Chapter X: The French Invade Morocco (1)

“_2nd Jan._, 1911.—The birthday honours list gives Jameson a baronetcy who ought to have had a rope.

“_3rd Jan._—There has been a battle between the police, helped by sixty men of the Scots Guards on the one hand, and two men on the other, described as anarchists and assassins, who defended themselves in a house in the East End of London for a whole day. Winston in his character of Home Secretary put himself in command of the forces of the Crown, and advanced under fire.

“_12th Jan._—Farid Bey has returned to Cairo and is to be prosecuted for an introduction he wrote some time ago to one Ghyati’s poems. Also Ismaïl Abaza, the only independent member, has been turned out of his place in the General Assembly. All this is disheartening. There is much discussion at Paris, Berlin and Petersburg as to the meaning of the Potsdam arrangement made between Germany and Russia about Persia. It would seem directed against the Anglo-French Entente, but does it not also mean a further division of the spoils in Asia and Egypt? The danger we have to face is a possible Anglo-German Entente. This would be fatal and final—may God forbid it. [Compare Dr. Dillon’s ‘Eclipse of Russia.’]

“_26th Jan._—Farid has been sentenced at Cairo to six months’ imprisonment, a really outrageous sentence, for having written a few words of introduction in a volume of poems, one of which contained praise of Wardani. His defence is that he never read the poems, and being a very busy man it is more than likely that that is the fact. The sentence was, no doubt, dictated by Gorst to the Assize Judge whom he appointed to deal with the case. It is just the same old way of manipulating the law in political cases we used to know in Ireland.

“Dilke is dead. I hardly know what to say of him except that he was in politics, what I most distrust, a Radical Imperialist. The extreme Radicals here had come to look upon him as one of their stalwarts, and only a few days ago Mackarness wrote to me proposing him as Chairman of a new Egyptian Committee, knowing nothing of his past history at the Foreign Office in 1882. Dilke remained very secretive about Egypt, speaking constantly in the House on every other subject but not on this. I advised Mackarness to ask Dilke whether he repented of his Egyptian sin, and he did so and found him unrepentant. Dilke was possessed, as the papers say of him, of ‘an almost encyclopædic knowledge’ on foreign affairs especially, but he had long ceased to be a force in the House of Commons though made use of now and then. The scandal of his connection with the Crawford divorce suit stood always in the way of his regaining office, and he had no wit or personal charm to attract to him a party below the gangway. Politically and morally he seems to have formed himself on the model of his friend Gambetta, a republican at home and an Imperial expansionist abroad. It is not for me to cast a stone at him for anything but his betrayal of Egypt to the Jews in 1882. Peace be with him.

“_27th Jan._—Cotton, Mackarness, Rutherford and Rothstein came to tea with me, to arrange about our Egyptian Committee, of which I am to be Chairman, and our monthly newspaper, ‘Egypt.’ We are to publish a first number as soon as possible.

“_28th Jan._—Lunched in Eccleston Square with Winston and Clementine; Birrell also there, and we renewed acquaintance on the ground of my former friendship with his father-in-law, Frederick Locker, and my character as a poet. Birrell has a pleasant reputation in the House of Commons as a gay trifler, covering his personal appearance of pedagogue to the extent that his style of wit has been called ‘Birrellism,’ and he made play on these lines in conversation during our meal, his forehead still dotted with sticking-plaster, as sign manual of his adventure with the suffragettes three months ago. I made him give a narrative of this. He had been walking home alone, he said, and was crossing the open space by the Duke of York’s column when he suddenly found himself in the middle of a group of wild women who thrust their ugly faces close to his and told him he was a bad, wicked man for not giving them the vote, and hustled him so that he had to defend himself with his umbrella, ineffectively, as they caught hold of his arms and the struggle between them lasted six or seven minutes. Then a weak knee which he had gave way and he fell down and was helpless, until Lionel Earle, who happened to be passing in a motor, stopped and rescued him. He was considerably mauled, and has been more or less on the sick list ever since. The recollection of it excited him and he talked of it with resentment, and now he had come to Churchill for sympathy and to consult how to meet the assaults to be expected at the opening of Parliament on Monday. I was sworn to secrecy while they discussed their plans of action. [On account of my oath I do not transcribe it here.] My contribution to the conversation was that I suggested that instead of being forcibly fed, which savoured too much of the ways of the Spanish Inquisition, the imprisoned women should have their own meals and their own medical attendants, and that the Ritz Hotel should be engaged for their accommodation, also that if I were a Cabinet Minister I would promise everything and do nothing. Also that if assaulted as Birrell had been I would go down on my knees and say ‘Ladies, have mercy on me, I am a poor weak man and appeal to your chivalry; spare me in consideration of my sex.’

