MAHOMED ALI AND HIS SUCCESSORS
The three years of French rule in Egypt had been to the people an
endless round of trials and vexations such as they had never before
experienced. Compared with the worries and tribulations they had
endured at the hands of the French the evils from which they had
suffered under the Mamaluks appeared to them as mere trifles. For the
future, therefore, their highest aspiration was to live once more the
free, unfettered lives they had been wont to enjoy in the past. Had
the departure of the French left the government in the hands of the
Beys as of old all would have been well. The lordly tyranny of the
Beys would, no doubt, have promptly exacted the utmost "contribution"
that could be extracted from their impoverished pockets, but however
harsh their measures might have proved they would have been seasoned
and softened by concessions here and there, and the people would have
borne them patiently enough as being for the good of the Moslem faith
and therefore for the glory of God and, above all perhaps, as a
thankoffering for their release from the rule of the once disdained
but now detested feringhee.
But this was not to be. The French had gone but the Turks were within
and the English were without their gates, and the unhappy people soon
found that instead of the period of repose for which they longed they
had entered upon a new era of misfortune. We have seen how the Turkish
troops had behaved at their first arrival just before the siege of
Cairo, but their conduct then was mild and humane compared to what it
now became. Adopting the convenient theory that they were in a newly
conquered country, the army acted accordingly, and no appeal to their
chiefs or to the civil authority that had been set up in the name of
the Sultan, was of the slightest effect in checking this fresh flood
of outrage. For four years, therefore, the country was so torn by the
intrigues of rival parties, the contests of opposing factions, and the
incapacity of the nominal rulers that its condition can only be
described as one of lawless anarchy. At length, picking his way step
by step with wondrous skill and boundless energy and self-reliance,
one man slowly but surely, with unfaltering persistency, advanced to
the front, and while yet making no pretence or show of power suddenly
planted himself as master over all. This man was the famous Mahomed
Ali, the founder of the present Khedivial family and the man who first
set in motion the train of events that have led directly to the
present Anglo-European occupation of the country.
A Sherlock Holmes in his power of reading the thoughts of others, a
Doctor Nikola in his art of subduing them to his own will, and a
Captain Kettle in the calculating daring of the resources by which he
won his way, the story of Mahomed Ali, could it be told in detail and
truthfully, not as it appeared to the many who could not understand
the man, but as it really was, would be one of the most engrossing
pages of history that could be told. As it is, the mere bald recital
of its incidents is a narrative that, even badly related, is full of
interest. But to deal with his story at all adequately or justly needs
not a chapter but a long volume. Here, therefore, I shall not attempt
to even enumerate the principal events of his career, but content
myself with merely mentioning the few points essential to the purpose
of this book, the facts necessary to enable the reader to understand
the influence he had upon the formation of the Egyptian of to-day.
Born at Cavala, the small seaport town facing the Island of Thasos at
the head of the AEgean Sea, in 1769, Mahomed Ali had early settled down
to the peaceful and uneventful life of a tobacco merchant when, in
1800, the Sultan having decided to send an army for the expulsion of
the French from Egypt, he was appointed lieutenant of a contingent of
three hundred militia recruited from his native district. Soon after
the arrival of the troop in Egypt the officer in charge, abandoning
his post, returned to Turkey, and Mahomed Ali, assuming command, gave
himself the rank of Bim-Bashi, or Colonel. In the turbulent times that
followed his arrival he courted the support now of one party now of
another abandoning each in turn as his own interests seemed to
dictate, and seizing every opportunity that offered or that he could
create, by the exercise of a masterful combination of tact, cunning,
and cautious boldness, succeeded, in the course of four years, in
placing himself at the head of affairs and getting himself recognised
as the Governor of the country.
