at when evacuation is carried out, Mahdi will come
down here, and, by agents, will not let Egypt be quiet. Of course my
duty is evacuation, and the best I can for establishing a quiet
government. The first I hope to accomplish. The second is a more
difficult task, and concerns Egypt more than me. If Egypt is to be
quiet, Mahdi must be smashed up. Mahdi is most unpopular, and with care
and time could be smashed. Remember that once Khartum belongs to Mahdi,
the task will be far more difficult; yet you will, for safety of Egypt,
execute it. If you decide on smashing Mahdi, then send up another
L100,000 and send up 200 Indian troops to Wady Haifa, and send officer
up to Dongola under pretence to look out quarters for troops. Leave
Suakim and Massowah alone. I repeat that evacuation is possible, but you
will feel effect in Egypt, and will be forced to enter into a far more
serious affair in order to guard Egypt. At present, it would be
comparatively easy to destroy Mahdi[392].

[Footnote 392: Egypt, No. 12 (1884), p. 115.]

This statement arouses different opinions according to the point of view
from which we regard it. As a declaration of general policy it is no
less sound than prophetic; as a despatch from the Governor-General of
the Sudan to the Egyptian Government, it claimed serious attention; as a
recommendation sent by a British officer to the Home Government, it was
altogether beyond his powers. Gordon was sent out for a distinct aim; he
now proposed to subordinate that aim to another far vaster aim which lay
beyond his province. Nevertheless, Sir E. Baring on February 28, and on
March 4, urged the Gladstone Ministry even now to accede to Gordon's
request for Zebehr Pasha as his successor, on the ground that some
Government must be left in the Sudan, and Zebehr was deemed at Cairo to
be the only possible governor. Again the Home Government refused, and
thereby laid themselves under the moral obligation of suggesting an
alternate course. The only course suggested was to allow the despatch of
a British force up the Nile, if occasion seemed to demand it[393].

[Footnote 393: Egypt, No. 12 (1884) p. 119.]

In this connection it is well to remember that the question of Egypt and
the Sudan was only one of many that distracted the attention of
Ministers. The events outside Suakim alone might give them pause before
they plunged into the Sudan; for that was the time when Russia was
moving on towards Afghanistan; and the ag