After the compromise had been arranged between the rival political leaders on the Franchise Bill and the Bill for the Redistribution of Seats, it has been said that Parliament adjourned to the 19th of February, 1885—an annus mirabilis in the Queen’s reign. It witnessed the final settlement of the Reform Question which the Whigs left unsettled in 1832. It witnessed the amazing development of the Home Rule movement in Ireland under two influences. The first was extended Franchise. The second was the alliance between the Parnellites and the Tory Party, which had grown out of the intrigues of Lord Randolph Churchill, Sir H. Drummond Wolff, and Mr. Rowland Winn, the Tory whip, with Mr. Justin McCarthy, and other Irish Nationalist leaders. Every day brought forth a new outward and visible sign of this alliance, and in Ireland, when it was bruited about that the Tories were ready not only to attack and overthrow Lord Spencer, who was still upholding English authority at Dublin Castle almost in the same sense that General Gordon was upholding it at Khartoum, the result was inevitable. The large class of Irishmen who from motives of self-interest, business connection, or personal feeling were willing to stand by the English Government in Dublin so long as they felt sure that England would stand by them, began to waver in their allegiance. Like the same sort of people in the Soudan, and even in Khartoum when they saw Gordon abandoned by those who were supposed to be truest to him, they began to make terms with their Mahdi. If the Tories were buying the Parnellite vote to-day, the Liberals would soon be found bidding higher for it to-morrow, and Irishmen, whose interests and timidity alone served to keep them loyal to Dublin Castle so long as they felt absolutely certain of the support of both political parties in England, began in 1885 to stream over to Mr. Parnell’s camp. The stream was obviously swollen when a coalition of the Parnellites and Tories expelled Mr. Gladstone’s Government from office, and when it was known that the Parnellite vote had been obtained on the faith of a promise from the Tory leaders that they would not only abandon the Crimes Act if they came into office, but join Mr. Parnell in opposing Mr. Gladstone’s Government if it sought to renew it. The year also witnessed the end of the Egyptian tragedy, the conquest of Burmah, the semi-Socialistic propaganda of Mr. Chamberlain, the General Election which made Mr. Parnell master of Ireland, and shattered the English Party system that had been built up after 1846, and the rumoured adoption of Home Rule as a part of Mr. Gladstone’s programme.

During the first weeks of 1885—the winter recess, as it might be called—Mr. Chamberlain spread terror through the land by making a strong Socialistic appeal to the new Electors. He was evidently bent on breaking up the old Liberal Party—perhaps he saw his way to the formation of a new democratic faction into which many of the “Tory democracy,” created by Lord Randolph Churchill, might drift. Signs were not wanting that a coalition between these successful politicians was in certain circumstances quite a possible contingency. In the meantime, Mr. Chamberlain and his followers preached what he called the “doctrine of ransom.” This meant that when a man became rich he was to purchase the privilege of keeping his wealth by paying taxes now borne by the poor, and if need be by providing new taxes in order to give the poor a larger share of the comforts and enjoyments of life than fell to their lot. Mr. Chamberlain in fact offered to “ransom” the thrifty classes from confiscation provided they taxed themselves to give the poor free libraries, pleasure-gardens, education, improved dwellings at “fair rents,” allotments of land, and work and employment in time of distress. It was part of his scheme to abolish indirect taxation. His lieutenant, Mr. Jesse Collings, formulated the portion of it which dealt with the land by popularising the idea that it was the duty of the ratepayers to set up agricultural labourers in the business of farming with “three acres and a cow” to start with. Government, in fact, was, according to Mr. Chamberlain and Mr. Collings, to act as a kind of glorified Cooperative Store, or “Universal Provider” for the proletariat.

When the House of Commons met on the 19th of February there was a general desire to make rapid progress with the Reform Bills. Efforts to secure the representation of minorities, to oppose an increase in the members of the House, to cut down the representation of Ireland, to disfranchise the Universities, were resisted, and the alliance of the two Front Benches crushed all opposition. One member only was successful in carrying an amendment. This was Mr. Raikes, who had been Chairman of Committees in Lord Beaconsfield’s Government, and who now succeeded in reducing the perpetual penalties inflicted on voters in corrupt boroughs. On the 11th of May the Seats Bill was read a third time, and when it went to the House of Lords it was speedily passed. The Tories, who objected to the compromise, found spokesmen in Mr. James Lowther, Mr. Chaplin, and Mr. Raikes. The opposition of the last-named was the most active, but it merely resulted in effecting a few changes in the nomenclature of the Bill, and in what the Times termed “his more than paternal solicitude for the leisurely progress of the measure.”

