The resolute attitude of the Queen’s Government found an echo in the country, and the chorus of a popular music hall ditty supplied a nickname, the exact equivalent of the French term chauviniste. Everybody at this day understands what is meant by the “Jingo party” or the “Jingo policy,” though perhaps the origin of the phrase may come to be forgotten. It is found in the lines shouted by enthusiastic audiences in the early months of 1878:

It was the policy of England in a nutshell, and it had its effect abroad. The Russians had suffered heavily in the war: they were in no spirit to renew it with a powerful, wealthy, and fresh enemy. They agreed not to occupy Gallipoli, provided the English fleet withdrew from the Sea of Marmora. |The Berlin Congress and Treaty.| Both nations were disposed to accept Prince Bismarck’s proffered mediation, and it was agreed to submit the Treaty of San Stefano to a Congress of the Powers at Berlin. This famous Congress, at which Great Britain was represented by her Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary—Lord Beaconsfield and Lord Salisbury—effected a re-arrangement of the Danubian provinces, a rectification of the frontier of Greece, the cession to Russia of Batoum and Kars, with that part of Bessarabia which had been taken from her by the Treaty of Paris, and the occupation by Great Britain of the island of Cyprus, coupled with an obligation to defend Turkey in the possession of her Asiatic dominions. If it was not a settlement containing the elements of durability, nor conveying much direct advantage to Great Britain, at least it prohibited that which Great Britain was determined not to allow—the handing over to Russia of the key of the Mediterranean, the highway to India—and Beaconsfield was entitled to claim, as he did on his return before a rapturous crowd in Downing Street, that Her Majesty’s Plenipotentiaries had succeeded in securing “Peace with Honour.”

But terrible news arrived before the close of the year. History—the disastrous history of 1841—repeated itself with extraordinary exactness. Sir Louis Cavagnari had been sent as envoy to Cabul early in 1878 to watch and, if possible, counteract the effect of the persistent advance of Russia towards the frontier of British India. He was lodged with a small escort, in comfortable, but defenceless, quarters in the Bala Hissar or citadel of Cabul. The Amir Yakoob soon began to show impatience at the presence of the British in his capital. He was in difficulties also with his own troops, who were clamorous for arrears of pay. On September 3 a riotous mob collected in front of the British Embassy; blows were struck and shots fired, and soon Cavagnari and his household were closely besieged. He had with him a secretary, a surgeon, and Lieutenant Hamilton, commanding the escort of twenty-six troopers and fifty men of the corps of Guides. These made a brave defence, but at last the buildings were set on fire, and the envoy and every soul with him perished in the flames. |Massacre at Cabul.| The Amir represented to the Viceroy that this was the result of a mutiny against his own authority, and this seems to have been the case; he was powerless to prevent what perhaps he did not greatly deplore. Not the less necessary was it to exact punishment for the massacre. General Stewart, who had just evacuated Candahar under provisions of the recent treaty, re-occupied it; General Baker advanced by the Shutar Gardan and seized Kushi. On October 6 General Roberts (now Lord Roberts), acting in concert with General Baker, defeated a large force of Ghilzais, with artillery, on the heights of Chardeh, and then fought his way to Cabul, which he entered on the 12th.

All this time Yakoob Khan had been making friendly professions, and remained with the British field force during its operations. But there was reason to suspect his complicity in the massacre; he tendered his abdication to General Roberts, and was sent as a State prisoner to India. Then followed painful scenes in Cabul, the assassins of Cavagnari’s party being hunted out and many of them publicly hanged. The townspeople remained sullen: the Afghan warriors left Cabul and collected at Ghazni, where an aged Mollah was preaching a holy war. By the beginning of December the whole country was under arms, burning to reenact the scenes of 1842. But they had a different man from General Elphinstone to deal with in General Roberts. He continued to receive reinforcements from India, and made such good use of them that, after much hard fighting, the insurgent tribes under Mohamed Jan were completely dispersed.

