Urabi Revolt - Prologue

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 France 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 the 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.