Egypt was never officially a British colony, but for 74 years Britain ran it. It invaded in 1882 to protect the Suez Canal, the shortcut to India, declared Egypt "independent" in 1922 while keeping its troops there, and left only in 1956, after a failed invasion that ended Britain's days as a great power.
The Suez Canal, dug by Egyptian forced labour and French money, opened in 1869. It cut the sea route from Britain to India by thousands of miles. Egypt's ruler, the Khedive Ismail, spent lavishly on modernisation and borrowed heavily from European banks. In 1875, bankrupt, he sold Egypt's shares in the canal company to Britain. Soon British and French officials were running Egypt's finances to make sure the bondholders were paid.
Many Egyptians resented foreign control. In 1881 army officers led by Colonel Ahmed Urabi demanded a constitution and an end to foreign interference. "Egypt for the Egyptians" was their cry.
In June 1882 riots in Alexandria left about 50 Europeans dead. The British fleet demanded that the Egyptians dismantle their new coastal batteries. When the ultimatum ran out on 11 July, the Royal Navy bombarded Alexandria for more than ten hours over three days, then occupied the burning city with marines.
In August Sir Garnet Wolseley landed an army of about 20,000 men in the Canal Zone. After a night march across the desert, his troops stormed Urabi's lines at Tel el-Kebir at dawn on 13 September 1882. The Egyptian army lost over a thousand killed; British losses were small. Wolseley telegraphed his victory to Queen Victoria the same morning. Cairo was occupied, the Khedive Tawfiq was restored under British control, and Urabi was sent into exile in Ceylon.
Officially Egypt was still part of the Ottoman Empire, ruled by its own Khedive. In reality Britain's Consul-General, Sir Evelyn Baring, later Lord Cromer, ran the country from 1883 to 1907. British advisers sat in every ministry. Egypt's finances were balanced, irrigation improved, and the first Aswan Dam was finished in 1902, but Egypt was turned into a giant cotton farm for Lancashire's mills, and education was starved of money.
In June 1906 British officers out pigeon shooting near the Nile Delta village of Dinshaway set fire to a threshing floor, and a fight broke out with villagers. One officer died, probably of heatstroke while running for help. A special court sentenced several villagers to death, and they were hanged in front of their families in the village, while others were flogged. Dinshaway became a symbol of British arrogance and helped turn Egyptian nationalism into a mass movement. Cromer retired the following year.
When the Ottoman Empire entered the First World War on Germany's side in 1914, Britain declared Egypt a protectorate, deposed the Khedive Abbas II and put his uncle on the throne as Sultan. Egypt became a vast British base. Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians were drafted into the Labour Corps and Camel Transport Corps, and crops and animals were requisitioned.
At the end of the war a delegation (Wafd) led by Saad Zaghlul asked to present Egypt's case for independence at the peace conference in Paris. Britain refused. On 8 March 1919 Zaghlul and his colleagues were arrested and exiled to Malta. Within days the whole country rose: students, workers, peasants, Muslims and Christians, and for the first time women marching in the streets of Cairo. Railways and telegraph lines were cut. Hundreds of Egyptians were killed in the suppression.
Britain could no longer hold Egypt as a protectorate. The High Commissioner, Field Marshal Lord Allenby, threatened to resign unless London ended it. On 28 February 1922 he wrote to Sultan Fuad:
"The British Protectorate over Egypt is terminated, and Egypt is declared to be an independent sovereign State."Allenby to Sultan Fuad, 28 February 1922, The National Archives, FO 371/7732
The declaration was made by Britain alone, without agreement from Egypt, and it kept four "reserved points" under British control: the security of imperial communications (meaning the canal), the defence of Egypt, the protection of foreign interests, and Sudan. Fuad became King. Zaghlul called it treason. He became Egypt's first elected Prime Minister in January 1924.
The Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of August 1936 removed British troops from most of Egypt but left them in the Suez Canal Zone. In the Second World War Egypt was again Britain's main base in the Middle East. In February 1942 British tanks surrounded the royal palace in Cairo to force King Farouk to appoint a government Britain approved of. The humiliation was not forgotten.
On 23 July 1952 the Free Officers overthrew King Farouk. Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser emerged as Egypt's leader, and in 1954 he negotiated an agreement for British troops to leave the Canal Zone. The last of them left on 13 June 1956.
A month later, after the United States and Britain withdrew their offer to fund the Aswan High Dam, Nasser announced in a speech in Alexandria on 26 July 1956 that the Suez Canal Company was nationalised, with the canal dues to pay for the dam. The British Prime Minister, Anthony Eden, compared Nasser to Mussolini and was determined to remove him.
In secret, Britain and France agreed a plan with Israel. On 29 October 1956 Israel invaded Sinai. Britain and France then demanded that both sides withdraw from the canal, bombed Egyptian airfields, and on 5–6 November landed paratroopers and marines at Port Said. Egypt sank ships to block the canal. The United States, furious, refused financial help as the pound collapsed, and the Soviet Union made threats. On 7 November Eden accepted a ceasefire, with his troops stranded partway down the canal. The last British and French troops left just before Christmas 1956, replaced by the first UN peacekeeping force. Eden resigned in January 1957.
Egypt's history runs back five thousand years, and Britain's 74 years were a short chapter in it. Our partner site has a dedicated Egypt portal:
The Foreign Office files on Egypt, including Allenby's 1922 declaration (FO 371/7732), are at The National Archives in Kew. The Imperial War Museum in London covers both world wars in Egypt and the Suez Crisis. The British Museum holds a vast Egyptian collection, much of it taken during the British occupation; see our honest guide.
In Cairo, the Abdeen Palace, surrounded by British tanks in 1942, is now a museum. In Alexandria, walk the seafront forts bombarded in 1882. At Port Said, the canal entrance and the Military Museum tell the Egyptian story of 1956. West of Alexandria, El Alamein has the Commonwealth war cemetery and museums of the 1942 battles.
Entrance fees are included in the tour price; tips are not included but are always welcome.
Cairo:
Across Egypt, including airport transfers:
In London:
Gordon, the Mahdi, Omdurman and the condominium.
Egypt's treasures in London, and how they got there.
Suez and the world wars in Egypt.
All of Britain's African territories, country by country.
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