Note 361 — Chapter XV

Mr. Morley says (Life of Gladstone, vol. iii. p. 73) that Arabi's movement "was in truth national as well as military; it was anti-European, and above all, it was in its objects anti-Turk."--In view of the evidence collected by Sir D.M. Wallace, and by Lord Milner (England in Egypt), I venture to question these statements. The movement clearly was military and anti-Turk in its beginning. Later on it sought support in the people, and became anti-European and to some extent national; but to that extent it ceased to be anti-Turk. Besides, why should the Sultan have encouraged it? How far it genuinely relied on the populace must for the present remain in doubt; but the evidence collected by Mr. Broadley, How We Defended Arabi (1884), seems to show that Arabi and his supporters were inspired by thoroughly patriotic and enlightened motives.