Secret History of the English Occupation of Egypt / Being a Personal Narrative of Events

by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt; Ahmad Urabi

I find in my diary that on the 9th of March I went to see George Howard and his wife (now Lord and Lady Carlisle), and succeeded in enlisting their sympathies, especially hers, to my plans. She was then, as now, a strong politician, and was an absolute believer in Gladstone, and she advised me to put my whole trust in him and he would certainly prevent any mischief being done to liberty. Her husband was less sanguine, but he readily agreed to take me to the House of Commons, of which he was a member, that afternoon, and introduce me to his friends there of the Liberal Party, such as he thought could help me best. And so together we went, and I made the acquaintance of Dilwyn, Bryce, and other influential members who had been specially interested in the affairs of Bulgaria and Armenia at the time of the Berlin Congress. These all promised me their assistance, as did that excellent man Mr. Chesson, with whom, and with Howard's brother-in-law, Lyulph Stanley, we had a long talk in the tea-room. Chesson, though not a Member of Parliament, was a person of considerable political power, as he made it his business, as secretary of the Aborigines Protection Society, to organize agitations on all questions where aggression on non-European peoples was threatened, and he proved throughout of the greatest assistance to me, as he was in daily communication with the best of the Radical members. Howard, however, advised me not to put my case into the hands of the "professional non-interventionists," but rather to work my propaganda on an independent basis. I was at that time quite new and inexperienced in English politics, so new that though I was forty-one years of age this was the first time I had ever been inside the lobbies of the House of Commons. I was, however, from that date a frequent visitor there, across to the inner lobby being at that time almost free.

The same day I had a talk with Philip Currie at the Foreign Office, and a long discussion about Egypt. I found him at first rather put out with me at what I had been doing at Cairo, the effect of Malet's complaints of me, and affecting to believe that I had been playing a "large practical joke at the expense of the Foreign Office." But this did not last, and I was able to convince him of the seriousness of the matter, and of my own earnestness, if not that I was right in my views, and he arranged that I should see Dilke the next day, and also Granville.

I find also at this date that I had a talk with Lord Miltown, an Irish peer, which shows the curious connection between Egypt and Ireland in the political ideas of the day. "His, Miltown's, account of Ireland is singularly like that of Egypt by the European officials. He thinks the difficulty in Ireland got up by agitators; that the Irish fellahin are not really with the National Party, and that armed intervention would set things right."

On the 10th I saw Dilke at the Foreign Office, having first gone to his house in Sloane Street. He was in a hostile mood, and instead of listening to what I had to say, poured out a string of complaints against the new Egyptian ministry, telling me "that Arabi's government had spent half a million sterling on the army since they came into office," and other absurdities. I knew this story could not be true, as the Nationalists had only been in power six weeks, and went to Sanderson, who was then Lord Granville's private secretary (now Sir Thomas Sanderson and head of the Foreign Office), and made him look up the question of the fabulous half million, when, on referring to the despatch about it, we found that the sum had been spent, not as Dilke had told me in the last six weeks, but in the last year. This extraordinary misstatement of Dilke's, which he had made to me as a matter beyond dispute, may of course have been only a gross blunder, but it was repeated in the newspapers of the day, several of which were under Dilke's inspiration, and is a good example of the way in which news, however absurd, prejudicial to the Egyptian Nationalists, was then being circulated by him. Morley was one of the channels he principally used, and all through the spring and early summer of 1882, the "Pall Mall Gazette" (the only paper Gladstone read attentively) was, through Dilke's influence, and Colvin's, made a channel of preposterous lies and the most uncompromising advocate of intervention. Morley, I am willing to believe, persuaded himself that the things they told him were true, and acted in good faith, but it is nevertheless certain that on him more than on any other journalists of the time lies the responsibility of having persuaded Gladstone to the act of violence in Egypt which was the chief sin of Gladstone's public career. Morley's position, however, was then not an independent one, and he was hardly the master of his own published thoughts. He was not yet in Parliament, but waiting for a seat, and all his hope of a political career lay in the patronage of his political friends, Dilke and Chamberlain, so that he had practically no choice, if he was not to sacrifice his ambition, but to follow the lead Dilke gave him about Egyptian affairs. He was afterwards sorry for the evil he had done, and has never, I think, liked to recall to memory the part he then played. But without doubt his responsibility for bringing on the war was great. The whole of the Egyptian episode in Morley's "Life of Gladstone," it may be noticed, has been slurred over in a few pages. But history is history, and his mistake needs to be recorded.

