March 11th, 'In the evening a despatch was circulated in which Wolseley said: "Please tell Lord Granville that I cannot wait any longer, and I must issue proclamation, and will do so on my own authority if I do not receive answer to this by the 14th. I hope I may be allowed to issue it as Governor-General."
'I at once wrote, "I understood that we had decided that he was not to be Governor-General, and that the proclamation should not be issued in the terms proposed"; on which Lord Granville wrote, "Yes. Cabinet to-morrow.—G."
'On Thursday, March 12th, the first matter discussed was that of the arrest of Zebehr. Then came Wolseley's proclamation, which was vetoed. We decided that he should not be allowed to make himself Governor-General of the Soudan.'
It now seemed more than likely that the British Government would have work on its hands which would render the employment of an army in the Soudan very undesirable; for more serious than the Mahdi's movements on the Nile, more serious than the operations of German Admirals in the Pacific, was the menace of a Russian advance upon Afghanistan.
Arrangements had been made for the demarcation of the Afghan frontier which Sir Charles had persistently urged. A British Commissioner had been appointed in July, 1884, but at the end of the following November Russia was still parleying on questions of detail. These, however, seemed to have been at length resolved; and in January, 1885, the British Commissioner was waiting in the neighbourhood of Herat for the Russian Commissioners to join in the work of fixing the boundaries. But the Russians did not appear; they were, says Sir Charles, 'intriguing at Penjdeh, and preparing for the blow which later on they struck against the Afghans.' The Amir evidently felt this, for he renewed the proposal that he should pay a state visit to the Viceroy, and on January 23rd Dilke wrote to Grant Duff that this had been accepted.
February 4th, 'On this day I received a letter from Sir Robert Sandeman at Quetta, in which he thanked me for the assistance that I had given him in the retention of Sibi, Pishin, and the Khojak. "It was greatly due to your support of my representations on the subject that our influence on this frontier is at present all-powerful."'
On February 5th, a few hours after the fall of Khartoum was published,
'there was a meeting of Ministers as to Central Asia. We decided on a reply to Russia drawn up by myself and Kimberley, Lord Granville and Northbrook somewhat dissenting, and Fitzmaurice and Philip Currie taking no part.
'On February 18th we had a meeting of the Central Asia Committee at the Foreign Office with regard to the Russian advance in the direction of Penjdeh, Lord Granville, Hartington, Northbrook, Kimberley, myself, Fitzmaurice, and Currie. We ordered Sir Peter Lumsden' (Chief of the Boundary Commission), 'in the event of a Russian advance on Herat, to throw himself and escort into that city, and to aid the Afghan defence.'
On March 12th, after deciding to limit Lord Wolseley's schemes in the Soudan, 'we took a decision that war preparations against Russia should be made in India.'