Francis L. Griffith, Reginald Poole, David Margoliouth, Frank Richardson Cana, Edward Poole, Stanley Lane-Poole, Donald Wallace, George Clarke and Robert Vetch

“ After some thirty years of settled rule uninterrupted by revolt, Egypt was now strong and rich enough to indulge to the full its new taste for war and lust of conquest. It had become essentially a military state. The whole of the administration was in the hands of the king with his vizier and other court officials; no trace of the feudalism of the Middle Kingdom survived. Tethmosis thoroughly subdued Cush, which had already been placed under the government of a viceroy. ”

“ Towards the end of the long reign the vigilance and energy of the old king diminished. The military spirit awakened in the struggle with the Hyksos had again departed from the Egyptian nation; mercenaries from the Sudan, from Libya and from the northern nations supplied the armies, while foreigners settled in the rich lands of the Delta and harried the coasts. It was a time too when the movements of the nations that so frequently occurred in the ancient world were about to be particularly active. ”

“ The picture of Egypt under Mehemet Ali is nevertheless not complete without regard being had to the beneficent side of his rule. Public order was rendered perfect; the Nile and the highways were secure to all travellers, Christian or Moslem; the Bedouin tribes were won over to peaceful pursuits, and genuine efforts were made to promote education and the study of medicine. To European merchants, on whom he was dependent for the sale of his exports, Mehemet Ali showed much favour, and under his influence the port of Alexandria again rose into importance. ”

“ 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. ”

“ By this revolutionary method of land “nationalization” Mehemet Ali became proprietor of nearly all the soil of Egypt, an iniquitous measure against which the Egyptians had no remedy. The attempt which in this year (1815) the pasha made to reorganize his troops on European lines led, however, to a formidable mutiny in Cairo. Mehemet Ali’s life was endangered, and he sought refuge by night in the citadel, while the soldiery committed many acts of plunder. ”

“ In the same year Darfur and Harrar were annexed, and in 1877 Gordon became governor-general of the Sudan, where, with the valuable assistance of Gessi Pasha, he laboured to destroy the slave trade and to establish just government. In August 1879 he returned to Cairo, and was succeeded by Raouf Pasha. Misrule and oppression in every form now again prevailed throughout the Sudan, while the slave traders, exasperated by Gordon’s stern measures, were ready to revolt. The authority of Egypt was represented by scattered garrisons of armed men, badly officered, undisciplined and largely demoralized. ”

“ Heracleopolis seems henceforth for several centuries to have been capital of Middle Egypt, which was considered as a more or less distinct province. Sheshonk secured Thebes, making one of his sons high priest of Ammon, and whereas Solomon appears to have dealt with a king of Egypt on something like an equal footing, Sheshonk re-established Egyptian rule in Palestine and Nubia, and his expedition in the fifth year of Rehoboam subdued Israel as well as Judah, to judge by the list of city names which he inscribed on the wall of the temple of Karnak. ”

“ Apparently most of the fighting was finished by the fifth year of his reign; in his mortuary temple at Thebes he set up a stela of that date recording a great victory over the Libyan immigrants and invaders, which rendered the much harried land of Egypt safe. The last lines picture this condition with the crushing of the surrounding tribes. Libya was wasted, the Hittites pacified, Canaan, Ashkelon (Ascalon) , Gezer, Yenoam sacked and plundered: “Israel is desolated, his seed is not, Khor (Palestine) has become a widow (without protector) for Egypt.” ”

