agues was this: "Apart from the defence of Egypt, which no one would
propose to abandon, does there appear to be any obligation of honour or
any inducement of policy (for myself I should add, is there any moral
warrant?) that should lead us in the present state of the demands on the
empire, to waste a large portion of our army in fighting against nature,
and I fear also fighting against liberty (such liberty as the case admits)
in the Soudan?" The assumptions on which the policy had been founded had
all broken down. Osman Digna, instead of being readily crushed, had
betaken himself to the mountains and could not be got at. The railway from
Suakin to Berber, instead of serving the advance on Khartoum in the
autumn, could not possibly be ready in time. Berber, instead of being
taken before the hot season, could not be touched. Lord Wolseley, instead
of being able to proceed with his present forces or a moderate addition,
was already asking for twelve more battalions of infantry, with a
proportion of other arms.

Mr. Gladstone's own view of this crisis is to be found in a memorandum
dated April 9, circulated to the cabinet three or four days before the
question came up for final settlement. (M70) It is long, but then the case
was intricate and the stages various. The reader may at least be satisfied
to know that he will have little more of it.(114)

Three cabinets were held on three successive days (April 13-15). On the
evening of the first day Mr. Gladstone sent a telegram to the Queen, then
abroad, informing her that in the existing state of foreign affairs, her
ministers felt bound to examine the question of the abandonment of
offensive operations in the Soudan and the evacuation of the territory.
The Queen, in reply, was rather vehement against withdrawal, partly on the
ground that it would seriously affect our position in India. The Queen had
throughout made a great point that the fullest powers should be granted to
those on the spot, both Wolseley and Baring having been selected by the
government for the offices they held. No question cuts deeper in the art
of administering a vast system like that of Great Britain, than the
influence of the agent at a distant place; nowhere is the balance of peril
between too slack a rein from home and a rein too tight, more delicate.
Mr. Gladstone, perhaps taught by the experience of the Crimean war, always
strongly inclined to the school of the tight rein, though I never heard of
a