128 The British Campaign in the Soudan.

of vacillations, both political and military, that were destined to produce such disastrous results.

To proclaim a protectorate over Egypt was to falsify the declarations so often repeated to the world, and to incur the hostility of Turkey and France as well as the jealousy of other powers.

On the other hand, to withdraw her army from Egypt and leave the Khedive to govern independently, seemed to the British ministry a sacrifice of prestige and of the advantages apparently secured by the occupation.

In the words of a distinguished publicist *: “The ministry cherished the delusion that some middle course was open to them, by which, while retaining the advantages of a virtual protectorate, they could avoid the dbilities inseparable from its overt assumption. We have deranged every thing and have cata lilies nothing in its place.” While Raplaud held the Khedive in the most absolute tutelage, shorn of every power, she wished the world to believe that he enjoyed entire freedom of action and was alone responsible for the acts of his government. In pursuance of this policy of half measures, a partial evacuation was announced by Mr. Gladstone at the Guildhall banquet in London on the 9th of Nov., 1888, and this declaration was considered as the prelude to a complete withdrawal of the British army from Egypt. Consequently the reforms and innovations forced upon the Egyptian people in spite of their bitter antipathy were now regarded by them as temporary evils which would cease with the British. occupation. To quote again from the same writer: * Edward Dicey, Professor of Political Science and Economy at Oxford, in the Nineteenth Century for March, 1884.