TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE ADVANCE TO DONGOLA.
WE feel no disposition to be enthusiastic over this expedition to Dongola. We cannot get rid of the impression that, in the present position of European affairs, this country ought to husband its forces, to strip itself for action as a ship does, and to be ready to meet at a moment's notice what may prove to be a most serious emergency. In truth, if we were to say exactly what we think, it would be that Sir Charles Dilke gives the Govern- ment a needed warning when he says that we do not provide quite adequately for the terrible though improbable con- tingency of invasion. Our countrymen do not realise sufficiently the awful shock which the landing even of fifty thousand men upon the island itself would produce in London ; the paralysis it would inflict upon commercial credit, and the consequent risk of a temporary collapse in the power of paying wages. Moreover, we think it a great drawback to any enterprise whatever in Egypt, including the construction of the great and fruitful hydraulic works for which plans are already ready, that our position there is not fully legalised, that we do not know how long we shall remain, and that if we are ever to depart, the desert forces will overwhelm much of our work, just as the desert sand overwhelms so many Egyptian buildings. We are not even leaseholders with a fixed term, but only a Power pledged to keep order in Egypt, and guide its native rulers until it is evident that they need no external guidance or protection, a date which may be ten years hence or may be the Greek Kalends. Nevertheless we think the expedition to Dongola on the whole a defensible one. Those who assail it so fiercely forget, as it seems to us, three cardinal propositions which must be accepted as true. The first is, that as long as we retain ultimate power in Egypt we are bound to do for the country what, if free and competent, it would be sure to do for its-lf. Now, can it be doubted that any native Govern- ment of Egypt having an army at its disposal would, at the present time, occupy Dongola ? We think it cannot be. Egypt is permanently threatened by the fanatic tribes of the Soudan, who never relinquish, though they often suspend, their project of invasion ; those tribes have re- cently been enormously encouraged by the Abyssinian defeat of Italy, and they are, according to the best infor- mation available, at this moment preparing for a north- ward rush. In the opinion of all soldiers, the best way to meet them is to drive them further from Egypt, and to cut off their supplies, both of which ends will be attained, in the opinion of experts, by the occupation of Dongola. It is certain, therefore, that an Egyptian ruler would occupy the province ; and consequently the assertion that we are expending Egyptian resources to further our own ends alone is without foundation. We have some right so to expend those resources, for we, and we only, created them, we having taken charge of Egypt when it was a bank- rupt State with a. demoralised Army ; but in the prese3t in- stance we are furthering, in the first place, imperative Egyp- tian interests. We have no more right to allow Dervishes to overrun or menace the Delta than to allow brigands to overrun or menace its cities. The second proposition is, that we are bound by our position, not only in Egypt, but in all Africa, to defend civilisation against barbarism. These Dervishes are, as compared with Europeans, barbarians. Their object is plunder and massacre. It may be taken as certain that, if they entered Egypt, they would kill a perceptible portion of the peaceful population and make slaves of the remainder, a result which, merely as a great civilising Power, we have a right, if we can, to prevent or punish. We cannot conceive a better moral ground for war, more especially in a locality where we are under explicit engagements to afford military protection to those whose country we have entered. We do not suppose that even Mr. Labouchere would dispute that argument. He desires that we should retreat from Egypt, but he would not deny that, if we remain there, we are bound to protect its taxpayers from rapine, murder, and reduction to slavery. And the third proposition is, that we need Italian support in the Mediterranean, and that if we desert her in her hour of distress we cannot }ewe it. We are bound to help her if she is to help sis, and as it chances, we can help her materially with- out helping her to conquer Abyssinia. The Dervishes, who hate Menelek quite as much as they hate us, and for the same reason, the difference of creed, are taking advan- tage of Menelek's victory to seize Kassala, that is, in fact, to gain an immense advantage over both the Abyssinians and the Italians. By threatening Dongola we shall draw them off, and thus greatly relieve the pressure on the Italians without injuring Meneleles capacity for defence, with which it is not at present our business to interfere. The Negus does not want the Dervishes in Kassala any more than we do, and will be, in fact, as much protected by a shock given to them as the Italians will be. The rumours of alliance between the Abyssinians and the Mahdi are, we believe, either un- founded or accounts of a momentary arrangement, the Mahdists regarding the Abyssinians as infidels, with a scorn and hatred increased instead of diminished by their copper-coloured skins. The expedition, we maintain, is justified, and as to the method adopted, it must of necessity be left to the Government and its advisers. We should ourselves have held it wiser, if the Dervishes were to be attacked, to spring at them from Suakin, where we have the sea for a base, and, by laying down a light railway to Berber, to attack them in the very centre of their power. We might from thence conquer the whole Soudan, and so break up the Dervish bands altogether, and render Egypt safe for generations to come, perhaps for ever, for Egypt and the Abyssinians have no irremovable ground of quarrel. The Government and Lord Wolseley have, however, decided otherwise; and we hold it absurd in all such cases to leave to the great professionals as we must do the control of all details, and then compel them by pressure from the com- paratively ignorant to carry out plans of which they dis- approve. Having resolved on a campaign—which is, of course, the business of the Government, that is, of the whole people—let Lord Wolseley plan that campaign, or remove Lord Wolseley ; those, it seems to us, are the only reasonable alternatives. If the Commander - in - Chief deliberately thinks the Dongola route the right one— which it may easily be, for Wady Haifa, with its river and railway communication with Alexandria, can be made an impregnable base—then let us go to Dongola without wasting energy over an interminable discussion about alternative routes. The criticism of a mob of journalists is quite as dangerous in war as the criticism of an Aulic Council, and, with a democratic Constitution, much more difficult to defy. The General who is com- petent to command must be left to command just as if he were an Admiral. No outsider suggests tactics to an Admiral, because every outsider knows his own incom- petence as regards naval warfare, and he is nearly as incompetent to direct warfare by land, though he does not know it. We would make only one exception to that rule. Outsiders, we think, have a right to a view as to the adequacy of the force employed, because both they and the soldiers must, as regards that point, base their opinion upon a past which may be equally well known to both. We doubt—mind, only doubt—whether that past justifies the use of an army exclusively, or almost exclusively, composed of native levies. The black troops of Egypt are admirable soldiers, and the Arab troops, though less admirable, they being conscripts taken against their will from among an eminently peaceful population, are still a disciplined body of men ; but supposing them all as good as we could wish, they are all Mahommedans, all Africans, and all liable to inexplicable currents of emotion. Why should they be so much better than the Erythrean soldiery who fled from Menelek before Adowa ? There ought to be European regiments with them, or if the Europeans would be too much injured by the climate, then regiments of Goorkhas or of Sikhs. Sir H. Johnstone employs the latter in his province of Shire ; and the teaching of experience is that they face Arabs with the greatest sangfroid, and defeat them at considerable odds. We must not forget that the Dervishes gave us plenty to do at Abou-Klea, or that although a defeat on the march southward would not be so terrible to us, with our past history, as to the Italians, it would be a most annoying and inconvenient disaster. We should have instantly to forward a European army to Wady Haifa, and the demand might come upon us at the most inconvenient moment. Subject to this caution, we see no reason for distrusting our power to occupy Dongola, or for doubting that it will render Egypt more safe, that it will relieve the severe pressure of the Dervishes upon the Italian army, and that it will conduce to the great general task of making European influence supreme within the great but uncivilised continent of Africa.
Previous page
