The large landholders and urban elites from the disbanded Egyptian Assembly of Delegates followed the army’s successes with great interest. They recognized that they stood a much better chance of imposing their liberal constitutional reforms upon the unwilling khedive in partnership with the armed forces. Between February and September 1881, a mixed coalition of Egyptian army officers, large landholders, delegates from the Assembly, journalists, and religious scholars took shape, calling themselves the “National Party.” As the Islamic reformer Shaykh Muhammad Abduh explained to a British observer, these “were months of great political activity, which pervaded all classes. [Urabi’s] action gained him much popularity, and put him into communication with the civilian members of the National party . . . and it was we who put forward the idea of renewing the demand for a Constitution.”¹⁸ The members of this coalition each had their own objectives and grievances. What held them together was a common belief that the Egyptians deserved a better deal in their own country. They took “Egypt for the Egyptians” as their slogan, and gave their support to each other’s cause the better to promote their own. For Urabi and his fellow officers, the constitution represented constraints on the Khedive and his government that would protect them from arbitrary reprisals. It also enhanced their role as defenders of the interests of the Egyptian people rather than just the narrow interests of the military men. To contemporary European observers the growing reform coalition appeared to be a nationalist movement, but this was not so. Urabi and his fellow reformers fully accepted Egypt’s status as an autonomous Ottoman province. Urabi regularly declared his loyalty to both the khedive and the Ottoman sultan—and was decorated by Abdulhamid II for his services. The reformists objected to the power of European ministers and consuls over Egypt’s politics and economy, and the dominance of the Turco-Circassians over the military and cabinet. When demonstrators took to the streets shouting, “Egypt for the Egyptians!” it was a call for freedom from European and Circassian interference, not for national independence. This distinction, however, was lost on the Europeans, who interpreted the actions of the Egyptian military as the beginnings of a nationalist movement that threatened both their strategic and their financial interests. Britain and France began to discuss the best ways to respond to the Urabi threat. The khedive followed the emergence of the opposition movement with growing concern. Already the European powers had whittled away his sovereignty, imposing European officials on his government and taking control of half of Egypt’s budget. Now his own subjects sought to clip his wings further by imposing a constitution and recalling the Assembly. Tawfiq was isolated. He could only count on the support of the Turco-Circassian elites. In July 1881, Tawfiq dismissed the reformist cabinet and installed as minister of war his brother-in-law, a Circassian named Dawud Pasha Yegen, whom Urabi described as ?an ignorant, fatuous, sinister man.? The officers responded by organizing another demonstration outside the khedive’s palace in Abdin Square. Urabi notified the khedive on the morning of September 9, 1881, that “We will bring all of the soldiers present in Cairo to Abdin Square to present our demands to His Highness the Khedive at four in the afternoon” that same day.¹⁹ Tawfiq Pasha was alarmed at the prospect of a new military mutiny and went with his prime minister and American chief of staff, Stone Pasha, to try to rouse loyal troops at the Abdin barracks and in the Citadel to intervene against Urabi—but to no effect. Urabi engendered more loyalty from the Egyptian military men than the khedive himself. Tawfiq was forced to receive Urabi before Abdin Palace with only his courtiers and the foreign consuls behind him. The officers presented the khedive with their demands: a new cabinet, headed by the constitutional reformer Sharif Pasha; the reconvening of the Assembly; and the expansion of troop numbers to 18,000 men. Tawfiq had no choice but to concur. The military and their civilian supporters were in control.

