that afternoon. The Egyptian troops during the day evacuated Alexandria, and retreated into the interior. Their silent withdrawal after opening negotiations was characterized by the English as an act of treachery.

LORD CHARLES BERESFORD, COMMANDER, R. N.

Most of the population had fled from Alexandria during the bombardment. When it was deserted by the troops, shocking scenes of pillage and destruction ensued. Some person in authority, probably Mahmoud Samy, gave the signal to plunder and fire the European quarter. The ragamuffins who abound in the Levantine cities reveled in the saturnalia of robbery and vengeance. Stragglers from the army set the example. Finely-built streets in the European quarter were burned to the ground. The richlyfurnished shops were most of them gutted, and most of the merchandise was destroyed by the pillagers as soon as they reached the street. The conflagration lit the sky the night after Arabi's departure. Europeans who had remained in charge of the banks and offices barricaded the houses, and kept the mob off with their fire-arms. When the scenes of fury abated they dashed down to the shore in bands, and were taken on board the ships. Admiral Seymour telegraphed that the town had been given up to "Bedouins" to plunder, and in a second dispatch that it was "convicts," who had been set loose to loot the city. On the morning of the following day the English ventured to disembark and take possession of the deserted town. The admiral on the 13th landed parties of marines to stay the wild havoc. Lord Charles Beresford was given the direction of the police measures, assisted by Major Tulloch,

the chief of the landing party at Fort Meks. Commodore Nicholson, of the United States Navy, sent a detachment of marines, who stood guard at the American consulate, and assisted in maintaining order. The Russian, German, and Greek commanders followed the example, and landed small parties. The inhabitants soon flocked back to the city. Every Arab waved a white handkerchief as a signal of peace, or wore a red band in token of fidelity to the Khedive. When there was any evidence or appearance of their having joined in the looting, they were shot with little formality. The marines were particularly zealous in this hasty justice. By the 17th 5,800 soldiers and marines were ashore. The Tamar had arrived with nearly a thousand marines on board, and two regiments had been sent from Limasol, in Cyprus. The British Government were severely blamed, at home and abroad, for not having troops ready to land in time to save Alexandria from pillage and arson. Mr. Gladstone explained that they were precluded from landing an army by the protocol of sole action. The damage was taxed by the sufferers in their claims, presented before the commission of inquiry subsequently appointed by the Khedive, at a total of $30,000,000.*

The Khedive remained during the bombardment in the palace at Ramleh, with Dervish Pasha. A force of 300 men was sent with orders to murder the Khedive, but Arabi came and countermanded the order, leaving the soldiers as a guard. The English, as soon as they landed, sent a guard to Tevfik Pasha, who had come down to the Ras-el-Tin Palace. Mahmoud Baroudi, and all the ministers, except Arabi, presented themselves at the palace.

NEGOTIATIONS AT THE CONFERENCE.-In the diplomatic discussions between the joint protecting powers, England had the advantage of an untrammeled position, while France was fettered by difficulties on every side. England insisted upon intervention and the suppression of the national Government. This policy had been marked out by Gambetta, and the French Cabinet was in a situation where it could not reverse it, although Egyptian independence

*The ancient capital of the Ptolemies remained down to the epoch of the Eastern Empire one of the largest and richest, and was also distinguished as one of the most turbulent cities in the world. After the Arab conquest it was eclipsed by the newly-founded Cairo, and steadily declined during the middle ages. It was entirely ruined by the Turkish conquest in 1517, and at the time of the French expedition in 1798 there was nothing but a cluster of Arab huts holding about 8,000 site, and revived its commercial greatness by clearing out the inhabitants. Mehemet Ali discerned the possibilities of the harbors and digging the Mahmoudieh Canal, which brings fresh water from the Rosetta branch of the Nile. Already prosperous as the sea-port for the overland commerce, the commercial capital of the Nile Delta underwent a prodigious expansion in wealth and magnificence when the American war brought on the cotton famine. The European quarter is in the eastern part of the city, near the sea. Around the Place Mehemet Ali, and in the streets leading out of it, were the and magnificent emporiums. Sumptuous mansions lined the consulates and other public buildings, huge blocks of offices, streets to the eastward in the direction of Ramleh. In this cool and delightful suburb on the sea-shore, four miles from the city, the English all resided, some of them in splendid villas.

