Order was restored, but the outlook was ominous in the extreme. Only the presence of massed British and Sudanese troops enabled order to be maintained. Even the application of stern martial law could not prevent continuous nationalist demonstrations, sometimes ending in riots, fighting, and heavy loss of life. The most serious aspect of the situation was that not only were the upper classes solidly nationalist, but they had behind them the hitherto passive fellah millions. The war-years had borne hard on the fellaheen. Military exigencies had compelled Britain to conscript fully a million of them for forced labour in the Near East and even in Europe, while there had also been wholesale requisitions of grain, fodder, and other supplies. These things had caused profound discontent and had roused among the fellaheen not merely passive dislike but active hatred of British rule. Authoritative English experts on Egypt were seriously alarmed. Shortly after the riots Sir William Willcocks, the noted engineer, said in a public statement: "The keystone of the British occupation of Egypt was the fact that the fellaheen were for it. The Sheikhs, Omdehs, governing classes, and high religious heads might or might not be hostile, but nothing counted for much while the millions of fellaheen were solid for the occupation. The British have undoubtedly to-day lost the friendship and confidence of the fellaheen." And Sir Valentine Chirol stated in the London _Times_: "We are now admittedly face to face with the ominous fact that for the first time since the British occupation large numbers of the Egyptian fellaheen, who owe far more to us than does any other class of Egyptians, have been worked up into a fever of bitter discontent and hatred. Very few people at home, even in responsible quarters, have, I think, the slightest conception of the very dangerous degree of tension which has now been reached out here."