I receive £200,000 to create an Army—First Ceremonial Parade in ten weeks—Lord Dufferin’s recognition of work—Cholera—Three Britons administer Egypt—Devotion to duty shown by British Officers—Chinese Gordon—Roubi Tewhari—Turks Mutiny—Two shot—Determined conduct of Major Grant.

My first week in Cairo was spent in conferences with His Highness the Khedive, Lord Dufferin, the principal Ministers of the Khedive who had interests in the Army, and with Sir Auckland Colvin, the Financial adviser of the Government.

As regards the creation of an Army I had an absolutely free hand, being informed by Lord Dufferin that I might do anything I liked, provided I did not spend more than £200,000. This sum, however, was to include the pay of officers, Europeans and Turks, or Egyptians, and the pay and rations of the men, but not the upkeep of barracks and hospital arrangements, which were provided by other Departments. I was told to select uniforms, and was later given a sum to buy Field artillery, and to replace the Remington rifle, by the pattern in use in the British Army.

I had put the conscription arrangements in motion immediately on my arrival, and within a fortnight got the first recruits, and had set the officers to work in creating and training the Force which has since proved to be a satisfactory instrument for war. I had obtained the services of 25 officers, of whom the following have risen in the Army:—Major Fraser, Royal Engineers,242 Chief Staff officer; Captain Slade,243 as Aide-de-Camp, replacing him on arrival by Stuart Wortley,244 when Slade went to work under Fraser. Somewhat later I got Lieutenant Wingate,245 Royal Artillery; Major Grenfell246 commanded a brigade of four battalions, each of which had three British officers. The first battalion was organised and commanded by Captain Chermside;247 the 2nd Battalion by Captain Holled Smith;248 the 3rd Battalion by Captain Parr;249 the 4th, by Major Wynne.250 Major Duncan251 commanded the Artillery, the English Batteries of which were commanded by Lieutenant Wodehouse,252 Lieutenant Rundle,253 and somewhat later by Lieutenant Parsons.254 Captain Kitchener255 was second in command of the Cavalry Regiment. Captains H.S. Smith-Dorrien256 and Archibald Hunter257 joined later.

There was an Infantry Brigade under a Turkish General, Schudi Pasha. There were no Engineers, and no Departmental Corps.

The men conscripted were in physique superior to any European army, and their aptitude for the perfunctory parts of drill was remarkable. Their progress was indeed so rapid that the Khedive’s guard at the Abdin Palace was taken over from British troops on the 14th February. Two days later, on parade of all troops then available, I returned £9 which had been given to a doctor to induce him to say a recruit was unfit for the service, and awarded the recruit twenty-one days’ imprisonment for offering bribes.

On the 31st March we had our first parade, before the Khedive, Lord Dufferin, all the Ministers, and a large crowd, including all the European residents in Cairo. The cavalry were not fit to do more than “keep the ground,” which was done by some of the men who had learned enough to remain on their horses. The artillery had made most progress, but that Arm was the best before Arabi’s rebellion, and we had kept several of the officers, and some of the non-commissioned officers came back voluntarily; moreover, the men were conscripted in Upper Egypt, and all such are more virile than the Delta Fellaheen. I showed eight battalions, and four batteries after six weeks’ instruction, and they marched past in the stereotyped Aldershot fashion.

Schudi Pasha, the Egyptian Brigadier, had been educated in Berlin, and as Major Grenfell knew some German, it happened that the few orders I, as Commander of the Force, had to give on the ceremonial parade were spoken in the one language common to my Brigadiers, i.e. German; Schudi giving his words in Arabic; Grenfell, in English; and the four English Commanders in Turkish, as was the custom in the Egyptian Army. This I endeavoured to alter, but the Arabic language does not lend itself to the sharp monosyllables, which are most suitable for getting men to move with clock-like regularity.

Major Wynne not only compiled a Clothing warrant and Signalling manual, but also took in hand our Drill book, and Lieutenant Mantle, Royal Engineers, who was an accomplished Arabic scholar, put as much of it as I thought necessary into Arabic. By a strange coincidence, in 1887, Wynne, then in the War Office, followed my precedent and reduced the English Drill book by cutting out many superfluous exercises, which were appropriate to the movements practised before rifles were used. The Code Napoleon put into Arabic did not deal with some crimes common in the East, and so the Army Discipline Act of 1881, with the Khedive’s name substituted for our Queen’s, became in Arabic, our penal Code.