“From this we went on to Ireland, about which Birrell was sensible and interesting. He confirmed all that Dillon had told me about the improved condition of the small farmers and especially of the labourers, for whom cottages had been built. These had given superior ideas of comfort to all. He also praised the new local administration which had superseded the old system. It was surprising, he said, how quickly the small tradesmen in the towns, who now managed it, have picked up the way of dealing with local matters. The only real difficulty now in Home Rule was the financial one, caused by the old age pensions. The English Treasury would have to provide two more millions yearly for this, and forego all charge for army or navy or interest on the National Debt. Birrell, however, foresees great difficulty in getting certain sections of the Liberal party to agree to Home Rule on these generous lines. Much would depend on how the Irish received the King on the occasion of his visit to Dublin in the summer. If the King were not well received it would be difficult to pass a Home Rule Bill. The whole thing depended for its value to us on our getting the Irish to join with us in loyalty to the Empire. I pricked up my ears at this but said nothing. I am sorry to find that Winston is getting more and more Imperialist. I asked what the King’s personal feeling was about Home Rule, and he said it was favourable. ‘It is a common mistake,’ he said, ‘to suppose that the late King was more in favour of it than the present King. The contrary is the case. All King Edward would listen to was “something in the way of councils,” whereas this one has quite colonial views about it. He is altogether colonial about Home Rule and the Empire.’ It is useful to know this, but is of evil omen to that other half of the British Empire where my interest lies, the coloured half. As I was going away Churchill called to me, ‘What will you say to our making a large increase in the Cairo garrison and putting the expense of it on Egypt as a result of your inflammatory pronouncements?’ ‘You may keep 100,000 men there if you like,’ I said, ‘It will make no difference to the result.’

“_30th Jan._—Called on Weardale at his house in Carlton House Terrace and asked him to join our Egyptian Committee. Our manifesto he entirely approves, but like all of them, he is afraid of offending Grey by putting his name to it. He looks upon Grey as an ignorant commonplace man, quite incapable in foreign affairs, but he, Weardale, is interested in the question of the Declaration of London, and dares not quarrel with him on that account.

“_1st Feb._—We launched the manifesto about our paper ‘Egypt’ this morning, with my sole name on it as provisional Chairman, none of my fellow Committeemen being willing to attach their signatures. English Radicals are timorous folk. Parliament met yesterday. The principal incident was a protest made by one Ginnell, an Independent Irish Nationalist, against the system of excluding private members from all opportunity of speech.

“_5th Feb. (Sunday)._—Two young Egyptians, came from Oxford to see me. They described the régime of political terror at Cairo as closely resembling what I remember there in 1883, the city honeycombed with spies, with delation, arrests and imprisonments under the new Press Law. They told me also that two months ago the German Consul General at Cairo, Prince Hatzfeldt, issued an invitation to young Egyptians to go for their education to Berlin. This was published in the ‘Mowayyad.’

“Later Dillon looked in. I urged him to bring forward the subject of Egypt in the Debate on the Address to-morrow, but he tells me Redmond would not support any attack on Grey just now, nor will the Irish Party move any amendment. The Labour members cannot be relied on. They are choosing Ramsay Macdonald as their leader. Talking about Ireland he said the King’s visit was most unfortunate; he would be badly received in Dublin, but the King had insisted upon going there. Ginnell he described as a clever but quite wild man, who would not conform to the rules of the House of Commons. They had had to carry him out of the House on one occasion by the arms and legs. At one time he had been his, Dillon’s, private secretary. Of Birrell he has a high opinion.

“Meynell tells me the Pope has forbidden mixed marriages in Ireland unless solemnized by Catholic rite, and has made the rule retrospective. This will raise trouble, and is contrary to all the formerly received canon law, where the declared consent of the parties followed by consummation was considered to constitute a binding marriage even without any religious ceremony.

“_6th Feb._—I have been arranging Lytton’s letters to me, some two hundred of them, a really wonderful series, from 1865 to 1891, when he died. They are as good as Byron’s or Shelley’s, and far better than Trelawney’s, whose letters to Clare and Mary Shelley I have just been reading. These last are disappointing, being for the most part very badly written; the older ones school-boyish, the later less vigorous than one would have expected from the old buccaneer Trelawney posed as being. Both these women seem to have played with him; Mary certainly did, and it does not appear from the letters that with Clare there was anything more than a single brief passionate episode, never quite realized.

“_9th Feb._—Rumbold and Lascelles lunched with me. We discussed the fortification of Flushing, which is exercising the minds of diplomatists just now. I told them of Usedom’s words about the eventual union of Holland with Germany which interested them. As to the motives that might induce Holland to unite with Germany, they suggested that the danger to the Dutch Colonies from the Naval power of Japan might be one, as Germany might guarantee these to Holland. Rumbold has a poor opinion of Grey. When the revolution happened at Constantinople he expostulated with Grey on its recognition by England, but Grey told him he did not agree with him. There is no doubt Grey entirely misunderstood what was happening, and was likely to happen. Lascelles told a story about Kaiser Wilhelm’s infatuation for Lord Lonsdale, whom he regarded as the most reliable of advisers about English things. Lonsdale had told the Kaiser once that he, Lonsdale, was in King Edward’s black books on account of his being unwilling to give up the Kaiser’s friendship. ‘I told the King, however,’ said Lonsdale, ‘that this I would not do. I was ready to lay down my life for the Crown as my ancestors had done, but not to betray my friends.’ This is considered a good joke.

“_13th Feb._—To London to interview Miss Howsin, whom I have engaged at five pounds a month to edit our paper ‘Egypt’ under my direction. She is an intelligent young woman of about thirty-five.

“_15th Feb._—To see Maud Allan dance, a great performance, in the Palace Theatre. It was finer than anything of the kind I have ever seen, especially the Mænad prancing, which one cannot doubt is a true reproduction of the old Greek way. She is a very beautiful woman.

“_17th Feb._—Lunched in Downing Street. [I had so far avoided going there though often asked.] A large casual luncheon party of unexpected guests, for luncheon is an occasion for Margot’s friends to drop in. I found myself next to Julia McGuire, with Asquith beyond her, who came in rather late, and chattered gaily during the meal. I had not seen him to speak to since he became Prime Minister.

