As we saw in Chapter 14, nationalism in the Muslim north of Africa had developed much earlier than in Africa south of the Sahara. Egypt, indeed, had been self-governing since 1922. Yet, it was not until forty years later – after all of West Africa and most of eastern Africa had become independent – that the final emancipation of this region was completed by the withdrawal of the French from Algeria. North Africa's emergence from colonialism was thus a much longer drawn out and more piecemeal process than that of the regions to the south. And, although it became in its final stages increasingly linked with the rest of the Pan–African freedom movement, its origins were different and must be separately treated. The countries of the Horn of Africa likewise took special paths to independence, which fit more easily with those of the lands to the north of them than with those farther to the south.

Egypt and the Sudan

The key country of the whole North African region was, as ever, Egypt. Although a British garrison remained in the Canal Zone in accordance with the terms of the 1936 treaty (see Chapter 14), the wartime occupation of the rest of the country ended in 1946, leaving Egypt free to resume the political independence it had enjoyed before the war. Egypt had, by far, the largest population and, by far, the most developed industry and commerce of any of the North African countries. It was also the intellectual capital of the Arabic-speaking world.