This matter settled with Sanderson, Currie took me in to see Lord Granville, whom I did not as yet know, and another conversation followed. Lord Granville was a man of singularly urbane manners, and began by inquiries after my stud of Arab horses, paying me a number of polite compliments about them. Then, turning to the subject of Egypt, he "informed me plump that he had certain knowledge that Arabi had been bought by Ismaïl, and that the whole thing in Egypt was an intrigue to restore the ex-Khedive!" This was another of the preposterous stories that were being foisted on the Foreign Office and the public to prejudice opinion against the Egyptian cause. It had reached the Foreign Office, as far as I have been able to ascertain, in a despatch or private letter from Sir Augustus Paget, then British Ambassador at Rome, to whom the ex-Khedive appears to have boasted at Naples that he had "ce gaillard là," meaning Arabi, in his pocket.

It is hardly necessary to inquire what motive of the moment Ismaïl may have had for making this assertion, for his word was never of any value, while the whole tenor of Arabi's career proves it to have been the absolute reverse of fact. Arabi's attitude at the date in question was more than ever one of hostility to the Circassian pashas, Ismaïl's adherents, who were actively intriguing with Tewfik against him. Ismaïl, however, had purposes of his own to serve in making it appear that the trouble in Egypt had come about on his account. He always clung to the idea that the day would come when the Powers of Europe would repent of having deposed him, and would return to him as the only possible ruler of a country distracted because he was no longer there to control it. At the moment I did not know the quarter from which the story was derived, nor could I do more to refute it than by telling Lord Granville how utterly opposed to the ex-Khedive the National fellah leader had always been.[11] This I did, and I delivered also the message Arabi had entrusted me with for Mr. Gladstone. His only answer was "Will they give up the claim of the Chamber to vote the Budget?" I told him that I feared it was hopeless to expect this, as the Deputies were all of one mind. "Then," he said, "I look upon their case as hopeless. It must end by their being put down by force." I told him I could not believe the English Government could really intervene, on such a plea, to put down liberty. But he maintained his ground, and I left him much dissatisfied, resolving that I would waste no more time upon trying to persuade the Foreign Office, but would put what pressure I could on them from the outside. "I must see Gladstone."

I also, the same day, saw Morley at his newspaper office, to try to neutralize the effect of the falsehoods with which he was being flooded, but I feared without success. He believed implicitly in Colvin, who was his regular correspondent at Cairo, and there were other influences besides, as we have seen, at work upon him and which were too strong for me to combat in his mind.

On the 11th I dined with Button, who had invited a party specially to meet me. These were Sir Francis Knollys, the Prince of Wales's secretary, Reginald Brett (now Lord Esher), who was then Lord Hartington's secretary, Clifford, a leader writer of the "Times," and General Sir John Adye, who was a friend of Wolseley's and served under him that year in the Egyptian Campaign, remaining, nevertheless, a warm sympathizer with the Egyptians throughout, and, as will be seen, rendering good service to the cause of humanity after Tel-el-Kebir. We had a pleasant evening, and all showed themselves interested in my Egyptian views, and I remained talking with some of them till one in the morning. Knollys I know was impressed by what I told him, but Brett, who was a friend of the Rothschilds and other financiers who were clamouring for intervention, proved afterwards one of our bitterest enemies. He was working at the time for Morley in the "Pall Mall Gazette," and inspired, if he did not write, some of the articles which so influenced Gladstone.

On the 13th I saw Goschen, having been sent to him by Hamilton, on Mr. Gladstone's suggestion, as a man who, though not a member of the Government, was much trusted by them and advised them, especially on Egyptian affairs. With him I went more thoroughly than with either Dilke or Granville into the details of the National case. He affected much sympathy with me, more probably than he felt, and was particularly anxious to impress on me the notion that he was not taking a financial view of the situation. This was, doubtless, because his past connection with Egypt had been as representative of Ismaïl's creditors. I found him agreeable in manner, with much charm of voice, and I was with him quite two hours. His last words to me were: "You may be sure at least of one thing, and that is, that whatever the Government may do in Egypt they will do on general grounds of policy, not in the interests of the Bondholders." This was satisfactory and seemed to be in harmony with the situation of the moment, for that very morning the news had been published of de Blignières' resignation of his post at Cairo of French Financial Controller. The event had been interpreted in London as signifying a quarrel between the French Government and the Nationalist Ministry, but I knew that this was not the case. De Blignières had been even more and earlier than Colvin a worker for intervention, and I read his resignation for what it really was, a sign that his Government had thrown him over. If Colvin at the same time had been made to resign—and things, I believe, were very near it—all the subsequent trouble might have been avoided. Colvin, however was too strongly backed up by Dilke just then to be displaced.