This was in the early part of the year 1805. The people of Cairo had
grown so weary of the tyranny and turpitude of the Turkish soldiers
and of the ceaseless and unmeasured evils from which they were
suffering, and, rightly attributing these to the incompetency of
Khurshid Pacha, the Governor of Egypt appointed by the Sultan, came to
the determination that they would have no more of him. Recognising, as
the Sheikhs had said when Bonaparte first formed the Cairo Dewan, that
to secure good government it is necessary to place power in the hands
of men who can and will use it and who are capable of ruling, and that
there were none to be found among the Egyptians themselves qualified
to undertake the task with any hope of success, they looked around to
see who among the many men then contending for power and in a position
to take definite action, would be the best to replace the Governor
they had decided to depose. Of all they could think of Mahomed Ali was
the one that met the most general approval. He had not then taken any
very prominent place in the turmoil of the time, but he had made
himself known to the leading Sheikhs and notables as a Turkish officer
of but little ambition, great modesty, wise in council, an advocate
of smooth things, and one who sympathised with the people and their
troubles, and withal a man who could act and who could command. To the
Sheikhs, indeed, he must have seemed little if at all less than a
God-sent candidate for the post they chose to consider as at their
disposal. On the whole they were probably not far wrong, for difficult
as it would be to picture Mahomed Ali as a messenger from heaven, so
far his career, to the extent to which it was visible, had been almost
entirely such as to justify the Sheikhs' belief in his good qualities.
That he was shortly to assume a different character the Sheikhs could
not possibly foresee. Could they have done so, most probably they
would not have chosen him, but as it was they made unquestionably the
wisest choice open to them.
Having made their choice the Sheikhs went, on the 14th of May, 1805,
to the residence of the Arnout Commander, and being received by him
with the courtesy he always extended to the representatives of
learning and religion, as compensation perhaps for his own
deficiencies in respect of both, they told him, with scant waste of
words, that the townspeople had come to the decision that the Pacha
must be "sent down," in plain English--deposed. "And whom," said their
host,--"whom do you desire to put in his place?" They answered that he
was the man whom they desired to rule over them. To this he raised
objections. But though like Macbeth he had not thought it within the
prospect of belief that he should be king, he had no mind to let "I
dare not" wait upon "I would," and finally consented, whereupon the
Sheikhs wrapped him in a robe of honour and brought him forth mounted
upon a gallant steed that all the town might salute their new
Governor.
But weak and incompetent as Khurshid Pacha was, he had no intention of
abandoning his post until he should be deposed therefrom by the man by
whom he had been appointed. So, shutting himself up in the citadel, he
bid defiance to Mahomed Ali and all who dared question his most
impotent authority, and would not even enter upon a discussion.
Thereupon Mahomed Ali besieged the citadel, and, being unwilling to
resort to extremes, contented himself with investing it so as to cut
off supplies; and while his enemy, to whom, in passing it may be said,
he owed much of the progress he had made in Egypt, was thus cooped up
in the citadel, the wily Arnaout began to lay a train more effectual
than one of powder for the attainment of his own aims. This was the
despatch to Constantinople of messengers, with an account of the
action he had taken, an abundance of justifying facts and arguments,
and an humble petition that his Majesty the Sultan would be pleased to
sanction the steps taken, to recall Khurshid Pacha and issue the
firmans, or imperial mandates, necessary to place the acting
government on a proper basis. Unable to oppose this usurpation of
authority, and being further moved by the appeals sent by the Ulema of
Cairo on behalf of their choice and action, the Sultan granted the
request made, and sent a messenger duly empowered to recognise Mahomed
Ali as the Governor of Egypt and to recall the unlucky Khurshid.
