history of Egypt

…the rise to power of Egyptian Pres. Gamal Abdel Nasser, a staunch Pan-Arab nationalist. Nasser took a hostile stance toward Israel. In 1956 Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, a vital waterway connecting Europe and Asia that was largely owned by French and British concerns. France and Britain responded by striking…

between Israel and Egypt signed on September 17, 1978, that led in the following year to a peace treaty between those two countries, the first such treaty between Israel and any of its Arab neighbors. Brokered by U.S. Pres. Jimmy Carter (this author) between Israeli Prime Minister Menachem…

Egyptian forces soon entered the town of Gaza, which became the headquarters of the Egyptian expeditionary force in Palestine. As a result of heavy fighting in autumn 1948, the area around the town under Arab occupation was reduced to a strip of territory 25 miles…

The Israeli raids humiliated Egypt’s nationalist government headed by Gamal Abdel Nasser, a veteran of the 1948 war and leader of the group that had overthrown King Farouk in 1952. Nasser sought to lead the Arabs in expelling British and French imperial influence and regarded Israel as a symbol…

Egyptian Pres. Gamal Abdel Nasser had previously come under sharp criticism for his failure to aid Syria and Jordan against Israel; he had also been accused of hiding behind the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) stationed at Egypt’s border with Israel in the Sinai. Now,…

Israel, Great Britain, France, and Egypt in 1956, and between Israel, Jordan, and Egypt in 1970. None of these states was at the time declared an aggressor. On the other hand, Japan was found to be an aggressor in Manchuria in 1933, Paraguay in the Chaco area in 1935, North…

…British decision not to finance Egypt’s construction of the Aswan High Dam, as they had promised, in response to Egypt’s growing ties with communist Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union. Nasser reacted to the American and British decision by declaring martial law in the canal zone and seizing control of the…

…most critical change occurred in Egypt, where in 1952 a cabal of young army officers backed by the Muslim Brotherhood forced the dissolute King Farouk into exile. In 1954 Nasser emerged to assume control. Nasser envisioned a pan-Arab movement led by Egypt that would expel the British from the Middle…

…inconclusive war (1969–70) chiefly between Egypt and Israel. The conflict, launched by Egypt, was meant to wear down Israel by means of a long engagement and so provide Egypt with the opportunity to dislodge Israeli forces from the Sinai Peninsula, which Israel had seized from Egypt in the Six-Day (June)…

…the afternoon of October 6 Egypt and Syria attacked Israel simultaneously on two fronts. With the element of surprise to their advantage, Egyptian forces successfully crossed the Suez Canal with greater ease than expected, suffering only a fraction of the anticipated casualties, while Syrian forces were able to launch their…

The course of Egypt’s loss of sovereignty resembled somewhat the same process in Tunisia: easy credit extended by Europeans, bankruptcy, increasing control by foreign-debt commissioners, mulcting of the peasants to raise revenue for servicing the debt, growing independence movements, and finally military conquest by a foreign power. In…

…29, 1956, Israel’s army attacked Egypt in the Sinai Peninsula, and within 48 hours the British and French were fighting Egypt for control of the Suez area. But the Western allies found Egyptian resistance more determined than they had anticipated. Before they could turn their invasion into a real occupation,…

As high commissioner for Egypt (1919–25) Allenby steered that country firmly but impartially through political disturbances and saw it recognized as a sovereign state in 1922.

The British were to restore Egypt (evacuated by the French) to the Ottoman Empire and Malta to the Knights of St. John within three months. The rights and territories of the Ottoman Empire and of Portugal were to be respected, with the exception that France would keep Portuguese Guinea.

…years of British occupation in Egypt; it was ratified in December 1936. Nevertheless, Egyptian sovereignty remained circumscribed by the terms of the treaty, which established a 20-year military alliance that allowed Great Britain to impose martial law and censorship in Egypt in the event of international emergency, provided for the…

…had proposed the invasion of Egypt in early 1798. Control of Egypt would provide France with a new source of income while simultaneously blocking the Red Sea, a major route of English access to India, thus disrupting a significant source of revenue for France’s main European opponent. The plan was…

…as when the British occupied Egypt in 1882, but more often it was for strategic reasons or in pursuit of national prestige. One necessary condition for the New Imperialism, often overlooked, is technological. Prior to the 1870s Europeans could overawe native peoples along the coasts of Africa and Asia but…

…break a nationalist revolt in Egypt, he lost the support of the aged radical John Bright. In 1882 Egypt was occupied, thereby adding, against Gladstone’s own inclinations, to British imperial commitments. A rebellion in the Sudan in 1885 led to the massacre of Gen. Charles Gordon and his garrison at…

…officers during the occupation of Egypt by Great Britain (1882–1952). Harsh exemplary punishments dealt to a number of villagers in the wake of the incident sparked an outcry among many Egyptians and helped galvanize Egyptian nationalist sentiment against British occupation.

