British Expansion into Egypt and the Sudan under the Second Industrial

Revolution
I. The Importance of Egypt for the British Empire

Egypt was Britain’s first target in Africa, due to its geostrategic, commercial and economic
importance which increased in the end of the nineteenth century imperialist context. Astride
Europe , Asia and Africa, Egypt was the place to and from which transited all the import and export
trade of the Middle East and Asia and Southern Europe. This location made it useful to ship British
goods to those continents and transport their resources home. Economically speaking, Egypt’s
cotton became vital for the textile mills of Lancashire as well for the rest of European mills , following
the American Civil war which put an end to US Southern cotton exports. Most of all, Egypt had a vital
geostrategic importance for Britain with the Suez Canal, built and opened by the French in 1869,
turning it into the main route to India in place of longer inland routes

All European nations were present in Egypt , from Italy and Austria , from Germany to Belgium and
France, from Britain and Russia to Greece. Britain and France, however, both controlled Egypt as
main creditors to a heavily indebted and poorly governed state over which Constantinople had only
loose authority and was therefore easy prey to them

Egypt after Mohamed Ali :a Weak State Losing Sovereignty to External Finance

Egypt had long been financially in the red due to its failed attempt to modernize. Following the
Khedive Ismail’s efforts to build modern buildings as well as an effective transportation network of
roads, harbours, railroads and bridges, to reform administration and education as well as improve
agriculture, a huge debt was contracted, whose terms could not be met. In 1875, 44% of the Suez
Canal shares were sold to Britain in a vain move to improve Egyptian finances. For a long time,
Ismail refused to acknowledge bankruptcy which would set him under control of Western creditors
and their states, a fact which his authoritarian nature could not accept.

When Egypt bankruptcy was officially proclaimed in 1876, those creditors, who were French, British ,
Italian and Austrian, put Egypt under financial control. A Caisse de la Dette Publique(1876) received
revenue from Egyptian provinces as payment for the debt, while Egypt’ s income and expenses were
supervised by two Controllers from France and Britain, the main creditors. A Council of
Ministers(1878) independent from the Khedive and including a British finance minister and a French
Public Works Minister dealt with Egypt’s current affairs.

Foreign officers were appointed in Egypt’s most important administrations which were therefore lost
to Egyptian sovereignty. Egyptian army officers were either dismissed as redundant or put on half-
pay. Ismail , who was thought to foster trouble among nationalist army officers and delegates was
replaced by Tewfiq (1879)who was judged more open to Western demands. Tewfiq accepted to sign
the Law of Liquidation(1880) which gave Egypt access to only 50% of its income.

The Failed Nationalist Revolt : Egypt under British Occupation

Egyptian nationalists, who saw Egyptian local bureaucratic and military elites either marginalized or
replaced by European ones, revolted under the leadership of an Arab officer, Ahmed Urabi, ousting
Tewfiq and reclaiming power back to the Egyptians. Following this threat to their interests, the British
army bombarded Alexandria and defeated the Egyptian nationalist army at Tel el Kebir(1882). This
victory is also important in that it allowed Britain to take whole control of Egypt. France, indeed , was
unable to participate in this campaign due to internal political instability following Prime Minister
Gambetta’s downfall. It is worth keeping in mind that Britain’s presence in Egypt lay on no treaty
legitimizing it. Its main argument was security for the creditors and for the Suez canal , a fact which
underlines the role played by finance and banks in British expansionism during the second age of
the Industrial Revolution;

Evelyn Baring’s Veiled Protectorate(1883-1907)

Egypt’s state, economy and army and education were restructured to serve British interests

With only a nominal sovereign and with real power in the hands of British advisers, Egypt was part of
the British Empire.. This informal annexation, meant the integration of Sudan, of Northern Uganda
and its Lakes, and that of Somalia conquered and administered by Egypt for the Ottoman Empire.
Evelyn Baring, a former Controler in Egypt, was appointed Consul-General in Egypt which he ruled
for Britain with a group of administrators who had served with him in India. Evelyn Baring, also
known as Lord Cromer, started an era of reorganization of Egypt which has been termed the “veiled
protectorate”.

