Bonaparte in Egypt and the Egyptians of To-day

CHAPTER XV

AN UNGRATEFUL PEOPLE

Boulac had fallen on the 14th of April, 1800. Exactly two months later, on the 14th of June, General Kleber was assassinated. He was taking a morning walk in the garden of General Dugua's house, when a young man, a Syrian, approached him as if to offer a petition, and before the unfortunate General could detect his purpose, struck him several blows in the breast with a dagger. The assassin was arrested soon after, and made a confession. Of his guilt there could be no doubt, but his confession being made under torture was of course perfectly worthless. In it he stated that he had been employed to commit the infamous deed by a high officer of the Turkish Army that Kleber had defeated at Materiah. That he was a Syrian, and that he had only been in Egypt for a few weeks, were facts that were easily established. The French believed, however, that he was encouraged if not instigated by Egyptians, and although there was absolutely nothing to suggest that this was the case, except perhaps their keen sense of the hatred with which they were regarded, they determined to discover all that could be discovered of the origin of the crime. The wretched prisoner was therefore handed over to the care of the Chief of the Police, a Greek of infamous character, a notorious evil-liver, detested and abhorred by all for his wanton cruelties, abominable vices, and utter depravity. Selected for the post he held as one whose unbridled and unconcealed hatred for the people of the country was a guarantee of his fidelity to the French, his selection is an all too eloquent testimony as to the real nature of the relations between the French and the Egyptians. No man viler, more depraved, or more despicable, could have been placed in a position such as that accorded to this villain – a position that practically placed him above and beyond all law and all restraint, and gave free scope to his inhumanity, his outrageous vices, and devilish passions. Like Oates, he delighted to seduce and betray his fellow-men; like Jeffreys, he rejoiced when sending them to prison, torture, or death; like the caitiff James, he revelled in witnessing their anguish and agonies. To this wretch Kleber's assassin was handed over, and by him almost all that could be done by torture or otherwise to induce the criminal to denounce others as his accomplices or abettors was tried. At length, when all other means had failed to accomplish the end at which he aimed, the wretch persuaded his miserable victim, by a promise of free pardon to himself, to give the names of some Sheikhs of the Azhar to whom, as he admitted, he had made known the purport of his visit to Cairo.

One of these Sheikhs, it was found, had already left the country, but the others were at once arrested. These admitted that they had been spoken to on the subject by the prisoner, but asserted, and as it would appear truly, that they had endeavoured to dissuade him from the commission of the crime, and, on finding that he persisted in his intention, had kept aloof from him; but while granting the full value of the plea the Sheikhs thus offered, it must be admitted that the French were justified, by all known law and custom, in sentencing them to death, as, had they denounced the Syrian's intention, there is no doubt but that his crime would have been effectually prevented.

The sentence passed upon the assassin does not admit of equal justification. Kleber, whatever his faults or errors as an administrator, or however harsh and faithless his treatment of the Egyptians had been, was a brave and gallant gentleman, a man of whom his countrymen were and are justly proud, and one who had endeared himself to all under his command, while in the position in which they then were the whole body of the French looked up to him as the only one from whom they could seek or obtain the leadership so essential to their almost desperate case. But with the fullest sympathy for the bitterness of spirit that must at the moment have oppressed the French, it is impossible to condone the sanction they accorded to the base treachery of their minion, the Chief of the Police, by whom the pardon he had promised the assassin, as the price to be paid him for giving up the names of the Sheikhs, was withdrawn immediately the names had been given, and without the slightest pretext being offered for this vile breach of faith. Nor can the sentence passed be regarded as otherwise than a brutal one, though it was not indeed more so than others that have been passed by nations and peoples claiming to represent the most advanced civilisation. It was that the prisoner's right hand should be cut off, that he should witness the execution of the Sheikhs, and that he should himself be impaled alive.

The execution of the condemned men was fixed to take place immediately after the funeral of the General, and it was wholly in vain that some of the Sheikhs and notables pleaded for a mitigation of the penalty. On the appointed day the prisoners were marched out to a rising ground on the route the General's funeral was to follow, and posted there, at the spot selected for the execution, they were compelled to view the mournful procession that, with all the pomp of a State ceremony, accompanied the General's remains to the temporary burial-ground in which they were to be laid. There, on the completion of the funeral rites, the sentences on the condemned men were carried out, and the Sheikhs having been beheaded the wretched assassin was impaled alive and left to linger in the most horrible anguish for over four hours.

