Nothing, therefore, was really done of what I had been told at Downing Street to expect, not even those few words of goodwill in Parliament which Gladstone had begged Arabi to wait for. By a synchronism, tragic for Egypt, the crisis at Cairo, so long worked up to, coincided exactly with that other crisis which had also been impending in Ireland. There a régime of threats and coercion under Forster, the Chief Secretary, had been tried all through the winter. Members of Parliament had been imprisoned without trial, and the arts of police despotism had been put into more rigorous practice than for many years, and without any result of pacification. Gladstone had persuaded his Cabinet to try conciliatory measures. According to a secret arrangement made with Parnell, the Irish leader, while he was in gaol at Kilmainham, and known as the Kilmainham treaty, Parnell and his political friend, Dillon, had been released; and, as a consequence, Forster on the 2nd of May resigned his office and attacked the Government for their pusillanimity in the House of Commons. The very same day, 2nd May, had been fixed for a Ministerial statement about Egypt, on a motion made by Lord De la Warr in the House of Lords, and I find the following entry in my journal:
"May 2.—Met Lord De la Warr at the House of Lords. He took me in, and I expected to hear the promised statement about Egypt, but heard instead Lord Granville's announcement of Mr. Forster's resignation in Ireland. A good deal of excitement. Lord Granville seemed rather shy and badgered. Lord Salisbury interrupted once or twice.... I heard Rosebery say a few words in a very impressive and dignified manner, etc., etc. Egyptian affairs are put off as of no importance." Ireland for the next few weeks drove out all English interest in Egypt, so much so that when on the 6th I took Mohammed Abdu's important letter, explaining the Circassian plot, to Morley, he refused to publish it on the ground of its length, and that "nobody cared about Egypt."
This, however, was but the first act of the coming tragedy. On the 7th Lord Frederick Cavendish, a brother of Lord Hartington and an intimate friend of Gladstone's, who had been appointed Chief Secretary in Forster's place to carry out the new policy of conciliation, was assassinated at Dublin with Mr. Burke, the chief permanent official, by members of an Irish secret society, known as the "Invincibles." These were in reality quite unconnected with Parnell's Parliamentary party, but the public did not discriminate between the two, and the result was a universal cry for strong measures against all forms of rebellion. For a moment Gladstone battled against this, and it was proposed to Dilke, who, as an advanced Radical, was with Chamberlain at that time friendly to the Parnellites, that he should take the post of danger at Dublin and continue, as Cavendish's successor, the task of conciliating Ireland. But Dilke did not like the look of things, and refused the post. It was found difficult to get any one to accept it. What, however, decided the abandonment of the policy of conciliation was the attitude of Hartington. He took the matter of his brother's death, which he felt deeply, as a personal wrong to be avenged, and from that moment became the most determined enemy of Irish Nationalism. Gladstone had to choose between resignation and the abandonment of his policy, and, seeing a majority of his Cabinet against him, he chose the latter. Trevelyan was sent to Dublin and new coercive measures were resolved on. And so, too, as to Egypt. Up to this point, in spite of the unconciliatory views of the Foreign Office, Gladstone, supreme in the Cabinet, had been able to put a veto on any active form of armed intervention. But now he found himself out-voted, and Egypt, too, was thrown to the wolves. "Look," his colleagues seem to have said to him, "where your policy of conciliation has led us in Ireland." If I have been rightly informed, a policy of coercion in Ireland and of intervention in Egypt was decided on at one and the same Cabinet in the second week of May. I quote some extracts from my Diary in illustration of the double situation.[12]
"May 8.—In consequence of the ugly look of things in Egypt I have written an ultimatum to Gladstone begging him to relieve me of the dilemma I am in, caused by the Government's silence. I have said that I must speak the whole truth if Lord Granville won't. All the world, however, is agog about Ireland. Yesterday came the astounding news of Lord Frederick Cavendish's and Mr. Burke's murder at Dublin. At first it seemed as if the Government would have to resign, but to-day Parnell has written to disown all connection with the crime, and I think Gladstone will be the stronger for it. On Friday when I was in the lobby of the House of Commons Artie Brand (the Speaker's son), who was there, pointed me out 'the three Irish conspirators' talking together. Parnell is a tall, good-looking man of about 32, with nothing of the murderer about him. Dillon is tall and very pale and dark, and would do for Guy Fawkes in a cloak and dagger. They looked very much like gentlemen among the cads of the lobby.
"May 11.—There is bad news from Egypt. The Khedive having refused to sign the Circassian sentences, Arabi has convoked the Chamber and they talk of deposing Tewfik. I went at once to Downing Street and saw Godley, on whom I urged the necessity of Gladstone giving me an immediate answer. Gladstone is away at Lord Frederick's funeral, and I have agreed to wait till to-morrow for an answer; but Godley saw I was in earnest and promised it should be given. It is, of course, an unfortunate moment." I have a vivid recollection of Godley's sympathy on this occasion. I was myself deeply moved. It seemed to me so tragic a thing that the whole fate of a nation and of the best hopes of reform for a religion, both historic in the world, should depend on the possibility of securing the attention of one old man for half an hour, for I felt sure I could again persuade him. I did not, of course, know the exact position of the Cabinet, but Godley must have known, and he seemed almost as much to feel it, as myself. I know he all along disapproved the Foreign Office policy in Egypt, and I think he felt deeply the disgrace of Mr. Gladstone's share in it when, in spite of his Midlothian speeches, he came forward as the apologist of a war against Oriental freedom in the interests of finance. Very shortly after his chief's change of policy he left his service for a permanent post elsewhere, and I have always fancied it was more or less in protest.
