Lesson 23: The National Movement under the Occupation — from Torpor to Mustafa Kamil and Mohamed Farid

01The torpor phase (1882–1892)

• For ten years the national spirit lay dormant because of:
  • Egypt's fall under British occupation, the exile of some Urabi leaders and the arrest of others — the real power passing to the British Agent;
  • the beginning of the policy of subordinating the administration to English elements in every department — army, police, finance, public works and justice (al-haqqaniyya). This met no objection in the first years of Tawfiq's rule, especially since it was the English who had protected him from the Urabi Revolution;
  • the scattering of the prominent figures, who put off the garb of resistance: some took up government posts, others turned to private work in law, agriculture and trade — and some even became makers for the English.
• Even so, resistance did not vanish entirely. Its manifestations were:
  • the secret society "The League of Vengeance" (Jam'iyat al-Intiqam), aiming to free the country by assassinating Englishmen — its members were destroyed within a short time (June 1883);
  • the founding of the newspaper "Al-Urwa al-Uthqa" (The Surest Bond) by Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and Sheikh Muhammad Abduh to attack the occupation;
  • the founding of the newspaper "Al-Mu'ayyad" (1889) within the framework of the Islamic League (al-jami'a al-Islamiyya).

02Abbas Hilmi II and the British Agent

• Abbas Hilmi II acceded in January 1892 after his father's death, and looked to exercising his powers fully, away from the British Agent's control — which landed him in crisis after crisis with the British authorities.
• The most prominent crisis was the dismissal of Mustafa Fahmi from the premiership — he was known for complete subservience to the English — and the appointment of Husain Fakhri without consulting the British Agent (January 1893).
• Cromer objected and telegraphed London, so the Khedive was forced to conciliate: the solution was to prompt Husain Fakhri to resign and entrust the premiership to Riad Pasha.
• The Khedive learned the lesson and did not contemplate a confrontation with Cromer again until Cromer left the country (1907).
• After Cromer's departure and Gorst's appointment, Abbas retreated from his hard positions towards accord with the English — at the expense of the national movement.

03The plurality of authorities in Egypt

• While the real power lay with the English, the Ottoman sultan shared with the Khedive the nominal legal authority, embodied in the firmans of appointment.
• An international presence of certain administrations impaired the state's sovereignty: the Debt Fund, the railway and telegraph administrations, the Daira Sanuya, the Domain and the port of Alexandria, besides the foreign Capitulations and the Mixed Courts.
• The Khedive strengthened his ties with the sultan, to lean on him if a confrontation with British control became necessary, and so that the Ottoman State should not agree with England against him.
• On the other hand he drew closer to the people: he released some prisoners of the Urabi revolution, appointed some of them to posts outside the army, restored their decorations, and pardoned Abdullah Nadim, the orator of the revolution, allowing him to work openly after long concealment and flight.
• Abbas' early stands encouraged the spirit of resistance, so the Council of the Making of Laws began to concern itself with political matters, demanding discussion of the budget, a new tax system, a solution to the problem of real-property debts and a stop to appointing foreigners to senior posts.

04The cultural and intellectual climate

• Although the national movement was stalled politically, the cultural and intellectual climate helped the national spirit to grow:

The salons and the press

• The press of opinion spread, filled with articles and studies.
• The mission policy begun under Isma'il began to bear fruit: the returnees imposed their presence on the intellectual and cultural scene, influenced by freedom of opinion in constitutional parliamentary life.
• They found their way into the intellectual salons and literary forums that spread in Egypt.
• Salons of the last quarter of the nineteenth century: the salon of Latif Selim Pasha (1883), which carried Urabist ideas; the Afghani forum; the salon of Sayed al-Bakri; the salon of Ahmed Teymur Pasha for literature, culture and art; and the salons of famous women such as Aisha al-Taymuriya and Nazli Hanem Fadel.

05Mustafa Kamil in the struggle against the occupation

• The climate suited a revival of the national movement under Mustafa Kamil's leadership, so he coordinated his ideas with Khedive Abbas and reached an understanding with him, so that no contradiction should arise between them as had happened between Urabi and Khedive Tawfiq.
• He coordinated his movement with the Ottoman sultan and wove relations with the French, headed by the political writer Madame Juliette Adam.
• He travelled repeatedly to France and other European countries, writing in their newspapers and speaking at public meetings to demand the evacuation of the English from Egypt.

