Fourth: the prelude — forming the Wafd, arrest and exile

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.