“Phil Burne-Jones dined with me and Meynell and his daughter Viola. George Wyndham came in immediately after in uniform from the Speaker’s banquet. He was in one of his most loquacious moods, and entertained us with theories of Post-Impressionism and art in literature. He out-stayed the rest and sat on with me well into the night, explaining to me the troubles of his Conservative Party, which is at sixes and sevens, Balfour away and no two of the others of the same opinion how to act on the Veto Bill. ‘In the House of Commons,’ George said, ‘there is an absolute dearth of ability. The Leadership in Balfour’s absence is disputed by Walter Long and Austen Chamberlain, a choice of mediocrities. Both look to Arthur’s succession, and Arthur is tired of politics and affects to be unwell, though he has nothing at all the matter with him, and has taken a holiday exactly at the crisis. Walter is ambitious without ability; Austen plodding and industrious; neither has any imagination. He, George, is the only one with brains, and he is standing aside, as he does not care to give up his literature and social amusements for the mere chance of being some day Prime Minister. Still, it lies within his reach, he says, if he wishes it, and he wants my advice. If he goes in for it, it will mean ten hours’ work daily, taking on three or four Secretaries, spending all his money and abandoning romance and friendship. What is he to do? If it was a question of saving the Empire from ruin, he would, of course, do it. But can the Empire be saved? His plan would be, when Asquith faces them with the Veto Bill to dare him to do his worst, to say ‘You threaten us with a revolution, we threaten you with a counter-revolution; create the five hundred peers if you can, we refuse to have the constitution destroyed.’ If Arthur would call a meeting in St. James’s Hall and declare war in this way he would carry the country with him, only Arthur won’t. Arthur is not sufficiently interested in the issue. He is disgusted with the way things have gone, he does not want to fight. He takes too scientific a view of politics. He knows that there was once an ice age, and that there will some day be an ice age again. This makes him indifferent.’ My advice to George was that if he cared about it enough to make a real revolution on these lines it would be worth doing, but that otherwise he had better enjoy himself.

“_19th Feb. (Sunday)._—Yesterday I stayed in all day writing. I have done three articles for ‘Egypt,’ the leading article, ‘Secrecy in Foreign Affairs,’ and ‘The Bagdad Railway,’ besides most of the rest of the first number. I never had such work.” [The article on “Secrecy in Foreign Affairs” was the reproduction of an old protest against the ways of the Foreign Office which I had first made as long ago as 1885 at a meeting at Islington Hall presided over by Frederic Harrison, and was at that time a novelty in politics.]

“To-day Dillon came to luncheon and stayed three hours talking. He approves of all I have written, especially about the Bagdad railway (see ‘Egypt,’ No. 1), and will get the new labour leader, Ramsay MacDonald, to bring our Egyptian questions forward in Parliament. About home politics, he told me the Opposition was all at sixes and sevens; they had no leader. He did not believe in the Lords throwing out the Veto Bill; the threat of creating the peers would be enough. The King would write a letter to Asquith promising the necessary number, and the Lords would give in. Still it all depends upon the King. I told him what I have often told George—that the obstinacy of the Tory party about Ireland was like the obstinacy of Pharaoh. They had been refusing for the last thirty years to let the Irish go, and had sacrificed first the House of Commons, now the House of Lords, and to-morrow very likely would sacrifice the Monarchy, and all for nothing. This pleased him. We talked about Asquith, whose intellectual power he greatly admires, though he says his range of interest is too narrow to govern an Empire. For myself I consider that Asquith has always been a wet Home Ruler, if one at all. Asquith is above all things a lawyer, and knows how to talk both ways.

“_21st Feb._—With Phil Burne-Jones to his studio. He has done several nice little portraits on a very modest scale, the best being one of his father. It is not great art, but respectable and good. He is a pleasant, good fellow.

“Neville took me in the evening to a prize fight, where four or five thousand persons had collected to see a battle in gloves between a black man and a white man. It was very interesting, indeed exciting, as it involved a question of race superiority. The white man (Lang) was an English Australian, six feet and an inch high, with an immense width of shoulders, and limbs which looked as if they could smash everything; while the black man (Langford) was short, only five foot six, Neville said, but astonishingly well put together head to heel, lithe and strong. The contrast in build was great, but that of _morale_ was still more remarkable, contradicting all my expectations. Lang was nervous, and though he had never been beaten was manifestly afraid of his enemy, who from the beginning took the offensive with a quiet, persistent attack which demoralized the other, and a rapidity of striking power which left him no chance. At the end of the fifth round Lang was smashed flat, so that I thought him killed, and though he got up pluckily his face was a mask of blood, and he staggered like a drunken man. The end of the fight was disappointing. Lang, to save himself more punishment, hit a foul blow. The black man, while pommelling him, happened to slip down on one knee, and Lang struck him while down. This disqualified him and ended the fight. It was a great triumph for the black, and I was pleased to see that the feeling of the spectators was mostly on his side, which was right, for he fought not only fairly, but with a certain generosity, while the other showed poor courage. Neville tells me the blacks as fighters have far better nerve than the whites, and are much more dogged. A fight between two blacks generally goes over forty rounds.” [The result of this fight was a surprise to me. I had expected to see a gigantic black man subdued by the scientific persistence and higher _morale_ of his smaller white opponent, a triumph of white mind over black matter, but it turned out absolutely the reverse. It was the black man that wore the white down by superior science and superior courage.]

