| In
a meeting between Khedive Abbas and Lord Kitchener, on March
23, 1914, the Khedive indicated that he lost his confidence
in the Nizarat of Mohammad Saeed Pasha and suggested to the British
High Commissioner to request Mustafa Fahmy Pasha to form a
new Nizarat knowing quite well that Fahmy Pasha was terminally
ill and would decline the offer (he died on September 13, 1914).
Kitchener
was not very pleased with the Khedive‘s decision but he reluctantly
agreed, and so did the British Government, to ask Husein Rushdy Pasha,
the Minister of Justice in the Saeed Nizarat, to form a new
Cabinet.
Born
in 1863, Husein Rushdy was the son of Hamdy Tapozadeh Pasha who
was Deputy Minister of Interior. He studied in Switzerland
and
at the Sorbonne University, in Paris, where he obtained a
Law Degree.
On
his return to Egypt he opened a successful Law Office before joining
the Egyptian Government Service as an Inspector of foreign languages
at the Ministry of Education. As a Judge at the Mixed Courts,
he earned a well-deserved reputation of integrity.
His
first Cabinet Post was in 1908 when he served as Minister of
Justice in the Butros Ghali Nizarat. Appointed as Minister
of Foreign Affairs in 1910 in the Nizarat of Mohammad Saeed Pasha,
he returned to his beloved Ministry of Justice after the resignation
of Saad Zaghloul Pasha from that post.
He
kept the portfolio of Justice until April 5, 1914 when he was requested
by Khedive Abbas to form a new Nizarat, his first.
He died on March 14, 1928.
The
first
Nizarat of Rushdy Pasha was to last seven months during which
the Khedive went on his last trip overseas, never to return to
Egypt, and Lord Kitchener was recalled to London followed
shortly by the eruption of the First World War and the Ottoman Empire participation
in that war on the side of the Centrist Empires (the German and
Austro-Hungarian Empires).
The
decisions adopted by the Rushdy Nizarat were al inspired by the
war situation:
To
preserve the neutrality of Egypt and the Suez Canal, at the beginning
of that conflict, the Government decreed to stop supplying the war ships
with coal in all the Egyptian Ports and the Suez Canal except when
authorized by the responsible authorities. The crossing of the Suez
Canal and/or the docking of those ships in Egyptian Ports should not
exceed 24 hours.
As
a result of England‘s participation in the war and its pressure
on the Egyptian Government, the Rushdy Nizarat reluctantly agreed
to cut all commercial relations with the Centrist Empires and their
citizens and to prohibit Egyptian vessels to stop at any of their ports.
It
was decreed to completely prohibit any political demonstrations and any
confrontations with the Police. An extra secret annual budget of
eight
thousands pounds was allocated to the Ministry of Interior to
increase its intelligence operations.
To
protect the Public Finances, it was decided to stabilize the value
of the Egyptian Currency by strictly connecting it to its gold equivalent.
Because
of the circumstances of war, it was decided to reduce by fifty percent
the
travel allocations to the Government Officials and to temporary freeze
the appointments of new employees and the promotions of existing ones.
Orders
were issued to stop the export of all agricultural food products and to
establish one permanent committee to guarantee the supply of food to the
population and another for the supply of oil (petrol) products.
To
avoid inflation, it was decided to form committees in all the different
Governorates, presided by the Governors of each, to fix the prices of grains,
rice, flour, wood, eggs, butter, meat, oil, all petroleum products, salt
and sugar. Those prices were to be revised every now and then and
any contravention was to be severely punished.
On
November
2, 1914, General Sir John Maxwell, the then Commanding Officer
of the British Army in Egypt, imposed the martial law on
all the Egyptian territories, including the Sudan. On December
18, 1914, Egypt was declared a British Protectorate and on the
following day, December 19, England removed Khedive Abbas
from his Khedivial Throne, declared Egypt a Sultanate and
appointed Husein Kamel, a son of Khedive Ismail and younger
brother of Khedive Tewfik, as first Sultan of Egypt. As a
result of that grave event, Husein Rushdy submitted the resignation
of his Cabinet to the newly appointed Sultan.
Thus
ended the Nizarats of Egypt under British occupation and a new chapter
of its political life was about to begin. The new Sultanate abolished
the title of “Nizarats” replacing it with the titles of Prime Ministers
and Ministers as prevailing in the Western World.
Sultan
Husein Kamel, son of Khedive Ismail, was born on November
1853 in Cairo where he received an education, which was to be
continued in Paris. Charged by his father to look after Public
Works, he ordered the construction of the railroad from central Cairo
to Helwan and opened the first state school for girls at Al-Suyufyya.
