Three Empires on the Nile

by Dominic Green

  2. “the operations,” “the amity,” and “lusts”: Gladstone to the Political Economy Club in 1876, at a dinner marking the centenary of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, cit. Matthew, 272. “public law”: Gladstone, Third Midlothian Speech, in Midlothian Speeches, 128.

  3. “noble”: Gladstone, Diary, December 29, 1876, Diaries, IX, 181.

  4. “like a deluge”: Bulgarian Horrors, The Fortnightly Review, September 5, 1876. “Jingoes”: George Russell, nephew of Lord Russell (the foreign secretary who gave John Petherick his guns, later Whig prime minister), cit. Granville to Gladstone, February 20, 1880, in Gladstone, Political Correspondence, I, 114, it. 175 and n.3 (BM Add. Ms. 44172, f.16).

  5. “highest grounds” and “gratuitous”: First Midlothian Speech, Gladstone, Midlothian Speeches, 35. “pernicious” and “cruel”: Second Midlothian Speech, Midlothian Speeches, 92–93. “hoodwinking,” “theatrical,” “monstrous,” and “A little”: Glasgow speech, Midlothian Speeches, 196–97.

  6. “Do not suffer”: Second Midlothian Speech, Midlothian Speeches, 94.

  7. “Modern times”: Third Midlothian Speech, Midlothian Speeches, 128. “equal rights” and “always”: Ibid., 115–16.

  8. “Our first sight”: Gladstone, “Aggression on Egypt,” in The Nineteenth Century (August 1877), II, 149.

  9. “radically,” “susceptibilities,” and “the ends”: Ibid., 149.

  10. Gladstone’s holding in Egyptian Tribute Loan Stock: Matthew, 287; figures taken from the Approximate Annual Sketch of Property compiled by Gladstone every December.

  11. “We shall” and “I am not”: Granville to Gladstone, December 5, 1881, Gladstone, Political Correspondence, I, 320, it. 588 (BM Add. Ms. 44173, f.249). “dawdling”: Blunt, Secret History, 78.

  12. “information”: Gladstone to Granville, September 13, 1881, Political Correspondence, I, 291, it. 529 (PRO 30/29/124).

  13. “order”: Gambetta’s foreign minister Jules Barthélemy de St. Hilaire to Granville, shortly after the September 1881 mutiny, cit. Cromer, Modern Egypt, I, 214.

  14. “They will propose”: Granville to Gladstone, December 5, 1881, Gladstone, Political Correspondence, I, 320, it. 588 (BM Add. Ms. 44173, f.249).

  15. “very idea”: Gladstone to Granville, January 4, 1882, Gladstone, Political Correspondence, I, 326–27, it. 599 (PRO 30/29/125).

  16. “Anglo-French”: Ibid. “the bondholders”: Granville to Malet, quoting Gladstone, No.8., January 11, 1881 (FO78/3446).

  17. “They will take”: Malet, cit. Blunt, Secret History, 188.

  18. “It is the language”: Blunt, Secret History, 189.

  19. “What a blunder!” (“Quelle boulette!”): Sharif Pasha, cit. Schölch, Egypt for the Egyptians, 203.

  20. “I have offered”: Ibid., 196.

  21. “For many days”: Blunt, Secret History, 190.

  22. Al-Barudi’s reading: Schölch, 352, n.98.

  23. “Smouldering fires”: Pall Mall Gazette, March 1882, cit. Blunt, Secret History, 255.

  24. “It would be” and “The house”: De Freycinet and Colvin, April 20, 1882, cit. Cromer, I, 255.

  25. “The Sultan”: Gladstone to Granville, April 5, 1882, Political Correspondence, I, 354, it. 665 (PRO 30/29/125).

  26. “The Swell”: Sir Garnet Wolseley to Lady Louisa Wolseley, August 17, 1882, in Wolseley, Letters, 72.

  27. “Do not fear”: Blunt to Urabi, May 31, 1882, following assurances from Eddy Hamilton—“He promised me there would be no landing of troops or intervention at all”—cit. Blunt, Secret History, 296.

  28. “fighting”: Sheikh Assad’s report to the Sultan, in Documents Pertaining to the Yildiz Collection of the Basbanlik Ar¸sivi in P. M. Holt (ed.), Political & Social Change in Modern Egypt (Curzon: London, 1968), 55.

