The real causes of foreign intervention

01The real causes of foreign intervention

• The political crisis with the European powers began because of the debts the Egyptian government had borrowed to spend on development projects, on obtaining the sultanic firmans needed for a measure of self-rule from the Ottoman State, on the Suez Canal project and the ceremony of its opening, and on introducing other manifestations of civilisation.
• But debts were not the real cause of the intervention of England and the others, for that had begun at the end of Said's rule (1862).
• The main causes were:
  • Egypt's expansion to the south, which threatened European influence in east Africa — evident from Isma'il's campaign on Abyssinia (1875);
  • the Suez Canal.
• Confirming this, 1875 is the very year in which European intervention began, under the pretext of finding a way to repay the debts.