Thus it was by the spontaneous act of the Egyptians themselves that
they were released, as it proved to be, once and for ever from the
atrocious misgovernment to which they had so long been subject. Apart
from this fact, which in itself possesses an importance none of the
historians of the country appear to have realised, this incident is
one that must not be overlooked in considering the attitude of the
Egyptians, and indeed of all Moslems, towards the Sultan of Turkey
both as Sultan and as Caliph. Of the general aspect of that subject I
have already spoken, and we have here one of those limitations to the
loyalty the Sultan can command which I then mentioned as
existing--that that loyalty is only due so long as the Sultan acts
consistently with the law of Islam as interpreted by the Ulema, whence
the deposition of Khurshid having the approval of the Ulema it became
an act almost of necessity assumed to be consistent with the dignity
and authority of the Sultan, and one that must have his ultimate
consent and sanction. The election of Mahomed Ali as Pacha, or
Governor, of Egypt was not therefore, as historians have incorrectly
represented it to be, an act of rebellion, but the exercise of a power
legally invested in the Ulema; moreover, it was at once referred to
the Sultan for his approval, and could therefore claim to be a simple
forestalling of what the Ulema conceived would have been his own
action had he been on the spot. But while the Ulema in this matter
acted upon their own authority and within the limits of their
privileges, it is plain that they did so at the instigation of the
people, and their action must accordingly be taken as that of the
people. As such it is a noticeable fact that in the emergency in which
they were placed this people, so little accustomed and so unwilling to
concern themselves in the organisation or administration of the
government, intuitively selected the one and only man in the country
capable of accomplishing their desire and of reducing the anarchy that
prevailed to order. Their choice is the more remarkable in that, up to
that moment, Mahomed Ali had had no adequate opportunity of showing
that he possessed the masterful character the Ulema recognised as a
necessary qualification of the man who would successfully rule the
country. He had until then played the part of a modest spectator
interfering in public affairs or in the rivalries of parties and
factions only when forced to do so, and then always as a promoter of
peace and harmony. There were, however, two facts strongly in his
favour. These were the sympathy he showed towards the people, and the
manner in which he restrained his own small body of troops from
imitating the licentious conduct of the rest of the Turkish army.
These were points the people could and did appreciate, and points in
which he had no rival. And though not a few writers have hinted that
his sympathy was but a hollow pretence, I see no reason for believing
that this was so. Prior to his going to Egypt his life had been such
as might well render him sympathetic towards peaceful citizens
outraged and robbed by a turbulent soldiery. If, in after years, he
proved a grinding taskmaster to this same people it is quite possible
he never realised the fact, but thought that he was dealing well and
fairly with them and as was best for their own interests. If this
were so he has had many well-intentioned but equally fallible
successors, and was withal but repeating the great blunder of the
French--a blunder that, as I have elsewhere said, is a common fault of
the philanthropists and reformers of the day, and which is, perhaps, a
failing of the majority of men, that of wrongly estimating the needs
and wishes of others and of seeking to force upon them a false and
inadequate standard of life and happiness.
Of the early life of Mahomed Ali but little is known, and that little
mainly on the authority of his own statements. According to the
version most generally accepted he was, if not a Turk, at least of
Turkish blood; yet the whole story of his life and character seem to
me to mark him out clearly, not as a Turk but as a Moslem Macedonian:
in some things alike, the two races yet stand apart in character and
aptitudes, for the Turk is first and chiefly an Oriental, and the
Macedonian essentially a European. Coming originally from a Greek
stock--the Arnaout--the Albanian or Macedonian Moslem whom Sir Richard
Burton so cordially detested is, like the Turk, by nature a gentleman,
and the world has no race that it can put before these two for the
manly qualities of bravery and self-respect; but while the Turk might
find his ideal of social life in the stately circles of the Seize
Quarterings of Europe, the Arnaout would more quickly be at home
amidst the hurly-burly of American life. A lover of peace, though
dauntless in battle, the Turk is content to pass his life in the dull
pursuit of a settled routine; the Arnaout, though no brawler, is
quick to resent offence, fearless in fight, and full of restless
energy and ambition. No one, knowing the two races and reading the
story of Mahomed Ali's life, can doubt to which race he was most akin,
for on every page of it is written, in the most legible characters,
"Arnaout," and most strongly of all in the quick decision, steady,
unbending determination and strong will-power that carried him
successfully through dangers and difficulties that must have
overwhelmed any man not armed, as he was, with these mightiest of
weapons in the warfare of life.