A punishment such as this was not then, nor ever can be, other than purely and simply an act of vengeance. In the East especially it is but a perversion of terms to pretend that such penalties can be justified as deterrents. History proves conclusively that they have no such effect, except perhaps for the moment, but that they have the effect of hardening and brutalising the hearts of those they are supposed to terrify is certain. In the present case there was not even the slightest ground of excuse. The criminal was a foreigner, and it had been clearly proved at his trial that his crime had met with no encouragement or sympathy from the people of the country. The whole conduct of the people from the first arrival of the French had been sufficient to show that there was absolutely no reason to suspect them of any desire to repeat, in any form, the crime that this foreigner had committed. Three times "peace" had been declared in Cairo by the French, and three times the people – though on two occasions most unwillingly accepting the peace – had kept it loyally and with the most perfect and submissive good faith. In the revolt and the siege they had shown with what pleasure they could set themselves to the task of slaying the French, but peace once declared all ranks and grades of Frenchmen went about in perfect safety. The French complained that the people were ungrateful; but does it not seem that the people might have retorted that the French were infinitely more so?

There remains but little to be said of the French occupation. After the death of Kleber the command of the army devolved upon General Menou. As he had for some time professed himself a convert to Islam, and had married a woman of the country, it might have been thought that the change would have tended to promote better feelings between the two peoples. It proved otherwise. None of the Egyptians believed in the sincerity of the General's conversion, and it had therefore no other effect than to discredit the professions of sympathy for Islamic ideas that other Frenchmen made, and perhaps to raise hopes that were not to be fulfilled.

As a measure tending to conciliate French feeling, the Ulema had asked for and obtained permission to close the Azhar mosque, which, from its great extent and the straggling, irregular arrangement of its courts and their surrounding buildings, was of all others the place most capable of affording shelter to strangers visiting the town with evil intent. But the French were quite unable to appreciate the true meaning of this action, and, actuated by a vindictive spirit most unworthy of a civilised people, sought further vengeance for the crime of a foreigner upon the unhappy Egyptians. A heavy "contribution" was therefore exacted, and European and native Christians vied with each other in heaping insult and contumely upon the Moslems. Some steps were indeed taken by Menou that seem to have been intended to favour the Moslems and gain their support. Thus the Dewan was reorganised, and, for the first time under the French, was composed exclusively of Mahomedans, one French official only being appointed to assist at its meetings. In the Government service also Copts were largely replaced by Mahomedans – a step that exceedingly embittered the Copts – and the French were subjected to the taxes from which they had theretofore been free – a measure that excited their indignation. With scarcely an exception, the French were heartily sick of the country. All the enthusiasm by which they had at first been stimulated had vanished. They had arrived in Egypt, looking for a sojourn that should be a triumphal progress towards the attainment of great ideals and vast projects. It was to be the first step, as they had hoped, towards making France the Mistress of the World, but, save for the first victory over the Mamaluks, the story of their stay in the land was little else but one of disappointments, losses and vexations; for the suppression of the revolt, the routing of the Turkish Army, and the retaking of Cairo were not events upon which they could look with other than bitter feelings, since, although victories, all the circumstances surrounding them tarnished the little glory they might have possessed under happier conditions. But General Menou was not so weary or so hopeless as his countrymen; he still thought it possible to colonise the country and to establish French influence upon a safe basis.

It had been the blunder, or rather the weakness, of Bonaparte and Kleber, that they had not realised the truth Burke taught, that "The temper of the people amongst whom he presides ought to be the first study of a statesman." Bonaparte had thought to win his way by wheedling, and, failing to do so, had turned to force. Kleber had had no other conception than that of "the iron hand," as we nowadays term it, and had not the tact to clothe it with the pretence of a glove. Menou seems to have sought to play the part of the old man in the fable, and try to please everybody, with the inevitable result of pleasing none. On the one hand, as we have just seen, he favoured the Moslems in some few respects, on the other he offended their keenest prejudices by allowing wine to be sold and drunk openly in the streets, while, encouraged by the protection granted them by the French, the lowest classes of the Christians and Mahomedans gave themselves up to an open practice of vice and immorality that had never before been permitted. This alone was a wanton outrage upon the sentiments of the whole of the respectable population, Christian as well as Mahomedan, that was sufficient to make the French hated and detested by all but the most debased – a class which in Egypt, even to-day, after a century of the nourishing protection of European civilisation, is infinitely smaller in proportion to the population than in any other country, except a few like Persia, that are almost entirely outside of or beyond that protection. Not that the French in Egypt by any means laid themselves open to a charge of profligacy. There seems no reason to believe that they did anything of the kind, but that which to them was entirely unobjectionable was to the Easterns, among whom they were dwelling, utterly abominable. Thus the drinking of wine in public, and the free intercourse of the two sexes in public places, however innocent to the French, were to the Egyptians something more than simply distasteful; and that they should be so is a matter not only of custom and habit, but one of climatic and other conditions which Europeans ignore. To the Moslem peoples these things are subject to the further objection that they are opposed to the teaching of their religion.

