Rebellion and Independence 245
Tel-el-Kebir and of Dublin Easter Week. Wherefore,
the campaign was now cleverly transferred to a fresh
front and transformed into a new offensive.
The passive resistance of this second period of the
rebellion required a more genera! response from the
public than did the sporadic riotings of the first phase,
A few rioters could wreck a train, but the railwaymen
as a whole must strike to stop it running. The release of
Zaglul and the recognition exacted from Allenby had
greatly strengthened the Wafd. And they hastened to
enhance these laurel wreaths with a whole triumphal arch
of fabrications : how the Paris Conference was devoting
itself to the claims of Egypt, how it had called on the
British Government to evacuate in three months, and how
Rushdi was to be summoned to Paris to witness their dis-
comfiture. With the help of such exhilarating fictions
and of a flood of leaflets and unlicensed newspapers, the
Wafd were able to carry out a very fair approach to a
general strike in Cairo and Alexandria. The students and
lawyers, of course, came out first and dispersed through
the country, exhorting and organising. Then followed
the postal, telegraph, tram, and railway employes, so
that the whole system of communications was for some
days suspended. Every sort of fraud was used to get the
men out, and sometimes force. The railwaymen came out
mainly because of a rumour that they were to be replaced
by British soldiers ; which was based on some railway
shops having been used to train British soldiers awaiting
demobilisation. Intimidation by picket reached the pitch
of vitriol-throwing. But this stopped when it was made a
capital offence under martial law (April 16). A force,
calling itself the (£ National Police," organised nominally
to keep order, carried out the orders of the Strike Com-
mittees. Finally, the nationalists succeeded in bringing