The very high estimate which had been formed in France of the power of Mehemet Ali was the chief reason of the attitude which her government now proceeded to adopt. Palmerston, on the other hand, had no share in the illusions which were very generally entertained as to the strength of the Pasha. Nor had the battle of Nezib caused him to alter his views. Yet neither Sir Robert Stopford,[510] the admiral of the Mediterranean squadron, nor Colonel Campbell, the British consul-general at Alexandria, agreed with him. Both were convinced that the expulsion of Ibrahim from Syria would prove a most difficult undertaking, and Campbell was to owe his recall to his strongly expressed opinion upon this point.[511] Palmerston appears to have placed the greatest faith in General Chrzanowski, the Pole, who for the past three years had been attached to the British embassy at Constantinople. This officer had made a careful study of the brief campaign which had terminated at Nezib, and was not prepared to admit that Ibrahim's victory was due to the superiority of the Egyptian army over that of the Turks.[512] The result, he considered, would have been very different had Hafiz Pasha elected to follow the advice of Moltke, instead of listening to the foolish talk of the _Mullahs_, who ranked as lieutenant-generals, and were present in large numbers at his headquarters.[513] On the morning of June 24, when the battle had only lasted an hour, no less than twelve Egyptian battalions fled from the field, whilst three others deserted in a body to the Turks. The panic, which set in shortly afterwards among the troops of Hafiz Pasha, was caused by a change of position on the part of a brigade of their own cavalry. It was significant that, although the battle had consisted only of an artillery duel, and although the Egyptian infantry had never been really engaged, Ibrahim had not ventured to pursue. The report of General Jochmus,[514] a Hanoverian who had served upon the staff of the British legion in Spain, and who was now in the pay of the Foreign Office, pointed to the same conclusions. Chrzanowski, moreover, was convinced that Ibrahim would be unable to keep up his communications with Egypt, were he to be deprived of the command of the sea. A corps of 15,000 Turkish troops acting in combination with the disaffected tribes, and supported by the British fleet, would, he believed, suffice to compel him to evacuate Syria.[515]