During the veiled protectorate, the Egyptian government was just a façade made up of new local
elites selected along their non-local ,Turco-Circassian origins and their all out acceptation of British
rule and values. These elites were all the more eager to accept British rule as they were allowed to
make money out of the new economic roadmap set up for the needs of British interests. This elite
replaced the Egyptian, military officers or bureaucrats who refused British rule and were thus
dismissed from office or from army.

A new army was created, with local soldiers and British officers in command. Education, which had
formerly provided state bureaucracy with clerks from all social venues, became private, thus
depriving youth from families with modest income with positions and therefore with a future . The
end of public education meant also the end of education for unprivileged women whose families
would spend whatever was at their disposal on male breadwinners . Women professionals were
further targeted by campaigns of denigration casting doubt on their professional skills and
competence.

Egyptian economy was rebuilt to serve British interests too. Cashcrops, such as cotton or tobacco, of
use to British industry, were encouraged, with agricultural lands hitherto devoted to the cultivation
of cereals was now used for commercial ends . Egypt whose industrial infrastructure had been
impaired at the beginning of the nineteenth century thus saw its agriculture destroyed by soil
exhausting but economically profitable crops. The result was agricultural structural
underdevelopment which has affected Egyptian food security to the present day.

Egypt: A Laboratory for Experimenting with New Methods of Imperial Control

Called the Granville Doctrine, out of one of Gladstone’s Foreign Ministers, this soft way of
controlling the country, which included financial, political, educational and even racial control, was
increasingly preferred by imperialism by the end of the nineteenth century. It secured profit and
devastated colonies and territories without spending on soldiers, weapons and transportation , and
without stirring discontent or condemnation at home. Wars were actually only a first step,
preferably a short one, in the whole overtaking of the country along modern methods peacefully
integrating technology, finance and culture. War, however, was inevitably long in Sudan the
conquest of which was necessary as it was a door to East Africa and to the Red Sea , that is to India

II. British Expansion in Sudan: Securing the Door to East Africa and the Nile R

A.The Sudan Campaign : An Anglo-Egyptian Affair

The Sudan conflict, which lasted eighteenth years (1881-1899)resulted in the Anglo-Egyptian
Condominium ruling Sudan (1899-1956) for the British with Egyptian money.. Egypt, which had
conquered Sudan in 1820 and goverfned it for the Ottoman empire, appointed Chinese Gordon,
Charles Gordon, governor of South Sudan, known as the province of Equatoria in 1873 which military
campaigns extended to North Uganda and the Great Lakes. Sudan falling out of favor after Khedive
Ismail’s departure in 1877, Chinese Gorden left Sudan in 1880. This deteriorating political condition
created discontent in Sudan, which had been conquered in 1819, who resented taxation, the
Egyptian-Ottoman pro-Western way of life and racial discrimination practiced by a what British and
Egyptian elite considered as inferior.

B.The Emergence of Mahdism and the Mahdi Miltary Victories against the Anglo-Egyptian Army

In this climate of economic and political discontent on the one hand, and anti-Western feeling
fuelled by a spirit of Islah expanding over the Moslem world , on the other, Mohamed Ahmad Ibn
Abdallah started preaching the liberation of Sudan from Egyptian Ottoman rule, proclaiming himself
the Mahdi. In 1882, he won a decisive battle against Egyptian forces , seizing their food, modern
weapons and military equipment. He gained further prestige by winning the battle of Obeid (1883)
against Anglo-Egyptian mi;litary troops commanded by William Hicks who had served formerly in
India. To this modern army, he opposed well trained and equipped Sudanese troops. Unwilling to
spend further time and money on such a powerful enmy, Britain decided to leave Sudan to the
Mahdi who was thought to have local ambitions only. In 1884,Chinese Gordon (who had fought in
the Second Opium War) was sent to Khartoum to coordi nate the retreat of the Egyptian army from
Sudan . His Gordon, instead, decide to fight the Mahdi and reconquer Sudan. Underestimating the
Mahdi’s strength, he was besieged and killed in Khartoum which fell in 1885.

