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When the victorious Allies promised independence to those people who had been 'long
oppressed by the Turk' it seemed Great Britain was about to grant Egypt her independence. But what Great Britain publicly proclaimed and privately resolved were two
different matters as Egyptian nationalists were to discover.
Anglo-Egyptian relations remained the
most vital issue in Egyptian political life for
seventy years —from the occupation of the
country in 1882 to the evacuation of British
forces from the Canal Zone in 1953. It was
not only the rock on which innumerable
Egyptian cabinets foundered, but also the
bane of Egyptian political life, for all
other issues were neglected in favour of
that one devouring preoccupation. It was
also the determining factor in the rise of
nationalist parties in the country, and
especially in the rise of the Wafd party.
In 1895 a nationalist movement calling
for independence from Britain had appeared
in Egypt under the impetus of a
young orator, Mustafa Kamil, and with the
encouragement of the Khedive (ruler)
Abbas. But neither Cromer, the British
consul-general, nor the British government
took this movement seriously; they
assumed that the country's well-being was
sufficient justification for the continued
occupation of Egypt, and anyway Egypt
as the lifeline to India was too important to
evacuate. Thus when political parties
appeared in 1907 with evacuation as a
major plank in their platforms, they were
treated by Cromer as little better than
fifth-columnists. For the occupation, which
in 1882 had been described by the British
government as a temporary expedient, had
by then acquired a character of permanency.
Legally Egypt's position was anomalous.
Though the occupation had occurred at the
invitation of the Khedive, it had continued
in spite of him. Moreover Egypt was a
vassal of Turkey. In 1914, when Turkey joined the Central Powers, the link between
Turkey and Egypt was severed as Britain
declared a protectorate over Egypt,
deposed the Khedive and replaced him by
his uncle, and announced a state of martial
law.
The war years were to blur the picture
even more. President Wilson's Fourteen
Points which appeared in January 1918
and which laid down the right to self-determination
for all nations, roused hopes of
independence among many Egyptians. Since
the war had rid them of their legal suzerain,
Turkey, they thought that Wilson's
declaration could rid them of their unofficial
suzerain, England. These hopes
were strengthened by the Anglo-French
agreement of November 1918 in which the
Allies promised independence to those
peoples 'long oppressed by the Turks',
and undertook to set up national governments
based on the free choice of the populations.
Thus Egyptian politicians together
sought for a means of acquiring their independence. The outcome of their consultations
was that three men, Saad Pasha
Zaghlul, Ali Pasha Shaarawi, and Abd al-
Aziz Bey Fahmi, met the British high
commissioner, Sir Reginald Wingate, on
13th November 1918 to request that an
Egyptian delegation, a wafd, be allowed to
travel to Paris and present Egypt's case at
the Peace Conference. The Wafd, as this
group of men soon came to be known, were
acting in concert with the Egyptian
government of the day. They had a secret
agreement with the prime minister, Husain
Pasha Rushdi, that should their request
be refused, then Rushdi would himself
request permission to travel to London and
negotiate with the authorities for some
kind of autonomy. For though there were
some Egyptians who believed the Allied
declarations of good faith, there were others
more sceptical who suspected that Britain
would not relinquish her hold so easily,
and they were willing to bargain for some
kind of autonomy under the protectorate.
Both the request of the Wafd and of the
prime minister were turned down. From
then on what had begun as a delegation
representing an educated elite in Egypt,
turned into a political party under the
leadership of Zaghlul and supported by a
group of ideologues, efficient organizers,
and a rank and file which, for the first
time in Egyptian history, not only included
the educated elite, but also elements of the grassroots
of the country. It also had a platform
advocating reforms of various kinds, but
these were entirely subordinated to the
issue at hand. One can, therefore, in all
fairness say that the Wafd, practically
overnight, developed into the first real
political party in Egypt, and one which
had widespread popular support.