“_25th Feb._—We have got our first number of ‘Egypt’ into print, every word of it written by myself, except a review of Rothstein’s book by Sir Henry Cotton. Miss Howsin, though enthusiastic and painstaking, is, I fear, useless as editor, as she has had no literary experience.

“Savarkar’s case has been given in favour of the English demand, which refuses to send him back to France. I am sorry for the poor young man, whose real crime in Anglo-Indian official eyes has been his authorship of the ‘History of the Indian Revolution.’

“_26th Feb. (Sunday)._—Newbuildings. Belloc to dine. Very cock-a-hoop about the success of his ‘Party System,’ which has come very opportunely. It is most amusing, though, unlike his books, is written seriously. He tells me he gets constant letters about it and invitations to lecture at £20 a night. We discussed, among other things, the fortification of Flushing, which he declares the French Government would make a _casus belli_, but I doubt the French fighting for it.

“_28th Feb._—Chapel Street. Beauclerk brought Lord Ronaldshay to luncheon, a pleasant young man of thirty-five, who has travelled much in Asia, and is now in Parliament, with aspirations of being some day Viceroy of India. He was A.D.C. to Curzon for a year, and regards him with much admiration, though understanding the weak points of his character. My view of Imperial matters was entirely new to him, as it is to most people, though it is really forty years old. He, like everybody else, confuses the meaning of the word Empire, which has only quite recently been applied to our white colonial system, which is no more imperial than was the Greek colonial system in the days of Pericles. Empire properly means what the Roman Empire was, the subjugation of a number of races by a single race or a single man. This is the Imperialism I repudiate, not the other.

“_1st March._—Called in Park Lane and found George Wyndham working up a speech on the Veto Bill. He told me the party had made up its mind to fight. The Lords would not pass the Bill, whatever threat of creating peers might be used.

“_2nd March._—There is a new Ministry at Paris, Monis, Prime Minister; Delcassé, Marine; and Cruppi, Foreign Affairs.

“Mrs. Harrison told me of a luncheon at which her husband had been present at Morley’s, there being Alfred Lyall also there and Chirol. Morley had put to them three questions. (1) Was the entente with France less cordial than when it was made? (2) Was it possible to improve it? (3) How could it be improved? All but Morley agreed that it had ceased to be effective; that the French were disappointed at the results, and that the only thing that could make it effective would be the introduction of some form of conscription in England which would enable us to place an army at the service of France in the case of a war with Germany. Also that it is impossible we should raise such an army. The Entente is pretty nearly dead.

“_3rd March._—The first number of ‘Egypt’ was distributed this morning, sixteen hundred copies. It happened to be the bicentenary to a day of the first issue of Addison’s ‘Spectator.’

“_5th March (Sunday)._—Newbuildings. Belloc to dinner. He assures me Haldane has not got 50,000 men to send to Egypt if they want to do so. He thinks it more likely that the condominium will be reestablished there, with a joint French and English garrison.

“Eddy Tennant has been made a peer (yet another member of the Crabbet Club arrived at high honours). He is also made Lord Commissioner of the Church of Scotland.

“_7th March._—There was a pronouncement yesterday in all the papers from Berlin and from Constantinople, in which it was clearly declared that England will not be allowed to meddle with the Bagdad railway, a final blow to Grey and the Foreign Office in exact confirmation of what I had just written about Grey’s blundering. Happening to meet Belloc, I asked if he had noticed it, and what would be the result. He said: ‘The danger is that Grey may make a _coup de tête_ and rush into a war with Germany.’

“_9th March._—There has been a debate on the Bagdad Railway. Dillon writes excusing himself for not having taken part in it, but he has arranged with Ramsay MacDonald that they are to act together.

“_10th March._—With Beauclerk to the National Gallery, where we looked at the Lansdowne Rembrandt. This, though a good landscape, is not at all worth the £100,000 Lansdowne has been offered for it, nor, I think, 100,000 pence. It is ridiculous giving long prices of this kind for small unimportant pictures, however good, and here we have nothing very wonderful. The new rooms at the Gallery do not display the pictures to such advantage as the old ones, and the walls are decorated too much like a railway restaurant.

“_12th March (Sunday)._—Chapel Street. Dillon came to lunch, and we had another long talk about the Bagdad Railway, Persia, and Egypt. As to Ireland, he thinks Home Rule will be come to by agreement, the younger Tories seeing now that their party has been ruined by its obstinacy in opposing it. He gave an interesting account of the Irish debate on Thursday, an all night sitting, where, Asquith having been called away, Churchill was for the first time left Leader of the House. A band of young Tories, Hugh Cecil, Winterton, Castlereagh, and one or two others, took the occasion to rag Winston, and succeeded in making him lose his temper by continual noise and calling out ‘Rats!’ so that he was driven to a standstill. It is strange to see him thus hoist with his father’s petard.

“_14th March._—My cousin, Percy Wyndham, George’s father, is dead. Here is a good photograph of him. It gives all his best qualities of honour and benignity. I know of no one who in these had his equal. His death leaves me without anyone now with a right to lecture or reprove me, for he was my elder by over five years, and had the position with me through life of an elder brother. George was with him when he died.