No measure of reform proposed in the Queen’s reign by a responsible politician was ever designed to produce such a mighty change in the British Constitution as the Reform Bill of 1885. Lord Grey and Lord John Russell, by their Bill in 1832, added not quite half a million voters to the Electorate of the United Kingdom. The Reform Bill of 1867 increased the Electorate from 1,136,000 to 2,448,000. In 1885 it had grown to be 3,000,000, and to this number Mr. Gladstone’s Bill added 2,000,000 new voters.[204] The Seats Bill, which distributed the 5,000,000 electors into electoral groups, was a much more complex measure. The chief difficulties were two in number. First, there was that of determining the standard by which the claim of a borough to separate representation could be conceded; secondly, there was the difficulty of discovering how votes should be cast in towns possessing more than one member. Here curious contrasts can be drawn between the old order and the new.

Redistribution of seats in 1832 meant the transfer of a vast body of power from the aristocracy to the middle-class, and the liberation of the Commons from the despotism of the Peers, who ruled it through the nominees who represented their pocket boroughs. Little wonder that the sweeping disfranchisement of these constituencies brought the country to the verge of revolution. In 1867 it was not the aristocracy but the middle-class which dreaded the kind of disfranchisement that proceeds from destroying the separate representation or reducing the redundant representation of a constituency. Hence, though the contest in 1867 was warm, it was not fierce. But in 1885, on the other hand, no popular excitement could be raised over the question of Redistribution, and the nation grew sick of the controversy as to whether a Seats Bill should be taken before, with, or after a Franchise Bill. And yet the redistribution of power proposed

by Mr. Gladstone’s Bill in 1885, and which sprang from the compromise with the Opposition in December, 1884, effected changes vaster by far than those that shook Society to its foundation in 1832. In 1832, what nearly came to civil war was waged over 143 seats, liberated by disfranchisement for redistribution.[205] In 1885 Mr. Gladstone had 178 seats representing 26·5 per cent. of the representation of the country to redistribute. Of this number more than half—about 96—were given to the counties, whose Electorate had been enormously increased by the absorption of small boroughs, as well as by the extension of household franchise, whereas in 1832, the counties only pulled 56 of the liberated seats out of the scramble. Of the boroughs which Mr. Gladstone disfranchised, 20 had their representation cut down to one member in 1832, and two, Kendal and Whitby—which Lord John Russell created as new boroughs—lost their separate representation in 1885. The great merit of the Bill was that, as far as possible, it created single-member constituencies on the basis of population, which was as close an approach to equal electoral districts as Mr. Gladstone could make. Large towns, instead of being treated as single electoral units with cumulative voting, were cut up into single-member constituencies as nearly as possible equal in point of population. The Bills for Scotland and Ireland were drawn on the same lines, but adapted to local circumstances.

Up to Whitsuntide Government business was sadly in arrears—foreign questions diverting attention from domestic legislation. The fall of Khartoum, the retreat of Lord Wolseley’s advance column in the Soudan, the defeats and disasters of the campaign, the deaths of Generals Gordon, Stewart, and Earle, together with wild rumours of an Arab invasion of Egypt, excited Parliament to a state of high tension. The Government called out the Reserves, announced that they would crush the Mahdi, and ordered the war against Osman Digna to be renewed. The Opposition in the last week of February brought forward a vote of censure on the Ministerial policy in Egypt, calling on Ministers to recognise British responsibility for Egypt and those parts of the Soudan which were necessary for the security of Egypt. Mr. Gladstone evaded any positive declaration of policy, and the Liberal party spoke with two voices, some being for complete withdrawal from Egypt, others being in favour of administering its affairs in the name of the Khedive, but none being bold enough to advocate any permanent course of action. The Ministry were saved from defeat by 302 votes to 288, and this narrow majority was a warning of their coming doom.

