The
administrators were guided by experience. The movement had been far
swifter, and the results were more surprising. Such was the wonderful
story, and it was told in a happy moment. The audience were eager and
sympathetic. The subject was enthralling. The story-teller had a wit and
a style that might have brightened the dullest theme. In these propitious
circumstances the book was more than a book. The words rang like the
trumpet-call which rallies the soldiers after the parapets are stormed,
and summons them to complete the victory.
The regeneration of Egypt is not a theme which would fall within the
limits of this account, even if it had not been fully dealt with by Sir
Alfred Milner. But the reorganisation of the Egyptian army, the forging of
the weapon of reconquest, is an essential feature. On the 20th of December,
1882, the old Egyptian army--or, rather, such parts as had escaped
destruction--was disbanded by a single sentence of a British decree,
and it was evident that some military body must replace that which had
been swept away. All sorts of schemes for the employment of foreign legions
or Turkish janissaries were devised. But Lord Dufferin adhered firmly to
the principle of entrusting the defence of a country to its inhabitants,
and it was determined to form a new Egyptian army. The poverty of the
government, no less than the apparent folly of the experiment, demanded
that the new army should be small.
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