“_15th March._—The papers have been full of the Bagdad Railway all the week, while Grey’s climb-down seems to have satisfied the German Government, and now he has made another speech about disarmament. Both speeches are very able, and Dillon tells me that the first about the railway was admirable in style. Grey has a fine House of Commons manner, which imposes on his hearers. Indeed, he seems to fulfil the ideal of British statesmanship as it is described by Wells in his ‘New Macchiavelli,’ a dignified attitude which is always ready under pressure ‘proudly and quite firmly to take the second place.’ The ‘Temps,’ however, calls his disarmament speech childish, which is also true, inasmuch as it does not deal with the reality, that in order to economize in war preparations you must have a peace policy abroad. It is impossible to run high Imperialism on the cheap.

“As to Bagdad, I see Curzon has given notice of a motion in the House of Lords to move for papers. This ought to clear the atmosphere and bring to light at last the text of his secret treaty with Mubarak at Koweit in 1899. I have been looking through my diaries of 1898, and find that at the time of Curzon’s going to India the young Tories, of whom he was the leader on foreign affairs, looked to a partition of the Ottoman Empire between England, Russia, and Germany, England to have the Arabic speaking provinces. Curzon’s intrigue with Mubarak was one of his first moves in preparation for it. My chief fear now is least the German Government may after all weaken in its Bagdad policy and come to terms with England for an immediate division of the Ottoman spoils. There was a little paragraph the other day in the papers saying that Frank Lascelles, who has been passing through Berlin on his way back from Sweden, dined with the Emperor. May he not have been used by the Foreign Office to negotiate this?

“_19th March (Sunday)._—Newbuildings. Belloc came to dinner. He says of Grey’s arbitration alliance with America that such an alliance will certainly bring about a rapprochement between France and Germany, and the uniting of all Europe against us. He also says, speaking of the threatened quarrel between America and Mexico, that the United States have not a strong enough army to coerce the Mexicans.

“_20th March._—Beauclerk went up to London with me, and we went to his rooms in Mount Street, where we met a certain Fielding, a mining engineer, whom he had made acquaintance with in Persia. Beauclerk explained the position of the Russians with a map on the Chinese frontier. The Russians have two strong military stations on the frontier, the one at Tashkend, the other at Kiahta, threatening Kulja and Urga respectively. The Russian colonists cannot in any way compete with the Chinese, and it is difficult to see what they want with extending their Empire in the Chinese direction, except that just over the frontier towards Kulja there is a valuable coal mine, which they covet.

“_21st March._—Browne came to luncheon and brought with him Mirza Abdul Ghaffar, of the Persian Legation, an intelligent man, with whom we discussed the Persian and other Eastern questions for full three hours.

“_22nd March._—To the House of Lords to hear the debate on Bagdad. It was a disappointing affair. Curzon made a long, dry, and pompous exposition of the case, carefully avoiding, however, the point of real interest, namely, his own intrigue with Mubarak Ibn Sbaa at Koweit. He just mentioned that place, mispronouncing it Ko-ite (as one might say ‘go right’) instead of Quate, but only to say that it need not be discussed. His whole speech was a shirking of the real matters in dispute, and Morley, who followed him, in reply, was only too glad to leave it so. I never saw anything feebler or less imposing than Morley showed himself on this occasion, unless it was the same Morley twelve years ago dealing with Kitchener at Omdurman in the House of Commons. He seemed ashamed of himself there in the House of Lords, a little old senile vestryman fumbling with his papers, ignorant of the whole case he had to state, timid in addressing his brother peers, contradicting himself and saying the wrong thing, at times quite inaudible. It seemed absurd that he and Curzon between them had had the whole fortunes of the British Empire in the East in their hands for the last dozen years, and that the Empire should have survived it. The debate ended in the _non sequitur_ of Curzon withdrawing his demand for papers.

“Beauclerk on Sunday repeated to me the account of Major Sykes having fortified his house at Meshed. When Beauclerk stayed with him there three years ago, Sykes had 200 Indian Sepoys as his Consular guard, and he used to drill them daily to rifle practice. Also he had dug a mine from his garden 100 yards long, passing under the street to that of the Governor of the town, and had even undermined the Governor’s house. He learned this from Sykes himself. [A pleasant instance of what diplomatists call ‘peaceful penetration.’]

“_24th March._—Bain, the author of the ‘Digit of the Moon,’ dined with me. He is less interesting than his books, a typical Anglo-Indian with more knowledge than sympathy in Indian things, and no sympathy at all with modern India.

“_25th March._—Dillon lunched with me to concert measures about ‘Egypt,’ which seems to have been put on the official black list at Cairo. I am off now to Newbuildings till after Easter.

“_26th March (Sunday)._—Newbuildings. Belloc came to dinner with Maurice Baring. Baring is intelligent and pleasant, but showed no extraordinary brilliancy in talk.

“_11th April._—Moberley Bell’s and Alfred Lyall’s deaths are announced to-day. Bell I never knew personally, but Lyall was for many years my friend. He died suddenly of _angina pectoris_ at Farringford, where he was staying, apparently in good health, at the age of seventy-six. He had a successful Anglo-Indian official life, and twenty years ago was much cherished in London society; but, as old people are obliged to do, had dropped out of it latterly, and we had not met for the last eight or nine years. Without being a poet, he wrote some good verse, and had much knowledge of the East with as great sympathy for it as an Indian official dared to show.

“_12th April._—Laid the foundation stone of my new Manor House in Worth Forest.

“_18th April._—George Howard Lord Carlisle is dead. He was one of the best of men, as well as one of the most domestically tried.