  29. “Dervish is a man”: John Morley, Pall Mall Gazette, June 15, 1882.

  30. “Allah give victory”: Blunt, Secret History, 306.

  31. “preparing,” “other,” and “Islamic”: Dufferin to Granville, July 10, 1882, in D. Gillard (ed.), British Documents on Foreign Affairs: Reports & Papers from the Foreign Office Confidential Print, Part 1: From the mid-Nineteenth Century to the First World War, Series B: The Near & Middle East, 1856–1914, Vol. IX (London: HMSO, 1984–85), 62, Doc. 50.

  32. The Urabist oath: Kedourie, 35. Malet, 346ff, describes the Powers’ attempt to exile Urabi.

  33. “He shall be cast”: Sheikh Ullaish’s fatwa, cit. Broadley, 176.

  34. “Admiral wants”: Granville to Gladstone, 4:00 P.M., May 30, 1882, Political Correspondence, I, 376, it. 720, n.5 (PRO 30/29/125). “thrown off”: Gladstone to Granville, June 2, 1882, Gladstone, Political Correspondence, I, 378, it. 723 (PRO 30/29/125).

  35. “Everything”: Blunt, June 1, 1882, Secret History, 296.

  36. “Intelligence”: Times, August 23, 1881.

  37. Rauf dismissed al-Daim’s warning: Slatin, 135.

  38. “despondent”: Giegler, 177.

  39. “The Prophet” and “After the collection”: Mahdi, cit. Abu-Salim, I, 288–89, trans. Nicoll, 88–89.

  40. “I seek refuge,” “He gives life,” and “There is neither”: Ratib al-Imam al-Mahdi ( The Mahdi’s Ratib), Sudan Archive at Durham University, it. 97/1, f. 9, trans. Nicoll, 86.

  41. “ultimate” and “the attainment”: Shaked, 87. “a permanent”: Shaked, 90.

  42. “a dog”: R. S. Kramer, 145–8.

  43. “unless,” “even,” “immodestly,” and “obscenity”: R. S. Kramer, 145. “wailing”: Ibid., 147. “confined”: Ibid., 148. “let her wage”: Ibid., 145.

  44. “idle yarns” and “a burning”: M. I. Abu-Salim and K. Vikor, “The Man who Believed in the Mahdi,” in Sudanic Africa, 2 (1991), 29–52.

  45. Rauf’s request for reinforcements, December 17, 1881: Shibeika, Independent Sudan, 59. “a false prophet”: M. Safon, in Cookson to Malet, No. 149, December 13, 1881, enclosed in Philip to Cookson, December 6, 1881 (FO141/149). Overthrow of prokhedive rector: Malet to Granville, No. 350, November 17, 1881 (FO141/144); No. 377, December 12, 1881.

  46. “almost naked”: Slatin, 143. “My progress”: Mahdi to al-Shallali, cit. Abu-Salim, I, 121–28, trans. Holt, Mahdist State, 78–88.

  47. Schuster’s expedition: Schuster took the first photograph of an Eclipse Comet on May 17, 1882, at Sohag, sixty miles south of Asyut. A German-born Jew, Schuster led the Royal Society’s 1875 expedition to observe a total eclipse in Siam (Thailand). In 1882 Schuster was Professor of Applied Mathematics at Manchester University, and from 1888, Professor of Physics. He was knighted in 1920.

  48. Origins of the Alexandria Riot: Declaration of Mr. John Ninet (a Swiss supporter of Urabi), in Blunt, Secret History, App. II, 533. The cheese knife was attached to a table by a long string. “These particulars I had the next day from a Christian policeman who was present.”

  49. The riot at Alexandria: C. Royle, 44–55.

  50. “Butchered”: Salisbury, cit. C. Royle, 59.

  51. “I am afraid”: Hartington to Granville, June 19, 1882 (PRO 30/29/132).

  52. “a military” and “bankruptcy”: J. Chamberlain, A Political Memoir, 1880–1892 (ed.C. D. Howard; London: Batchworth, 1953), 71.

  53. Suez Canal traffic: Hobsbawm, 58; C. Newbury, “Great Britain & the Partition of Africa, 1870–1914,” in Porter (ed.), Oxford History of the British Empire, III, 626–27.