"May 12.—Freycinet has declared he will not let the Turks intervene, so I feel easier.... Rode to George Howard's who approved my plan (of publishing the whole truth). I have all ready now ... and the 'Times' will publish. It appears that Rothschild has been working hard with Freycinet to get the French Government to set up Halim instead of Tewfik.... In the meanwhile all that has actually been done is to order a fleet to be ready in a fortnight at Plymouth.... Saw Eddy Hamilton. He promises the answer to-night. The Howards are very angry with Dilke because he has refused the Chief Secretaryship for Ireland. 'He will lose caste by this.' They looked upon it as the shirking of a post of danger, but it is quite possible that Dilke was better pleased to remain where he was, at the Foreign Office, pulling the strings for Granville in Europe. It would have been well for Egypt if he had accepted.
"May 13.—Gladstone's answer has come; he cannot tell me any details, but Lord Granville will speak on Monday, and he begs me to wait till then. He only promises that the Liberal policy shall be in accordance with Liberal doctrines. So I am satisfied. I have written (to Gladstone) to offer to go out as mediator between Arabi and the Khedive. I have sent the following telegram to Arabi: 'I entreat you have patience. Do nothing rashly or without Parliament sanction. Delay action against the Khedive. I am working hard for you, but must have time. There is real danger.' At five o'clock I received an answer from Gladstone to say that he supposed my last letter was written before the arrival of recent news. I cannot understand what he means by that, as there is nothing in the evening papers.... Late at night an answer from Arabi: 'Mai 13. Je vous remercie de vos conseils. Différend déféré aux délégués. Tranquillité complète. Certainement aucune crainte pour Européens. Ahmed Arabi.'"
The true history of the crisis which had taken place that first fortnight of May at Cairo, as I afterwards learned it, was this. On the second, the Khedive finding himself pressed by Arabi, his Minister of War, to sign the sentences of exile on the Circassian officers, some of whom were His Highness's personal friends, called Malet to his counsels and received from him the advice, fortified by a promise of English support, that he should refuse his signature; and this must be considered the moment at which Tewfik first resolved to throw himself especially upon English protection in his quarrel with his Ministers. Malet thereupon wrote an important despatch which is published in the Blue Books, extolling in high terms the character of the Khedive, as one deserving the full confidence of Her Majesty's Government. The Khedive, therefore, refused to sign, though constitutionally his signature to the decision of the court-martial could not be withheld.
The refusal, aggravated by the fact, which at once became known, that it had been suggested by a foreign Consul, angered the Nationalist Ministry, and letters were addressed by the Prime Minister, Mahmud Sami, to the members of the National Parliament requesting their attendance at Cairo. This was no doubt an irregular proceeding, inasmuch as the Parliament could only be legally summoned by the Khedive, and it gave umbrage to some of the members who were also annoyed at being called again to Cairo from their country homes at an inconvenient season of the year. Nevertheless, a large proportion of them came in answer to Mahmud Sami's letters, and though they had no formal sitting, decided at a meeting held in Sultan Pasha's house to support the Ministers, and it was resolved by forty-five to thirty, that, if Tewfik persisted in intriguing with the English and French Consuls against them, there was no other way than to impeach and depose him. Malet, however, having by this time received a telegram of approbation from the Foreign Office, and finding the Khedive wavering, informed him that the English and French fleets had been ordered to Alexandria on a plea of protecting European subjects. Upon this the Khedive sent for Sultan Pasha, the President of the Chamber, and exposed the situation to him, and so worked upon his fears, and upon a certain personal jealousy which he knew to have grown up in the Sultan's mind toward Arabi, that he persuaded him to take part with him, and trust to European support rather than run the risk of war. Sultan then, at a new informal meeting of the Deputies, declared himself on the Khedive's side against the Ministers, and obtained the adhesion of six other Deputies to his view, though the large majority of them remained faithful to the Ministry. It was at this juncture that my telegram to Arabi was received at Cairo, and it seems to have had some effect with Sultan, to whom it was doubtless shown. But the English papers of the thirteenth asserted that the Chamber had joined the Khedive against Arabi, and on the fifteenth that Mahmud Sami had resigned. The following is from my journal.
"May 14.—Sunday, at Crabbet. I see in the 'Observer' that Sultan Pasha went yesterday to the Khedive to make terms between him and Arabi; so I conclude my telegram came just in time. The papers all say that he and the Chamber have sided against Arabi with the Khedive, but I will not believe that till I hear further. What is likely is that Sultan Pasha has been put out at the Chamber being invoked without a legal summons, and at an inconvenient time of the year. The army has had too much influence in the Ministry not to have made itself enemies. There is probably jealousy, but I do not believe in more. The whole thing has doubtless been fostered by Colvin and Malet. and the Circassians have been encouraged by the idea of Turkish intervention. They have ordered ships to Alexandria, which, if I am not mistaken, will have the effect of uniting all once more against the Europeans.