licy. The Soudan was not
within the sphere of our responsibility, but Egypt was; and just because
the separation of Egypt from the Soudan was wise and necessary, it might
have been expected that England would peremptorily interpose to prevent a
departure from the path of separation. What Hicks himself, a capable and
dauntless man, thought of the chances we do not positively know, but he
was certainly alive to the risks of such a march with such material. On
November 5 (1883) the whole force was cut to pieces, the victorious
dervishes were free to advance northwards, and the loose fabric of
Egyptian authority was shattered to the ground.

II

(M56) The three British military officers in Cairo all agreed that the
Egyptian government could not hold Khartoum if the Mahdi should draw down
upon it; and unless a British, an Indian, or a Turkish force came to the
rescue, abandonment of the Soudan was the only possible alternative. The
London cabinet decided that they would not employ British or Indian troops
in the Soudan, and though they had no objection to the resort to the Turks
by Egypt, if the Turks would pay their own expenses (a condition fatal to
any such resort), they strongly recommended the khedive to abandon all
territory south of Assouan or Wady-Halfa. Sir Evelyn Baring, who had now
assumed his post upon a theatre where he was for long years to come to
play the commanding part, concurred in thinking that the policy of
complete abandonment was the best admitted by the circumstances. It is the
way of the world to suppose that because a given course is best, it must
therefore be possible and ought to be simple. Baring and his colleagues at
Cairo were under no such illusion, but it was the foundation of most of
the criticism that now broke forth in the English press.

The unparalleled difficulties that ultimately attended the evacuation of
the Soudan naturally led inconsiderate critics,--and such must ever be the
majority,--to condemn the policy and the cabinet who ordered it. So apt are
men in their rough judgments on great disputable things, to mistake a mere
impression for a real opinion; and we must patiently admit that the
Result--success or failure in the Event--is the most that they have time
for, and all that they can go by. Yet two remarks are to be made upon this
facile censure. The first is that those who knew the Soudan best, approved
most. On January 22, 1884, Gordon wrote to Lord Granville that the