The Nile Valley

• Reasons for intervention - Arabi Pasha

  
  

  • 1879 he led a coup following an attempt to dismiss 2,500 officers from the army and halve the salaries of those who remained
  • He successfully forced Khedive Tewfik to appoint a nationalist ministry, himself included
  • The British and the French feared that next he'd force Tewfik to repudiate loans and ignore financial measures
• Reasons for intervention - trade

  
  

  • By 1880, Britain purchased 80% of Egypt's exports and supplied 44% of Egypt's imports
  • During American Civil War, Britain had imported Egyptian cotton to make up for the loss of American cotton from the blockaded Southern states
  • After the war, British mills reverted back to American cotton, exacerbating Egyptian economic difficulties
• Reasons for intervention - financial

  
  

  • British bond-holders in London were heavily exposed to any failure by Egypt to pay its debts
  • Britain and France established 'duel control' over Egypt's finances following the Khedive's bankruptcy
  • 37% of Gladstone's personal fortune was invested in Egyptian loans
• Reasons for intervention - moral obligation

  
  

  • Alexandria - 1/5 of the 232,000 living there was European
  • 1882 a row between an Egyptian donkey boy and a Maltese man escalated into a violent anti-Christian riot across the city
  • 50 Europeans killed and around 250 Egyptians
  • Britain blamed Arabi Pasha and his supporters
• The veiled protectorate

  
  

  • Name given to the years between 1882-1914 when London effectively controlled Egypt
  • No legal basis for their presence other than the fiction that they were there at the request of the Khedive
• Fashoda

  
  

  • French had a force of 120 men under Major Marchland and had been travelling from Brazzaville for 14 months
  • Britain had a force of 1,500 men under Kitchener
  • French were relived they were dealing with white Europeans and not Mahdists
  • Dealt back home peacefully
  • Had a party, English brought whisky and soda, French brought champagne
• Battle of Omdurman - initial victory

  
  

  • Got to try out new technology with the Maxim gun
  • Mahdist soldiers - 10,000 dead, 13,000 prisoners and 5,000 wounded
  • British soldiers - 47 dead and 382 wounded
• Battle of Omdurman - Churchill's attitude

  
  

  • Thought it was an atrocity
  • Criticised Kitchener in his book 'The River War' in 1899
  • Wrote letters saying that he was to blame as he didn't prevent wounded Mahdists from being killed
• Battle of Omdurman - empire consequences

  
  

  • Britain had effective control of the whole of the Nile Valley
  • Sudan became part of the British Empire
• Reasons for retaining Egypt - emergence of radical Islam in Sudan

  
  

  • Mahdi rose in 1881, he was intent of removing Egyptian-Ottoman control and establishing a purer Islam
  • His forces killed 2700/3000 of Sir William Hick’s men, leading to Egypt having no control over Sudan anymore
  • Britain had no hope the Khedive could resolve this issue himself, as the forces threatened British Suez trade routes
• Reasons for retaining Egypt - British collapse of Liberalism

  • Gladstone’s commitment to Home Rule in Ireland led to the split of the Liberal Party
  • This allowed for the Dominance of the Conservatives
  • Conservative leader Salisbury initially didn’t want involvement in Egypt
  • Stayed due to a fear the French would gain a strategic advantage in North Africa
  • Stayed due to Mahdist actions creating British patriotism
• Role of Kitchener

  • Part of the relief team sent to free Gordon after he died
  • Used modern gunboats and railways
  • Led the battle of Omdurman
  • Held a memorial for Gordon and cut the head off the Mahdi
  • Was loved by the public but hated by anti-imperialists
• Reasons for intervention - French withdrawal

  • Gambetta note – France and Britain would invade Egypt to protect financial investments and restore Khedive’s authority
  • Due to French defeat in Franco-Prussian war, they were forced to back down in Egypt in the face of German superiority
  • In 1882, French PM Gambetta was replaced with PM Freycinet, who feared German invasion more than the financial loss of withdrawing from Egypt
• Reasons for intervention - collapse of Ottoman empire

  • Russia keen to expand it’s influence into Greece and Serbia
  • France wanted to turn the Mediterranean into its own lake
  • Britain wanted to secure Suez Canal
  • Khedive’s debt grew to £100 million in 1870 due to British and French investments, by 1876 he was bankrupt
  • Ottoman empire Sultan fired Khedive Ismail, led to nationalism against Ottoman empire
• reasons for retaining Egypt - veiled protectorate and Baring's mission

  • Occupation was meant to be temporary, they announced their leave 66 times
  • Counsul-General Baring was known as ‘over-baring’
  • He increased British officials, like Sir William Hicks as the lead of the Egyptian Army
  • He believed Egypt need extreme agricultural and political restructuring
  • He viewed Egyptians as ‘orientals’ and ‘inferior’, believing in Anglo-Saxon standards
• Reasons for retaining Egypt - investment in Baring's reforms

  • £8 million spent of stabilising debt
  • £1 million of London Convention loan spent on irrigation
  • 8% of revenue spent on agriculture under Public Works Department as Baring wanted to improve peasant crop yields
  • Land inequality – peasants paid £1 and 6 shillings per acre; wealthy landowners paid 10 shillings
• Conquering Sudan - Nile valley

  • Part of Britain’s ‘sphere of influence’
  • Salisbury ordered Kitchener to control the source of the Nile as it connected Britain’s Egyptian colony with those in East Africa
  • Wanted the source as the water controlled the irrigation of cotton in Egypt
• Conquering Sudan - Sudanese nationalism

  • Mahdists expanding into Ethiopia, which caused conflict with Italians
  • Italian government asked the British to attack Northern Sudan to protect the Italian garrison In the East
  • Italians suffered an attack from Menelik II of Ethiopia in 1896, raising possibility of an alliance between Mahdists and Menelik
  • Salisbury invaded to show European superiority and halt the spread of pan-Islamism
• Conquering Sudan - fear of French

  • France and Belgium thinking about stopping Mahdi in Sudan
  • If the British controlled Sudan, then it would join their southern African colonies with those in the North
  • Italy, Belgium, and Germany recognised the Nile as part of British ‘sphere of influence’ in 1890, but France did not
  • French launched an expedition to reach Fashoda
• Conquering Sudan - economy and infrastructure

  • Gordon had established several trading posts along the Nile in Sudan, which could be reclaimed and reopened
  • Kitchener was tasked with building a railway to ensure that supplies could get into Sudan, even when the Nile was flooded
  • The railway cut journey times from 18 days by camel and steamer, to 24 hours by train
  • Kitchener also laid 630 miles of telegraph cable and built 19 telegraph offices
• Conquering Sudan - avenging Gordan's death

  • Gordan’s writings made the public think that he could have been saved if Gladstone sent reinforces sooner
  • Public drag Gladstone, calling him MOG (Murderer of Gordon)
  • In 1885 there was a large body of British public opinion which wanted to retake Sudan to ‘avenge Gordan’
• Conquering Sudan - 1898 Battle of Omdurman


  • Aimed to destroy the Mahdi, Salisbury called it ‘one of the vilest despotisms ever seen’
  • British carried the Maxim Gun
  • 10,000 Mahdists dead, 13,000 taken prisoner, 5,000 wounded
  • Only 37 British died and 382 wounded
  • Young reporter Churchill described how the Mahdists were mown down
  • Resulted in Britain effectively controlling all of the Nile and Sudan becoming part of the empire