Egypt's importance to the British rose phenomenally after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. The sailing times from London to Bombay were dramatically cut and British maps and ideas of the world had to be drastically altered. During the first 13 years of the Canal’s operation, the freight that travelled through the canal each year increased from just under a 0.5 million to more than 5 million tons, more than 80% of it travelling in British ships.
By 1869, the Egyptian economy had benefited from years of investment (much of it British and French) in irrigation, railway and cotton plantations. By 1876, however, its ruler the Khedive Ismail Pasha had run up debts of almost £100 million. At this point the then British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli bought the Khedive's shares in the Suez Canal Company for £4 million. In doing so, the British government went from being a minority shareholder to a controlling shareholder in the Company and so its influence grew significantly.
The Egyptian economy was still in doldrums and the economic crisis led to heightened French and British intervention in Egypt. The Khedive was compelled to accept Anglo-French control of his treasury, customs, railways and ports. Enraged by the erosion of Egyptian sovereignty Egyptian nationalists spread fear of invasion throughout the country to bolster Islamic and Arabian revolutionary action. During this time a nationalist movement in the Egyptian Army led by Colonel Ahmed Urabi began gaining momentum. By September 1881, Urabi and his followers were powerful enough to force the new Khedive, Mohammed Tawfiq Pasha, out of power and replace his government with one more favourable to the nationalist movement.
The British and the French were alarmed by the...
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...ng the monarchy and appointed Muhammad Naguib as the first president and prime minister of the Egyptian Republic. Gamal Abdel Nasser was appointed deputy premier and minister of the interior. Nasser evolved into a charismatic leader, not only of Egypt but of the Arab World, promoting and implementing "Arab socialism."
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At the beginning of the Suez Canal crisis many individuals felt hostility towards each other and the main concern was the ownership of the Suez Canal and to who exactly would gain the authority to run it on their own accord. In 1954 Gamal Abdul Nasser came to power in Egypt, he was once formally known as an Egyptian army officer, before becoming a politician. After the attack of the Israelis in Gaza, Egypt to protect Israel from hostility the Egyptians had been putting forward against them; many Egyptians felt hatred for the Egyptian king, this led to a democratic system being built and that was how Nasser came to power in a democratic society in which he was able to play on the hearts of Arab Nationalism. When the cold war began to surface Britain asked Egypt to join an anti-soviet alliance with them in times of need, for Egyptian Suez Canal was in the authority of Britain making Egypt an ally of the United Kingdom. Nasser refused saying t...
Any study on Modern Egyptian history naturally begins with Nasser, Egypt’s first President after the Free Officers revolution in 1952. Nasser was the foremost proponent of pan-Arabism, an ideology that called for close ties between the Arab states, presumably under the leadership of Egypt, one of the most powerful states in the Middle East at the time. Compared to other states in the Arab World, Nasser’s Egypt was stable, militarily powerful, and independent of foreign influence. From this position of re...
In Egypt, the Nile River overflowed its banks annually, creating fertile, mineral-rich soil. The yearly rise of the Nile in Egypt was gentle and predictable. The Egyptian’s found security in the Nile’s 365-day cycle of inundation and Egypt’s perimeter of sea and desert
Egypt has one of the longest histories of any nation in the world. Written history of Egypt dates back to about 5,000 years, the commencement of civilization. While there is divergence in relation to Early Egyptian times, it is said that Egypt came to be around 3200 B.C., during the reign of a king by the name of Menes and unified the northern and southern cities of Egypt into one government. In 1675 B.C., Egypt was invaded by the Hyksos, people from the east, bringing along the very first of chariots and horses ever to come across Egyptian soil. Approximately 175 years later in 1500 B.C., the Egyptians had gotten rid of the Hyksos and driven them out. In 1375 B.C., Amenhotep IV had become the king of Egypt. During his reign he eliminated the worship of Egyptian gods and initiated the idea of only worshipping one god. But after his death, his ideas were retired and old ways were reestablished. Egyptian supremacy then started to decline around 1000 B.C. Between 1000 B.C. and 332 B.C., Egypt was ruled by many such as the Libyans, Assyrians, Ethiopians, and Persians. In 640, Muslims conquered Egypt and founded the city of Cairo in 969 and deemed it as the capital of Egypt. For many centuries Egypt was ruled by Muslim caliphs. A prominent ruler of this period was Saladin, who battled the Christian Crusaders at the conclusion of the twelfth century. In 1798 Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Egypt but was then forced to withdraw in 1801 Turkish and British armed forces. In 1805 Mohamed Ali began ruling Egypt till 1848 and great changed the country in terms of modernization and its military. During Mohamed’s conquest, he borrowed a lot of money from the French and British, which later resulted in Egypt’s coloniza...
