| Copyright | ||
|
Home Great Britain and World-Politics, 1878-1911 Great Britain and Egypt |
Great Britain and EgyptTo begin with, we must endeavor to trace the relation of Great Britain with Egypt. The first difficulties which arose there however, were not caused by the rivalry for expansion, but were due to other circumstances. It will be remembered that Mehemet Ali had made himself master of Egypt, though he was still subject to the sovereignty of Turkey. His grandson, Ismail Pasha, succeeded in 1863, and was accorded by the Sultan the title of. Khedive — in return for a substantial money payment. Ismail’s reign was, it has been said, "a carnival of extravagance and oppression". He possessed an unrivalled capacity for spending money, for he added to the wasteful tastes of an Oriental despot a genuine desire to introduce into his country, in all hastle, the conveniences of Western civilization, without the least idea how to do it economically and effectively. As a consequence, during his sixteen years of rule, the debt of Egypt increased from £3, 000, 000 to £100, 000, 000, and every form of extortion was practised on his subjects in order to furnish him with money the "fellaheen" — as the Egyptian peasants are called – being perhaps, during his reign, the most wretched people in all the world. Some of his expenditure was wise. He was, for instance, a great supporter of the Suez Canal Company, and bought large quantities of its shares. But he and his family, and the ministers and adventurers who surrounded him, recklessly squandered the greater part of the money they obtained. One instance must suffice: an Egyptian princess ran up a bill of £150, 000 with French dressmaker.Eventually the crash came. Ismail first sold all his Canal shares, Disraeli buying £4, 000, 000 worth of them for Great Britain. Then, in 1876, he repudiated the State debts. The creditors were Europeans, chiefly British and French, and such an action made European intervention inevitable. Moreover, Great Britain regarded Egypt as the highway to India, and was therefore vitally interested in the stability of its government. The upshot, after various complicated negotiations, was that Great Britain and France in 1879 got the sultan to depose Ismail and to nominate Tewfik, his son, in his place, whilst the public debt of Egypt was put under the supervision of the European powers, and two controllers, appointed by Great Britain and France respectively, guided the financial administration of the country. The Dual Control, as it has been called, was not to last for long. There shortly arose an anti-foreign movement, directed against any Turkish or European control of Egyptian affairs, the motto of which was "Egypt for the Egyptians". Moreover, in the army there was great discontent chiefly owing to the arrears of pay, and in 1881 Arabi Pasha, an officer in the army, was the leader of a successful mutiny, and practically obtained the control of the government. There soon followed a riot in Alexandria, in which some fifty Europeans were brutally murdered. It was obvious that the country was drifting into anarchy, and hundreds of Europeans began to leave the country. The Great Powers, therefore, held a solemn conference at Constantinople to decide what should be done; but they decided nothing, and meanwhile the Egyptian soldiers at Alexandria raised batteries for use against a British fleet which had been dispatched to that port. This was too much even for Lord Granville, the foreign secretary in Gladstone's ministry, whose policy had hitherto been of a somewhat dawdling character. He suggested to France a joint bombardment of Alexandria, but France, fearful of Bismarck's designs if French energies were absorbed in Egypt, refused. Great Britain accordingly acted alone, and, on the Egyptians refusing to pull down the batteries, Alexandria was bombarded and the batteries destroyed (July, 1882). Having once begun to interfere, Great Britain could not stop. Sir Garnet, (afterwards Lord) Wolseley was sent to Egypt, and by a well-delivered blow at Tel-el-Kebir crushed Arabi's forces (September, 1882), and Arabi himself was exiled to Ceylon. The khedive's power was re-established, some of the British forces being left provisionally in the country. No sooner was the Arabi revolt suppressed than danger arose elsewhere. The khedive not only ruled Egypt, but a vast country known as the Soudan, which extends south of Wady Haifa, and was twice as big as France and Germany put together. Mohammedans believe that a "Mahdi" will appear on earth, on whose coming the world will be converted to Mohammedanism. A man in the Soudan proclaimed him self to be "the Mahdi" in 1881. The Soudanese under Ismail's rule had suffered, except during a short period when General Gordon was governor, every form of misgovernment, large parts of the land having been leased out to slave-hunters. Consequently they flocked to join the new prophet, and it soon became evident that a formidable rebellion was in progress. The khedive and his ministers, after Arabi's downfall, sent a general called Hicks to crush the Dervishes, as the Mahdi's followers were called; but the army was raw and undisciplined, and was totally destroyed (I883). It was clear that the Soudan must be evacuated, at any rate for a time. The Egyptian Government was unwilling to adopt this course, and consequently the British Government had again to interfere, and to insist upon it. But at once two questions arose - how far was it possible to extricate the Egyptian garrisons in the Soudan, amounting to some fifty thousand men? and what form of government, if any, was to be set up in the Soudan after its evacuation? The British Government decided to send to the Soudan General Gordon - who had a few years before governed it for a short time - with the primary and main object of superintending the evacuation and of saving as many garrisons as he could, and incidentally of making what arrangements were possible for the future government of the country. Gordon was a hero of heroes, brave, chivalrous, impetuous, emotional, self-confident; but because of some of these very qualities it was a mistake to send him. When he reached Khartoum (February, 1884), the capital of the Soudan, it