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No. 3.
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Sir H. Drummond Wolff to the Marquis of Salisbury, -- Rec›ived Inuary 25.)
(No. 29. Secret and Confidential.) My Lord,
Chiro, January 16, 1886.
I AM informed that his Excellency Moukhtar Pasha has written to Constantinople that some modification should be obtained in Article II of the Anglo Turkish Convention of the 24th October, 1885, so as to extend the provisions of that Article to military operations.
Of course, no report of this kind can be deemed authentic unless confirmed by the person to whom it refers, but my informant is generally correct in his statements, and many things combine to support his present allegation.
The object of his Excellency the Ghazi is clearly to reorganize an Egyptian army in the first instance, and, with a force thus prepared, to advance bivuself to the Soudan and to take the measures that appear to him desirable for the pacification of the country, whether by miltary operations, or by negotiations, or a combination of the two methods.
In such a course of proceeding I can see much advantage for the Sultan and his Government. It would re-establish the Ottoman power not only in the Soudan, but in Egypt, to an extent which Moukhtar Pasha himself would no doubt consider desirable, but which I venture to think is not only undesirable, but dangerous, and which I should regret to see encouraged or promoted by any action of Her Majesty's Government.
At the risk of repetition, but for the sake of clearness, I may recapitulate the policy proposed by the Ghazi. He is of opinion that the present provisions of Article II should be carried out, viz., the conduct of negotiations by Mussulman negotiators, referring only to Her Majesty's Representative, who should hold himself in the background, and, further, that the efforts of the negotiators should be supported by a purely Mussulman force in the first line, and the British army as a reserve in the second.
By extending the provisions of Article II to the Mussulman force in the first line, the Ghazi wishes to obtain the same rights for himself in any military operations as is now conceded to him for civilian negotiations, the ideas and wishes of Her Majesty's Government, or their Representative, military or civil, being relegated to n secondary place in any campaign which the Mussulman commander might in his discretion undertake.
To such a course I would beg leave to offer the strongest possible objection. What, I believe, we wish to see in the Soudan is not conquest, but pacification. The latter, I believe, can be achieved by the limitation of Ottoman intervention to the provisions of the Convention as they now stand. Any alteration introduced in the direction pointed out by the Ghazi would inevitably lead to warfare and conquest to an extent we cannot calculate.
The influence of the Caliph may, I think, be beneficially, if judiciously, exercised ; but Turkish methods in war could lead only to bloodshed and hatred.
Assuming for a moment that the Ghazi were to accompany the Mussulman, even though not Turkish force, practically raised by himself, and on his lines, and practically commanded by himself, what might be the result?
Backed up by Britisli troops in his rear, he would probably be sheltered from any attack by the Soudanese.
In this very safety would lie the danger. The anti-Mahdists, encouraged by the presence of Moukhtar Pasha and the brilliancy of his name, would perhaps gather under his standard. He piques himself on the skill with which he can rapidly raise an army; his antecedents justify this feeling. In a short time his force might reach formidable dimensions, and then no Convention, and no Commissioners could prevent his advance to such a point as he deemed it necessary to occupy in the interests of his Sovereign.
It may be that I am exaggerating this danger, but it is one to be foreseen and guarded against.
The success of Moukhtar Pasha to the extent above sketched out would be menacing to Egypt itself, where the neighbourhood of a man such as Moukhtar Pasha, with the fame attending great feats of arms, would completely overshadow the Khedivial family.
But there is an alternative difficulty to be considered in giving to Moukhtar
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