242 



EGYPT. 



on the charge of plotting in favor of the 

 ex-Khedive. Arabi showed great fear of the 

 machinations of Ismail. He had refused per- 

 mission for his invalid daughter to land, and 

 banished his business agent. There were fifty 

 arrests made altogether, and on May 1st a court- 

 martial condemned forty officers and two civil 

 functionaries to loss of rank and banishment. 

 Nualti Pasha, who was with Ismail at Naples, 

 was condemned in contumaciam as the chief 

 of the plot. The consuls protested. The 

 Sultan was indignant that Circassians and 

 officers whom he had decorated should be 

 treated ignominiously. The Khedive with- 

 held his signature to the sentence. He finally 

 commuted it to simple exile, a decision which 

 was displeasing to the ministers. They con- 

 voked the Chamber for May 14th, without 

 the authorization of the Khedive, to lay the 

 matter before it. Mohamed Tevfik, in his at- 

 titude toward the seditious ministers, showed 

 unusual vigor. All intercourse was suspended 

 between them and between the ministers and 

 the Control. The English and French consuls 

 and the Porte commended the course of the 

 Khedive. The military threatened to depose 

 Tevfik. The Notables disappointed them by 

 refusing to sit illegally. Sultan Pasha declared 

 that the Bedouins would march to Cairo to de- 

 fend the Khedive, and Sherif Pasha and the 

 Egyptian Sheik-ul-Islam came to his support. 

 Finally, the President of the Notables and the 

 late Prime Minister, with tbe assistance of the 

 two consuls, arranged a reconciliation. Great 

 Britain and France had by this time again 

 composed their jealousies, and the Cabinets 

 had agreed upon common action. They gave 

 notice to the powers of a joint naval demon- 

 stration, for the purpose of fortifying the au- 

 thority of the Khedive and preserving the 

 status quo. The Porte, which lost no oppor- 

 tunity for asserting the authority of the Sultan 

 in Egypt, addressed a reproof to the Egyptian 

 ministry for summoning the Chamber uncon- 

 stitutionally, and reminded them, in reference 

 to their declaration that the landing of Turkish 

 troops would be resisted with arms, that Egypt 

 formed an integral part of the Ottoman Em- 

 pire. This was oifset by the watchful powers 

 in a dispatch from the Khedive, rebuking the 

 Turkish Prime Minister for holding irregular 

 communications with his Cabinet. 



ANGLO-FRENCH NAVAL DEMONSTRATION. 

 The English and French squadrons united in the 

 Bay of Suda, off Crete. Mahmoud Pasha Ba- 

 roudi appealed vainly to the consuls-general 

 for assurances that the fleet would depart again 

 at once when they entered Alexandria Harbor, 

 protesting that all motive for a naval demon- 

 stration was taken away by the reconcilement 

 of the ministers with the Khedive. Arabi then 

 determined to answer the naval demonstration 

 with a demonstration of Egyptian independ- 

 ence. He called on the provincial authorities 

 to send the reserves to Cairo. They declined 

 to do so without a formal command from the 



Khedive. On the 20th of May the Anglo- 

 French squadron anchored in Alexandria Har- 

 bor. The diplomatic representatives of the 

 powers parleyed with the military party, and 

 M. Monge, the French consul at Cairo, tried to 

 bribe Arabi and the generals to leave the coun- 

 try with tempting offers of a career and emolu- 

 ments. The warlike preparations went on. 

 Artillerists were sent to Alexandria and Da- 

 mietta. Torpedoes were sunk along the coast. 

 At a council of war, held in the Abdin bar- 

 racks, at Cairo, the generals took an oath to 

 defend the country against any foreign inter- 

 vention, and the sheiks and Bedouins joined 

 them as against European, but not against 

 Ottoman, intervention. They applied to the 

 Controllers for money to prosecute the defens- 

 ive preparations, and were naturally refused. 

 The idea of abolishing the Control was dis- 

 cussed, but they reflected that it would render 

 intervention inevitable, and would probably 

 paralyze the action of the Porte and the East 

 European powers which were opposed to the 

 Anglo-French preponderance. The Minister 

 of Wakfs had the disposal of a fund which was 

 out of the reach of the Control. He at once 

 handed over 300,000 sterling. On May 25th 

 the French and English consuls made a formal 

 demand that Arabi Pasha should undergo tem- 

 porary expatriation, his coadjutor Ali Abdallah 

 depart for the interior, and the ministry resign, 

 promising their good offices to obtain amnesty 

 for all who had rebelled against the authority 

 of the Khedive. Lord Dufferin and the Marquis 

 of Noailles at Constantinople took pains to 

 explain to the Porte that the rights of the Sul- 

 tan could not suffer through the dual interven- 

 tion ; that Turkish co-operation was unnecessa- 

 ry, since the sovereignty of the Sultan had not 

 been called in question ; but that if it should 

 become necessary later he should be invited to 

 participate. Abdul-Hamid knew the worth of 

 such promises, and foresaw that an Anglo- 

 French military occupation of Egypt would 

 deprive the Padishah of the last shred of his 

 sovereign rights. Since he was excluded from 

 participation in the intervention, he did his 

 utmost to paralyze the action of France and 

 England in Egypt by appealing to the European 

 powers to check their belligerent designs, and 

 by giving encouragement to the National party 

 in Egypt. In obedience to the ultimatum of 

 the two powers, the ministers handed in their 

 resignations to the Khedive. Mahmoud Ba- 

 roudi artfully explained that they had unani- 

 mously advised the Khedive to return the 

 Anglo-French note, on the ground that the 

 foreign intervention was an invasion of the 

 rights of the Sultan, but, since he had accepted 

 it, their only course was to resign. Mohamed 

 Tevfik accepted their resignations, and issued, 

 at the same time, a proclamation declaring 

 that the fleet had come for a peaceful purpose, 

 ordering the enrollment of the reserves to be 

 stopped, and announcing that those who had 

 arrived at Cairo would be sent back to their 



