Urabi Revolt
Encyclopedia
The Urabi Revolt or Orabi Revolt (Arabic: الثورة العرابية Al-Thawra Al-Orabiyya, ʕoˈɾɑːbi), also known as the Orabi Revolution, was an uprising in Egypt
in 1879-82 against the Khedive
and Europe
an influence in the country. It was led by and named after Colonel Ahmed Urabi
.
and Britain
. When Isma'il had tried to rouse the Egyptian people
against this outside control he was deposed by the Europeans and replaced by his more pliable son Tewfik Pasha
.
The upper ranks of the civil service, the army, and the business world had become dominated by Europeans, who were paid more than native Egyptians. Within Egypt a parallel legal system for trying Europeans separately from the natives was set up. This angered the educated and ambitious Egyptians in the military and civil service who felt that the European domination of top positions was preventing their own advancement. The heavily taxed peasants, the fellahin, were also annoyed at their taxes going to Europeans who lived in relatively wealthy surroundings.
Just as important as European domination were the Turco
-Circassians and Albanians
who controlled most of the other elite positions in the government and military. Albanian troops that had come to Egypt along with Muhammad Ali
, and that had helped him take control of the country, were highly favoured by the Khedive. Turkish
was still the official language of the army, and the Turks were more likely to be promoted. Of the ruling cabinet under Tawfiq every member was a Turco-Circassian. The growing fiscal crisis in the country sparked the Khedive to drastically cut the army. From a height of 94,000 troops in 1874 the army was cut to 36,000 in 1879, with plans to shrink it even more. This created a large class of unemployed and disaffected army officers within the country. The disastrous campaign in Ethiopia
in 1875-1876 also angered the officers who felt that the government had sent them unwisely into the conflict.
A public consciousness was also developing in Egypt during this time period, and literacy was spreading and more and more newspapers were being published in the 1870s and 1880s such as the influential paper Abu Naddara Zar'a. Published by Yaqub Sanu
, a Jew of Italian and Egyptian origins, this Paris-based publication was a political satire magazine which often mocked the establishment and European control, and the publication increasingly bothered the ruling powers as well as the Europeans as it favored reformist and revolution movements. This publication also had very wide reach as, unlike many other publications, Abu Naddara Zar'a was written in Egyptian Arabic
rather than classical Arabic
making publication’s satire and political pieces understandable to the masses, not just the educated elite. Ya’qub Sanu’ claimed that his magazine reached a circulation of 10,000, which was a huge number in those days.
This broad effort at reform was opposed by the European interests, and many of the large landowners, the Turkish and Circassian elite, the high ranking ulema
, the Syrian Christians, and most of the wealthiest members of society. It had the support of most of the rest of the population including the lower ulema, the officer corps, and local leaders.
Coptic Christians
were divided: Their close affiliation with Europeans angered many and sometime made them a target, but the deep rivalry between Coptic and Syrian Christians led many to align with other Egyptian rebels. The Coptic Patriarch lent his support to the revolt when it was at its peak, but later claimed that he was pressured into doing so. Urabi and other leaders of the revolt acknowledged the Copts as potential allies and worked to prevent any targeting of the minority, but were not always successful.
An effort to court the Ottoman Sultan began. Khedive Tawfiq called on the sultan to quell the revolt, but the Sublime Porte hesitated to employ troops against Muslims who were opposing foreign Christian interference. Urabi asked the Sultan to depose Tawfiq, but again the Sultan hesitated.
. Rioters attacked Greek
, Maltese
and Italian
businesses and battles broke out in the streets. About fifty Europeans and 250 Egyptians were killed. The exact cause of the revolt is uncertain; both the Khedive and Urabi have been blamed for starting it, but there is no proof of either allegation.
As the city's garrison was maintaining the coastal defence batteries, an ultimatum was sent demanding the batteries be dismantled under threat of bombardment. The ultimatum was ignored, and the British fleet off Alexandria under Admiral Seymour
bombarded
the city. The coastal batteries returned fire. The French fleet, also at Alexandria, refused to participate. A large British naval force then tried to capture the city. Despite encountering heavy resistance, the British forces succeeded, forcing the Egyptians to withdraw.
