It was hardly possible that the fertile soil and enervating climate of the Delta would have evolved a warrior race.  Ages of oppression and poverty rarely produce proud and warlike spirits.  Patriotism does not grow under the ‘Kourbash.’  The fellah soldier lacks the desire to kill.  Even the Mohammedan religion has failed to excite his ferocity.  He may be cruel.  He is never fierce.  Yet he is not without courage—­a courage which bears pain and hardship in patience, which confronts ill-fortune with indifference, and which looks on death with apathetic composure.  It is the courage of down-trodden peoples, and one which stronger breeds may often envy, though they can scarcely be expected to admire.  He has other military virtues.  He is obedient, honest, sober, well-behaved, quick to learn, and, above all, physically strong.  Generations of toiling ancestors, though they could not brace his nerves, have braced his muscles.  Under the pressure of local circumstances there has been developed a creature who can work with little food, with little incentive, very hard for long hours under a merciless sun.  Throughout the river campaigns, if the intellect of the army, if the spirit of the troops, have come from without, Egypt herself has provided the sinews of war.

Such was the material out of which the British officers have formed the new Egyptian army.  At first, indeed, their task was embittered by the ridicule of their comrades in the British and Indian Services; but as the drill and bearing of the force improved, the thoughtless scorn would have been diverted from the Englishmen to fall only upon the Egyptian soldiers.  But this was not allowed.  The British officers identified themselves with their men.  Those who abused the fellah soldier were reminded that they insulted English gentlemen.  Thus a strange bond of union was established between the officers and soldiers of the Egyptian Service; and although material forces may have accomplished much, without this moral factor the extraordinary results would never have been achieved.

It was not long before the new military organisation was exposed to the stern test of war.  The army that was raised to preserve internal order was soon called upon to guard the frontier.  The revolt in the Soudan, which in its earlier stages seemed the least of the Egyptian difficulties, speedily dwarfed all the rest.  The value of the new force was soon recognised.  In June 1883 we find General Hicks, then preparing for his fatal march, writing to Sir Evelyn Wood:  ’Send me four battalions of your new army, and I shall be content.’  But fortune protected the infant organisation from such a disastrous beginning.  The ‘new army’ remained for a space in Cairo; and although during the Nile expedition of 1884-85 the Egyptians were employed guarding the lines of communication, it was not until the British troops had been withdrawn from Dongola that they received at Ginniss their baptism of fire.  Henceforth their place was on the frontier, and from 1886 onward the Egyptian troops proved equal to the task of resisting the northward pressure of the Dervishes.