freely bombed the fugitives. Lieut. Slessor threw a bomb which fell almost at the feet of the Sultan, and though himself wounded by a bullet in the thigh, returned safely to Abaid.

Lieut. Slessor's achievements," said Sir Reginald Wingate, in publicly thanking the Royal Flying Corps, were as gallant as they were dramatic, and I congratu late him on having administered the final and heavy blow to the Kaiser's latest ally, Sultan Ali Dinar, as he ignobly fled from his capital, where he had boasted he would be prepared to lay down his life in support of our enemies' cause."

Thereafter Ali Dinar disappears from the scene. A military administration was set up at El Fasher, where a considerable quantity of military stores was found, including four field guns and 55,000 rounds of small arms ammunition. (Among other "booty" was a large steam-roller, upon which was fixed a chair of state. This vehicle had served Ali Dinar, in lieu of a motor-car, for touring the town.) Many chiefs surrendered, and in a short time Darfur was at peace. For those who, from Sir Evelyn Wood onward, had laboured for over 30 years in the reorganization of the Egyptian Army it was particularly gratifying that the "Gippy" should have stood up to and beaten his once most dreaded foe. The victory, too, was a triumph of organization. Sir Archibald Murray said truly

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that the issue of the campaign was only rendered possible by strenuous and skilful preparations, which have overcome immense difficulties, and by first-class staff work."

The Germans had counted much on provoking a rising in the Sudan. On May 8 Swiss papers published what purported to be a telegram from Constantinople saying that the Wolff Agency announced that the "Iman" of Darfur had proclaimed the Holy War against the English; that he was marching north with his troops and 8,000 camels; that he was driving back the English-who were in disorderly flight-and intended to join the Senussi. Later in the month, when Ali Dinar had been defeated, the same statement was circulated all over the world by the German Wireless Agency. The Germans were loth to acknowledge the fiasco of Fasher.

As in Western Egypt so in the Sudan, the approved German method of stirring up sedition among the Moslems under the rule of the Allies had been tried and had failed Equally futile was the second attempt (in August, 1916) made by the Turks, under German inspiration, to invade Egypt by way of the Suez Canal. Britain's highway to India and her position in the Nile valley remained as secure as ever.

Ο 3

N March 9, 1916, Dr. Rosen, the
German Minister in Lisbon, called on
the Portuguese Foreign Minister,
Dr. Augusto Soares, to intimate that

the Imperial Government had declared war on Portugal. Next day, quietly, but with all the formalities of international courtesy, he left Lisbon. The Austrian Minister, Baron von Kuhn, on March 15, demanded his passports, and left the country.

At a special session of the Congress, held on the 10th, the Prime Minister, Dr. Affonso Costa, had announced the resignation of his Government, to make way for the formation of a special national War Ministry, formed by the union of the two chief parties in the Parliament, the Democrats and the Evolutionists. The 16th saw the new Government formed, the Evolutionist leader, Dr. Antonio José d'Almeida becoming Prime Minister and Dr. Affonso Costa, the Democratic chief, taking the office of Minister of Finance Dr. Augusto Soares remained at the Foreign Office. Dr. Brito Camacho, the Unionist leader, elected to remain outside the Government, though promising his support for the national policy.

There was a great demonstration in Lisbon on the 26th in support of the Government Vol. IX. Part 113

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policy. These events passed quietly and occasioned nothing of the general excitement which had characterized the outbreak of European hostilities in 1914. Yet these days will be memorable in Portuguese history. They form the complement of those spontaneous affirmations of loyalty to the Alliance and to the Allies made in full Congress on August 7, and again on November 23, 1914.. The declarations then made voiced the undoubted wish of a large section of the Portuguese nation that Portugal should take her place and part with the Entente Powers, as the historic ally of Great Britain and the devoted friend of France. Those declarations were first made in the dark opening days of the Belgium was then slowly but doggedly falling back from her frontiers and her fortresses. They were repeated at the very time when Turkey was preparing to throw in her lot with the Central Empires. Portugal, indeed, first of all Europe declared clearly and unitedly for the Allies.

war.

Why? First, without question, because under the old alliance between Portugal and England it was the natural course and policy to follow, although especially since the year 1890 Germany had persistently worked to

supplant British interests in Portugal. Like Belgium, Portugal wished to live free and independent, and recognized in the British Alliance the surest external guarantee for her national independence and the security of her colonies. Secondly, because, as Republicans, the Portuguese saw in this occasion an unequalled opportunity for the establishment of the Republican régime on a firmer basis. To Republicans Germany, with her form of government and policy, was naturally antagonistic. Though the Central Empires only officially declared war on March 9, 1916, the Republic from its first proclamation on October 5, 1910, had been engaged in a ceaseless struggle for its very existence with a confederacy of courts and currents among which Berlin, Vienna, and Munich had a prominent place.

