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Fall of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan
Joint British and Egyptian rule between 1899-1956
- 1 January 1956
- Khartoum
- North Africa
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Joint British and Egyptian rule between 1899-1956
Fetching the article from Wikipedia…
Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (Arabic: السودان الإنجليزي المصري, romanised: as-Sūdān al-Inglīzī al-Maṣrī) was a condominium of Britain and Egypt from 1899 to 1956, covering present-day Sudan and South Sudan. Sudan was governed de facto by British officials under a governor-general resident in Khartoum.
The condominium followed the Anglo-Egyptian conquest of Sudan, which overthrew the Mahdist State in 1898. Under the agreement of January 1899, the Egyptian khedive appointed the governor-general on British recommendation and could dismiss him only with British consent. During World War I, the administration annexed Darfur after the defeat of Ali Dinar in 1916. Following the assassination of Governor-General Lee Stack in Cairo in 1924, Britain ordered Egyptian troops and officials to leave Sudan, curtailing their influence.
The government expanded railways and communications, developed Port Sudan, and introduced irrigated cotton cultivation through the Gezira Scheme. Investment was concentrated in Khartoum and the Blue Nile province, while cotton became the main export. British district commissioners of the Sudan Political Service increasingly governed through local chiefs under native administration. The three southern provinces were administered separately. In 1946, the government reversed its southern policy and began integrating the northern and southern administrations.
Sudanese nationalists opposed British rule but disagreed over independence or union with Egypt. After the Egyptian revolution of 1952, Egypt accepted Sudanese self-determination. On 12 February 1953, Britain and Egypt signed an agreement providing for self-government followed by a decision on Sudan's future. A Sudanese government led by Ismail al-Azhari took office in January 1954. Southern resistance to northern administrative and military control contributed to the Torit mutiny in August 1955. Parliament unanimously declared independence on 19 December 1955, and Sudan became an independent republic on 1 January 1956.
After the Massacre of the Citadel in 1811, which decimated Egypt's Mamluk leadership, the Egyptian wāli Muhammad Ali Pasha sought southward expansion. In 1820, an Egyptian army under his son Ismail Kamil Pasha marched from Aswan through Dongola, where remaining Mamluks surrendered, and encountered Shayqiya resistance. Ismail defeated them at Kurti in November and again at Jabal al-Dayqa in December 1820, before advancing through Berber and Shendi and conquering the Funj Sultanate in 1821. Meanwhile, a separate expedition under Muhammad Bey Khusraw captured Kordofan following the battle at Bara.
The conquest was followed by a revolt under the Ja'ali ruler Mek Nimr in which Ismail was killed at Shendi after an Egyptian tribute dispute, which was subsequently suppressed, consolidating Egyptian rule over much of northern and central Sudan by 1824. Ismail's death sparked widespread Nile uprisings, after which Mahammad Khusraw launched brutal reprisals through Ja'alin territory. His forces advanced from the Sixth Cataract toward al-Matamma, where they massacred inhabitants, before destroying Ad-Damir and sacking Shendi, devastating surrounding settlements. His forces massacred inhabitants and ravaged settlements, causing widespread depopulation.
Northern Sudan had longstanding politico-economic ties with Egypt, and parts had previously been under Egyptian influence. The invasion was motivated by Muhammad Ali's ambitions to acquire territory, gold, and enslaved recruits, expand Egyptian control along the Nile, and build a larger, better-disciplined army to strengthen his autonomy from the Ottoman Empire and establish a regional empire. Muhammad Ali was pursuing aggressive expansionism to possibly supplant the Ottoman Empire (to which he technically owed fealty), and saw Sudan as a valuable Egyptian acquisition.
Muhammad Ali also sought to maintain large, growing Sudanese slave imports into Egypt for his new Egyptian standing army, which would allow him to replace the mutinous Albanian and Turkish troops on whom he had relied, and to support his conquests. But the plan was undermined by high slave mortality, particularly among those taken from the Nuba Mountains and southern Sudan, during protracted transport to Egypt and from disease and harsh training-camp conditions. Those considered unfit for service were instead assigned to agricultural and industrial work.
