The Scottish soldier and Empire, 1854-1902 - Reenactor.ru

Highlanders in Egypt 67
those of the Sultan, those of the Khedive, those of the people of Egypt,
or those of the foreign bondholders’ (of whom Gladstone was one). 4
The Scotsman, a prominent champion of Liberalism, agreed that the
anarchy had to be suppressed, even if ‘the actual massacres have been
exaggerated’. In reporting the debate over the vote of credit, it
claimed that the government had ‘the support of the great majority in
Parliament and in the country’. 5 The main Conservative newspapers
in Scotland, the Edinburgh Courant and the Glasgow News, agreed
that Britain had to protect her strategic and financial interests in
Egypt, while more ‘advanced’ Liberal newspapers, like Glasgow’s
North British Daily Mail and the Kilmarnock Standard, accepted that
the cause of restoring order in Egypt was just and so dissociated themselves
from the ‘peace-at-any-price party’. 6
Testifying to the popular appeal of the war was the rapidity with
which the metropolitan press and the large provincial newspapers sent
their correspondents to the front. There were at least ten of them able
to report on the naval bombardment of Arabi’s defences at Alexandria
(11 July), and the occupation of the city by sailors and marines two
days later, armed with Gatling machine guns. 7 As military units from
Malta reinforced the British positions at Alexandria and the suburb of
Ramleh, the expeditionary force began to leave the United Kingdom.
On 7 August the 1st Battalion, Black Watch marched out of Edinburgh
Castle and encountered surging, cheering crowds all along the route
from the esplanade to Waverley station. Although veterans had left the
capital to hearty send-offs before, they could not remember such a
display of emotion, and Bandsman A. V. Barwood, on his first campaign,
recalled huge crowds greeting the Black Watch at every station
from Edinburgh to London. 8 Officers and other ranks responded to
this outpouring of emotion by writing numerous letters during their
‘delightful’ voyage on the Nepaul; George Miller, who was a scripture
reader with the Highland Brigade, claimed that once the ship reached
Gibraltar, ‘over a thousand letters had been sent by the good old Black
Watch, cheering the hearts of wives and mothers in auld Scotland’. 9 If
true, it was a foretaste of the letter-writing from the front where soldiers
would utilise the services of the newly instituted Army Post
Office Corps, composed of volunteers from the 24th Middlesex (Post
Office) Rifle Volunteers, and six post offices (two of which accompanied
the 1st and 2nd Divisions on the line of march). 10
When the Black Watch and the 2nd Battalion, Highland Light
Infantry (HLI) reached Egypt, they joined the Queen’s Own
Cameron Highlanders (from Gibraltar) and the 1st Battalion, Gordon