Lesson 20: The National Movement and the Urabi Revolution — Causes and Events up to the Baroudi Ministry

01The national movement before the revolution

• The policy of foreign intervention in financial affairs and Khedive Tawfiq's subservience to the foreigners aroused hatred against foreigners and Khedive alike, and therefore protest against the intervention.
• The banner of opposition was carried by a select company of Egyptian notables — the large landowners and the educated — to whom the military men joined.
• The notables objected to the policy of Riad Pasha, who opposed parliamentary life, favoured European influence, persecuted the nationalists and suspended the newspapers that criticised the government's conduct.
• The intellectuals came to see that reform came by applying the constitution Sharif had framed late in Isma'il's rule (the constitution of 1879) and by creating a Chamber of Deputies.

The National Party

• An association was formed at Helwan of those discontented with Riad's policy, known as the National Party, and it published its first political statement in November 1879.
• In mid-1881 the party demanded:
  • the return to the Egyptian government of all the Khedive's properties (the Daira Sanuya) and the family's properties (the Domain);
  • cancellation of the clause earmarking railway revenue for the debt;
  • consolidating the various debts into one debt at interest of only 4%;
  • forming a national control administration, temporary, to replace the foreign dual control.
• Riad tried to learn the party's members in order to exile them to the Sudan, but could not.
• Another association was founded in Alexandria named Young Egypt, which issued a newspaper of the same name and demanded of the Khedive public liberties.

02The factors that led to the Urabi Revolution

• The growth of foreign intervention and the Khedive's subservience to foreigners.
• The absolute, tyrannical rule of the Khedive and Riad Pasha.
• The worsening of economic conditions and the collapse of services, because more than half of the budget's resources were assigned to the debts — that is, the people were deprived of the fruit of their effort.
• The grievance of landholders over the abolition of the Muaraza Law: they had borrowed to pay six times the tax in the hope of exemption from half of it.
• The retirement of many officers to save expenditure, without offering them civilian posts — they joined the ranks of the discontented.
• The policy of the war minister Othman Rifqi, who confined promotion to graduates of the military schools, leaving most Egyptian servicemen no chance of rise.
• The military were the best qualified to make the revolution because of their organisational capacity, and they suffered the arbitrariness of the Turkish–Circassian leadership and their own exclusion from command.
• The servicemen were influenced by the general revolutionary atmosphere, which gave the Urabi Revolution, led by military men, a civilian character.

03The immediate cause: the transfer of Abd al-Al Hilmi

• The immediate cause was the transfer of Colonel Abd al-Al Bey Hilmi, commander of a division (alay), to the war office and the appointment of one of the Circassians in his place — taken as a demotion.
• The Egyptian officers gathered at Ahmed Urabi's house (January 1881) to discuss their condition, and Urabi took the lead of the officers' demands movement.
• They wrote a petition demanding that the head of the ministry dismiss the Turkish war minister Othman Rifqi and appoint an Egyptian in his place.

04The Nile Palace affair (the First Abdeen demonstration, 1881)

• The government did not meet the officers' demand and decided to arrest their leaders — Ahmed Urabi, Ali Fahmi and Abd al-Al Hilmi — and try them before a military court.
• During the trial at the Nile Palace, the three officers' comrades came at the head of their units and stormed the courthouse, and the military council fled.
• The three officers went out to Abdeen square to face the Khedive, who, before the crowd, was forced to dismiss Othman Rifqi and appoint Mahmoud Sami al-Baroudi war minister (February 1881).
• The officers, conscious of their strength, began to press professional demands to secure their position and improve their living, and most were granted:
  • a cash allowance for food and clothing and a general raise of pay;
  • no deduction of pay during leave;
  • soldiers paying only half the railway fare.

05The demands of May 1881 and the Khedive's position

The officers' demands

• They demanded increasing the army to 18,000 men as the firman of 1879 allowed, when in practice it had reached only 12,000, and the building of new forts.
• For the first time they added to their military demands a political one: the formation of a Chamber of Deputies before which the ministry would be responsible, in keeping with the parliamentary system. This proved that the army's movement had united with the general civilian political movement against the regime.

The Khedive's position

• Seeing the officers' influence growing, the Khedive worked to cut them down, among other things by inciting soldiers to write reports against their superiors.
• The officers' suspicion of him grew, shown in their refusal to carry out certain military orders:
  • their refusal to go to the Sudan to quash the Mahdist revolt — a revolt raised by Muhammad Ahmad, styled the Mahdi, with the aim of separating the Sudan from Egypt — believing the purpose was to remove them from the course of events;
  • their refusal to let the soldiers of the units take part in digging the Tawfiq Canal, believing the purpose was to gather weapons out of their soldiers' hands.
• In July 1881 a European's carriage ran over and killed an Egyptian soldier in Alexandria; the soldiers asked the Khedive to intervene to punish the culprit and carried the dead man to the Khedive's palace. The Khedive was angered, and those who took part in the demonstration were tried and exiled to the Sudan.
• Abd al-Al Hilmi submitted a report complaining about the sentences passed on the soldiers, and Baroudi offered his resignation; so the Khedive appointed his son-in-law Daoud Pasha Yeghen war minister and tightened surveillance on the officers, forbidding their meetings.

