Wars in Arabia.
(1) _Rule of Mehemet Ali._--Mehemet Ali was now undisputed master of
Egypt, and his efforts henceforth were directed primarily to the
maintenance of his practical independence. The suzerainty of the sultan
he acknowledged, and at the reiterated commands of the Porte he
despatched in 1811 an army of 8000 men, including 2000 horse, under the
command of his son Tusun, a youth of sixteen, against the Wahhabis
(q.v.). After a successful advance, this force met with a serious
repulse at the pass of Jedeida, near Safra, and retreated to Yembo'
(Yambu). In the following year Tusun, having received reinforcements,
again assumed the offensive, and captured Medina after a prolonged
siege. He next took Jidda and Mecca, defeating the Wahhabis beyond the
latter place and capturing their general. But some mishaps followed, and
Mehemet Ali, who had determined to conduct the war in person, left Egypt
for that purpose in the summer of 1813. In Arabia he encountered serious
obstacles from the nature of the country and the harassing mode of
warfare adopted by his adversaries. His arms met with various fortunes;
but on the whole his forces proved superior to those of the enemy. He
deposed and exiled the sharif of Mecca, and after the death of the
Wahhabi leader Saud II. he concluded in 1815 a treaty with Saud's son
and successor, Abdullah. Hearing of the escape of Napoleon from
Elba--and fearing danger to Egypt from the plans of France or Great
Britain--Mehemet Ali returned to Cairo by way of Kosseir and Kena. He
reached the capital on the day of the battle of Waterloo. His return was
hastened by reports that the Turks, whose cause he was upholding in
Arabia, were treacherously planning an invasion of Egypt.
During Mehemet Ali's absence in Arabia his representative at Cairo had
completed the confiscation, begun in 1808, of almost all the lands
belonging to private individuals, who were forced to accept instead
inadequate pensions. By this revolutionary method of land
"nationalization" Mehemet Ali became proprietor of nearly all the soil
of Egypt, an iniquitous measure against which the Egyptians had no
remedy. The attempt which in this year (1815) the pasha made to
reorganize his troops on European lines led, however, to a formidable
mutiny in Cairo. Mehemet Ali's life was endangered, and he sought refuge
by night in the citadel, while the soldiery committed many acts of
plunder. The revolt was reduced by presents to the chiefs of the
insurgents, and Mehemet Ali ordered that the sufferers by the
disturbances should receive compensation from the treasury. The project
of the _Nizam Gedid_ (New System), as the European system was called,
was, in consequence of this mutiny, abandoned for a time.
Tusun returned to Egypt on hearing of the military revolt at Cairo, but
died in 1816 at the early age of twenty. Mehemet Ali, dissatisfied with
the treaty concluded with the Wahhabis, and with the non-fulfilment of
certain of its clauses, determined to send another army to Arabia, and
to include in it the soldiers who had recently proved unruly. This
expedition, under his eldest son Ibrahim Pasha, left in the autumn of
1816. The war was long and arduous, but in 1818 Ibrahim captured the
Wahhabi capital of Deraiya. Abdullah, their chief, was made prisoner,
and with his treasurer and secretary was sent to Constantinople, where,
in spite of Ibrahim's promise of safety, and of Mehemet Ali's
intercession in their favour, they were put to death. At the close of
the year 1819, Ibrahim returned to Cairo, having subdued all present
opposition in Arabia.
Meanwhile the pasha had turned his attention to the improvement of the
manufactures of Egypt, and engaged very largely in commerce. He created
for himself a monopoly in the chief products of the country, to the
further impoverishment of the people, and set up and kept going for
years factories which never paid. But some of his projects were sound.
The work of digging (1819-1820) the new canal of Alexandria, called the
Mahmudiya (after the reigning sultan of Turkey), was specially
important. The old canal had long fallen into decay, and the necessity
of a safe channel between Alexandria and the Nile was much felt. Such
was the object of the canal then excavated, and it answered its purpose;
but the sacrifice of life was enormous (fully 20,000 workmen perished),
and the labour of the unhappy fellahin was forced. Another notable fact
in the economic progress of the country was the development of the
cultivation of cotton in the Delta in 1822 and onwards. The cotton grown
had been brought from the Sudan by Maho Bey, and the organization of the
new industry--from which in a few years Mehemet Ali was enabled to
extract considerable revenues--was entrusted to a Frenchman named Jumel.
Conquest of the Sudan begun.
