hope and intention that the work should be done as rapidly as possible, in order that she might be able to withdraw from a difficult and thankless task, which brought her into very delicate relations with the other powers interested in Egypt.  But withdrawal was not easy.  The task of reorganisation proved to be a much larger and more complicated one than had been anticipated; and it was greatly increased when the strange wave of religious fanaticism aroused by the preaching of the Mahdi swept over the Soudan, raised a great upheaval, and led to the destruction of the Egyptian armies of occupation.  Britain had now to decide whether the revolting province should be reconquered or abandoned.  Reconquest could not be effected by the utterly disorganised Egyptian army; if it was to be attempted, it must be by means of British troops.  But this would not only mean a profitless expenditure, it would also indefinitely prolong the British occupation, which Britain was desirous of bringing to an end at the earliest possible moment.

The romantic hero, Gordon, was therefore sent to Khartoum to carry out the withdrawal from the Soudan of all the remaining Egyptian garrisons.  On his arrival he came to the conclusion that the position was not untenable, and took no steps to evacuate.  There was much dangerous delay and vacillation; and in the end Gordon was besieged in Khartoum, and killed by the bands of the Mahdi, before a relief force could reach him.  But this triumph of Mahdism increased its menace to Egypt.  The country could not be left to its own resources until this peril had been removed, or until the Egyptian army had been fully reorganised.  So the occupation prolonged itself, year after year.

The situation was, in fact, utterly anomalous.  Egypt was a province of Turkey, ruled by a semi-independent Khedive.  Britain’s chief agent in the country was in form only in the position of a diplomatic representative.  But the very existence of the country depended upon the British army of occupation, and upon the work of the British officers who were reconstructing the Egyptian army.  And its hope of future stability depended upon the work of the British administrators, financiers, jurists, and engineers who were labouring to set its affairs in order.  These officials, with Sir Evelyn Baring (Lord Cromer) at their head, had an extraordinarily difficult task to perform.  Their relations with the native government, which they constantly had to overrule, were difficult enough.  But besides this, they had to deal with the agents of the other European powers, who, as representing the European creditors of the Egyptian debt, had the right to interfere in practically all financial questions, and could make any logical financial reorganisation, and any free use of the country’s financial resources for the restoration of its prosperity, all but impossible.