06The Fashoda affair (1898)

Its background

• Its essence: England, France and Italy divided the areas of southern Sudan and east Africa after the Egyptian army's withdrawal from the Sudan (1884) in the wake of the Mahdist revolt.
• Within the colonial race for Africa the powers occupied African areas:
  • England: Uganda and the southern part of Egypt's Equatoria province;
  • Italy: Eritrea and part of Somalia;
  • France: Tajoura and Djibouti.
• France objected to the penetration of the English colonial tide into the heart of Africa, so it sent an expedition to occupy Fashoda, high on the White Nile near its junction with the Sobat River, arriving in July 1898.
• England protested on Egypt's behalf, treating Fashoda as Egyptian land, and sent a military expedition that arrived in September 1898.
• Matters stopped at an unarmed confrontation: the French forces withdrew after diplomatic contacts (December 1898).

Its results for Khedive Abbas

• The Khedive and the nationalists had believed France occupied Fashoda to reopen the Egyptian question and force England to discuss evacuation; when France gave way, despair spread, and Abbas was the first to give in, settling for conciliation.
• First manifestation of conciliation: signing the Condominium agreement on the Sudan between Egypt and England (January 1899), whose first article fixed latitude 22° north as the line separating Egypt from the Sudan — Sudan to the south, Egypt to the north. England had arranged it so as to face France and others directly in its own name, as Egypt's partner in governing the Sudan.
• Second manifestation: his visit to London in 1900.
• The conciliation ended in a policy of accord between Abbas and Gorst, the British Agent who succeeded Cromer (1907–1911).

Its results for Mustafa Kamil

• He realised the impossibility of relying on Khedive Abbas to oppose the English, and did not despair — his famous saying being "There is no despair while there is life, and no life while there is despair".
• He intensified activity to awaken consciousness, nurture national feeling and make people aware of the occupation's danger and the crime of cooperating with it.
• He founded the newspaper "Al-Liwa" (The Standard) in 1900 to voice evacuation, and called for establishing a constitution.
• He relied more on the Ottoman State to face the English within the Islamic League movement, and issued a weekly paper called "The Islamic World" (1905).
• Through his skill as a lawyer he succeeded in alerting the public conscience to Egypt's right to independence and the evacuation of British forces — but the policy of international shared interests and the accord between the nominal authority (the Khedive) and the real authority (the English) eclipsed that conscience and shattered the awareness.

07The Anglo-French Entente Cordiale (1904) and its effect

• Fashoda was the prelude to a policy of accord between England and France in place of armed confrontation, and of alliance together against the growing power of Germany. The King of England stood behind this policy, having visited Paris in 1903.
• The negotiations ended with the Entente Cordiale in April 1904, within the alignment of England and France against the alliance of Germany, Austria and Italy.
• France sought to extend its control over Morocco (Marrakesh) after occupying Algeria (1830) and Tunisia (1881); England opposed the extension of French influence there, just as France opposed England's stay in Egypt.
• The Entente declared England's intention not to change Egypt's political status — in effect, England freed France's hand in Morocco in return for France freeing England's hand in Egypt.
• Assured of the absence of international opposition, the occupation authorities sharpened their pressure on the nationalists, and Cromer attacked the Egyptians as unfit for self-government.

08The Denshaway incident (June 1906)

• At the village of Denshaway English officers went out on a pigeon-shooting party. A peasant warned them not to fire lest the threshing floor of wheat catch fire, for it was harvest time, but the officers disregarded him and insisted on shooting.
• The shots missed the pigeons and killed a woman; the villagers rose and chased the officers, and one of them died of a sunstroke.
• The British administration avenged itself most harshly: 52 defendants were sent to trial and seven more tried in absence. The sham trial ended with four hanged, twelve sentenced to hard labour for varying terms and five flogged.
• Mustafa Kamil exploited the incident to denounce the occupation in Egypt and in Europe.
• The British government realised its administration's position in Egypt had become difficult, and so recalled Cromer (April 1907) to calm the situation — but this only strengthened the national movement.
• Mustafa Kamil saw the need to organise efforts, so he created the Club of the Higher Schools (Nadi Madaris al-Uli) and the National Party (Hizb al-Watan) in December 1907, and issued English and French editions of Al-Liwa for the European reader.