Mohamed Ahmad Ibn, now free from Anglo-Egyptian control, founded the Mahdi State with
Omdurman as the capital of this State. Displaying remarkable statesmanship, he developed a
prosperous economy based on trading precious woods and ivory and slaves from East Africa , a
skillful bureaucracy and efficient tax and accounting systems. Most of all, his charismatic personality
secured unity in the state and in the army died in 1885, replaced by one of his lieutenants, Abdallah
Ibn Muhammad who expanded towards Ethiopia, another Nile country. It is worth noting that the
Mahdi influence extended well beyond the Nile region, to West and East Africa, representing
successful resistance and national revival in a context of imperialist expansion and exploitation. This
aura made the reconquest of Sudan a necessity for all Europe involved in the Scramble for Africa.

C.The Reconquest of Sudan

, Anglo-Egyptian forces were determined to reconquer the Mahdist Sudan about which it knew more
from escaped priests and officers, a fact which determines the growing role of intelligence in African
imperial expansion. Reginald Wingate translated detailed reports of the Sudanese way of life and
Mahdist state written by German prisoners and officers at the service of the Mahdi, such as Farther
Ohrwalfer ‘s Ten Years’s Captivity in the Mahdi ‘sCamp and the Egyptian Sudan 1882-1892 and
Rudolf Carl Slatin’s Fire and Sword in the Sudan: A Personal Narrative of Fighting and Serving the
Dervishes 1879-1895Horatio Herbert Kitchener, the new Sirdar(Commander-in-Chief) of the Anglo-
Egyptian army, entered Sudan n 1896, winning minor skirmishes. In 1898 he won the battle of Atbara
and entered Omdurman the Mahdist capital.

D.The Fashoda Incident: Clashing with French Expansion into the Sahel region. The End of the
Scramble for Africa

Britain’s conquest of the Sudan further answered a need to check European, and in particular
French and Belgian ambitions, in the Nile region. In pursuit of the Khalifa, Abdullah Ibn
Muhammad, , Kitchener came face to face with the French army under the command of Jean
Baptiste LeMarchand at Fashoda which was the intersection point between the French line of
conquest in the Sahel, from Dakar to Djibouti, that is from West Africa and Niger down to the Upper
Nile and Sudan and from there Eastward to Djibouti on the Red Sea , and that of the English which
extended from Cape to Cairo, that is from Southern and East Africa to the Suez Canal , the Red Sea
and India.

The Fashoda incident , which brought France and Britain on the verge of a war which threatened to
include the world through their respective allies, ended with French retreat from Sudan and
therefore British control of Africa from South to North. Fashoda further provided Britain with
ability to intervene on the French line of expansion from East to West Africa. The Fashoda incident
had two important consequences. In the first place, it ended the Scramble for Africa which, it was
realized, could easily degenerate into a world conflict between empires. Secondly, it underlined the
fact that France needed Britain in a possible confrontation with Germany, which actually took place
fourteent years later. In this context, French expansion in Africa could only be second to Britain’s.

Eric Toussaint, “ Debt as an Instrument of the Colonial Conquest of Egypt”

http://www.cadtm.org/spip.php?page=imprimer&id_article=13562

The Four Feathers, (a movie underlining the role played by intelligence in the Second Sudan
War)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1R7n8B8KkZE

Paul Lovejoy, “Revolutionary Mahdism and Resistance to Colonial Rule in the Sokoto Caliphate ”

https://www.artsrn.ualberta.ca/amcdouga/Hist347/additional%20rdgs/case%20studies/
sokoto/mahdism_sokoto.pdf