06The Second Abdeen demonstration (9 September 1881)

Causes

• The Khedive grasped the influence of the three officers and began preparing a plan to scatter them, transferring each to a distant place.
• They charged the government with failing to keep its promise to improve the condition of the servicemen.
• Urabi agreed with his colleagues to assemble the army to confront the Khedive in Abdeen square on 9 September 1881.

Demands

• Urabi raised the demands of the army and the nation:
  • the dismissal of Riad Pasha, head of the ministry;
  • the formation of the Chamber of Deputies;
  • increasing the army to 18,000 men.

Results

• On the advice of the British and French consuls the Khedive dismissed Riad Pasha and entrusted Sharif with forming a ministry (September 1881).
• At Urabi's recommendation Baroudi took the war portfolio and Mustafa Fahmi the foreign ministry.
• Sharif began the reforms suited to the army, meeting the professional demands.
• Sharif, a civilian constitutionalist, was ill at ease under the officers' pressure, so he worked to move the three officers' units outside Cairo; Urabi agreed on condition that the Khedive declare his consent to elections for the Chamber of Deputies.
• The Khedive transferred Urabi to Sharqia and Abd al-Al Hilmi to Damietta; Urabi became active among the people and his standing grew, so a decision was issued appointing him deputy of the war ministry so that he would be under the government's supervision in Cairo (January 1882).

Comparison between the two demonstrations

07The Chamber of Deputies and the First Joint Note

The Chamber of Deputies (December 1881)

• A number of the country's notables submitted a memorandum for creating a chamber of deputies on the model of Europe's assemblies, and the Chamber opened after elections in December 1881.
• It consisted of the notables with local loyalties in the provinces, and was empty of merchants, industrialists and the highly educated — so it did not differ from the Council of Deputies of Isma'il's day.

Foreign intervention: the First Joint Note (January 1882)

• England and France saw the formation of the Chamber as a danger to their interests and sent a Joint Note (January 1882) whose wording hinted at displeasure at a parliamentary regime, and stated expressly that events required intervention to protect the Khedive's throne.
• Sharif protested officially; the officers resented its tone and believed it was aimed at them.
• After the two states failed to cancel the Chamber, they asked that its regulations not include the right to discuss the budget, because that concerned the debts and would embarrass Sharif's position.
• The Urabis clung to the Chamber's right to approve the budget as a right of the nation, and it appeared to them that Sharif was working to exclude them.

08Sharif's resignation and the ministry of the revolution

• Faced with the insistence of both sides, Sharif Pasha resigned, and a ministry was formed headed by Baroudi, regarded as the ministry of the Urabists, with Urabi appointed war minister.
• The ministry lost no time in proclaiming the constitution (February 1882) and in granting the Chamber of Deputies the right to discuss the budget.
• The British and French controllers protested and asked their consuls to act.

09Exam traps and key takeaways

• Opposition leadership = notables + educated, then military joined — the question "who carried the banner first" is answered by the civilians.
• The National Party's first statement is November 1879, from Helwan; its 1881 programme has four demands — Daira/Domain back to government, no railway-revenue earmarking, one debt at 4%, a national control to replace dual control.
• Young Egypt is the Alexandria association with its own paper, demanding public liberties — do not confuse it with the National Party.
• The factors list is the standard "why did it break out" answer; the Muaraza and the officer retirements are the two economic-corporate causes most often dropped.
• The immediate cause is a transfer that read as demotion (Abd al-Al Hilmi → war office, Circassian successor), not a pay cut.
• First Abdeen = professional outcome (Rifqi out, Baroudi in, allowances); Second Abdeen = political outcome (Riad out, Sharif in, parliament promised).
• The May 1881 addition of a political demand is what proves the unity of military and civilian movements.
• Reasons for the officers' refusals: to the Sudan = they saw it as removing them from events; digging the Tawfiq Canal = they saw it as collecting their weapons.
• The Chamber's composition flaw — notables only, no merchants/industrialists/highly educated — makes it like Isma'il's Council of Deputies.
• The Joint Note's two-stage pressure: threaten to protect the throne, then, failing to cancel the Chamber, strike out the budget right.
• The Baroudi ministry's two acts: proclaiming the constitution and granting budget discussion — the controllers' protest is the bridge to the invasion lessons.