A dispute then arose as to the plan adopted for rescuing Egypt from a financial crisis. This plan was embodied in a convention with the Powers and assented to by the Porte, by which a loan of £9,000,000 under International guarantee was advanced to Egypt to save her from bankruptcy, in consideration of which the Powers agreed to suspend the Law of Liquidation and cut down the interest on all Egyptian securities by 5 per cent. That on the Suez Bonds payable to the English Government was, however, reduced by 10 per cent. The arrangement was to last for two years, and if Egypt was still bankrupt in 1887, then her affairs would be subject to an International inquiry. No care had been taken to prevent the International guarantee of the loan carrying with it the right of International intervention in Egypt, though Ministers repudiated the suggestion that it did. The Convention was, however, approved by the House of Commons by a vote of 294 to 246. Soon after this the diplomatic hostility of France, Russia, and Germany, caused Mr. Gladstone’s Government suddenly to limit their responsibilities in Egypt. Operations in the Red Sea were countermanded, the Suakim-Berber railway was stopped, and it was decided to abandon Dongola and fix the Egyptian frontier at Wady-Halfa. Mr. Gladstone, or rather Lord Derby and Lord Granville, had produced the diplomatic isolation of England at a most inconvenient moment, when a dispute with Russia over the Afghan boundary reached a critical stage. The negotiations for settling the boundary had been delayed because the Russian Commissioners under various pretexts avoided meeting Sir Peter Lumsden, the British Commissioner, on the frontier. Meanwhile Russian troops were stealthily advancing and taking possession of the debateable land. English protests against these tactics ended in an announcement from Mr. Gladstone, on the 13th of March, that it had been agreed by Russia that no further advances should be made on either side—the Russians having then occupied Zulficar and Pul-i-Khisti, and entrenched themselves near Penjdeh. Early in April it seemed that the Russian General (Komaroff) on the Kushk, in defiance of the agreement, took Penjdeh. This was resented by Mr. Gladstone as an “unprovoked aggression” on the Ameer, and a violation of a binding pledge to the English Foreign Office. The Government, therefore, called out the Reserves, and asked and received a Vote of Credit for £11,000,000 sterling (27th of April), to enable them to defend the interests and honour of the country against Muscovite perfidy.[206] Mr. Gladstone’s passionate outburst of patriotism, in which he declared that till the aggression at Penjdeh were atoned for he could not “close the book and say we will not look into it any more,” silenced criticism. He was fortunate enough also to carry a large vote of credit for the Egyptian account through the House on the tide of excitement he had raised in asking for the vote against Russia. But his hot fit was soon succeeded by a cool one. He agreed to “close the book” in terms of a compromise by which Russia was permitted to hold all that she had furtively seized, pending a delimitation to be effected in London,[207] the understanding being, however, that Russia would surrender Zulficar to the Ameer. As to Komaroff’s attack on Penjdeh, Russia agreed to submit to the arbitration of the King of Denmark the question whether it constituted a breach of the agreement announced by Mr. Gladstone on the 13th of March, but the inquiry was to be conducted so as “not to place gallant officers on their trial.” The only gratifying incidents in this painful transaction were the generous offers of armed support that were made to England by her autonomous colonies, and by the princes and peoples of India.

It was admitted by Mr. Gladstone that only non-contentious legislation could be taken during the Session. Still, he made one exception. He announced that he intended to renew certain “valuable and equitable provisions of the Irish Crimes Act.” This decision arrived at, after much discussion in the Cabinet, hurried the Ministry to their fate. The Parnellites privately obtained assurances from some of their influential Tory allies that if the Irish votes were so cast as to destroy Mr. Gladstone’s Government, the Tory Government that came after it would allow the Crimes Act to lapse, and would abandon Coercion. The Tory leaders, according to Lord Randolph Churchill, met and resolved to oppose any proposal to renew the Crimes Act or continue coercive legislation for Ireland.[208] But it was desirable for them to avoid the too open manifestation of their alliance with the Parnellites on a question of supporting the Government in upholding law and order in Ireland. Now that the Coalition was ready to strike, a side issue had to be discovered on which united action might be taken without scandal. This was furnished by Mr. Childers. It happened that, after Whitsuntide, the Cabinet was wrangling over something else besides Coercion—namely, the Budget—and the financial situation was not, it must be confessed, a pleasant one. A violent popular agitation in the autumn against the Admiralty, had produced a panic about the weakness of the Navy.[209] Lord Northbrook had then promised to make important additions to the Navy. Some steps were also to be taken to protect British coaling stations abroad—and all this helped to increase the Estimates. The Vote of Credit of £11,000,000 aggravated Mr. Childers’ difficulties. He had, in short, to face a deficit of a million in his accounts for 1884-85, and, with a falling revenue, an expenditure in the coming year of £100,000,000! The country remembering Mr. Gladstone’s furious denunciations of Lord Beaconsfield’s administration for running up public expenditure to £81,000,000 in 1879-80, was profoundly chagrined to find that under an economic Liberal Government, expenditure had been run up in 1885 to £100,000,000. The discussions in the Cabinet as to how the money should be raised ended in the adoption of the principle that Labour as well as Property must share the burden. Mr. Childers, therefore, raised the Income Tax to 8d. in the £, equalised the death duties on land and personal property, putting a special tax on Corporations instead of succession duty, and imposed a stamp duty on moveable securities. These changes, he explained in his Budget speech (April 30th), would

