228 THE SOLDIER AND CIVILIAN

War Office would have done well to spare this dis-
tinguished public servant the final indignity of
supersession by an officer junior in rank.1 Maxwell,
accustomed to subordinate private interest to the
public good, struggled on for a space of two months.
His patience was then exhausted, and he proceeded
home.

The work of this General Officer in Egypt during
the first eighteen months of the War attracted little
notice from the public at home: yet he steered the
country through a critical period so adroitly, that her
population forgot some of their bitterness towards
Great Britain. Of that feat General Maxwell has
just reason to be proud. Errors of judgement no
doubt he committed. For the escape without the loss
of a unit or a gun of the Turkish Expeditionary Corps
from the Suez Canal in February 1915 he must bear
his share of the blame. But his genius lay in adminis-
tration, not in military operations. In their conduct
he was not always well served by subordinates, and the
true criticism to be made of his tenure of command
in Egypt was his readiness to condone repeated
failures in the field. Nor perhaps did he take sufficiently
into counsel the leaders of the Egyptian Government.
He was prone to act upon his own judgement, and,
careless of conventional channels of communication,
would deal directly with junior members of the Civil
Service, Yet he had this excuse for the procedure.
His knowledge of Egypt and of Egyptians was so
profound that he rarely required advice, and agents,
not counsellors, were his most pressing need at this
period. To courtesy and good temper he joined
native shrewdness and resolute will: four attributes
indispensable to the successful administrator. His use

1 Lt.-General Sir A. Murray, on the formation of the ' Egyptian
Expeditionary Force', was granted the temporary rank of General,
thereby becoming senior in Egypt of Lt,-General Sir J. Maxwell.