Lord Dufferin supported me most thoroughly, but while fully satisfied, warned me before he left, early in May, that I was working the officers too hard, and this was probably accurate.258 Before his lordship departed he asked me to hand back £10,000 in the first instance, and then another £10,000, but this latter sum I gave up provisionally on the understanding that I could reclaim it if necessary. I did not do so, spending thus in my first year only £180,000.

Colonel Hicks, who arrived at Cairo from India in January, had gone to Khartoum, and the following June, having telegraphed for reinforcements, the Ministers collected soldiers who had served in and prior to the Egyptian outbreak in 1882, and I was directed by the Premier, Cherif Pasha, to inspect them, and pass for service only such as I considered fit. Out of the first thousand I felt bound to reject over six hundred, and those who were not rejected, being aware that few Egyptians ever returned from Khartoum, were most unwilling to go, two men actually putting lime into their eyes to destroy their sight while on parade. These poor creatures who preferred life without eyesight in the Delta to probable death in the Sudan, were the fathers and uncles of those whom we were to teach to take a pride in themselves, and in the Army.

I limited the term of service, and gave every soldier a furlough as soon as he was reported to be efficient. When the first contingent of 2000 men received railway passes to their villages, I was assured by the Cairenes that few would return, but every man returned punctually. I introduced a postal order system, and the soldiers remitted home a portion of their pay, 2½d. a day. Later, when Hallam Parr asked for six soldiers to go with him to the Sudan, his whole battalion stepped forward.

We drilled five days a week, for the Moslems kept Friday as their Day of Rest, and I insisted on Sunday being kept as such. My action was based on the firm conviction formed in India, twenty years earlier, from my intimate knowledge of natives, that, putting one’s own feelings aside, it is an error to allow any soldiers to believe that their officers are without Religion.

I worked from daylight to 5 p.m. every week-day, when I played polo three times a week, and on the other days lawn tennis, one hour a day being devoted to the study of the Arabic language. Being an interpreter in Hindustani the characters presented no difficulty, but my desire to learn Arabic grammatically was damped when I saw there were seven hundred irregular conjugations.

I kept myself by regular exercise in tolerable health, but in June slight attacks of fever became more frequent, and His Highness the Khedive gave me leave to proceed to England for two months. In the middle of July I left for Suez, to catch a homeward-bound steamer; Grenfell and the officers commanding units saw me off, and out of mistaken kindness forbore to mention there had been a case of cholera in the barracks at Abbassieh the previous night. When I got to Zagazig the stationmaster told me there were several cases in Cairo, so I telegraphed to the Khedive, that I should not be out of the canal for three days, and trusted he would recall me if the cholera became Epidemic in the army, adding that whether he telegraphed or not, if I were not satisfied, I should return from Port Said. I was intercepted, however, by a launch sent after me, shortly after we passed Ismailia, and finding a special train waiting for me, reached Cairo twenty-four hours after leaving it.

The Khedive and his Ministers went to Alexandria, and Sir Edward Malet, Valentine Baker Pasha, and I practically ruled Egypt during the Epidemic. Strong measures were necessary, for some of the Egyptian authorities had established a cholera camp on the Nile, immediately above the intake of the Cairo waterworks, and it was difficult to induce adequate sanitary arrangements amongst a people who are by religion, and by inclination, Fatalists. The losses in the army were not very great, and they had the inestimable advantage of attaching the Fellaheen soldiery to the British officer. The Egyptian officer, except in some few instances, did not show to advantage.

His Highness the Khedive returned from Alexandria without his Ministers when the cholera became serious, and calling at my house at six o’clock in the morning, asked me to take him over the hospitals. These were under Dr. T. Dyke Ackland, on whom fell the responsibility of dealing with the epidemic, for Captain Rogers,259 the principal medical officer, had been recalled to the British Army for the emergency. The Khedive, whatever he felt, behaved well, but the senior Egyptian officers would not go near the hospitals, much less the patients, except with a surrounding of drugs, supposed to be prophylactics, and an Egyptian resented my rebuke for his sending a soldier still alive to the mortuary, saying, “He will be dead in a few minutes.”

The British officer not only nursed the cholera-stricken patients day and night, performing every menial service, but in many cases washed the corpses prior to interment. Lieutenant Chamley Turner, in spite of having only slight colloquial knowledge of the language, so endeared himself to the stricken men of his camel Company that several of them when dying threw their arms round his neck. He must have infused some of his spirit into his men, for General Brackenbury wrote, dated 4.2.85, “The Egyptian Company is doing invaluable service.”

