There was an immediate prospect of a dual control by England and France. Commissioners were appointed to constitute a caisse, or court, for receiving the interest due to the bondholders. The great mass of the debt was then unified, but the Goschen and Joubert arrangement was found to be too severe for the impoverished country. A low Nile and a famine resulted in a demand for an investigation into the administration, and the following year Ismail was obliged to authorise a commission of inquiry. The waste, extravagance, and wholesale extortion from the peasantry revealed by this report made a deep impression upon Europe, and Ismail was forced to disgorge the estates which he had received from the fellaheen. In the meantime, the khedive was not inactive in taking measures to prevent the advent of a confirmed foreign control. He created a constitutional ministry, upon whom the responsibility rested for the different branches of the administration. He likewise fomented an outburst of feeling among the Moslems against the foreign element in the constitutional ministry. This was intended to strengthen the pro-Egyptian element in the government, and Ismail thus hoped to demonstrate to the European Powers the uselessness of attempting to subordinate the Egyptians to foreign methods of finance and control. Ismail subsequently dismissed the ministry, and soon afterwards the controllers themselves. Knowing well the jealousy which existed between England and France, he believed that there was a chance that he might successfully play off one Power against the other. If the Moslems had not been so severely oppressed by taxation, and Ismail had acted with courage and firmness, it is probable that he might have held his own, and Egypt might have refused to again accept the dual control. Bismarck now intervened, and hinted to the sultan that he would receive the support of the Powers, and Abdul Hamid immediately sent a telegram to the Egyptian government that Ismail Pasha was deposed from the khedivate. At this moment his courage gave way, and Ismail surrendered his throne to his son Tewfik. [Illustration: 195.jpg THE KHEDIVE TEWFIK] Tewfik had the misfortune to enter upon a doleful heritage of an empty treasury, a starving people, and an army ready to mutiny. There were now two parties in Egypt. The military movement was of the least importance. The superior posts in the army had been occupied by Circassians since the days of Mehemet Ali. 196 THE BRITISH INFLUENCE IN EGYPT