bring him in £6,000,000 of fresh revenue. By adding two shillings a gallon to the duty on spirits, and a shilling a barrel to the duty on beer, he expected to obtain £1,650,000. But this still left him with a deficit of £15,000,000 to meet. He took £4,600,000 from the Sinking Fund to meet it—leaving a balance of £3,000,000 to be paid out of the annual revenue. The landed gentry attacked the Budget because it levelled up the succession duties on land till they were equal to those on personal property. The liquor trade attacked the changes in the duties on spirits and beer—so that an excellent opportunity had arisen for the Tory-Parnellite coalition to deal a fatal blow at the Government on another issue than that of continuing Coercion. Mr. Childers finding that only £9,000,000 of the Vote of Credit (£11,000,000) would be needed, offered to halve the increase on the spirit duty, and limit the increased beer duty to a year—but without avail. Sir M. Hicks-Beach moved an amendment which united all the forces of the Opposition and the Parnellites, and defeated the Ministry on the 8th of June, by a vote of 264 to 252. Lord Randolph Churchill’s[210] speech at Bow on the 3rd of June, was taken as a good guarantee that the Irish Party need not fear a Coercion Bill from the Tories if they got into office. “But,” writes Mr. T. P. O’Connor, “even with so strong an assumption the cautious and realistic leader of the Irish Party was not satisfied; and the Irish Members did not go into the Lobby to vote against a Liberal Ministry about to propose coercion until there was an assurance, definite, distinct, unmistakable, that there would be no coercion from their successors.” The scene when the numbers were announced will never be forgotten by those who were present. When it was known that the Government was defeated, the pent-up excitement of the House found vent in a terrific uproar. “Lord Randolph Churchill,” writes Mr. Lucy, “leapt on to the bench, and, waving his hat madly above his head, uproariously cheered. Mr. Healy followed his example, and presently all the Irish members, and nearly all the Conservatives below the gangway, were standing on the benches waving hats and pocket-handkerchiefs and raising a deafening cheer. This was renewed when the figures were read out by Mr. Winn, and again when they were proclaimed from the Chair. From the Irish camp rose cries of ‘Buckshot! Buckshot!’ and ‘Coercion!’ These had no relevancy to the Budget Scheme; but they showed that the Irish members had not forgotten Mr. Forster, and that this was their hour of victory rather than the triumph of the Tories. Lord Randolph Churchill threatened to go mad with joy. He wrung the hand of the impassive Rowland Winn, who regarded him with a kindly curious smile, as if he were some wild animal. Mr. Gladstone had resumed his letter,[211] and went on calmly writing whilst the clerk at the table proceeded to run through the Orders of the Day as if nothing particular had happened. But the House was in no mood for business. Cries for the adjournment filled the House, and Mr. Gladstone, still holding his letter in one hand and the pen in the other, moved the adjournment, and the crowd surged through the doorway, the Conservatives still tumultuously cheering.”[212]

