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. While he was there the Zulu War broke out, and after the disaster of Isandhlwana (22 January 1879) he was chosen by the government to restore the situation. Before he landed, Lord Chelmsford [q.v.] had defeated the Zulus at Ulundi (4 July), and Wolseley's military tasks consisted in the pursuit and capture of the Zulu king, Cetywayo, and the defeat of Sekukuni, a native chief who had long harried the Boers. The problem of civil administration in South Africa had few attractions for Wolseley, and he was anxious to be rid of them as soon as possible. His instructions from the government separated him from Sir Bartle Frere [q.v.], who, until his arrival, had in preparation a scheme for the federation of South Africa, with results that were not altogether happy. After establishing an administration in Zululand which was not unjustly criticized, and granting to the Transvaal the constitution of a Crown colony in accordance with the orders of the government, Wolseley returned home to the more congenial duties of quartermaster-general at the War Office.

Wolseley then entered with increased power and authority into the struggle for army reform, and for the completion of the Cardwell programme. This threw him at once into violent opposition to the second Duke of Cambridge [q.v.], then commander-in-chief. The Duke had a profound knowledge of the personnel of the army, and was very popular in the service, but he believed that drill and discipline were the chief, if not the only, means to military efficiency, and held that long service was essential to discipline. He had not the imagination to enable him to envisage the requirements of modern war, and was satisfied with troops who made a fine show on parade. Wolseley made preparation for war the first principle of his policy, and in order to further that, obtained, after a fight for each item on his programme, an extension of the intelligence department, the preparation of plans for mobilization, the completion of the territorialization of the army, the encouragement of professional study, the simplification of equipment, and a gradual development of training for field warfare. His keenness, his intense belief that he was right, his impatience of opposition, and his quick temper often caused him to make enemies unnecessarily, and placed him in an unfavourable light. The Queen and the Duke of Cambridge, though both later changed their opinions, were disposed to regard him as a pushing upstart. Lord Beaconsfield, who had a high appreciation of Wolseley's qualities, did not think that they were altogether wrong, and he wrote to the Queen in 1879: ‘It is quite true that Wolseley is an egotist and a braggart. So was Nelson. … Men of action when eminently successful in early life are generally boastful and full of themselves. It is not limited to military and naval heroes’ [Monypenny and Buckle, Life of Disraeli, vi, 435]. Amongst the very conservative class to which most of the officers of the army belonged, a class which he did not always trouble to conciliate, Wolseley figured as an iconoclast who cared nothing for regimental history or tradition. This was far from the truth. No man had a greater belief in the value of regimental esprit de corps, but he believed in it as a thing which made for proficiency, and not as a thing to delight nursemaids. He could get little money for his plans, and in order to provide clothing economically for the reservists on mobilization, dress had to be made uniform; he was therefore driven to abolish the cherished facings of line regiments, an innovation for which he was roundly abused. This is but one example of the kind of struggle which went on throughout Wolseley's periods of service in the War Office. He won, because all the arguments were on his side; but the struggle wore him out.

In 1882 Wolseley became adjutant-general, the official then responsible for the military training, and while in this office his campaign for reform was interrupted by his last two and most famous expeditions. In 1882 Arabi Pasha headed a rebellion of the Egyptian army, and on France's refusal to intervene, the British government took the law into its own hands and sent Wolseley to enforce it. After a futile naval bombardment of Alexandria, which Wolseley condemned, there followed a short and brilliant military campaign. Wolseley left England on 15 August, and after a feint at Alexandria, swiftly and secretly transferred his troops down the Suez Canal to Ismailia. A sharp action at Kassassin brought him before Arabi's fortified lines at Tel-el-Kebir, and these were carried on 13 September by a night attack, a more daring enterprise at that date than it sounds to-day. Arabi's force was routed, and Cairo promptly occupied. For this achievement Wolseley was promoted general, received the thanks of parliament, a grant of £30,000, and was created Baron Wolseley, of Cairo and Wolseley. Eighteen months after his return from Egypt Wolseley saw his 589