme, and described Tel-el-Kebir as a mere military promenade. In the "Débats," M. Gabriel Channes wrote that the fears that an Egyptian campaign would prove hazardous were groundless. The only difficulties which the English army had to encounter were due to the vast amount of baggage it had to transport, owing to the men carrying nothing but their arms. According to the same article an army less burdened would have beaten Arabi and reached Cairo in a few days; and if the campaign had lasted some weeks, this was only due to the slowness of the attack. The "Avenir Militaire" maintained that Sir Garnet Wolseley did not shorten the campaign by transferring his base to Ismailia, and that the qualities of the English troops were not exposed to a very severe ordeal. "The attack on Tel-el-Kebir," it added, "against troops ill on the watch, succeeded with a promptitude which rendered a portion of those qualities useless." Many of the Continental journals went further, and unable in any other way to explain the dashing fight which in twenty minutes placed all Egypt at England's feet, boldly asserted that the victory was bought and paid for by English gold. They even named the exact sum, viz., £E32,000. It was, perhaps, unfortunate that the late Professor Palmer's ill-fated expedition into the Sinaitic Desert to secure the neutrality of the Bedouins, at a price of £5,000, should have given an apparent colour to these reports.[78]

One author,[79] whose writings, however, are not always to be accepted as accurate, states that Sultan Pasha (already referred to as the President of the Chamber of Notables) was attached to Wolseley's force with the object of securing by large bribes the fidelity of the Bedouins in the district between Ismailia and Zag-a-zig. According to the same authority, the Bedouins received from £3 to £2 a head, and much of the money found its way into the pockets of officers of the Egyptian army from the rank of Lieutenant to that of Colonel.

The events of Tel-el-Kebir are thus referred to by the same writer:—

"On the 12th September, Arabi learned towards twelve o'clock, from a Bedouin Sheikh, that the English would attack en masse the lines of Tel-el-Kebir towards two o'clock in the morning on the 13th, throwing themselves on Belbeis to open the road to Cairo. It was then necessary to guard this point, formerly fortified by the French. Arabi consequently telegraphed to Toulba Pasha at Kafr Dowar to send at once one of his best battalions, the last, or nearly the last, which remained to him, with orders to be in line of battle at Tel-el-Kebir at daybreak on the 13th. At one a.m. the train brought this detachment, which only arrived at Zag-a-zig long after everything was finished. The battalion then returned on its steps in company with the fugitives from the battlefield.

"At Tel-el-Kebir, during the night, between two and three a.m., at the first rifle shots, the Bedouins, en masse, threw themselves on the Egyptian lines, shouting like demons, and causing the wildest confusion. The native troops knew not who was with them or against them. Whole regiments ran like hares without striking a blow (sic), and the English, astonished to encounter so little resistance, massacred the fugitives as if at a shooting-party; 3,000 trained men belonging to the infantry, all that the army of the East possessed, faced the enemy, and with the last vestiges of the artillery, fired valiantly as long as they were able. More than half of them perished.

"It is confidently asserted that several of the Egyptian officers, hindered in their flight by the gold which they had in their pockets, seeking to lighten themselves, were arrested and pillaged by the soldiers of one of the black regiments. As to the Bedouins, their treason was so well arranged by agreement with Sultan Pasha, that they, with the speed of the wind, quitted their cantonments without molestation."