A History of the Middle East (16 page)

By 1875 Ismail’s debts were so great that he was obliged to sell his 44 per cent of the Suez Canal Company’s shares to the British government for the modest sum of £4 million. The prime minister, Disraeli, who had once supported Palmerston in his opposition to the building of the Canal, arranged for a loan to make the purchase through the London House of Rothschild. Gladstone, leader of the Liberal opposition, saw it as ‘an act of folly fraught with danger’ to involve Britain so intimately in Egyptian affairs. The French, of course, were furious.

The sale of Canal shares was not enough to save Ismail or Egypt from bankruptcy. Moreover the financial collapse of the Ottoman Empire was imminent and, despite Egypt’s relative independence, this had a disastrous effect on Egypt’s international credit. In fact Egypt’s formal declaration of bankruptcy, in April 1876, followed that of Turkey by only seven months.

The consequences for Egypt were similar to those for Turkey but more profound. Whereas with Turkey and other defaulting countries the British government confined itself to moral support
for the bond-holders and refused to become directly involved, Egypt was different because it lay across the route to India. As Palmerston had foreseen, the way in which Egypt was governed had become of vital interest to the British Empire.

When Ismail asked Britain for help, the British government sent out a high-level mission headed by a cabinet minister. The hope of the bond-holders and the British public was that Britain would now impose a form of financial control over Egypt. But the French were quite unprepared to allow the British to monopolize the external intervention in Egypt’s affairs, and they sent out their own financial mission. Britain and France each proposed solutions which were favourable to their respective bond-holders and, after some diplomatic wrangling, a compromise was reached under which a Caisse of Public Debt (or
Caisse de la Dette
) would be established through which Egypt’s total debts would be consolidated with repayments fixed at 7 per cent, absorbing some two-thirds of the state’s revenues. The British and French governments were each represented by an independent executive controller-general. Anglo-French dual control of Egypt had begun. The English commissioner in the Caisse was a former secretary of the Viceroy of India, Captain Evelyn Baring, who was to set the tone for Britain’s special relationship with Egypt during the next generation.

The controllers-general set about proving their worth and, through a variety of additional taxes, Egypt began to pay its debts at the rate that had been imposed. But the British and French officials in Egypt soon realized that the strain on the population was becoming intolerable. A low Nile flood and cotton pest added to the sufferings of the
fellahin
. Even liberal use of the
kurbaj
could not squeeze any more taxes from them. The controllers-general concluded that an international commission of inquiry was needed to examine the khedive’s financial management. Reluctantly, the khedive accepted. As expected, the commission concluded that the source of Egypt’s problems lay in the khedive’s unlimited authority and that he must delegate some of his powers to ‘responsible ministers’. Ismail agreed, in the spirit of his contention that Egypt was
now part of Europe. He appointed a cabinet with the wily Armenian Nubar Pasha as prime minister, a British minister of finance and a French minister of public works.

But Ismail had no real intention of becoming a constitutional monarch. When his ‘European’ government took unpopular measures, as it was bound to do in view of Egypt’s financial condition, he refused to share responsibility. He showed his authority by sharply suppressing a mutiny of officers who had not been paid for eighteen months and then dismissing Nubar as incapable of maintaining public order. Britain and France were still unprepared for direct military intervention, partly because the general public in their countries was not very sympathetic towards the bond-holders; they still vainly hoped to persuade Ismail to retain constitutional government. Partly at Ismail’s own instigation, a coalition of army officers, pashas and
ulama
had formed something resembling an Egyptian national party, determined to prove that Egypt could govern itself. Conceivably a balance between the khedive and some form of representative institutions could be achieved. Ismail shrewdly chose Sherif Pasha, a leading constitutionalist, as his new prime minister.

