THE SPINE OF AN EMPIRE.

BY MAJOR-GEN. G. F. MACMUNN, C.B., D.S.O.

Never in the cinema of all time have there been such films to record as on the stage of Egypt. Certain localities are preordained to attract the come and go of the world, and before all others the Nile delta has this property. Its strategical location in the world’s assembling has compelled the holders of power and might and majesty and dominion to crowd therein. No decay of empires can affect the significance of geographical siting. Mena and Cheops and Khefren give place to Amenemhats and Thotmes and a host of Rameses, who yield in turn to such modernities as the Ptolemies, but the Nile remains the Nile, and the Red Sea the waterway from East to West.

As Darius and Xerxes and Alexander were compelled by the call of strategical law, so came Salah-ud-Din and Napoleon and Ferdinand de Lesseps and Sir Garnet Wolseley. And here, too, would come William of Hohenzollern, boasting to break the spine of the British Empire, in the vertebræ that Chesney planned and De Lesseps made.

Between Alexander the Great and William of Hohenzollern the host of moderns has been legion, but it was for Napoleon and his dreams of Eastern Empire to bring the British into the scene to short circuit their sea routes. Since the Corsican brought his legions, his savants, and his artists to the Pyramids, the English have entered into the joint control of the Levant, and to help them have brought the armies of India. With Abercromby came David Baird and his sepoys. Sir Garnet Wolseley, in Egypt and in the Soudan, had Indian troops to help him, and now, lest William of Hohenzollern and his Ottoman allies should ‘break the British spine,’ and disturb the peace and plenty of Egypt, not only has India sent troops, but all elements of the Empire far and near. Never, even in the days of Alexander’s armies, had so many varied contingents garrisoned Egypt, as came when the Hun threatened the Canal in force.

In the late autumn of 1915, what time Serbia was broken on the wheel, the Hun determined to overrun Egypt and Sinai and Goshen, breaking thereby the British spine. But the Mistress of the Sea said No. The army of Gallipoli was conjured back from the Hellespont and the outer Empire sent its levies, and the great plans of the All-Highest were ‘postponed.’

The force gathered in Egypt was the most wonderful combination of the Empire that can be imagined. To the gathering came first and most famous a division of the old army, the army that has held the line from the Yser to the Aisne, and lies in a grave and lives in a memory for its guerdon, the world round. With them were Territorial divisions, and divisions of the new army, brigades of yeomen, divisions from Australia and New Zealand, the Maoris cheek by jowl with the white, a model in this respect to the rest of the Empire. Not only was the Indian army proper there—Gurkha, Sikh, and Pathan in due and ancient form—but the armies of the protected states, those imperial service contingents, the wisdom of their conception yearly more apparent. But the tally of Empire ended not with Gwalior, Mysore, and Bikaneer. Hospitals from Canada, Sambo from the West Indies cleaning his rifle to Moody and Sankey hymns, and the Afrikander corps of Dutch and English added to that pageant of Empire, standing four-square with the troops of the Sultan himself.

Strategically to the world’s power and commerce, the situation of Egypt is as favourable now as in the days of Alexander, and troops are as well placed there against emergency as anywhere, and as the danger to Egypt lessened were ready to be sent by those who rule the sea North, South, East, or West. Troops can come and go and be switched back quicker than foes can assemble.

The defending of the canal, a waterless tract, void of roads in its immediate vicinity, is no easy matter and a subject of much controversy, the manner of its defence depending, like that of most other localities, on the troops available and the strength of the enemy threat. The difficulties have been overcome by a herculean effort. Atkins bathes happily in its water, and watches the ships of allies and of neutrals—those lesser breeds who wait—pass us safely.

To most of the English the canal has seemed a desert track dotted with lonely gares, akin in their solitude to a Red Sea lighthouse. A further acquaintance with them has dispelled many imaginings. The gares, the friendly chefs de gare, and their brimming quivers have assumed a different aspect from their ancient one of milestones on the road to India.

British patrols thread the ancient course of the Nile now dry, the Pelusiac and Tanaitic channels that found the sea east of the canal and explain the delta-like lagoons that still remain. The ruins of Pelusium and the ancient channel explain how Cleopatra, defeated on the high seas, escaped by water inland to Damietta, and how the Holy Family found the road to Egypt far easier than it is now. Across Lake Menzalah from Port Said lie the ruins of Tanais, the capital of the Pharaohs in the time of Moses. El Qantara, a British post, closes the road from Palestine to Egypt that has run since time was, and that has seen in our own time the legions of Napoleon march by the bridge over the arm of the marsh for Syria. ‘Partant pour la Syrie’ with a vengeance, many, poor souls, to die miserably.

And no doubt over the El Qantara rode also the savants in their high hats and veils, their long directoire coats and their striped pantaloons—like any member of the various royal societies of to-day, but with the chill off—while the escorting chasseurs chaffed them and their umbrellas.