But there were many claimants to the throne of the Amir. Among these was Abdurrahman, who lived in Turkestan, subsidised and protected by Russia. This prince appeared in Northern Afghanistan in March 1880, and a formidable rising took place in support of his claim. On April 19 General Stewart encountered a force, about 15,000 strong, at Ahmed Kel, and a fierce encounter took place. For some time it seemed as if the furious onslaught of the Afghans must prevail; the British infantry were driven back; it was only by means of his artillery that Stewart saved the day and the enemy was routed in the end.

In this position affairs in Afghanistan must be left, in order to trace the momentous course of events at home, which wrought a remarkable change on the character and object of the war. But before reverting to the fortunes of the Beaconsfield Ministry, it is necessary to make mention of another and more lamentable war which took place in another quarter of the globe simultaneously with the Afghan Campaign. The River Tugela formed the boundary between the British Colony of Natal and the territory of the Zulus, the most powerful nationality in South Africa. Land disputes between the Zulus and the Dutch Boers of the Transvaal Republic had been brewing for many years, and at last hostilities broke out between them. |The Zulu War.| The Boers were badly beaten by a young Zulu chief called Sikukuni, and both sides appealed to the British Government to intervene. Sir Theophilus Shepstone was sent into the Transvaal to adjudicate between them, and sought to solve the problem by annexing the whole territory, not without the consent of the Republican leaders, the disputed land being handed over to the Zulus. This settlement might have proved effective but for the outrageous behaviour of Cetchwayo, King of the Zulus, who suddenly developed a most violent temper, probably arising from a growing taste for British rum. Even then, had matters been left in the hands of Sir Henry Bulwer, the Governor of Natal, matters might have been maintained on a friendly footing. Unfortunately, Sir Bartle Frere, the Queen’s High Commissioner in South Africa, saw grounds for apprehension in the immense force maintained by Cetchwayo on the frontier, and began moving troops from Cape Colony into Natal. He endeavoured to exact guarantees from the Zulu king of an extremely onerous nature, fixing January 11, 1879, as the limit for their acceptance. Sir Bartle Frere’s action can only be justified by the supposition that war was, sooner or later, inevitable, a belief which neither Sir Henry Bulwer nor the Colonial Office entertained. Cetchwayo allowed the prescribed day to pass without complying with the High Commissioner’s demands. On the very next day British troops under Lord Chelmsford invaded Zululand, the force advancing in three columns, under Colonel Glyn, Colonel Pearson, and Colonel Durnford. Colonel Durnford’s column occupied a camp at Isandhlana on January 21; and the following day, being attacked by about 20,000 Zulus, were almost annihilated. |Disaster of Isandhlana.| The 1st Battalion of the 24th Foot was destroyed, thirty officers and 500 men being slain. Colonel Durnford and Colonel Pulleine were killed, and immense quantities of stores fell into the hands of the enemy. It was a terrible retribution for having underrated the resources and numbers of the enemy and for imperfectly reconnoitring his position. A similar disaster very nearly befell Colonel Pearson’s column. On the day after the tragedy at Isandhlana he was beleaguered at the mission station of Ekowe. For more than two months his little garrison of 1,200 held out against incessant assaults by immense numbers of Zulus, till, in the last days of March, provisions had run dangerously low. On April 1 Lord Chelmsford, having received reinforcements from England, advanced with 4,000 British troops and 2,000 friendly natives, defeated the besiegers, and raised the siege.

The invasion of Zululand had now assumed the proportions of a great campaign. About 20,000 British and 4,500 Colonial troops were in the field. The Government, dissatisfied with Lord Chelmsford’s initial want of success and subsequent hesitation, sent out Sir Garnet Wolseley to supersede him. But before he arrived a decisive victory had been fought on July 4, whereby the power of the Zulus was hopelessly broken. Lord Chelmsford’s reputation, endangered at Isandhlana, was redeemed at Ulundi, just as Lord Gough’s disaster at Chilianwalla had been repaired at Goojerat before Sir Charles Napier came to supersede him.