  54. Dervish’s pension offer: Zubair Pasha to Blunt, over breakfast on December 22, 1888, cit. Blunt, Secret History, 320n. The French pension offer: Blunt’s cousin Algernon “Button” Bourke, then on the Times, told Blunt on June 13, 1882, that “the Rothschilds” had offered Urabi £4,000 a year for life if he left Egypt. Urabi denied this to Blunt and recalled only a French offer contingent upon his going into exile at Paris ( Secret History, 334n).

  55. “Use will be made”: Urabi, July 2, 1882, in Blunt, Secret History, 371–72. The letter was translated and forwarded to Blunt by Jean Sabunji; on July 17 (ibid., 374) Blu
nt sent it on to Gladstone and the Prince of Wales—against the advice of Lord de la Warr (ibid., 370).

  56. “Egypt’s Europeans”: Cromer, Modern Egypt, I, 288–89. “no party”: Gladstone to Granville, July 4, 1882, Gladstone Political Correspondence, I, 385, it. 739 (PRO 30/29/29A). “My brain”: Gladstone, Diary, July 5, 1882, after long debates on the Irish Crimes & Arrears Bill and an “Anxious Cabinet behind the [Speaker’s] chair,” Diaries, X, 292. “an act,” “the whole,” and “improbable”: Gladstone to Granville, July 5, 1882, Gladstone, Political Correspondence, I, 386, it. 741 (PRO 30/29/29A).

  57. “It was heavy”: Israel Harding, interviewed for “Sailor V.C.’s,” Strand Magazine, October 12, 1896.

  58. Description of the bombardment of July 11, 1882: Royle, 60–85.

  59. Description of the riot of July 11, 1882: Royle, 98–106. Damages in the riot: The International Commission of Indemnities awarded compensation of £4,341,011 (FF106,820,236) for houses, furniture, and merchandise lost. The figure excluded claims for cash, jewelry, and artworks (Royle, 102n).

  60. “The fire” and “made”: Gladstone to Granville, July 13, 1882, Gladstone, Political Correspondence, I, 394, it. 757 (PRO 30/29/126).

  61. “Instructions”: Cabinet Minutes, July 31, 1882, cit. Matthew, 374.

  6: The Wind and the Whirlwind: 1883

  1. “I have always”: Wolseley to Lady Louisa Wolseley, September 28, 1882, Wosleley Letters, 82–83.

  2. “My eyes fill” and Wolseley on the Calabria: Wolseley to Lady Louisa, August 2, 1882, Letters, 69–70.

  3. “every work” and “beg”: Wolseley, Story, I, 8.

  4. “The Man”: Title of Spy’s 1874 cartoon.

  5. “I am the very”: W. S. Gilbert’s lyric to Gilbert and Sullivan’s “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General,” from The Pirates of Penzance (1879), Act I, No. xiii.

  6. “Great German”: Wolseley, cit. Pakenham, 87. “Grand Key”: Wolseley, In Relief of Gordon, ed. Preston, xvi.

  7. “I long”: Wolseley to Lady Louisa, September 7, 1882, Letters, 75.

  8. “Truly Allah”: Koran, IX; 111. Urabi declared martial law on July 11. He deposed Tawfik on July 17.

  9. “What say you”: The question ( istifham) to the al-Azhar clerics that led to their fatwa against Tawfik, cit. Broadley, 175.

  10. Meeting of seventy notables, July 17: Schölch, Egypt for the Egyptians, 263–64.

  11. Tawfik sacked Urabi on July 20.

  12. “Egyptian” and “Islamic-Ottoman”: Urabi’s second meeting at the Interior Ministry, July 29, cit. Schölch, Egypt for Egyptians, 270–71 and 262.

  13. Mahdist handbook: Expounding “how the Muslim community should behave towards non-Muslims, especially those invading their territory, and the justification for that outlook according to the sharia” (M. I. Waley, “Islamic Manuscripts in the British Royal Collection: A Concise Catalogue,” in Manuscripts of the Middle East, VI (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 8. “Much of the time: Blunt, Secret History, 395. Urabi’s landholdings: Having inherited 8.5 feddans from his father, Urabi bought 560 more as he rose to power (Blunt, Secret History, App. I, 481), and acquired a further 810 faddans in July 1882 (Schölch, Egypt for Egyptians!, 282).

