¹ Edward Dicey was editor of the Observer from 1870 to 1889. His proposals are contained in two articles published by The Nineteenth Century: ‘Our Route to India’ in vol. 1 (1877), pp. 665–85Google Scholar, and ‘The Future of Egypt’ in vol. 11 (1877), pp. 3–14.Google Scholar Together with six other articles they were reprinted in Dicey, Edward, England in Egypt (London, 1881).Google Scholar Gladstone's answer is to be found in The Nineteenth Century, vol. II (1877), pp. 149–66Google Scholar, under the title ‘Aggression on Egypt and Freedom in the East’. ‘It seems to be forgotten by many’, he wrote for instance, ‘that there is a route to India round the Cape of Good Hope.’ The longer passage ‘will hardly make the difference to us between life and death in the maintenance of our Indian Empire’. See also Mowat, R. C., ‘From Liberalism to Imperialism-The Case of Egypt, 1875–1887’, in Historical Journal, xvi (1973), 109–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

² Hansard, 3/CCLXXI (Commons, 26 June 1882). See also Gladstone‘s letter (of 20 Jan. 1882) to Blunt, W. S. in the latter's Secret History of the English Occupation of Egypt (New York, 1967), pp. 385–6.Google Scholar

³ Malet, Edward, Egypt 1879–1883 (London, 1909), p. 59.Google Scholar

⁴ The bondholder theme is, of course, the most popular of these ideas; but there is also the cotton story. Mahmoud K. Issa, for instance, came to the conclusion that ‘the factor behind Britain's decision was simply an economic one, i.e., Lancashire's need for cotton’; Egypt was to become ‘a huge cotton plantation to satisfy the needs and desires of a colonial power’: ‘The Economic Factor behind the British Occupation of Egypt in 1882’, in L'Égypte Contemporaine, no. 318 (1964), p. 57.

⁵ Robinson, Ronald and Gallagher, John with Alice Denny, Africa and the Victorians (London, 1970), ch. ivGoogle Scholar (‘The Suez Crisis, 1882’); continued by Platt, D. C. M., Finance, Trade, and Politics in British Foreign Policy 1815–1914 (Oxford, 1968), pp. 154–80Google Scholar, and Fieldhouse, D. K., Economics and Empire 1830–1914 (London, 1973), pp. 118–26 and 260–8. In these works, there are many factual errors and misrepresentations with regard to the internal development of Egypt; but this is not the place to discuss them.Google Scholar

⁶ Op. cit. pp. 97 and 94.

⁷ Quoted, in Blunt, , op. cit. p. 324.Google Scholar

⁸ Hansard, 3/CCLXXII (Gladstone also hinted that the so-called massacre of Alexandria had been ‘unexamined and unavenged’ so far.); Knightbridge, A. A. H., Egypt in British Political Thought 1875–1900, unpublished D.Phil, thesis (Oxford, 1963), p. 157.Google Scholar

⁹ Op. cit. pp. 103 and 104.

¹⁰ Ibid. pp. 120–1.

¹¹ Malet, , op cit. pp. 257–8.Google Scholar

¹² French consul-general at Cairo.

¹³ Malet, , op cit. p. 270.Google Scholar

¹⁴ Ibid. p. 273.

¹⁵ Ibid. p. 281.

¹⁶ Ibid. p. 297 (Malet, to Granville, , 2 May 1882)Google Scholar; see also de Freycinet, C., La Question d'Égypte (Paris, n.d.), p. 254.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Quoted, in The Earl of Cromer, , Modern Egypt, vol. 1 (London, 1908), pp. 282–3.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Malet, , op cit. p. 387.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Alexander Schölch, Ägypten den Ägyptern! Diepolitische und gesellschaftliche Krise der Jahre 1878–1882 in Ägypten (Zurich, 1972), pp. 207, 212, 214–16, 221.Google Scholar

²⁰ Quoted, in Cromer, , op. cit. vol. 1, p. 260.Google Scholar

²¹ Hansard, 3/CCLXIX.