Intervention came from an unexpected quarter. Germany and Austria were indignant at the measures Sherif’s government proposed to reduce the burden of the floating debt to the bond-holders, most of whom were of German or Austrian nationality. They persuaded the by now exasperated British and French that Ismail must go, and together they put pressure on Sultan Abdul Hamid to use his residual powers to force Ismail to abdicate in favour of his son Tewfik. Ismail sailed into exile. He left few defenders. His real achievements were forgotten because of the disasters his reign had brought: after consolidating Egypt’s independence, he had destroyed it through his extravagance.

The new young khedive lacked Ismail’s courage and determination, but he had no wish to accept any form of liberal constitution. However, the political situation in Egypt was no longer simple to control. Although the rising national movement consisted of several
disparate and incompatible elements, it was now formidable as they were temporarily united against the dangers of foreign domination and arbitrary government.

The ideological strand in the movement consisted of the politico-religious reformers who were disciples of Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, a formidable Iranian of obscure origin who was one of the most powerful intellectual influences in nineteenth-century Islam. Al-Afghani preached the need for the restoration of true Islamic principles, but he also declared the need for national and Islamic unity as a defence against Christian European intervention. However, he had no faith in the Ottoman caliphate and opposed its power. He favoured constitutional government. Exiled, not surprisingly, from Turkey in 1871, he came to Egypt where he was tolerated by Ismail. Tewfik expelled him shortly after his accession – almost certainly with the encouragement of the Anglo-French dual control – but his influence survived. Later he lived in Paris, where he founded a secret society and published a journal dedicated to Islamic reform.

The second strand in the national movement consisted of the pashas,
ulama
and other notables who favoured constitutional reform. Many of them were Turco-Circassians who had to some extent come to identify themselves with Egypt and the aspirations of its people. But they were also wealthy owners of property who were easily frightened by the spectre of radicalism or a popular uprising.

The third element in the national party consisted of the genuine Egyptian or
fellah
(as opposed to Turco-Circassian) officers in the army. Ismail had blatantly favoured the non-Egyptians, who held all the highest military posts, and the
fellah
officers were in a state of seething discontent. They found a leader in Colonel Ahmed Arabi, the son of a small farmer of Lower Egypt. Although poorly educated, he had succeeded in rising to command the Fourth Regiment. Courageous and dignified, he was neither brilliant nor decisive but he appealed to the mass of Egyptians because he remained in touch with them and could express their grievances in terms they could understand.

The unpopular and ultra-reactionary Circassian war minister, Osman Rifky, attempted to have Colonel Arabi and some of his colleagues arrested and court-martialled for mutiny. But Arabi had the support of the key regiments in the capital and the manoeuvre failed. The government was forced to capitulate and dismiss Rifky.

Arabi and his friends became the natural leaders of a movement which rode on a swell of popular support. As
The Times
pointed out on 12 September 1881, ‘The army, we must remember, is the only native institution which Egypt now owns. All else has been invaded and controlled and transformed by the accredited representatives of France and England.’

The situation was still capable of peaceful resolution. Neither Arabi nor those like the Islamic reformer Shaikh Muhammad Abduh, al-Afghani’s disciple, who joined his ranks, were firebrand revolutionaries. Still less so were the landowners in the national movement. The British government – now headed by William Gladstone, with his long reputation for anti-imperialism – was still reluctant to intervene. The British representatives in Egypt, although often ill-informed about the true nature of popular feeling in the country, believed that the situation could still be saved if the khedive acted firmly but with wisdom and restraint according to their advice. Unfortunately, Tewfik was quite inadequate for the task. While appearing to show some sympathy for Arabi’s demands, such as that the size of the Egyptian army should be increased and that the number of Europeans employed in Egypt should be reduced, together with their inflated salaries, his real objective was to be rid of the rebellious colonel. He even sent an emissary to Sultan Abdul Hamid to tell him that Arabi aimed to form an Arabian Empire with the agreement of Britain. But Abdul Hamid was more than a match for Tewfik in double-dealing. He informed Arabi that he was satisfied with his loyalty and commanded him at all costs to defend Egypt from invasion, lest it should share the fate of Tunisia, which had recently been occupied by France.

