Page:The Egyptian Difficulty and the First Step out of it.djvu/8

4 solution in 1879, is the mass of extraneous political tangle which has since overgrown it.

Such retrospect discovers the military revolt in Egypt as the first consequence of the solution adopted for the original problem, and it was speedily followed by the naval demonstration and the massacres in the Delta. This last brought the problem fairly before Europe; and then followed in rapid succession the Conference of Constantinople, the bombardment of Alexandria, the war against Arabi, the mission of Lord Dufferin, the British attempts at administrative reorganisation, the disaster of Teb, the mission to Abyssinia, the avenging expedition of General Graham, the mission of General Gordon, the Conference of London, and lastly, the mission of Lord Northbrook and the Nile expedition under Lord Wolseley.

One after another, the several schemes included in this long tale of experiments—save only the last-named pair, of which the outcome has yet to be seen—have each in their turn proved sterile or abortive. Not one of them has made any impression on the difficulty, while their collective result has been the aggravation of its involvement, and the general worsening of the outlook. And what a list it is! What a round of conference, mission, and war; war, mission, and conference, all to no purpose.

History has never before recorded so brave a show of grand, costly, and sanguinary futility.

Nor is it possible to survey this astounding array of failure without suspecting that there must have been a bad beginning, a false start, that the solution