On the following day (9th of June) Mr. Gladstone told the House that the defeat of the previous evening had caused the Cabinet to submit “a dutiful communication” to the Queen, then at Balmoral, but as an answer to it must take some time to reach London, he moved an adjournment till Friday (12th of June). Strangely enough, the resignation of the Ministry was unattended by any popular excitement. It was perfectly well known that the new Cabinet would be merely a stopgap Government, powerless to do anything except wind up the business of Parliament before the General Election. On the 12th of June the House was in quite a cheerful humour when it met to hear from Mr. Gladstone that the Queen had accepted the resignation of his Cabinet. It was curious that even this last act of his Ministerial life in the Parliament of 1880-85 was not free from blunder. “Her Majesty’s gracious reply,” said Mr. Gladstone, “was made upon the 11th accepting the resignation of Lord Salisbury” a slip of the tongue which the Premier had to correct amidst shouts of laughter. At first the Queen was unwilling to accept the resignation of the Government. She could not admit that Ministers were free to throw the State into confusion because of a defeat on an Amendment to a Budget. In fact, it is not quite Constitutional to coerce the free judgment of the Commons on the financial proposals of Government by threatening Ministerial resignation if these are not slavishly accepted in detail. Such a practice virtually ties the hands of the House of Commons as guardians of the public purse. The Queen, therefore, sought a personal interview with Mr. Gladstone, to hear his full justification for the course he had adopted, but on his instructing Lord Hartington to proceed to Balmoral, her Majesty’s request was withdrawn. It now became apparent to her that the crisis was too serious to be dealt with from Balmoral. In the last weeks of the Session Parliamentary time was so valuable that it could not prudently be wasted over a stagnant interregnum protracted by the journeyings to and fro of Royal couriers between Aberdeenshire and London. It was accordingly announced that the Queen would return to Windsor at once—following the course she adopted in 1866, when confronted with a similar inconvenience. Her Majesty arrived at Windsor on the 17th of June, when Lord Salisbury had an interview with her. On the following day he and Mr. Gladstone both waited on the Sovereign—Mr. Gladstone delivering up the seals of office. There was, however, a difficulty to be overcome in the transfer of power which had been created by a tactical blunder of Lord Salisbury’s. He had told the Queen that if he took office he must exact from Mr. Gladstone a pledge that the Opposition would not embarrass her new Ministry by attacks, but loyally co-operate with it in the conduct of its business. Mr. Gladstone refused to waive his right of criticism, and he pointed out that he could not, even if he tried, arbitrarily dispose of the will of his supporters. All he could promise was that he would endeavour to give the new Cabinet “fair play,” and deal with it on its merits. But Lord Salisbury was not at first satisfied with this arrangement, and the country was soon startled by hearing that he had revived the crisis, and that even at the eleventh hour he would withdraw his consent to serve as Premier. The Queen here intervened and persuaded him to abandon his pragmatic objections to Mr. Gladstone’s assurances.[213]

The Ministry was formed after some fierce struggles in the Tory Party. Lord Randolph Churchill and his group not only insisted on having high offices, but they demanded the expulsion of Sir Stafford Northcote from the leadership of the House of Commons. Sir M. Hicks-Beach deserted his old chief, and not only went over to his enemies, but even offered himself as a candidate for his vacant post. The result was that Lord Salisbury became Premier and Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Sir Stafford Northcote became Earl of Iddesleigh, and was appointed First Lord of the Treasury. Sir Hardinge Giffard was made Lord Chancellor; Lord Cranbrook, President of the Council; Lord Harrowby, Lord Privy Seal; Sir Richard Cross, Home Secretary; the Duke of Richmond, President of the Board of Trade; Colonel Stanley, Colonial Secretary; Lord Randolph Churchill, Secretary of State for India; Mr. W. H. Smith, Secretary of State for War; Sir M. Hicks-Beach, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons; Lord Carnarvon, Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland; Lord John Manners, Postmaster-General; Lord George Hamilton, First Lord of the Admiralty; Mr. E. Stanhope, Vice-President of the Council of Education; Mr. A. J. Balfour, President of the Local Government Board; Sir W. Hart Dyke, Chief Secretary for Ireland; Mr. Ashmead Bartlett, a Civil Lord of the Admiralty; Mr. Webster and Mr. J. E. Gorst, Attorney-and Solicitor-General. Sir H. D. Wolff was sent on a special mission for no very well-defined purpose to Egypt, so that every member of the Fourth Party, who had organised the obstructive alliance between the Parnellites and the Tories, was handsomely rewarded with remunerative places. Sir H. D. Wolff’s appointment was severely criticised at the time, partly because of his intimate connection with the Anglo-Egyptian Bank. The only other striking incident in the crisis was that Mr. Gladstone was offered an earldom by the Queen—an honour which, however, he declined.[214]

