Queen Victoria had a tendency to see political events as a personal struggle. In the summer of 1876, when the Turks murdered 12,000 Bulagrian Christians, she described them in her journal as "horribly cruel mutilators, with narrow pointed beards, no uniform and knives stuck about in their belts" By the end of September, the responsability of the Bulgaria murders had passed from Turkey to Russia. Thew Queen wrote to Disaeli: "Hearing, as we do, all the undercomments and knowing, as we do, that Russia instigated this insurrection, which caused the cruelty of the Turks...the world ought to know that on their shoulders and not on ours, rest the blood of the murdered Bulgarians". When Russia declared war to Turkey in April 1877, Victoria felt as if the Tsar's challange had been thrown down to herself instead of to the Sultan. A conference was held in Berlin to solve the East-European crisis under the chairmanship of the German Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck: the Congress of Berlin, that met in June. Disraeli attended in representation of his Queen and Empress. A dinner was given by Bisamrck in Disraeli's honour. The Chancellor advised the British Minister not to trust in Princes, that his health had been broken after the German Emperor's "horrible conduct". Disraeli instead answered that he served "one who was the soul of candour and justice and whom all her ministers love".
In 1878, Queen Victoria's second daughter, Princess Alice, now Grand Duchess of Hesse, contracted diphteria and died on December 14th. of that year, on the same day Prince Albert had died 17 years before. That morning the Queen had been praying as usual on the anniversary of Albert's death, in the Blue Room. On her way to breakfast she met John Brown who handdled her a telegram announcing Alice's death. It was incredible and terribly painful that she had lost the girl who had supported her so much when her beloved Albert had gone, in that same day, the terible December 14th.
In April 1879 the Queen traveled to Darmstadt to visit her motherless grandchildren. While being there she recieved a telegram from Disraeli announcing her that he had lost the General Elections and Gladstone was again Prime Minister.. It was a great shock for her to know she had lost the only Prime Minister, since lord Melbourne, who had become her friend, and even worse, at the hands of a man she had never liked. At her return to England she had a private audience with Gladstone, which was brief, quiet and tense. She did her best effort to seem natural. She advised the Minister that the foreign policy must not bechanged and Gladstone pleased her by accepting her order with meekness.
If the Queen was shocked by Disraeli's defeat, another event would grieve her much. For some time she continued exchanging letters with Disaraeli; the former Minister was old and tired and he died a year later, on April 19, 1881. Queen Victoria send a huge memorial tablet wich was placed over his pew at Hughenden Church that said: "Placed by his grateful sovereign and friend. Victoria R.I".
Egypt was suffering a political crisis; in 1882 an Egyptian officer, Arab Baja, gave a coup against the Anglo-French administration and foreign inversions in the Suez Channnel were put in danger. Gladstone had not the less interest to intervene in Egypt. He had opposed Disraeli when he bought the Channel actions but the inversionists could not be left alone and England had to intervene. A British squadron disembarked in Alexandria and put an end to the rebelion in the battle of Tel-el-Kabir, in which Queen Victoria's favourite son, Prince Arthur, participated.. Arabi Baja wasa exiled to Ceilan, but his defeat brought no peace to Egypt. A new rebelion sprang out in the Sudan, a vast country southwards Egypt, under Egyptian administration, leaded by Mohamed Ahmed, who called himself the Mahdi, The Expected One.
Queen Victoria sent letters and telegrams urging her government to crush the false prophet inmediatelly. Gladstone wanted to evacuate the British troops instead of crushing the rebelion and on December 1883 his Cabinet announced that the Sudan must be evacuated but the action was delayed until January. Although she considered it a humiliiation, Queen Victoria accepted the evacuation. On January 8, 1884, she wrote on her dairy: "The news from the Sudan are very bad, but the Ministery do not seem to see it. Telegraph and write to them continually".
At last, General Charles George Gordon was sent to the Sudan on the lasts days of January. He had the instructions to study the better way of evacution. Gordon entered Khartoum, the capital of the Sudan, on February 18,1884 and his report on the situation was: " In order to leave Egypt to live in peace, it's necessary to exterminate the Mahdi". Gordon believed that the British Government would send him reinforcements to help them to smash the Mahdi, but Gladstone's Cabinet only expected him to evacuate the Sudan and would not send any help. Anyway, Gordon decided to stay and fight the Madhi. Queen Victoria and the public opinion supported Gordon. On Fberuery 9 the Queen had written to Gladstone: "The Queen trembles for General Gordon's safety. If anything befalls hi, the result will be awful".
On March 18, the Mahdi besieged Kahrtoum. Ten days later the Queen's youngest son, Prince Leopold, died in Cannes of an internal bleeding after a bad fall. In Khartoum the situation worsened everyday and Gordon was more convinced each day not to surrender. "I will remain here and would suscumb with the city" he wrote on his dairy. The last entry on his dairy was dated on the fateful December 14: ..."if the Expeditionary Force, does not come in ten days, the town may fall and I have done my best for the honour of our country. Good bye. C.G.Gordon".
