The reign of Ismail (q.v.), from 1863 to 1879, was for a while hailed as
introducing a new era into modern Egypt. In spite of his vast schemes of
reform and the _eclat_ of his Europeanizing innovations, his oriental
extravagance led to bankruptcy, and his reign is historically important
simply for its compelling European intervention in the internal affairs
of Egypt. Yet in its earlier years much was done which seemed likely to
give Ismail a more important place in history. In 1866 he was granted by
the sultan a firman--obtained on condition of the increase of the
tribute from L376,000 to L720,000--by which the succession to the throne
of Egypt was made to descend "to the eldest of thy male children and in
the same manner to the eldest sons of thy successors," instead of, after
Turkish law, to the eldest male of the family. In the following year
another firman bestowed upon him the title of _khedive_ in lieu of that
of _vali_, borne by Mehemet Ali and his immediate successors. In 1873 a
further firman placed the khedive in many respects in the position of an
independent sovereign. Ismail re-established and improved the
administrative system organized by Mehemet Ali, and which had fallen
into decay under Abbas's indolent rule; he caused a thorough remodelling
of the customs system, which was in an anarchic state, to be made by
English officials; in 1865 he established the Egyptian post office; he
reorganized the military schools of his grandfather, and gave some
support to the cause of education. Railways, telegraphs, lighthouses,
the harbour works at Suez, the breakwater at Alexandria, were carried
out by some of the best contractors of Europe. Most important of all,
the Suez Canal was opened in 1869. But the funds required for these
public works, as well as the actual labour, were remorselessly extorted
from a poverty-stricken population.
A striking picture of the condition of the people at this period is
given by Lady Duff Gordon in _Last Letters from Egypt_. Writing in
1867 she said: "I cannot describe the misery here now--every day some
new tax. Every beast, camel, cow, sheep, donkey and horse is made to
pay. The fellaheen can no longer eat bread; they are living on
barley-meal mixed with water, and raw green stuff, vetches, | &c. The
taxation makes life almost impossible: a tax on every crop, on every
animal first, and again when it is sold in the market; on every man,
on charcoal, on butter, on salt.... The people in Upper Egypt are
running away by wholesale, utterly unable to pay the new taxes and do
the work exacted. Even here (Cairo) the beating for the year's taxes
is awful."
Steps leading to the deposition of Ismail.
In the years that followed the condition of things grew worse. Thousands
of lives were lost and large sums expended in extending Ismail's
dominions in the Sudan (q.v.) and in futile conflicts with Abyssinia. In
1875 the impoverishment of the fellah had reached such a point that the
ordinary resources of the country no longer sufficed for the most urgent
necessities of administration; and the khedive Ismail, having repeatedly
broken faith with his creditors, could not raise any more loans on the
European market. The taxes were habitually collected many months in
advance, and the colossal floating debt was increasing rapidly. In these
circumstances Ismail had to realize his remaining assets, and among them
sold 176,602 Suez Canal shares to the British government for
L3,976,582[25] (see BEACONSFIELD). This comparatively small financial
operation brought about the long-delayed crisis and paved the way for
the future prosperity of Egypt, for it induced the British government to
inquire more carefully into the financial condition of the country. In
December 1875 Mr Stephen Cave, M.P., and Colonel (afterwards Sir John)
Stokes, R.E., were sent to Egypt to inquire into the financial
situation; and Mr Cave's report, made public in April 1876, showed that
under the existing administration national bankruptcy was inevitable.
Other commissions of inquiry followed, and each one brought Ismail more
under European control. The establishment of the Mixed Tribunals in
1876, in place of the system of consular jurisdiction in civil actions,
made some of the courts of justice international. The Caisse de la
Dette, instituted in May 1876 as a result of the Cave mission, led to
international control over a large portion of the revenue. Next came (in
November 1876) the mission of Mr (afterwards Lord) Goschen and M.
Joubert on behalf of the British and French bondholders, one result
being the establishment of Dual Control, i.e. an English official to
superintend the revenue and a French official the expenditure of the
country. Another result was the internationalization of the railways and
the port of Alexandria. Then came (May 1878) a commission of inquiry of
which the principal members were Sir Rivers Wilson, Major Evelyn Baring
(afterwards Lord Cromer) and MM. Kremer-Baravelli and de Blignieres. One
result of that inquiry was the extension of international control to the
enormous landed property of the khedive. Driven to desperation, Ismail
made a virtue of necessity and accepted, in September 1878, in lieu of
the Dual Control, a constitutional ministry, under the presidency of
Nubar Pasha (q.v.), with Rivers Wilson as minister of finance and de
Blignieres as minister of public works. Professing to be quite satisfied
with this arrangement, he pompously announced that Egypt was no longer
in Africa, but a part of Europe; but before seven months had passed he
found his constitutional position intolerable, got rid of his irksome
cabinet by means of a secretly-organized military riot in Cairo, and
reverted to his old autocratic methods of government. England and France
could hardly sit still under this affront, and decided to administer
chastisement by the hand of the suzerain power, which was delighted to
have an opportunity of asserting its authority. On the 26th of June 1879
Ismail suddenly received from the sultan a curt telegram, addressed to
him as ex-khedive of Egypt, informing him that his son Tewfik was
appointed his successor. Taken unawares, he made no attempt at
resistance, and Tewfik was at once proclaimed khedive.