Egyptian exports thrived on the back of cotton, which Ali attempted to consolidate into a government monopoly. Egypt’s focus on cotton production made it an export-heavy territory that was dependent upon European manufacturing imports from the West. In order to facilitate its exports, a robust transportation system was necessary. Egypt developed a railway from Cairo to Alexandria as well as ports along the Mediterranean coast because of its dependence upon the European market.
Officers staged a maneuver to overthrow King Faruk. Nasser at this point remained in the
Political conditions at that time had begun to influence Egyptian religion as well. During the prosperous reigns of Thotmes III (1490-1436 B.C.) and Amenhotep II (1436-1412 B.C.), Egypt had expanded its frontiers in all directions and the nation was becoming increasingly difficult to govern. Egypt was the richest state in the world and Pharaoh represented the supreme power behind Egyptian prosperity. Annexed territories that belonged to Nubia and Syria were fully engaged in trade with the empire and the idea of a supreme and unique ruler was in perfect agreement with the idea of a supreme and unique god. In fact, the so-called revolution of Akhenaten is now thought to have been a political rather than a religious movement, a reaction to events outside Egypt.
Although the people living in Egypt had houses, pets, crops, and jewelry nothing was theirs, the government or the pharaoh owned everything. I think that it seems unfair to the people that they couldn’t even own one measly thing. Being the pharaoh and a descendant of the god the pharaoh owned everything and practically owned all of ancient Egypt. Pharaoh...
First of all, imperialism was not something the Egyptians wanted. They witnessed the decline of the Ottoman Empire, and that acted as a wakeup call. They can either keep up with the modernization of the world around them, or be overwhelmed and lost among it (Modern World History, 354). They decided to make new reforms as an attempt towards modernization. One of these attempts was the Suez Canal. It was a waterway that connected the Nile River, Mediterranean Sea, and the Red Sea. The labor costed over 100 million dollars, and it opened in 1869 (Rosenberg). The Suez Canal, along with other reforms, put Egypt in a rough economic state. The British wanted control over the canal because it was the main route to India and its other colonies. Because of the huge debt, Egypt was forced to hand the canal over to Britain. Later, in 1882, Britain gained control to Egypt itself (Modern World History, 355). Thus, Egypt was under new rule and became one of Britain’s many colonies. To sum up, Egypt created many reforms ...
The Egyptian military coup engineered by General Al-Sisi on July 3, 2013 presented a dilemma to the United States government on whether it should continue supporting the regime or cut ties with Egypt. The country has been a long-term ally of the US and one of the biggest recipients of US military and economic aid. However, after the coup by General Al-Sisi, the military regime has often violated fundamental human rights and freedoms especially for the citizens considered sympathetic for the previous regime of President Mohammed Morsi. Despite the widespread human rights violation, the US government as well as the Congress has continued to support the military regime through extending aid to the country. The rationale behind continued support to the Egyptian government is to promote US interests as outlined in its foreign policy agenda. This discussion explores the issues surrounding the military coup by General Al-Sisi and highlights why the US government have continued to support the Egyptian military despite allegations of widespread human rights violations.
...rading was a very special need in ancient Egypt. The Nile was the source of transportation for the people and trading from different countries. “Permission to trade on a significant scale in Egypt and certainly abroad came from the administration” (“Egyptian Social Structure”, 2013).
This problem all started in 1882 when the British forced Napoleon Bonaparte, the leader of the French Army, out of Africa. Instead of leaving the land of Egypt to its rightful owners, the Egyptians, Britain decided to colonize Egypt and control them through a protectorate. The protectorate allowed the British government to control Egypt's economic and political decisions without intervention from the Egyptians. In other words, The Egyptians had completely lost control of their own country. Well, some of you might ask, "Why would Britain want to keep Egypt?" The response to this is more simple than you might think. Was it the fact that Egypt was such a weak country at the time? Or was it that Egypt was just waiting to be colonized? No, it was greed, pure British greed, that caused the corruption of Egypt's balanced culture.
Metz, H. C. (1990). Egypt: A Country Study. (Washington: GPO for the Library of Congress, Ed.) Retrieved from Country Studies: http://countrystudies.us/egypt/15.htm