To our friends the historians this Mahomed Ali is a source of much
perplexity. On the one hand, they find him achieving what by all the
canons of probability should be deemed impossibilities, and setting up
an empire rather by force of wily wits than of martial might, and by
masterful force of will turning the whole current of Egyptian life and
thought into new and unwelcomed channels. Were this all, what a hero
they could make of this man! But alas! over and against these things
the historians are compelled to place the means whereby they were
accomplished, betrayed friendships, treachery, ruthless massacre,
bloodshed and tyranny. No wonder his biographers seem always halting
between the desire to laud his achievements and their perception of
the need to censure his acts. Yet if we make allowances for all the
circumstances of his position--the time in which he lived, the men he
had to overcome, the fact that, once entered upon, the contest for
supremacy was a contest without quarter, that he must either triumph
or be crushed--we may comprehend that, utterly inexcusable and
unpardonable as his offences appear to us, to him they may have seemed
to be far otherwise. The worst of all his crimes--the massacre of the
ill-fated Mamaluks--was unsurpassable in its baseness as an act of
treachery, but viewed apart from that it was a mere bagatelle in crime
compared with Bonaparte's massacre of the Jaffa prisoners. To Mahomed
Ali the extermination of the Mamaluks was almost a matter of life and
death to himself, and a winning move in the great game he and they
were playing. These men have to die--it was thus, no doubt, he
argued--in the field or elsewhere, for there can be no peace, no
settled government in the country while they are at large; and since
they must die, what matter how or when? Surely now, and all of them in
one grand sacrifice to the cause of peace! Poor Mahomed Ali! he has
long since learned a little better, and knows now that the end does
not justify the means, and that such foul deeds as this, with all
floggings, tortures, hangings, killings, massacres, and all kinds of
inhumanities and abominations, are the price men have to pay when they
attempt to govern a people with a lying policy, a hollow pretence of
serving God and man, when in truth they are but seeking their own
ends.
And yet there are authors and others who speak of the "Great" Mahomed
Ali even as they do of the "Great" Bonaparte. "Great" they both were
in the sense of occupying a great space in the history of their time
and in that of having done much, principally evil, but "great" in the
sense of noble, worthy of esteem or admiration! Like a miser greedy
for gold but that he may hoard it, these men were avaricious of power
solely from the lust for it; both attained it in high degree, and if
to-day men are in any way better for their having done so they are so
rather in spite than in virtue of their success. And withal they were
men of mean ideals. Mahomed Ali was accustomed to boast that he was
born in the same year as Bonaparte, apparently thinking this a matter
for congratulation as if in some occult way he thereby partook of the
glory of the Corsican. Unfortunately there were a million or two of
other people born in the same year, "mostly fools," and these two were
but the most eminent of that miserable majority, for what else were
they but fools, strenuous fools wading through seas of blood, and
trampling upon the hearts and souls of men, the one that he might end
his days with the surges of St. Helena droning in his ears, the other
that he might still more miserably sink into the living death of
dotage? Fools indeed, sacrificing all that should attend old age and
death for less than a wretched mess of pottage, bartering all the
realities of life for the pursuit of a phantom they were never to
grasp. Unlike Sam Weller, I cannot fix the date on which I first wore
small clothes, but it was about that time that I first read the story
of Bonaparte's boyhood, and I can still recall a tale told of his
going about "with his stockings half down." It was thus, figuratively,
if not literally, he went through life, his mental stockings and
clothing generally shiftlessly loose and out of order. "Clothed"
indeed, but by no means "in his right mind," "clothed" and yet a
wanderer among the tombs of false ideals and unholy aspirations.
Rather pitiable greatness this!
Yet Mahomed Ali did some good. Out of the chaos that existed as the
legacy of the French occupation he produced order. It was his lawless
self-seeking that opened the path whereby the Egyptians have had their
future placed in their own hands. That was probably the very last
thing he thought of doing--a thing, indeed, that he would have laughed
to scorn if anybody had been so rash as to propose it to him. The
Egyptians did not know that then, perhaps even now they only partly
recognise it, but they did very fully recognise the fact that he had
rid them of the rats that had been preying upon them for so long. For
that they were not ungrateful, but their gratitude was that of Lazarus
for the crumbs that fell from the rich man's table.
