“I had a good deal of difficulty,” writes Captain Shute in his diary, “to find the camel with the carpet, as it had gone another way to the station so as to avoid the British escort. Tremendous procession of Arabs with banners; behind the camel with the carpet came several more camels bearing pilgrims to Mecca, and their baggage.”
The health of the troops gave some cause for anxiety on account of fever and other illnesses, which broke out among them; and, in consequence, several Officers and men of the Battalion had to be sent home invalided. But the sickness was not abnormally great, considering the fatigues and the privations to which the men were subjected during the campaign; the losses of the Battalion in this respect amounted to eighteen men, of whom twelve died of fever.
Soon after the Carpet incident the war organization of the invading army was broken up, and Sir A. Alison, being left in Cairo with a British force, while the re-settlement of Egypt was being accomplished, arrangements were made to send the remainder home to England, and the Indian contingent to India. The Coldstream, leaving their quarters in Cairo on the 31st of October by train for Alexandria, embarked there, the next day, on board the Batavia, and, reaching Portsmouth on the 16th, proceeded thence to Chelsea barracks.
It only remains to record that, in recognition of the services of the army in Egypt in 1882, Her Majesty was graciously pleased to augment the honourable distinctions upon the Colours of the regiments engaged in the campaign by the words “Egypt, 1882,” and “Tel el-Kebir.”
Thus was the war in Egypt conducted, and thus did the British army conquer Arabi Pasha, and subject the country once more to the rule of Tewfik. A new period now commenced, when Egypt was placed under the protection of England—a temporary protection only, as the Foreign Secretary of the day eagerly announced,—who assumed the responsibility of forming a pure administration out of discordant elements, and of educating the people to respect the system which was introduced for their benefit. The success that has attended our efforts, under difficult circumstances, is an interesting subject; so also is the resentment which the French pretend to feel—because we are obliged to stay in a land we conquered and saved from what might have been anarchy, when they would not move themselves to put an end to the trouble. But the consideration of these matters does not enter into the scope of this volume, as the Coldstream was not employed in the work of Egyptian reconstruction. A question, closely connected with our intervention, did, however, still remain to be settled, and it very speedily involved us in further military operations, in which the Regiment took its share. We must therefore devote the next two chapters to the causes and conduct of this war.
403. Annual Register, 1882, pt. i. 361 (note). See, also, D. Mackenzie Wallace, Egypt and the Egyptian Question, p. 135 (London, 1883).
404. The precise date, says a writer of the day, on which the Khedive’s troops became rebels could be no more accurately ascertained than that of the discovery that the “military tyranny” imposed by Arabi, received the cordial sympathy and support of nearly every class throughout Egypt (Annual Register, 1882, i. 369). It was not until the 16th of July, after the war began, that the Khedive issued an order dismissing Arabi from his post as Minister of War (Military History of the Campaign of 1882 in Egypt, p. 16; prepared in the Intelligence Branch of the War Office, by Colonel J. F. Maurice, Royal Artillery). As we have frequently drawn from this work, in future it will be referred to as “Maurice, Official Account.”
405. See Maps No. 9, p. 379, and No. 8, p. 360. Some future historian may perhaps consider what the result would have been if the fleet had been provided with a land force when the war was begun by the bombardment of the 11th, and whether the revolt against foreign interference could have been strangled in Alexandria, before it grew and required a regular invasion to suppress it. Into these matters we do not propose to enter; it is sufficient to say that no means were prepared to take military advantage of the peculiar nature of the communications which join Alexandria with the rest of the country, and that Arabi’s troops got away unhurt.
406. Lieut.-General Willis and Major-General H.R.H. the Duke of Connaught, with their Staffs, were on board the Orient.
407. Captain Ivor Herbert, Grenadier Guards, was appointed Brigade Major; Major R. Lane, Rifle Brigade, Aide-de-camp to His Royal Highness.
408. One squadron from each Regiment of Household Cavalry.
410. Three ships, one French and two English, delayed the operation for a few hours.
411. Maurice, Official Account , p. 36. See Map No. 8, p. 360.
412. Maurice, Official Account , p. 49. One man of the Coldstream, struck down by sun apoplexy, died at Nefisha next day (25th).
413. Maurice, Official Account , p. 55.
414. Ibid. , p. 57.
415. An extract of a report upon the signalling performed in Egypt by the Coldstream is reproduced in Appendix No. XIV.
416. Our losses amounted to 3 killed and 77 wounded.
417. Arabi’s force contained a few battalions of Sudanese, or black troops; the latter were his best soldiers, and fought well.
418. Maurice, Official Account , p. 40, etc.
419. The lines were afterwards found to consist of a parapet from 3 to 5½ feet high, with a ditch in front, about 4 feet deep; they were stronger in the south, near the canal, than on the north, where, in fact, they died away, as it were, into nothing in the desert.
420. “It is impossible adequately to convey an impression of the absolute silence which prevailed, and of the entire absence of any indication of the existence of a moving army at only a few yards from each of the columns” (Maurice, Official Account , p. 82).
421. Maurice, Official Account , p. 92. If there is no exaggeration in the total numbers which, we are told, the rebel government collected after the bombardment of the 11th of July, and in the number of guns which were at their disposal at that date, it would appear likely that at least 30,000 men instead of 20,000 men must have been present at Tel el-Kebir; and it is somewhat a surprise to find that Arabi had only so small a force of artillery defending his lines, as 75 guns, when as many as 288 were apparently available at his orders.
422. Captain Shute (Coldstream Guards), Diary .
423. See Appendix No. XIV., giving Her Majesty’s message to the British army, and Sir G. Wolseley’s General Orders, issued after the battle of Tel el-Kebir.
424. Lieut.-Colonel Balfour, Grenadier Guards, reckoned among the wounded, died of his wounds; as did also two Officers of the Highland Brigade.