The Wafd and Zaghlul have often been
treated synonymously — and so they were
from 1918 to 1927 - for Zaghlul's personality
towered above the other members and
overshadowed men who were as able, if
not abler than himself. A revolutionary in
his youth, he became the most brilliant
lawyer of his time, and though originally
from humble peasant stock, married the
daughter of a pro-British prime minister,
Mustafa Pasha Fahmi. He was a friend of
Cromer, and known to be pro-British, so
that throughout the period of nationalist
agitation from 1895 to 1907 he held himself
aloof. Several times a cabinet minister,
Zaghlul was elected to the legislative
council in 1913, and became its vice-president
- in which capacity he headed the
Wafd. It is only from 1913 onwards that
one can trace Zaghlul's ascent as a member
of the nationalist group, and as an opponent of the British occupation in Egypt. By then
he was in his sixties, a venerable man with
an honourable, not to say brilliant, record
as a moderate and responsible official. The
rest of the leading members of the Wafd,
Abd al-Aziz Fahmi, Ali Shaarawi, Ahmad
Lutfi al-Sayyid, and Muhammad Mahmud,
were all respectable, responsible, and
wealthy notables, who represented the
Egyptian upper and middle class, very few
of whom could remotely be described as
agitators. Circumstances however were
soon to turn them into revolutionaries.
The Wafd, which had won a large following
by intensive campaigning in the
countryside (largely facilitated by the
co-operation of Egyptian government
officials), soon began a widespread campaign
of agitation to force the British
authorities into allowing them to present
Egypt's case at the Peace Conference. And
since even the Hejaz was being given a seat
at the Conference, there seemed to the
Egyptians no valid reason for turning
them down. Wingate had indeed suggested
that the Egyptians be given a hearing,
but his suggestion was met by a reprimand,
and on 8th March 1919 the British
authorities, exacerbated by the Wafd's
agitation, arrested Zaghlul and three of
his friends, and deported them to Malta. This was the spark that set off a revolution.
On 9th March and the following days
students in Cairo demonstrated in the
streets, only to be mowed down by machine gun
fire from British soldiers called in to
quell the riots. The next few months witnessed
nationalist uprisings all over the
countryside, some spontaneous, others
organized by the Wafd. Railways were
sabotaged, communications came to a
standstill, and civil servants, lawyers, and
students went on strike. Even the ladies of
Cairo came out of the seclusion of their
harems. Veiled up to the eyes and muffled
in black cloaks, they waved banners in support
of the Wafd and of independence. Occasionally
British officials and soldiers were
killed, and retaliation was swift and brutal,
especially since the demonstrators were
unarmed. The toll of dead soon numbered
over a thousand Egyptians and some thirty
Englishmen. Men, women, and children
were ruthlessly shot down in the streets
in an attempt to stop the movement, which
only gained momentum.
The Egyptians are ignored
The riots soon had their effect. A week after
his arrival in Egypt, Allenby, the new high
commissioner, sent a wire to London recommending that Zaghlul and his friends
be released, and allowed to proceed to
Paris for he recognized that they were
indeed representative of Egyptian public
opinion. On 7th April Zaghlul and his
friends were freed, and left for Paris. But
in Paris the victors were too busy apportioning
the booty to pay any attention to the
Egyptians. To make matters worse, on
22nd April, President Wilson, despite his
former declarations, recognized the British
protectorate over Egypt. Two months later
the protectorate was recognized by Germany
and incorporated into the Treaty of
Versailles.
Undaunted, the Wafd went to London
hoping to get a hearing, but Lloyd George
simply showed them the chair reserved for
Egypt when it joined the Commonwealth,
and left it at that. Nevertheless, in October,
a commission of inquiry under Lord Milner
was formed to look into the Egyptian
situation. The commission left England two
months later, and when it reached Cairo
it was to find itself the target of a tremendous
boycott arranged by the Wafd. Only
Zaghlul and the Wafd could speak for
Egypt, Milner was told, and after three
months in Egypt, Milner fully agreed, and
arranged for talks to take place between
himself and the Wafd, but on a purely
unofficial basis.
The outcome of the talks was a document
known as the 'Milner-Zaghlul agreement';
it was in fact not an agreement at all,
but simply an 'outline of the bases on
which an agreement might subsequently
be framed'. Milner believed that Egypt
should be granted independence, but the
agreement he framed was a treaty of alliance
between England and Egypt which
would merely give Egypt the outward signs
of independence without giving it real freedom
of action. Many of the moderate members
of the Wafd were willing to settle for
that, but Zaghlul who previously might
have settled for less, now wanted more,
namely complete independence, and he
urged that the agreement be further
modified. When Milner could offer no
further concessions, conversations ended on
11th November 1920, and the Wafd left for
Paris.