Mahomed Ali ruled in Egypt for forty-two years from that memorable day
on which the people had called upon the foreigner to come and rule
over them, even as the English, in 1688, had summoned William of
Orange to do the same for them. But his election did not place him at
once in full power. It was, in fact, nothing more than the opening of
the portals admitting him to the upward path he was destined to tread,
and the way beyond was still crowded with obstacles that might well
have caused even a daring man to halt. Nor did the arrival of the
Sultan's firman place him in a much stronger position, for it was not
long before another firman arrived appointing him to the Governorship
of Salonica, whither he was instructed to repair without delay. This
he refused to do, and being again supported by the Ulema and the
people, sent presents and such well-devised explanations to the Sultan
that he received in return yet another firman confirming his
appointment as Pacha. Thenceforward his progress was unchecked,
culminating in 1841 by obtaining from the Sultan the firman granting
him the hereditary government of Egypt which is still the foundation
of the authority of his successors.
His power once fairly established, Mahomed Ali paid but little heed to
the interests of the people, and, in spite of the tears and protests
of all classes, proceeded to abolish private property in land. This
done, he next, by means of government monopolies and exorbitant
taxation, practically took possession of all the produce of the land.
With the aid of European experts, he at the same time did much to
benefit the country by the extension of irrigation, the introduction
of new and profitable crops and better methods of cultivation. From
the progress thus made the people gained little advantage. Under the
Pacha's administration they grew steadily poorer and poorer, and,
though they were freed from many of the evils and vexations that had
burthened their lives in the days of the Mamaluks, they had still to
suffer from some of the old wrongs, and had, in addition, to bear some
new ones. One of the first of the steps taken by the Pacha for the
consolidation of his power had been the creation of an Egyptian army.
Recruited by conscription, this was an innovation that excited
universal indignation, increased by the fact that the army was based
upon a European model. Almost the only benefit the reign of Mahomed
Ali conferred upon the people was therefore the establishment of
order. Under his vigorous rule men's lives and what little property
was left to them were safer than they had been under either the
Mamaluks or the French, and if the people had but little to enjoy they
were, save for the exceptions I have named, allowed to enjoy it in
their own way, and that to the Egyptian was a privilege that
compensated him for much evil.
In 1848 Mahomed Ali, whose health had failed, fell into a state of
dotage that rendered him quite incapable of attending to affairs, and
his son Ibrahim Pacha was therefore placed in power, but dying two
months later was succeeded by his nephew Abbass. The following year
Mahomed Ali died, and was buried in the citadel of Cairo with gorgeous
ceremony. But a few years before the eyes of all Europe had been
watching his every move, now that the tragedy of his life was over,
his death, as Talleyrand said, was "not an event, only a piece of
news," but there were many, Europeans as well as natives, as we are
told, who followed him to his last resting-place with deep regrets,
and not a few who were moved to tears--a fact to be noted and
remembered as in a large measure a key to the life-story of the man,
for it shows that at bottom of all his sins and all his crimes the
essential element of the man himself was good. The evil he had done
was the outcome of false training and false teaching whence he derived
false ideals and false ambitions, and with his vision thus disturbed,
seeing all things distorted and out of just proportion, he naturally
and inevitably erred from the paths of truth and justice by which real
greatness is alone to be attained.
Cairo, the City of the Caliphs, beloved by tourists and artists, the
home of a laughter and jest-loving people, is, to those who know its
history, a city of ineffable sadness. Wherever one goes, in its
crowded bazaars, through its lonely lanes, wherever one plants a foot
or casts an eye, there is some sad recollection of the spot or of its
vicinity to be recalled, but there are few, if any, overshadowed by a
deeper pathos than that where the great Mahomed Ali lies in a
dimly-lit corner of the great mosque built by himself, on the highest
point of the citadel.
Abbass, the new ruler, was unlike his grandfather in many respects.