²² Broadley, A. M., How We Defended Arabi and His Friends (London, 1884), p. 16.Google Scholar

²³ See, for example, Public Record Office, London, F.O. 78, vol. 3437 (Malet, to Granville, , 29 May 1882)Google Scholar; also Malet, Edward, Shifting Scenes (London, 1901), p. 66.Google Scholar

²⁴ Malet was, of course, not allowed by his superiors to accept this princely present; see Malet, , Shifting Scenes, pp. 64–5.Google Scholar

²⁵ Quoted, in Cromer, , op. cit. vol. 1, p. 293.Google Scholar

²⁶ Knightbridge, , op. cit. p. 155Google Scholar; Robinson, / Gallagher, , op. cit. p. 108.Google Scholar

²⁷ Freycinet, , op. cit. pp. 281–2.Google Scholar

²⁸ Op. cit. vol. 1, p. 299.Google Scholar

²⁹ Mommsen, Wolfgang, Imperialismus in Ägypten (München and Wien, 1961), p. 38.Google Scholar

³⁰ See Mulhall, M. G., ‘Egyptian Finance’, in The Contemporary Review, vol. XLII (1882), p. 529 (04, 1879).Google Scholar

³¹ Sir Rivers Wilson, for instance, then minister of finance in Egypt, rather naively relates in his memoirs how, by the end of 1878, he insisted on all arrears of taxes being collected in Upper Egypt despite the fact that a ‘money famine’ was paralysing that part of the country; more than 10,000 people died. See Wilson, C. Rivers, Chapters from My Official Life (London, 1916), p. 182.Google Scholar On the famine see Baird, Alexander, Report on the Famine in the Provinces of Girgeh, Kenneh, and Esneh (Cairo, 1879). This booklet is to be found in F.O. 78, vol. 3001. A year later Malet complained that Riyad (the prime minister) was unwilling to adopt ‘violent measures’ in collecting the arrears of taxes. According to Malet, such measures were not yet dispensable: F.O. 78, vol. 3005 (Malet to Salisbury, 11 Dec. 1879).Google Scholar

³² SirColvin, Auckland (1838–1908)Google Scholar, son of Colyin, John Russell (1807–1857)Google Scholar, grandson of James Colvin ‘of the well-known mercantile house of Colvin, Bazett, & Co. of London and Calcutta’ (The Dictionary of National Biography from the Earliest Times to 1900, vol. iv, pp. 878–9Google Scholar). Auckland Colvin was trained at the East India College and had been a member of the Indian Civil Service before he came to Egypt. ‘In various ways, and not least by his work as Egyptian correspondent of the “Pall Mall Gazette”, he influenced public opinion at home, and forced the reluctant hands of Gladstone’s government towards acceptance of responsibility in Egypt. Mr. Wilfrid Scawen Blunt, Colvin's bitterest opponent, in his “Secret History of the English Occupation” (1907), pays unwilling homage to the resource with which Colvin conducted the struggle.’ Colvin's Making of Modern Egypt (1906), ‘while dealing generously with the work of other Englishmen, says nothing of his own part in surmounting the crises of 1881 and 1882’ (The Dictionary of National Biography, Supplement 1901–1911, vol. 1, pp. 395–7).Google Scholar

³³ Malet, , Egypt, pp. 68, 78–9, 208.Google Scholar

³⁴ Quoted, in Rothstein, Theodore, Egypt's Ruin (London, 1910), p. 159Google Scholar; see also Malet, , Egypt, p. 240.Google Scholar

³⁵ Cromer, , op. cit. vol. I, p. 233.Google Scholar

³⁶ Colvin, Auckland, The Making of Modern Egypt (London, n.d.), p. 25Google Scholar; see also Malet's, reflections in His Shifting Scenes, p. 43.Google Scholar

³⁷ Freycinet, , op. cit. pp. 245–6.Google Scholar

³⁸ See, for example, Blunt, , op. cit. pp. 159, 174–6, 213, 246, 258–9, 281–2.Google Scholar

³⁹ Ibid. p. 169.

⁴⁰ Hansard, 3/CCLXX; see also Granville's letter of 6 Feb. in Malet, , Egypt, pp. 261–2.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Hansard, 3/CCLXX.

⁴² Hansard, 3/CCLXXI.

⁴³ See, for example, Granville, to Dufferin, , 11 July 1882Google Scholar; quoted in Malet, , Egypt, p. 43.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Blunt, , op. cit. pp. 150–2, 164, 171, 174–6Google Scholar; Keay, J. Seymour, Spoiling the Egyptians (London, ³ 1882), p. 62Google Scholar; idem, Notes on Egypt. Reprinted from the ECHO of Feb. 77, 2j, and 28, 1883, pp. 5 and 7.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Khedives and Pashas (London, 1884), p. 235 (published anonymously).Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Hulme-Beaman, Ardern G., Twenty Years in the Near East (London, 1898), pp. 43–4.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ On the statistics of European officials in Egypt see Ägypten den Ägyptern, pp. 339–40.

⁴⁸ This is the English translation given in Blunt, , op. cit. pp. 392 and 395.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Bell, E. H. C. Moberly, The Life and Letters of C. F. Moberly Bell (London, 1927), pp. 17–70.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Blunt, , op. cit. pp. 167–8; see also p. 121.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Ibid. pp. 134 and 157.