As revolts spread across Egypt, the British House of Commons voted in favour of a larger intervention. In September of that year a British army was landed in the Canal Zone. This was after an attempt by the British army to advance from Alexandria to Cairo failed after the British army was defeated in the battle of Kafr-el-Dawwar. The motivation for the British intervention is still disputed (see 1882 Anglo-Egyptian War). The British were especially concerned that Urabi would default on Egypt's massive debt and that he might try to gain control of the Suez Canal
. On September 13, 1882 the British forces defeated Urabi's army at the Battle of Tel el-Kebir. Urabi was captured and eventually exiled to the British colony of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka
).
Urabi's revolt had a long lasting significance as the first instance of Egyptian anti-colonial nationalism, which would later play a very major role in Egyptian history
. Especially under Nasser
, the revolt would be regarded as a glorious struggle against foreign occupation. The Urabi revolution was seen by the Free Officers movement as a precursor to the 1952 revolution, and both Nasser and Neguib were likened to ‘Urabi. Nasserist textbooks called the Urabi revolution a “national revolution,” but ‘Urabi was seen as making great strategic mistakes and not being as much of a man of the people as Nasser. During Nasser’s experiment with Arab socialism
; the ‘Urabi revolt was also sometimes put in a Marxist context. Also during Sadat’s infitah period in which there was growing, controlled, economic liberalization and growing ties with the Western bloc, the government played up the desire of the ‘Urabists to draft a constitution and have democratic elections. After the 1952 revolution, the image of ‘Urabi, at least officially, has generally improved, with a number of streets and a square in Cairo bearing his name indicating the honored position he has in the official history.
Historians have in general been divided, with one group seeing the revolt as a push for liberalism and freedom on the model of the French Revolution
and others arguing that it was little more than a military coup, similar to those made about the 1952 movement. Among Western historians, especially British, there was a traditional view that the Urabi revolution was nothing more than a “revolt” or “insurrection” and not a real social revolution. By far the most influential Englishman in Egypt, Lord Cromer
, wrote a scathing assessment of the Urabist in his Modern Egypt. While this view is still held by many, there has been a growing trend to call the Urabi revolution a real revolution, especially amongst newer historians who tend to emphasize social and economic history and to examine native, rather than European, sources.
The earliest published work of Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory—later to embrace Irish Nationalism
and have an important role in the cultural life of Ireland—was Arabi and His Household (1882), a pamphlet (originally a letter to The Times
newspaper) in support of Ahmed Orabi and his revolt ("Arabi" being an archaic mistransliteration common in English at the time). Juan Cole
, a Professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor has recently published an appraisal of the Urabi revolt.
Historians have also been divided over the reasons for the British invasion, with some arguing that it was to protect the Suez Canal and prevent "anarchy", while others argue that it was to protect the interests of British investors with assets in Egypt (see 1882 Anglo-Egyptian War).
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
in 1879-82 against the Khedive
Khedive
The term Khedive is a title largely equivalent to the English word viceroy. It was first used, without official recognition, by Muhammad Ali Pasha , the Wāli of Egypt and Sudan, and vassal of the Ottoman Empire...
and Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an influence in the country. It was led by and named after Colonel Ahmed Urabi
Ahmed Urabi
Colonel Ahmed Orabi or Ahmed Urabi was an Egyptian army general, and nationalist who led a revolt in 1879 against Tewfik Pasha, the Khedive of Egypt and Sudan, and the increasing European domination of the country. The revolt was ultimately crushed in 1882 when the United Kingdom invaded at the...
.
Prologue
Egypt in the 1870s was under occupation, corrupt, misgoverned and in a state of financial ruin. Huge debts rung up by Isma'il Pasha could no longer be repaid and under pressure from the European banks that held the debt, the country's finances were being controlled by representatives of FranceFrance
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and Britain
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name of the United Kingdom during the period when what is now the Republic of Ireland formed a part of it....
