1912] Asquith, Churchill and Kitchener at Malta 389 



that he had assured them he could command the hill tribes of Jebel 

 Gharian, who were tired of their connection with Turkey, and would 

 welcome an Italian Occupation. This explains much that has been 

 doubtful, though of course I long ago suspected it. 



"26th May {Whit-Sunday). — Newbuildings. Abdul Ghaffar is 

 here, a very excellent young fellow, serious, and without any nonsense 

 or exaggeration, accurate, and well-informed. He has been three years 

 at St. John's College, Oxford, and talked about Oxford affairs well with 

 Belloc. His father is a large fellah proprietor at Tola, in the Delta, and 

 he is an excellent specimen of his race, quite unspoiled by his English 

 education. 



" Kitchener is clamouring for reinforcements at Cairo, and for the 

 stationing of the British man-of-war at Alexandria. He is to meet 

 Asquith and Winston at Malta to discuss Mediterranean matters. It 

 looks very much as if he were meditating a coup of some kind in 

 Egypt, and I remember Winston's words to me last year, ' You must 

 not quarrel with me if I annex Egypt.' 



" 31^ May. — The newspapers are full of the meeting at Malta to 

 which Winston and Clementine have gone with Nellie Hozier in the 

 Admiralty yacht to meet Kitchener, Asquith too." 



[It was on this occasion that our people came to the decision of 

 getting the French Navy to police the Mediterranean, while the English 

 Navy should keep to North Sea and English Channel for the French 

 in the event of a war with Germany, thus enabling them to make a 

 definite promise to the French Government of help by land in a war 

 with Germany. It was on this occasion, too, that Winston, abandon- 

 ing his long feud with Kitchener, made friends with him to Egypt's 

 detriment.] 



" The war in the Mediterranean drags on, the Italian Fleet making 

 a round of the iEgean and seizing the islands. The Arabs of Southern 

 Morocco have at last risen against the French. They are stalwart 

 men, but quite unorganized as soldiers. They have proclaimed a new 

 Sultan in place of Mulai Hafiz, abdicated, and may give the French 

 trouble. 



"2nd June (Sunday). — I hear from Paris that there are several 

 Orientals recently arrived there from India with a plot to assassinate 

 Grey, as also Kitchener, but it is not likely to come to anything. Things 

 in the Mediterranean are more mixed than ever. The Italian Fleet 

 has occupied most of the Turkish islands, the idea being to get Europe 

 to force the Turks to make peace. 



" Kitchener's meeting with Asquith and Churchill at Malta is really 

 an important one, as they will have to settle between them what is to 

 be our Mediterranean policy. Some want an alliance offensive and 

 defensive with France, others peace with Germany. It will end in 