The khedive succumbed to the reformers’ pressures and reconvened the Assembly. In January 1882 the delegates submitted a draft constitution for the khedive’s consideration. The constitution was promulgated in February, and a new reformist cabinet was appointed, with Ahmad Urabi named minister of war. Colonel Urabi, who had not seen a promotion since 1863, had finally overturned the Turco-Circassian hierarchy to secure control of the Egyptian military. There is little doubt that the Egyptian officers took the opportunity to settle old scores with the Mamluks. Former minister of war Uthman Rifqi Pasha was accused of a plot to assassinate Urabi, and fifty of his officers—all Turco-Circassians—were found guilty of the conspiracy. Many of those detained were tortured, with Urabi’s knowledge. He later confided: “I never went to the prison to see them tortured or ill-treated. I simply never went near them at all.”²⁰ Officials in Paris and London grew increasingly alarmed by Tawfiq’s growing isolation in Cairo. The khedive’s every concession to the reform movement reduced both his authority and the influence of the great powers over Egypt’s economy. The British and French were concerned lest the khedive’s concessions give rise to political disorder in Egypt. Urabi’s presence in the government did little to assuage European concerns. Urabi forced the new prime minister, Mahmud Sami al-Barudi, to dismiss European officials appointed to the Egyptian civil service. These changes were too much, too fast, for the conservative European powers to accept. The Urabi movement was beginning to look like a revolution, and the British and French went into action to prop up the faltering khedive?s regime. Ironically, their every action exacerbated Tawfiq?s isolation and enhanced Urabi?s standing. In January 1882, the British and French governments drafted a joint communiquй, known as the Gambetta Note, in a bid to restore the khedive’s authority. One might have expected better from two states that prided themselves on their mastery of diplomacy. The British and French hoped, by giving assurances of “their united efforts” against all internal or external threats to order in Egypt, that they might “avert the dangers to which the Government of the Khedive might be exposed, and which would certainly find England and France united to oppose them.” Nothing could have weakened Tawfiq Pasha’s position more than this poorly-veiled threat to protect the khedive from his own people. The clumsy Gambetta Note was followed by European demands that Urabi be dismissed from the cabinet. Urabi’s domestic standing was greatly reinforced when the unpopular European Powers sought to bring him down. Tawfiq, in comparison, became even more isolated. Urabi accused Tawfiq Pasha of acting on behalf of European interests and of betraying his own country. The prime minister resigned with most of his cabinet. Under the circumstances, no one was willing to form a new government. Urabi remained in office, which meant that the government was effectively under the control of its most popular and powerful minister. In seeking Urabi’s dismissal, the European powers had unwittingly left him in control of the Egyptian government. As the situation escalated, Britain and France resorted to gunboat diplomacy; in May 1882, the two powers dispatched a joint naval squadron to Egypt. This show of force left Khedive Tawfiq’s position untenable. On May 31 he left Cairo for Ras al-Tin Palace in Alexandria to be closer to the protection of the British and French ships. Egypt was essentially being ruled by two men: the legally recognized head of state, Khedive Tawfiq, confined to his palace in Alexandria; and the popular leader, Ahmad Urabi, at the head of the acting government in Cairo. With European warships cruising off the coast, tensions between Egyptians and Europeans exploded into violence in Alexandria on June 11, 1882. What began as a street fight between a British subject and an Egyptian coach driver turned into a riot against foreigners that claimed over fifty lives. Hundreds more were wounded, and thousands were left destitute by the destruction of homes and work places. The European press played up the Alexandria riots as a massacre of Christians and Europeans, putting pressure on the British and French governments to respond forcefully to the breakdown in order in Egypt. Urabi knew that anti-European riots were likely to provoke the British and French to intervene. He even suspected Khedive Tawfiq of instigating the riots to precipitate foreign intervention, though there is no evidence to support this allegation. Urabi dispatched 12,000 troops to Alexandria to restore order—and to reinforce the city against the expected European response. Urabi placed Egypt on a war footing, turning to his supporters among the large landholders to ask for peasant recruits to bolster his armed forces. Emergency taxes were levied to provide Urabi?s government with financial resources to withstand a European attack. Sure enough, the commander of the British fleet, Sir Beauchamp Seymour, issued a series of escalating ultimatums, threatening to bombard Alexandria unless the city’s sea defenses were dismantled. Undaunted, the Egyptian army set about reinforcing the defenses of Alexandria, extending the ramparts on the waterfront and building gun emplacements to face the threat of European ships. With neither the Europeans nor the Egyptians willing to back down, armed conflict was imminent. The threat of military action had one unforeseen consequence: the withdrawal of the French fleet after months of concerted Anglo-French efforts. The French government was bound by its constitution to obtain the consent of parliament before entering into hostilities with any country. France was still recovering from its terrible defeat to Germany in 1870, the cost of subduing Algeria in 1871, and the expenses associated with the occupation of Tunisia in 1881. The French treasury was overextended, and the Chamber was unwilling to enter into any new foreign entanglements. On July 5 the French government explained its position to the British and withdrew its ships from Alexandria. Now the British faced a momentous decision: either back down or go it alone. Britain did not want to occupy Egypt. A bankrupt state with a discredited ruler and an army in revolt is not an attractive proposition to any imperial power. Moreover, Britain’s presence in Egypt would upset the balance of power in Europe that Whitehall had worked so long to preserve. Even more problematic was the exit strategy: once British troops had entered Egypt, when would they be in a position to withdraw? Given Britain’s objectives of assuring the security of the Suez Canal and repayment of Egypt’s debts to British creditors, the risks of military action seemed to outweigh the benefits. Backing down, however, was never really an option. Victorian Britain would not have considered itself “Great” had it conceded to rebellious officers in less-developed countries. Admiral Seymour was given the government’s approval, and on July 11 he opened fire on the ramparts and city of Alexandria. By sunset the city was ablaze, and the Egyptian forces were in retreat. A detachment of British soldiers occupied Alexandria on July 14. It was the beginning not just of a war but of a British occupation that would last three-quarters of a century.