Re-establishment of Dual Control.
Arabi and the revolt of 1882.
After a short period of inaction, when it seemed as if the change might
be for the worse, England and France summoned up courage to look the
situation boldly in the face, and, in November 1879, re-established the
Dual Control in the persons of Major Baring and M. de Blignieres. For
two years the Dual Control governed Egypt, and initiated the work of
progress that England was to continue alone. Its essential defect was
what might be called insecurity of tenure. Without any efficient means
of self-protection and coercion at its disposal, it had to interfere
with the power, privileges and perquisites of a class which had long
misgoverned the country. This class, so far as its civilian members were
concerned, was not very formidable, because these were not likely to go
beyond the bounds of intrigue and passive resistance; but it contained a
military element who had more courage, and who had learned their power
when Ismail employed them for overturning his constitutional ministry.
Among the mutinous soldiers on that occasion was a fellah officer
calling himself Ahmed Arabi the Egyptian. He was not a man of
exceptional intelligence or remarkable powers of organization, but he
was a fluent speaker, and could exercise some influence over the masses
by a rude kind of native eloquence. Behind him were a group of men, much
abler than himself, who put him forward as the figurehead of a party
professing to aim at protecting the Egyptians from the grasping tyranny
of their Turkish and European oppressors. The movement began among the
Arab officers, who complained of the preference shown to the officers of
Turkish origin; it then expanded into an attack on the privileged
position and predominant influence of foreigners, many of whom, it must
be confessed, were of a by no means respectable type; finally, it was
directed against all Christians, foreign and native.[26] The government,
being too weak to suppress the agitation and disorder, had to make
concessions, and each concession produced fresh demands. Arabi was first
promoted, then made under-secretary for war, and ultimately a member of
the cabinet. The danger of a serious rising brought the British and
French fleets in May 1882 to Alexandria, and after a massacre (11th of
June) had been perpetrated by the Arab mob in that city, the British
admiral bombarded the forts (11th of July 1882). The leaders of the
national movement prepared to resist further aggression by force. A
conference of ambassadors was held in Constantinople, and the sultan was
invited to quell the revolt; but he hesitated to employ his troops
against Mussulmans who were professing merely to oppose Christian
aggression.
(3) _Egypt occupied by the British._--At last the British government
determined to employ armed force, and invited France to co-operate. The
French government declined, and a similar invitation to Italy met with a
similar refusal. England therefore, having to act alone, landed troops
at Ismailia under Sir Garnet Wolseley, and suppressed the revolt by the
battle of Tell-el-Kebir on the 13th of September 1882. The khedive, who
had taken refuge in Alexandria, returned to Cairo, and a ministry was
formed under Sherif Pasha, with Riaz Pasha as one of its leading
members. On assuming office, the first thing it had to do was to bring
to trial the chiefs of the rebellion. Had the khedive and Riaz been
allowed a free hand, Arabi and his colleagues would have found little
mercy. Thanks to the intervention of the British government, their lives
were spared. Arabi pleaded guilty, was sentenced to death, the sentence
being commuted by the khedive to banishment; and Riaz resigned in
disgust. This solution of the difficulty was brought about by Lord
Dufferin, then British ambassador at Constantinople, who had been sent
to Egypt as high commissioner to adjust affairs and report on the
situation. One of his first acts, after preventing the application of
capital punishment to the ringleaders of the revolt, was to veto the
project of protecting the khedive and his government by means of a
Praetorian guard recruited from Asia Minor, Epirus, Austria and
Switzerland, and to insist on the principle that Egypt must be governed
in a truly liberal spirit. Passing in review all the departments of the
administration, he laid down the general lines on which the country was
to be restored to order and prosperity, and endowed, if possible, with
the elements of self-government for future use.
Sir Evelyn Baring appointed consul-general, 1884.