In fact Gladstone’s government would have preferred the sultan to have taken responsibility for restoring the authority of the
khedive. But it was also Gladstone’s policy to maintain a close
entente
with France in the face of Bismarck’s growing ambitions in Europe, and the French were totally opposed to any Turkish intervention, being nervous that Abdul Hamid might, through Egypt, be planning to raise a pan-Islamic resistance movement which would endanger their hold on Tunisia. Nevertheless, Britain was still hoping that no intervention at all would be necessary when, in December 1881, the French government fell and was replaced by one led by Gambetta, the arch-nationalist hero of France’s resistance to Prussia in 1871. Gambetta insisted on strong action and forced Britain’s lethargic foreign secretary, Lord Granville, into the dispatch of an Anglo-French Joint Note addressed to the British and French consuls-general in Egypt. The menacing Note in effect demanded the restoration of the
status quo ante
and the maintenance of the khedive on the throne ‘on the terms laid down by the Sultan’s Firmans and officially recognized by the two Governments, as alone able to guarantee, for the present and future, the good order and development of prosperity in Egypt, in which France and Great Britain are equally interested.’

The consequences of this high-handedness were predictable. National feeling in Egypt was further aroused. Arabi was appointed under-secretary of state for war and the quasi-parliament (the Chamber of Notables) demanded some control over Egypt’s budget, which was in the hands of the Anglo-French financial controllers. Gambetta fell from power after only two months and was replaced by the more moderate De Freycinet, but the damage had been done.

The Egyptian army now dominated the nation, and the mass of the people gave it their enthusiastic support. The
fellahin
naïvely hoped that Egypt would henceforth be ruled by Egyptians and they would no longer be squeezed for taxes. Some of the notables shared these feelings, but many were alarmed by the threat of social upheaval and wavered in their support. Meanwhile the nervous and resentful khedive continued to intrigue against Arabi but did not dare to confront him openly, and Sultan Abdul Hamid maintained
his policy of giving both sides the impression that he supported them.

As Egyptian national feelings hardened, so too did those of the British and French governments and their representatives in Egypt. The latter reported that the country was dissolving into anarchy, although this was far from being the case – Egypt was effervescent but not in chaos. Members of the British cabinet, preoccupied by a state of near rebellion in Ireland, convinced themselves that native Egyptians were incapable of governing themselves – only the Ottoman Turks were considered a natural governing race – and that vital British interests were at stake. Even Gladstone – anti-imperialist and notoriously anti-Turk – accepted this view. Later he told the House of Commons, ‘It has been charitably believed, even in this country, that the military party was the popular party, was struggling for the liberties of Egypt. There is not the smallest rag or shred of evidence to support that contention.’ This blatant untruth was an apparent attempt to satisfy his conscience.

Still hoping for Turkish intervention, although under Anglo-French supervision, Britain and France sent a powerful joint naval force which stood off Alexandria. Shortly afterwards an event took place which seemed to justify all the fears of the alarmists: a major riot in Alexandria left several hundred killed or injured, including some fifty Europeans. Relations between Europeans and Egyptians had certainly deteriorated as the oratory of Muslim shaikhs whipped up national feeling and every European came under suspicion of hoping for a European invasion, but that the riot had been instigated by the military, as European officials on the spot at first claimed, was highly improbable if only because it would have provided justification for European occupation. In fact the rioting started with a brawl and then spread, but it was the presence of the Anglo-French squadron which inflamed the situation. The action of the interventionists was self-justifying. Fearful Europeans evacuated Alexandria in thousands.

The attitude of the British government was now harder than that of the French. British suspicions that De Freycinet was planning a
secret deal with Arabi were confirmed when the French premier refused a British proposal for Anglo-French protection of the Suez Canal on the ground that the only danger to the Canal came from outside intervention. When, on 19 July 1882, the British admiral issued an ultimatum to Arabi that Alexandria would be bombarded unless he dismantled the fortifications he was erecting around the city, De Freycinet withdrew the French fleet. A joint Anglo-French invasion of Egypt no longer remained a possibility.