  14. “criminal”: Wolseley to Louisa, September 10, 1882, Letters, 76.

  15. “Take no action”: De Lesseps to Urabi, August 20, 1882, cit. Blunt, Secret History, 398.

  16. “Sincere”: C. Royle, 143.

  17. Urabi’s order that Hilmi not obey Tawfik: Cit. A.-M. Omar, The Soudan Question Based on British Documents (Cairo: Misr, 1952), 3. Tawfik’s contrary order: “The Khedive…used to write to the Governor not to mind about the Mahdi’s progress, so as to increase the embarrassment” (Ahmed Rifaat Bey, cit. Blunt, Secret History, App. II, 503).

  18. “maintain”: Urabi to the khedive, June 18, 1882, cit. Shibeika, Independent Sudan, 60.

  19. Hilmi’s laughter: Giegler, 208. Blood money: J. J. Leverson, Insurrection of the False Prophet, 1881–83 (4 vol., Cairo: War Office, 1883–84); I, 8. Letter bomb: Hilmi to Tawfik, July 12, 1882, cit. Shibeika, 61.

  20. Message on the Mahdi was by Sheikh Shakir al-Ghazzi, mufti of the Khartoum Court of Appeal. General Advice…was by Sheikh Ahmad al-Azhari, mufti of western Sudan. A third text, Guide for Him who Seeks Guidance on the Mahdi and the false Mahdi, was by Sheikh Mohammed al-Darir, whose appointment had been personally endorsed by the sultan.

  21. “Our refuge”: Holt, Mahdist State, 108–09.

  22. “We killed” and “nothing”: Yusif Mikhail, Mazkarat Yusif Mikhail (London: Dar al-Nusairi, 1998), 45–46, trans. Holt, 117–19.

  23. “I have resolved”: Wolseley to Louisa, September 7, 1882, Letters, 75.

  24. “a new thing”: Wolseley to Louisa, September 14, 1882, Letters, 78.

  25. “Note the time”: Wolseley, the night of September 12/13, 1882, cit. Sir H. McCalmont, Memoirs of Major-General Sir Hugh McCalmont (ed. Major-General Sir C. E. Callwell; London: Hutchinson, 1924), 218–19.

  26. “Anything”: Sir W. Butler, An Autobiography (ed. E. Butler; London: Constable, 1911), 232 and (re killing) 237.

  27. “What a change!”: Wolseley to Louisa, September 15, 1882, Letters, 79.

  28. “charming”: Wolseley to Louisa, September 15, 1882, Letters, 80. “tears”: Malet to Granville, October 1, 1882 (PRO 30/29/160).

  29. “very nervous”: Wolseley to Louisa, September 14, 1882, Letters, 78. “Seymour”: Wolseley to Louisa, September 15, 1882, Wolseley Papers (Hove), WP11/17i/2.

  30. “Wolseley in Cairo”: Gladstone’s Diary, September 15, 1882, Diaries, X, 331. “fresh great”: Economist, September 16, 1882. “a vote”: Lawson, cit. C. Royle, 191n.

  31. “whirlpool” and “If Garnet’s”: Lady Wolseley to Mrs. (later Viscountess) Goschen, cit. Arthur and Maurice, Wolseley, 162.

  32. “The difficulty”: Granville to Gladstone, October 2, 1882, Gladstone, Political Correspondence, I, 439, it. 855 (BM Add. Ms. 44174).

  33. “The parties”: Gladstone to Granville, October 3, 1882, Political Corrrespondence, I, 440, it. 857 (PRO 30/29/126). “only local alternative”: Wolseley to Louisa, September 14, 1882, Letters, 79. “plant”: Gladstone’s Diary, November 15, 1883, Diaries, XI, 59. “bid a long”: Gladstone, “Aggression on Egypt,” in The Nineteenth Century (August 1877), II, 161.

  34. Sixty-six protestations between 1882 and 1922: A. J. P. Taylor, The Struggle for Mastery in Europe, 1848–1918 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1954; 1971), 90.

  35. “Although”: Granville, cit. Cromer, Modern Egypt, I, 340.

