Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/345

 provinces by a cordial co-operation from the beginning with Russia and the other continental powers, was by no means disposed to go so far as Gladstone, who was, he thought, far too violent in his denunciations of the policy of the government, and too oblivious of the extent to which British interests were involved in the maintenance, to some degree, of the Turkish dominion, and the preservation of Constantinople from the hands of a stronger and more dangerous power. Hartington was, however, a more severe critic of the government in the matter of the policy which led to the Afghan war in 1878, and publicly stated his opinion that [q. v.], the viceroy of India, ought to be recalled.

Hartington's position in the country was growing in importance. The city of Glasgow bestowed on him the freedom of the city on 5 Nov. 1877, and on 31 Jan. 1879 he was installed as lord rector of Edinburgh University. Meanwhile Gladstone had been recalled by the Eastern question to the fighting line; his speeches had an immense effect in destroying the government of Lord Beaconsfield, and after the liberal victory at the elections of 1880 it became evident that no one save Gladstone could successfully discharge the function of prime minister. In April 1880 Queen Victoria invited Lord Hartington, who had been returned M.P. for North-East Lancashire, to form a government, and showed herself extremely anxious that he should be prime minister, but he declared himself, in view of the position which Gladstone had reassumed in the liberal party, unable to meet her wishes ( Life of Gladstone, ii. 621–4).

Gladstone became prime minister on 23 April, and Lord Hartington was appointed secretary of state for India, a post to which the Afghan question now gave special importance. In the previous September the war, which had seemed to be ended by the treaty of Gandamak, was rekindled by the massacre at Kabul of Sir [q. v.], the British envoy, with his staff and escort. Kabul, after some fighting, had been occupied, the Amir Yakub had been deported to India, negotiations were in progress with the exiled Prince Abdurrahman for the succession to the vacant throne, and a plan had been devised by Lord Lytton to separate the province of Kandahar from the rest of Afghanistan and to place it under a distinct native ruler, supported by a British garrison. This policy the new government, with the co-operation of the new viceroy, the [q. v, Suppl. II], decided to reverse, and Hartington explained the reasons in a speech in parliament (25 March 1881) which Gladstone said was the most powerful that he had ever made. After the defeat of the pretender Ayub by Sir Frederick (afterwards Lord) Roberts (Aug.–Oct. 1880), Amir Abdur-rahman was installed in power and all the British forces were withdrawn from Afghanistan, except from the Sibi and Pishin frontier districts, which with Quettah were permanently added to the Empire.

At the end of 1882 Lord Hartington was transferred to the war office, and was secretary of state for war until Gladstone's government fell in the summer of 1885. He entered upon this office soon after the battle of Tel-el-Kebir in Egypt (13 Sept. 1882) and the virtual establishment of the British protectorate over Egypt. On 3 Nov. 1883 the Egyptian army, commanded by [q. v.], was totally destroyed at El Obeid in the Soudan by the dervish host which followed the Mahdi, and in the following January the British Government decided to compel that of Egypt to withdraw altogether from the Soudan, and sent General Gordon to carry out the evacuation. Lord Hartington was one of the four ministers, the others being Lord Granville, Lord Northbrook, and Sir Charles Dilke, who were virtually responsible, in the first instance, for this step. When it became apparent in March that Gordon had failed, and that Khartoum and Berber would be taken by the Arabs unless they received military assistance, Hartington, supported by strong memorandums by Lord Wolseley, the adjutant-general, repeatedly urged the prime minister and the cabinet as strongly as he could to come to a decision on the subject. He was not, however, able to induce the cabinet to agree to any preparations until the end of July 1884, and then only by a threat of resignation. Consequently Lord Wolseley's Nile expedition arrived near Khartoum just too late to save that city from capture and Gordon from death on 26 Jan. 1885. The Government decided at first to retake Khartoum, and Hartington pledged himself in Parliament (25 Feb. 1885) to this policy in the strongest terms. But the feeling died away; the momentary probability of a war with Russia in connection with the Afghan frontier enabled Gladstone to withdraw from the undertaking, which he had never liked, and Hartington had the mortification of seeing the complete abandonment of the Soudan,