. When Isma'il had tried to rouse the Egyptian people
Egyptians
Egyptians are nation an ethnic group made up of Mediterranean North Africans, the indigenous people of Egypt.Egyptian identity is closely tied to geography. The population of Egypt is concentrated in the lower Nile Valley, the small strip of cultivable land stretching from the First Cataract to...
against this outside control he was deposed by the Europeans and replaced by his more pliable son Tewfik Pasha
Tewfik Pasha
HH Muhammed Tewfik Pasha ' was Khedive of Egypt and Sudan between 1879 and 1892, and the sixth ruler from the Muhammad Ali Dynasty.-Early life:...
.
The upper ranks of the civil service, the army, and the business world had become dominated by Europeans, who were paid more than native Egyptians. Within Egypt a parallel legal system for trying Europeans separately from the natives was set up. This angered the educated and ambitious Egyptians in the military and civil service who felt that the European domination of top positions was preventing their own advancement. The heavily taxed peasants, the fellahin, were also annoyed at their taxes going to Europeans who lived in relatively wealthy surroundings.
Just as important as European domination were the Turco
Turkish people
Turkish people, also known as the "Turks" , are an ethnic group primarily living in Turkey and in the former lands of the Ottoman Empire where Turkish minorities had been established in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Greece, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Romania...
-Circassians and Albanians
Albanians
Albanians are a nation and ethnic group native to Albania and neighbouring countries. They speak the Albanian language. More than half of all Albanians live in Albania and Kosovo...
who controlled most of the other elite positions in the government and military. Albanian troops that had come to Egypt along with Muhammad Ali
Muhammad Ali of Egypt
Muhammad Ali Pasha al-Mas'ud ibn Agha was a commander in the Ottoman army, who became Wāli, and self-declared Khedive of Egypt and Sudan...
, and that had helped him take control of the country, were highly favoured by the Khedive. Turkish
Turkish language
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of Macedonia, Kosovo,...
was still the official language of the army, and the Turks were more likely to be promoted. Of the ruling cabinet under Tawfiq every member was a Turco-Circassian. The growing fiscal crisis in the country sparked the Khedive to drastically cut the army. From a height of 94,000 troops in 1874 the army was cut to 36,000 in 1879, with plans to shrink it even more. This created a large class of unemployed and disaffected army officers within the country. The disastrous campaign in Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
in 1875-1876 also angered the officers who felt that the government had sent them unwisely into the conflict.
A public consciousness was also developing in Egypt during this time period, and literacy was spreading and more and more newspapers were being published in the 1870s and 1880s such as the influential paper Abu Naddara Zar'a. Published by Yaqub Sanu
Yaqub Sanu
Yaqub Sanu , also known as James Sanua, was an Egyptian Jew born to an Egyptian mother and an Italian father. He became famous as a journalist, an Egyptian nationalist and a playwright...
, a Jew of Italian and Egyptian origins, this Paris-based publication was a political satire magazine which often mocked the establishment and European control, and the publication increasingly bothered the ruling powers as well as the Europeans as it favored reformist and revolution movements. This publication also had very wide reach as, unlike many other publications, Abu Naddara Zar'a was written in Egyptian Arabic
Egyptian Arabic
Egyptian Arabic is the language spoken by contemporary Egyptians.It is more commonly known locally as the Egyptian colloquial language or Egyptian dialect ....
rather than classical Arabic
Literary Arabic
Modern Standard Arabic , Standard Arabic, or Literary Arabic is the standard and literary variety of Arabic used in writing and in most formal speech....
making publication’s satire and political pieces understandable to the masses, not just the educated elite. Ya’qub Sanu’ claimed that his magazine reached a circulation of 10,000, which was a huge number in those days.