found much sympathy in France, and would be more conducive to French interests than any form of intervention except an aggressive assertion of French preponderance, which would endanger the relations of the republic with Europe. England was shrewdly accommodating and yielding. She had been the first to propose a reference of the Egyptian difficulty to the powers. She expressed a willingness to agree to an intervention by the Porte, or to undertake a joint intervention with France. Any action must result in a stronger assertion of England's paramount interests and the sacrifice of the political preponderance of France, which had existed from the beginning of the century, and was strengthened by social influence and moral prestige far outweighing those of Great Britain. The intervention of Turkey as the mandatory of the powers was Freycinet's final proposition. England agreed to that, as she agreed to every positive proposition, although favoring most the interposition of the Sultan as sovereign lord. In order to safeguard French interests in Africa and make easier the acceptance of Turkish intervention in France, Freycinet imposed the condition that the expeditionary force should be commanded by French and English officers. After the bombardment the conference agreed upon the sending of a Turkish force to restore order in Egypt. They were to act under the direction of the Khedive, and to retire in three months, leaving all future arrangements to be decided upon by the powers. In this form the scheme was presented to the Porte in an identical note on July 15th. The Sultan could have no possible interest in lending himself as an instrument to enforce the will of England and France in Egypt. With nothing to gain, he would have sacrificed at one cast the fruits of his laborious efforts to restore the influence of the Caliph. Any hostile action against Arabi would have been as unpopular in Turkey as in Egypt. Arabi and his army were regarded as Moslem heroes. The softas and ulemas of Stamboul declared, with the pious doctors of Cairo, that Arabi would be bound by the Mohammedan law to disobey and resist the Caliph himself if restrained in his efforts to redeem the territory of Islam from the yoke of unbelievers. The Porte temporized as usual. It did not reject the principle of intervention, but objected to the conditions, which, between the jealousy of France and the ambitious designs of England, were so framed as to prevent the peaceful solution of the Egyptian difficulty by a simple demonstration of the authority of the Sultan, a solution which would have been as welcome to Egypt as to Europe. Great Britain was preparing as secretly as possible but with all possible speed for war at the time when she signed the identical note. Freycinet, although he had abandoned the aggressive policy of Gambetta, and was desirous of having the Egyptian question settled by the European concert, was prepared to co-operate

er.

with England to the extent necessary to maintain France's position as joint protecting powThe deputies first granted the ministry a credit of 7,000,000 francs. On the 18th of July the announcement of the calling out of the reserves was made in the British Parliament. On the 24th the Prime Minister asked for a vote of credit, which he placed at the absurdly small sum of £2,300,000, to be raised by adding 14d. to the income-tax. The dispatch of an Indian contingent had been announced on the 18th. The expenses of the Indian force it was proposed should be borne by the Indian Exchequer. On the same day that the military credit was voted by the British Commons the French minister applied for an additional vote. It was stated that French action would be confined to the protection of the Suez Canal, since the powers had refused to sanction an Anglo-French military intervention. The French Chamber, appealed to on the one hand by Gambetta, who vigorously attacked the Government for their tame attitude, and on the other by the ministry with a finedrawn and scarcely intelligible scheme for keeping up the Anglo-French alliance without leaving the European concert, concluded that it was safer and more dignified to assume no share of the responsibility of breaking the concert and coercing the Egyptians. Freycinet resigned upon the rejection of the supplementary credit, and Duclerc formed a Cabinet with the policy of passivity and expectance. When Gambetta first initiated the plan of dual intervention, a counter-alliance of the Eastern powers-Russia, Austria, Germany, and Italywas in the process of formation. Now that England proposed to take possession of Egypt alone, there was intense opposition in St. Petersburg, and there were murmurs at Rome and Vienna, but no combined action was possible. Russia had no objections to the annexation even of Egypt by Great Britain, but it should be at the price, as was proposed by the Emperor Nicholas, of the acquisition of the Bosporus and Constantinople by Russia. Prince Bismarck held the key to the situation, through his influence over Austria and Italy. It was, perhaps, the frustration of this traditional scheme for Russian aggrandizement which now actuated him to turn a deaf ear to the frantic protests of his friend the Sultan.

