experiences could be more valuable to a soldier than were those afforded by such quasi-military missions in the wild regions of Armenia, or the fastnesses of Albania and Thessaly.

At the end of 1881, Hamley returned to London. The roving life of the past two years had broken the threads of his literary pursuits, and he could not at once resume his old occupations. He had been knighted as a recognition of his services under the Foreign Office; he had risen by seniority to the rank of Lieut.-General at the age of fifty-six. For five years his existence had been ignored by the War Office; but the opening for which he craved at last arrived. The Dual note of January 1882, in which France and Great Britain expressed a sanguine hope that the ruler of Egypt will draw from this assurance the confidence and strength which he requires,' necessarily proved abortive. Disorder increased, and by the middle of May the revolted army, in the words of the official history, was in virtual possession of the executive.' The feeble naval demonstration of the 20th of May was followed by riot and massacre at Alexandria; and, France having repudiated her responsibilities, a tardy intervention was forced upon the British Government. Excessively deliberate as had been the previous proceedings, the extraordinary blunder of a premature naval attack upon the defences of Alexandria was nevertheless permitted. By waiting a few days, it would have been easy to have captured the Egyptian force in the town, averted the fire and pillage which the bombardment entailed, and dealt a severe blow to the military revolt. Meanwhile, preparations for the dispatch of a considerable expeditionary force had been made, although the actual decision to employ troops was not taken until the 20th of July. The command of a Division was offered to Hamley, who landed at Alexandria on the 16th of August.

Provided that the waterway of the Canal was not barred, an advance on Cairo from Ismailia was evidently dictated by every military consideration; and this plan, of which Arabi seems to have been perfectly aware, was taken for granted 'in all interviews while in London'* with the Commander-inChief and the Chief of the Staff. The details: were, however, not communicated to the Divisional Generals; and on the 19th of August a great part of the expedition put to sea, and Hamley was left at Alexandria under the impression that an attack on the Egyptian position at Kafr-el-Dowar requiring his co-operation was impending. Sealed orders opened on the

*Diary of Sir E. Hamley.

morning

morning of the 20th, at the moment when the Suez Canal was being seized by the Navy, revealed the real situation. The movement to Ismailia had begun, and Hamley was directed to provide for the security of Alexandria and demonstrate against the Egyptian force in his front. The instructions did not state

that no naval attack on Aboukir would take place, as had been intimated; but after waiting vainly for the sound of guns, Hamley decided to carry out a reconnaissance towards Kafr-elDowar. No duty,' he writes, can be more unsatisfactory than that of conducting reconnaissances like this one.' The Artillery nominally belonging to the Division was en route for Ismailia; of Cavalry there was none; but the Egyptians, refusing to be drawn from their works, contented themselves with a shell-fire, which would have caused much loss if well directed. Although never sharing the exaggerated fears for the safety of Alexandria which found expression at this period, Hamley vigorously busied himself in improving the defensive arrangements, and on the 25th he telegraphed to the Chief of the Staff at Ismailia :

"This place will be in a good state of defence this evening . . . I could leave three and a half battalions and bring you four-or, if sailors take the police duties, could bring you five.'

The reply, which was delayed by the telegraph clerks, directed that the Divisional General, with the Highland Brigade under Sir A. Alison, should move at once to Ismailia, where they arrived on the 1st of September. On this day the Commanderin-Chief telegraphed to the Secretary of State for War, lucidly summing up the situation :

'Circumstances have forced me ahead of transport; but it is rapidly becoming efficient. The uncertainty of securing a sufficient supply of fresh water in the Canal rendered it imperative to push on as quickly as possible. My success on the 24th and 25th and retreat of the enemy have enabled me to seize the two important positions on the Canal of El Magfar and Kassassin lock, the latter about twenty miles from this place. I am, therefore, in a more forward and favourable position generally than I had anticipated, and am only now waiting till my transport arrangements are more complete to enable me to make a further movement."

Considering the difficulties and the breakdown of the unsuitable transport vehicles, the advance had been extremely rapid. The 'position' was, however, favourable' solely by reason of the military incapacity of the Egyptians, and in presence of an effective enemy would have been dangerous to the last degree. At Kassassin a little force of about 1800 men lay for several days

days within easy striking distance of an army of at least 25,000, and must have been destroyed on the 28th of August if Arabi's officers and troops had shown any stomach for fighting. Echeloned along a line of twenty miles were detachments of varying strength, which could barely be fed till the transport had been placed on a satisfactory footing, and, as the Commander-in-Chief stated, 'In a desert country like this part of Egypt, it takes time to organize the lines of communication.' This desert, however, possessed a railway, which soon solved the problem of transport. To Hamley, arriving at this juncture, the apparent disregard of the rules of the game of war must have conveyed some sense of shock. He had not witnessed the wretchedly feeble resistance opposed to the advance, which justified measures otherwise foolhardy; he could not at first share that contempt for the enemy's powers in the open field which sufficed to explain the proceedings. Moreover, operations so swiftly decisive and so dramatically complete as those carried out by the expedition of 1882 inevitably blind the imagination to defects palpable to a cool observer. The Staff arrangements during the advance from Ismailia and the orders issued to the various units frequently left much to be desired, and in Hamley's diary instances of inept management are noted, typical of many others which have never been recorded.