The laborious task of putting these general indications into a practical
shape fell to Sir Evelyn Baring (Lord Cromer), who arrived as
consul-general and diplomatic agent, in succession to Sir Edward Malet,
in January 1884. At that moment the situation was singularly like that
which had existed on two previous occasions: firstly, when Ismail was
deposed; and secondly, when the Dual Control had undermined the existing
authority without having any power to enforce its own. For the third
time in little more than three years the existing authority had been
destroyed and a new one had to be created. But there was one essential
difference: the power that had now to reorganize the country possessed
in the British army of occupation a support sufficient to command
respect. Without that support Sir Evelyn Baring could have done little
or nothing; with it he did perhaps more than any other single man could
have done. His method may be illustrated by an old story long current in
Cairo. Mehemet Ali was said to have appointed as _mudir_ or governor in
a turbulent district a young and inexperienced Turk, who asked, "But how
am I to govern these people?" "Listen," replied the pasha; "buy the
biggest and heaviest _kurbash_ you can find; hang it up in the centre of
the _mudirieh_, well within your reach, and you will very seldom require
to use it." The British army of occupation was Sir Evelyn's _kurbash_;
it was well within his reach, as all the world knew, and its simple
presence sufficed to prevent disorder and enforce obedience. He had one
other advantage over previous English reformers in Egypt: his position
towards France was more independent. The Dual Control had been abolished
by a khedivial decree of 18th January 1883, and replaced by an English
financial adviser. France naturally objected; but having refused to
co-operate with England in suppressing the revolt, she could not
reasonably complain that her offer of co-operation in the work of
reorganization was declined. But though Dual Control was at an end, the
Caisse de la Dette remained, and this body was to prove a constant clog
on the financial measures of the Egyptian government.
The Policy of evacuation.
At first the intention of the British government was simply to restore
the power of the khedive, to keep his highness for some time in the
right path by friendly advice, and to withdraw the British troops as
soon as possible. As Lord Granville explained in a circular to the
powers, the position of England in Egypt imposed on her "the duty of
giving advice with the object of securing that the order of things to be
established shall be of a satisfactory character and possess the
elements of stability and progress." But there was to be no embarking on
a general scheme of reforms, which would increase unnecessarily the
responsibilities of the protecting power and necessitate the indefinite
prolongation of the military occupation. So far, therefore, as the
British government had a definite policy in Egypt, it was a _politique
de replatrage_. Even this policy was not strictly adhered to. Mr
Gladstone's cabinet was as unstable as the public opinion it sought to
conciliate. It had its hot fits and its cold fits, and it gave orders
now to advance and now to retreat. In the long run circumstances proved
too strong for it, and it had to undertake a great deal more than it
originally intended. Each little change in the administration engendered
a multitude of others, so that the modest attempts at reform were found
to be like the letting out of water. A tiny rill gradually became a
boisterous stream, and the boisterous stream grew into a great river,
which spread to all sections of the administration and ended by
inundating the whole country.
The Sudan question.
Of the numerous questions awaiting solution, the first to claim
immediate attention was that of the Sudan. The British government had
begun by excluding it from the problem, and by declaring that for events
in these outlying territories it must not be held responsible. In that
sphere of activity, therefore, the Egyptian government might do as it
thought fit. The principle of limited liability which this attitude
assumed was soon found to be utterly untenable. The Sudan was an
integral part of the khedive's dominions, and caused, even in ordinary
times, a deficit of L200,000 to the Egyptian treasury. At that moment
it was in a state of open rebellion, stirred up by a religious fanatic
who proclaimed himself a mahdi of Islam. An army of 10,000 men under an
English officer, Colonel William Hicks, formerly of the Bombay army,
otherwise Hicks Pasha, had been sent to suppress the revolt, and had
been annihilated in a great battle fought on the 5th of November 1883,
near Obeid. The Egyptian government wished to make a new attempt to
recover the lost province, and the idea was certainly very popular among
the governing class, but Sir Evelyn Baring vetoed the project on the
ground that Egypt had neither soldiers nor money to carry it out. In
vain the khedive and his prime minister, Sherif Pasha, threatened to
resign, and the latter actually carried out his threat. The British
representative remained firm, and it was decided that the Sudan should
be, for the moment at least, abandoned to its fate. Nubar, though as
strongly opposed to the abandonment policy as Sherif, consented to take
his place and accepted somewhat reluctantly the new regime, which he
defined as "the administration of Egypt under the government of Baring."
By this time the Mahdi was master of the greater part of the Sudan, but
Khartum and some other fortified points still held out. The efforts made
to extricate the garrisons, including the mission of General Gordon, the
fall of Khartum, and the Nile Expedition under Lord Wolseley, are
described below separately in the section of this article dealing with
the military operations. The practical result was that the khedive's
authority was limited to the Nile valley north of Wadi Halfa.