The Khedive had ordered the cessation of war preparations, and had summoned Arabi before him in vain; but it was some time after the English obtained charge of the person of the Khedive before they could induce him to proclaim Arabi a rebel, and discharge him from the post of Minister of War. This was inevitable, since Arabi, in order to rouse the people to resistance, and carry out the role of defender of the sacred soil of Islam against the infidel usurpers, was obliged to denounce Tevfik as the slave of the Giaours, and assume the character of dictator. The Notables refused, however, to declare Tevtik a traitor.

The

Khedive's proclamation appeared on the same day with one from Arabi Pasha, characterizing Tevfik as a traitor to his country and his religion. Furnished with this proclamation of the Khedive, the British embassador to the Porte, Lord Dufferin, announced to the conference the dispatch of a British expedition to Egypt, explaining that the Alexandrian forts were destroyed as a measure of defense, and that the expedition was necessitated by force majeure, and was not to be construed as "isolated action or a breach of the protocol de désintéressement, but was solely intended to restore peace and order, to secure the free navigation of the Suez Canal, and to re-establish the authority of the Khedive. The Porte was the only Cabinet which was deeply interested in keeping the English out of Egypt. The proposition of the conference, that the Sultan should forcibly suppress the movement which he had encouraged, and take up arms against the defenders of Dar-ul-Islam, a Moslem land, as the mandatory of the powers, was an impossible course. He sought to delay the proceedings as long as possible, and looked in vain for a friendly combination in Europe to prevent the British occupation of Egypt. The Russian embassador, M. Onou, was instructed by his government not to attend the conference, which England by her isolated action had set at naught; but in a few days he returned to the meetings. The Porte replied to the invitation to subdue the Egyptian rebellion with Turkish forces by declaring a willingness to enter the conference. Said and Assam Pashas appeared at the conference on July 26th. They announced that the Sultan did not reject the principle of a military occupation, but that the conditions contained in the identical note would have to be reconsidered. The announcement of the British expedition was now met with a declaration that the Sultan would send troops to Alexandria, in accordance with the terms of the identical note. The Conference, after accord was re-established, only sat as a matter of form, remaining passive and neutral in the discussion which ensued between Turkey and England. Great Britain pretended to accept Turkish co-operation, but demanded as a preliminary that the Sultan should proclaim Arabi a rebel. The ulemas of Stamboul, as well as of the Azhar Mosque at Cairo, protested that Arabi could not be regarded as a rebel when protecting a Massulman country against the aggression of a Christian power. The highest authorities in Mohammedan law, the professors at Cairo, declared that it would cost the Sultan his caliphate if he took part with the infidels. The Sultan sent a force of 3,000 men to Suda Bay, ready to land in Egypt at a moment's notice. A military convention was submitted to the Porte by Earl Dufferin. The English desired the proclamation declaring the Egyptian army to be rebels, and would have liked to have a Turkish force posted in Egypt for the moral effect, but insisted on having it placed under

Said Pasha proposed modifications which would place Turkey in an independent and coordinate position. Lord Dufferin refused to submit the question to the conference. He resorted to Turkish evasion and procrastination to prevent a settlement, while the military operations were being pushed forward. At last, when the English had seized Port Said and were ready to strike the decisive blow, he obtained the desired proclamation from the Sultan in return for permission to send a Turkish force to Port Said. He then quibbled about the form of the proclamation, and, after accepting that, about the terms of the convention, which were, he said, that the Turkish troops might "proceed to " Port Said, not that they might "land" there, until Arabi's force was crushed. The British embassador then announced that a military convention was no longer necessary, and broke off the negotiations.

BRITISH INTERESTS IN EGYPT.-The British interests in the Suez Canal as the route of military communication with India and Australia were advanced as the all-sufficient ground for the Egyptian expedition. The neutrality of the canal is guaranteed by Europe. Its safety was not at all imperiled by the political changes in Egypt, whatever might have been their outcome. Except as being nominally within the dominions of the Khedive, as being touched by a railroad from Cairo at two points, and as deriving its supplies of fresh water from the interior, it was entirely outside of the influence of events in Egypt. The main object of the war with the British Government was doubtlessly to alter the status quo of the canal by a definite assertion of the paramount interests of England before Europe, and the assumption of a priority and predominance in Egypt which will prevent any hostile power from ever using its government to politically harass England or belligerently menacing the connection with India from Egyptian soil. Another_political reason given was to maintain Tevfik Pasha on the throne on which England and France had placed him. There were various important pecuniary and commercial interests which, though seen to have been operative in the train of events through which Great Britain "drifted into the war," were not acknowledged as motives, except two or three of them in a secondary degree. The interest of the British Government in the solvency and good faith of Egypt was involved to the extent of the 5 per

cent annual interest on the Khedive's 176,602 shares, two fifths of the original capital transferred to the British Government for the £4,000,000 in cash, which interest, amounting to £198,829 a year, is paid in lieu of the profits up to 1894, to which date the dividends were already alienated by the Khedive to the Suez Canal Company.