Urabi's seize of control
Tension built over the summer of 1881 as both the Khedive and the Egyptian officers, now led by Urabi, searched for supporters and gathered allies. In September the Khedive ordered Urabi's regiment to leave Cairo. Urabi refused and ordered the dismissal of the Turco-Circassian generals and the creation of an elected government. Unable to oppose the revolt Tawfiq agreed and a new chamber of deputies was established containing a number of Urabi's allies.Foreign intervention
On January 8 of 1882 the French and British sent a joint note that asserted the primacy of the Khedive's authority. The note infuriated the parliamentarians and Urabi. The government collapsed and a new one with Urabi as minister of war was created. This new government threatened the positions of Europeans in the government, and began also laying-off large numbers of Turco-Circassian officers.This broad effort at reform was opposed by the European interests, and many of the large landowners, the Turkish and Circassian elite, the high ranking ulema
Ulema
Ulama , also spelt ulema, refers to the educated class of Muslim legal scholars engaged in the several fields of Islamic studies. They are best known as the arbiters of shari‘a law...
, the Syrian Christians, and most of the wealthiest members of society. It had the support of most of the rest of the population including the lower ulema, the officer corps, and local leaders.
Coptic Christians
Copt
The Copts are the native Egyptian Christians , a major ethnoreligious group in Egypt....
were divided: Their close affiliation with Europeans angered many and sometime made them a target, but the deep rivalry between Coptic and Syrian Christians led many to align with other Egyptian rebels. The Coptic Patriarch lent his support to the revolt when it was at its peak, but later claimed that he was pressured into doing so. Urabi and other leaders of the revolt acknowledged the Copts as potential allies and worked to prevent any targeting of the minority, but were not always successful.
An effort to court the Ottoman Sultan began. Khedive Tawfiq called on the sultan to quell the revolt, but the Sublime Porte hesitated to employ troops against Muslims who were opposing foreign Christian interference. Urabi asked the Sultan to depose Tawfiq, but again the Sultan hesitated.
British invasion
On the afternoon of June 11, 1882 the political turmoil exploded into violence on the streets of AlexandriaAlexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...
. Rioters attacked Greek
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, Maltese
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
and Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
businesses and battles broke out in the streets. About fifty Europeans and 250 Egyptians were killed. The exact cause of the revolt is uncertain; both the Khedive and Urabi have been blamed for starting it, but there is no proof of either allegation.
As the city's garrison was maintaining the coastal defence batteries, an ultimatum was sent demanding the batteries be dismantled under threat of bombardment. The ultimatum was ignored, and the British fleet off Alexandria under Admiral Seymour
Beauchamp Seymour, 1st Baron Alcester
Admiral Frederick Beauchamp Paget Seymour, 1st Baron Alcester, GCB was a British naval commander. He was Commander-in-Chief of the Channel Fleet between 1874 and 1877 and of the Mediterranean Fleet between 1880 and 1883....
bombarded
Bombardment of Alexandria (1882)
The Bombardment of Alexandria, in 1882, by the British Mediterranean Fleet took place on 11–13 July 1882. Admiral Sir Frederick Beauchamp Seymour was in command of a fleet of fifteen Royal Navy ironclad ships which sailed to Alexandria...
the city. The coastal batteries returned fire. The French fleet, also at Alexandria, refused to participate. A large British naval force then tried to capture the city. Despite encountering heavy resistance, the British forces succeeded, forcing the Egyptians to withdraw.
As revolts spread across Egypt, the British House of Commons voted in favour of a larger intervention. In September of that year a British army was landed in the Canal Zone. This was after an attempt by the British army to advance from Alexandria to Cairo failed after the British army was defeated in the battle of Kafr-el-Dawwar. The motivation for the British intervention is still disputed (see 1882 Anglo-Egyptian War). The British were especially concerned that Urabi would default on Egypt's massive debt and that he might try to gain control of the Suez Canal
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal , also known by the nickname "The Highway to India", is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Opened in November 1869 after 10 years of construction work, it allows water transportation between Europe and Asia without navigation...
. On September 13, 1882 the British forces defeated Urabi's army at the Battle of Tel el-Kebir. Urabi was captured and eventually exiled to the British colony of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
).