After Sennar's conquest, Egyptian forces established their initial administrative headquarters at Wad Madani on the Blue Nile. Yet the Egyptian administration faced difficulties governing from Wad Madani, which prompted relocation toward the strategic Blue Nile–White Nile confluence, where they established a military camp at Khartoum in 1821, which became Sudan's administrative capital. After the Egyptian conquest of the Sennar confederation and the establishment of Turkiyya Sudan, the administration subdivided the territory into provinces and districts, often following older boundaries and employing local chiefs to oversee administration and taxation. This system was mainly intended to finance the occupation and enrich Egypt by taxing livestock, slaves, and agricultural production. Khartoum developed into Egyptian Sudan's administrative centre, becoming the governor-general's seat in 1835.
Just as Isma'il Pasha had promoted Egyptian cotton cultivation, the Egyptian administration sought to expand Sudanese cotton production amid mounting government debts. From the late 1860s, Ahmad Mumtaz Pasha developed cotton plantations in the flood-irrigated Gash and Baraka deltas in eastern Sudan, hoping to increase agricultural exports and government revenue.
Under Muhammad Ali and his successors, Sudan's conquered territories were governed by Egypt during the Turkiyya. This expansionism was intensified under Muhammad Ali's grandson, Isma'il Pasha, who ruled Egypt in 1863–1879. Under him, Egyptian control expanded into Darfur and parts of present-day South Sudan, including Equatoria's establishment along the upper White Nile. Isma'il appointed Samuel Baker and later Charles George Gordon to lead regional expeditions, seeking to extend Egyptian authority towards the African Great Lakes and to suppress the slave trade to honour their agreements with Western powers. Egyptian territorial claims, however, exceeded effective administrative control.
Egyptian expansion of Sudan was checked by the Egyptian–Ethiopian War of 1875–1876, during which Emperor Yohannes IV's forces triumphed at the Battle of Gundet in November 1875 and the Battle of Gura in March 1876. These defeats ended Isma'il Pasha's highland expansion attempts and severely weakened Egypt's regional military position.
With the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869, Egypt and Sudan's economic and strategic importance increased enormously, attracting the imperial attentions of the Great Powers, particularly the United Kingdom. Being heavily indebted to European creditors, Egypt was forced to sell its 44 per cent shareholding in the Suez Canal Company in 1875 after failing to meet its mounting financial obligations, allowing the British government under Benjamin Disraeli to purchase the shares and thus expand British financial interests in the canal and the region. A year after Egypt sold its shares in the Suez Canal Company, mounting debts prompted further British and French intervention, leading to the establishment of the Caisse de la Dette Publique in 1876 and the introduction of Dual Control of Egypt which placed its finances under European supervision well before the Berlin Conference.
Ten years later in 1879, the immense foreign debt of Ismail Pasha's government served as the pretext for the Great Powers to force his abdication and replacement by his son Tewfik Pasha. The manner of Tewfik's ascension at the hands of foreign powers greatly angered Egyptian and Sudanese nationalists who resented the ever-increasing influence of European governments and merchants in the affairs of the country. The situation was compounded by Tewfik's perceived corruption and mismanagement, ultimately culminating in the Orabi Revolt led by the nationalist head of the army, Ahmed Orabi. The movement demanded greater Egyptian representation in the army and government, constitutional reforms, and an end to foreign financial interference. With the survival of his throne in jeopardy, Tewfik appealed for British assistance. In 1882, at Tewfik's invitation, the British bombarded Alexandria, Egypt and Sudan's primary seaport, and subsequently invaded the country. British forces overthrew the Orabi government in Cairo, and proceeded to occupy the rest of Egypt and Sudan in 1882. Though officially the authority of Tewfik had been restored, in reality the British largely took control of Egyptian and Sudanese affairs. In 1883, Evelyn Baring became British agent and consul-general in Egypt, exercising considerable influence over the Egyptian government while the Khedive remained the nominal ruler.
