British political ambitions. 27 It is justified only by policy or is a claim to justify policy only. *** The withdrawal of Egyptian armies from Sudan in 1884 and 1885 was not a abandonment of Sudan to become "a kingdom without a ruler," to be entered and possessed by whoever could. Rather, the evacuation of Sudan was considered a military operation only, necessitated by military circumstances. The greatest witness to this is the military financial order issued on January 15, 1884. This order explicitly stated the annexation of the Egyptian Sudan region to the Ministry of War. This order remained in effect, and the Ministry of War continued to manage Sudan's affairs until the revolution ended and the country was recovered. The second witness is the letter from Boutros Ghali Pasha, the Egyptian Minister of Foreign Affairs, to Lord Cromer on October 9, 1898, in response to a memorandum, in which he stated: "The Khedivial government of Egypt, as Your Excellency knows, has never neglected the matter of returning to reclaim its territories in the Sudan, those territories which are the lifeblood of Egypt. If it withdrew from them temporarily, it was due to overwhelming circumstances to reclaim Khartoum and fulfill its purpose, if the entire Nile – for which Egypt sacrificed greatly – did not appear to be within its grasp. Knowing that the Fashoda issue is now the subject of discussion between Great Britain and France, the Egyptian government has instructed me to ask Your Excellency to lend your good offices to Lord Salisbury so that Egypt's unquestionable rights may be recognized, and that all the territories that belonged to Egypt until the day of the revolt of "Muhammad Ahmad" may be restored to Egypt. If the letter of Boutros Ghali Pasha was used as an argument against France at the time in Fashoda, it also serves as a perpetual argument against the British. The British relied in their discussions with the French on the issue of the Egyptian Sudan's borders on this letter and on the map drawn by Gordon in 1879. In the letter of Boutros Ghali Pasha, it is mentioned