When the Epidemic was nearly over, Turner260 contracted the disease, and I had him brought to my house, where he soon recovered under the skilled attention of Dr. Rogers and the careful nursing of Walkinshaw.

From the cholera time, on, the Fellaheen soldier trusted the British Officer.261

By the middle of August the cholera had died out, and I went to England for two months, keeping up my study of Arabic on the voyage, assisted by Mrs. Watson, the wife of an officer whom I had got out as Surveyor-General, or Chief business man. His wife knew the language well, although mainly self-taught.

Her Majesty the Queen was graciously pleased to command me to stay at Balmoral, and took much interest in the Egyptian army. I visited Lord Granville at Walmer, at his request, on my way back to Egypt, for the question was then constantly discussed as to whether the British Garrison could be withdrawn. I undertook to maintain order with the eight Egyptian battalions only as far as the internal peace of the country was concerned, but probably all the British troops would have been withdrawn had not the events at Khartoum in the following year enforced on us the permanent occupation.

In the summer of 1883 I was directed to ask the Turkish Pasha who had been serving at Khartoum if he would return there as Governor; and his observations in refusing—on Englishmen putting Turks in posts of danger—were so unpleasant that I offered Nubar Pasha to go up myself. This he declined, and then having made the offer, I told him I thought the decision was wise, as I was doing good work in Cairo, where several of the Egyptian officers knew me, and in Khartoum I should only be as any other officer.

In the third week of November we heard rumours, afterwards confirmed, of the annihilation of 10,000 men under Hicks Pasha, near El Obeid. Early in the month, and just before Christmas, Osman Digna, a powerful Slave dealer in the Eastern Sudan, routed Baker Pasha at El Teb on the Red Sea, killing two-thirds of his Force of Constabulary, composed of old soldiers discharged from the Army in 1882.

I was vilified in the British Press for not having sent rifles to Suakin when they were demanded by Baker Pasha, in order that he might arm “Friendlies,” but I had nothing to do with the decision, which was taken by the Egyptian Government and the Consul-General in Council, and I merely obeyed orders in sending the telegram; but in fact there were at the time 2000 stand of rifles in store at Suakin. I took no notice of these attacks, which had been, as I was told later by one of my traducers who fell fighting bravely at Abu Klea, made for Political purposes. But when Sir Stafford Northcote, in moving a vote of censure on the Government, doubtless in perfect good faith, made several mis-statements: (a) That Sir Evelyn Wood was answerable for Hicks Pasha’s army. (b) That Sir Evelyn Wood refused to send the newly raised army to Khartoum, stating that he could not do so, as the British Government contemplated withdrawing from Egypt, and other such erroneous allegations, I wrote a letter, through the Foreign Office, which was published later in the Press: (a) That I had nothing at the time to do with the troops in the Sudan. (b) That I had never given Hicks Pasha any such information as alleged, for indeed I did not know the intention of the Government. I further explained that my only intervention in Sudan affairs was, at the request of Colonel Hicks, to induce the Finance Department in Cairo to send him money; while I at the same time, unasked, expressed to the War Minister the strongest opinion against the contemplated advance into Kordofan, where later the Pasha and his 10,000 men were annihilated.

The situation in the Sudan having become worse, Gordon Pasha offered to go up to extricate the garrisons. He telegraphed decidedly that he would not pass through Cairo, travelling to Khartoum via Suakin and Berber, and on the 23rd January the Resident sent me to Port Said, to induce him to go up the Nile after paying his respects to His Highness the Khedive.

My friend Captain Briscoe, commanding the mail steamer which brought Gordon from Brindisi, on my going on board bet me that I should fail to get Gordon to go through Cairo; but he did not know his character as well as I did, and Briscoe lost the bet.