09Gorst and Mohamed Farid

Gorst's policy

• Gorst came as Cromer's successor (1907–1911), and his policy differed: easing surveillance of the Khedive's conduct, widening the powers of the Council of Ministers, giving Egyptians some freedom in managing their affairs, gradually Egyptianising the administration, and halting the policy of Anglicisation.
• At the same time the distance between the nationalists and the Khedive grew, and hostility became open.

Mohamed Farid

• Mustafa Kamil died in February 1908, and Mohamed Farid succeeded him at the head of the National Party.
• He worked to widen the party's circle so that membership was not confined to the urban intelligentsia, and worked to bring the labour unions into it.
• He contributed to forming the Union of Manual Trades Workers (1909) and worked to educate the common people through night schools.
• After Gorst's death (1911) the policy returned to the iron fist, absolute rule, Anglicisation and the pursuit of nationalists.
• He wrote the preface to a collection of poems titled "My Nationalism" (Wataniyyati) and was sentenced to six months' imprisonment; the authorities dogged him until they decided to arrest him at the beginning of 1912, so he chose to leave Egypt of his own accord (March 1912) and continue his struggle in European arenas, until he died in 1919 in Germany.

10The other political parties

• The National Party was not alone in the arena of struggle — though it was the loudest and the clearest in position. Other parties arose, some in the lap of the occupation and some in the lap of the Khedivial authority.
• 1907 is counted as the year of the birth of political parties in Egypt.
• They were:
  • The Party of Reform on Constitutional Principles (founded by Sheikh Ali Youssef): supported the Khedive;
  • The Liberal Party (Hizb al-Ahrar) (Muhammad Wahid Pasha): born in the lap of the occupation;
  • The Constitutional Party (Idris Raghib Pasha): supported both the nominal and the real authority;
  • The Party of Nobles (Hizb al-Nubala') (Hassan Hilmi Zada): voiced the return of supremacy to the Turkish–Circassian element;
  • The Egyptian Party (Louis Achnakh);
  • The Umma Party (Lutfi al-Sayyid): expressed the interests of the large landowners, and championed the slogan "Egypt for the Egyptians";
  • The Republican Party (Mohamed Ganem).

11Exam traps and key takeaways

• The torpor years are 1882–1892, and the reason list must include the point that the English protected Tawfiq from the Urabi Revolution — which explains the absence of objection.
• Resistance outlets to separate: League of Vengeance (crushed June 1883) = assassination; al-Urwa al-Uthqa = al-Afghani + Muhammad Abduh; al-Mu'ayyad (1889) = Islamic League.
• The 1893 crisis is about appointment without consulting the Agent; the settlement = Fakhri resigns, Riad replaces. Abbas never confronted Cromer again before 1907.
• Plurality of authorities: real = England · nominal legal = Khedive + sultan's firman · international bodies (Debt Fund, railways/telegraph, Daira, Domain, Alexandria port, Capitulations, Mixed Courts).
• Abbas' popular overtures include the pardon of Abdullah Nadim — the standard "who was pardoned" question.
• Salon of Latif Selim Pasha (1883) carried Urabist ideas; the women's salons (Aisha al-Taymuriya, Nazli Hanem Fadel) are part of the answer, not extra.
• Kamil's key tactical insight: avoid the Urabi–Tawfiq contradiction with Abbas — and later he abandoned reliance on the Khedive after Fashoda.
• Fashoda dates: French arrival July 1898, British expedition September, French withdrawal December 1898 — and it was settled without armed conflict.
• The Condominium (January 1899) set the frontier at latitude 22° N; England's purpose was to confront other powers in its own name.
• Entente Cordiale April 1904 = Morocco for France against Egypt for England; the immediate effect inside Egypt was tighter repression and Cromer's "unfit for self-government" taunt.
• Denshaway: the warning was about the threshing floor, the death was a woman, and one officer died of sunstroke; sentences = 4 hanged · 12 hard labour · 5 flogged · 52 tried + 7 in absence. Result: Cromer recalled April 1907, party and club founded December 1907.
• Gorst's five liberal measures vs the post-1911 return of the iron fist; Mohamed Farid's distinguishing mark is workers' unions and night schools, and his death 1919 in Germany after leaving voluntarily March 1912.
• Party-alignment table is a common matching item: Reform→Khedive · Liberals→occupation · Constitutional→both · Nobles→Turco-Circassians · Umma→landowners + "Egypt for the Egyptians" · Republican→Mohamed Ganem · Egyptian→Louis Achnakh.