Evelyn Baring (1841–1917)

As I wrote in my review of the first volume of Modern Egypt, the Earl of Cromer’s account is flawed because it lacks a narrative of most of his years as Consul-General, this volume’s examination of the Egypt that Cromer knew fills a lot of that gap. This is a sociological work rather than a history and is more engaging that his first volume. He breaks his examination into three main areas; the People of Egypt, the government and the reforms.

No punches are pulled in his examination of Egyptians. Cromer is far removed from late Twentieth and early Twenty-First Century memes like multiculturalism, so he feels no need to tread on eggshells lest he offend some group. Logically, any assessment of Egyptian society must begin with its most obvious factor-that of Islam. As an apparently standard Victorian protestant, Cromer saw Islam as fundamentally alien to the civilization of the West. He says “[The European] will discard any attempt to proselytize, he will endeavor to inculcate a distinctly Christian code of morality as the basis for relation between man and man” while “Islam, as a social system, is a complete failure (here approvingly quoting Stanley Lane-Poole). He attributes this to Islam’s degradation of women, the fact that “Islam…crystallizes religion and law into one inseparable and immutable whole, with the result that all elasticity is taken away from the social system”, toleration of slavery and finally, it’s “well-deserved” reputation for intolerance. This difference in religion forms an insurmountable barrier between the Egyptians and British, as for a Muslim “…only the unpleasant fact that they [non-Muslims] cannot be crushed at the present that prevents his crushing them.”

Lord Cromer has interesting, but contradictory thoughts on the possibility of the reform of Islam. On one hand he praises such men as Mohammed Abdu and Mohammed Beyram. He considers them patriots, but for each, Islam is the problem. For the former, he feels that he was a concealed agnostic, for the latter, a doomed reformer constantly struggling with the contradictions between his faith and modernity. In each, he sees the dilemma of Islam as a whole, being fated to change only through lukewarm adherence. Even with these moderates, the problem was “that any particular remedy proposed would be either inefficacious or would destroy not only the fungus but as the same time the parent tree”. Otherwise, the religion would be trapped in the 10th Century with the Ulema of El-Azhar University. While still praising the reformers, his opinion was that “Islam cannot be reformed: this is to say, reformed Islam is Islam no longer.”

To the inhabitants of Egypt as a whole, he stresses the difference in though-patterns with those of a Westerner. He contrasts Western focus on facts and logic with Egyptian “deficiency in logical faculty”, with explanations of facts “lengthy and wanting in lucidity”, “contradicting himself a half-dozen times”. The Egyptian is also “credulous, believing the most absurd” rumor. He attributes what would today be called low-time preference to the typical Egyptian. These factors he lays at the foot of Islam, whose rigidity he believed made its followers fatalistic, and to generations of despotic rule, ignoring the basic premises of security of right of private property. These factors combined to make the inhabitants of Egypt submissive to authority. Cromer believes that the Egyptian is a staunch conservative, in the small “c” use of the word. He does not want his way of life changed, despite its flaws, and knows instinctively that even slight changes could mean that the world he knows would be “swept off the face of the earth.”

On the conjunction of religion and society in general, Lord Cromer has some interesting thoughts as the kernels of the struggles of the post World War II Middle Eastern societies were already visible in the late Victorian and Edwardian era. Cromer comments that western civilization destroys one religion while not putting another in its place. Because of this, I don’t think he would be surprised at the political revival of Islam since the end of the era of Socialist experimentation in the 1950s and 60s. Writing about the plausibility of remaking Egyptian society in a more western form, Cromer expressed grave doubts about the ability of “European” civilization to survive minus Christianity itself, seeing the current state of his civilization as the end result of 1900 years of direction. He also expressed alarm at the capacity for the Middle Easterner for “assimilating to himself the worst and rejecting the best of any European civilization which he may be brought into contact with”. Given over a century of hindsight, this remark seems prescient in a way Lord Cromer would never have anticipated. As an interesting historical aside, Cromer’s notes on the cosmopolitan world of Cairo and Alexandria-with large populations of Greeks, Italians, Frenchmen, Englishmen, Syrians, Armenians and Jews is enlightening. This world is long gone, destroyed by the 20th Century’s orgy of nationalism and religious hatred.

