Right above might
By Fayza Hassan
"It is natural that, among
the various aspects of liberation, a dependent people should opt
first of all for political independence, which directly or
indirectly implies all the rest. This was the Egyptian people's
choice."
Jacques Berque, Egypt, Imperialism and Revolution
AT THE ONSET of World War I, Great
Britain, in total disregard for any national aspiration to
independence that Egypt may have harboured, was in fact
seriously contemplating its formal annexation. A telegram from
the Foreign Office dated 13 November 1914 confirmed that
"His Majesty's Government think the most effective step
would be to declare Annexation of Egypt thus getting rid of all
the difficulties about succession to Khedive and giving
Egyptians at once the status of British subjects. November 19th
when troops arrive from India would be a suitable
occasion." Less than a month later, the direct and formal
control of Egypt was effected by the unilateral declaration of a
British Protectorate. Vague promises of a review of the
situation once the war was won were unofficially uttered by the
British, anxious to secure Egypt's loyalty.
In the aftermath of the Allies' victory
and the signing of the Armistice, on 13 November 1918, taking
Britain at its word, Saad Zaghlul, accompanied by Abdel-Aziz
Fahmi and Ali Sha'rawi, informed the British resident, Sir
Reginald Wingate, that Egypt wished to be represented at the
Peace Conference and that, putting its faith in the right to
self-determination as formulated by US President Woodrow Wilson,
it expected to gain its independence.
Above, Al-Musawwar announcing the
"Return of Parliamentary Life". In the
foreground of the lower picture is Saad Zaghlul beside
Mustafa El-Nahhas Below, 21 November 1925: the political
parties choose Zaghlul unanimously as the head of the
national conference of 1926 
|
Zaghlul did not content himself with
formally reporting the Egyptian people's wish. He insisted on
definite representation. Thus was born the Wafd (delegation).
After consultation with Her Majesty's Government, however,
permission was refused and, on 14 January 1919, "several
hundred supporters of the Wafd met in the palace of Hamad
El-Bassel. Zaghlul made a fiery speech, which moreover contained
a skillful analysis of Egypt's relations with her foreign
guests," recounts Berque. The British, contemptuous of
Egypt's military capacities, decided on "a little rough
handling" which, they believed, would cause these effendis,
none of whom had ever fought, to relapse into their customary
passivity. Consequently, Zaghlul was warned by the High
Commissioner to cease agitating against the Protectorate and
reminded that the country was still under martial law,
introduced in 1914.
Two days later, on 9 March 1919, he was
arrested and deported to Malta with three of his companions,
Hamad El-Bassel, Ismail Sidqi and Mohamed Mahmoud.
Details of Zaghlul and his companions'
arrest and the ensuing days of disturbance are revealed in a
lengthy communication from Sir M Cheetham at the Residency in
Cairo to Earl Curzon at the Foreign Office, forwarded on 22
March 1919 and received on 8 April and covering the first week
of rioting in Egypt. It discloses the official British attitude
regarding the legitimate aspirations of the Egyptian people:
"I received your telegram no. 309
of 7 March during the night, and on 8 March I requested
Major-General Watson, General Officer Commanding Force in Egypt,
to arrest with as little delay as possible for deportation and
internment in Malta the following leaders of the Nationalist
agitation: Saad Zaghlul Pasha; Ismail Sidqi Pasha; Mohamed
Mahmoud Pasha; Hamad El-Bassel Pasha. These arrests were carried
out without incident during the afternoon and the prisoners
passed the night in Qasr El-Nil Barracks. They were taken in
closed motor cars to the 11 o'clock train to Port Said next
morning the 9 March, and embarked on the 'Caledonia', which
sailed that evening."
Commenting on the consequences of
previous attempts at conciliation by the British authorities,
and the resulting delays in taking firm action against the
nationalists, Cheetham added: "When definite action was at
last taken, it was only to be expected that some form of
unfriendly manifestations would take place. These, as was
natural, took the form of demonstrations by the students, with
whom Saad Zaghlul was popular. On Sunday morning, the students
of the higher colleges, law, agriculture, engineering and
commerce, made noisy demonstrations, entered the medical school
and forced the students to join them -- Dr Keatings, Director of
the School of Medicine and of Qasr El-Aini Hospital was knocked
down, but received no injuries. The police dispersed this
demonstration and made 310 arrests."
