Lesson 8: Modern Egypt — from the 1919 Revolution to the October 1973 Victory and the New Republic

• The British Protectorate over Egypt: Britain's declaration in December 1914 ending the nominal Ottoman suzerainty over Egypt and imposing full colonial control during the First World War.
• The great popular revolution of 1919: a comprehensive national revolution that broke out after the exile of Saad Zaghloul and his companions to Malta, in which every section of the Egyptian people took part — Muslims and Christians, workers and peasants, and women for the first time — embodying the highest form of national unity.
• The Free Officers Organisation: a secret national organisation inside the Egyptian army, founded by the leader (Bashmuqadam) Gamal Abdel Nasser, to free Egypt from the British occupation, from political corruption and from monarchy, and to establish a sound constitutional national rule.
• The Bar Lev Line: a chain of forts, bunkers, engineering fortifications and an immense sand rampart built by the Israeli occupation on the eastern bank of the Suez Canal, 170 km long, and claimed to be unbreakable except by an atomic bomb.
• The victory of 6 October 1973 (the War of the Tenth of Ramadan): the historic military epic fought by the Egyptian and Syrian armies in joint coordination, which succeeded in storming the Canal, destroying the Bar Lev line, toppling Israel's security theory and liberating the blessed land of Sinai.

• The national-unity equation of 1919: liberation strength = the union of crescent and cross + effective participation of women in demonstrations and public work + the general strike of employees and workers and the cutting of communications.
• The six principles of the revolution of 23 July 1952:
  • 1 — eliminate colonialism and its agents;
  • 2 — eliminate feudalism;
  • 3 — eliminate monopoly and the domination of capital;
  • 4 — establish a strong national army;
  • 5 — establish social justice;
  • 6 — establish a sound democratic life.
• The tactical equation of the rampart assault: hydraulic water pressure = the idea of Brigadier Baqir Zaki Yousef, using powerful turbine water pumps to wash away 3 million m³ of sand from the rampart in 6 hours, opening 60 gaps for tanks and heavy weapons.

Mustafa Kamil

• Egypt passed under British military occupation in 1882 after the defeat of the Urabi revolution.
• The young leader Mustafa Kamil took up the national cause at the end of the nineteenth century, using the weapon of the word and of the press.
• He founded the newspaper al-Liwa in 1900, travelled the capitals of Europe — especially France — to expose the crimes of the occupation.
• He exploited the horrific Denshaway incident of 1906 to bring about the removal of Lord Cromer, the first and most powerful British Agent in Egypt.

Mohamed Farid

• Mohamed Farid then led the National Party under extremely harsh conditions, widening the circle of struggle by founding workers' unions and people's night schools to teach the poor free of charge.
• He succeeded in forcing the government to refuse the renewal of the Suez Canal concession for another forty years, thanks to the popular campaign he led and to the assassination of Boutros Ghali.

• After the end of the World War in 1918, an Egyptian deputation led by Saad Zaghloul, Ali Shaarawi and Abdel Aziz Fahmi went to the British Agent Sir Reginald Wingate demanding: an end to the Protectorate, abolition of martial law and press censorship, and permission to travel to the Peace Conference in Paris to present Egypt's cause of independence.
• The Agent rejected their status on the ground that they did not represent the nation, so the great popular petition movement arose to delegate "the Egyptian Delegation (the Wafd)".
• The occupation authorities exiled Saad Zaghloul and his companions to Malta on 8 March 1919, and the greatest popular revolution broke out.
• Townspeople clashed with the occupying troops; Muslims and Christians united — priests stood on the pulpit of al-Azhar and sheikhs stood at the altars of the churches; and Egyptian women came out in demonstration for the first time.
• Britain was forced to release Zaghloul, to issue the Declaration of 28 February 1922 recognising Egypt as an independent sovereign state and ending the Protectorate, and to allow the Constitution of 1923.

• Egypt witnessed a chain of crises: the corruption of the royal regime, the involvement of parties in conflicts, the loss of the Palestine war of 1948 caused by corrupt weapons and bad management, the continuing British occupation of the Suez Canal, and the Cairo Fire of January 1952.
• So the Free Officers Organisation led the glorious revolution on the morning of 23 July 1952 to rescue the homeland.