So to-day Port Said and Suez and Ismailia and Cairo are full of the soldiery, and a wide camp is spread under the Pyramid of Ghizr, and young officers walk along the groyne at Port Said, asking ‘what is the history of that funny old green statue’ which stands a wonder of the world, like the Phare in ancient Alexandria. Shades of Ferdinand de Lesseps and Rawdon Chesney! What, indeed, is the history of that ‘funny old green statue,’ and the ‘spine of the British Empire’ as the Hun has immortalised it? It is a phrase for which we may thank William of Hohenzollern.

The mass of the force in Egypt transferred from Gallipoli, rage the ‘unterseebote’ never so fiercely, is resting and retraining. If you’ve been six months on Gallipoli you’ll run a mile to see a nursing sister, and both Atkins and his officers are soft of heart. Graceful Cairenes in French cut skirts of black crépe de chine with ever the topmost button undone, with black head-shawls of the same material, and evanescent veils that faintly cloud to distraction the face below the eyes, are strong wine for young soldiers. So attractive is the dress that the old hand will tell you that many another than Cairenes will don the dress when out for a spree—a disguise that also enhances attraction is a good find, mesdames!

Atkins himself and Hotspur the yeoman are nothing if not gallant. Here is a true story from Port Said. Time about 8 P.M. Attractive English lady hears two soldiers walking fast behind who come up one on either side.

First Soldier. Beg pardon, miss, do you speak English?

Attractive Lady. Yes.

Both Soldiers. Oh, you are English!

First Soldier. I think we saw you waving out of the window.

Attractive Lady. I think you are mistaking me for Mrs. Brown’s nursemaid!

Second Soldier (severely). You must be an ass to take this young lady for a nursemaid!

Both Soldiers. Perhaps we ought not to have spoken, but we are very lonely—may we walk with you?

Attractive Lady. I am going this way.

First Soldier. Would you tell us who you are, miss?

Attractive Lady. I am the chaplain’s sister. (Sensation and silence.)

First Soldier (plucking up courage). We never saw a chaplain’s sister like you before.

Second Soldier. No, indeed, only one I knew was enough to give you the ’orrors.

Attractive Lady (somewhat flattered, stopping at door of a house under a street lamp). I must say good-night now. I live here.

Both Soldiers. Now we see you we are sorry we spoke to you, for we can see you are more one for the officers than for us.

(Exit.)

And so it runs from Putney to Port Said, and from Cambridge to Cairo. Soldiers are very susceptible gents, as the late Francis Bacon knew and so stated.

And while one big army has delved and dug and built on the canal and taken toll of Sinai, another force has chased the Senussi up and down the Western desert, and yeomen from the shires have watered their horses at the garden steps of the week-end villa at Matrush, where Antony entertained Cleopatra. This is no doubt foretold by one of the minor prophets whom Voltaire considered capable de tout. It is certainly a dramatic event for those who moralise on empires’ rise and wane.

Hardly less striking is the prolonged pursuit and charge of the Senussi by His Grace of Westminster at the head of the motor bandits—as the army will call the armoured motor-car—in that same Western desert. The hyacinth and the iris grew for a wonder on surface free from shifting sands, and the armoured car trick was brought off in a fashion and with a dash that its promoters could hardly have hoped for in their most enthusiastic moments.

War has brought many surprises and troubles to the desert and its denizens. In Sinai, where the Bedouin lives by the date palm, there has come starvation, and why? Because the female date must be fertilised by hand, and the male dates are few and far between. The date fertiliser is a skilled professional and lives in Egypt, and Turks in Sinai have meant that date trees go unwed. The which is a parable. There is no remedy save perhaps one similar to that suggested by the American mayor to the man who complained that the ‘wather had come into me back cellar and drowned all me hins.’ ‘Young man, I should advise you to keep ducks,’ and the Bedouin might grow the hermaphrodite date. In the country of the scarabæus it might well be found as Alexander’s soldiers left it on the Indus. If war has brought harm to some, it has in Egypt brought profit to the many, and the Greek is ever ready to trade, and merchants one and all have risen to the occasion and waxed fat. In Alexandria the Greek influence is very great and sympathy with the Allies considerable. The Greek will tell you they come of a northern stock, and will quote the body worship of the bel âge to illustrate affinity with the English, and that Greeks alone of all Levantine races or Latin races either have pronounced ‘th’ since time was like the English—which, be it true or false, all makes for good trade. The soldiery all the year are better than the Americans in the winter, and Young Australia has money to spend.

Another wonder of the ages is that Egypt from the Pyramids to Tel el Kebir should be the Aldershot of the Australians and New Zealanders, where Tommy Cornstalk learns to obey for a common cause and to let off steam in the process.

And over it all grin in the morning sun the Ethiopian lips of the Sphinx—noting one more trivial mark of chalk on granite, one more grain of sand in the hour-glass, one more struggle of the captains and the kings, one more grim grin at peoples rending themselves—perhaps the thousand-year-long grin sprang from the knowledge that it had only to endure long enough to see William of Hohenzollern show the world the way of peace, while the very sand mocked back again.