In December (1881) the puissant genius of Gambetta acquired supremacy for a season, and he without delay pressed upon the British cabinet the necessity of preparing for joint and immediate action. Gambetta prevailed. The Turk was ruled out, and the two Powers of the west determined on action of their own. The particular mode of common action, however, in case action should become necessary, was left entirely open.
Meanwhile the British cabinet was induced to agree to Gambetta's proposal to send instructions to Cairo, assuring the Khedive that England and France were closely associated in the resolve to guard by their united efforts against all causes of complaint, internal or external, which might menace the existing order of things in Egypt. This was a memorable starting-point in what proved an amazing journey. This Joint Note (January 6, 1881) was the first link in a chain of proceedings that brought each of the two governments who were its authors, into the very position that they were most strenuously bent on averting; France eventually ousted herself from Egypt, and England was eventually landed in plenary and permanent occupation. So extraordinary a result only shows how impenetrable were the windings of the labyrinth. The foremost statesmen of England and France were in their conning towers, and England at any rate employed some of the ablest of her agents. Yet each was driven out of an appointed course to an unforeseen and an unwelcome termination. Circumstances like these might teach moderation both to the French partisans who curse the vacillations of M. de Freycinet, and to the English partisans who, while rejoicing in the ultimate result, curse the vacillations of the cabinet of Mr. Gladstone, in wisely striving to unravel a knot instead of at all risks cutting it.
II
The present writer described the effect of the Joint Note in the following words written at the time[49]: “At Cairo the [pg 076] Note fell like a bombshell. Nobody there had expected any such declaration, and nobody was aware of any reason why it should have been launched. What was felt was that so serious a step on such delicate ground could not have been adopted without deliberate calculation, nor without some grave intention. The Note was, therefore, taken to mean that the Sultan was to be thrust still further in the background; that the Khedive was to become more plainly the puppet of England and France; and that Egypt would sooner or later in some shape or other be made to share the fate of Tunis. The general effect was, therefore, mischievous in the highest degree. The Khedive was encouraged in his opposition to the sentiments of his Chamber. The military, national, or popular party was alarmed. The Sultan was irritated. The other European Powers were made uneasy. Every element of disturbance was roused into activity.”
It is true that even if no Joint Note had ever been despatched, the prospects of order were unpromising. The most careful analysis of the various elements of society in Egypt by those best acquainted at first hand with all those elements, whether internal or external, whether Egyptian or European, and with all the roots of antagonism thriving among them, exhibited no promise of stability. If Egypt had been a simple case of an oriental government in revolutionary commotion, the ferment might have been left to work itself out. Unfortunately Egypt, in spite of the maps, lies in Europe. So far from being a simple case, it was indescribably entangled, and even the desperate questions that rise in our minds at the mention of the Balkan peninsula, of Armenia, of Constantinople, offer no such complex of difficulties as the Egyptian riddle in 1881-2. The law of liquidation[50]—whatever else we may think of it—at least made the policy of Egypt for the Egyptians unworkable. Yet the British cabinet were not wrong in thinking that this was no reason for sliding into the competing policy of Egypt for the English and the French, which would have been more unworkable still.
England strove manfully to hold the ground that she [pg 077]
Gambetta
had taken in November. Lord Granville told the British ambassador in Paris that his government disliked intervention either by themselves or anybody else as much as ever; that they looked upon the experiment of the Chamber with favourable eyes; that they wished to keep the connection of the Porte with Egypt so far as it was compatible with Egyptian liberties; and that the object of the Joint Note was to strengthen the existing government of Egypt. Gambetta, on the other hand, was convinced that all explanations of this sort would only serve further to inflate the enemies of France and England in the Egyptian community, and would encourage their designs upon the law of liquidation. Lord Granville was honourably and consistently anxious to confine himself within the letter of international right, while Gambetta was equally anxious to intervene in Egyptian administration, within right or without it, and to force forward that Anglo-French occupation in which Lord Granville so justly saw nothing but danger and mischief. Once more Lord Granville, at the end of the month which had opened with the Joint Note, in a despatch to the ambassador at Paris (January 30), defined the position of the British cabinet. What measures should be taken to meet Egyptian disorders? The Queen's government had “a strong objection to the occupation of Egypt by themselves.” Egypt and Turkey would oppose; it would arouse the jealousy of other Powers, who would, as there was even already good reason to believe, make counter demonstrations; and, finally, such an occupation would be as distasteful to the French nation as the sole occupation of Egypt by the French would be to ourselves. Joint occupation by England and France, in short, might lessen some difficulties, but it would seriously aggravate others. Turkish occupation would be a great evil, but it would not entail political dangers as great as those attending the other two courses. As for the French objections to the farther admission of the other European Powers to intervene in Egyptian affairs, the cabinet agreed that England and France had an exceptional position in Egypt, but might it not be desirable to enter into some communication with the other Powers, as to the best way of dealing with a state of [pg 078] things that appeared likely to interfere both with the Sultan's firmans and with Egypt's international engagements?
At this critical moment Gambetta fell from power. The mark that he had set upon western policy in Egypt remained. Good observers on the spot, trained in the great school of India, thought that even if there were no more than a chance of working with the national party, the chance was well worth trying. As the case was put at the time, “It is impossible to conceive a situation that more imperatively called for caution, circumspection, and deference to the knowledge of observers on the scene, or one that was actually handled with greater rashness and hurry. Gambetta had made up his mind that the military movement was leading to the abyss, and that it must be peremptorily arrested. It may be that he was right in supposing that the army, which had first found its power in the time of Ismail, would go from bad to worse. But everything turned upon the possibility of pulling up the army, without arousing other elements more dangerous still. M. Gambetta's impatient policy was worked out in his own head without reference to the conditions on the scene, and the result was what might have been expected.”[51]