Political sphere

• Abolition of the monarchy and proclamation of the republic in 1953.
• Signing the Evacuation Agreement of 1954; the last British soldier left after 74 years of occupation.
• Nationalisation of the Suez Canal Company — an Egyptian joint-stock company — on 26 July 1956.

Economic sphere

• Building the High Dam at Aswan to protect Egypt from flood and drought and to generate electricity.
• Nationalisation of banks and companies.
• Building the strongholds of heavy industry: the iron and steel works at Helwan, the Nag Hammadi aluminium complex and the Mahalla spinning industry.

Social sphere

• Issuing the agrarian reform laws, eliminating feudalism and distributing land to small peasants.
• Free education at every stage, including the universities.

Arab and international sphere

• Supporting national liberation movements in Algeria, Yemen, Iraq, Palestine and Africa.
• Founding the Non-Aligned Movement at the Bandung Conference of 1955.

• After the setback of 5 June 1967 and the occupation of Sinai, the Egyptian army fought through the War of Attrition and the great phase of steadfastness:
  • building the anti-aircraft missile wall;
  • the destruction of the Israeli destroyer Eilat;
  • the battle of Ras El-Ish.

• At 2:05 in the afternoon of Saturday 6 October 1973 (the tenth of Ramadan) the concentrated air strike was launched by the Air Force, simultaneous with a vast artillery bombardment by more than 2000 guns along the whole Canal front.
• A hundred thousand Egyptian fighters crossed the Suez Canal in rubber boats chanting "Allahu Akbar".
• The sand rampart was dredged away by water pumps, the heavy bridges were installed within record hours, the forts of the Bar Lev line were destroyed and the Egyptian flag rose flying on the eastern bank of the Canal.
• This clear victory shattered the myth of the "invincible Israeli army", toppled Israel's security theory, and led Egypt to recover the whole land of Sinai — first by military victory, then by comprehensive political negotiation, and finally by international arbitration at Taba.

• Military and engineering analysis — the engineering genius that defeated the sand rampart.
  • Data: a sand rampart 20–22 m high, with a slope of 45° and enormous thickness along the eastern bank, fitted with incendiary napalm pipes to cover the surface of the Canal with fire.
  • Required: analyse how the Egyptian military minds overcame this obstacle without heavy losses.
  • Answer: they rejected the conventional scaling or blasting of the rampart and used hydraulic pressure — turbine water pumps drawing Canal water to wash the sand face backward, breaching it into 60 gaps in about six hours, while infantry with rope ladders and anti-tank weapons pinned the forts and the missile wall denied the enemy his air force. The solution turned the rampart's own material against it, at minimal cost.
• Give a reason: 1919 is called the first national revolution. — Because for the first time the demand was complete independence from every foreign state, and the participants formed one nation of Egyptians only, without religious division, with the participation of women, workers and peasants.
• Link the six principles to the achievements: eliminating colonialism → the Evacuation Agreement of 1954; eliminating feudalism → agrarian reform; eliminating monopoly → nationalisation of banks and companies; a strong national army → the arms build-up that produced the 1973 victory; social justice → free education; sound democracy → the constitutional life sought after the abolition of the monarchy.
• Chronology drill: 1882 occupation → 1900 al-Liwa → 1906 Denshaway → 1914 Protectorate → 1919 revolution → 1922 Declaration → 1923 constitution → 1936 treaty → 1948 Palestine war → January 1952 Cairo Fire → 23 July 1952 → 1953 republic → 1954 evacuation → 1955 Bandung → 26 July 1956 nationalisation → 5 June 1967 → 6 October 1973 → 1979 treaty → 1989 Taba.

• The hydraulic pump solution is taught in engineering as an example of using a local resource — the Canal's own water — to defeat an obstacle, the same logic behind Egypt's modern dredging and land-reclamation works.
• National unity as practised in 1919 is the reference point for civic co-existence in Egypt today.
• The 1952 principle of eliminating monopoly and the domination of capital anticipates present debates on competition and consumer protection.