EGYPT. 



249 



found much sympathy in France, and would be 

 more conducive to French interests than any 

 form of intervention except an aggressive as- 

 sertion of French preponderance, which would 

 endanger the relations of the republic with 

 Europe. England was shrewdly accommodat- 

 ing and yielding. She had been the first to 

 propose a reference of the Egyptian difficulty 

 to the powers. She expressed a willingness 

 to agree to an intervention by the Porte, or to 

 undertake a joint intervention with France. 

 Any action must result in a stronger assertion 

 of England's paramount interests and the sac- 

 rifice of the political preponderance of France, 

 which had existed from the beginning of the 

 century, and was strengthened by social influ- 

 ence and moral prestige far outweighing those 

 of Great Britain. The intervention of Turkey 

 as the mandatory of the powers was Frey- 

 cinet's final proposition. England agreed to 

 that, as she agreed to every positive proposi- 

 tion, although favoring most the interposition 

 of the Sultan as sovereign lord. In order to 

 safeguard French interests in Africa and make 

 easier the acceptance of Turkish intervention 

 in France, Freycinet imposed the condition 

 that the expeditionary force should be com- 

 manded by French and English officers. After 

 the bombardment the conference agreed upon 

 the sending of a Turkish force to restore order 

 in Egypt. They were to act under the direc- 

 tion of the Khedive, and to retire in three 

 months, leaving all future arrangements to be 

 decided upon by the powers. In this form the 

 Bcheme was presented to the Porte in an iden- 

 tical note on July 15th. The Sultan could 

 have no possible interest in lending himself as 

 an instrument to enforce the will of England 

 and France in Egypt. With nothing to gain, 

 he would have sacrificed at one cast the fruits 

 of his laborious efforts to restore the influence 

 of the Caliph. Any hostile action against 

 Arabi would have been as unpopular in Tur- 

 key as in Egypt. Arabi and his army were 

 regarded as Moslem heroes. The softas and 

 ulemas of Stamboul declared, with the pious 

 doctors of Cairo, that Arabi would be bound 

 by the Mohammedan law to disobey and resist 

 the Caliph himself if restrained in his efforts 

 to redeem the territory of Islam from the yoke 

 of unbelievers. The Porte temporized as usual. 

 It did not reject the principle of intervention, 

 but objected to the conditions, which, between 

 the jealousy of France and the ambitious de- 

 signs of England, were so framed as to pre- 

 vent the peaceful solution of the Egyptian 

 difficulty by a simple demonstration of the au- 

 thority of the Sultan, a solution which would 

 have been as welcome to Egypt as to Europe. 

 Great Britain was preparing as secretly as pos- 

 sible but with all possible speed for war at the 

 time when she signed the identical note. Frey- 

 cinet, although he had abandoned the aggres- 

 sive policy of Gambetta, and was desirous of 

 having the Egyptian question settled by the 

 European concert, was prepared to co-operate 



with England to the extent necessary to main- 

 tain France's position as joint protecting pow- 

 er. The deputies first granted the ministry a 

 credit of 7,000,000 francs. On the 18th of 

 July the announcement of the calling out of 

 the reserves was made in the British Parlia- 

 ment. On the 24th the Prime Minister asked 

 for a vote of credit, which he placed at the 

 absurdly small sum of 2,300,000, to be raised 

 by adding l$d. to the income-tax. The dis- 

 patch of an Indian contingent had been an- 

 nounced on the 18th. The expenses of the 

 Indian force it was proposed should be borne 

 by the Indian Exchequer. On the same day 

 that the military credit was voted by the Brit- 

 ish Commons the French minister applied for 

 an additional vote. It was stated that French 

 action would be confined to the protection of 

 the Suez Canal, since the powers had refused 

 to sanction an Anglo-French military interven- 

 tion. The French Chamber, appealed to on 

 the one hand by Gambetta, who vigorously at- 

 tacked the Government for their tame attitude, 

 and on the other by the ministry with a fine- 

 drawn and scarcely intelligible scheme for 

 keeping up the Anglo-French alliance without 

 leaving the European concert, concluded that 

 it was safer and more dignified to assume no 

 share of the responsibility of breaking the con- 

 cert and coercing the Egyptians. Freycinet 

 resigned upon the rejection of the supplement- 

 ary credit, and Duclerc formed a Cabinet with 

 the policy of passivity and expectance. When 

 Gambetta first initiated the plan of dual inter- 

 vention, a counter-alliance of the Eastern pow- 

 ers Russia, Austria, Germany, and Italy 

 was in the process of formation. Now that 

 England proposed to take possession of Egypt 

 alone, there was intense opposition in St. Pe- 

 tersburg, and there were murmurs at Rome and 

 Vienna, but no combined action was possible. 

 Russia had no objections to the annexation 

 even of Egypt by Great Britain, but it should 

 be at the price, as was proposed by the Em- 

 peror Nicholas, of the acquisition of the Bos- 

 porus and Constantinople by Russia. Prince 

 Bismarck held the key to the situation, through 

 his influence over Austria and Italy. It was, 

 perhaps, the frustration of this traditional 

 scheme for Russian aggrandizement which 

 now actuated him to turn a deaf ear to the 

 frantic protests of his friend the Sultan. 



The Khedive had ordered the cessation of 

 war preparations, and had summoned Arabi 

 before him in vain ; but it was some time after 

 the English obtained charge of the person of 

 the Khedive before they could induce him to 

 proclaim Arabi a rebel, and discharge him from 

 the post of Minister of War. This was inevi- 

 table, since Arabi, in order to rouse the people 

 to resistance, and carry out the role of de- 

 fender of the sacred soil of Islam against the 

 infidel usurpers, was obliged to denounce Tev- 

 fik as the slave of the Giaours, and assume the 

 character of dictator. The Notables refused, 

 however, to declare Tevtik a traitor. The 



