1896] Our Government's Fiasco 219 



tion. Later again when Parnell would have agreed to retire for a 

 while from the party, and was quite willing to make peace, she always 

 stood in the way of it — and he used to come back from Brighton 

 changed and uncompromising. Lastly his devotion 'to her and the 

 worry of his public life was too much for him, and she really hastened 

 his end by her exigencies. I asked him whether he committed suicide. 

 But he was emphatic that it was not so. ' Parnell,' he said, ' was the 

 last man in the world to do it. He was a fighter to his last breath, and 

 would not give in. It was the worry and the strain of fighting that 

 ended him.' 



" Evelyn has come and is staying with us. 



" 12th March. — Evelyn and Gill have gone. The Armenian Blue 

 Books are published. They show, as far as I can judge by the extracts 

 given, 'that our Government has made a complete diplomatic fiasco. 

 Philip seems to have had really nothing to go upon for his trust in 

 Russian and French co-operation, and it has been exactly the old game 

 of taking a threat to be as good as a blow, which Lord Granville was 

 so fond of. Of course the whole truth is not given in the Blue Book. 

 The reason for taking up the question in 1895, rather than at any other 

 time was, I have no doubt, to make a diversion for the Egyptian ques- 

 tion. It was probably the reason, too, why Lord Salisbury was so 

 foolish as to continue his predecessor's error. Nothing can excuse his 

 having put the threat to Turkey into 'the Queen's speech if he was not 

 prepared to act up to it. 



" i2,th March. — The English papers have come, telling of the Italian 

 defeat at Adowa, no trace in any of them of the smallest sympathy with 

 the Abyssinians or of disapproval of the wanton invasion of their 

 country. All sense of the rights of weaker nations is lost in Europe 

 even among the best and most generous of nations. 



" 14th March. — Mohammed Abdu was here to-day and tells me 

 there is some prospect now of Arabi's being allowed to return first to 

 Cyprus, then to Egypt. Mustapha Fehmy, the Prime Minister, has 

 spoken to him about it, and says that Lord Cromer is willing if the 

 Khedive consents. If this is so the thing ought to be managed. 



"15th March. — Sheykh Saleh, the Sheykh of the muhajjerin, the 

 refugees from Dongola, called to-day. He says that Kitchener has 

 told him the Government intends to advance to Abu Hamad and Berber 

 as soon as the railway is finished to Wady Haifa. This can hardly 

 be, however, for several years. He assures me the people of Berber 

 would be willing, and of Abu Hamad, but the Khalifa is still powerful. 

 Berber he declares to be the key of the Soudan, as all roads converge 

 there. 



" 16th March. — It is announced that an advance is to be made im- 

 mediately to Dongola by arrangement with the German and Austrian 