was perhaps natural that he should lay the chief stress, not upon the unadventurous policy of evacuation, but upon the future settlement of the country and the welfare of its inhabitants. First, he asked that Zobehr, a man who had been a noted slave-dealer, should be sent to the Soudan as ruler, as he was a man of enormous influence. But the British Government, fearful of public opinion at home, refused. Then Gordon wanted, in his own words, "to smash the Mahdi" with British or Indian troops. Meantime the chance of extricating the garrisons, if there ever was a chance, passed away; the tribes round Khartoum rose for the Mahdi; and, finally, Gordon's own retreat was cut off. Gordon had to be relieved. But for five fatal months Gladstone's Government procrastinated. Finally Lord Wolseley was sent; an advance guard was hurried forward, only to learn, when within sight of Khartoum, that General Gordon, after an heroic defence of three hundred and seventeen days, had been killed, and that the town had fallen two days previously (January, 1885). Relief had arrived too late. The shame and grief of Great Britain at the failure to save General Gordon may be imagined. But nothing could now be done. The fall of Khartoum meant the complete evacuation of the Soudan south of Wady Haifa, and the greater part of the garrisons fell into the hands of the Mahdi. Meantime in Egypt itself, " the land of paradox", a strange situation developed. Arabi's movement had been quelled by British forces—but what was then to happen? Great Britain could not annex the country or establish a formal protectorate without violating pledges which she had given to European powers. On the other hand, she could not abandon it; the khedive could not stand alone, and it was clear that, in order not only to reform the country but to save it from anarchy, some power must interfere. To call in the Turk would have made things worse, whilst to ask for the intervention of other European powers would only have increased complications. The upshot was that Great Britain decided upon a provisional occupation, which was to last until Egypt should be able to look after herself—and that occupation, which some optimists hoped would last only for a few months, has, to the infinite benefit of the country, lasted till this day. The Sultan of Turkey still possessed, in name, the sovereign power. He received an annual tribute, and he limited the numbers of the Egyptian army; the Turkish flag was the Egyptian flag, and the Egyptians themselves were the sultan's subjects. The khedive, Tewfik Pasha, and his ministers, in theory, were responsible for the government and carried on the administration of the country. But the real security for the peace of Egypt has been the British army, the real security for its financial stability has been the British treasury, and the real ruler of the country has been the British consul-general, Lord Cromer (Lord Cromer retired in 1907, and was succeeded by Sir Eldon Gorst, and on the latter's death in 1911 Lord Kitchener was appointed). Under the guidance of Lord Cromer, " the creator of modern Egypt, " British " advisers" to the Egyptian ministers have reorganized the finance and the system of justice and education. Three of the greatest evils of Egypt, the three C's as they have been called, were dealt with. The courbash, a strip of hippopotamus hide with a tapering end, once used with hideous frequency on the wretched Egyptians, was forbidden; the corvee, or forced labour, was stopped; and the British officials, by their own splendid example, and by using every check in their power, did a great deal to lessen the awful corruption—the wholesale bribery and sale of concessions—that used to prevail amongst native officials. Moreover, British engineers have regulated the waters of the Nile, upon which the prosperity of Egypt depends. New systems of irrigation have brought land into cultivation that was desert before, and increased doubly and trebly the productiveness of previously cultivated land, whilst the building of the great dam at Assouan (completed in 1902) has doubled the available supply of Nile water. Yet it was natural, perhaps, that other European nations should look with some suspicion upon British motives in retaining Egypt; and the attitude of France especially was persistently hostile. As a consequence, great difficulties were experienced by Lord Cromer in dealing with Egyptian finance, which was still subjected, to some extent, to international control; but the entente cordiale with France, soon after the accession of Edward VII, led to an agreement by which France recognized the British position in Egypt, and allowed Great Britain to fix her own time for the end of its occupation, whilst Great Britain in return recognized France's position in Morocco. The British occupation gave British officers the chance to create an efficient Egyptian army, and in 1896 that army was strong enough to undertake, with the aid of British forces, the reconquest of the Soudan. Parts of the outside region of that country had already been acquired by other powers, by France and Italy, by Great Britain and Abyssinia, but the great mass of it was still, in 1896, under the cruel rule of the Khalifa, who had succeeded the Mahdi. General (afterwards Lord) Kitchener worked out the details of the campaigns in masterly fashion. In 1898 the main body of the Dervish forces, who fought with heroic bravery ("Our men were perfect, " wrote an English correspondent, "but the Dervishes were superb—beyond perfection. Their riflemen, mangled by every form of death and torment that man can devise, clung round the black flag and the green, emptying their poor, rotten, home made cartridges dauntlessly. Their spear men charged death at every moment hopelessly."), was finally destroyed at the battle of Omdurman, a battle which led to the capture of Khartoum, and the end of the Dervish rule. The fact that the population of the Soudan had sunk from eight millions to four and a half millions showed how merciless that rule had been. The Soudan was put under the joint control of Egypt and Great Britain in 1899, and since then has made steady progress. |
Chronology |
| make up games | copyright by www.uuo-ununoctium.info |