The demands of May 1881 and the Khedive's position

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.