Aside from any criticisms of the morality of imperialism in this era, one must marvel at the remarkable results achieved by a small number of men in an alien society. In a nation of 10 million or so, Cromer relied on 9,134 (8,444 Egyptians & 690 Europeans) in 1896 and 13,279 (12,027 Egyptians and 1,252 Europeans) in 1906. I would like to see how this number compares to the present Egyptian government and total foreign aid workers. The accomplishments of this small cadre in a huge nation (plus the 20,000 or so in the Egyptian army), are self-evident. Cromer takes his digs at the nature of bureaucracy (overly legalistic and not fluid) but on the whole seems quite proud of his results. He makes a few sage comments, for instance;"[Governments] acting under public pressure, are too apt to propose important changes in the fiscal system, and, at the same time, to advocate large additional expenditure of public objects, without sufficient consideration of the financial results which would ensue were effect given to their proposals." One of the benefits of the small size of the civil service was that “it was no longer possible for public money to disappear as if by enchantment”, another lesson for our day.

To give a taste of Cromer’s world of mind, one need look no further than the first paragraph of this second volume:
"[The British] came not a conqueror, but in the familiar garb of a savior of society. The mere assumption of this part, whether by a nation or by an individual is calculated to arouse some degree of suspicion. The world is apt to think that savior is not improbably looking more to his own interests than to the salvation of society, and experience has proved that the suspicion is not unfrequently [sic] well founded. Yet assuredly the Englishmen could in this case produce a valid title to justify his assumption of the part which had been thrust upon him. His advent was hailed with delight by the lawful rulers of Egypt and by the mass of the Egyptian people. The greater portion of Europe also looked upon his action without disfavor…"
This statement will today elicit either howls of laughter or grimaces of disgust, but Cromer, and the majority of Britons of his time, certainly thought it to be true. Modern Egyptian (and world) opinion would certainly not agree with him. His assessment at the time was that the British had the support of the Fellaheen, the indifference of the various resident Asiatics, and the hostility of the Europeans and intellectual classes of Egypt.

What did the Egyptians of his time actually think? I personally believe that to some, especially Fellaheen in the countryside, the findings of a post-independence survey of India would be applicable; when asked how life had changed in the decade since the British left, they responded that they weren’t aware the British had been there in the first place. But for the country as a whole, this would most definitely not be true. The effects of decades of decay (centuries if one isn’t generous and discounts Mehemet Ali) were reversed. Slavery and the Corvée were either abolished or driven underground. The nation was placed on a firm financial footing. The British, while not perhaps entirely sincere, were already talking about when they would leave Egypt.

All in all, the reforms accomplished by the British in Egypt, under Lord Cromer’s Proconsulate were impressive. I can imagine that modern Egyptians would not like his sociological assessments, but the economic and social reforms are hard to argue against. Cairo’s status as a destination of choice for bohemian types in this era speaks well for the level of social order created by Lord Cromer’s rule. Modern Egypt makes Cromer’s case for his place as one of the great triumvirate of British colonial administrators at the turn of the century, with Lords Curzon and Milner.… (más)

What can a western nation hope to accomplish militarily in the Middle East? For insight, let us look to Evelyn Baring, the First Earl of Cromer, and British Consul-General in Egypt from 1883 to 1907. Lord Cromer wrote an account in two volumes called Modern Egypt, the first of which discusses the history of Egypt from his arrival on the scene in 1876 to 1883, and events in the Sudan from 1883 to 1898. The Sudanese portion overlaps into the second volume, and my review will continue to that point, as it makes for a better break.

The British occupation and eventual take-over of Egypt was a piecemeal process, never formally initiated or culminated. Instead, there was a complicated arrangement whereby Egypt was under the nominal control of the Ottoman Sultan, who ruled through Viceroys called Khedives, of the family of the Albanian adventurer Mohammed Ali, with foreign policy (and a great deal of internal policy) dictated by the British Consul-General. For most of the period of this work this was Lord Cromer himself. This complex system had its closest parallels in the contemporary Indian Princely States, which had a British resident dictating policy to the native rulers.

Cromer begins with his arrival on the scene, following the British Governments purchase of the spendthrift Khedive Ismail Pasha’s, share of the Suez Canal Company. Egypt’s finances were in dire straits, and an international Commission of Inquiry was set up to deal with this. Cromer was appointed to this commission by Lord Salisbury, then Disraeli’s Foreign Minister. The Commission was able to dislodge the Khedive from his estates, thus freeing up enormous portions of Egypt for cultivation, and limiting his power by pushing through a constitution. Frankly, this portion of the book drags. While this was an important work, and one that Cromer seems justly proud of, details of interest on debt and fiscal workings are hard to make compelling.

Far more interesting is his account of internal Egyptian politics. As a participant in events, Cromer paints interesting portraits of those at the highest rungs of power in Egypt, Nubar Pasha, Ismail, Tewfik and Col. Arabi. The ever-increasing degree of British control is evident in the removal of Ismail and his replacement with his son Tewfik as Khedive. Cromer, leading the other Europeans, pressured the Sultan of Turkey to remove the Khedive, as his attempts to turn the clock back two decades to the era of personal rule were damaging the Commission’s efforts to get Egyptian finances on a firm footing again. It also made it obvious to everyone who it was that actually ran Egypt.