Gordon had telegraphed to Colonel Evelyn Baring262 that he wished to have Roubi Tewhari, a blind ex-clerk sent to him, and that a certain officer should be promoted to the rank of Colonel, and sent to him. Our Consul-General told me to arrange it, but I exclaimed that, though I could find the ex-clerk, I scarcely liked to ask the Khedive not only to take the Captain out of prison, for he had been an ardent Arabist and was still undergoing punishment, but at the same time to make him a Colonel. His Highness, however, was good enough to release him, and we let the question of his promotion stand over. When I explained to Gordon that it was undesirable that he should go to Khartoum as the Khedive’s Representative without seeing him, he at once agreed to go to Cairo with me. During our journey in the train he told me an interesting story.263 Pointing to Roubi Tewhari, who sat in the saloon carriage with us, he said: “You see that man? He was my confidential clerk in Darfour. I trusted him implicitly, and believed in his honesty. One day I was told on authority I could not doubt that he had been levying fines, and receiving large sums of money—in one case £3000, which as he alleged went into my pocket: taxed with this wickedness, he admitted it with tears, and I said to him: “You villain, go back to El Obeid.” Tewhari replied: “Have mercy on me; I have lost one eye in your service, and if you send me to that hot dusty place the other eye will suffer.” “Whether it suffers or not, you shall go there as a punishment for your conduct.”

Gordon taking £300, in notes of £10, out of his pocket said: “This is the only money I have in the world, and my sister found some of it for me, but I am going to give ten of these notes to Tewhari,” and crossing over the carriage he put the notes into the blind man’s hand. Gordon’s Arabic, although intelligible, was not fluent, and it was not for a considerable time that Tewhari understood his former master’s generosity, and the value of the paper money.

We reached Cairo at 9.30, p.m., and after dinner called on the Consul-General, with whom we sat till the early hours of the morning, returning again after breakfast. Gordon had accepted the task of evacuating the garrisons of the Sudan without financial aid, but eventually agreed to receive £100,000, of which he left £60,000 at Berber, and this I fear to some extent precipitated the tragedy enacted a year later; for the Mudir of Berber coveted the money and played Gordon false.

Early next day Roubi Tewhari, the blind man, sent to me an Arabic-speaking English officer, who had been with Gordon at Khartoum in 1874. The gist of Tewhari’s petition was as follows: “I behaved badly to Gordon Pasha many years ago, and he banished me to El Obeid, where I lost my remaining eye. He has now given me more money than I can spend in my life, and I am going to Mecca, where I shall pray for his welfare in this world and in the next, until I die. Gordon Pasha is bent on having Zebehr sent up to Khartoum with him. Gordon’s trustful nature will certainly undo him, and I implore everyone who loves Gordon as I do, not to allow Zebehr to go to Khartoum while Gordon is there. Whatever Gordon may say, do not let Zebehr go to Khartoum with Gordon. Send Gordon, or Zebehr, but not the two at the same time.”

I do not know what influence, if any, this honest heartfelt request, passed on by me to Sir Evelyn Baring, made on the British Cabinet, but Tewhari’s advice coincided with that of Sir Henry Gordon, Charles’s brother. Zebehr remained in Cairo, in spite of the continuous carping in the Press at the decision of Government.

We spent all the next day at the Resident’s house, where Gordon and Zebehr had animated and dramatic interviews. In 1879 a Court-Martial, assembled by Gordon’s orders, had condemned Zebehr, who was then in Cairo litigating with a former Governor-General, to death. As a result of the facts brought out by the Court-Martial, Gordon confiscated Zebehr’s property.

Now, in 1884, Zebehr accused Gordon of causing the death of his son Suleiman, and alleged that the confiscation was equally unjust. Gordon was in Abyssinia when Suleiman was executed, after a sentence of a Court-Martial approved by Gessi Pasha, Governor-General of the Sudan, in pursuance of instructions issued by Gordon, while he was Governor-General, that if found guilty Suleiman was to be executed.

I drove Gordon after dinner to the station on the Nile. On leaving the dining-room he said good-bye to Lady Wood, going upstairs to kiss my children, who were in bed. As he left the house he took off his evening-coat, and handing it to Walkinshaw, said: “I should like you to keep this, for I shall never wear an evening-coat again.” A month later, however, in thanking officially an officer who was returning to Cairo, Gordon wrote: “There is not the least chance of any danger being now incurred in Khartoum,—a place as safe as Kensington Park.”

At the Consul-General’s request I now took charge of the Sudan Bureau, and became his Staff officer for Political affairs of the Red Sea Littoral to Massowah, which made my work heavy. Rising at daylight, I generally saw some military work at Abbassieh or elsewhere, and waited on Nubar Pasha at 9 a.m., always visiting the Consul-General, and often the General in Command of British troops, on my way to the War Office, where I remained till about four o’clock, when I played Polo or Tennis till night fell.

A Division of British troops under Sir Gerald Graham was sent to Suakin in February, and, after defeating Osman Digna at El Teb and Tamai, was recalled at the end of March, a Force of all Arms of the Egyptian Army holding Suakin.

