The Rulers of the Mediterranean

by Richard Harding Davis

A CAMEL CORPS PATROL AT WADI HALFA

After the battle of Tel-el-Kebir Great Britain stood undoubtedly in the position of the savior of the Khedive if not of Egypt. Her soldiers had crushed the rebellion, and as she had sent her Only General and one of the royal family and many thousands of good men to do it, and as she had lost not only men, but money, she thought she deserved something in return. The something she has taken in return has been taken gradually, and is the control of Egypt at the present day. It is possible that had the English not lost many more men and much more money in the campaign in the Soudan, which followed immediately after the suppression of Arabi, they might not have gone so far as they have gone in settling themselves in Egypt. But there was a not unnatural feeling that the Soudan campaign, which had cost so much, and which was a failure in all but in showing the bravery of the British troops, ought to be paid for, or made up to the English in some way. I should like to go into the story of this most picturesque and heroic of campaigns, but it would require a book by itself. Its history is briefly this: The religious and military chieftain known as "the Mahdi," shortly after the defeat of Arabi, threatened all Egypt from the Soudan, which rose under his leadership. General Hicks, an Englishman, with ten thousand men, in the service of the Khedive, was sent against him. He was killed, and most of the troops with him. The English, who were at that time the only power in Egypt with authority of any sort back of it, and who were virtually in control, felt that they should take the responsibilities of their position as well as its benefits, and avenge the massacre, drive back the Mahdi's forces, and, if possible, crush him and them for all time. The campaign was later further complicated by the presence at Khartoom of Major-General C. G. Gordon, who had gone there to lead back in safety the Egyptian troops still remaining in the Soudan. He was, after his arrival at Khartoom, virtually a prisoner at that place, which is a mud city on the banks of the Nile far above the fifth cataract. The attempts to rescue him and to suppress the Mahdi were equally unsuccessful.

This is, in a few words, the story of a campaign which has been unequalled within the last twenty years in picturesqueness, heroism, and dramatic surprises. It had been said that the old days of personal bravery, of hand-to-hand slaughter, and of the attack and defence of man against man, were at an end; that owing to the new weapons of war, by which an enemy can be attacked when several miles distant from the attacking party, when the pressing of an electric button destroys an army corps, and when turning a handle will send three hundred bullets a minute into a mass of infantry, the necessity for personal courage was over. But seldom in history has there been as fierce personal encounters as in the Soudan, or as unusual methods of warfare. On the one hand were the naked supporters of the Mahdi, armed with their spears and knives, and protected only by bull-hide shields, but actuated by a religious fanaticism that drove them exulting at their enemies, and with no fear of death, but with the belief that through it they would gain joyous and proud immortality. Against them were the British troops, outnumbered ten to one, with hundreds of miles of sandy desert before, behind, and on every side of them, cut off from communication with the outside world, in a country barren and unfamiliar, and attacked by tens of thousands, who came when they pleased and where they pleased, rising as swiftly as a sand-storm rises, and disappearing again as suddenly into the desert.

When I was in Cairo I was told of one of the Mahdi's men who continually rushed at a British square during an engagement holding his shield clear of his body as he advanced to throw a spear, and then retreated again. This looked like the worst form of foolhardiness to the English, until they saw that he was protecting with his shield his little boy, who was hiding behind it, and that when the chance offered, this child, who could not have been more than seven, and who was as naked of protection as his father, would throw a spear of his own. The father was wounded four times, but each time the bullet struck him he only shook himself, as a dog shakes off water, and once more rushed forward. When he fell for the last time the boy tumbled across him, unconscious from a wound in his thigh. The surgeons dressed this wound and bandaged it; but when the child came to and saw what they had done, he leaped up and tore the clothes from around him, and then, as the blood from the reopened wound ran out, fell over backwards dead. The English officer who told this story asked if fighting such men could be considered agreeable work from any point of view.

H. H. ABBAS II.
Khedive of Egypt

But the Soudan is only of interest here as showing how, having lost so much through it, the British did not feel more inclined than before to evacuate Egypt, although there were many who thought, as a few still think, that Egypt has cost them too much already, and more than they can ever get back. The loss of Gordon was perhaps the disaster of all the most keenly felt. How keenly is shown partly by the statue the English have placed to him in Trafalgar Square, surrounded by their kings and greatest generals. It shows him with one foot placed on the battlement of Khartoom, with his arms folded, and with the head thrown slightly forward, looking out, as he had done for so many weary months, for the relief that came too late. This monument is a reproach to those whose uncertainty of mind and purpose cost Gordon his life. It was doing a brave thing to put it up in a public place, being, as it is, a standing reminder of the neglect and half-heartedness that lost a valuable life, and one that had been risked again and again for his country. It is not only a monument to General Gordon, but to the English people, who have had the courage to admit in bronze and stone that they were wrong.

For the last ten years the English have been as tardy in getting out of Egypt as they were in going after Gordon into the Soudan. They have repeatedly declared their intention of evacuating the country, not only in answer to questions in the House, but in answer to the inquiries of foreign powers. But they are still there. They have not been idle while there, and they have accomplished much good, and have brought benefits innumerable to Egypt. They have improved her systems of irrigation, upon which the prosperity of the land depends, have strengthened her army, have done away with the corvee, or tax paid on labor, and with the kurbash, or whip used in punishment, and, what is much the most wonderful, they have brought her out of ruin into such a condition of prosperity that she not only pays the interest on her enormous debt, but has a little left over for internal improvements. There has also been a marked change for the better in the condition of the courts of justice, and there has been an extension of a railroad up the Nile as far as Sirgeh.