When Khedive Ismail was exiled, Husein Kamel accompanied
him for three years then returned to Egypt and supervised the farming
of his own lands.
He
also served on the boards of several Egyptian and Foreign companies.
He organized Egypt ‘s first agricultural fair and inaugurated a
flower show at the Ezbekya Garden in 1896. One of the leaders
of the Islamic Benevolent Society, he was sympathetic to Egypt‘s
peasants and hostile to the National Party (Al Hizb Al Watany).
He chaired the Legislative Council in 1909-1910, resigning
after the General Assembly rejected the Suez Canal Company
concession extension. On December 19, 1914, when his nephew,
Khedive
Abbas Helmi the Second, was deposed by the British and Egypt
was severed from the Ottoman Empire and declared a Sultanate under British
protection, England named Husein Kamel the first Sultan
of Egypt.
Two
assassination attempts were made on his life but he died in Cairo from
natural causes on October 9, 1917. The British Protectorate
and wartime conditions kept him from using his good managerial abilities
(1).
In
the early twentieth century Europe was divided into two alliances:
“The
triple Entente” which included France, England and Tsarist
Russia,
and
“l’ alliance triplice” which included the German and
Austro-Hungarian
Empires, and Italy. -
On
June
28, 1914, a Bosnian Serb assassinated Archduke Francis Ferdinand
of Hapsburg, the Crown Prince of the Austro-Hungarian Empire,
in Sarajevo. The Austro-Hungarian Government accused
the Serbian Intelligence of being behind that crime and of inciting the
Slav Subjects of the Empire to rebel.
A
harsh ultimatum was addressed to Serbia and, even though the ultimatum
was accepted, the Empire declared war against Serbia on July 28 1914.
-
On
July
30, 1914, Tsarist Russia, the protector of Serbia, announced
a total mobilization of its armed forces and vowed to help Serbia.
-
The
German Empire sent an ultimatum to Russia, which was refused, and
Germany declared war on Russia on August 1, 1914.
On
that same date, France ordered a complete mobilization of its armed
forces.
On
August
3, 1914, Germany and Austria declared war against France.
On
August
4, 1914, England declared war against the Central Empires for
violating the Neutrality of Belgium, which was guaranteed by England.
On
November
1, 1914, Russia declared war against the Ottoman Empire for allowing
two German battleships, which were hiding in Ottoman ports, to bombard
Russian positions in the Crimean Peninsula.-
On
November
5, 1914, England and France declared war against the
Ottoman Empire.
Three
Parties dominated the Egyptian political scene prior to the First World
War: -
The
Nationalist
Party (Al Hizb Al Watany), which was founded by Mustafa Kamel
Pasha on October 22, was truly a Nationalist Party; through
the eloquence of its founder and leader it urged the Egyptian to get rid
of the British occupier. Unfortunately for the party, Mustafa
Kamel died on February 10, 1908, and his successors,
either Mohammad Farid Bey, who died in exile or
Abdel Aziz Gawish,
the editor of the Party ‘s newspaper. “Al Liwaa”, did not explain
to the people how to achieve its objective.
About
the same time, more or less, the Nation Party (Hizb Al Ommah)
was founded. It was the Party of the rich and educated. Its
founding fathers were Mahmoud Soliman Pasha, Hasan Abdel Razeq
Pasha and Ahmad Lutfi El Sayed Pasha. That party also
aimed for Egypt's independence but on the long run.
What were urgent were not independence but the education and modernity
of the country.
The
Party had a newspaper, “Al Guaridah” which was beautifully
edited by Lutfi Al Sayed, but its membership was very limited.
This Party was the forefather of the Liberal Constitutional Party (
Hizb Al Ahrar Al Doustouryeene).
Khedive
Abbas, who did not like the two parties, mentioned above, decided
to encourage the founding of a third party called the Constitutional Reform
Party (Hizb Al Islah Al Doustouri). He chose Sheikh Ali
Youssef to lead the Party, and to edit its newspaper “Al Liwaa”.
The party failed mostly because of Sheikh Youssef ‘s animosity towards
the Nationalist Party.
(To be continued)
Kamal K. Katba
TO
VIEW APPENDIX XIII
"The
Struggle of Muhammad Fariyd in Exile"
CLICK
BELOW:
| (1)
source: Biographical Dictionary of Modern Egypt, by Prof. Dr. Arthur
Goldschmidt Jr. |
|
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