In 1820 Mehemet Ali ordered the conquest of the eastern Sudan to be
undertaken. He first sent an expedition westward (Feb. 1820) which
conquered and annexed the oasis of Siwa. Among the pasha's reasons for
wishing to extend his rule southward were the desire to capture the
valuable caravan trade then going towards the Red Sea, and to secure the
rich gold mines which he believed to exist in Sennar. He also saw in the
campaign a means of getting rid of the disaffected troops, and of
obtaining a sufficient number of captives to form the nucleus of the new
army. The forces destined for this service were led by Ismail, then the
youngest son of Mehemet Ali; they consisted of between 4000 and 5000
men, Turks and Arabs, and left Cairo in July 1820. Nubia at once
submitted, the Shagia Arabs immediately beyond the province of Dongola
were worsted, the remnant of the Mamelukes dispersed, and Sennar reduced
without a battle. Mahommed Bey, the defterdar, with another force of
about the same strength, was then sent by Mehemet Ali against Kordofan
with a like result, but not without a hard-fought engagement. In October
1822 Ismail was, with his retinue, burnt to death by Nimr, the _mek_
(king) of Shendi; and the defterdar, a man infamous for his cruelty,
assumed the command of those provinces, and exacted terrible retribution
from the innocent inhabitants. Khartum was founded at this time, and in
the following years the rule of the Egyptians was largely extended and
control obtained of the Red Sea ports of Suakin and Massawa (see SUDAN:
_History_).
In 1824 a native rebellion of a religious character broke out in Upper
Egypt headed by one Ahmad, an inhabitant of Es-Salimiya, a village
situated a few miles above Thebes. He proclaimed himself a prophet, and
was soon followed by between 20,000 and 30,000 insurgents, mostly
peasants, but some of them deserters from the "Nizam Gedid," for that
force was yet in a half-organized state, and in part declared for the
impostor. The insurrection was crushed by Mehemet Ali, and about
one-fourth of Ahmad's followers perished, but he himself escaped and was
never after heard of. Few of these unfortunates possessed any other
weapon than the long staff (_nebbut_) of the Egyptian peasant; still
they offered an obstinate resistance, and the combat in which they were
defeated resembled a massacre. This movement was the last internal
attempt to destroy the pasha's authority.
Sufferings of the fellahin.
The fellahin, a patient, long-suffering race save when stirred by
religious fanaticism, submitted to the kurbash, freely used by the
Turkish and Bashi Bazuk tax-gatherers employed by Mehemet Ali to enforce
his system of taxation, monopolies, corvee and conscription. Under this
regime the resources of the country were impoverished, while the
finances fell into complete and incomprehensible chaos.
A vivid picture of the condition to which Egypt was reduced is painted
in the report drawn up in 1838 by the British consul-general, Colonel
Campbell:--
"The government (he wrote), possessing itself of the necessaries of
life at prices fixed by itself, disposes of them at arbitrary prices.
The fellah is thus deprived of his harvest and falls into arrears with
his taxes, and is harassed and bastinadoed to force him to pay his
debts. This leads to deterioration of agriculture and lessens the
production. The pasha having imposed high taxes has caused the high
prices of the necessaries of life. It would be difficult for a
foreigner now coming to Egypt to form a just idea of the actual state
of the country as compared with its former state. In regard to the
general rise in prices, all the ground cultivated under the Mamelukes
was employed for producing food--wheat, barley, beans, &c.--in immense
quantities. The people reared fowls, sheep, goats, &c., and the prices
were one-sixth, or even one-tenth, of those at present. This continued
until Mehemet Ali became viceroy in 1805. From that period until the
establishment of monopolies prices have gradually increased; but the
great increase has chiefly taken place since 1824, when the pasha
established his regular army, navy and factories."
The conclusion in 1838 of a commercial treaty with Turkey, negotiated by
Sir Henry Bulwer (Lord Dalling), struck a death-blow to the system of
monopolies, though the application of the treaty to Egypt was delayed
for some years. The picture of Egypt under Mehemet Ali is nevertheless
not complete without regard being had to the beneficent side of his
rule. Public order was rendered perfect; the Nile and the highways were
secure to all travellers, Christian or Moslem; the Bedouin tribes were
won over to peaceful pursuits, and genuine efforts were made to promote
education and the study of medicine. To European merchants, on whom he
was dependent for the sale of his exports, Mehemet Ali showed much
favour, and under his influence the port of Alexandria again rose into
importance. It was also under Mehemet Ali's encouragement that the
overland transit of goods from Europe to India via Egypt was resumed.
Ibrahim in the Morea.