Very soon after Ministers took office Mr. Parnell exacted his price, and they had to pay it. The Crimes Act was abandoned. It was announced that the Irish Labourers’ Act would be pressed on. Lord Ashbourne[215] promised to bring in a Land Purchase Bill. The Maamtrasna murders, and the cases of those condemned on account of them, were to be reconsidered—a somewhat momentous decision, for Lord Spencer’s refusal to revise the sentence in these cases had been upheld by both Parties as a crucial point in the policy of maintaining law and order in Ireland. When the Government threw over Lord Spencer, and not only refused to defend him from Mr. Parnell’s attacks, but through Lord Randolph Churchill disparaged his resolute Irish policy, it was clear that great Party changes were impending. Obviously no English Minister could again feel confident in governing Ireland with a firm and dauntless hand, after the Tories had flung Lord Spencer to the lions of Nationalism. Supported by Mr. Parnell and his followers, Ministers had no difficulty in hurrying through Supply. The Budget was revised in terms of the decision of the 9th of June, and Lord George Hamilton discovered a gross blunder in the accounts at the Admiralty, where Lord Northbrook had spent £900,000—part of the Vote of Credit—in excess of his estimates without having the faintest suspicion that he was doing anything of the sort.[216] Lord Ashbourne’s Land Bill stipulated that when all the money was advanced by the State to the purchasing tenants, one-fifth of it should be retained by the Land Commission till the instalments were repaid. The Scottish Sanitary Bill passed. So did a Bill brought in by Lord Salisbury to embody the non-contentious points of the recommendations of the Commission on Housing the Poor. A Bill was also passed to relieve electors from disqualification on the ground that they had obtained Poor Law medical relief, and the Session closed with the demoralisation of parties on the 14th of August.

No event in 1885 gave the Queen more concern than the failure of Lord Wolseley’s attempt to relieve Khartoum. The story of General Gordon’s mission to the Soudan has already been partially told. It was on the 18th of January, 1884, that he was instructed by the Cabinet to proceed to Khartoum to extricate the beleaguered garrisons. He writes, “It cannot be said I was ordered to go. The subject was too complex for any order. It was, ‘Will you go and try?’ and my answer was ‘Only too delighted.’”[217] The truth is that Gordon doubted whether 20,000 Egyptian troops and colonists could be got out of the Soudan by a process of pacific evacuation. Still, if any one might achieve the feat he could, and to please the Government, he consented to “go and try.” His and their idea was that by restoring the old native families to power he might buy a safe-conduct for the garrisons. On the 8th of February, when he arrived at Abu Hamed, he found that the country was less disorganised than he had supposed it to be when discussing its prospects with Cabinet Ministers in London. Therefore he suggested that a light suzerainty should be exercised over the Soudan, for a time at least, by the Khedive’s officers. This conviction grew stronger when he reached Berber. He then said that his mission could not be carried out with credit to England unless some form of government less heterogeneous than that of the native chiefs were established, in place of the Egyptian administration which he was sent to withdraw. Hence, he suggested that Zebehr Pasha should be appointed Ruler of the Soudan under certain conditions, and he chose Zebehr because he was not such an atrocious slave-trader as the Mahdi; because he might be more easily curbed, and because his high descent from the Abbasides enabled him to exercise real authority over the Soudanese. Sir Evelyn Baring and Nubar Pasha agreed with Gordon. So did Lord Wolseley. Mr. Gladstone and Lord Kimberley too, though they had no love for Zebehr, thought that Gordon’s opinion ought to be deferred to, but Lord Hartington only gave them a feeble, half-hearted support, and Lord Granville’s opposition to Gordon’s policy carried the Cabinet against Mr. Gladstone. Hence Zebehr was not sent. Zebehr naturally took this decision of the Cabinet as an insult, and forthwith, opened up a treasonable correspondence with the Mahdi, the discovery of which led to his arrest and deportation to Gibraltar on the 14th of March, 1885.

After the refusal to send Zebehr to the Soudan, the Government seem to have treated Gordon as if they desired to provoke him to take the bit in his mouth, and in a fit of indignation leave Khartoum without definite orders. Had he done so Ministers could have successfully argued that having deserted his post without authority, they were no longer responsible for him. This game was keenly played between Gordon at Khartoum and Mr. Gladstone’s Cabinet in London, aided by the Egyptian Government and its English advisers, Egerton and Baring, at Cairo. But every point in it was won by Gordon, who in March warned Egerton and Baring that they must decide quickly, for the sands were running fast in the hour-glass. He also put in their hands a plan for getting the Government out of the difficulty without sending a relief expedition. He had not at that time so far committed the people at Khartoum against the Mahdi that it would be dangerous to leave them to make terms with the False Prophet. He had to prevent his armed steamers from falling into the Mahdi’s hands, and Khartoum from being utilised as a base of operations against Lower Egypt. He therefore told the Government that if they held Berber, and accepted his proposal as to Zebehr, it was worth while to keep him (Gordon) at Khartoum. But if not, then he warned his masters that it was useless to hold on to Khartoum, for, he wrote, “it is impossible for me to help the other garrisons, and I shall only be sacrificing the whole of the troops and employés here. In the latter case your order to me had better be to evacuate Khartoum.” On receipt of that order he proposed to send his intrepid lieutenant, Colonel Stewart, and the fugitives who wished to return to Egypt, down the Nile to Berber. He himself, and as many of his black troops as would go with him, were then to take the armed steamers, and the munitions of war from the arsenal of Khartoum, and make their escape southwards up the White Nile. He guaranteed, in that event, to hold the Bahr Gazelle country and Equatorial regions against the slave-traders, and pin the Mahdi in Khartoum by organising a negro State in his rear, which, like the Congo Free State, he suggested might be put under Belgian protection. But he warned the Government that if this plan were to be attempted he must get the order to quit Khartoum at once, for in a few days the way of retreat to Berber would be closed. The order never came. In fact, the only order he got from his superiors at this time, was to hold on to Khartoum till further notice. Had the instructions which he asked for been sent, there would have been no Nile Expedition with its many disasters, including the fall of Khartoum, and the massacre of its inhabitants.[218]

