It is now necessary to look for a moment to Egypt.  The misgovernment which in the Soudan had caused the rebellion of the Mahdi, in Egypt produced the revolt of Arabi Pasha.  As the people of the Soudan longed to be rid of the foreign oppressors—­the so-called ’Turks’—­so those of the Delta were eager to free themselves from the foreign regulators and the real Turkish influence.  While men who lived by the sources of the Nile asserted that tribes did not exist for officials to harry, others who dwelt at its mouth protested that nations were not made to be exploited by creditors or aliens.  The ignorant south found their leader in a priest:  the more educated north looked to a soldier.  Mohammed Ahmed broke the Egyptian yoke; Arabi gave expression to the hatred of the Egyptians for the Turks.  But although the hardy Arabs might scatter the effete Egyptians, the effete Egyptians were not likely to disturb the solid battalions of Europe.  After much hesitation and many attempts at compromise, the Liberal Administration of Mr. Gladstone sent a fleet which reduced the forts of Alexandria to silence and the city to anarchy.  The bombardment of the fleet was followed by the invasion of a powerful army.  Twenty-five thousand men were landed in Egypt.  The campaign was conducted with celerity and skill.  The Egyptian armies were slaughtered or captured.  Their patriotic but commonplace leader was sentenced to death and condemned to exile, and Great Britain assumed the direction of Egyptian affairs.

The British soon restored law and order in Egypt, and the question of the revolt in the Soudan came before the English advisers of the Khedive.  Notwithstanding the poverty and military misfortunes which depressed the people of the Delta, the desire to hold their southern provinces was evident.  The British Government, which at that time was determined to pursue a policy of non-interference in the Soudan, gave a tacit consent, and another great expedition was prepared to suppress the False Prophet, as the English and Egyptians deemed him—­’the expected Mahdi,’ as the people of the Soudan believed.

A retired officer of the Indian Staff Corps and a few European officers of various nationalities were sent to Khartoum to organise the new field force.  Meanwhile the Mahdi, having failed to take by storm, laid siege to El Obeid, the chief town of Kordofan.  During the summer of 1883 the Egyptian troops gradually concentrated at Khartoum until a considerable army was formed.  It was perhaps the worst army that has ever marched to war.  One extract from General Hicks’s letters will suffice.  Writing on the 8th of June, 1883, to Sir E. Wood, he says incidentally:  ’Fifty-one men of the Krupp battery deserted on the way here, although in chains.’  The officers and men who had been defeated fighting for their own liberties at Tel-el-Kebir were sent to be destroyed, fighting to take away the liberties of others in the Soudan.  They had no spirit, no discipline, hardly any training, and in a force of over eight thousand men there were scarcely a dozen capable officers.  The two who were the most notable of these few—­General Hicks, who commanded, and Colonel Farquhar, the Chief of the Staff—­must be remarked.