“_19th April._—Newbuildings. One Duse Mohammed, who has written a good book on Egypt, cribbed, nearly all of it, from me and Rothstein, came to see me. He is an odd creature, an Egyptian mulatto, he says, but knowing no word of Arabic; a Mohammedan, but unable to recite the formula of the faith; an Egyptian historian with almost no knowledge of Egypt. He tells me he was circumcised a Mohammedan, that his name is properly Mohammed Ali Ibn Abd El Salaam, but was taken to England by a Frenchman named Ducey when he was ten years old, and has only once been in Egypt since, namely from May 1882 till February 1883, when he returned to England. There he went on the stage, and later in America, lecturing on Shakespeare and writing for the Press. To test him I tried whether he could recite the Fatha, but he was unable to so much as repeat the words after me. It reminds one of the Tichborne claimant, who, asserting that he had been brought up a Catholic, was unable to repeat the ‘Hail Mary.’ He has married an English woman and goes sometimes to church, but has always refused, he tells me, to be baptized.

“_22nd April._—The French Government seems drifting into an invasion of Morocco, just as Gladstone drifted into invading Egypt in 1882. Our fine Liberals here are all applauding out of ‘loyalty to France’; this is their thieves’ honour.

“_25th April._—Rothstein is furious about Duse Mohammed’s appropriation of his work, which is more flagrant than I thought. Also, I fear, we may have trouble about the management of our paper, as Keir Hardie wants to run it his own way. Dillon advises me to get rid of the Committee.

“_28th April._—It has been decided by the Committee that ‘Egypt’ is to remain under my sole political and financial direction with no other interference than the advice of an Executive Committee, consisting of myself, Ryan as Editor, Miss Howsin as Sub-Editor, Dr. Rutherford and El Alaili. Ryan and Miss Howsin will be paid by me. This leaves me in sole control.

“_1st May._—Newbuildings. Belloc dined with us last night. He has been in Germany and has come back more than ever certain that in the next war the French will beat the Germans. His new paper is to be called ‘The Witness,’ with £2,000 to start it, and much promised help.

“_6th May._—The event of the past week has been the invasion of Morocco by the French, a scandalous affair, exactly on the same lines of financial speculation and Colonial and Imperial intrigue which were followed by us in Egypt thirty years ago. Belloc tells me that the French Government has this time defied the German Government. He has information that a few days ago Delcassé (who manages French Foreign Policy, though not Minister of Foreign Affairs) had the German Ambassador at Paris invited, a very unusual thing, to attend a Cabinet meeting convened to discuss the Moroccan question, and that, on the Ambassador’s observing that the Algeciras Convention would have to be respected and that the German Government’s information about Fez was that there was no danger for Europeans there, Delcassé told him roundly that France was determined to march on Fez, and this time would do so whether Germany liked it or no. Belloc declares the French army to be better than the German, and that Germany will not dare to go to war.

“_7th May (Sunday)._—Chapel Street. Dillon and the Persian Consul, Ghaffar Khan, came to luncheon, and we had a long talk on Eastern affairs. Ghaffar would like England and Germany to compose their differences and unite in an alliance with Turkey and Persia, Turkey abandoning Egypt to England, a fanciful idea, which would only mean an end of all things for Islam in Turkey as well as elsewhere. There is but one chance for Islam, and that is Germany’s friendship, not, of course, a disinterested one, but still one that would protect them from the other European Powers until Islam is strong enough to stand alone. I explained the same thing to an intelligent young Egyptian from Oxford, Abd el Ghaffar, who came to consult me. He is of St. John’s College. He tells me there are about eighty young Egyptians in London, who are here studying.

“Yesterday, while at Newbuildings, three aeroplanes passed over at a great height, racing from Brooklands to Shoreham. We first heard shouts of boys and then the rattle of the machines. They were near enough for us to be able to make out with a glass that there was somebody in each. The leading one was a monoplane, a much more workmanlike machine than the others and extremely like a bird. Machinery, however, does not interest me, and I have not the smallest wish to take a flight in one.

“_11th May._—Worth Forest. Gorst’s Egyptian Report is published, a lame affair, which will do him little credit. It justifies all I have written about him and the advice I have given to the Egyptians. He admits that there was never anything at all serious in his Constitutional reforms. There is no chance whatever for Egypt, and has not been since 1904, except in the revival of Turkey’s military power and the intervention of Europe.

“_14th May (Sunday)._—Newbuildings. Meynell is here, with his nephew, Captain Butler, of the Royal Irish Fusiliers, Sir William’s son, an exceedingly nice young fellow, of thirty, with all his father’s anti- imperial ideas, an unusual phenomenon in a soldier; clever, original, a Home Ruler and a pious Catholic, who would like to fight for the Pope. I asked him how he managed to get on with his fellow-officers, having such ideas. He answered, ‘They do not think, and I play polo.’ He is just back from India where he saw a good deal of the German Crown Prince, who was travelling there during the winter. He confirms Philip Napier’s account of his unconventional ways. The Crown Prince would not pay attention to the official big-wigs or be bored with German deputations, but he made great friends with the English officers, ‘messing with them like a subaltern and playing polo. We all liked him much.’ At Cairo, according to Napier, he gave great offence, refusing to wear uniform on solemn occasions or keep tiresome engagements. When he was to visit the Khedive on one occasion he was not ready, being occupied with a lady, and sent his Aide-de-camp on in the Khedivial carriage intended for him, arriving too late himself in a taxicab (with the lady) in a suit of overalls. Butler understands horses and took an intelligent interest in everything here.