The tardy resolution to send a Relief Expedition to Khartoum has already been alluded to. On the 16th of December, 1884, Lord Wolseley joined the camp which had been pitched at Korti by Brigadier-General Sir Herbert Stewart, and received intelligence from Gordon, informing him that four steamers with their guns were waiting for the expedition at Metamneh, and that Khartoum could hold out with ease for forty days after the date of the letter (November 4th). It was not till the 30th of December that Stewart was able to dash into the desert with the Camel Corps to seize the wells of Gakdul. On the 31st a message from Gordon, dated the 29th of October, arrived, showing that Khartoum still held out, but that he was in dire straits, and, on the 1st of January, 1885, the first boats with the Black Watch reached Korti. On the 3rd General Earle left to join his force which was proceeding up the river to Berber. On the 5th the Naval Brigade arrived, and Sir Herbert Stewart returned from Gakdul. On the 8th he began his march across the Bayuda Desert with a motley force of 120 officers and 1,900 men. The Mahdi, on hearing of the occupation of Gakdul on the 2nd of January, resolved to crush Stewart’s force at the end of its Desert march, and Lord Wolseley’s eccentric tactics gave him thirteen clear days in which to concentrate his forces at Abu Klea, where he barred the way to Metamneh.[219] It was not till the 16th of January that Stewart got touch of the enemy at Abu Klea. During the night our men were harassed by the Arab sharp-shooters, and next day Stewart was artfully drawn into a difficult position, and forced to march out in square formation and give his antagonist battle. When our skirmishers were within 200 yards of the enemy’s flags, the square was halted to let its rear close up. Then, to the amazement of everybody, the Arabs sprang forth from the ravine where they had been hiding, as Roderick Dhu’s warriors rose from the heather. Stewart’s skirmishers ran back in hot haste. The Arabs charged furiously, and, when slightly checked at a distance of about 80 yards, they suddenly swept round to the right and broke the rear face and angle of the British square. For a moment there was dreadful confusion, and had the camels not checked the Arab onset Stewart’s force would have been annihilated, like the army of Hicks Pasha at El Obeid. However, the enemy were beaten back with great loss of life, and the day was saved. It was in this affray that Colonel Fred Burnaby lost his life. The square was broken first, because the Gardner gun at the corner jammed, and was useless after the tenth round; secondly, because General Stewart foolishly trusted cavalry men and seamen to hold the exposed angles;[220] thirdly, because the cartridges of some of the rifles jammed, and shook the soldier’s confidence in his weapon.

Stewart’s losses, especially in camels, were so heavy that his first idea was to halt at Abu Klea for reinforcements. But he decided to push on, even at the risk of leaving his wounded behind him. The wells of Abu Klea were occupied, and it was then ascertained that the 10,000 Arabs who had been defeated, were but the advanced guard of a great army near Metamneh. Papers were discovered, among which was a letter from the Emir of Berber to the Mahdi, showing that Stewart’s occupation of Gakdul had caused the concentration of the Arabs in force at Abu Klea. The expedition was thus at the outset marred by a fatal blunder in generalship. If Stewart had gone straight across the Bayuda Desert, without wasting time at Gakdul, he would have had no enemy barring his path to Metamneh. By letting the Mahdi’s troops concentrate at Abu Klea, he met with the check that delayed his progress till it was too late to save Khartoum.[221]