The British occupation of the Khedivate of Egypt became a subject of European diplomacy, particularly as colonial competition with France and the German Empire intensified in Africa. In 1884, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck used the Egyptian Lever to seek British support for German colonial expansion in exchange for diplomatic backing over Egypt. Meanwhile, the Mahdist War in Sudan further complicated Britain's position following the defeat of an Egyptian expedition in November 1883 and the dispatch of Charles George Gordon to Sudan in 1884. The failure of Anglo-French negotiations over Egypt in June 1884 further increased diplomatic tensions, while the competing British and French ambitions in Sudan later peaked and ended in the Fashoda Incident of 1898.
Tewfik's acquiescence to British occupation as the price for securing the monarchy was deeply detested by many throughout Egypt and Sudan. With the bulk of British forces stationed in northern Egypt, protecting Cairo, Alexandria, and the Suez Canal, opposition to Tewfik and his European protectors was stymied in Egypt. In contrast, the British military presence in Sudan was comparatively limited, and eventually revolt broke out. The rebellion in Sudan, led by the Sudanese religious leader Muhammad Ahmad, the self-proclaimed Mahdi (Guided One), was politico-religious. After proclaiming himself the Mahdi in 1881, Muhammad Ahmad called his followers the Ansar, meaning "helpers", in reference to the supporters of the Islamic prophet Muhammad in Medina. On 12 August 1881, his followers defeated an Egyptian detachment of approximately 200 soldiers sent by Governor-General Muhammad Rauf Pasha under Muhammad Bey Abu Sa'ud to arrest him at the Battle of Aba.
The Mahdists continued their advance across Kordofan, besieging and capturing El Obeid in January 1883. In response, the Egyptian government sent an expedition under Hicks Pasha from Khartoum to retake the province. The force advanced through the arid terrain of Kordofan but suffered from shortages of water and supplies, while Mahdist forces used their knowledge of the region to isolate and exhaust the expedition. These conditions contributed to the decisive Mahdist victory at the Battle of Shaykan in November 1883, which destroyed much of the Egyptian expedition and secured Mahdist control over Kordofan. Following these defeats, the British government decided to evacuate Europeans and Egyptian garrisons from Sudan and sent Charles George Gordon to Khartoum in 1884 to oversee their withdrawal. Gordon became increasingly concerned about the fate of the garrison and civilians in Khartoum and demanded British military assistance. The British government initially refused to send troops, while Mahdist forces besieged the city from March 1884, cutting off its communications and supplies. After a siege lasting nearly ten months, Khartoum fell to the Mahdists on 26 January 1885, while a British relief expedition under Garnet Wolseley arrived two days later.
After the capture of Khartoum on 26 January 1885, Muhammad Ahmad consolidated the Mahdist State and sought to replace the Egyptian administration with institutions based on the Mahdiyya and his interpretation of Islamic law. The conquest was accompanied by widespread violence. Mahdist forces killed members of the Egyptian garrison and thousands of the city's inhabitants. Women and children were also captured. Thereafter, many survivors were relocated to Omdurman, while much of Khartoum was dismantled or abandoned. Ahmad also ordered other Sufi orders within his territory to disband. Instead, his followers, known as the Ansar, developed into the dominant religious movement. They came from different ethnoregional backgrounds. These included the Baggara of Kordofan and Darfur, the Nuba, the Ja'alin and Danagla of northern Sudan, and the Hadendoa of the eastern Beja. Their shared religious allegiance helped unite these communities, although their political interests differed.
Ahmad then died in June 1885 and was succeeded by Abdallahi ibn Muhammad, a member of the Ta'isha Baggara of southern Darfur. His succession strengthened the influence of western Sudanese communities. However, the Ahmad relatives and rival commanders challenged his legitimacy. He therefore sought to consolidate the state around his own supporters. The movement also maintained connections with Islamic communities in West Africa. Abdallahi's family and core supporters had links with the Tijaniyyah order, as the Fulani scholar Muhammad al-Dadari was instrumental in his succession. These networks connected Abdallahi with orders across the Sahel. Hayatu ibn Sa'id, a great-grandson of Usman dan Fodio, leader of the Fulani jihad, likewise promoted Mahdism within the Sokoto Caliphate and Adamawa.
Text from the Wikipedia article “Anglo-Egyptian Sudan”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.