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The British Occupation Of Egypt

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British Occupation of Egypt in 1882, the Suez Canal and British Involvement in Egyptian Policy

The British occupation of Egypt in 1882 was a key event in the history of Egypt, they went bankrupt in 1876 and were under dual control of Britain and France in 1879. Egypt’s banks were taken over by British and French representatives and the Suez Canal was also under the British and French control. The Urabi revolt of 1879-1882 caused a huge uprising against British/French control of Egypt as Ahmed Urabi rose up against the Khedive of Egypt Tewfik Pasha. The British were forced to intervene before they lost control of this region that held their most valuable pathway to India.
The British were forced to act and in April 1882, sent warships to …show more content…

The fighting only lasted a couple months and for the British in confirmed their control of Egypt and allowed them to take control of not just the financial, but also the economic side of Egypt. The British were very interested in Egyptian cotton as it grew in long fiber which made it better for making clothing. This is just one of many interests the British had in this region.
The British occupation of Egypt began to make Egyptians question how much control of Egypt was actually in their hands and this led to revolutionaries like Urabi standing up against the British. The British occupied Egypt in 1882 because they wanted to keep control of the Suez Canal for direct access to India, they wanted to keep the government under the Khedive’s control so they could keep their access to Egypt’s economic resources, especially cotton and they wanted to protect their joint control alliance with France in order to control the Egyptian nationalists. There are many conflicting ideas about why the British occupied Egypt, whether it be for economic purposes or for strategic purposes, the main reason was because of their control of the Suez Canal.
Alexander Scholch argues that because of initiatives by British Prime Minister William Gladstone, who wanted to take control

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