On the 18th of January Stewart made a forced night march towards the Nile, which he hoped to strike three miles above Metamneh. His column got into terrible disorder in the dark, for men and cattle were utterly exhausted from hunger and want of sleep. At 7 a.m. it came within sight of Metamneh—men and horses and camels being scarcely able to walk. It was resolved to rest for breakfast before attacking the town, but the Arabs closed round Stewart’s zareba, and poured in a dropping fire, which did serious execution. At 10.15 a.m. Stewart himself was shot, and the command was assumed by Sir Charles Wilson, Chief of the Intelligence Department, who happened to be the senior colonel on the field. Sir Charles Wilson, though an officer in the Royal Engineers, was really a scholar and diplomatist who had spent most of his life in civil employment. Still, he did not shrink from the task which an unforeseen accident imposed on him. He undertook the strategic direction of the column, but prudently handed over the tactical control to Colonel Boscawen of the Guards. Having fortified the zareba, Wilson quickly formed his main body into a square, and determined to make a dash for the Nile. Had he not ventured on this perilous step, the whole column must have perished from thirst. Every inch of the way had to be contested, but happily Wilson’s frigid temperament seemed to have in some degree communicated itself to his men. Hence, the same troops who at Abu Klea under Stewart’s showy but exciting leadership got out of hand and fired wildly, were soon calm and steady, and held in complete check by their officers. They had not proceeded far when swarms of Arabs, as at Abu Klea, charged down upon the square from a ridge at a place known as Abu Kru. At first Wilson’s troops began to fire at random as at Abu Klea, and no shot told. Then he ordered the bugles to sound “Cease firing,” and the officers coolly kept the men at rest for five minutes, which steadied their nerves. By this time the enemy had come within 300 yards of the square, from which volley after volley was now suddenly poured forth, and with such deliberation that the Arab spearmen turned and fled, not one of them getting within fifty yards of Wilson’s position. This is the only instance where British troops in the Soudan won a complete victory without being themselves touched by sword or spear. The square now hastened on to the river, and camped for the night. Next day (20th) they carried water to their wounded comrades in the zareba. They then conveyed them down to the camp by the Nile,[222] where they found some of Gordon’s steamers waiting for them. Wilson’s force was now in a sorry plight, and before he took command discontent was smouldering in its ranks. It had been kept toiling and fighting for four days with little food and less sleep. It had lost in killed and wounded one-tenth of its number. And now with its General disabled, it found itself encumbered by a heavy train of wounded, without means of communication with its base, menaced by a formidable fortress, and assured that two great armies were closing on it from Berber and Khartoum. Little wonder that the soldiers murmured sulkily that they had been led into a trap. Wilson’s orders were, that on arriving at the river he must proceed to Khartoum with a small detachment, the mere exhibition of whose red coats Lord Wolseley imagined would cause the Mahdi to raise the siege. But Wilson was not to let his men even sleep in Khartoum, and he was only to stay there long enough to confer with Gordon! In plain English, Lord Wolseley ordered him to march twenty or thirty men into Khartoum and come away again, after telling Gordon, who was every day awaiting his doom, that he must expect no effective succour till far on in March. Wilson, however, resolved, like a loyal commander, not to desert his comrades until he had seen them safely entrenched—and till he had, by reconnoitring, allayed their dread of an attack from Berber. The Naval Brigade was so disabled that he was forced to use Gordon’s crews for the steamers, and, in obedience to Gordon’s instructions, he had to weed out of these crews all untrustworthy Egyptians. He had also to reconnoitre the fortress of Metamneh.

This work kept Wilson busy till the 24th of January, when he proceeded up the Nile, arriving on the 28th of January within a mile and a half of Khartoum. He found that the city had fallen on the 26th, when the Buri gate had been opened by treachery to the Mahdi’s troops, who had rushed in and made the streets of the doomed town run red with blood. Gordon it seems was killed, on refusing to surrender, by a small party of Baggarahs, who met him coming out of his palace. While reconnoitring Khartoum, Wilson’s two steamers were so hotly engaged with the enemy’s batteries that he was forced to turn back.[223] On the return voyage he adroitly foiled the plans of some of his followers who attempted to betray him to the Mahdi, but unfortunately his steamers were wrecked, it is supposed, by the treachery of his pilots. He was, however, rescued by Lord Charles Beresford in one of the armed vessels from Gubat, to which Wilson brought back his party without loss of life.[224] Wilson found his force in safety, but sadly depressed because they had heard nothing from headquarters. He immediately proceeded thither in terms of his instructions, to report the fall of Khartoum to Lord Wolseley, and urge him to relieve Gubat without delay.