/ f I 302 THE STORY OF THE KHEDIVATE.

resistance we had to encounter. This tendency has to some extent prolonged the survival of what may be called the Arabi legend, and has obscured the plain, hard truth, that the so-called Nationalist movement was nothing more nor less than a military mutiny, organized without ability, and conducted without courage.

I need hardly say that if the magnitude of the Telel- Kebir campaign was somewhat over-estimated at home, it was still more under-estimated abroad, and especially in France. The French press, who before the campaign were confident that England had embarked in an enterprise where failure was more than probable, suddenly discovered that the campaign was nothing but a military promenade, and that our Success, such as it was, had simply been achieved by our having bribed Arabics colleagues, if not Arabi himself, to betray the cause of Egyptian independence.

If our fellow-countrymen were not so sublimely indifferent to foreign criticism, the comments of French journalism on the suppression of the Arabi mutiny might have taught them what to expect whenever England should be engaged in a serious war.