At length the day came for the French to go. The English and the Turks had brought their combined forces to bear, and not only was an English fleet once more off Alexandria, but Colonel Baird, with a strong force of Sepoy soldiers from India, had arrived by the Red Sea. For the French to have attempted to hold out against the enemy that was now at their door would have been an act of madness, but it was at least possible for them to ask and to obtain honourable terms; and these having been granted, the evacuation of the country was agreed upon, and the French, rejoiced at the prospect of once more returning to their beloved native land, for the second time during their stay prepared to quit a country to which so many bitter memories were attached. In June, 1801, just a year after the death of Kleber, the French garrison of Cairo capitulated, but Menou held out for some time longer, and only resigned himself to the inevitable on the 30th of August, and on the 18th of September sailed for Europe.

Thus ingloriously ended the great dream of a French Empire in the East. At Cairo nothing could exceed the joy of the people as they at last saw the now utterly hated and detested foreigners leaving. In their case it was eminently true that "the evil that men do lives after them." They had sown the seeds of a bitterness of feeling towards all Europeans, and of a mistrust of European civilisation, that still bear fruit and still retard the advancement of the country. It was the French occupation that proved the greatest difficulty and stumbling-block in the way of the English occupation, and for such a long time rendered the task that the English administrators had undertaken seem almost a forlorn hope. Every promise and pledge offered by the English was weighed in the scale of those made by Bonaparte and his successors. Every profession of respect for the institutions and religion of the country was interpreted by the recollection of the French cavalry stabled in the Azhar, and the tyrannies, vexations, and outrages upon their most cherished prejudices that the people had sustained under the French. It has been the custom to trace to the French occupation whatever advance the country has since made. In two ways only had it any lasting beneficial effect – it brought to the attention of the few men like Gabarty a keen sense of the great advantages of an orderly government, and a warm appreciation of the advance that science and learning had made in Europe, and it opened the way for the man who was to be the real founder and maker of the Egypt of to-day. These were the only two benefits that the French left behind them, and the greatest of these was quite unintentional and unforeseen. As to all else, the occupation left nothing but evil memories and evil influences behind it. It had lowered the moral standard of the lowest classes, had taught these to look upon vice and immorality from a new and more debasing point of view, and had almost wholly destroyed the controlling influence the Ulema and better classes had theretofore exercised upon them. European historians have never seen that this is so – that they should fail to see it is not surprising, since even the Europeans living in the country are incapable of perceiving it. The European's standard of morality is so different to that of the Eastern, and he is so fanatically attached to his own ideas that he cannot understand any one rejecting these, except from sheer perversity. For thousands of years the Egyptians have been accustomed to bathe freely in the Nile, to-day they are debarred at Cairo and elsewhere, lest the sight of a nude figure should shock some sensitively minded European who happens to look up from his, or her, perusal of the latest London society scandal. It is so much easier to see the mote than the beam!

The modern Englishman will scarcely admit that his ancestors who, in the time of Shakespeare and long after, were accustomed to call a spade a spade, and never blushed to crack a plain-spoken jest, had in truth a moral standard higher than his own, and that the man who keeps these things for his intimate friends and his hours of abandon is less healthy in mind and morals than the man who thinks no shame to speak them openly. The difference between the two types is the difference that prevails between the European and the Oriental standard of decency. Hence to-day, as in the time of the French occupation, the verdict that either of the peoples would pass upon the decency and morality of the other, would be utter condemnation. But this fact remains – that throughout the whole of Islam openly practised vice and immorality exist only under the actively exercised protection of the Christian Powers. Not only so, but if the traveller wishes to gauge with infallible accuracy the extent of the influence exercised by the Christian Powers in any Mahomedan country, he can do so by simply ascertaining the extent of the open vice and immorality that is permitted. This is the true hall-mark of European civilisation in Moslem lands.

But among the Frenchmen with the expedition there were, as there always are when a number of Frenchmen are brought together, men of high ideals, men whom to know is to esteem. From their altogether too restricted and hampered intercourse with such, the men of kindred type among the Ulema and notables learned to appreciate, to some extent, the better side of European civilisation. They saw clearly, too, that there was nothing in the civilisation that such men represented that could be held as inimical to Islam or contrary to its teaching. To the present day the conviction they thus acquired is bearing good fruit. Prior to the French occupation, thanks to the utter isolation of the country, it was the common and universal belief that everything connected with the social and moral condition of Europeans was in its nature essentially anti-Islamic and accursed. Precisely the same idea still widely prevails in Persia and other parts of the Mahomedan East to-day, as well as throughout the whole of the North of Africa. But the truly honest man, honest in spirit as well as deed, recognises his fellow of whatever race, religion, or speech he may be. Gabarty and his peers in Cairo were no exception to the rule, and could discern with infallible accuracy the men who really desired to benefit the country and the people. For such they had unbounded goodwill and respect, and through their intercourse with these they acquired some knowledge of the latent possibilities of that civilisation of which the expedition, as a whole, was such a poor exponent.