“ A vivid picture of the condition to which Egypt was reduced is painted in the report drawn up in 1838 by the British consul-general, Colonel Campbell:—
“The government (he wrote) , possessing itself of the necessaries of life at prices fixed by itself, disposes of them at arbitrary prices. The fellah is thus deprived of his harvest and falls into arrears with his taxes, and is harassed and bastinadoed to force him to pay his debts. This leads to deterioration of agriculture and lessens the production. The pasha having imposed high taxes has caused the high prices of the necessaries of life. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Abu’l-Dhahab’s progress through Palestine and Syria was triumphant. Reinforced by ‘Alī Bey’s ally Ẓāhir, he easily took the chief cities, ending with Damascus; but at this point he appears to have entered into secret negotiations with the Porte, by which he undertook to restore Egypt to Ottoman suzerainty. He then proceeded to evacuate Syria, and marched with all the forces he could collect to Upper Egypt, occupying Assiut in April 1772. Having collected some additional troops from the Bedouins, he marched on Cairo. ”

“ Under Marcus Aurelius a revolt of the Bucolic or native troops recruited for home service was taken up by the whole of the native population and was suppressed only after several years of fighting. The Bucolic war caused infinite damage to the agriculture of the country and marks the beginning of its rapid decline under a burdensome taxation. The province of Africa was now of equal importance with Egypt for the grain supply of the capital. Avidius Cassius, who led the Roman forces in the war, usurped the purple, and was acknowledged by the armies of Syria and Egypt. ”

“ The growing prosperity of Egypt in the opening years of the 20th century was very marked, and is reflected in the annual reports on the country supplied to the British foreign office by Lord Cromer. Thus, in 1901 he was able to Egypt’s growing prosperity. declare that “the foundations on which the well-being and material prosperity of a civilized community should rest have been laid. . . . The institution of slavery is virtually defunct. The corvée has been practically abolished. Law and order everywhere reign supreme. The curbash is no longer employed as an instrument of government.” ”

“ The Ethiopian Dynasty. Ethiopian rule of the XXVth Dynasty was now firmly established, and the resources of the two countries together might have been employed in conquest in Syria and Phoenicia; but at this very time the Assyrian empire, risen to the highest pitch of military greatness, began to menace Egypt. The Ethiopian could do no more than encourage or support the Syrians in their fight for freedom against Sargon and Sennacherib. ”

“ It is doubtful whether we possess any writing of the prehistoric age. A few names of the kings of Lower Egypt are preserved in the first line of the Palermo stone, but no annals are attached to them. Petrie considers that one of the kings buried at Abydos, provisionally called Nar-mer and whose real name may be Mer or Beza, preceded Menes; of him there are several inscribed records, notably a magnificent carved and inscribed slate palette found at Hieraconpolis, with figures of the king and his vizier, war-standards and prisoners. ”

“ 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?” ”

“ At Karnak Hatshepsut laboured chiefly to complete the works projected in the reigns of Tethmosis I. and II., and set up two obelisks in front of the entrance as it then was. One of these, still standing, is the most brilliant ornament of that wonderful temple. A date of the twenty-second year of her reign has been found at Sinai, no doubt counted from the beginning of the co-regency with Tethmosis I. Not much later, in his twenty-second year, Tethmosis III. is reigning alone in full vigour. ”

“ It was not only the very existence of the Ottoman empire that seemed to be at stake, but Egypt itself had become more than ever an object of attention, to British statesmen especially, and in the issue of the struggle were involved the interests of Great Britain in the two routes to India by the Isthmus of Suez and the valley of the Euphrates. ”

“ Sir Frederick Stephenson, commanding the British army of occupation in Egypt, then concentrated the frontier field force at Firket, and attacked the main body of the enemy at Ginnis on the 30th of December 1885, completely defeating it and capturing two guns and twenty banners. It was here the new Egyptian army received its baptism of fire and acquitted itself very creditably. Although checked, the dervishes were not discouraged, and continued to press upon the frontier in frequent raids, and thus in many bloody skirmishes the fighting qualities of the Egyptian troops were developed. ”

“ Ethiopia may have been ruled with the Thebais, but the records of the time are very scanty. Syria was wholly lost to Egypt. The mummies from the despoiled tombs of the kings were the object of much anxious care to the kings of this dynasty; after being removed from one tomb to another, they were finally deposited in a shaft near the temple of Deir el Bahri, where they remained for nearly three thousand years, until the demand for antiquities at last brought the plunderer once more to their hiding-place; eventually they were all secured for the Cairo museum, where they may now be seen. ”

