A single fact sums up the history of Egypt before the landing of the
French; the domination of the Mamelukes. Recruited from the slave-
markets of Georgia to serve as the Ayyubid Dynasty’s bodyguard, they
soon acquired such authority as to be able to destroy, in the year 1250,
that dynasty and to elect as Sultan of Egypt one of their chiefs. The
country became at once the theatre of civil wars and brigandage. The new
sultans were not more firmly established than their predecessors. Forty-
seven of them followed one another in quick succession in the short
period of two hundred and fifty years, and when, in 1517, Selim the Grim
turned his eyes from Europe to Oriental conquest, he was able to make
short work of the sultans and to turn Egypt into a Turkish province.
Faithful, however, to the traditions of Ottoman rule, he preserved the
Mamelukes as a check on the pasha who governed the province in his name.
And so long as the tribute was regularly paid, the Sultan at
Constantinople had no cause for interference. Twenty-four Beys or
Chiefs, accordingly, governed as many administrative divisions. In
course of time, however, they gradually encroached upon the authority of
the Turkish Pasha, till, in the latter half of the eighteenth century,
only the shadow of his power was kept. In form, everything was done in
the Sultan’s name; his orders were received, as the Arabic expression
ran, “on the head and on the eye.” In reality, the pasha was a veritable
prisoner. If he attempted to take himself seriously, it was not long
before he received a herald clad in black, upon whose pronouncing the
formula “Enzel!” (“Descend!”) the pasha would take the route to
Constantinople. The tribute was not regularly paid and efforts were made
to declare Egypt independent, notably that of Aly Bey, the ally of
Catherine II and the precursor of Mehemet Ali.
The Porte, conformably to its habitual policy, shut its eyes to this
usurpation. It felt that to suppress the beys would entail a costly war,
in which defeat would spell disaster. Its hands were, moreover, fully
occupied with the defence of the heart of the Empire against Austria and
Russia. In the meantime, it sowed the seeds of rivalry among the
Mamelukes and kept them divided, freely using gold for that end and
resorting, now and again, to bowstring and poison.
The grinding tyranny went on unchecked. The young Circassian slave, once
he set foot on the soil of Egypt, saw a career opening before his eyes
and felt destined to become a lord. He calculated the need his master
had of him and demanded his price. In a society whose _primum mobile_
was gold, the Bey’s first care was to satisfy the rapacity of his
slaves. Hence the prodigality which blighted the fair land, hence the
intrigues which ruined the beys in turn.
Strangers amongst themselves, they were not bound by the natural ties of
family. Without relations, without children, the past was a blank.
Ignorant and superstitious by training, the frequent murders rendered
them ferocious, the tumults seditious, the cabals perfidious, the
dissimulation cowardly and the unnatural vices corrupt. A happy stroke
of the sabre won the Mameluke pre-eminence. But the upstart did not
change character; in a lordly station he had the soul of a slave. Power
had no other end than procuring women, horses, jewels and retainers.
Gold was to be had, whenever found. The poor peasant was as much
pillaged as the “Frank” or Levantine merchant.
Such a state of affairs could not but attract the eyes of the outside
world to the unhappy land. Commerce languished. In 1770 there were
fifteen French establishments in Cairo, in 1785 there were only three.
The French Consul, Magallon, had to leave the Capital and take up his
residence in Alexandria. The British Consul, Baldwin, had to leave the
country. “I do not conceive,” he wrote, “that Egypt can be much longer
tenable by the Franks owing to the excessive tyranny of Murad Bey, who
latterly has given them to understand in practice and by his satellite
Koraim in Alexandria in public declaration that the Consuls are nothing
to him, and that he shall exact and extort as in fact he has done
without respect to any one. The same spirit invades the whole body of
Mamelukes.”[5] In July, 1795, the French Ambassador at Constantinople
sent an envoy to the beys to ask for reparation. He could only obtain
indefinite promises and reported on the anarchy from which the country
was suffering.[6]
Apart from these commercial grievances, did Egypt enter into British
schemes of expansion or empire? British history does not offer many such
schemes, for British policy has been markedly opportunist—a feature
which probably explains its general success. “It was the active, far-
seeing and ambitious statecraft of France which opened up new arenas of
strife and ambition, while Britons followed, doubtfully at first, but in
the long run doggedly. Dupleix, Montcalm and Napoleon—to mention the
greatest names—precipitated a conflict which was ultimately to turn to
the profit of the Sea Power and to plant the Union Jack on many lands.”