Of the mercantile interests threatened or said to be threatened by the Egyptian imbroglio, the most important and the most deserving of being defended were those of British commerce in the Suez Canal. Of the 17,207 ships with an aggregate tonnage of 33,244,452 tons which passed the canal from the time it was opened in December, 1869, till the end of 1881, 12,960, with a total capacity of 25,779,664 tons, were British. The French came next in the amount of tonnage, but it was only about one twelfth as much as the British. The aggregate amount of tolls collected in that period was about $64,370,000, averaging $1.90 a ton and $3,660 a ship, the average tonnage of the ships passing through being 1,932 tons. In the year ending in April, 1882, of the 3,006 vessels, aggregating 4,257,000 tons, which passed through the canal, 2,484, of 3,512,000 tons, were British. About one fourth of the total capital invested in British shipping is engaged in the Suez Canal traffic.

THE CAMPAIGN.-The preparations for the war of occupation were entirely secret up to the time of the bombardment of Alexandria. Then the British forces in the Mediterranean

MAJOR-GENERAL SIR ARCHIBALD ALISON.

[He commanded a division. He was born in 1826, and served in the Crimea and in India, losing an arm at the relief of Lucknow. He was chief of the intelligence department at the War Office when he left for Egypt.]

began to move forward, and preparations went on more actively and openly in England and India. A force of about 6,000 men, under

General Sir Archibald Alison, was collected gradually from the Mediterranean stations, which held Alexandria while the first reserves of the English army were being mobilized. The army reform in England is not yet complete, and although discipline and morale have deteriorated through the short-service system, mobilization is still sluggish. While a thoroughly appointed corps was getting ready in England and a body of Indian troops was being equipped to meet it in Egypt, the garrison at Alexandria made frequent reconnaissances, but did not venture to engage Arabi, although they were strong enough to meet the force which he then had. A sharp skirmish occurred on the 5th of August. The Egyptians intrenched themselves at Kafr-Dowar and strengthened the fortifications at Aboukir. New recruits flocked to Arabi's camp by thousands. Before the arrival of the English expedition he organized a military government which covered the whole country, had every point guarded, and animated the mild population of the Delta with the spirit of war. It was over a month after the bombardment before the English army arrived at Alexandria.

Arabi erected strong fortifications at KafrDowar, a triple line of formidable earthworks. With the railroads of the Delta at his command he was able to concentrate at any point. All along the line from Meks to Tel-el-Kebir his garrisons confronted the invaders from behind powerful intrenchments. He had altogether about 70,000 men, with one hundred and fifty cannon. They were aided by the Bedouins, who might have proved formidable irregulars, and did harass the English wherever they had an opportunity. The Egyptian army was armed with Remington rifles and Krupp guns of all calibers. They had an abundance of ammunition, their commissariat was amply supplied, their transport was unexceptionable. The bulk of the forces were at first at Kafr-Dowar; and then, when the British established themselves on the Suez Canal, they were massed at Tel-elKebir. There were besides 3,000 men at Meks, 11,000 in the forts of Aboukir, 8,000 under Abdelal in Damietta and the neighboring forts, and a garrison of 11,000 at Cairo.

The expeditionary force sent from England consisted of 1,010 officers and 21,200 men, with 54 field-guns, 5,600 horses, and 500 pack-animals. The English authorities had sent orders to America and other countries to have mules ready to send on, but were precluded from buying them before Parliament granted supplies for the war. Their transport service was Re-enforcements were sent on afterward of therefore crippled throughout the campaign. 10,800 men and 280 officers. The Indian auxiliaries numbered 170 officers and 7,100 men. The British commander-in-chief, Sir Garnet Wolseley, arrived at Alexandria on August 15th. He ordered the troops who had landed to re-embark, and on the 19th the whole force