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Home | 18-19th Centuries Index
EMPIRE in AFRICA and the CARIBBEAN
Benjamin Disraeli supported the spread of empire and the glories of British power, but he lost the elections of 1880. Many had been unhappy with him for having raised taxes and unhappy over the cost of military operations. Those supporting Disraeli because of his favor towards empire were not enough to keep him and his conservatives in office. The champion of Britain's Liberal Party, William E. Gladstone, presented himself as favoring peace, liberty and fairness. The Liberals won a substantial majority in Parliament, and Gladstone returned as prime minister.
Gladstone kept British gains in southern Africa, including rule over the Boers, and the Boers rebelled. In early 1881 they defeated the British at Majuba Hill, the British losing 93 killed, 133 wounded and 58 taken prisoner. The Boers lost only one killed and five wounded. Gladstone surrendered British rule over the 20,000 or so Boers but maintained control over the foreign affairs of the Boer republic.
In Egypt the British and French were still in control of the Suez Canal and still with the power over Egypt's government, in cooperation with their ally, the Ottoman Turks. The Ottoman sultan was still the nominal ruler of Egypt. A member of the Egyptian army Ahmad Arabi (or Urabi), led a revolt against Turkish rule and took control over Egypt's government. He was a nationalist and hostile also toward Europeans in Egypt. The British looked to a collective effort against the threat to their interests in Egypt and demanded that Arabi's government resign. The British and French sent naval squadrons to Egypt's coast, at Alexandria, which offended Egyptians, and in Alexandria people rioted and killed about 50 Europeans in one day -- June 11, 1882. British ships bombarded coastal forts at Alexandria, and, to quell the disorder, Gladstone sent an army into Egypt. In September that army defeated Arabi's army at the Battle of Tell al-Kabir, thirty miles south of Cairo. The British lost 57 killed, 382 wounded and 30 missing. The British then occupied Cairo, where they captured the Arabi. They tried him on December 3 and sentenced him to death, butthe sentence was changed to exile in Ceylon.
The British stationed troops at the Suez Canal. They re-established Tewfiq Pasha as Egypt's Khedive, and they made themselves responsible for Egypt's external relations. As Egyptians saw it, their country became an economic colony, totally dependent upon the import of British manufactured goods and the export of its raw cotton.
Queen Victoria spoke of the Khideve having no army and with only a few utterly unreliable police. There was concern in Britain over the protection of Christians in Egypt. Exercising her power to consult with and advise "her government" on matters of war and peace, Victoria complained that for the sake of a "more dignified position" for Britain, its troops should remain in Egypt. "Once any troops are withdrawn," she complained, "we shall have no pretext for replacing them."
On October 11, 1882, Victoria wrote,
... short of annexation, our power in Egypt and control over it ought to be great and firm, and we ought to show to other Powers that we shall maintain this position, though without detriment to them. We should maintain a large force there for a long time. [note]
Gladstone wanted to withdraw British troops from Egypt as soon as possible, but the British never found the time right for withdrawal, and the British would remain there into the 20th century.
In the Sudan in 1881, Muhammad Ahmad led a pan-Islamic rebellion amid cries for war against infidels. He proclaimed himself the Mahdi (Messiah) -- a person who was to rid the world of evil. With Britain responsible for Egypt's external relation and Egypt the nominal authority in the Sudan, Gladstone exercised his preference for peace and ordered Egyptian forces in the Sudan to withdraw, and he sent a British force to the Sudan, led by the military hero and evangelical Christian, Charles Gordon, to supervise the evacuation. Gordon arrived at Khartoum in February 1884 and took charge of 2,500 women and children and the sick and wounded, but before he could evacuate them, Ahmad's force surrounded the city. Gordon requested approval from Glandstone's governement for military help from a Sudanese slave trader and warlord, Zubayr Rahama Pasha, but the government rejected the idea, seeing an alliance with Zubayr Rahama Pasha as too controversial. Gordon and his people remained in Khartoum behind weak fortifications and with insufficient food. The British were reading news of Gordon's heroic defense against Ahmad. Then, after ten months, Gladstone's government sent a relief column, but it arrived 48 hours after Ahmad's forces had overrun Gordon's position, leaving Gordon dead and the British public angry and humiliated.
A few months later, in June 1885, following the defeat his 1885 Budget in parliament, Gladstone resigned. But he was back again in 1886, his Liberal Party in alliance with Irish nationalists replacing the Conservative Party led by Lord Salisbury.
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Copyright © 2003 by Frank E. Smitha. All rights reserved.