The Nile Valley, 1882-98

- The Ottoman Empire:

• Captured Egy. in 1517 but give too much power to local warlords to defend their borders and collect taxes
• 19th cent. - OE decline worries Brit. foreign ministers and prime ministers about other Eur. powers
• Egy. khedives enjoy polit. freedom
• 1850s - rely on Eur. investment to develop their economy but their foreign debt 1863 goes from £3 million to £100 million by 1870 - khedives bankrupt by 1875-76
• Brit. and Fra. est. 'Dual Control', which means:

- Cut army pay and sales tax placed on food and goods
- Interest on foreign debt reduced to 5%
- Persuade the Sultan to replace khedive Ismail w/ his son, Tewfik Pasha, who was more open to compromise

- Arabi Pasha and the nationalists:

• A.Pasha - nationalist Egy. officer who leads a group of officers against Tewfik and and Anglo-French interference - their initial protest regarding the cuts in army pay in 'Dual Control'
• 1879 - forms the Egy. Nationalist Party, appealing and identifying w/ fellahin (Egy. peasants)
• Leads coup after an attempt to dismiss 2500 officers and to cut salaries of those remaining
• Arabi forces Tewfik to appoint a Nationalist ministry
• Brit. fears Arabi would force Tewfik to repute their loans and ignore Dual Control

- Strategic:

• Suez Canal shortens the route to India, w/ 80% of its shipping being Brit.
• 1875 - Disraeli purchases 45% Suez shares from the bankrupt khedives, increasing the Anglo-Fre. rivalry

- Trade:

• Growing Egy. market for Brit. exports during their modernisation
• 1880 - Brit. purchase 80% Egy. exports and supply 44% Egy imports
• Rely on Egy. exported cotton during the Amer. War of Independence

- Financial:

• 1875 - Brit. tighten finan. control after khedive bankruptcy
• 37% Gladstone's personal fortune invested in Egy. loans 

- People:

• 11 Jun 1882 - tension in Alexandria (1/5 Eur.) leads to anti-Christian riots, w/ 50 Eur. killed, 250 Egy. killed and Brit. blaming the Arabi Pasha supporters

- Jan 1882 - Brit. and Fra. issue Egy. the Gambetta Note, warning Arabi Pasha away from the khedive's power

- 20 May - Anglo-Fre. fleet leave for Alexandria where Arabi had seized control

- 11 Jun - Anti-Christian riots in Alexandria 

- 11 July - Brit. warships bombard Alexandria against Arabi (no Fre. participation)

- 12 Sep - Arabi defeated near Cairo (57 Brits and 2000 Egy. dead) and taken prisoner

- 30 Jan 1882 - Léon Gambetta replaced w/ Charles de Freycinet, who refuses to back military intervention

- Bismarck (German chancellor) says they're no longer willing to support action in  Egy. - Fra. cannot afford to challenge the Great Powers (Russia, Austria, Italy)

The 'veiled protectorate':

• Brit. in Egy. as as khedive's advisors, w/ no legal basis for their prescence - manage Egy. budget, take over military training, and unofficially run Egy. in order to protect their own investment  

- Sir Evelyn Baring:

• Fiction upheld that Egy. is a province of the Ott. Empire, but khedive unable to make decisions w/o the agreement of the consul general
• Consul general in Egy. 1883-1907 who wants fundamental change in agriculture and other government institutions - key figure in the continuation of Brit. occupation

- Emergence of radical Islam in Sudan:

• Egy.'s control of Sudan had faltered by the 1870s
• 1881 - appearance of the mahdi, who was intent on driving out Egy.-Ott. authority and est. a purer Islam
• Sudan of little interest to the Brit. but have little faith in the khedive's control and don't want to lose key places like Cairo or Alexandria 

- Collapse of liberalism:

• Lord Salisbury leads dominant Conservatives but doesn't get carried away by jingoism - although, isn't prepared to give any strategic advantage to the Fre.
• 1887-9 - Salisbury works with Turk., Fra. and Ger., negotiating Brit.'s departure and saying that Brit. could re-enter Egy. if necessary - 22 May 1887: agreement reached w/ Sultan at Constantinople Convention 
• Agreement is blown away when the Fre. threaten Sultan w/ invading Syria and Russ. threaten w/ invading Armenia if Brit. was granted these rights
• Intended to scare Brit away, but has the opposite effect on Salis., who is convinced Fra. are the greatest threat to the empire and that Brit. strategic interests would be guaranteed by remaining in Egy.