Although Gladstone had delayed sending a force to help Gordon until the last possible moment, he had to cede at last in spite of the dmenads of the Queen and the public opinion, and he send an expedition under the comand of Lord Wolseley, who arrived Khartoum on January 28, 1885. It was too late. Two days before, the Mahdi had took the city and killed Gordon. When Queen Victoria learned about Gordon's death, she sent a letter to Gladstone:
"These news from Khartoum are frightfull and to think that all this might heve been prevented and many precious lifes saved by earlier action is too frightful.
Gladstone became very unpopular with the Sudan affair and was defeated in the General Elections and the conservative Lord Salisbury became Prime Minister. The Queen was full of joy. In her last interview with Gladstone she offered him an earldom wich he rejected. She prepared herself to welcome Salisbury but soon she was dissapointed as the Conservative Prime Minister was defeated in February 1886 and Gladstone returned to the Ministery.
Ireland had always been an object of anxiety for the British Government . The Irish had always longed for their autonomy form Engalnd and had used terrorism and violence to achieve it. Gladstone was convinced that the best for the Irish was to garant them a Home Rule Bill, and he intended to convince the Parliament to accept this meassure. The proposal split the opinions in the Liberal Party and the Parliament rejected it. Gladstone's unpopularity increased and was again defeated in the elections of 1886, being replaced again by Lord Salisbury.
Robert Cecil, 3rd. Marquis of Salisbury was born at Hatfield House in 1830 and was educated at Eaton and at Christ Chrurch, Oxford. He was the first of Queen Victoria's prime ministers to be younger than she. To Lord Salisbury, the sovereign was the embodiement of the nation and he considered the Crown indispensable to the functioning of the Kingdom and Empire, and as the only guarantee of the nation's stability. He did not treated the Queen with the grace and flowry language of Disareli but he treated her with chivalry and personal devotion and he firmly believed that the Queen should be protected and obeyed. He used to say to hus collegues who wanted to press the sovereign in this or that matter, "I will not have the Queen worried". Lord Salisbury headed the governemetn from 1886 to 1892.
Golden Jubillee
In 1887, Great Britain celebrated Queen Victoria's 50th anniversary in the throne. During her reign the United Kingdom had become the greatest imperial and industrial power in the world and her family was related to nearly every royal house in Europe. On the Jubilee Day, June 21, 1887, the Queen drove to Westminster Abbey in an open carriage drawed by six cream horses, accompanied by tthe Crown Princess of Germany and by the Princess of Wales, and with an escort of Indian cavalry. In another carriage drove the Duchess of Edinburgh and Princesses Helena, Louise and Beatrice; then came the processions of princes riding on horses, the Queen's three sons (the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Coburg and the the Duke of Connaught), her five sons-in -law (the Crown Prince of Germany, the Grand Duke of Hesse, Prince Christian, Lord Lorne and Prince Henry of Battenberg) and eight of her grandsons (the future Kaiser Wilhelm II, Prince Henry of Prussia, Prince Albert Victor and Prince George of Wales, Prince Ernst Ludwig of Hesse, Prince Alfred of Edinburgh, and Princes Christian Victor and Albert of Schleswig Holstein). Fritz, the Crown Prince of Germany outshone the other princes with his golden beard and the German eagle on his helmet; despite he was without voice because of a throat cancer, he had insisted in attending the Jubilee.
The next day , buns and milk were offered at Hyde Park for 30,000 schoolchildren.
On June 23, Queen Victoria found herself as possesor of two Indian servants, Abdul Karim, who was 24 years old, slim and clever, and Mohamet, who was fat and smiling.
The Munshi
Of the Queen two Indian servants, the favourit was Abdul Karim, whose father was a doctor in Agra. The Queen found him an English tutor, who was not very much happy when he found out that his pupil was a servant instead of a prince. On August 3, 1887, the Queen wrote in her journal: "I am learning a few words of Hindustani to speak to my servants. It is a great interest to me for both the language and the people I have naturally never come into real contact with before". Victoria always liked to protect dark-skinned people, despite racial prejudices. Abdul became a kind of substitue to John Brown. he was created the Queen's Munshi in 1889 and in 1894 he was designated the Quen's Indain secretary. Each day the Queen's favouritism towards the Munshi increased. Cottages were built for him and most of his family was brougt from India. Even a Mohammedan friend, Rafiuddin Ahmed, of his was brought into the Queen 's interest. The court began to rumour about the Munshi being an impostor supplyiong Afghanistan with state secrets trough Ahmed.
The Munshi's promotion to Indian secretary of the Queen caused that four courtiers led by Colonel Bigge and Dr. Reid, inrteneded to discredit him by sending a report to the Queen about Abdul Karim's low social origins in India and that his father was not really a doctor. Victoria, infuriated, defended her favourite. The greatest mistake the Munshi committed was to inclined the Queen towards the Mohammmedian cause during a period of serious Hindu-Moslems riots. He continued being goal of attacks from the court and ministers, always defended by the Quen until her death. Her successor, King Edward VII, oredered all the Munshi's papers to be buried. Abdul Karim lived in Agra until his death in 1909.