Aftermath
While the British intervention was meant to be short term, it in fact persisted until 1954. Egypt was effectively made a colony until 1922. Both the British and the Khedival government did their best to discredit Urabi’s name and the revolution, although among the common people Urabi remained a popular figure. The government used the state media and educational system to denounce Urabi as a traitor and the revolution as merely a military mutiny. The historian Mohammed Rif’at was one of the first to call the events a thawra or “revolution,” but he claimed that it lacked popular support. Other historians in Egypt supported this thesis, and even expanded on it, sometimes suffering government censure. During the last years of the monarchy, authors became more critical of the old establishment and especially of the British, and Urabi is sometimes portrayed as a hero of freedom and constitutionalismUrabi's revolt had a long lasting significance as the first instance of Egyptian anti-colonial nationalism, which would later play a very major role in Egyptian history
History of Egypt
Egyptian history can be roughly divided into the following periods:*Prehistoric Egypt*Ancient Egypt**Early Dynastic Period of Egypt: 31st to 27th centuries BC**Old Kingdom of Egypt: 27th to 22nd centuries BC...
. Especially under Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein was the second President of Egypt from 1956 until his death. A colonel in the Egyptian army, Nasser led the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 along with Muhammad Naguib, the first president, which overthrew the monarchy of Egypt and Sudan, and heralded a new period of...
, the revolt would be regarded as a glorious struggle against foreign occupation. The Urabi revolution was seen by the Free Officers movement as a precursor to the 1952 revolution, and both Nasser and Neguib were likened to ‘Urabi. Nasserist textbooks called the Urabi revolution a “national revolution,” but ‘Urabi was seen as making great strategic mistakes and not being as much of a man of the people as Nasser. During Nasser’s experiment with Arab socialism
Arab socialism
Arab socialism is a political ideology based on an amalgamation of Pan-Arabism and socialism. Arab socialism is distinct from the much broader tradition of socialist thought in the Arab world, which predates Arab socialism by as much as fifty years...
; the ‘Urabi revolt was also sometimes put in a Marxist context. Also during Sadat’s infitah period in which there was growing, controlled, economic liberalization and growing ties with the Western bloc, the government played up the desire of the ‘Urabists to draft a constitution and have democratic elections. After the 1952 revolution, the image of ‘Urabi, at least officially, has generally improved, with a number of streets and a square in Cairo bearing his name indicating the honored position he has in the official history.
Historians have in general been divided, with one group seeing the revolt as a push for liberalism and freedom on the model of the French Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
and others arguing that it was little more than a military coup, similar to those made about the 1952 movement. Among Western historians, especially British, there was a traditional view that the Urabi revolution was nothing more than a “revolt” or “insurrection” and not a real social revolution. By far the most influential Englishman in Egypt, Lord Cromer
Evelyn Baring, 1st Earl of Cromer
Evelyn Baring, 1st Earl of Cromer, GCB, OM, GCMG, KCSI, CIE, PC, FRS , was a British statesman, diplomat and colonial administrator....
, wrote a scathing assessment of the Urabist in his Modern Egypt. While this view is still held by many, there has been a growing trend to call the Urabi revolution a real revolution, especially amongst newer historians who tend to emphasize social and economic history and to examine native, rather than European, sources.
The earliest published work of Isabella Augusta, Lady Gregory—later to embrace Irish Nationalism
Irish nationalism
Irish nationalism manifests itself in political and social movements and in sentiment inspired by a love for Irish culture, language and history, and as a sense of pride in Ireland and in the Irish people...
and have an important role in the cultural life of Ireland—was Arabi and His Household (1882), a pamphlet (originally a letter to The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
newspaper) in support of Ahmed Orabi and his revolt ("Arabi" being an archaic mistransliteration common in English at the time). Juan Cole
Juan Cole
John Ricardo I. "Juan" Cole is an American scholar, public intellectual, and historian of the modern Middle East and South Asia. He is Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. As a commentator on Middle Eastern affairs, he has appeared in print and on...
, a Professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor has recently published an appraisal of the Urabi revolt.
Historians have also been divided over the reasons for the British invasion, with some arguing that it was to protect the Suez Canal and prevent "anarchy", while others argue that it was to protect the interests of British investors with assets in Egypt (see 1882 Anglo-Egyptian War).