There was much more in store however, as
the self-righteous member of the British Agency proceeded to
inform the Foreign Office:
"The nature of the events of 9
March showed that it might be necessary to call in military
assistance for the police. The General Officer Commanding
therefore made arrangements for troops to be available on the
morning of the 10th, who could be moved in motor lorries to the
seat of disorder in case the city police required reinforcement.
Trouble began early, and the mounted troop of the Cairo police
were roughly handled in trying to stop the Al-Azhar students who
had now joined the other students, coming to the centre of the
city. The commandant of the police was obliged to call for help,
and at 9.00am, General Watson took over the town. Prompt
measures were taken for the protection of the Residency, bridges
over the Nile and other important points. Pickets with machine
guns and Lewis guns were posted at convenient corners. The
students were joined by the town roughs and a considerable
amount of rioting, chiefly confined to breaking glass and
uprooting trees in public gardens took place. The trams were
smashed by the mob in the centre of the town and entirely ceased
running in the course of the afternoon. The military were
compelled to fire and slight loss of life occurred. Rowdyism
died down in the evening and the night was quiet."
On 11 March however, "rioting
commenced in several parts of Cairo. At an early hour the
rioters -- mostly Al-Azhar students and riff-raf -- gathered in
the central parts of the town and marched down towards the
railway works with the intention of bringing out the railway
men. They were met by troops in the station square and after a
few shots had been fired, the mob dispersed with casualties.
Twenty-one of the ring-leaders were arrested. While this was
going on, disturbances took place in other parts of town. Shops
were pillaged and more damage was done in the Muski
Street."
Cheetham's contemptuous attitude towards
the rioters whom he was sure would eventually calm down, changed
to indignation when confronted with the wind of rebellion which
began to blow in the government offices on 11 March: "A
more serious feature than the rioting was the way in which
government offices began to be affected by the general
movement," he wrote. Furthermore, to his dismay, the
provinces, which had remained quiet so far -- save for Shebin
Al-Kom, the chief town of Menufiya, where students had attacked
a train -- were now joining the movement:
"It was by now obvious that the
unrest might spread to the provinces and General Watson made
arrangements for the dispatch, as soon as possible, of
detachments of British troops to the various important
provincial centres and the Fayoum, to reassure the population
and protect foreigners should occasion arise."
The national conference of 19
February 1926, calling for the reinstatement of the
constitution and the revival of parliamentary life;
...Saad Zaghlul, flanked by Adli
Yakan on the right, and Abdel-Khaleq Sarwat on the left;
...Zaghlul, surrounded by young
Egyptians in London during negotiations for Egypt's
independence; 
...Zaghlul on the terrace of Beit
Al-Umma; 
...Beit Al-Umma today, undergoing
restoration work; 
...the mausoleum of Saad Zaghlul, in
a sad state of neglect. |
A short lull on the third day of the riots
gave him hope that the rebellion had been easily quashed:
"On the 12th March, I felt myself
in a position to inform your Lordship by telegram that the
general situation appeared more favourable. Cairo was outwardly
quiet, and life was normal, except that the trams were not
running. The employees of the ministries who had left their
posts on the 11th had returned to their offices and there were
indications that the strike of the advocates would be speedily
settled. Shebin Al-Kom was reported quiet and the only
disturbance was in Tanta -- always a Nationalist hotbed. Here
some 3000 demonstrators tried to rush the railway station, but
the British troops who had arrived by armoured train assisted
the police in restoring order. They were obliged to use their
machine gun killing 11 and wounding ninety-one."
