Lesson 7: The Popular Revolution of 1919, Building National Identity and the Constitution

• Before 1914 Egypt was under Ottoman suzerainty and owed loyalty to the Sultan, being part of the Islamic world.
• Independence from Turkey was not a demand, because Egyptians felt it would shatter the unity of the Islamic world; they held to the idea of Pan-Islam.
• The national movement aimed to free Egypt from the British occupation (which began in September 1882) without separating from the Ottoman state.
• Mustafa Kamil and Mohamed Farid led the national movement in that sense.

Ending Ottoman suzerainty

• The Ottoman state entered the war against Britain, and Britain seized the chance to end Ottoman suzerainty over Egypt.
• It imposed the British Protectorate on Egypt in 1914.
• It deposed Khedive Abbas Hilmi, appointed Hussein Kamel and gave him the title of Sultan; he died in 1917 and his brother Ahmed Fuad succeeded him.

Wartime grievances

• Forced conscription of Egyptians to serve the British forces.
• Confiscation of peasants' cattle and grain at miserable prices.
• Seizure of cotton from large landowners at low prices.
• Rising prices of grain, textiles, fuel and transport without a matching rise in wages.
• Imposition of martial law and silencing of the press.
• Preventing the Legislative Assembly, which contained representatives of the people, from meeting.
• Egyptians felt they were living in one big prison.

Wilson's principles

• US President Wilson proclaimed the principle of the right of self-determination for every nation and the principle of forming the League of Nations to solve problems peacefully.
• This gave colonised peoples hope of liberation after the war.

The fall of the Ottoman state

• With the defeat of the Ottoman state Egyptians realised they were no longer bound by Ottoman suzerainty.
• The idea of Pan-Islam fell and the idea of the Egyptian nation (Egyptian nationalism) emerged.
• Egyptians felt they were one independent nation loyal to an Egyptian ruler.

The two aims of the national movement

• First: end the British occupation.
• Second: declare Egypt an independent sovereign state.
• Egyptians set their hope on the Peace Conference planned in Paris (June 1919).

Forming the Egyptian Delegation

• In November 1918, Saad Zaghloul, Abdel Aziz Fahmi and Ali Shaarawi met the British High Commissioner (Wingate).
• They asked permission to travel to England to put Egypt's cause of independence and the end of the Protectorate before the Peace Conference.
• The High Commissioner wondered how three men could speak for the whole Egyptian people — so Saad and his colleagues decided to form a body called "the Egyptian Delegation".
• It was agreed the Delegation should take petitions from the nation authorising it to represent it, and the masses hurried to sign them with enthusiasm.
• The Wafd became the backbone of the national movement as the agent of the nation.

Arrest and exile

• When Britain learned that the people were rallying around the Wafd, it arrested Saad Zaghloul and some members and exiled them to Malta in March 1919.
• Britain thought this would extinguish the movement; instead the arrest lit the fires of the revolution.

Spread and organisation

• Demonstrations broke out in Cairo, led by students, intellectuals (the Afandias) and workers; transport was paralysed and clashes occurred with the police.
• The revolution spread to the provincial towns and the villages: peasants cut railway, telephone and telegraph lines and attacked police stations.
• Communication between Cairo and the provinces was severed, and the rebels took control of power in some towns such as Zefta.
• Revolutionary committees were formed to organise the struggle against the British.

National unity

• Muslims and Copts took part from the beginning with the aim of full independence from Turkey and Britain.
• They adopted a flag bearing a crescent with a cross in its middle.
• Priests preached on the pulpits of mosques, even at al-Azhar, and Muslim sheikhs spoke before the altars of churches, even at the great Marqusia church.
• Egypt became the only Arab state whose people were not torn apart by religious partisanship.

The participation of women

• Egyptian women took part in a revolution for the first time; women's processions numbered more than three hundred in some cases.
• They joined men in erecting barricades in the streets to obstruct British troops.
• The most prominent participant was Safia Zaghloul.

Methods of resistance

• The Occupier answered with severe violence and reprisal campaigns in Lower and Upper Egypt: bombing towns and villages from aircraft and burning villages.
• When armed force had been suppressed, Egyptians turned to passive resistance: abstaining from work and boycotting British goods.
• Secret societies appeared: the Black Hand, the Free Egyptian, and Vengeance.

• It is the first national revolution in modern Egyptian history.
• It was the moment the Egyptian nation appeared united, made only of Egyptians, with no distinction between Muslims and Copts.
• It strives for complete independence from any foreign state.
• It marks the beginning of the modern civil state whose political system rests on Egyptian nationalism.
• It is the beginning of the era of pure national independence.

Modifying British policy

• Britain realised it faced a popular revolution with no precedent since the occupation of September 1882, one that force could not settle.
• It decided to:
  • release Saad Zaghloul and his companions and allow them to travel to Paris;
  • block the Wafd's road in Paris by obtaining recognition from the powers of the British Protectorate;
  • send the Milner mission to persuade Egyptians to accept the Protectorate.

The result of the Delegation's travel

• The Peace Conference recognised the Protectorate, but Saad did not despair: he stayed in Paris addressing the parliaments of Europe.
• He led the national movement inside Egypt through the Wafd's Central Committee, whose secretary-general was Abdel Rahman Fahmi.

