Meanwhile, the reserves of the Artillery were called in and distributed amongst the coast fortifications, recruiting in the provinces was being actively carried on, ninety Krupp guns were ordered from Europe, and Arabi was created a Pasha by the Sultan.
The National Party had now become complete masters of the situation. Notwithstanding this, a collision might for some little time have been averted but for an incident which occurred shortly after.
The differences between the Circassians and the native-born Egyptians in the army have been already touched upon. One peculiarity of the Arab race is a revengeful disposition. Arabi and his friends had, as already stated, met with rough usage at the hands of the Circassian party. Hence it followed that the first idea of the former on getting into power was to avenge themselves on their old enemies. This was carried out by the wholesale arrest of fifty Circassian officers, and of Osman Pasha Rifki, former Minister of War, on a charge of conspiracy to assassinate Arabi. It was also alleged that the plot comprised the deposition of the Khedive and the restoration of Ismail Pasha.
The prisoners were tried in secret by a court martial appointed by the military leaders, and, of course, found guilty. They were, it is said, subjected to torture to induce them to confess, and persons of respectability testified that they heard at night shrieks of pain coming from the place where the prisoners were confined. The sentence passed on forty of them, including Osman, was that of exile for life to the remotest limits of the Soudan. This was equivalent to a sentence of death as regards most of the prisoners.
It was necessary that the sentences should be confirmed by Decree of the Khedive, and he consulted Sir Edward Malet as to the course to be taken. The story of the plot was, there is reason to believe, purely imaginary.
With some little hesitation, and after conferring with the diplomatic agents of the Powers, the Khedive boldly determined to exercise his prerogative without reference to his Ministers, and signed a Decree commuting the sentences to simple banishment from Egypt, without loss of rank and honours.
This was a defiance of Mahmoud Sami, to which he was not disposed to submit. On the 10th May, the Khedive summoned the Consuls-General, and informed them that the President of the Council had insisted that this Decree should be changed by condemning the prisoners to be struck off the strength of the army, and had threatened that his refusal would be followed by a general massacre of foreigners. The significance of this threat coming from Mahmoud Sami, the Minister who was in power when just a month later—namely, on the 11th June—a massacre of foreigners did take place in Alexandria, will probably be remarked.
The Chamber of Notables had ceased to sit on the 26th March, when the session closed; but Mahmoud Sami now announced that since the Khedive and his Ministers could not agree, and as it was impossible for the Ministry to resign, they had determined themselves to convoke the Chamber, and to lay the case before it, and that he did not intend to hold any further communication with the Khedive until the difference between them had been decided by the Chamber. He added that in the meantime the Ministry would answer for the public safety.
The alarm in Cairo now began to be general. It was open warfare between the Khedive, and his Ministry supported by the army. The National Party made no secret of their intention to depose the Khedive as soon as the Chamber assembled.
The Notables, when the day for assembly arrived, began to show a disinclination to support the National Party. They had commenced to realize that they had already gone further than they had intended, and also that they were being merely used as tools by Arabi and his colleagues.