Mehemet Ali was fully conscious that the empire which he had so
laboriously built up might at any time have to be defended by force of
arms against his master Sultan Mahmud II., whose whole policy had been
directed to curbing the power of his too ambitious valis, and who was
under the influence of the personal enemies of the pasha of Egypt,
notably of Khosrev, the grand vizier, who had never forgiven his
humiliation in Egypt in 1803. Mahmud also was already planning reforms
borrowed from the West, and Mehemet Ali, who had had plenty of
opportunity of observing the superiority of European methods of warfare,
was determined to anticipate the sultan in the creation of a fleet and
an army on modern lines, partly as a measure of precaution, partly as an
instrument for the realization of yet wider schemes of ambition. Before
the outbreak of the War of Greek Independence in 1821 he had already
expended much time and energy in organizing a fleet and in training,
under the supervision of French instructors, native officers and
artificers; though it was not till 1829 that the opening of a dockyard
and arsenal at Alexandria enabled him to build and equip his own
vessels. By 1823, moreover, he had succeeded in carrying out the
reorganization of his army on European lines, the turbulent Turkish and
Albanian elements being replaced by negroes and fellahin.[23] His
foresight was rewarded by the invitation of the sultan to help him in
the task of subduing the Greek insurgents, offering as reward the
pashaliks of the Morea and of Syria. Mehemet Ali had already, in 1821,
been appointed governor of Crete, which he had occupied with a small
Egyptian force. In the autumn of 1824 a fleet of sixty Egyptian
war-ships carrying a large force of disciplined troops concentrated in
Suda Bay, and, in the following March, Ibrahim as commander-in-chief
landed in the Morea. But for the action of European powers the
intervention of Mehemet Ali would have been decisive. His naval
superiority wrested from the Greeks the command of the sea, on which the
fate of the insurrection ultimately depended, while on land the Greek
irregular bands were everywhere routed by Ibrahim's disciplined troops.
The history of the events that led up to the battle of Navarino and the
liberation of Greece is told elsewhere (see NAVARINO and GREEK
INDEPENDENCE, WAR OF); the withdrawal of the Egyptians from the Morea
was ultimately due to the action of Admiral Sir Edward Codrington, who
early in August 1828 appeared before Alexandria and induced the pasha,
by no means sorry to have a reasonable excuse, by a threat of
bombardment, to sign a convention undertaking to recall Ibrahim and his
army.
The Syrian campaigns.
Before the final establishment of the new kingdom of Greece, the Eastern
question had late in 1831 entered into a new and more perilous phase,
owing to the revolt of Mehemet Ali against the sultan on pretext of
chastising the ex-slave Abdullah, pasha of Acre, for refusing to send
back Egyptian fugitives from the effects of Mehemet Ali's "reforms." The
true reason was the refusal of Sultan Mahmud to hand over Syria
according to agreement, and Mehemet Ali's determination to obtain at all
hazards what had been from time immemorial an object of ambition to the
rulers of Egypt. For ten years from this date the relations of sultan
and pasha remained in the forefront of the questions which agitated the
diplomatic world. It was not only the very existence of the Ottoman
empire that seemed to be at stake, but Egypt itself had become more than
ever an object of attention, to British statesmen especially, and in the
issue of the struggle were involved the interests of Great Britain in
the two routes to India by the Isthmus of Suez and the valley of the
Euphrates. The diplomatic and military history of this period will be
found sketched in the article on Mehemet Ali. Here it will suffice to
say that the victorious career of Ibrahim, who once more commanded in
his father's name, beginning with the storming of Acre on the 27th of
May 1832, and culminating in the rout and capture of Reshid Pasha at
Konia on the 21st of December, was arrested by the intervention of
Russia. As the result of endless discussions between the representatives
of the powers, the Porte and the pasha, the convention of Kutaya was
signed on the 14th of May 1833, by which the sultan agreed to bestow on
Mehemet Ali the pashaliks of Syria, Damascus, Aleppo and Itcheli,
together with the district of Adana. The announcement of the pasha's
appointment had already been made in the usual way in the annual firman
issued on the 3rd of May. Adana, reserved for the moment, was bestowed
on Ibrahim under the style of _muhassil_, or collector of the crown
revenues, a few days later.
Mehemet Ali now ruled over a virtually independent empire, subject only
to a moderate tribute, stretching from the Sudan to the Taurus
Mountains. But though he was hailed, especially in France, as the
pioneer of European civilization in the East, the unsound foundations of
his authority were not long in revealing themselves. Scarcely a year
from the signing of the convention of Kutaya the application by Ibrahim
of Egyptian methods of government, notably of the monopolies and
conscription, had driven Syrians, Druses and Arabs, who had welcomed him
as a deliverer, into revolt. The unrest was suppressed by Mehemet Ali in
person, and the Syrians were terrorized and disarmed. But their
discontent encouraged Sultan Mahmud to hope for revenge, and a renewal
of the conflict was only staved off by the anxious efforts of the
powers. At last, in the spring of 1839, the sultan ordered his army,
concentrated under Reshid in the border district of Bir on the
Euphrates, to advance over the Syrian frontier. Ibrahim, seeing his
flank menaced, attacked it at Nezib on the 24th of June. Once more the
Ottomans were utterly routed. Six days later, before the news reached
Constantinople, Mahmud died. Once more the Ottoman empire lay at the
feet of Mehemet Ali; but the powers were now more prepared to meet a
contingency which had been long foreseen. Their intervention was prompt;
and the dubious attitude of France, which led to her exclusion from the
concert and encouraged Mehemet Ali to resist, only led to his obtaining
less favourable terms. (See MEHEMET ALI.)