- Classic late-Victorian imperialist 

- Wants to reform Egy. administration and agriculture in order to benefit their econ. - spends a lot of time on drainage

- Achievements:

• Introduces financial control and public cuts - restores Egy. to solvency by 1887
• London Convention 1885 - loan of £9 million to Egy. agreed - £8 mill. spent on restoring debt and £1 mill. spent on irrigation and clearing silted drainage canals - 1882-1902: 8% government revenue goes towards agriculture and hydraulic improvements

- Weaknesses:

Baring's mindset:

• Underestimates Egy. nationalism within ruling classes - new khedive, Abbas Hilami, goes to Fra. to influence foreign opinion against Brit.
• Oblivious to fellahin nationalism, believing his reforms had brought gratitude from fell. towards Brit. - forgets the limits placed on fell. mobility by restricting education and his delay on land reform

Investment:

• Limited education investment - raises primary school tuition fees as they want an upward mobility for fellahin
• Only want gradual progress after what happened in India

- The problems of Sudan:

• 1821 - Egy. have formal occupation and administrative control over Sudan from the Ott.
• 1873 - Khedive Ismail appoints General Charles Gordon as governor of the Equitorial Provinces of Sudan in order to end the slave trade as part of his modernisation - has significant progress but destabilises Sudanese economy and control of society

- The mahdi of Sudan: 

• 1881 - Muhammed Ahmed creates further destabilisation in Sudan by proclaiing himself as the mahdi
• Support increases as he capitalises on Sud. resentment of Egy. taxes and authority
• Slave traders (eliminated by Gordon) were the only ones who could effectively take out the mahdi - 1883: Sir William Hicks leads expedition w/ 7000 Egy. infantry and 1000 cavalry but all but 300 killed by mahdist forces 

- Gladstone's concerns and policies:

• Glad. and Baring fear Sud. will destabilise Egy. financial situation - prepared to cut Sud. loose, as it was of no strategic interest, via the evacuation of Egy. garrisons in Sudan
• 1884 - Gen. Gordon sent to order the evac. 
• 26 Jan 1885 - mahdist forces break through foritfications in Khartoum, wiping out the entire unevacuated garrison

- General Charles Gordon's mission in Sudan 1884-5:

• Gordon is more of an imperialist adventurer, spending much of his time in China, Sudan etc.
• Wants to end Sud. slavery in the 1870s
• Obvious choice for the evac. of Egy. garrisons in Sud.
• Historical debate over his motives in the evac. - some say he wanted to generate enough publicity to change government policy from evac. to to intervention
• Instead of focusing on evac., he wires plans to London for handing authority to popular anti-mahdist figure and asks Baring for more troops
• Refuses to evac. so that he can help evac. people from outlying areas and fortify the city
• Campaign set up for the relief expedition of the Siege of Khartoum but 2 days too late for Gordon when mahdist break through on 26 Jan 1885
• Cabinet agree to leave Sud. to the mahdi due to the Russian threat and the difficulty in annexing Sud.
• Glad. criticised for slow dispatch of relief mission
• Desire to avenge Gordon has an important impact on decision-makers like Kitchener

• 1880s - partition of Africa hadn't yet occured and Brit. interests only in Egy.
• 1890s - body of opinion formed that Brit. must control Nile's source to control Egy. - this was then spurred by the Anglo-Fre. rivalry and the mahdist threat
• 1896 - Lord Kitchener leads expedition to address Fre./mahdist threat 
• 1896 - Battle of Adowa against Italy is successful

- Fear of French occupation:

• 1890 - successful diplomacy w/ Ita., Ger. and Belg. for Brit. 'sphere of influence' but not so successful w/ Fra. - Sir Edward Gray tells Fra. that interference would be 'unfriendly'
• Lord Salisbury wants a more visible presence in Sud. to thwart Fre. expansion and protect water for irrigation schemes in Egy.
• Brit. want different gains to Fre. - Brit. want South Africa and Brit. E. Africa (the White Nile), whereas Fre. want link to their W. African colonies from their port in Djibouti (The Niger and Blue Nile)
• 1898 - 1500 Brit. armed men and 5 gunboats, led by Kitchener, meet 120 Fre., lead by Major Marchard, at Fashoda - due to Brit. mercy and Fre. restraint, matter is referred to London and Paris 
• Navies mobilised but Fre. back down due to their naval inferiority and internal crisis
• 3 Nov 1898 - Fra. drop claim to Fashoda

- The role of Horatio Herbert Kitchener:

• Very different to Gordon - pure army with little amount of personality exhibited
• Early career in the Middle East and Mediterranean, and participated in the Gordon relief effort
• Methodical Sud. campaign, equipped w/ most dangerous weapons and supported by light-gauge railways and gunboats
• Initial objective was only for Dongola, but due to his success, Salis. continues on
• Further success in taking both Atbara and Omdurman against the mahdi 
• Retaking of Khartoum is successful - opens up mahdi tomb to prevent pilgramage and decapitates the head
• Hugely popular w/ the public but his actions in Sud. and the concentration camps during the Boer War outrages anti-imperialists

- Significance of Omdurman (2 Sep 1898):

• Salis. long-term goal is to destroy the mahdi - acheived by Kitchener, due to his careful advance and new 'maxim guns' given to Brit. troops 
• Battle of Omdurman - 10,000 mahdi dead, 13,000 imprisoned, 5000 wounded and 47 Brit. dead and 382 wounded
• Young Winston Churchill reports atrocities committed against mahdi wounded and criticises them for not reissuing the order from the Battle of Atbara that the wounded were spared
• Brit. gains control over the entire Nile Valley and Sud. joins the Empire
• Fiction that Egy. rule Sud. is maintained through the veiled protectorate