In Cairo an able politician Adli Pasha
Yaghan had been nominated prime
minister, and he invited the Wafd to
participate in new negotiations with the
British government. Zaghlul who had
returned to Egypt by then, to be greeted
deliriously by the people, agreed, on condition
that such a delegation be predominantly
Wafdist in membership, and
under his leadership. Adli, quite naturally,
refused. This marked the break in the
nationalist front, for many Wafdists resigned
in protest at Zaghlul's high-handedness,
both in refusing the Milner Agreement,
and then at his treatment of Adli.
Zaghlul, an autocrat by nature, had become
even more so as a result of public
adulation and succeeded in alienating
many of his supporters, who seceded from
the Wafd to form a party in October 1922
called the Liberal Constitutionalists. But
no government in Egypt could make any
negotiations acceptable to the Egyptians
without the co-operation of the Wafd, for
the Wafd had the masses on its side. Adli's
negotiations therefore failed.
Meanwhile Zaghlul was moving the
masses to daily demonstrations by his
oratory, which in spite of a speech defect,
was brilliant and compelling. He spoke for
Egypt, and was the voice of the nation,
but Lloyd George and many British officials
still failed to realize that Zaghlul was the
only person who could negotiate with
Britain, They regarded him simply as a
nuisance and suggested that he be deported.
So, once again, in December 1921, Zaghlul
was arrested and exiled to the Seychelles.
Chaos spread over Egypt as strikes and
demonstrations broke out in protest at the arrest of the head of the nationalist movement. Allenby, in need of a coup de
theatre, pushed the British government into
issuing the unilateral declaration of
February 1922, which abolished the protectorate
over Egypt and declared Egypt
independent. Yet the British insisted on
retaining responsibility for the security of
British empire communications in Egypt,
the defence of Egypt and the Sudan, and
the protection of foreign interests and
minorities in Egypt. The Wafd rejected the
declaration outright and branded it a
'national catastrophe', for the four provisos
shackled Egypt so entirely as to make
a farce of independence. Nevertheless
Sultan Fuad accepted it, and became King
of a so-called independent Egypt. From
then on the King played a dominant and
nefarious role in Egyptian politics; coalition
cabinets depended on his good will for
survival, and subsequently only the Wafd
and Zaghlul could force his hand 'in the
name of Egypt'.
In April a constitutional committee
was established to draw up a constitution
and an electoral law. In spite of Zaghlul's
absence the Wafd continued to make itself
felt in public life through speeches, strikes
and demonstrations. Bombs exploded
throughout Cairo and under the noses of
successive prime ministers, but damaging little save their dignity. Finally, in March,
Zaghlul was released.
The elections of 1923-24 gave the Wafd
190 seats out of 214, and Zaghlul formed a
cabinet. The new government in England
was a Labour one headed by Ramsay MacDonald, a friend of Zaghlul's, and a feeling
of optimism pervaded Egypt as hopes of a
settlement began to appear. But neither
Zaghlul nor MacDonald were willing to
make concessions. Zaghlul could not ask
for less than he had done in the past, and
MacDonald would not, or could not, offer
more. A few months later the assassination
of the British commander-in-chief in Egypt,
Sir Lee Stack, brought about Zaghlul's
resignation, and for a while, his retirement
from public life. But it was not for long.
In 1925 new elections produced a Wafdist
majority, as did all subsequent elections
when they were not rigged by the government.
But the new High Commissioner,
Lord Lloyd, who believed in gunboat
diplomacy, and regarded Zaghlul with
suspicion, prevented him from becoming
premier by calling a gunboat to Alexandria.
Lord Lloyd was to call out the gunboats
on several occasions in order to force
Egyptian cabinets into following his
instructions. Coalition cabinets succeeded
one another, but they could negotiate no
settlement, for Zaghlul was the only man
capable of coming to some arrangement
with England, and he died in 1927. Mustafa
al-Nahhas succeeded him as head of the
Wafd, and eventually under the force of
circumstances — of war in Ethiopia —the
Wafd was able to form a coalition cabinet
and conclude a treaty with England in
1936.
The Wafd, born of a desire for independence,
developed into the only popular
party Egypt has ever known. Zaghlul's
personality, plus widespread campaigning,
efficiently planned and executed by his
supporters, brought the Wafd into every
Egyptian village. For years after Zaghlul's
death peasants continued to vote Wafdist
for 'Saad' and later on al-Nahhas became
every bit as popular. The Wafd continued
to be the majority party in Egypt until it
was disbanded, with all other parties, after
the revolution of 1952. Zaghlul's achievement
had been considerable. |
