-promised
evacuation of the Nile delta by the redcoats. This was the _outcome_ of
events; and those who argue backwards should have the courage of their
convictions and throw all the facts of the case into their syllogisms.

All who have any knowledge of the trend of British statesmanship in the
eighties know perfectly well that the occupation of Egypt was looked on
as a serious incubus. The Salisbury Cabinet sought to give effect to the
promises of evacuation, and with that aim in view sent Sir Henry
Drummond Wolff to Constantinople in the year 1887 for the settlement of
details. The year 1890 was ultimately fixed, provided that no danger
should accrue to Egypt from such action, and that Great Britain should
"retain a treaty-right of intervention if at any time either the
internal peace or external security [of Egypt] should be seriously
threatened." To this last stipulation the Sultan seemed prepared to
agree. Austria, Germany, and Italy notified their complete agreement
with it; but France and Russia refused to accept the British offer with
this proviso added, and even influenced the Sultan so that he too
finally opposed it. Their unfriendly action can only be attributed to a
desire of humiliating Great Britain, and of depriving her of any
effective influence in the land which, at such loss of blood and
treasure to herself, she had saved from anarchy. Their opposition
wrecked the proposal, and the whole position therefore remained
unchanged. British officials continued to administer Egypt in spite of
opposition from the French in all possible details connected with the
vital question of finance[408].

[Footnote 408: _England in Egypt_, by Sir Alfred Milner, pp. 145-153.]

Other incidents that occurred during the years intervening between the
fall of Gordon and the despatch of Sir Herbert Kitchener's expedition
need not detain us here[409]. The causes which led to this new departure
will be more fitly considered when we come to notice the Fashoda
incident; but we may here remark that they probably arose out of the
French and Belgian schemes for the partition of Central Africa. A desire
to rescue the Sudan from a cruel and degrading tyranny and to offer a
tardy reparation to the memory of Gordon doubtless had some weight with
Ministers, as it undoubtedly had with the public. Indeed, it is doubtful
whether the _vox populi_ would have allowed the expedition but for these
more sentimental considerations. But, in the vie