“_17th May._—Ryan enters on his duties as editor of ‘Egypt’ from the 15th. I like him much.

“_19th May._—A great fuss is being made in London about the Kaiser Wilhelm’s visit, and a gala representation of that ancient play ‘Money’ is being given in his honour. I only hope this visit to London is not to be another Reval meeting, with some ‘plot of peace’ involving the ruin of some Eastern nation. That is always the danger on these gala occasions. It is easy for robbers to make friends over a corpse, and Morocco is there ready to their hands.

“_22nd May._—The French Prime Minister, Monis, and the War Minister, Marceaux, have been, the one killed, the other seriously hurt by an aeroplane which they were watching the start of in an air race from Paris to Madrid yesterday. This may make a difference in the political world, and just possibly save Morocco from being invaded by the French. May God confound them! I fear it is as Belloc told me, the German Government have either given in or come to an arrangement about Morocco, for the occupation of Fez is no longer concealed, the price perhaps of France’s and Russia’s withdrawal of their opposition to the Bagdad railway. [Compare Dr. Dillon’s ‘Eclipse of Russia.’]

“_24th May._—The French have entered Fez, it is said, without opposition, the whole story of Europeans whose lives were reported to be in danger having proved to be a fable of the same kind as that invented about Johannesburg at the time of the Jameson raid (N.B.—Jameson has just been made a knight by our Liberal Government), and now the same course of lying is to be pursued by the French about remaining there as we pursued in Egypt.

“_26th May._—There has been a report of a threat issued by the Russian Government to Turkey in regard to Montenegro, but to-day it is announced that its arrogant tone is apologized for. Germany once more has intervened.

“_28th May (Sunday)._—Newbuildings. Shane Leslie, Patrick Butler, Francis Meynell, and Ryan were here for the week end, and yesterday Mallock. Young Meynell is clever and interesting, and Butler a good young man, with no little wisdom too. With Belloc and his wife who came to dinner, an entirely Catholic party.

“_1st June._—The foolish Lords have passed the Veto Bill, and so have committed suicide without a division and without glory. Never was a position so frittered away. Arthur Balfour is principally responsible for this, acting on the advice of the two Whig deserters, Rosebery and Lansdowne. If he had stood firm two years ago and risked a civil war he would have had all the physical force of the country with him, and popular opinion, at least in England, too. There would have been no civil war, and he would have come back to office and stayed there for twenty years. It was the Whig obstinacy about Home Rule in Ireland that prevented it, and has caused their ruin.

“_6th June._—A young Copt, Louis Aknoukh Fanous, came to consult me as to how to bring about a reconciliation between the Copts and Moslems in Egypt, in which I was very ready to help on two conditions—that the Copts should declare themselves (1) honestly for evacuation and (2) for the maintenance of the connection with the Ottoman Empire. He told me that the younger generation of Copts were quite ready for this. They did not want foreign rule, or to be separated from the Empire, where they were more at home than they would be in any European hands. Only they insisted that in their schools they should not be forced to learn to read out of the Koran, and that they should have Sunday as their holiday in the public offices, and should have a share in the provincial administration. I promised to speak to the Nationalist leaders about this. The young man is extremely intelligent, speaks English perfectly, and took a degree in Oxford three or four years ago. His father is one of the richest and most influential Christians in Upper Egypt.

“_11th June (Sunday)._—There is more trouble brewing in Albania, the Catholic Mirdites having joined the Rebellion, and the Austrian Government having issued a warning of a moderating kind to Turkey. It would alarm me more if there was not news from Berlin which seems to show that the Turks are still backed by Germany. Goltz has publicly expressed his entire confidence in the Ottoman army, and the Emperor William is to receive a deputation from the Ottoman Parliament. But for this I should say the situation was very serious. The Bellocs dined with us and Cecil Chesterton, with whom he is collaborating his paper, ‘The Witness.’ They have asked me for some verse, and I have given them my ‘Coronation Ode.’ Belloc is delighted with it, and will print it on the first page of his paper.

“_14th June._—There is a new complication in Morocco, the Spanish Government having sent troops into the country in exact imitation of the French.

“_15th June._—Newbuildings. Yusuf Bey el Moelhi and a friend, Doctor Rashad, arrived to consult me in Egyptian affairs. He is all for alliance with Constantinople and Berlin, and is starting for Berlin to- morrow. He complains of the inefficiency of Hatzfeldt, the German Consul-General at Cairo, and of the little pains taken by him to strengthen German influence. Yusuf Bey is intelligent and patriotic, but, like most of them, looks to money as the main object in life. It is only the younger generation which has larger ideas. He has had my ‘Secret History’ translated at his own cost, but doubts whether it will not be seized under the new Press laws.

“_17th June._—The Albanian quarrel seems arranged, and the Sultan recited the prayer yesterday at the tomb of Sultan Mourad at Kossovo, 80,000 Albanian clansmen praying with him.

“_19th June._—Dr. Rifaat, a Nationalist exile, arrived from Paris; he, too, to consult me. He is an extremist in his views, very hostile to the Khedive, and without much confidence from any quarter in the future. He looks upon the Ottoman connection as the best chance for Egypt, but is gloomy about the Ottoman Empire. The Egyptians are easily cast down, just as they are too ready to shout victory.

