with Austria and then with Italy, leaving Russia eventually to unite with France.
As the congress of Berlin took in review the general situation of the Turkish empire, it was natural that the French delegates should formulate the position of France in Egypt. Thus the powers of Europe accepted the maintenance of the condominium in Egypt, financial and administrative, Egyptian question. of England and France. Egypt, nominally a province of the Turkish empire, had been invested with a large degree of autonomy, guaranteed by an agreement made in 1840 and 1841 between the Porte and the then five great powers, though some opposition was made to France being a party to this compact. By degrees Austria, Prussia and Russia (as well as Italy when it attained the rank of a great power) had left the international control of Egypt to France and England by reason of the preponderance of the interests of those two powers on the Nile.
In 1875 the interests of England in Egypt, which had hitherto been considered inferior to those of France, gained a superiority owing to the purchase by the British government of the shares of the khedive Ismail in the Suez Canal. Whatever rivalry there may have been between England and France, they had to present a united front to the pretensions of Ismail, whose prodigalities made him impatient of the control which they exercised over his finances. This led to his deposition and exile. The control was re-established by his successor Tewfik on the 4th of September 1879. The revival ensued of a so-called national party, which Ismail for his own purposes had encouraged in its movement hostile to foreign domination. In September 1881 took place the rising led by Arabi, by whose action an assembly of notables was convoked for the purpose of deposing the government authorized by the European powers. The fear lest the sultan should intervene gave an appearance of harmony to the policy of England and France, whose interests were too great to permit of any such interference. At the end of 1879 the first Freycinet cabinet had succeeded that of M. Waddington and had in turn been succeeded in September 1880 by the first Ferry cabinet. In the latter the foreign minister was M. Barthélemy Saint-Hilaire, an aged philosopher who had first taken part in politics when he helped to dethrone Charles X. in 1830. In September 1881 he categorically invited the British government to join France in a military intervention to oppose any interference which the Porte might attempt, and the two powers each sent a war-ship to Alexandria. On the 14th of November Gambetta formed his grand ministère, in which he was foreign minister. Though it lasted less than eleven weeks, important measures were taken by it, as Arabi had become under-secretary for war at Cairo, and was receiving secret encouragement from the sultan. On the 7th of January 1882, at the instance of Gambetta, a joint note was presented by the British and French consuls to the khedive, to the effect that their governments were resolved to maintain the status quo, Gambetta having designed this as a consecration of the Anglo-French alliance in the East. Thereupon the Porte protested, by a circular addressed to the powers, against this infringement of its suzerainty in Egypt. Meanwhile, the assembly of notables claimed the right of voting the taxes and administering the finances of the country, and Gambetta, considering this as an attempt to emancipate Egypt from the financial control of Europe, moved the British government to join with France in protesting against any interference on the part of the notables in the budget. But when Lord Granville accepted this proposal Gambetta had fallen, on the 26th of January, being succeeded by M. de Freycinet, who for the second time became president of the council and foreign minister. Gambetta fell nominally on a scheme of partial revision of the constitution. It included the re-establishment of scrutin de liste, a method of voting to which many Republicans were hostile, so this gave his enemies in his own party their opportunity. He thus fell the victim of republican jealousy, nearly half the Republicans in the chamber voting against him in the fatal division. The subsequent debates of 1882 show that many of Gambetta’s adversaries were also opposed to his policy of uniting with England on the Egyptian question. Henceforth the interior affairs of Egypt have little to do with the subject we are treating; but some of the incidents in France which led to the English occupation of Egypt ought to be mentioned. M. de Freycinet was opposed to any armed intervention by France; but in the face of the feeling in the country in favour of maintaining the traditional influence of France in Egypt, his declarations of policy were vague. On the 23rd of February 1882 he said that he would assure the non-exclusive preponderance in Egypt of France and England by means of an understanding with Europe, and on the 11th of May that he wished to retain for France its peculiar position of privileged influence. England and France sent to Alexandria a combined squadron, which did not prevent a massacre of Europeans there on the 11th of June, the khedive being now in the hands of the military party under Arabi. On the 11th of July the English fleet bombarded Alexandria, the French ships in anticipation of that action having departed the previous day. On the 18th of July the Chamber debated the supplementary vote for the fleet in the Mediterranean, M. de Freycinet declaring that France would take no active part in Egypt except as the mandatory of the European powers. This was the occasion for the last great speech of Gambetta in parliament. In it he earnestly urged close co-operation with England, which he predicted would otherwise become the mistress of Egypt, and in his concluding sentences he uttered the famous “Ne rompez jamais l’alliance anglaise.” A further vote, proposed in consequence of Arabi’s open rebellion, was abandoned, as M. de Freycinet announced that the European powers declined to give France and England a collective mandate to intervene in their name. In the Senate on the 25th of July M. Scherer, better known as a philosopher than as a politician, who had Gambetta’s confidence, read a report on the supplementary votes which severely criticized the timidity and vacillation of the government in Egyptian policy. Four days later in the Chamber M. de Freycinet proposed an understanding with England limited to the protection of the Suez Canal. Attacked by M. Clémenceau on the impossibility of separating the question of the canal from the general Egyptian question, the ministry was defeated by a huge majority, and M. de Freycinet fell, having achieved the distinction of being the chief instrument in removing Egypt from the sphere of French interest.
Some of the Republicans whose votes turned out M. de Freycinet wanted Jules Ferry to take his place, as he was considered to be a strong man in foreign policy, and Gambetta, for this reason, was willing to see his personal enemy at the head of public affairs. But this was prevented by M. Clémenceau and the extreme Left, and the new ministry was formed by M. Duclerc, an old senator whose previous official experience had been under the Second Republic. On its taking office on the 7th of August, the ministerial declaration announced that its policy would be in conformity with the vote which, by refusing supplies for the occupation of the Suez Canal, had overthrown M. de Freycinet. The declaration characterized this vote as “a measure of reserve and of prudence but not as an abdication.” Nevertheless the action of the Chamber—which was due to the hostility to Gambetta of rival leaders, who had little mutual affection, including MM. de Freycinet, Jules Ferry, Clémenceau and the president of the Republic, M. Grévy, rather than to a desire to abandon Egypt—did result in the abdication of France. After England single-handed had subdued the rebellion and restored the authority of the khedive, the latter signed a decree on the 11th of January 1883 abolishing the joint control of England and France. Henceforth Egypt continued to be a frequent topic of debate in the Chambers; the interests of France in respect of the Egyptian finances, the judicial system and other institutions formed the subject of diplomatic correspondence, as did the irritating question of the eventual evacuation of Egypt by England. But though it caused constant friction between the two countries up to the Anglo-French convention of the 8th of April 1904, there was no longer a French active policy with regard to Egypt. The lost predominance of France in that country did, however, quicken French activity in other regions of northern Africa.
