MEHEMET ALI: THE YEARS OF PREPARATION
1807-1812
In the years between Tilsit and the invasion of Russia no change took
place in the situation in the East. Napoleon was without a navy worthy
of the name and Great Britain was not disposed to renew the venture of
1807. Egypt was too far afield: Spain provided an excellent field where
the Mistress of the Seas could come into grips with the Master of the
Continent. It was not till the latter half of 1811 that Major Missett
came back to Cairo as British Consul, probably as a result of the
representations of Stratford Canning, who was the first to direct the
attention of the British Government to the great qualities of Mehemet
Ali and to draw a parallel between him and his fellow Albanian, Ali of
Janina.[1605]
Mehemet Ali was engaged in those years in crushing possible domestic
rivals. The “ulemas” of Cairo had endeavoured to use against him the
weapons employed by them against his predecessor—Khourshid. But the
results were different. He succeeded in dividing them into warring
cliques, deprived the refractory of lucrative posts and “exiled” the
maker of his own fortunes—Omar Makram—out of the Capital. “Les cheikhs
et ulemas,” wrote a French resident, “firent entendre leurs plaintes
auxquelles le Pasha ne prêta qu’une oreille indifférente. La plupart lui
sont vendue et il a éloigné ceux qui ne favorisent pas ses
objets.”[1606]
The Mamelukes presented a more serious problem. All efforts at a pacific
accommodation between them and himself proved of no avail. “Les
stipulations,” wrote the French consul in 1808, “exigent une confiance
difficile à établir et les Mamelukes ne peuvent se résoudre à payer le
tribut qu’on leur demande. Malgré leur faiblesse et leur état de
décadence, pour ainsi dire, journalière, ils ne peuvent se faire l’idée
de renoncer à la possession de l’Egypte en favour des Osmanlis.”[1607]
They could not dispossess the Pasha and he could obtain no decisive
victory over them. The result was treachery and the massacre of the
major part of them in March, 1811.[1608]
The immediate object of his other activities in these early years was
the hoarding of treasure. It had played an important part in the history
of Near Eastern adventures—be they Jewish or Turkish. The hoard was a
motley collection of precious stones, ornamental daggers and swords,
costly stuffs, snuff-boxes, pipes and specie. Over it lurked a Jew or an
Armenian, crafty, cruel, treacherous and devoured by the mania of
hoarding. It was he who suggested the distant expeditions and pointed
out the unhappy individuals to be fleeced and the means of filling the
coffers. Astrologers, divines and prophets seconded his operations.
For the Pasha of Egypt it was an imperious necessity. He had to feed the
cupidity of the Porte. He had to bribe the Mamelukes into submission in
the years preceding their destruction. But it was his Albanians who
devoured his treasure. He was at their mercy but was unable to do
without them. In 1809 they numbered 10,000, but received the pay of
30,000.[1609] Three years later, they increased to 15,000 and the
troubles of the Pasha rose in proportion.[1610] In 1810, the French
consul described his position as the most critical since his coming to
power.[1611] The soldiers were the only persons in the country who had
money, all the rest had been fleeced.[1612] It was, accordingly, with
undisguised relief that the Viceroy heard of the defeat of his own
soldiers in Arabia.[1613]
Money was to be obtained by all means. When Pahlin, the Swedish Chargé
at Constantinople, cited to Mehemet Ali a passage from Diodorus on the
supposed existence of some buried treasure, the Pasha started digging
with zest.[1614] The taxes were collected with exactness, the slipshod
methods of the Beys were a story of the past. To give one example, the
customs at Bulak—the river port of Cairo—which brought in under the Beys
no more than thirty purses, amounted in 1812 to 1500, and this without
hardship or injustice to anyone.[1615] But the processes of legality did
not answer the necessities of the times. It was in 1808 that Ali began
to lay violent hands on property. All titles were to be produced, most
of them were quashed and the rest had to be registered at a fee. Time-
honoured exemptions from taxation were stopped.[1616] The result was the
destruction of the class of multezims and the passing of the land into
the hands of the Viceroy, who distributed it among members of his
family, officers, favourites and the peasants.[1617] “Allez trouver un
autre que moi,” the peasant would say to the multezim when requested for
his labour, “je suis occupé à mes affaires. Vous n’avez plus rien à
faire dans ce pays, car vos jours sont passés et nous sommes devenus les
paysans du Pasha.”[1618] These years present Mehemet Ali at his worst,
destructive, avaricious and rigorous.[1619] But they were not unredeemed
by prognostics of the coming statesmanship.[1620]
One of his great sources of revenue then was the sale of wheat to the
British. There was a great dearth in the years 1809, 1810 and 1811 in
all Mediterranean countries except Egypt. The Porte laid an embargo on
the export, but the Pasha did not heed it. “He refuses,” wrote Missett
in 1811, “to obey any orders from his highness that may stand in
opposition to his interests.”[1621] The sale brought in what must have
been an amazing quantity of bullion, specie, and manufactured articles.
It was an operation that must have relieved the difficult situation of
British industries. The Pasha used to buy from the peasants at a low
price, employ false measures and force them to carry the wheat to his
depots. He used to sell it to the British agents at a price ranging from
ninety to a hundred piastres per ardeb, whereas it was selling in the
markets at twenty.[1622]
It was not merely the excessive profits which caused the transaction.