It was in this way that the arrival of the French in Egypt was, as I have termed it, "The dawn of the new period," but I have used the word "dawn" as the only one the language gives me, though it does not rightly express the meaning I wish to convey, for this dawn of the new period was not the "bright, rosy dawn of day," but the faint, dimly discernible dawn to which the Arabs give the name of "el Fujr." The true dawn was to come later, and its herald was to be not a Frenchman, nor a man of learning or culture, but a Moslem, an illiterate and wholly self-made man.

I have had to say some hard things of the French, but before passing on to consider the events that followed their departure I must pause to say that I would not have the reader suppose that in speaking of the occupation, I have myself forgotten the necessity of remembering time and place I pointed out to others in an earlier chapter. In this, as in other things, the reader must remember that I am in this book endeavouring to present to him the story of the development of modern Egypt as it presents itself to one who knows the Egyptians of to-day, and who, from his religious and other sympathies with them, can understand how the events of which he speaks has affected them in the past and does so in the present. There is no charge more constantly or more unjustly brought against the Egyptian than that he is ungrateful for the benefits and blessings that European Governments and peoples have conferred upon him. The charge, I repeat, is absolutely unjust, and could never be made were it not for the failure of those who make it to recognise two of the most important factors in the evidence they ought to weigh before attempting any judgment upon the question. These factors are – first, that the Egyptians and their rulers were never one and the same people, and secondly, that to a large extent the very things for which their gratitude is asked are frequently those that most grate upon their feelings and susceptibilities. I have pointed out these facts before, but they are so constantly and so widely ignored that I desire to impress them upon the reader's attention in the hope that he, at least, will in future bear them in mind whenever he is called upon or tempted to criticise the Egyptians. It has, therefore, been from no wish to say unkindly things of the French that I have felt bound to speak strongly of the darker side of the French occupation. This should indeed be clear from the references I have made to the conditions prevailing in England at that time. I no more think that the French in Egypt were actuated by any evil or ignoble intentions than that the English Government of that day did not believe itself the most perfect conceivable, but the facts of history show that both were, in blundering ignorance, pursuing their way by means and methods that truth, justice, and equity must condemn. If, then, any French reader should feel aggrieved by what I have said of the occupation, let him console himself with my assurance that, if I had been writing of the English Government of that day and its conception of justice, I should have had to denounce it as one of the most brutal and brutalising ever known, and infinitely worse than any that Egypt has ever had. Let him who doubts the justice of this judgment turn to the records of the time, or, if he prefers to seek its confirmation in lighter literature, let him take up Dickens's "Barnaby Rudge."

The failure of the French occupation was due to the fact that it was a military occupation, having for its first and chief aim the acquisition of territory and the extension of empire, and that its leaders were mainly men of the ambitious, unreflecting temperament of the typical soldier, or freebooter, who looks to a victory of arms as the highest and noblest achievement worthy of his efforts. Had it been possible for the French savants to have landed in the country alone, and to have pursued their aims in the peaceful way they would have chosen, nothing but good could have come of their presence in the country. But the exigencies of a great military expedition and the selfish aims of its leaders destroyed almost all possibility of the occupation benefiting the country, and, placing endless barriers in the way of those who would and could have influenced the future of the country for the welfare and happiness of the people, baffled all their efforts to do so. It is, and for ever must be so. Civilisation and empire are two different aims; and just as no man can serve two masters, neither can he pursue two aims, least of all two aims that must be in so many points in constant and irreconcilable conflict; not indeed that there is any such incompatibility as to prevent the coexistence of civilisation and empire, but the man or Government that seeks to introduce either into a foreign country will for ever find that he must sacrifice now one and now the other if he is to attain either. Unhappily, in the French occupation in Egypt it was civilisation that had to give place to empire, and the result, as we have seen, was the utter failure of both. Many thousands of lives had been offered up on the altar of the "Great" Bonaparte's ambition. When he entered the country the feeling of the people towards Christian Europe was one of disdain, when the last of the expedition had departed it left behind it bitterness and illwill born of tyranny, broken promises, and outraged prejudices and susceptibilities – a bitterness that all the long years that have since passed have not wholly buried – a bitterness that still exists, and that always will exist, unless and until Christian Europe learns that it has no right to force its ideals upon a Moslem people, and that, however pure and beneficent its intentions may be, so long as it persistently and from day to day insists upon outraging their religious, moral, and social instincts and desires, it has no just ground for accusing them of being an ungrateful people.