Financial Reconstruction 161
and had become uneconomic, and because under the
British the fellah was, in fact, paying himself out of an
excessive land-tax that should have been reduced. But
the fact remains that it was the British who abolished it.
It is curious that if financial reconstruction was the
first of the contributions of Cromerism to the future
Egyptian nation, the second was the reconstruction of
the army. The campaigns of Mehemet Ali had shown
that Egyptians could be made good troops even when
conscripted and drilled under the kurbash. The catas-
trophes of Ismail in the Sudan had suggested that their
efficiency had depended on their being officered by
foreigners such as Turks, Circassians, and Albanians.
For it was no doubt largely the disappearance of these
alien officers under Said and Ismail that accounted for
the failure of Egyptian troops fighting under Arabi or
against the Mahdi. But British officers and drill-
sergeants now became available, and about six thousand
men were recruited by a reformed conscription. These
were divided into two brigades, one with British officers
and the other with Egyptian officers of Arabi. The
improved conditions of service, such as regular pay and
periods of engagement, made the army as popular as it
is ever likely to be with this peaceable people. Later
this force was strengthened with black regiments from
the fighting races of the Sudan, after experiments with
Turks and Arnauts had failed. The first tests of the new
Anglo-Egyptian force against their old conquerors, the
Sudanese, at once rehabilitated the reputation of the
Egyptian Army. And the moral importance of this re-
habilitation to the self-respect and self-reliance of the
future Egyptian nation cannot well be overestimated,
It is no coincidence that the two British officers to which
it may chiefly be credited, Kitchener and Wingate, were