  36. “For some time”: Dufferin, cit. J. C. Hurewitz, The Middle East & North Africa in World Politics (New Haven: Yale, 1975–79; 2nd ed.), I, 191–94; Karsh, 66.

  37. “The Egyptians”: Riaz Pasha, cit. Beamon to Blunt, Secret History, 459.

  38. “stirring up” and other charges: Royle, 200. Spitting eunuchs: Blunt, Secret History, 459.

  39. “African Garibaldi”: C. Royle, 202.

  40. Departure of Urabi for Ceylon: Malet to Granville, No. 58, December 27, 1882 (FO78/3455). “Egyptians”: Matthew, 389n. Gladstone’s stock in the 1871 issue was worth £17,100 before the invasion of Egypt, and £24,600 just after it (ibid., 387).

  41. Siege of El Obeid: Ohrwalder, 52–53.

  42. “smugglers”: Ibid., 55.

  43. Sack of El Obeid: Ibid., 56–59; Leverson, I, 14.

  44. “As you have”: Abu-Salim, V, 458, trans. Holt, Mahdist State, 112.

  45. “I have been”: Mahdi, “to all his beloved, the believers,” cit. Wingate, Mahdiism and the Egyptian Sudan, 92–93.

  46. “It is no part”: Gladstone, Diary, November 2, 1882; Diaries, X, 360.

  47. Wilson’s memo, and Lutfi Pasha’s request: Enclosed in Malet to Granville, No. 659, October 2, 1882 (FO78/3442). “a constant drain”: Dufferin to Granville, No. 6, November 18, 1882 (FO78/3454). “without aid”: Malet to Granville, No. 788, November 4, 1882 (FO78/3443).

  48. Hicks’s
selection: H. Keown-Boyd, A Good Dusting: A Centenary Review of the Sudan Campaigns, 1883–99 (London: Secker & Warburg, 1986), 10.

  49. “anxious,” “overwhelmed,” “some wonderful,” “£10,000,” and “the inevitable”: Hicks to Sophia Hicks, Road to Shaykan, 12, 11, 25, 5.

  50. “I have never”: Hicks, in Colborne, 81. “Here I have”: Hicks, 30–31.

  51. “Who would”: Ibid.

  52. “It is simply”: Ibid., 22. “dolts and fools”: Ibid., 37. “Walker”: Ibid., 45. “using inflammatory”: Ibid., 78.

  53. “I cannot”: Ibid., 21–22.

  54. “It would be”: Giegler, 216.

  55. Guards tied up at night: National Record Office, Cairo, CAIRINT 3/9/197 (Intelligence Department, Anglo-Egyptian Interior Ministry) 3/9/197, ff. 4–9, Ms. of Muhammad Nur Barudi (Hicks’s assistant cook), cit. Nicoll, 152.

  56. “In Kingdom”: O’Donovan, cit. Farquhar; Slatin, 242.

  57. “All around”: Muhammad Bey’s slave boy, SAD, 643/4. This account paraphrased in C. Royle, 247–49. See Abbas Bey, “The Diary of Abbas Bey,” in SNR XXIII (1952), 179–96.

  58. “These are bad”: Major Arthur Herlth, cit. Ohrwalder, 86.

  59. “Allahu”: Holt, Mahdist State, 141.

  60. “terrible and sudden”: Muhammed Bey, SAD, 643/4. See also Gulla, Sheikh A., “The Defeat of Hicks Pasha,” in SNR VIII (1925), 119–24.

  61. “We are about”: Gladstone at Guildhall, November 9, 1883, cit. Allen, 183.

  7: The Unrolling of the Scroll: 1884

  1. “The dawdling policy”: Cromer, Modern Egypt, I, 393n.

  2. “The origin”: Ibid., I, 11. “military” to “Equatorial”: Ibid., 388n.

  3. “The Avenger”: Schölch, Egypt for Egyptians, 303–04.

  4. “separate”: Baring to Granville, November 22, 1883 (PRO 30/29/161). “a serious”: Baring to Granville, No. 547, November 24, 1883 (FO78/3559).

  5. “till the danger” and “our engaging”: Gladstone to Granville, November 23, 1883, Political Correspondence, II, 114, it. 1148 (PRO 30/29/127).