The Kingdom of Egypt 275
to the reputation of Labour leaders. For the disappoint-
ment in Egypt at what they saw as the Jingoism of
Labour and the disapproval of Labour with what seemed
to be the Chauvinism of Egypt banished any hopes of a
settlement. Zaglul, on his return, at once advertised a
more aggressive policy by giving appointments to
two notorious anti-British agitators — one, Mahmoud
Nekrashi who, as Vice-Governor of Cairo, had been
suspected of obstructing police prosecutions of the
murder gangs ; and the other, Abdul Rahman Fahmy,
who had been condemned to death for the rebellion of
1920, a sentence commuted to penal servitude, and who
had been recently released by Zaglul. While from our
side fire was opened by a Foreign Office Note
(October 17) complaining that five months before
* * Zaglul Pasha had stated that the fact that a foreign
officer was Commander-in-Chief of the Egyptian army
and the retention in the army of British officers were in-
consistent with the dignity of independent Egypt/'
" Which," the Note observed, "placed Sir Lee Stack
as Sirdar and all British officers attached to the Egyptian
army in a difficult position." Difficult was, indeed, a
mild word for the position of Sir Lee Stack, who had
to combine being Commander-in-Chief of the army of an
independent Egypt with being Governor-General of the
Sudan—a British dependency to which Egypt laid claim.
But this difficulty had been the creation of the Foreign
Office for diplomatic reasons ; and this singling out of
the Sirdar as a bone of contention, concentrated
nationalist attention upon him, and made his position
, not only one of even greater difficulty, but of great
danger. Just as it is enough when a mob is worked up to
a certain pitch of madness for anyone to point at a man
to ensure all turning upon him arid tearing Him to pieces.