The native chiefs now crowded in to make submission. Cetchwayo was a fugitive with a handful of followers, and a force of cavalry scoured the country in pursuit of him, till, on August 28, the war was brought to an end by the capture of the unhappy king by Lord Gifford’s party. It had cost Great Britain dearly in lives and money; one of the most tragic incidents in it was the death of Prince Napoleon, eldest son of the late Emperor of the French, who served on Lord Chelmsford’s staff as a volunteer. He was slain on June 2, when employed on surveying duty, having ridden into an ambush of Zulus.

CHAPTER XV.
1879–1881.

The Condition of Egypt—Mr. Goschen’s Commission—Ismail’s Coup d’état—His Deposition by the Sultan—Establishment of the Dual Control—The First Midlothian Campaign—Commercial and Agricultural Depression—Sudden Dissolution of Parliament—Lord Derby joins the Liberals—Second Midlothian Campaign—Great Liberal Victory—Mr. Gladstone’s Second Administration—Charles Stuart Parnell and the Irish Home Rule Party—War with Afghanistan—Battle of Maiwand—General Roberts’s March—Defeat of Ayub Khan and Evacuation of Cabul and Candahar—Revolt of the Transvaal—Battles of Laing’s Nek and Majuba Hill—Establishment of the Boer Republic—Weakness of the Conservative Opposition—The Fourth Party—Irish Affairs—Boycotting—A New Coercion Bill—The Irish Land Bill—Resignation of the Duke of Argyll—Death of Lord Beaconsfield—Military Revolt in Egypt—Bombardment of Alexandria—Expedition against Arabi—Battles of Kassassin and Tel-el-Kebir—Overthrow of Arabi.

THE position and condition of Egypt had grown to be a matter of anxiety to the Powers of Western Europe, owing to events which it is only possible to recapitulate here in the briefest terms. |The Condition of Egypt.| Ruled by the Khedive as an autonomous State, Egypt was also technically a province of the Ottoman Empire and paid an annual tribute of £695,792 to the Sultan of Turkey. But the creation of the Suez Canal, the investment of European capital therein, and the importance to maritime nations of that highway, rendered the good government of Egypt a subject of international concern. The Khedive, Ismail Pasha, actuated, no doubt, in part, by a resolve to develop the resources of his country, but also by aims of personal indulgence and aggrandisement, had launched into schemes of such scale and cost that the Egyptian Treasury was virtually bankrupt in 1877. A Commission of Inquiry, presided over by Mr. Goschen, resulted in the appointment of Mr. Rivers Wilson and M. de Blignières, representing Great Britain and France respectively, as Members of the Khedive’s Cabinet. The plan failed to work smoothly; the Khedive became leader of the Opposition to his own Government, and in February 1879 he was compelled to submit to conditions imposed by the Cabinets of Great Britain and France, excluding him from Cabinet Councils, appointing his son Tewfik President of the Council, and vesting in the English and French Ministers absolute power of veto upon all measures. Ismail Pasha accepted these conditions, but on April 7 he suddenly dismissed the Cabinet and appointed one entirely composed of natives of Egypt. On June 26, in consequence of representations from the Governments of Germany, Austria, Great Britain, France, and Russia, the Sultan deposed Ismail and created his son Tewfik Khedive in his place. A new scheme of government was adopted, whereby Tewfik appointed his own Cabinet, and the dual control of Great Britain and France was established by the appointment of two Controllers, Mr. Baring (now Lord Revelstoke) and M. de Blignières, with full powers to regulate expenditure, with seats in the Cabinet, not removable except by their own Governments, and with power to appoint and dismiss all subordinate officials. By the close of 1879 the credit of Egypt, which had been apparently hopelessly shattered by Ismail’s decree in May 1876, suspending payment and unifying the general debt, was restored by the liquidation of all debts due by the State.

