The Egyptian Revolution of 1919 (Arabic: ثورة 1919 Thawra 1919) was a countrywide revolution against the British occupation of Egypt and Sudan. Egyptians from different walks of life carried it out in the wake of the British-ordered exile of the revolutionary Egyptian Nationalist leader Saad Zaghlul and other members of the Wafd Party in 1919.
The revolution led to the United Kingdom’s later recognition of Egyptian independence in 1922 as the Kingdom of Egypt and the implementation of a new constitution in 1923. The British government, however, refused to recognise full Egyptian sovereignty over Sudan or to withdraw its forces from the Suez Canal Zone, factors that would continue to sour Anglo-Egyptian relations in the decades leading up to the Egyptian Revolution of 1952.
Background of the Egyptian Revolution of 1919
The Ottoman Empire retained nominal sovereignty over Egypt. Still, the political connection between the two countries was severed mainly by the earlier seizure of power by Muhammad Ali in 1805 and re-enforced by the later increasing British influence and occupation of Egypt in 1882. From 1883 to 1914, the Khedive of Egypt and Sudan under the Ottoman Sultan remained the official ruler of the country, but the British Consul-General exercised ultimate power.
When the Caucasus Campaign of World War I broke out between the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire, Britain declared martial law in Egypt and announced that it would shoulder the entire burden of the war. On 14 December 1914, the Khedivate of Egypt was elevated to a different level of Sultanate of Egypt and declared a British protectorate, thus definitively terminating the legal fiction of Ottoman sovereignty over its province of Egypt. The terms of the protectorate led Egyptian nationalists to believe it was a temporary arrangement that would be changed after the world war through a bilateral agreement with Britain.
Causes of the Egyptian Revolution of 1919
Before World War I, nationalist agitation was limited to the educated elite. However, dissatisfaction with the British occupation spread among all population classes during the war. This resulted from Egypt’s increasing involvement in the war, despite Britain’s promise to shoulder the entire burden of the war. During the war, the British government stationed thousands of imperial troops in Egypt conscripted over one and a half million Egyptians into the Labour Corps, and requisitioned buildings, supplies, and animals to fight on different fronts for use in the war effort. In addition, because of Allied promises during the war (such as American President Woodrow Wilson’s “Fourteen Points”), Egyptian political classes prepared for self-government. By the war’s end, the Egyptian people demanded their independence.
Events
Shortly after the First World War armistice on 11 November was concluded on the Western Front in Europe, a delegation of Egyptian nationalist activists led by Saad Zaghlul requested High Commissioner Reginald Wingate to end the British Protectorate in Egypt and Sudan and gain Egyptian representation at the planned peace conference in Paris. The delegation also included ‘Ali Sha’rawi Pasha, Abd al-Aziz Fahmi Bey, Muhammad ‘Ali Bey, ‘Abd al-Latif al-Makabati Bey, Muhammad Mahmud Pasha, Sinut Hanna Bey, Hamd Pasha al-Basil, George Khayyat Bey, Mahmud Abu al-Nasr Bey, Mustafa al-Nahhas Bey and Dr Hafiz ‘Afifi Bey.
Meanwhile, a mass movement for the complete independence of Egypt and Sudan was being organised at a grassroots level, using the tactics of civil disobedience. By then, Zaghlul and the Wafd Party enjoyed massive support among the Egyptian people. Wafdist emissaries went into towns and villages to collect signatures authorising the movement’s leaders to petition for the country’s independence.
Seeing the popular support that the Wafd leaders enjoyed and fearing social unrest, the British administration arrested Zaghlul on 8 March 1919 and exiled him with two other movement leaders to Malta. During widespread disturbances between 15 and 31 March, at least 800 people were killed, numerous villages were burnt down, large landed properties plundered, and railways destroyed by angered Egyptian mobs. “The result [of the arrest] was a revolution,” according to noted Egyptian history professor James Jankowski.
For several weeks until April, demonstrations and strikes across Egypt by students, elite civil servants, merchants, peasants, workers, and religious leaders became so daily that everyday life was halted. This mass movement was characterised by the participation of both men and women and by spanning the religious divide between Muslim and Christian Egyptians. The uprising in the Egyptian countryside was more violent, involving attacks on British military installations, civilian facilities and personnel. The Egyptian Expeditionary Force, the British army in the region, engaged in mass repression to restore order. The Egyptian police force in Cairo initially responded to the revolution. However, control was handed off to Major-General H.D. Watson and his military forces in the city within a few days. By 25 July 1919, 800 Egyptians died, and 1,600 others were wounded.
Under Prime Minister David Lloyd George, the British government sent a commission of inquiry, known as the “Milner Mission”, to Egypt in December 1919 to determine the causes of the disorder and to make a recommendation about the country’s political future. Lord Milner’s report to Lloyd George, the Cabinet and King George V, published in February 1921, recommended that the protectorate status of Egypt was not satisfactory and should be abandoned. The revolts forced London to issue a unilateral declaration of Egyptian independence on 28 February 1922.
Aftermath
The British government offered to recognise Egypt as an independent sovereign state. Still, the British government held on to these powers: the security of the communications of the British Empire in Egypt, defending Egypt against foreign aggression, and protecting foreign interests in Egypt and Sudan.
The Wafd Party drafted a new constitution in 1923 based on a representative parliamentary system. Saad Zaghlul became the first popularly elected Prime Minister of Egypt in 1924. Egyptian independence at this stage was nominal, as British forces remained physically present on Egyptian soil. Moreover, Britain’s recognition of Egyptian independence directly excluded Sudan, which continued to be administered as an Anglo-Egyptian condominium.
