William Ewart Gladstone

The Right Honourable William Ewart Gladstone (29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British Liberal statesman and Prime Minister (1868–1874, 1880–1885, 1886 and 1892–1894). He was a notable political reformer, known for his populist speeches, and was for many years the main political rival of Benjamin Disraeli.

Out of Office and the Midlothian Campaign

In 1874 the Liberals lost the election. After the success of Benjamin Disraeli he temporarily retired from the political scene and the leadership of the Liberal party, although he retained his seat in the House. In 1876 he published a pamphlet, Bulgarian Horrors and the Questions of the East where he attacked the Disraeli government for its indifference to the violent repression of the Bulgarian rebellion in Ottoman Empire. A well-known excerpt illustrates his formidable rhetorical powers:

Related Topics:
1874 - Benjamin Disraeli - 1876 - Bulgaria - Ottoman Empire

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"Let the Turks now carry away their abuses, in the only possible manner, namely, by carrying off themselves. Their Zaptiehs and their Mudirs, their Bimbashis and Yuzbachis, their Kaimakans and their Pashas, one and all, bag and baggage, shall, I hope, clear out from the province that they have desolated and profaned. This thorough riddance, this most blessed deliverance, is the only reparation we can make to those heaps and heaps of dead, the violated purity alike of matron and of maiden and of child; to the civilization which has been affronted and shamed; to the laws of God, or, if you like, of Allah; to the moral sense of mankind at large. There is not a criminal in an European jail, there is not a criminal in the South Sea Islands, whose indignation would not rise and over-boil at the recital of that which has been done, which has too late been examined, but which remains unavenged, which has left behind all the foul and all the fierce passions which produced it and which may again spring up in another murderous harvest from the soil soaked and reeking with blood and in the air tainted with every imaginable deed of crime and shame. That such things should be done once is a damning disgrace to the portion of our race which did them; that the door should be left open to the ever so barely possible repetition would spread that shame over the world."

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During his election campaign (the so-called Midlothian campaign) in 1879 he spoke against Disraeli's foreign policies during the ongoing Second Anglo-Afghan War in Afghanistan. (See Great Game). He saw the war as "great dishonour," and also criticised British conduct in the Zulu War.

Related Topics:
Midlothian campaign - 1879 - Second Anglo-Afghan War - Afghanistan - Great Game - Zulu War

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