This, then, was the state of affairs in Egypt towards the close of Lord Beaconsfield’s last Administration. The country had been redeemed from insolvency by the joint action of Great Britain and France, the arbitrary action of her rulers had been put under control, and her internal affairs had been started on such a footing as should protect the people from oppression and grievous taxation.

Meanwhile the course of domestic politics in Great Britain claimed the immediate attention of statesmen. On November 24, 1879, Mr. Gladstone, once more the actual, though not the nominal, leader of the Opposition, started from Liverpool on a memorable tour. The Earl of Dalkeith was then member for Midlothian. He was the eldest son of the Duke of Buccleuch, at that time the most notable Scottish peer, of immense influence north of the Tweed and leader of the Conservative Party in the North. Mr. Gladstone had conceived the chivalrous idea of doing battle with this doughty chief on his own ground. |The First Midlothian Campaign.| The first “Midlothian Campaign” lasted till December 5, and it took the country by storm. The failure of the City of Glasgow Bank in the previous year had not only brought disaster to thousands of persons in the North, but it had emphasised in a peculiar manner the end of a period of prosperity. Agriculture, especially, began to feel the full effects of foreign competition; farmers, whose rents had been gradually increasing as the value of land rose with favourable markets, now found it impossible to meet their obligations out of income. There was the usual tendency to lay the blame of individual misfortune on the Government, and Mr. Gladstone, though his attacks on the policy of the Cabinet were based principally on their foreign policy, which he denounced as aggressive, evoked an immense amount of sympathy and encouragement from those who listened to him or read his speeches.

|Sudden Dissolution of Parliament.| Ministers had still a year more to exist before an appeal to the country should be necessary, and all was going quietly in Parliament, when, on March 8, people were taken by surprise on hearing it announced that the dissolution was to take place at once, and a manifesto from the Prime Minister, in the form of a letter to the Duke of Marlborough, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, was published in the newspapers, setting forth the imminence of trouble from Irish sedition, and calling on the nation to be on its guard.

The country neither realised the magnitude of the crisis, nor did it perceive grounds for relying more on the Conservatives to deal with it than on the Liberals. The Opposition was greatly strengthened at this juncture by the accession of Lord Derby to the Liberal Party, and the veteran Gladstone, forgetting his resolution, six years before, to spend the rest of his years in retirement, went forth exulting on his second Midlothian Campaign. |Second Midlothian Campaign.| The walls of the Tory Jericho of the North went down before the blast of his trumpet; the Buccleuch was defeated; only nine Conservatives were returned from Scotland. The Irish vote, an important element in all the great towns, went solid for the Liberals in obedience to Parnell’s order “to vote against Benjamin Disraeli as they should vote against the enemy of their country and their race.” Instead of the majority of fifty which they counted in the old Parliament, the Conservatives returned to the new one in a minority of forty-six.

There was much speculation as to whom the Queen would send for to form a Ministry. Lord Granville and Lord Hartington were the nominal leaders of the victorious party in either House, but the victory was due to Mr. Gladstone’s crusades—everybody agreed in that. On April 22 Her Majesty sent for Lord Hartington; next day he and Lord Granville were received to an audience, and thereafter all doubts were set at rest by Mr. Gladstone receiving the Royal commands.