…action to Great Britain in Egypt and to France in Morocco (with the proviso that France’s eventual dispositions for Morocco include reasonable allowance for Spain’s interests there). At the same time, Great Britain ceded the Los Islands (off French Guinea) to France, defined the frontier of Nigeria in France’s favour,…

…British in India by occupying Egypt. An expeditionary corps under Bonaparte easily occupied Malta and Egypt, but the squadron that had convoyed it was destroyed by Horatio Nelson’s fleet at the Battle of the Nile on 14 Thermidor, year VI (August 1, 1798). This disaster encouraged the formation of a…

In Egypt, under British occupation since 1882 and a protectorate since 1914, the nationalist Wafd Party under Saʿd Zaghlūl Pasha, agitated for full independence on Wilsonian principles. Their three weeks’ revolt of March 1919, suppressed by Anglo-Indian troops, gave way to passive resistance and bitter negotiations…

…of Mitsiwa he annexed to Egypt two provinces of northern Abyssinia, and in 1872 he was made pasha and governor-general of the eastern Sudan. It is believed that it was on his advice that Ismail sanctioned the Abyssinian enterprise, but in 1875 the command of the Egyptian troops in northern…

After ejecting two Egyptian armies from the highlands of Eritrea in 1875–76, Yohannes moved south, forcing Shewa’s king Sahle Mariam to submit and to renounce imperial ambitions. Yohannes thus became the first Ethiopian emperor in 300 years to wield authority from Tigray south to Guragē. He then sought…

Also, fearing Egyptian domination, as had happened in the Syrian province of the U.A.R., Qāsim rejected the courtship of Egyptian Pres. Gamal Abdel Nasser and refused a merger with Egypt. This led the two Free Officers’ regimes—as the Egyptian regime was also termed—into a conflict that greatly…

…armies of five Arab states—Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, and Transjordan (now Jordan)—and within a few days, the state’s survival appeared to be at stake.

…for a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel. Further torturous negotiations followed before the peace treaty was signed in Washington, D.C., on March 26, 1979.

…much to a contest with Egypt over Jordan’s future as it did to a struggle with Israel. In particular, it repeatedly forced Jordan to balance relations with and between various Arab nations, the Palestinians, and the West and Israel. Thus popular demonstrations, especially in the West Bank, and pressure from…

…occupation of Syria by the Egyptians (1832–40) under Muḥammad ʿAlī Pasha provided the needed stimulus for the town to enter on its new period of commercial growth. A brief setback came with the end of the Egyptian occupation; by 1848, however, the town had begun to outgrow its walls, and…

…leader Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt. During the Suez War (October–December 1956), Chamoun earned Nasser’s enmity by refusing to break off diplomatic relations with Britain and France, which had joined Israel in attacking Egypt. Chamoun was accused of seeking to align Lebanon with the Western-sponsored Central Treaty Organization, also known…

…formal beginnings of unity with Egypt, Sudan, and Tunisia, but these and other such plans failed as differences arose between the governments concerned. Qaddafi’s Libya supported the Palestinian cause and intervened to support it, as well as other guerrilla and revolutionary organizations in Africa and the Middle East. Such moves…

Egypt, which sought to expand into southeastern Anatolia. Mehmed neutralized Mamluk forces, though he could not defeat them. He then turned to Venice, initiating several naval raids along the Adriatic coast that finally led to a peace in 1479, whereby Venice surrendered its bases in…

…and declared a protectorate over Egypt. By the Anglo-French Sykes-Picot Agreement (January 3, 1916), the French sphere was confirmed and extended eastward to Mosul in Iraq. A British sphere of influence in Mesopotamia extended as far north as Baghdad, and Britain was given control of

Egypt, always a determining factor in the fortunes of Palestine, was placed, after the French withdrawal, under the rule of the viceroy Muḥammad (Meḥmet) ʿAlī, who soon embarked on a program of expansion at the expense of his Ottoman overlord. In 1831 his armies occupied…

…(including the Soviet Union and Egypt but excluding the United States and Israel) had extended recognition to the government-in-exile.