“ The nomarchs and the other feudal chiefs were inclined to strengthen themselves at the expense of their neighbours; a firm hand was required to hold them in check and distribute the honours as they were earned by faithful service. The tombs of the most favoured and wealthy princes are magnificent, particularly those of certain families in Middle Egypt at Beni Hasan, El Bersha, Assiūt and Deir Rīfa, and it is probable that each had a court and organization within his nome like that of the royal palace in miniature. ”

“ It was not until May 1889 that an invasion of the frontier on a large scale was attempted. At this time the power and prestige of the khalifa were at their height: the rebellions in Darfur and Kordofan had been stamped out, the anti-mahdi was dead, and even the dervish defeat by the Abyssinians had been converted by the death of King John and the capture of his body into a success. It was therefore an opportune time to try to sweep the Turks and the British into the sea. On the 22nd of June Nejumi was at Sarras with over 6000 fighting men and 8000 followers. ”

“ Finding they would not allow his troops to advance, forbidden himself to retreat with them to Alexandria, and being surrounded by the enemy, he would have hazarded a battle, but his men refused to fight. He therefore went to the camp of the beys, and his army was compelled to retire to Syria. In the hands of the beys Ali Pasha again attempted treachery. A horseman was seen to leave his tent one night at full gallop; he was the bearer of a letter to Osmān Bey Hasan, the governor of Kine. This offered a fair pretext to the Mamelukes to rid themselves of a man proved to be a perfidious tyrant. ”

“ The citizens of Cairo, accustomed to such occurrences, immediately closed their shops, and every man who possessed any weapon armed himself. The tumult continued all the day, and the next morning a body of troops sent out by the pasha failed to quell it. Tāhir, the commander of the Albanians, then repaired to the citadel, gained admittance through an embrasure, and, having obtained possession of it, began to cannonade the pasha over the roofs of the intervening houses, and then descended with guns to the Ezbekia and laid close siege to the palace. ”

“ Experience had evolved the working principle which was officially formulated at a much later period: “Our task is not to rule the Egyptians, but as far as possible to teach the Egyptians to rule themselves.... European initiative suggests measures to be executed by Egyptian agency, while European supervision controls the manner in which they are executed.” ”

“ In the reign of the second Egyptian Fāṭimite ‘Azīz billah, Jauhar, who appears to have been cashiered by Mo’izz, was again employed at the instance of Jacob b. Killis, who had been raised to the rank of vizier, to deal with the situation in Syria, where a Turkish general Aftakīn had gained possession of Damascus, and was raiding the whole country; on the arrival of Jauhar in Syria the Turks called the Carmathians to their aid, and after a campaign of many vicissitudes Jauhar had to return to Egypt to implore the caliph himself to take the field. ”

“ A change in the fortune of al-Bardīsī, however, favoured his plans for the future. That chief, in order to satisfy the demands of the Albanians for their pay, gave orders to levy heavy contributions from the citizens of Cairo; and this new oppression roused them to rebellion. The Albanians, alarmed for their safety, assured the populace that they would not allow the order to be executed; and Mehemet Ali himself caused a proclamation to be made to that effect. ”

“ The conversion to Islam of Nikudar Aḥmad, the third of the Ilkhan rulers of Persia, and the consequent troubles in the western Mongol empire, let to a suspension of hostilities between Egypt and the Ilkhans (see Persia: History, § B) , though the latter did not cease to agitate in Europe for a renewal of the Crusades, with little result. Kalā’ūn, without pursuing any career of active conquest, did much to consolidate his dominions, and especially to extend Egyptian commerce, for which purpose he started passports enabling merchants to travel with safety through Egypt and Syria as far as India. ”