There were political considerations. “Le Bacha,” wrote Drovetti, “a cru
qu’en accordant aux Anglais ce qu’ils demandent ils cessent d’entretenir
des relations avec les Beys et qu’il n’aura plus rien à craindre
d’eux.”[1623] When Drovetti protested, he frankly answered that if the
British could not obtain wheat by sale, they might take it by
force.[1624] The events of 1807 seemed to have impressed his mind
deeply. He could not but have been struck by the extreme decadence of
Turkish power and was resolved to secure Egypt for himself. When, in
1809, the Porte made its peace with Great Britain, Mehemet Ali assured
Drovetti that even if the Sultan should declare war on France, he would
remain neutral.[1625] The most important article of the “treaty” which
he signed in 1810 with an agent of the East India Company stipulates
that in the event of a war between Britain and Turkey, the Pasha would
not molest British subjects or touch their property, but would, on the
contrary, afford them every protection and assistance.[1626]
But he thought of something more than extricating himself from possible
embarrassments resulting from the Porte’s situation with regard to
Europe. He sought some security against the Porte itself. The
precariousness of the position of all “rebellious” pashas has never been
sufficiently allowed for.[1627] The Porte could shut its eyes but it
never forgot nor forgave. The revolt of Latif Pasha in 1813, after
Mehemet Ali had restored the Holy Cities to the Sultan, was instigated
from Constantinople.[1628] The Porte any day might set a neighbouring
Pasha against him, it might have him poisoned or strangled. It was
permanent, he was transient. It was an institution, he was an
individual. His Albanians were more of an obstruction than a help. He
had not yet thought of the latent soldierly qualities of the Egyptian
peasant. There was no security for him but in a connection with some
foreign power. His sentiments did not come into the matter. “Il n’aime,”
wrote a French agent in 1811, “ni les Français ni les Anglais.”[1629] In
March, 1810, he asked Drovetti if Napoleon would assist him in
establishing his position on the same footing as that of the Barbary
Regencies. Drovetti could not listen to proposals of this nature.[1630]
It was with some repugnance that he had to turn to Missett, for “some
circumstances” had made him suspect “that the British Government did not
want him to rule in Egypt.”[1631] But he made his overtures all the
same. The answer of the Government was clear. “As there is no prospect
of a war with the Porte,” wrote Bathurst to Missett, “it would not be
consistent with sound policy and good faith to enter into a negotiation
with the Viceroy of Egypt on the subject of his meditated attempt to
establish his independence.” Missett, however, was to give him amicable
assurances of the disposition of the Prince Regent to maintain friendly
intercourse with him, even if hostilities should ever break out between
Britain and Turkey.[1632]
Foiled in his attempts, Mehemet Ali continued the precarious practice of
buying “friends” in the Divan, and obeying the Sultan’s behests. Hence
the campaign against the Wahabis.[1633]
Thus conclude the years of a process of transition which began with the
French Invasion in 1798. Mehemet Ali had established his power in Egypt
and was henceforth free to turn the country into a vast personal estate.
But in the exploitation—ill or well—of the estate, the inhabitants were
transformed. They became homogeneous in serving one master, they were
drilled into soldiers and sailors and marched to victory against the
Sultan, they were forced into schools and the production of wealth, they
were governed and taught to expect and find security.[1634] Mehemet Ali
made modern Egypt.
The years, moreover, marked the end of the isolation of the Egypt of the
Mamelukes. The country was opened to European influences and enterprise.
Its ultimate fate and its relations to the suzerain-state became
diplomatic problems of the first magnitude, problems that divided or
united the Powers and even once brought them to the verge of war.
[Footnote 1605: S. Canning to Wellesley, 15 March, 1811. F.O. Turkey,
73.]
[Footnote 1606: Mengin to Ministre des Affaires Etrangères, 20 Jan.,
1812. Arch. Aff. Et. Turquie, Corresp. Pol., 224.
Mengin came to Egypt with the French Expedition and remained there till
Oct., 1811.]
[Footnote 1607: Drovetti to Talleyrand, 12 July, 1808. Arch. Aff. Et.,
Corresp. Cons., Le Caire.]
[Footnote 1608: The occasion for the massacre is said to be the
discovery of correspondence between the Beys and the Pasha of Acre.
Missett to Liverpool, 14 July, 1811. W.O. 1, 349. Drovetti to Champagny,
4 March, 1811. _Correspondance Consulaire_, Le Caire.
The Reis Effendi confessed to Canning that it was done on the Sultan’s
orders. S. Canning to Wellesley, 1 May, 1811. F.O. Turkey, 73. (Marginal
note dated 10 May.)]
[Footnote 1609: Drovetti to Ministre des Affaires Etrangères, 9 April,
1809. Arch. Aff. Et., Corresp. Consulaire, Le Caire.]
[Footnote 1610: Drovetti to Ministre, 5 June, 1811. Arch. Aff. Et.,
Corresp. Cons., Le Caire.]
[Footnote 1611: Drovetti to Ministre, 13 June, 1810. _Ibid._]
[Footnote 1612: The soldiers advanced money at an interest of 50
piastres a month on loans of 500 piastres. Djabarti, VIII, p. 182.]
[Footnote 1613: Drovetti, _Bulletin de Mars_, 1812. _Ibid._]
[Footnote 1614: Latour-Maubourg to Minister of Foreign Affaires, 2
March, 1811. Arch. Aff. Et. Turquie, Corresp. Pol., 221.]
[Footnote 1615: Djabarti, VIII, p. 352.]
[Footnote 1616: Djabarti, VIII, pp. 149-150, 206.