and with his treasurer and secretary was sent to Constantinople, where, in spite of Ibrahim’s promise of safety, and of Mehemet Ali’s intercession in their favour, they were put to death. At the close of the year 1819, Ibrahim returned to Cairo, having subdued all present opposition in Arabia.
Meanwhile the pasha had turned his attention to the improvement of the manufactures of Egypt, and engaged very largely in commerce. He created for himself a monopoly in the chief products of the country, to the further impoverishment of the people, and set up and kept going for years factories which never paid. But some of his projects were sound. The work of digging (1819-1820) the new canal of Alexandria, called the Mahmudiya (after the reigning sultan of Turkey), was specially important. The old canal had long fallen into decay, and the necessity of a safe channel between Alexandria and the Nile was much felt. Such was the object of the canal then excavated, and it answered its purpose; but the sacrifice of life was enormous (fully 20,000 workmen perished), and the labour of the unhappy fellahin was forced. Another notable fact in the economic progress of the country was the development of the cultivation of cotton in the Delta in 1822 and onwards. The cotton grown had been brought from the Sudan by Maho Bey, and the organization of the new industry—from which in a few years Mehemet Ali was enabled to extract considerable revenues—was entrusted to a Frenchman named Jumel.
In 1820 Mehemet Ali ordered the conquest of the eastern Sudan to be undertaken. He first sent an expedition westward (Feb. 1820) which conquered and annexed the oasis of Siwa. Among the pasha’s reasons for wishing to Conquest of the Sudan begun. extend his rule southward were the desire to capture the valuable caravan trade then going towards the Red Sea, and to secure the rich gold mines which he believed to exist in Sennār. He also saw in the campaign a means of getting rid of the disaffected troops, and of obtaining a sufficient number of captives to form the nucleus of the new army. The forces destined for this service were led by Ismail, then the youngest son of Mehemet Ali; they consisted of between 4000 and 5000 men, Turks and Arabs, and left Cairo in July 1820. Nubia at once submitted, the Shagia Arabs immediately beyond the province of Dongola were worsted, the remnant of the Mamelukes dispersed, and Sennār reduced without a battle. Mahommed Bey, the defterdār, with another force of about the same strength, was then sent by Mehemet Ali against Kordofan with a like result, but not without a hard-fought engagement. In October 1822 Ismail was, with his retinue, burnt to death by Nimr, the mek (king) of Shendi; and the defterdār, a man infamous for his cruelty, assumed the command of those provinces, and exacted terrible retribution from the innocent inhabitants. Khartum was founded at this time, and in the following years the rule of the Egyptians was largely extended and control obtained of the Red Sea ports of Suakin and Massawa (see Sudan: History).
In 1824 a native rebellion of a religious character broke out in Upper Egypt headed by one Aḥmad, an inhabitant of Es-Sālimiya, a village situated a few miles above Thebes. He proclaimed himself a prophet, and was soon followed by between 20,000 and 30,000 insurgents, mostly peasants, but some of them deserters from the “Nizām Gedid,” for that force was yet in a half-organized state, and in part declared for the impostor. The insurrection was crushed by Mehemet Ali, and about one-fourth of Ahmad’s followers perished, but he himself escaped and was never after heard of. Few of these unfortunates possessed any other weapon than the long staff (nebbut) of the Egyptian peasant; still they offered an obstinate resistance, and the combat in which they were defeated resembled a massacre. This movement was the last internal attempt to destroy the pasha’s authority.
The fellahin, a patient, long-suffering race save when stirred by religious fanaticism, submitted to the kurbash, freely used by the Turkish and Bashi Bazuk tax-gatherers employed by Mehemet Ali to enforce his Sufferings of the fellahin. system of taxation, monopolies, corvée and conscription. Under this régime the resources of the country were impoverished, while the finances fell into complete and incomprehensible chaos.
A vivid picture of the condition to which Egypt was reduced is painted in the report drawn up in 1838 by the British consul-general, Colonel Campbell:—
“The government (he wrote), possessing itself of the necessaries of life at prices fixed by itself, disposes of them at arbitrary prices. The fellah is thus deprived of his harvest and falls into arrears with his taxes, and is harassed and bastinadoed to force him to pay his debts. This leads to deterioration of agriculture and lessens the production. The pasha having imposed high taxes has caused the high prices of the necessaries of life. It would be difficult for a foreigner now coming to Egypt to form a just idea of the actual state of the country as compared with its former state. In regard to the general rise in prices, all the ground cultivated under the Mamelukes was employed for producing food—wheat, barley, beans, &c.—in immense quantities. The people reared fowls, sheep, goats, &c., and the prices were one-sixth, or even one-tenth, of those at present. This continued until Mehemet Ali became viceroy in 1805. From that period until the establishment of monopolies prices have gradually increased; but the great increase has chiefly taken place since 1824, when the pasha established his regular army, navy and factories.”
The conclusion in 1838 of a commercial treaty with Turkey, negotiated by Sir Henry Bulwer (Lord Dalling), struck a death-blow to the system of monopolies, though the application of the treaty to Egypt was delayed for some years. The picture of Egypt under Mehemet Ali is nevertheless not complete without regard being had to the beneficent side of his rule. Public order was rendered perfect; the Nile and the highways were secure to all travellers, Christian or Moslem; the Bedouin tribes were won over to peaceful pursuits, and genuine efforts were made to promote education and the study of medicine. To European merchants, on whom he was dependent for the sale of his exports, Mehemet Ali showed much favour, and under his influence the port of Alexandria again rose into importance. It was also under Mehemet Ali’s encouragement that the overland transit of goods from Europe to India via Egypt was resumed.
Mehemet Ali was fully conscious that the empire which he had so laboriously built up might at any time have to be defended by force of arms against his master Sultan Mahmud II., whose whole policy had been directed to curbing the power of his too ambitious valis, and who was under the influence of the personal enemies of the pasha of Egypt, notably of Khosrev, the grand vizier, who had never forgiven his humiliation in Egypt in 1803. Mahmud also was already planning reforms borrowed from the West, and Mehemet Ali, who had had plenty of opportunity of observing the superiority of European methods of warfare, was determined to anticipate the sultan in the creation of a fleet and an army on modern lines, partly as a measure of precaution, partly as an instrument for the realization of yet wider schemes of ambition. Before the outbreak of the War of Greek Independence in 1821 he had already expended much time and energy in organizing a fleet and in training, under the supervision of French instructors, native officers and artificers; though it was not till 1829 that the opening of a dockyard and arsenal at Alexandria enabled him to build and equip his own vessels. By 1823, moreover, he had succeeded in carrying out the reorganization of his army on European lines, the turbulent Turkish and Albanian elements being replaced by negroes and fellahin.[1] His foresight was rewarded by the invitation of the sultan to help him in the task of subduing the Greek insurgents, offering Ibrahim in the Morea. as reward the pashaliks of the Morea and of Syria. Mehemet Ali had already, in 1821, been appointed governor of Crete, which he had occupied with a small Egyptian force. In the autumn of 1824 a fleet of sixty Egyptian war-ships carrying a large force of disciplined troops concentrated in Suda Bay, and, in the following March, Ibrahim as commander-in-chief landed in the Morea. But for the action of European powers the intervention of Mehemet Ali would have
- ↑ The work was carried out under the supervision of the Frenchman, Colonel Sève, who had turned Mahommedan and was known in Islam as Suleiman Pasha. The effectiveness of the new force was first tried in the suppression of a revolt of the Albanians in Cairo (1823) by six disciplined Sudanese regiments; after which Mehemet Ali was no more troubled with military émeutes.