Diplomatic relations with Egypt, severed in 1926 because of an incident on the Meccan pilgrimage, were not renewed until after the death of King Fuʾād of Egypt in 1936.

…the rise to power of Egypt’s Pan-Arab nationalist president Gamal Abdel Nasser, Saudi relations with Egypt were often strained. Egyptian propaganda made frequent attacks on the Saudi system of royal government. When Egyptian troops were sent to North Yemen in 1962, tension between Saudi Arabia and Egypt became more acute.…

On the African continent itself Egypt also was involved, and later Ethiopia, expanding and consolidating its realm under the guiding leadership of the emperors Tewodros II, Yohannes IV, and Menilek II. Britain’s interest in the northern Somali coast followed the establishment in 1839 of the British coaling station at Aden…

…to be administered jointly by Egypt and Great Britain, with a governor-general appointed by the khedive of Egypt but nominated by the British government. In reality, however, there was no equal partnership between Britain and Egypt in the Sudan, as the British dominated the condominium from the beginning. Their first…

…side of the continent, ancient Egypt’s links with the Sudan region were generally strong, notably with Nubia. After the Nubian empire had been overrun by Muslims, it was replaced by kingdoms such as those of Dongola, Darfur, and Funj. Later there was invasion from Egypt and, in 1899, the establishment…

…overcoming the unpopular ruling Turco-Egyptian regime in the Sudan, resulted in the establishment of a Mahdist state (1885). After Muḥammad Aḥmad’s death shortly thereafter, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad succeeded to leadership of the movement and the nascent state, which was conquered by the British in 1898.

Egypt was invaded in 639, and small groups of Arab raiders penetrated up the Nile and pillaged along the frontier of the kingdom of Maqurrah, which by the 7th century had absorbed the state of Nobatia. Raid and counterraid between the Arabs and the Nubians…

The years that followed the overthrow of Shishakli in Syria saw the rise of Pres. Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt to leadership of the Pan-Arab unity movement. The coalition regime in Syria turned more and more to Egypt for support and also established…

During Syria’s short-lived union with Egypt as the United Arab Republic (1958–61), Damascus lost its title of capital to Cairo. In 1963 the Baʿath Party came to power through a coup and embarked on an experiment of socialist reform. In 1970 Hafez al-Assad, then the minister of defense, led an…

Developments in Egypt and Syria in 2013 continued to provide major challenges for U.S. foreign policy. When protests against the Egyptian military’s removal of Mohammed Morsi from the presidency in July led to the killing of hundreds of his supporters in July and August, some American politicians…

…the invaders to withdraw from Egypt and preventing events in Hungary from triggering a confrontation between the superpowers. Owing in part to these crises, Eisenhower carried all but seven states in the election. It was a purely personal victory, however, for the Democrats retained control of both houses of Congress.

The new republic called upon Egypt for assistance, and Egyptian troops and equipment arrived almost immediately to defend the new regime of ʿAbd Allāh al-Sallāl, the nominal leader of the 1962 revolution and the first president of North Yemen. Nearly as quickly, Saudi Arabia provided aid and sanctuary to the…

Baring first went to Egypt in 1877, when he served as representative of the British holders of Egyptian bonds on the recently created Egyptian Public Debt Commission. The commission was designed to help the Egyptian viceroy, the khedive Ismāʿīl Pasha, out of his financial difficulties, and also to safeguard…

…Bonaparte for the invasion of Egypt. After the French landed at Alexandria on July 1–2, Kléber was wounded in the ensuing battle. He remained in Alexandria as governor for several months, but on April 16, 1799, he defeated the Turks at Mount Tabor. On Napoleon’s departure for France in August…

…Great Britain’s wealth by occupying Egypt and threatening the route to India. This proposal, seconded by Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand, the foreign minister, was accepted by the directors, who were glad to get rid of their ambitious young general.

Egypt was annexed by stages in 1169–71.

…by a nationalist uprising in Egypt under ʿUrabī Pasha. In his most brilliant campaign, Wolseley swiftly seized the Suez Canal and, after a night march, surprised and defeated ʿUrabī at Tall al-Kabīr (Sept. 13, 1882). Prime Minister William Gladstone rewarded him with a barony. Back in Egypt in 1884, Wolseley…

), political union of Egypt and Syria proclaimed on February 1, 1958, and ratified in nationwide plebiscites later that month. It ended on September 28, 1961, when Syria, following a military coup, declared itself independent of Egypt.