Isma'il's era: the end of a transitional period

03Isma'il's era: the end of a transitional period

• His era counts as the end of a transitional period that had lasted since the shrinking of Muhammad Ali's influence through the London Settlement (1840) and the firman of 1841.
• The development projects carried out within the monopoly framework stopped, and the country's markets were opened to foreign production, especially British, in application of the Balta Liman agreement.
• European capital began to enter the various fields of investment — which explains the stopping or stagnation of the Egyptian society's own development.
• Isma'il entered a series of development and expansion projects that recalled to Europe's minds the era of Muhammad Ali, in that Egypt's power became visible again.
• He worked to extend Egypt's influence in the south and the south-east along the Red Sea coast.
• This expansion put him in inevitable confrontation with Abyssinia, which he had encircled by his expansions by 1875; it ended in defeat, with a loss of three million pounds at a time when the treasury was suffering the pressures of debt.