The rise of a native bureaucratic class in the Empire was a problem that Britain never solved, and would ultimately become a fundamental reason for the loss of empire. Egypt was no exception, and as a relatively advanced nation occupied by Great Britain at a later stage of development than much of the rest of the Empire, the problem emerged here first. In Modern Egypt, Cromer is entirely dismissive of this emerging class (something dealt with in greater detail in the second volume). This lack of perception by the British (Cromer can’t be blamed as he was in India, not Egypt for this period) led to the Arabi Revolt and then indirectly to the Madhist take-over of Sudan.

Egypt was unusual in having no native aristocracy-this role being filled by a Turkish and Circassian nobility, becoming progressively more “Egyptianized” as they stayed longer in Egypt. With the emergence of a native officer corps in the middle of the 19th Century, the native Egyptians or Fellahin now had an option for advancement in government service. Col. Ahmed Arabi’s revolt is seen among recent historians as the first nationalistic revolution in Egypt, as Arabi was not fully supportive of the Khedive. Cromer’s verdict is different. He sees this as a straight military coup, encouraged by weakness exhibited by the Khedive, driven by the looming unemployment of thousands of soldiers and officers as Tewfik cut the size of the army amid the budget crisis.

The Khedive assented to a government including members of Arabi’s circle, but tensions continued to mount, ultimately exploding in a riot of June 11th, 1882, with native Egyptians attacking Europeans in the streets of Alexandria. Cromer is of the opinion that the riot was not the result of action by the Khedive (the villain in anti-imperialist literature) or Arabi (blamed by pro-imperialist), but rather of the “effervescence of the time”. Regardless of who was at fault, the ultimate result was the British occupation of the entire country following the bombardment of the new forts in the harbor at Alexandria. The British feared that Arabi would default on Egypt’s debt and seize the Suez Canal (something that happened in the Suez Crisis of 1956), and had to act to preserve the imperial lifeline to India. The British acted alone, as the French were concerned about what intervention would mean to the locals in their colonies in North Africa. Arabi was crushed at Tel-El-Kebir and the country placed ever more firmly under British control (with respect still paid to Turkey and the Khedives). Cromer returned to Egypt, now as Consul-General, following Lord Dufferin’s report, which advised Gladstone’s government that immediate withdrawal from Egypt was ill-advised. Lord Cromer would now be the de facto ruler of Egypt until 1907.

Sometimes what is not said is as important as what is, and in the case of this book is no exception. Cromer did not want to write about the events of most of Tewfik’s reign (which coincided with his term as Consul-General) so roughly from 1883-1907. Some of this is addressed in his later work on Abbas II, Tewfik’s successor, but its absence is felt. One would like to hear from the man himself about the events and actions that transformed Cairo from a seething hotbed of mutiny and anti-European ferment in the early 1880s to an early type of Prague or Paris; a magnet for European bohemian-types by the beginning of the Twentieth Century. Alas, Cromer feels to close to the events, both personally and in time, to comment on them impartially.

He carries on from that point in the narrative with Sudan. A direct side-effect of the Arabi Revolt was the complete reorganization of the Egyptian Army, to facilitate a start from scratch on the Indian model. Large portions of the existing Egyptian Army were down in the Sudan, still holding the country since the time of Mohammed Ali. These forces were threatened by those of the Mahdi, a fanatic Islamic messiah-figure who sought to purge the land of first Egyptian rule, then perhaps, to spread out to the whole Islamic world. An army sent down under Sir William Hicks was destroyed at El Obeid, leading to the first real crisis of Cromer’s proconsulship, and the start of arguably the most controversial period of his term.

With the destruction of Hicks’ force, the bulk of the Egyptian army was destroyed. What was to be done than with Sudan? Cromer wanted an orderly withdrawal. His recommendation was for “a British officer of high authority to be sent to Khartoum” to oversee the withdrawal. Gladstone’s government and British press pushed for this man to be the Victorian hero of heroes, General George “Chinese” Gordon, a man whose appointment Cromer was extremely reluctant to support. There was back in Britain, according to Cromer, “an exaggerated idea of England’s mission as a civilizing agent in the world”. He specifically names the Pall Mall Gazette as the primary force behind the movement for Gordon. Cromer paints a fair portrait of Gordon, given Gordon’s dislike of Cromer, and Gordon’s general detestation of the men who administered the British Empire. To him, Gordon was far too impulsive to be the right man for the job, and events proved him correct. But he does praise him as a noble and worthy man.

