no ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND EGYPT. 



deliverer, and that when Ahmed Mahommed unfurled his banner of 

 revolt in the Soudan, they flocked to his standard, as the standard 

 of the long-expected Redeemer of Islam ! 



It was against this Ahmed Mahommed, commonly called the 

 Mahdi, that in August, 1883, Hicks Pasha, a retired Indian officer, 

 was ordered by the Egyptian Government to advance, and if possible, 

 to suppress the rebellion in the Soudan. 



Poor Hicks Pasha and his army marched to their doom. 

 On September 9th, at the head of an army of 11,000 men, all told, 

 they started on their ill-fated expedition, suffering under a tropical 

 sun, for two weary months, every conceivable privation, and at last, 

 on November sth, without water, without supphes, and without allies, 

 they were surrounded by the fanatical hosts of the Mahdi, and 

 Hicks Pasha putting himself at the head of his enfeebled force, fell, 

 and his little army was annihilated. 



Such a victory set the whole Soudan in a blaze ! 

 The charge, then, against the Government of Mr. Gladstone, is 

 this : That when they resolved, as it is generally considered unwisely, 

 on an occupation conditional " on the restoration of peace and order 

 in Egypt," in accordance with the despatch of Lord Granville of 

 January, 1883, that, from whatever cause, they did not rise to the 

 occasion, that they did not realise their full responsibility, and by a 

 firm and strong hand on the reins of Government at Cairo, prevent 

 as they might have prevented, the unspeakable disasters in the 

 Soudan, which subsequently ensued. 



To put it plainly, duty and policy alike imperatively demanded, 

 that at that supreme crisis, when the Rebellion in the Soudan under 

 the Mahdi assumed serious proportions, the Cabinet of Eng- 

 land, or their responsible advisers in Egypt, should have done one 

 of two things, either, in the exercise of their responsible authority, 

 have kept back Hicks Pasha from that ill-fated expedition, or, im- 

 pressed with its necessity, have so marshalled his forces, and 

 organised the power of succour, that no army of the Soudan, 

 however fanatical, could have overwhelmed it with disaster ; and for 

 this reason. 



England had practically conquered Egypt, had destroyed the Army 

 of the Nation, had broken up the Government at Cairo. England 

 had, therefore, made herself, de facto, and de jure, the respon- 

 sible Government of the country. England was supreme. None 

 could make her afraid. The Cabinet of England knew, or ought to 

 have known, that the Soudan was in a blaze ; that the Madhi and 



