1894] Tigrane on the Frontier Incident 129 



desertion without the Khedive's sanction. Tigrane, however, is not 

 very certain of details, and urged my seeing the Khedive. 



" As to the final quarrel with Kitchener he says it was a small affair, 

 and the story given me by Ghaleb Bey substantially correct. Kitchener, 

 after resigning and then withdrawing his resignation, had assured the 

 Khedive that it should go no further. Cromer, however, had taken it 

 up beyond all measure, had insisted on Riaz, and then the Ministry, 

 accepting his terms without waiting to hear the Khedive's story, and 

 had threatened consequences which they dared not face. I asked him 

 what these were, but this he said he could not tell me, but it was not 

 merely their own dismissal as Ministers, I fancy it was that the 

 Khedive's army should be put under the English Commander-in-Chief. 

 They had no option but to get the Khedive out of the scrape as they 

 best could. The French Agency had gone entirely against them, owing, 

 he said to des circonstances personcllcs on the part of Reverseaux. 

 This being so, the position is of course a very dangerous one. Tigrane 

 thinks that, if the English Government were to ask the French Gov- 

 ernment's leave to depose Abbas, the French Government would con- 

 sider it so distinct a diplomatic gain that it would consent. 



" Tigrane told me that the idea of addressing a circular letter ex- 

 plaining the ' Incident ' to the Powers had been abandoned, and even 

 that of addressing such a letter to Cromer, though he, Tigrane, was in 

 favour of it. There was danger of a new publication of Blue Books. 

 Cromer has been compiling things against the Khedive all the last 

 year. I asked him if these were things affecting the Khedive's moral 

 character and he said : ' Oh no. But the Khedive has once or twice 

 made complaints against English officers which he had been unable to 

 substantiate, of drunkenness and the like, and it would be sought to 

 prove that he was mendacious and was animated by ill-will.' He 

 thought I might publish an explanation without committing the Khe- 

 dive. But I cannot do this unless I see him, nor do I think it would 

 be as good a way as officially through the Foreign Office. He assured 

 me there was no truth in the report of a quarrel between the Khedive 

 and his Ministers. ' We got him out of his scrape,' Tigrane said, ' as 

 we best could, and the Khedive knows it.' 



" gth Feb. — The London papers are really too monstrous. It is 

 evident to me that Cromer and his partisans have determined upon 

 Abbas' removal by fair means or foul, and that do he what he will, 

 nothing now will satisfy them. I am anxious all the same that he 

 should at least put his true conduct on record, and I have written to 

 suggest my seeing him. 



" Yesterday coming home I met young Gordon, General Gordon's 

 nephew, who gave me yet another account of the frontier incident. 

 He says that there are eight battalions of native troops on the frontier 



