Immediately on receipt of this news Mr. Gladstone's Government gave instructions for an armistice in order to see if satisfactory terms could not be arranged for the restoration of peace. After a month's negotiation a treaty was made giving the Transvaal self-government in internal matters, but reserving all rights connected with foreign affairs, Great Britain to be recognised as the Suzerain, including the right to move Imperial troops through the country in time of war.
This restoration of independence to the Boers was viewed both at home and in Cape Colony not only with grave suspicion and distrust, but with high indignation; and so strong was this feeling against the home Government that in a great popular demonstration at Cape Town the effigy of Mr. Gladstone, the Prime Minister, was publicly burned, and the British lion was caricatured, while many English residents in Pretoria and other towns left the country rather than remain under the oligarchical government of the Boers. So ended this part of the Transvaal drama.
The action of the British Government was at the time attributed to various motives. By some it was considered the magnanimous action of a strong power, willing to help a weak but struggling state in its efforts at self-government; by others it has been described as a pusillanimous shrinking from a stern duty which it owed to its colonies around the Transvaal. President Brand declared the treaty to be 'in his opinion the noblest act England has ever done'; but the Boers themselves considered the peace as the result of their own efforts and of Britain's fear to prosecute the war. The after results have been most calamitous, and go to show the folly of not facing and overcoming the beginnings of a corrupt system.
Captain Wauchope returned on the conclusion of peace in the summer of 1881, having been only a few months abroad, and without engaging in active service. He was chiefly employed on the line of communication as one of the staff. His return home was accompanied with anything but feelings of respect for the Government which had so ingloriously stopped short in their work—a feeling very generally shared by the officers and men. Some years afterwards, when alluding to this episode in his life at a meeting in Edinburgh, he said of it:—'I was in the Transvaal during those terrible times in 1881 when we suffered the terrible disgrace from which all our after-troubles there arose. It was the vacillation and weakness and change of policy that caused all the trouble then.'
But while in one part of Africa a temporary peace had been patched up, in another part of that great continent, and that the most ancient, events were in the beginning of 1882 hastening to a rupture which was destined to open up a fresh field for the active military genius of young Wauchope. Egypt, the land of the Pharaohs, and in some respects the cradle of European culture, which had long been oppressed by Turkish tyranny, was showing signs of vitality, and was recognised as still a country capable of great resources, and having considerable commercial importance. The opening of the Suez Canal had much to do with this; and Britain having a large stake in the Canal as a means of communication with her Eastern possessions, was naturally interested in the well-being of the country through which it passed. Nominally a viceroy of the Sultan of Turkey, the Khedive of Egypt ruled despotically, and did little for the people he ruled. Discontent was general; and to screen themselves, those in authority endeavoured to create a feeling of antipathy against the Europeans residing and trading in Egypt. A party of military adventurers, headed by Arabi Pasha, and secretly abetted by the Sultan of Turkey, had seized the reins of government, and endeavoured, with the aid of the army, to drive all Europeans out of Egypt, and secure the control of foreign traffic through the Suez Canal to their own advantage. Arabi commenced the erection of forts at Alexandria, to command the harbour. This and other war-like preparations were made in defiance, it was said, of the authority of the Khedive, who was merely a puppet in Arabi's hands.
Bombardment of Alexandria
On the 11th June 1882 a large body of Arabs made a murderous attack on the European residents in Alexandria, and so serious was the matter considered that a week or two after, the Ambassadors of the Great Powers met in conference at Constantinople to take the crisis under review. As no redress was forthcoming, Admiral Sir Beauchamp Seymour, commander of the British fleet in Egyptian waters, having ascertained that work on the new fortifications at Alexandria was being continued, notwithstanding promises made that all such operations would be suspended, sent to Arabi Pasha, who was nominally the Egyptian minister of war, an ultimatum that unless the work ceased immediately the fleet would open fire upon the forts. The reply was a denial that any such work was being carried on. Three days afterwards the Admiral discovered that his ultimatum was treated with contempt, and that guns bearing upon the harbour had been mounted since the date of his message. He at once prepared a proclamation calling upon the Egyptian authorities to surrender the fortifications within twelve hours, otherwise they would be demolished by the fleet. On the 11th July the bombardment commenced, and nearly the whole of the fortifications were soon laid in ruins. Next day hostilities were resumed, but, on a flag of truce being hoisted, the Admiral ordered firing to cease. On the morning of the 13th it was found that, under cover of the flag of truce, the Egyptian troops, headed by Arabi Pasha, had evacuated Alexandria, leaving it to be pillaged and fired by a riotous mob of Arabs, who massacred a large number of Europeans. To protect life, and save the place from total destruction, Admiral Seymour landed a force of seamen and marines, who kept the city in order until the arrival of British troops a few days afterwards.
In the course of the following fortnight a force of about 16,000 occupied Alexandria, Ramleh, and the delta of the Nile, under the command of Sir Garnet Wolseley. Meantime Arabi Pasha had occupied Cairo, which was strongly fortified, while he had formidable entrenched camps some miles south of Ramleh, and also at Port Said and Ismailia on the Suez Canal, and at Kassassin and Tel-el-Kebir, on the sweet-water canal route between Ismailia and Cairo.
Throughout the whole business the authority of the Khedive was not only ignored, but remonstrances from foreign powers were of no effect. Arabi was determined to make himself ruler of Egypt, and to assert his position by force of arms. His formal dismissal as Minister of War, on 22nd July, was the last weak attempt by the Khedive to maintain his sovereign authority. But Arabi paid no attention to it, and continued his warlike preparations. His position at Kafr-dawar was strategically a strong one, for he was entrenched there at a point where the isthmus, running inland between Lake Medieh and Lake Mareotis, is only about four miles broad. He thus commanded both the Mahmoudieh Canal and the railway to Cairo, which ran past his camp. Arabi's intention was to hold his own at this position till the annual rise of the Nile was at its fullest in August, when he counted upon being able to flood the country, and seriously impede hostile operations against him.