The former Egyptian Army had suffered continuous defeats, accompanied either with annihilation or heavy loss, from 1875–6 when 11,000 were destroyed in Abyssinia. I consistently264 urged that until the recollection of these disasters had been at least partially effaced by a victory, the Fellaheen soldier should not be allowed to fight without a backing of British troops. This was eventually approved, but not until after my retirement from the Command.

Early in 1884 I began to raise a battalion of Turks, mainly enlisted in Anatolia. They were paid five times the amount of the Fellaheen conscripts, and promised to fight any number of the Mahdi’s soldiers.

When, however, the first Company was ordered up the Nile it mutinied, stopping the train by firing at the engine-driver, and made off in various directions. Major Grant,265 4th Hussars, who was in command of the Cadre battalion, riding to where the train had been held up, accompanied by one Egyptian policeman, came on seven of the mutineers in a serai or public Rest-house. Grant dismounting outside the enclosure, found the seven men cooking, their rifles piled in the courtyard. As he called to them to surrender and lie down, the ringleader fired at Grant, while the other men rushed towards their arms. Grant shot at and wounded the ringleader and another, which so cowed the other five that they obeyed his order to lie down, and Grant stood over them until the Sergeant, having tied up the two horses, came in and carried away their rifles, later assisting to bind the prisoners.

The ringleaders were tried by a general Court-Martial, presided over by a Turkish General, assisted by English officers, and seven mutineers were sentenced to death. I examined the cases carefully, with a view of carrying out the sentences only in such cases as appeared to be absolutely necessary, and at once eliminated from the condemned soldiers a youth, seventeen years of age, whose father had fired at Major Grant. I saw the condemned men, and was satisfied in my own mind that one of them was practically unaccountable for his actions; and eventually, after a consultation with the members of the Court-Martial, decided that two only should suffer death.

Lieutenant-General Sir Frederick Stephenson,266 knowing that all the trained soldiers for the Egyptian Army were at Suakin, or on the Nile, the Depot Companies in Cairo, consisting of men who had just been conscripted, kindly offered me assistance, but I determined to make the Egyptian recruits carry out the execution.

I asked for precedents in the Egyptian Army, and was told that at the last Military execution, the feet of the men condemned being tied, they were ordered to stand up at 400 yards distance, and a line of soldiers advanced on them firing, with the shocking results that can be readily understood. I had recently read the trial of a Neapolitan soldier, Misdea, who was shot while sitting in a chair, and arranged the execution on similar lines. The previous evening I sent the lad of seventeen away to a guard-room of the British Army of Occupation, as I did not wish him to hear the volley which was to kill his father, but, as will be seen later, my sympathetic consideration was unnecessary.

When I rode out next morning and met the procession marching to the place of execution, which was an incomplete barrack at Abbassieh, I was nearly ill from nervousness, but on arriving at the actual spot, when I had to give orders, the feeling passed off, the scene affecting me no more than any ordinary duty. Ten Egyptian recruit soldiers being told off for each of the condemned Turks, advanced close behind them, and at the word of command the mutineers ceased to exist.

I had some trouble after the sentence became known, for the Prime Minister sent for me, and said there was considerable feeling about Turks being executed by order of Christians. I pointed out that a Turkish General had presided over the Court-Martial, when the Minister said: “Well, do what you like; only, do not ask me or the Khedive to approve of it.”

A day later he called on me to say that the Persian Minister claimed one of the condemned men, and wished to know what answer was to be given to him. I said: “Excellency, tell him ‘Bukra’267 (to-morrow).” And when that morrow came I wrote a note saying that the Persian Minister could now claim the man’s body. I was then assured that it was a matter of no consequence. A few hours after the execution I sent for the son of the ringleader, and told him that his punishment had been commuted to imprisonment, but as he was so young, and it would distress him to serve under officers who had shot his father, I gave him £5 and told him to go back to Anatolia. The youth reappeared three days later, and said he much preferred to serve on; indeed, he thought less of the execution than I did.

The mutiny of the Turks was followed by that of two battalions which had been raised by Zebehr in the Delta for Baker Pasha, and some of these were condemned to death. I doubted their guilty intentions, although there was no doubt as to their overt acts, and commuted their sentence to service in the Eastern Sudan. I visited the men at their request a few days later, when the interpreter said: “They say, in olden times when soldiers went away for a long time, as is to be our case, they always had an advance of pay,—may we please have it?” This confirmed my impression that they had very little idea of how we regarded their conduct.