After the Fenian movement, partly owing to vigorous measures on the part of the Executive and partly to dissension among its own leaders, had collapsed, Irish disaffection to British rule took the form of a constitutional agitation for the establishment of a separate Legislature for Ireland. “Home Rule for Ireland” became the watchword and goal of a determined group of members of Parliament, acting under Mr. Isaac Butt, an able and successful lawyer and powerful speaker, who began political life as a Conservative. This third party acted together throughout the Parliament of 1874–80. It was practically the creation of Mr. Butt, but it soon carried its aims far beyond what he considered legitimate, and adopted methods of obstructing Parliamentary business, against which he protested in vain. |Irish Home Rule.| A stronger man than Butt came to the front in the person of a Protestant Irish landlord, Charles Stuart Parnell, one of the most remarkable figures in recent political life. Though not gifted with the native richness of rhetoric which distinguishes so many of his countrymen, Parnell quickly acquired an ascendancy in the Home Rule party in virtue of his genius for strategy, his resolute will, and a kind of hauteur which lifted him above petty jealousy and interference. From the first he discerned that the true way to attain Home Rule, if it might be attained at all, was to maintain scrupulous independence of both Conservatives and Liberals, to raise every possible obstruction in the way of legislation, and, in short, to render the Irish party so intolerable to all Governments, that Home Rule should be granted as the only means of getting out of an impossible situation. In 1878 a debate took place on the circumstances of the murder of the Earl of Leitrim, and Butt was obliged to dissociate himself from all sympathy with the sentiments expressed by some of his colleagues, and he resigned the leadership in favour of Parnell. After the General Election the Home Rulers in Parliament numbered sixty, perfect in discipline and devotion to their new chief.

The pacification of Afghanistan by General Roberts was not of long duration. After those concerned in the massacre of Cavagnari’s party had been punished with exemplary, if not excessive, severity, attempts were made to conciliate the people, and the Conservative Government offered to recognise any Amir at Cabul who might be elected, except Yakub Khan. Candahar was to be separated from Cabul, becoming an independent State under British protection, with Shir Ali as Amir. Then came the change of Government in England, bringing about an important modification in British policy towards Afghanistan. It was resolved to evacuate both Cabul and Candahar, resigning the country to the claimant Abdurrahman. |War with Afghanistan.| The advance, however, of a rival claimant from Herat, in the person of Ayub Khan, caused the Government of India to direct General Burrows to defend the passage of the River Helmund. Beyond that river lay the territory of the Wali of Zamindawir, an ally of the British in resisting Ayub Khan’s invasion. But the Wali’s army mutinied and deserted to Ayub, and General Burrows decided to retire to Kushk-i-Nakhud, thirty miles in rear of the Helmund. Ayub then crossed the river, and directed his march to Maiwand, a Pass over the hills twelve miles north of Burrows’s camp. General Burrows, in total ignorance of the real strength of the enemy, resolved to march there and clear the Pass. On July 27 he started with a force of 2,500 men, six nine-pounders, and some smooth-bores. Unfortunately, instead of keeping to his purpose of occupying Maiwand, which lay on his right, General Burrows made the fatal mistake of attacking a column of the enemy which appeared on his left. He found himself engaged with Ayub’s whole army, variously estimated at from 12,000 to 20,000 of all arms. The British troops fought gallantly, but some blunders, of a nature never clearly explained, made their position untenable. The order was given to retreat, not before some of the Indian troops had broken and fled. Next day the broken remnants of General Burrows’s Brigade struggled into Candahar, having fought their way through hordes of armed villagers along the route, who rose in excitement at the news of the defeat of the British. All that mortal man could do to atone for his want of generalship was done by General Burrows, who fought with desperate gallantry at Maiwand; but half his Brigade perished, and probably it would have been annihilated but for the steadiness of the Horse Artillery in action and in covering the retreat.

General Primrose was in command at Candahar, where he was besieged by Ayub on August 8. He was relieved by General Sir Frederick Roberts, who left Cabul on August 9 with a flying column, nearly 10,000 strong, and performed a march which has become celebrated in British war annals, arriving at Candahar on the 31st, having covered 318 miles in twenty-three days. |General Roberts’s March.| On September 1 he attacked and completely routed Ayub Khan, who fled to Herat. The war was over: it had cost £5,750,000; Lord Ripon, who had succeeded Lord Lytton as Viceroy, was directed by the India Office to abandon the purpose with which it had been undertaken, and by the end of 1880 the British had evacuated both Cabul and Candahar.