Why, it may be asked, did not Germany declare war before, in view of Portugal's prompt and reiterated declarations of solidarity with Great Britain and the Allies ?

First, because Portugal held far too valuable a pledge in pawn in the seventy odd German ships which, curiously enough, the outbreak of hostilities found at anchor in Portuguese ports, or which subsequently sheltered there. Secondly, because the near neighbourhood of the German and Portuguese colonies in Africa

made the neutrality, if not the friendship, of Portugal a consideration, the more that the failure of Germany's schemes for the rapid subjugation of Europe early compelled her to stand purely on the defensive in South-West and East Africa. And thirdly, because, without doubt, Germany yet hoped, by the prolongation of a state of dubious and dangerous indecision, by actively fomenting party strife and internal unrest, and even by revolution, to render active Portuguese help of the Allies impossible, or to produce the adoption of such a policy of neutrality as, with that of Spain, I would have converted all the littoral of the Peninsula, together with the ports of Portuguese West and East Africa, Madeira, the Azores, Cape Verde, and the Portuguese colonies of Portuguese India, Timor, and China, into so many landing stages and refuges for the Central Empires and centres for proGerman propaganda.

between them, it was, in truth, not to be wondered at.

It is needless to retrace the history of the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance from 1373 to the twentieth century. The world had changed indeed since Englishmen and Portuguese first fought side by side, in the days of the first Portuguese dynasty, to win Lisbon, and later Silves from the Moors, and since, in 1381, the first defensive expedition of English troops entered the Tagus. Many had been the changes since English archers joined with the Portuguese patriots who defended the stockade at Aljubarrota. But these changes had not altered the real bases which underlay this oldest of international alliances. These subsisted still, as they had subsisted 500 years before, in Portugal's long Atlantic seaboard

and ports and in her wide and vulnerable land frontiers. For Portugal prized her independence above all. Hence it was that she yet looked, as she had ever done, to England, her ally beyond the seas.

The relations between the two countries during the closing years of King Carlos's reign had been close and cordial. In 1899 Admiral Sir Harry Rawson had paid a special visit to Lisbon. In 1903 King Edward VII. had been given a truly royal welcome by the people of Portugal on the occasion of his visit, and a similar reception was given by the British to King Carlos when soon afterwards he visited London. Then had followed the visits of Queen Alexandra, and later that of the Duke of Connaught and his daughters. These visits the Portuguese people had never forgotten. It may be recalled here that Mr. Lloyd George,

Mr. Asquith and Mr. McKenna had all visited Lisbon within recent years. Only in 1909 the young King, Manoel, had visited and been welcomed in London. Thither he returned an exile in 1910.

On the establishment of the Republic on October 5, 1910, the attitude of the Republican leaders had been from the first frankly friendly. Dr. Bernardino Machado, the Foreign Minister of the Provisional Government, had declared its wish that the British Alliance might be maintained intact, despite the change in régime, and the desire of the Government to do all in its power for the strengthening of the ties which united the two countries. From the first these advances had been cordially met by Sir Francis Villiers, the then British Minister in Lisbon, who well knew the actual conditions of things in the country during the closing years of the Monarchy. Sir Arthur Hardinge, who succeeded him in October, 1911, after the first Monarchist incursion, had worked actively to foster Anglo-Portuguese relations and in support and promotion of the British Chamber of Commerce in Portugal.

The change of régime, however, as was natural, resulted in the slackening of many of those ties which had hitherto united the two lands. There was much to explain this. The English are a conservative people: they respect tradition, as they respect belief. They were shocked, as was all Europe, by the

assassination of King Carlos.

They pitied, and rightly pitied, his son. They are a religious people. They heard of religion persecuted, and its ministers treated with scorn and brutality. They were indignant, and rightly indignant. They are a loyal and a magnanimous people, and they heard of loyalty treated as a crime and punished by stern privation. They sympathized, and naturally sympathized, with the sufferers. Far from the amazing world of intrigue, of plot and counterplot, which made up for so long the under-history of this little land, and knowing little of the causes that determined that vast war of clericals and anti-clericals which involved all Continental Europe and much of Latin America, the British publ for years watched Portugal with interest and concern, and sometimes with outspoken indignation. Meanwhile the young Republic, beset without and within, was fighting its uphill battle against odds of which the British public knew little.

To understand Portugal's war policy is not easy. It is impossible without some knowledge of the history of the country during recent years. But before entering on this there are certain facts which require never to be forgotten.

First of these is the condition of chronic governmental instability. A recognition of the enormous difficulties arising from this is essen