Mehemet Ali's authority confined to Egypt.
The end was reached early in 1841. New firmans were issued which
confined the pasha's authority to Egypt, the Sinai peninsula and certain
places on the Arabian side of the Red Sea, and to the Sudan. The most
important of these documents are dated the 13th of February 1841. The
government of the pashalik of Egypt was made hereditary in the family of
Mehemet Ali.[24] A map showing the boundaries of Egypt accompanied the
firman granting Mehemet Ali the pashalik, a duplicate copy being
retained by the Porte. The Egyptian copy is supposed to have been lost
in a fire which destroyed a great part of the Egyptian archives. The
Turkish copy has never been produced and its existence now appears
doubtful. The point is of importance, as in 1892 and again in 1906
boundary disputes arose between Turkey and Egypt (see below). Various
restrictions were laid upon Mehemet Ali, emphasizing his position of
vassalage. He was forbidden to maintain a fleet, and his army was not to
exceed 18,000 men. The pasha was no longer a figure in European
politics, but he continued to occupy himself with his improvements, real
or imaginary, in Egypt. The condition of the country was deplorable; in
1842 a murrain of cattle was followed by a destructive Nile flood; in
1843 there was a plague of locusts, whole villages were depopulated.
Meantime the uttermost farthing was wrung from the wretched fellahin,
while they were forced to the building of magnificent public works by
unpaid labour. In 1844-1845 there was some improvement in the condition
of the country as a result of financial reforms the pasha was compelled
to execute. Mehemet Ali, who had been granted the honorary rank of grand
vizier in 1842, paid a visit to Stamboul in 1846, where he became
reconciled to his old enemy Khosrev Pasha, whom he had not seen since he
spared his life at Cairo in 1803. In 1847 Mehemet Ali laid the
foundation stone of the great barrage across the Nile at the beginning
of the Delta. He was barely persuaded from ordering the barrage to be
built with stone from the pyramids! Towards the end of 1847 the aged
pasha's mind began to give way, and by the following June he was no
longer capable of administering the government. In September 1848
Ibrahim was acknowledged by the Porte as ruler of the pashalik, but he
died in the November following. Mehemet Ali survived another eight
months, dying on the 2nd of August 1849, aged eighty. He had done a
great work in Egypt; the most permanent being the weakening of the tie
binding the country to Turkey, the starting of the great cotton
industry, the recognition of the advantages of European science, and the
conquest of the Sudan. (F. R. C.)
Abbas I. and Said Pasha.
(2) _From the Death of Mehemet Ali to the British Occupation._--On
Ibrahim's death in November 1848 the government of Egypt fell to his
nephew Abbas I (q.v.), the son of Tusun. Abbas put an end to the system
of commercial monopolies, and during his reign the railway from
Alexandria to Cairo was begun at the instigation of the British
government. Opposed to European ways, Abbas lived in great seclusion,
and after a reign of less than six years he was murdered (July 1854) by
two of his slaves. He was succeeded by his uncle Said Pasha, the
favourite son of Mehemet Ali, who lacked the strength of mind or
physical health needed to execute the beneficent projects which he
conceived. His endeavour, for instance, to put a stop to the slave
raiding which devastated the Sudan provinces was wholly ineffectual. He
had a genuine regard for the welfare of the fellahin, and a land law of
1858 secured to them an acknowledgment of freehold as against the crown.
The pasha was much under French influence, and in 1856 was induced to
grant to Ferdinand de Lesseps a concession for the construction of the
Suez Canal. Lord Palmerston was opposed to this project, and the British
opposition delayed the ratification of the concession by the Porte for
two years. To the British Said also made concessions--one to the Eastern
Telegraph Company, and another (1854) allowing the establishment of the
Bank of Egypt. He also began the national debt by borrowing L3,293,000
from Messrs Fruhling & Goschen, the actual amount received by the pasha
being L2,640,000. In January 1863 Said Pasha died and was succeeded by
his nephew Ismail, a son of Ibrahim Pasha.