The trouble which broke out in the British Dominion of South Africa in 1880 must be regarded as the direct effect of the system of British party politics. Forasmuch as, taking their cue from Mr. Gladstone, the Opposition had vehemently denounced the annexation of the Transvaal, on the overthrow of the Conservatives the “patriot” section of the Boers not unnaturally expected the restoration of their independence. But these hopes were dispelled by Mr. Gladstone and Lord Kimberley, the Colonial Secretary, in the debate on the Queen’s speech to the new Parliament. They declared that Great Britain was under pledges to the native population which made it impossible for her to recede. |Revolt of the Transvaal.| The effect of this was to exasperate the Boers to the last degree. They rose in armed revolt, and proclaimed an independent Republic on December 16, 1880. Detachments of British troops were beleaguered by the insurgents at several places, and a detachment of the 94th Regiment, under Colonel Anstruther, marching to the relief of Pretoria, suffered defeat, all of them being slain or captured. The whole Dutch population of the Transvaal were under arms by the beginning of 1881, and their skill as riflemen rendered them a foe far more formidable than might have been expected from their numbers.

It is a painful duty to record faithfully the events of the succeeding weeks. On January 24, Sir George Colley, Governor of Natal, entered the Transvaal with 1,000 troops, attacking the Boers at Laing’s Nek on the 28th, when he was repulsed with the loss of seven officers and eighty men killed and 100 wounded. On February 7 Colley was attacked on the Ingogo River, and, though the enemy retired at sunset, the British loss amounted to six officers and sixty-two men killed and sixty-four wounded. On February 26 General Colley returned to the attack on the Boers’ camp at Laing’s Nek. He decided on occupying Majuba Hill, overlooking the enemy’s position; and, owing to the great fatigue endured during the ascent, in which his men were occupied for eight hours of darkness, he neglected to intrench the ground. The position was naturally an exceedingly strong one, yet on the following morning, the 27th, it was stormed by the Boers. The British force, 627 strong, was routed, with very heavy loss, and Sir George Colley was among the slain. |Establishment of the Boer Republic.| Sir Evelyn Wood, who had arrived in the neighbourhood with reinforcements, now succeeded to the chief command, and entered into negotiations with the Boer commander, Joubert. These resulted in the conclusion of peace on March 21, the terms including recognition of the Queen’s suzerainty over the Transvaal, but securing complete self-government to the Boer Republic.

The task of the Government within the walls of the House of Commons was rendered an easy one during 1880 and 1881, by reason of the spiritless and disorganised condition of the Opposition under the mild and forbearing generalship of Sir Stafford Northcote. The Conservatives, moreover, found themselves under the obligation of voting continually in the same lobby as their natural opponents, in resistance to the demands of the Parnellite Party and in support of measures for the protection of life and property in Ireland. Little resistance, indeed, would have been encountered by Ministers, but for the spirited action of a small knot of members below the Gangway. This group, led by Lord Randolph Churchill, and comprising Mr. Arthur Balfour, Sir John Gorst, and Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, allowed no subject to be dealt with without the closest and most persistent scrutiny. |The Fourth Party.| Their diligence, their individual and varied ability, and their permanent presence on the same bench, soon caused them to be known as the Fourth Party; and the intrepidity of their attacks on the Government was not more remarkable than the freedom with which they taunted the Tory leaders for their inaction, especially Northcote, Cross, and Smith.

More and more did the Irish Question absorb the attention of Parliament and the public. Parnell was busy at the work of land agitation, and explained the means by which landlords were to be driven from Ireland. Speaking at Ennis, he exclaimed, “What is to be done with a tenant bidding for a farm from which another tenant has been evicted?” “Shoot him!” cried a voice in the crowd. “No,” said Parnell, “I do not say shoot him; there is a more Christian and charitable way of dealing with him. Let him be shunned in the street, in the shop, in the market-place—even in the places of worship—as if he were a leper of old.”