“_20th June._—Drove over to Greatham to call on Meynell at his new home there, a most beautiful site. He has just secured between Parham Park and the Amberly Marshes eighty acres of waste land, where he intends to found a family colony, wild heath, overgrown with fern, for which he has paid no more than £20 an acre. We found him in high delight at his sudden good fortune as a landed proprietor, a good fortune he deserves, and made our picnic under a clump of hollies, discussing the sites of cottages he intends to build.

“Belloc’s paper is published under the title ‘The Eye Witness,’ with my ‘Coronation Ode’ occupying the most prominent position.

“_21st June._—Old Riaz Pasha is dead, the last of the old Pasha gang in Egypt. He began life as a dancing boy of Jewish origin at the Court of Abbas I, and has ended in high consideration and respect, though his subservience to English policy had lost him latterly the popularity he enjoyed twenty years ago, a patriot according to his lights, but these were never clear. I liked him personally much. _Allah kerim_.

“_22nd June._—Coronation Day. We drank the King’s health and the Queen’s and all the Royal Family’s, not, I fear, very devoutly.

“_28th June._—Hassan Bey Sabri, an old disciple of Abdu’s, came to see me. He belongs, if anybody in Egypt does, to the English party, expecting to be one of the nominated members of the Legislative Council, and is a follower of Saad Zaghloul. He thinks there is some new Liberal policy being planned for Egypt. Gorst, poor fellow, is dying, and his successor is to be Arthur Hardinge, and if the Nationalists will only be quiet, and not oppose English policy, something in the way of a Constitution will be given them. Personally I always liked Gorst, and used to find him more amenable to my ideas than Cromer, but he has proved a bad friend to Egypt, because, knowing her better than Cromer, he was better able to betray. Arthur Hardinge is a man of the same school, both having been Cromer’s pupils, Hardinge probably the cleverer of the two. The Legislative Council will be allowed to pass laws, and even to control finance, as far as these relate to internal affairs. I asked him what his ultimate plan was, and he said he wanted evacuation, but not yet. I found him an honest man but timid, and as such in favour of half measures. Talking about Mohammed Abdu’s death and in answer to my question whether he thought the Mufti had been poisoned, he said he was sure of it. He had been with Abdu at Alexandria on the 13th of June (Abdu died on 11th July) and he had suspicions then which have since been confirmed. He believed the same plan had been pursued with Abdu as with Seyyid Jemal ed Din, cancer had been communicated by means of a poisoned toothpick.

“_2nd July (Sunday)._—There is a sensational announcement in the ‘Observer’ of the landing of German troops in Morocco. Belloc, who dined with us, declared the French Government will not fight. The French Government are in the throes of the reconstruction of their Cabinet, Monis having resigned, and the moment has been well chosen by the Germans for their coup.

“_5th July._—The ‘Daily Telegraph’ has a paragraph saying that Kitchener is to have Gorst’s place at Cairo.

“_7th July._—The position in Morocco is very serious. I have been talking it over with Belloc. He is sure there has been an understanding between the German and French Governments about Agadir, and that the quarrel will be settled at our English expense. Agadir, he says, is of great importance to Germany, as the only possible seaport on the Moroccan Atlantic coast, and is of no importance to France in any hostile sense. The hostility is all towards us. Also he says that the French and Germans are too much afraid of each other to go to war, and that France will not join us in any attempt to expel Germany from its African position (at Agadir) unless we can guarantee her the support of a hundred and fifty thousand men landed on her frontier in France, a force we are unable to provide. We shall have therefore to make up our minds either to submit to the German seizure of Agadir or to go to war with Germany alone or find her compensation elsewhere. Where can we find such? Our Government seems aware of the position, for Asquith made a declaration yesterday in Parliament that England had interests of her own in Morocco separate from those entailed on her by her engagements to France. The question may possibly lead to war, though more likely to Germany’s keeping Agadir.”

[This shows, as an early link, the connection between France’s invasion of Morocco in 1911 and the great war of 1914, with the part we played in it as France’s ally, supplying a contingent in a land campaign against Germany.]

“_9th July (Sunday)._—Lady Gregory is here. She has been very successful this year with her plays, having cleared £500 by her theatrical visit to London, and got £3,000 of subscriptions, while Yeats has received a Government pension of £150. The King and Queen are in Ireland, where they are having a loyal reception carefully prepared for them, though the Dublin Corporation has refused to vote a penny or authorize an address.

“Belloc dined with us. His view that the occupation of Agadir was arranged beforehand between the French and German Governments seems the correct one. They seem to be on excellent terms with each other, and it is we that are to be left out in the cold. There is sufficient danger of war to have made me write to my bankers about it.

“_11th July._—Newbuildings. The anniversary of the Bombardment of Alexandria. Miss Howsin came from King’s Mead, where she is staying with Mrs. Mackarness, to talk over the affairs of ‘Egypt.’ I hear from Osman Ghaleb that the Khedive is making overtures of reconciliation to the Nationalist Party, being angry at the idea of Kitchener being re-imposed on him to succeed Gorst. When one remembers their quarrel in 1893, and how Kitchener, being in the Khedive’s service as Commander-in-Chief of his army, left Egypt for South Africa without having so much as the politeness to take leave at the Palace, one wonders at his having been sent back to Cairo by the Foreign Office. I have drawn up a resolution to be issued by the Egyptian Committee protesting against Kitchener’s appointment.