On the 11th of September the Highland Brigade arrived at Kassassin, where the troops intended for the attack on Tel-elKebir were now massed. The 2nd Division-quá Divisionhad never existed, except upon paper tables elaborately formulated. Its 2nd Brigade, under Sir E. Wood, had been left behind at Alexandria; the divisional battalion had preceded the 1st Brigade to Kassassin and was camped apart; the Artillery was detached; the Cavalry did not receive orders through the General commanding. And now, on the eve of battle, Hamley found, to his dismay, that it was intended that he should be stripped of all except the Highland Brigade, and forced to duplicate the functions of his most able Brigadier. The Guards Brigade belonging to the 1st Division was to follow the Highland Brigade as a second line, but under an independent commander; while the battalion of Rifles belonging to the 2nd Division was to follow, and be independent of the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Division. By this extraordinary arrangement, the paper organization was completely broken up, and the entire second line, intended to follow the first as a supporting force at a distance of only 1,000 yards, was withdrawn from the control of the two generals responsible for the conduct of the night attack. In response to Hamley's earnest remonstrance,

strance, the plan was brought into conformity with military principles. The Guards were placed in support of the leading brigade of their proper Division, and the battalions of the King's Royal Rifles and the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry became the supporting brigade of the 2nd Division. Hamley's command thus embraced five of his nine infantry battalions and one belonging to the 1st Division, together with a detachment of Engineers and a corporal's party of Cavalry for orderly duties.

The operation to be undertaken was in some respects unique. The Egyptian Engineers were capable constructors of parapets; but ideas of a higher order were altogether wanting. They had thrown up a generally straight line of continuous trench-work, extending for nearly 3 miles. Its right flank rested on the Canal, to which it was approximately at right angles. At intervals were batteries for field-guns. The centre and right offered a considerable obstacle to attack; the unfinished left was scarcely more than a shelter trench. A visibly continuous line of this nature was calculated to give a sense of security to such troops as those of Arabi; but it was radically wrong in conception. If turned, its defenders, strung out in a long thin line, must be rolled up and destroyed; if pierced, the position must be lost, unless a compact reserve of fighting men was ready and able to drive out the assailants. In either case, effective defence ultimately depended on the capacity of the Egyptians for fighting in the open, and they had already shown that this essential quality was non-existent. For reasons which are not altogether clear, it was decided to deliver a front attack with the mass of the available Infantry. A turning movement on the British right was entrusted to the Cavalry and Horse Artillery, but, being conjoined to the general advance, could not take effect until the Infantry assault had succeeded or met with a serious check. On the left, a similar movement was prescribed for the Indian Contingent operating on the south of the Canal, where, except on the bank, there were no defences; but the advance of this turning force was held back for an hour, and it could bring no aid to the assault. Between the camp at Kassassin and the lines of Tel-el-Kebir lay a tract of desert, for the most part affording excellent marching ground, undulating somewhat, but offering nowhere the smallest obstruction to impede the advance or to throw the order of battle into disarray. The problem which presented itself, therefore, was to draw up the force in the contemplated formation for attack, fronting the enemy, and to direct it in an unswerving line upon the trenches. Either task was easy in daylight; both were difficult in the

black

black darkness of a moonless night. If the front of the attacking line had been originally parallel to the enemy's trenches, and if the alignment could be maintained during the advance, a simultaneous attack would have been delivered. Neither condition was exactly fulfilled; and what the Commander-in-Chief had spoken of as a race between the Highland Brigade and Graham,'* ended in the easy victory of the former.

The arrangements for the night attack were explained to the Generals on the early morning of the 12th of September; but such knowledge of the Egyptian defences as had been obtained by the Staff does not appear to have been communicated. Hamley, to whom all the important historical instances of night attacks were familiar, seems to have had doubts as to the possible existence of outworks which might most materially affect the proposed operation, and these doubts were abundantly justified. Some 1200 yards in advance of the right centre of the lines of Tel-el-Kebir, such an outwork had actually been constructed. According to the official history, this outwork ' had been twice seen . . . but on neither occasion had it been

possible to distinguish it from the main body of the works.' Reconnaissances which failed in an absolutely open country to 'distinguish' this eminently detached position must have been singularly incomplete, and with the British force at Kassassin there were dozens of young officers who would have jumped at the chance of setting all doubts to rest. In war, however, fortune favours the adventurous, more especially when the enemy shows marked incapacity, and by pure accident the left flank of the advancing line just missed this outwork in the darkness. Heavy loss to the attacking force was thus averted.

Such an operation as the night attack on Tel-el-Kebir necessarily excluded all the higher attributes of generalship; but in the conservation during the darkness of a long line of troops, and in the actual leading of the men in the final struggle, there was ample scope for soldierly qualities. To these tasks Hamley, the strategist and the student of war, devoted himself with the ardour of a young battalion commander. The difficulties of a night march, even under conditions so perfectly favourable, were soon apparent. The line of advance was admirably maintained through the night by Lieut. Rawson; but, in Hamley's words:

'An incident took place illustrative of the precarious nature of such an operation. A rumour had passed about of horsemen in our

Major-General Sir G. Graham, the commander of the leading brigade of the 1st Division.

Vol. 184.-No. 367.

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