As far as Egypt was concerned, whatever schemes there were came to
nothing more than proposals for opening a trade between India and Egypt
by way of the Red Sea.[7] In 1775, Warren Hastings, who was among the
earliest of British statesmen to recognise the importance of that
country’s geographical position, concluded a treaty of commerce with
Mohammad Bey. This treaty, as well as all commercial projects, remained
a dead letter owing to the frequent political revolutions.
Egypt, however, entered into the calculations of diplomacy in connection
with the innumerable projects for the partition of the Ottoman Empire.
The story of these projects forms an unedifying chapter in the history
of foreign policy, for we see European states concluding treaties with
Turkey and at the same time contemplating dismembering it. The authors
of the designs are as varied as they can be: popes, kings, emperors,
diplomats, publicists, astrologers, divines, dreamers and travellers.
Most of the projects, diligently collected by M. Djuvara, assign Egypt
to France.
Without going back to the heroic days of the Crusades, we find that
Leibnitz had suggested it to Louis XIV in order to divert his attention
from the Rhine.[8] After the Seven Years’ War, Choiseul proposed to
Louis XV to seek in the possession of the Valley of the Nile
compensation for his losses in America and the Indies.[9] The conquest
of Corsica was a step in that direction. In the plans of Catherine II
and Joseph II for partitioning Turkey, Egypt was to be the share of
France. Many memoranda on the subject were addressed to Louis XVI.
Officers, Mathieu Dumas among others, were sent to explore the
ground.[10] In 1780, the explorer Sonnini met a French officer in Cairo
who had been out to study the possibility of a conquest of Egypt and an
advance upon India.[11] Seven years later, there appeared in France the
_Voyages_ of Volney—the author of the fashionable _Ruines_ and the
friend of young Bonaparte—who had spent three years in Egypt and Syria.
This precise and level-headed traveller did not suggest the conquest of
Egypt; but he helped to demolish the legends current on the military
power of the Mamelukes. “Leur réunion,” he wrote, “est un attroupement,
leur combat est un duel, leur guerre est un brigandage.”[12] Of
Alexandria he wrote: “Considérée comme ville de guerre, elle n’est rien.
On y voit aucun ouvrage de fortification; la phare même avec ses hautes
tours, n’en est pas un. Il n’a pas quatre canons en état, et pas un
canonier qui sache pointer. Les 500 Janissaires qui doivent former la
garrison, réduits à moitié, sont des ouvriers qui ne savent que fumer la
pipe.”[13] A year later, in 1788, he published a
pamphlet—_Considérations sur la guerre des Turcs_—in which he advised
France to give up her traditional alliance with the Porte.[14] Although
he emphasised the importance of Egypt, he did not—as is often
supposed—advise his Government to take possession of it. On the contrary
he argued against it. He pointed out that the enterprise would entail
three wars: with the Porte, with England, and with the inhabitants, that
the French as colonists had been a failure, that France had no need for
colonies, and that it would be ignominious to attack an ancient ally.
Thus on the eve of the Revolution, French diplomacy seemed disposed to
abandon the Turkish alliance inaugurated by the Treaty of 1536. Under
the menace of invasion, however, Eastern affairs were relegated to the
background. There was even a disposition to restore the efficiency of
the Turkish Army and open the eyes of the Porte to its peril. This
attitude did not last long. On February 9th, 1798, Magallon, ex-Consul
in Egypt, addressed a memorandum on the possession of that country.[15]
He declared that this was the best means for destroying British power in
the East. Calling attention to the inveterate hostility of Tippoo Sahib,
he stated that 15,000 Frenchmen joined to the forces of that potentate
would be an overmatch to the British Army, which amounted to 15-20,000
men, mostly sepoys, upon whom there was no dependence. The Directory was
impressed. Charles Delacroix, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, asked
Magallon to confer with him, and declared that the design on Egypt was
not renounced but merely deferred.[16]
With the appointment of Talleyrand to succeed Delacroix, the project
acquired an official character.
[Footnote 5: To Spencer Smith, 19 April, 1798, F.O. Turkey, 21.]
[Footnote 6: Jonquière, I, p. 148.]
[Footnote 7: B.M. Add. MSS., 29201, f. 11, 17, 19; 29210, f. 341, 412,
422, 426, 30, 32.]
[Footnote 8: Sorel, I, p. 328.]
[Footnote 9: Jonquière, I, p. 146.]
[Footnote 10: Jonquière, I, p. 148.]
[Footnote 11: _Annual Register_, 1789, p. 239 (Domestic Literature).]
[Footnote 12: _Œuvres de Volney_, p. 151.]
[Footnote 13: _Ibid._, p. 117.]
[Footnote 14: _Ibid._, pp. 753-774.]
[Footnote 15: _Revue d’Egypte_, Sept., 1896.]
[Footnote 16: Jonquière, p. 150 note.]
I