Correspondence with A J Balfour, Sir R Wingate, Lord Allenby, Lord Milner and others on Egypt [‎30v] (60/300)

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(the Nationalist leader in Lord Cromer’s time) and there seemed no reason why it
should affect the decisions of His Majesty’s Government on constitutional questions,
and the proper form to be given to the Protectorate.
this account ol the situation was soon destined to be falsified. On the 6th March
Sir M. Cheetham reported that Saad Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. Zaglul, who had felt the refusal to allow
him to proceed to Europe as a severe rebuff, was doing all he could to prevent the
formation of a new Government, and those politicians who would have been ready to
accept office were being persuaded from doing so by threats against their lives,
f urther, .definite action had been taken bv Zaglul to intimidate the Sultan, and to
discourage His Highness from co-operating with the British Authorities in
re-establishing the Council of Ministers. On the 3rd March Zaglul had presented
himself at Abdin Palace with most of the members of his original deputation,
and, on being refused-admission, had left a signed petition to the Sultan repudiating
the Protectorate, warning His Highness against accepting the advice of the Besidency,
and containing thinly veiled threats against him should he continue to assist in
creating a Ministry. The Sultan was shaken by the terms of the petition, which
was, in fact, an impudent summons to him, and His Highness had earnestly appealed to
Sir M. Cheetham for protection from further insults. Sir M. Cheetham had consulted his
principal advisers, and they agreed with him in recommending the immediate arrest and
deportation of Saad Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. Zaglul, whose insidious propaganda made him more dangerous
than any of the agitators interned at Malta since the beginning of the war. On the
7th March Sir M. Cheetham was authorised to concert with the Commander-in-Chief
for the arrest and deportation to Malta of Zaglul and those of his party most actively
associated with him in this deliberate campaign of intimidation. Zaglul Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. , with
Ismail Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. Sidki, Mohammed Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. Mahmoud, and Hamed Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. El Basal, were
arrested on the 8th March and left for Malta on the following morning. Sir M. Cheetham
reported that the administration of the country was in no way affected by the crisis.
But on the following day there was an outbreak of feeling in Cairo amongst the students
of the higher colleges. They weie dispersed by the Egyptian police and 310 arrests
were made.
It is unnecessary to recapitulate the series of events which, in the short space of
a week, transformed Egypt from a scene of peace to a welter of anarchv and rapine.
Evidence was soon forthcoming that the plan of campaign had been carefully
premeditated and organised. It was directed by the remainder of the Nationalist
deputation who had taken up theii headquarters at ZagluTs house. In the towms there
was rioting, looting, and attacks on Government buildings. An eye-witness of the
Cairo disturbances was impressed by the complete control a few students possessed over
i he mob. In the provinces there was a concerted attack on communications, telephone
and telegraph wires were cut everywhere, and the railways and stations were damaged
at Tantah, Wrsta, and other important junctions. It is worth noting that the plan
carried out corresponds to the programme drawn up by the Germans and Young Turks
for an outbreak in the autumn of 1914, which was revealed to the Egyptian authorities
by the German spy Mors, captured at Alexandria. As was to be expected, the distur
bances soon assumed a predatory, rather than a political, character. In the towns mobs
of roughs and criminals looted Christian shops, and in certain provincial districts the
peasants rose against the landlords and sacked the big farms. The settled Bedouin, a
lawless and truculent lot, who live on the edge of the cultivation, were not slow to
seize the opportunity for looting and to join in the fray. There is also evidence that
they had been organised and paid. The fellaheen Arabic for ‘peasant’. It was used by British officials to refer to agricultural workers or to members of a social class employed primarily in agricultural labour. are unarmed. During 1915-16 the
Ministry of Interior collected from them no less than 100,000 firearms of sorts, few
of them of any military value. But no systematic attempt was made to disarm the
Bedouin as the military consequences might have been serious. The Bedouin are
armed, some of them with rifles. They entered the Behera, Fayoum, and Minia
provinces, looting as they came, and attacked isolated British detachments, but were
easily repulsed. They probably had a hand in the brutal murder of nine British officers
and men who were returning from Luxor in the Upper Egypt express. The desert
Bedouin have taken no part in the outbreak. Satisfactory features of these deplorable
occurrences are. that the Egyptian army has remained steady, and the Administrative
officials and police, who have been freely used, have behaved "remarkably well, in spite
of the severe strain laid upon their loyalty. The behaviour of the clerks‘in Government
offices has not been equally good.
The extent and violence of the movement, which appeared to have assumed a
national character, even the Copts (with great wisdom from the point of view of self-
preservation) declaring sympathy with it, took the British local authorities, both civil