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| 1876, April |
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| EGYPT'S BANKRUPTCY. Faced with an overwhelming foreign debt of £68.5 million (incurred mostly under Isma’il), in addition to a floating debt of £23 million, the Egyptian government suspended interest payments. The Caisse de la Dette, an international body consisting of representatives of the European powers, was put in charge of the country's finances. The Law of Liquidation of 1880 fixed the consolidated debt at £98.4 million, of which about 40 percent was owed to French creditors and about 25 percent to British financiers. | 1 |
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| 1877 |
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| Egypt's first satirical newspaper, Abu Naddara, was founded in Cairo by James (Ya’qub) Sanua, an Alexandrian Jew. Its criticism of Khedive Isma’il led to Sanua's exile to Paris, where he died in 1912. Sanua also organized the first local popular theater in Egypt (1869–71). | 2 |
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| 1879, June 26 |
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| Deposition of Isma’il by the sultan, under pressure from the European powers. For the first time the dynasty's autonomous rule was severely curtailed. | 3 |
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| 1879–92 |
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| KHEDIVE TAWFIQ. Isma’il's son came to power at a time of great crisis. The financial stringency due to the bankruptcy, along with the growing European control of Egyptian affairs, caused widespread discontent. The influential Pan-Islamic activist Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, who lived in Egypt in 1871–79, found many receptive to his agitated calls for Islamic solidarity and action to defeat corrupt regimes and foreign intrusion. Among liberals there was criticism of the khedive's autocracy and calls for constitutional limits on it. | 4 |
| Grievances extended also to the army, in which the Egyptian officers resented not only their exclusion from ranks higher than colonel (the preserve of the Turkish and Circassian officers), but also their loss of jobs due to budget cuts. It was these officers who in 1881–82 took the lead in a popular movement of protest, known as the Urabi Revolution, that challenged both the khedive and the European powers. Tawfiq lost control of the situation and chose to collaborate with the foreign powers in the hope of restoring order and maintaining his position. During the British occupation of the country he was returned to the throne, although with very limited powers. | 5 |
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| 1881–82 |
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| THE URABI REVOLUTION. In Jan. 1881 Egyptian officers led by Col. Ahmad Urabi (1841–1911) presented demands for improvements in their treatment, and following a mutiny, secured concessions from the khedive, including the appointment of Mahmud Sami al-Barudi, an officer sympathetic to their demands, as war minister. When Barudi was dismissed, Urabi organized a huge demonstration outside the khedive's palace (Sept. 9), making broader political demands: restoring Barudi, enlarging the army, dismissing the prime minister, and reconvening the Assembly of Delegates. Tawfiq again capitulated, and Urabi emerged as a national hero with growing control over the government. On Jan. 8, 1882, Britain and France issued a joint note threatening to intervene on behalf of the khedive, but it only emboldened the Urabists. Urabi became war minister in a new cabinet headed by Barudi (Feb. 1882), and the two vowed to resist the Europeans. The popular fervor they stirred for the defense of Egypt and Islam led to violent anti-European riots in Alexandria on June 11 and to a summer of mounting tensions ending in British intervention and the collapse of Urabi's movement. | 6 |
| Urabi's movement is regarded as the first Egyptian nationalist movement, although its membership was too diffuse and limited to make it a truly mass phenomenon. It was largely a movement of social protest in which religious sentiments concerned with defending Islam against injustice and the infidel played a large role alongside genuinely nationalist ideas. Urabi and his associates made remarkable gains at the expense of the khedive, but they misjudged the determination of the Europeans, especially the British, to safeguard their interests: the security of the Suez Canal, the repayment of the Egyptian debts, and the safety of the European residents. A more coherent nationalist movement emerged during the occupation and found expression in the 1919 Revolution. | 7 |
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| 1882, Sept |
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| THE BRITISH OCCUPATION. British troops landed in Egypt in Aug., and on Sept. 13 they routed Urabi's army at Tel-el-Kebir and proceeded to occupy Cairo. Urabi surrendered and was exiled to Ceylon, while Khedive Tawfiq, who had put himself under the protection of British troops in July, was restored. | 8 |
| Although intended initially to be short-lived, the British occupation lasted 72 years. Until 1914 British control over the country was exercised through command of the army and the appointment of British advisers in Egyptian ministries. The British consul general exercised a dominant position as de facto governor of the country. | 9 |
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| 1882–1914 |
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| Development of agriculture. The cultivatable area grew from 4.8 million to 5.7 million feddans (1 feddan is equal to 1.038 acres). Investment in new dams and barrages, the development of roads and light railways, and the general security increased agricultural production, although the doubling of the population during the period (from 6 million to 12 million) made Egypt a net importer of food after 1900. There was little development of modern industry, and agriculture remained the mainstay of the economy. | 10 |
| Limited public investment in education. In 1914 Egypt had 739 private schools, 328 private foreign schools, but only 68 government-supported primary and secondary schools. Government expenditure on education amounted to only 1 percent of the budget, leading Egyptians to charge the British with the willful neglect of Egyptian education. | 11 |
| Decline of the guild system. The trade and craft guilds into which most of the urban workforce was traditionally organized slipped steadily. By a series of decrees beginning in 1881, the government took over their administrative and fiscal functions and abolished their economic monopolies. This, together with the massive influx of European imports and businessmen, destroyed most of the guilds by 1914. | 12 |
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| 1883–1907 |
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| Sir Evelyn Baring (later Lord Cromer) served as consul general. An able administrator, he guided the reform of Egypt's finances and the development of public works and agriculture. But his autocratic ways alienated the khedives and the spokesmen of Egyptian opinion. | 13 |
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| 1885 |
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| Overthrow of Egyptian rule in the Sudan. The forces of the Sudanese Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad, who began his revolt in 1881, defeated an Egyptian expeditionary force under William Hicks in Nov. 1883, and in Jan. 1885 took Khartum after killing the governor-general Charles Gordon and his garrison. | 14 |
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| 1885–89 |
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| FINAL ABOLITION OF FORCED LABOR (the corvée). The long-standing official practice of recruiting thousands of peasants annually to work (with pay) on government projects, often far from their homes, had been a source of dislocation for families and much social unrest. | 15 |
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| 1888, Oct. 29 |
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| The convention on the Suez Canal was signed by the Ottoman Empire, Britain, and several other European countries. It declared that the canal should be free and open to the merchant and war vessels of all powers in time of war as in time of peace. Because of British reservations the provision did not become operative until after the British-French entente of 1904. It continued in force until 1956. | 16 |
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| 1890, Jan. 5 |
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| Establishment of the municipality of Alexandria, the first municipal government in Egypt. Municipal councils were created subsequently in many towns, but most of their members were government appointees or officials, and their powers remained limited. | 17 |
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