Either consciously or, unconsciously Gordon disregarded Cromer’s instructions to withdraw, and thus led to his ultimate bottling up in Khartoum. Gordon fired off telegram after telegram to Cromer, usually contradicting his last one. The first would be warm and friendly, the next cold and hostile, one would be optimistic and hopeful, the next pessimistic and despairing. This continued until the line was cut and the city put under tight siege. The one thing they agreed on was that Zobeir Pasha, a former slave-trader with enormous influence in Sudan, should be sent down as Gordon’s successor, as both men felt him to be the only man with the ability to recover the situation without massive British involvement. This was completely out of the question to Gladstone and Lord Granville, the foreign secretary. Liberal party orthodoxy since Lord Palmerston’s time was inclined to morally-tinged interventions, but not to cooperate with unpleasant personages, like Zobeir Pasha. Thus Sudan was doomed to fall to the Mahdi’s forces. Cromer roundly criticizes Gladstone and Granville for this. Regardless, the hearts of the British public were moved by General Gordon’s plight. This was made all the more tragic by the eventual relief expedition’s arrival two days too late. Gladstone’s government fell as a result.

The narrative account of the events after the failure of the relief expedition moves rather perfunctorily from the immediate aftermath of Khartoum’s fall to the Mahdi’s forces to Lord Kitchener’s Sudanese expedition in 1898. By this time the internal affairs and reforms of Egypt had put the nation on back on a firm foundation and enabled the destruction of the Mahdist State. Kitchener worked much better with Cromer than Gordon had. The Mahdi was long dead and his successor, the Khalifa was crushed at the battle of Omdurman. In fact, the invasion went off with very little unanticipated trouble. Cromer closes with a brief recap of the future prospects of Sudan.

The first volume of Modern Egypt suffers glaringly from Lord Cromer’s omissions. I am prepared to take him at his word that he feels too close to events (as of 1909) to write of them. But, his lack of a narrative of most of his own time in Egypt makes the work choppy. The account of events in the Sudan seems cut-off from the main stream of the work; that being covering what goes on in Egypt. Thus we learn few concrete facts about the changes that take Egypt from the mess left by Ismail Pasha to the much stronger state it had become at the dawn of World War I. Cromer is the man responsible for this, but we don’t learn from him how. There are other huge omissions. He says almost nothing of the Fashoda Incident, a confrontation between Kitchener’s expedition following Omdurman and the French in Equitoria, which nearly sparked a world war. Perhaps most importantly, he says nothing at all about the Denshawai Incident, which inflamed Egyptian opinion against the British, and helped send him home for good.

One gets a sense of the unintended consequences of a military intervention from Cromer’s time in Egypt. He went from being a self-described “radical leaning Liberal” to one of the three great Proconsuls of the late Victorian and Edwardian Eras, with Lords Curzon and Milner. Early on in Egypt, he was in favor of a British withdrawal, only to have a succession of events from Arabi’s mutiny on, making it impossible in his eyes to do so. Critics of this, he remarked, were the same ones who would be the first to complain that the benefits of British occupation were lacking once a withdrawal had happened.

Cromer’s work in Egypt shows what is possible in the Middle East, even given limited resources, when a realistic attitude towards the places and people governed is taken. He remarks that;

“The only form of government suitable to Egypt was despotism, but it would have to be a benevolent despotism, which would be under effective control. The control was to be sought in the more careful selection of the individuals to who power was confided than in any endeavor to copy European institutions, which were uncongenial to the manners and customs of the people and to the condition of society that then existed in Egypt”.

Contemporary efforts to export Western ways and governments to other civilizations are therefore, in the opinion of Lord Cromer, doomed to failure. What would be best would be for order to prevail, and liberty could follow.

Cromer sprinkles in bits of practical wisdom he gathered throughout his career, such as “It is a dangerous thing in politics for a responsible Minister to accept vaguely the principle that ‘something must be done’ when he has not a clear idea of what should be done” or the great Lord Salisbury’s remark that if you gave the military full scope “they would insist on the importance of garrisoning the moon in order to protect us from Mars.” He relates a remark made by his grandfather, Sir Francis Baring, on Cromer’s return from observer status with the Union army in 1864. After telling Sir Francis his opinion of how the war would turn out, Sir Francis replied “Now that you are a young man, you should write down not what has happened, but what you think will happen. You will be surprised to find out how wrong you are.”

Cromer is a good writer, and he does his best with some rather dry material (like the story of the Commission of Inquiry). His writing is honest, acknowledging mistakes he has made, and rather even-handedly covering the strengths and weaknesses of those he criticizes, like Chinese Gordon, Ismail Pasha or Nubar Pasha. The shame of Modern Egypt is that it could have been so much more.… (más)