One of the earliest cases in which this advice was carried into effect was that of Captain Boycott, the Earl of Erne’s agent. The Land League issued orders that he was to be treated “as a leper of old”; his men deserted him on the eve of harvest; tradesmen refused to supply goods; not a soul in the district dared to be known to have intercourse with him. |Boycotting.| Captain Boycott was a man of spirit: he brought a hundred Ulstermen to gather the crops on his large farm; the Irish Government massed 7,000 troops and police to protect them, and henceforth the verb “to boycott” became the recognised expression for a system which brought infinite suffering on many poor people.

But a terrible era of violence and crime, inaugurated by the murder of Viscount Mountmorres on September 25, 1880, proved that the old methods of terrorising were far from obsolete, and that the “more Christian and charitable” boycotting was only a supplement to them. The transparency of the veil thrown over the connection of the Land League with atrocious crimes made it necessary to strengthen the hands of the Executive by the introduction of a fresh Coercion Bill, with clauses specially framed to deal with the new system of intimidation known as boycotting. Mr. Forster, by a merciful instruction to substitute buckshot for ball in the cartridges of the Irish police, earned for himself from the Irish Party the nickname of “Buckshot” Forster. The debates on this measure are memorable for the resistance offered to it by the Parnellite party, which led to the adoption of the “12 o’clock rule” and of the closure.

No sooner had the new Coercion Bill received the Royal Assent, on March 21, than Mr. Gladstone announced another great measure dealing with Ireland, framed to conciliate disaffection and redress the complaints of Irish farmers. |The Irish Land Bill.| The Irish Land Bill occupied the House of Commons during four months of 1881. |Resignation of the Duke of Argyll.| Its introduction caused the secession of the Duke of Argyll from the Cabinet, because, as he explained to the Lords, though in favour of increasing the number of landowners in Ireland, he would have no hand in destroying ownership altogether.

The Earl of Beaconsfield died on April 19, 1881. |Death of Lord Beaconsfield.| If Sir Robert Peel must be reckoned the founder of the Conservative Party, Benjamin Disraeli must be claimed as its architect.

For some time previous to this, affairs in Egypt had not been running smoothly under the dual control. A military party had been formed, under the lead of Ahmed Arabi Bey, calling itself national, but really military, aiming at the effacement of the Khedive and the fulfilment of the shadowy purpose of “Egypt for the Egyptians.” |Military Revolt in Egypt.| Various disturbances took place in Alexandria during 1881, but in May 1882 matters wore such a threatening aspect that the allied English and French fleets were sent to anchor off that city. The Khedive, in his extremity, had promoted Arabi to be War Minister, who used his power to put the fortifications of Alexandria in a thorough state of defence and began massing troops in the town. On July 7 Admiral Sir Beauchamp Seymour, commanding the British fleet, warned Arabi that unless these warlike preparations were discontinued, he should be obliged to open fire. No notice being taken of this, ships were provided for the safety of European inhabitants, and on the 10th the British ultimatum was sent, demanding the instant cessation of the works of defence and their surrender to the British flag. Arabi having failed to comply with this also, the British ships, consisting of eight powerful ironclads and five gun-vessels, cleared for action and took up their positions, the French fleet retiring to Port Said. The bombardment began on the morning of July 11, briskly replied to by the guns in the forts, and continued all day till 5.30 p.m. Resumed next day, it was continued at intervals till the afternoon, when it was found that, under cover of a flag of truce, Arabi had withdrawn his troops and abandoned the forts and town. A frightful scene began directly military authority was withdrawn: the populace broke loose, pillaging and firing the shops and houses, and massacring about 2,000 Europeans who had not availed themselves of the opportunity to escape. Arabi, the Khedive’s War Minister, was at the head of the Khedive’s army, yet Great Britain assumed the task of dispersing this army in order to re-conquer the country for the Khedive.