1920 03
Just signed up at this very moment to help you out! Middle Eastern History is my thing, So here’s a quick writeup on your topics. The Egyptian Uprisings are mostly a 1919 thing, but since you havent covered it yet, I suppose 1920 is better than never!
At the outbreak of the Great War, the few remaining ties to the Ottomans had been cut, and the Khedive of Egypt declared a Sultan, under a british protectorate - which many Egyptians expected to be a wartime measure, to be resolved following the conflict. With the war ending, the people of Egypt, as so many others, pinned their hopes on the wilsonian self-determination. Saad Zaghlul, a lawyer from a poor family, that had worked his wat up and served as minister of justice under the Khedive, started putting together an Egyptian delegation to Versailles, to represent the country and ask for a peaceful end to the protectorate. It soon became clear he wouldn’t be allowed to go by the British. So, he started organizing a popular movement to shore up support and force the British into letting him go. on the 8th of march 1919 he and his associates in the Wafd party(Arabic for ‘Delegate’) were arrested, and exiled to Malta - The following day, in response Egyptian cities exploded in strikes, protests and civil disobedience, with some violent attacks in the countryside. The British cracked down, and at least 800 egyptians were killed before the end of the month.
For the Egyptians, this was quite the national movement - men & women, Christian and Muslims, landowners and workers all took part, albeit often in different ways. The first women’s demonstration was on march 16th, where the women were met by a row of british machine guns blocking the street. Huda Sha’rawi, the ‘mother’ of Egyptian feminism, marched on - when stopped by another protester, she shouted “Let me die so Egypt shall have an Edith Cavell!” After a long standoff, the protest broke up without any real violence - the British were loath to open fire on unarmed women.
The protests died down as spring became summer. In november 1919 the Milner Commision were sent to Egypt to investigate, and in their report to Lord Curzon they recommended a treaty of alliance rather than protectorate. So Zaghlul and the Wafd were released, and allowed to go to Paris, where they learned that the American delegation recognized Britains protectorate over Egypt. As it wasn’t possible to get Egyptian independence as part of the post-war settlement, they were forced to negotiate directly with the British. From june to august 1920, Zaghlul and the Wafd were in London, where they found agreement, that would be ratified by Parliament in february, the following year, leading to a new round of negotiations, on the exact terms of the treaty. The british terms, considering Egypt and the Suez as vital for the Empire, were too harsh for the Wafd.
1919-1922 had alternating periods of protest and negotiation, ending in the interesting case of Britain unilaterally declaring Egypt independent, february 28th, 1922. Britain did however officially retain their control over: Security of imperial communications, defense of Egypt against outside aggresion, The Sudan, and protection of foreign interests and minority rights. While the following decades were marked by constant negotiations on the British role, in essence they interfered as much as they did in the prewar years. The Wafd however, became the leading party until the 1952 revolution, and the Egyptian feminist movement, born in the fires of 1919, remained an important part of society.
I don’t have my books on hand, so it’s mostly written from memory, while looking up dates and numbers.
The books at my home, which this is (probably?) mostly based on:
Skovgaard-Petersen, Jakob: Moderne Islam: Muslimer i Kairo printed by Gyldendal, 2007
Rogan, Eugene: The Arabs: A History Penguin, 2012
This is all I can give you for now, I gotta get back to work. I’ll try and come back later and write something on San Remo and the imperialist splitting of the Middle East, focused on the french conquest of Faisals Syria, as well as their use of sectarianism in Lebanon - that should fit right into the identity-theme.
If you want me to, I’ll cover the Iraqi uprising as well - that’s the summer of 1920, so very pertinent for the episode, but if you’ve decided to cut it, there’s no point in me writing an essay on it!
