Nile Valley - Key facts

1869

Completion of the Suez Canal

Egypt’s foreign debt

1863 - £3 million

1870 - £100 million

1875-76

Khedive effectively bankrupt

Dual Control (1875)

• Cut pay of the army

• Sales taxes on food and goods

• Reduced percentages Egyptians were forced to pay on foreign debt to 5%

26 June 1879

• Ismail Pasha deposed

• Replaced by his son Tewfik Pasha

Arabi Pasha

• Founded Egyptian Nationalist Party in 1879

• Led a coup following the attempt to dismiss 2500 army officers and halve the salaries of those remaining

• Forced Khedive Tewfik to appoint a nationalist ministry, including himself

Amount borrowed by new nationalist cabinet to avoid cuts

£400,000

Percentage of shipping travelling through the canal on British ships

80%

Disraeli purchased 45% of Suez Canal shares from the Bankrupt khedive

1875

British trade with Egypt in 1880

• Britain purchased 80% of Egypt’s exports

• Britain supplies 40% of Egypt’s imports

• Egypt purchased 5% of Britain’s exports

End of American Civil War

1865

Percentage of Gladstone’s fortune invested in Egyptian loans

37%

Proportion of Europeans in Alexandria

1 in 5

11 June 1882

• Row between an Egyptian donkey boy escalated into violent anti-Christian riots in Alexandria

• 50 Europeans and 250 Egyptians killed

British and French response to increasing tensions

1882 Gambetta Note

French defeat by Germany

1870

Leon Gambetta’s replacement

Charles de Freycinet - less inclined to intervene in Egypt

Number of times Britain announced its intention of withdrawing from Egypt (1882-1914)

66

Sir Evelyn Baring (Lord Cromer)

British consul general in Egypt from 1883 to 1907

Charles George Gordon

• Appointed governor of general by Khedive Ismail in 1873

• Resigned in 1880

Appearance of mahdi

1881

Mahdist victory at Kashgil in November 1883

Wiped out all but 300 of an original 7000 infantry and 1000 cavalry under the command of Sir William Hicks

22 May 1887

Constantinople Convention

Defeat of Gladstone over the question of Irish Home Rule

1886 (check)

Restoration of Egypt to solvency

1887

1885 London Convention

• Loan of £9 million to Egypt

• £8 million spent on stabilising debt

• £1 million spent on irrigation and drainage

• Debt repayment constituted half of the money raised in tax during the Baring years

Public Works Department

Between 1882 and 1902, 8% of government revenue was devoted to agriculture and hydraulic improvements

Tax paid on land in 1884 per fedden

• Kharaj (held by peasant farmers) - £1 6s 4d

• Ushr (held by large landowners) - 10s 7d

1901

Baring raised tuition fees in existing primary schools to decrease enrollment

1892

• Death of Tewfik

• Succession of his son Abbas Hilami

26 January 1885

Mahdi broke through the fortifications at Khartoum and killed entire garrison

1896

Defeat of mahdist forces at the Battle of Adowa and at Ferekh

Forces at Fashoda (1898)

• French - 120

• British - 1500

Omdurman (2 September 1898)

• Mahdist forces - 10,000 dead, 13,000 taken prisoner, 5000 wounded

• British forces - 47 dead, 382 wounded

Churchill’s Book

The River War (1899)