Note 190 — Chapter XXVII · GENERAL GORDON’S MISSION.

When England advised Egypt to abandon the Soudan, the Khedive’s Ministry under Cherif Pasha refused to take the advice. The defeat of Hicks Pasha caused England to substitute insistance for advice, and when the Egyptian Government was told it must abandon the Soudan, Cherif Pasha resigned. Here was an excellent opportunity for establishing a Protectorate; and it is not generally known that Sir Evelyn Baring strongly recommended the appointment of English Ministers for a period of five years. He was overruled, and Nubar Pasha was made Cherif’s successor. See Mr. Edward Dicey’s convincing plea for a Protectorate, in the Nineteenth Century for March, 1884. In passing it may be well to warn the reader that he cannot form any correct conception of Anglo-Egyptian relations till he has mastered Mr. Dicey’s numerous papers on the subject, notably his “England and Egypt” (Chapman and Hall, 1881). The central idea of Mr. Dicey’s policy is that the true interest of England in the Eastern Question lies in the Valley of the Nile, not in the Bosphorus; and that the Isthmus of Suez forms the key-stone of her position as an Imperial Power.