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EMPIRE in EGYPT and SUDAN, to 1929 (2 of 3)

At the end of the war, trouble arose with hope for independence, aroused in part by point twelve of Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points, about "unmolested opportunity of an autonomous development" in former portions of the Ottoman Empire. A political party had developed devoted to Egyptian independence, the Wafd party. Its members wanted to send a delegation to the Paris Peace Conference. The British did not allow it. In March 1919, the British arrested three Waft party leaders and deported them to the island of Malta. An explosion of rioting followed that surprised the British. In some Egyptian provinces, civilians attacked and killed British soldiers. Egyptians tore up railway tracks and cut telegraph wires. British troops managed to restore order, but passive resistance to British rule remained.

The British released Waft Party delegates from prison and allowed them to go to Paris, where they were shaken by Woodrow Wilson's acceptance of a British protectorate over Egypt.

A British commission did a study and decided on an "alliance" with an "independent" Egypt. Egypt was to have a constitutional monarchy and the British were to have the responsibility for protecting Egypt from "foreign aggression," to guide" its foreign relations, and to protect Egypt's minority populations and foreigners in Egypt -- businessmen, diplomats and what have you, in others words to maintain law and order. And Britain was to remain in control of its "lifeline " to India: the Suez Canal.

Sultan Faud, who had succeeded his elder brother, Sultan Husayn Kamil, who died in 1917, became known as King Faud. Egypt had a constitution and a bicameral legislature, but the king's powers were extensive. He could dissolve the legislature. He appointed and dismissed ministers. He could rule by decree. He had veto power over legislation, which could be over-ridden by two-thirds of the legislature. And he was commander-in-chief of Egypt's armed forces. It might have been easier for Britain to control Egypt with a politically powerful and friendly, or subservient, king than it would have been with a weak king and a powerful parliament.

Elections held in Egypt in January,1924, gave the Wafd Party an overwhelming majority in parliament. The Wafd party leader, Zaghlul, became Prime Minister and remained a national hero, but he was able to take power only by accepting the safeguarding of British interests in Egypt. Meanwhile, in the Sudan, the British wanted no competition with Egyptian forces. The Sudan had been considered Egyptian, and Zaghlul demanded that Egypt and Sudan be merged. On November 19, 1924, the British Governor-General of Sudan, Sir Lee Stack, was assassinated in Cairo and pro-Egyptian riots broke out in Sudan. The British demanded that Egypt pay an apology fee and withdraw troops from Sudan. Zaghlul agreed to the first but not the second, and he resigned.

The north of Sudan was predominantly Arab and Muslim and had maintained close ties with Egypt. The south of Sudan was a mixture of Christianity and animism. The British put Sudan's north and south under separate administrations. From 1924, it was illegal for people living in Sudan's north to go south of the 10th parallel and for people in the south to go above the 8th parallel. The British were interested in preventing the spread of malaria and other tropical diseases that had ravaged British troops, and they wanted to facilitate the spread of Christianity among the predominantly animist population in the south while keep Islamic influences out.