250 



EGYPT. 



Khedive's proclamation appeared on the same 

 day with one from Arabi Pasha, characterizing 

 Tevfik as a traitor to his country and his re- 

 ligion. Furnished with this proclamation of 

 the Khedive, the British emhassador to the 

 Porte, Lord Dufferin, announced to the con- 

 ference the dispatch of a British expedition 

 to Egypt, explaining that the Alexandrian forts 

 were destroyed as a measure of defense, and 

 that the expedition was necessitated by force 

 majeure, aud was not to be construed as " iso- 

 lated action" or a breach of the protocol de 

 desinteressement, but was solely intended to re- 

 store peace and order, to secure the free navi- 

 gation of the Suez Canal, and to re-establish 

 the authority of the Khedive. The Porte was 

 the only Cabinet which was deeply interested 

 in keeping the English out of Egypt. The 

 proposition of the conference, that the Sultan 

 should forcibly suppress the movement which 

 he had encouraged, and take up arms against 

 the defenders of Dar-ul-Islam, a Moslem land, 

 as the mandatory of the powers, was an im- 

 possible course. He sought to delay the pro- 

 ceedings as long as possible, and looked in vain 

 for a friendly combination in Europe to prevent 

 the British occupation of Egypt. The Russian 

 embassador, M. Onou, was instructed by his 

 government not to attend the conference, 

 which England by her isolated action had set 

 at naught ; but in a few days he returned to 

 the meetings. The Porte replied to the invita- 

 tion to subdue the Egyptian rebellion with 

 Turkish forces by declaring a willingness to 

 enter the conference. Said and Assam Pashas 

 appeared at the conference on July 26th. They 

 announced that the Sultan did not reject the 

 principle of a military occupation, but that the 

 conditions contained in the identical note would 

 have to be reconsidered. The announcement 

 of the British expedition was now met with a 

 declaration that the Sultan would send troops 

 to Alexandria, in accordance with the terms of 

 the identical note. The Conference, after ac- 

 cord was re-established, only sat as a matter of 

 form, remaining passive and neutral in the dis- 

 cussion which ensued between Turkey and 

 England. Great Britain pretended to accept 

 Turkish co-operation, but demanded as a pre- 

 liminary that the Sultan should proclaim Arabi 

 a rebel. The ulemas of Stamboul, as well as 

 of the Azhar Mosque at Cairo, protested that 

 Arabi could not be regarded as a rebel when 

 protecting a Mussulman country against the 

 aggression of a Christian power. The highest 

 authorities in Mohammedan law, the professors 

 at Cairo, declared that it would cost the Sultan 

 his caliphate if he took part with the infidels. 

 The Sultan sent a force of 3,000 men to Suda 

 Bay, ready to land in Egypt at a moment's 

 notice. A military convention was submitted 

 to the Porte by Earl DufFerin. The English 

 desired the proclamation declaring the Egyptian 

 army to be rebels, and would have liked to have 

 a Turkish force posted in Egypt for the moral 

 effect, but insisted on having it placed under 



their control. The conditions of the military 

 convention were as follow : 



1. That the Turkish contingent should be restricted 

 to 5,000 men. 2. That it should land at Aboukir, 

 Damietta, or Eosetta. 3. That its movements and 

 operations should be regulated by a previous agree- 

 ment between the English and Turkish command- 

 ers. 4. That a Turkish military commissioner should 

 be attached to the English headquarters and an Eng- 

 lish commissioner to tne Turkish headquarters ; and, 

 5. That the English and Turkish troops should evacu- 

 ate Egypt simultaneously. 



Said Pasha proposed modifications which 

 would place Turkey in an independent and co- 

 ordinate position. Lord Dufferin refused to 

 submit the question to the conference. He 

 resorted to Turkish evasion and procrastination 

 to prevent a settlement, while the military 

 operations were being pushed forward. At 

 last, when the English had seized Port Said 

 and were ready to strike the decisive blow, he 

 obtained the desired proclamation from the 

 Sultan in return for permission to send a Turk- 

 ish force to Port Said. He then quibbled 

 about the form of the proclamation, and, after 

 accepting that, about the terms of the conven- 

 tion, which were, he said, that the Turkish 

 troops might " proceed to " Port Said, not that 

 they might u land " there, until Arabi's force 

 was crushed. The British embassador then 

 announced that a military convention was no 

 longer necessary, and broke off the negotia- 

 tions. 



BRITISH INTERESTS IN EGYPT. The British 

 interests in the Suez Canal as the route of mili- 

 tary communication with India and Australia 

 were advanced as the all-sufficient ground for 

 the Egyptian expedition. The neutrality of 

 the canal is guaranteed by Europe. Its safety 

 was not at all imperiled by the political changes 

 in Egypt, whatever might have been their out- 

 come. Except as being nominally within the 

 dominions of the Khedive, as being touched by 

 a railroad from Cairo at two points, and as de- 

 riving its supplies of fresh water from the in- 

 terior, it was entirely outside of the influence 

 of events in Egypt. The main object of the 

 war with the British Government was doubt- 

 lessly to alter the status quo of the canal by a 

 definite assertion of the paramount interests of 

 England before Europe, and the assumption of 

 a priority and predominance in Egypt which 

 will prevent any hostile power from ever using 

 its government to politically harass England 

 or belligerently menacing the connection with 

 India from Egyptian soil. Another political 

 reason given was to maintain Tevfik Pasha on 

 the throne on which England and France had 

 placed him. There were various important 

 pecuniary and commercial interests which, 

 though seen to have been operative in the 

 train of events through which Great Britain 

 " drifted into the war," were not acknowledged 

 as motives, except two or three of them in a 

 secondary degree. The interest of the British 

 Government in the solvency and good faith of 

 Egypt was involved to the extent of the 5 per 