Mahomed Ali, so far from being a bigot or fanatic, was lax in his
views, an intense admirer of the civilisation of the West. Abbass has
been praised for his tolerance by many writers, yet the fact is that
it was but a part of his policy, and was in no way to be compared with
the true tolerance of men like Ibrahim Bey, who so warmly protected
and defended the Christians at the Mamaluk Dewan. He was, to some
extent, both a bigot and a fanatic, adverse to the extension of
European influence in the country and lacking in all the personal
qualities that had enabled his grandfather to triumph over so many
difficulties. Mahomed Ali, though he could be generous and liberal,
and was lavish in spending money on his army and for the
accomplishment of his own projects and purposes, was grasping in his
demands upon the people and as ruthless as the Mamaluks in all his
dealings with them. Abbass cared little for the army, had no grand
schemes to promote, and finding the revenue amply sufficient for the
administrative wants of the country and his personal needs, the people
profited greatly from the relaxed strain he placed upon their
resources. The benefit they thus derived from his rule was increased
by his abolishing the Government monopolies and by other measures that
at once encouraged trade and gave the people generally a larger share
in the profits to be derived from their labours and enterprise. The
great stain on the life of this man was his addiction to vice--a
failing for which he paid the extreme penalty of his life, being
assassinated in his own palace by two of his minions.
Abbass was succeeded by Mahomed Ali's youngest son, Said. Brave,
frank, friendly to all, tolerant and enlightened, the new ruler
steered a middle course between that of his father and that of his
nephew. Many improvements were introduced by him in the administration
of the country. The land was returned to the people, trade and
commerce were facilitated, and many of the worst abuses of the past
abolished or restrained. Unfortunately for Egypt, the Pacha did not
stop here. The introduction of railways and other public works that he
undertook created a demand for funds that his lenient collection of
the revenue was insufficient to meet, and he was induced to raise the
first of the State loans that were so soon to reduce the country to
practical bankruptcy. But the commencement of the Suez Canal, the
laying of the railway between Alexandria and Cairo, the introduction
of steamers on the Nile, the demand for Egyptian grain during the
Crimean, and for Egyptian cotton during the American War, combined
with the internal peace and the justice and benevolence that Said made
the keynotes of his government, all combined to render his reign a
period of prosperity and happiness for the people. The fellaheen
enjoyed incomes such as they had never dreamed of, and their
prosperity reacted upon the townsmen and commercial and other classes,
and in Cairo and the country at large contentment was almost universal
and complete.
Said died in 1863, and was succeeded by his nephew, the famous Ismail
Pacha. Abbass at his death had left a surplus in the treasury. Said
had not only exhausted this but built up a debt of several millions.
Starting with this debt, Ismail, though possessed of a keener judgment
than his predecessor, instead of seeking retrenchment, gave way to his
natural disposition, and commenced an era of lavish expenditure that
was the direct cause of all the troubles that were so soon to follow.
As long as the American War lasted all went well, but when once more
the cotton fields of the Southern States were open to the world,
Egypt, like India, had to face the disastrous failure of the tide that
had borne it such prosperity. From the possession of wealth that they
had squandered in extravagant living and profuse gifts to their wives
and families, the fellaheen quickly fell back to a condition of
poverty. Trade and commerce suffered equally heavily, and the Pacha
and Government having to bear their share of the general depression,
he sought to relieve his necessities by borrowing from the European
markets. Had the money thus obtained been wisely employed, all might
have gone well; but it was wasted in lavish and unprofitable
expenditure, led to the appointment of the dual control by which
France and England undertook to supervise the financial affairs of the
country, and finally brought about the deposition of Ismail in favour
of his son Tewfick, under whom the rebellion headed by Arabi broke
out, bringing the English occupation that has lasted to the present
day.
It was during the French occupation that the Egyptian ceased to be
that which he had been for long centuries before. In the account I
have given of that occupation, I have endeavoured to show what manner
of man the Egyptian then was. From that day to the present he has been
slowly, but surely, changing; but it was not until the evacuation of
Fachoda, the last of the six great landmarks in the history of the
modern Egyptian, had taken place that the development of the Egyptian
character has taken the definite and clearly marked form it now
possesses. That event we have now to consider, and having done so we
shall be in a position to understand that which the Egyptian of to-day
is and how he has become that which he is.