⁵² Hansard, 3/CCLXXI.

⁵³ The internal development in Egypt is described in Ägypten den Ägyptern.

⁵⁴ For instance on 23 and 27 Sept., 19 Oct., and 4 Nov. 1881.

⁵⁵ Quoted, in Cromer, , op. cit. vol. 1, p. 207.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Ibid. p. 221.

⁵⁷ F.O. 78, vol. 3326 (Malet, to Granville, , 26 and 28 December 1881)Google Scholar; vol. 3434 (Malet, to Granville, , 2 Jan. 1882).Google Scholar

⁵⁸ F.O. 78, vol. 3435.

⁵⁹ See Malet, , Egypt, p. 272.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ Ibid. pp. 282 and 283; Keay, Seymour, Spoiling the Egyptians, p. 80.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Malet, , Egypt, p. 245.Google Scholar

⁶² F.O. 78, vol. 3437.

⁶³ Politisches Archiv des Auswartigen Amtes, Bonn, , Agypten 3, vol. 9.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Malet, , Egypt, pp. 298–300Google Scholar; Robinson, / Gallagher, , op. cit. p. 101Google Scholar; Ägypten den Ägyptern, pp. 209–10.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ F.O. 78, vol. 3437 (Malet, to Granville, , 2 May 1882)Google Scholar. In order to infuriate the government and public opinion at home against the Egyptian leaders, it was reported to England that the Circassian officers had been cruelly tortured. According to Moberly Bell, ‘Urābī personally directed the torturers every evening (Khedives and Pashas, pp. 108–9). Should this not have been the main accusation brought up against ‘Urābī by his alleged victims during his later trial? Malet did not take up stories of that calibre. But on 18 May he forwarded a report by the dragoman of the Consulate according to which an anonymous prisoner had confided to the dragoman that he had been tortured (F.O. 78, vol. 3437). For another story see Malet, , Egypt, pp. 306–7.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ F.O. 78, vol. 3437 (Malet, to Granville, , 10 May 1882).Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Dār al-Wathā’iq, Cairo, Copies from the Austrian Archives, box 119.

⁶⁸ Printed in Sabry, M., La Genese de I'Esprit National Egyptien 1863–1882 (Paris, 1924), pp. 261–2.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Malet, , Egypt, pp. 331–2.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Ibid. p. 333.

⁷¹ ‘I can assure Your Lordship with confidence’, wrote Malet to Granville on 17 May, ‘that the University, the Chamber, and the Nation are anxious for the termination of the military despotism which now terrorises them’ (F.O. 78, vol. 3437). Shortly after the occupation, on 17 Oct., Malet spoke of ‘Urābī as ’the acknowledged leader of the people against armed Christian intervention’ (F.O. 78, vol. 3442).

⁷¹ Dār al-Wathā'iq, Copies from the Austrian Archives, box 120 (29 May, 1882).

⁷³ Malet, , Egypt, p. 373.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ Ibid. p. 409.

⁷⁵ See, for example, The Pall Mall Gazette, 13 May 1882.

⁷⁸ Malet, , Egypt, p. 385.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ Ibid. pp. 389–90.

⁷⁸ Ibid. p. 282.

⁷⁹ Robinson, / Gallagher, , op. cit. p. 111.Google Scholar

⁸⁰ Op. cit. p. 163.Google Scholar

⁸¹ Agatha Ramm has recently stressed the decisive role of Malet and Admiral Seymour in the events which led to the occupation. But she did not fully take into account the economic and financial interests involved, and she neglected the role of Colvin who was the driving force behind Malet. She is also not right when she thinks that Malet tried to bring about reconciliation in May 1882: ‘Great Britain and France in Egypt 1876–1882’, in Prosser Gifford, and Louis, Wm. Roger (eds.), France and Britain in Africa (New Haven, 1971), pp. 73–119.Google Scholar Malet was too weak a person to have a policy of his own. Some authors have tried to explain his often contradictory personal behaviour during the period he held office in Egypt in psychological terms. Moberly Bell explained the attitudes of ‘this grave old young man’ with the assertion that he lived ‘with the recollection of that birchrod before his eyes’, with which he had been ‘whipped into propriety’ at Eton (Khedives and Pashas, pp. 222 and 237). Peter Mansfield ascribed to him ‘an extraordinary lack of inner selfassurance combined with a powerful ambition’: The British in Egypt (London, 1971), p. 20. When the ‘crusade’ on Egypt was over, Malet thanked Granville: ‘You have fought the battle of all Christendom, and history will acknowledge it’ (Egypt, p. 455). It seems she will not.Google Scholar

⁸² Robinson, / Gallagher, , op. cit. pp. 78–9, and 84.Google Scholar