Boycotting the Milner mission

• Saad instructed a boycott of the mission, because negotiating with it would mean the people relinquishing the Wafd's agency.
• Every class responded, even school pupils, and they demonstrated against the mission.

The negotiations

• Egypt's aim: end the Protectorate and have Britain recognise full independence, internal and external.
• They failed because Britain insisted on a nominal independence: Britain would protect foreign interests and minorities, and Egypt would be barred from independent relations with other states.
• Saad refused a treaty offering only shadow independence, so Britain arrested him in December 1921 and exiled him to the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean.

The Declaration

• On 28 February 1922 Britain declared: the Protectorate ends and Egypt becomes an independent sovereign state.
• But it reserved four conditions, keeping for itself the right to:
  • secure the communications of the British Empire in Egypt — to justify the presence of the occupying army;
  • the defence of Egypt — to justify preventing a strong Egyptian army;
  • the protection of foreign interests and minorities — to justify interference in internal affairs;
  • disposal of the Sudan.
• The people rejected it because it did not fulfil their hopes fully.

What the Declaration did grant

• The right to establish a constitution as the basis of government.
• The ruler's title was raised from Sultan to King: Sultan Fuad became King Fuad I from March 1922.

Conditions of its issue

• The most important change after the Declaration was the constitution and the start of the liberal era, whereas before, the ruler was the source of authorities.
• A committee was formed to draft the constitution and largely succeeded, but King Fuad intervened to seize powers for himself allowing him to control government — above all the right to dissolve parliament unconditionally and to dismiss a ministry however much it held the nation's confidence.
• The constitution was issued in April 1923 and contained contradictory texts: some making the nation the source of authorities, others suspending their effect.
• Article 23 declared that the nation is the source of authorities, yet in practice the King remained so through most of the liberal era until the revolution of 23 July 1952.

Liberal principles

• Freedom of opinion, press and belief — "Religion is for God and the homeland is for everyone".
• Freedom of assembly and of forming societies and parties, within the limits of law, morals and tradition.
• Equality among Egyptians before the law and in civil and political rights and duties.
• The sacredness of homes and of property; property is not expropriated except for public benefit and with compensation.
• Banning press censorship except to protect society from destructive ideas.

Separation of powers

• Legislative: a Parliament of elected representatives of the people.
• Executive: the King is irresponsible (not accountable), exercising it through his ministers; the ministry is accountable to Parliament, not to the King.
• Judicial: exercised by the judiciary.

The first popular ministry

• General elections were held after the constitution, and the Wafd under Saad Zaghloul won a landslide of about 90%.
• Saad Zaghloul formed the first popular constitutional ministry in the history of Egypt in January 1924.

Its achievements

• Freeing the economic life from foreign control.
• Separating the Egyptian currency from the British currency, and selling most government land to small farmers.
• Raising the budget of the Ministry of Education and drafting a law of compulsory education for boys and girls.
• Replacing foreign employees with Egyptians.
• Encouraging the national movement in the Sudan that seeks unity with Egypt and the liberation of the Nile valley.

The crisis of Saad's ministry

• The Saad–MacDonald negotiations — the first negotiations of the constitutional era — failed because Britain insisted on interfering in internal affairs, controlling Egypt's foreign policy and keeping its troops in the Canal zone.
• Sir Lee Stack, commander of the Egyptian army (the Sirdar), was assassinated; Britain delivered a harsh ultimatum: pay half a million pounds, withdraw the Egyptian army from the Sudan, and allow Britain to occupy the customs of Alexandria.
• Saad refused the ultimatum and his ministry resigned; the King tasked Ahmed Ziwar Pasha, who accepted the ultimatum's terms.

• King Fuad's clinging to dictatorship and his tampering with constitutional life — he dissolved the Chamber of Deputies on the day it convened after the Wafd's victory.
• The British threat of force and intervention to paralyse parliamentary life.
• The King's encouragement of minority parties, commissioning them to form governments, using the constitution's contradictory texts:
  • Mohamed Mahmoud's ministry (1928) suspended parliamentary life and was called "the ministry of the iron fist";
  • Ismail Sedky's ministry (1930) abrogated the 1923 constitution and issued the constitution of 1930, which increased the King's powers.

• After the constitution returned — under pressure from the National Front and the demonstrations of 1935 — the Wafd won the elections and Mustafa El-Nahas formed the ministry.
• The treaty of friendship and alliance between Egypt and Britain was concluded in August 1936. Its terms:
• End the military occupation of Egypt, with troops remaining in some areas.
• Egypt joins the League of Nations as an independent sovereign state.
• Abolition of the foreign privileges (Capitulations).
• Strengthening the Egyptian army to defend the Suez Canal, whereupon British troops would withdraw.
• Withdrawal of British officers from the army and abolition of the European security administration.
• Egypt's freedom to conclude treaties with foreign states, provided they do not conflict with this treaty.
• Results: relations changed from occupation to alliance; new forces appeared (the Muslim Brotherhood and "Young Egypt"); and the influence of the Palace grew under King Farouk.

• The 1919 revolution was the first popular national revolution, with Muslims, Copts, women, peasants, workers and students.
• It forced Britain into the Declaration of 28 February 1922 and then the Constitution of 1923.
• The constitution set liberal principles and the separation of powers but carried contradictory texts that gave the King wide powers.
• The civil state began with the principle that the nation is the source of authorities.