No important events that he considered
worth mentioning occurred on 13 March, but Cheetham noted that
the movement now seemed better organised than was thought at
first. He also had doubts about where the sympathies of the
Egyptian troops lay. The surroundings of Al-Azhar Mosque were
still showing signs of disturbances, he said, but the British
troops were wary of going near the quarter and being accused of
desecrating the mosque, thus firing further the anger of the
demonstrators. Cheetham reported on the long discussion he had
with General Herbert, Officer Commanding Egyptian army in Cairo
as to whether it would be advisable to employ Egyptian troops in
the area. "We finally decided not to use them. Though
General Herbert was of the opinion that discipline would prevent
Egyptian troops actually going against us, he could not but
admit that their sympathies, both of the officers and the men,
inclined towards the nationalists." Moreover, his optimism
as reported in his telegram of the previous day, was
short-lived:
"On 14 March the general situation
was more serious. An armoured car in the Sayeda Zeinab quarter
of Cairo was attacked by a large crowd and in the end was
obliged to fire. Thirteen natives were killed and twenty-seven
wounded. Later on, in the morning five looters were caught and
summarily shot.
"Reports now began to come in that
there was considerable unrest in the provinces. Riots occurred
in Damietta where the Ma'mur reported the situation serious and
asked for the immediate dispatch of military assistance. The
police station at Manuf was attacked, one man killed and some
wounded. Disquiet was reported at Beni Suef and some disorder at
Mansura, following a procession of students demanding
'Independence'."
The state of affairs was indeed getting
worse by the hour in the provinces where communications with the
capital were about to be cut off: On 15 March, "organised
attacks on communications were made in all directions. By
mid-day all telegraph and telephone lines north of Cairo except
a military line to Alexandria, had been cut. Crowds attacked the
station at Bulaq Dakrour, just south of Cairo broke up the
signal and box and cut all telegraph wires; at Qaliub, just
north of Cairo, they pulled up the lines just severing the main
railway communication between Cairo and Alexandria and Port
Said. At Qaliub a crowd stormed the station and attacked a
passenger train. They were beaten off by British officers with
revolvers and finally dispersed.
"Grave news were received from the
south. A horde of natives and bedouins from the Fayoum estimated
at nearly 7000 attacked Markaz Wasta disbanded the police seized
their arms, marched on the railway and began to pull up the
lines between Wasta and Recca stations, a distance of about 10
kilometres. The morning express from Cairo was attacked at Recca
where the mob smashed the windows of the train and sacked the
mail van. European in the train were robbed and roughly handled.
The train eventually returned to Cairo."
Other trains were attacked that day
carrying Europeans, including an inspector from the Ministry of
the Interior, who narrowly escaped with their lives but a
British railway official was killed. In the Delta the situation
was similar, complained Cheetham, with much pillage and looting
going on. The State Domains [Al-Dayra Al-Saniya] headquarters
were attacked at Sakha, the rest house, the police station and
the post office set ablaze and the crops damaged. Demonstrations
took place at Mansura and "the British Consular Agent
telegraphed that the mob had removed the consular coat of arms
from his house, destroyed it and thrown it into the river.
"The attacks on Europeans and
wholesale damage to communications which occurred on the 15th,
showed that the Nationalist movement which had so far been
confined more or less to demonstrations, was now assuming a most
serious aspect; and that the lives and property of Europeans in
the provinces especially in Upper Egypt was in considerable
danger." More damage to railway stations occurred on the
16th and in Minet Al-Gamh where British troops assisted by an
airplane fired on the mob, thirty were killed and nineteen
wounded.
On 17 March, "the demonstrations of
quite 10,000 people paraded the streets of Cairo and cheered the
French, Italian and American Agencies. The procession was led by
Azhar students, who were followed by other students and
apparently all the riff-raff that could be collected in the
town. The proceedings were well organised and no incidents
occurred until at the very end when a party of soldiers had to
interfer with the demonstrators and a Greek shot dead a student
carrying a banner. The procession then dispersed. The Greek was
arrested and is to be tried by court martial. In Alexandria
there was trouble in the dock quarter of the town, where the
employees of the Khedivial Mail Company endeavoured to join the
students. The military had to fire on the mob. Fourteen were
killed and twenty wounded."
Cairo was completely isolated except by
air, and the situation worsened rapidly in the provinces during
the 17th and 18th March. By 20 March, according to Cheetham's
report, violence had begun to abate, both in Cairo and the
provinces. Concluding his communication he added a sobering
comment:
"The above brief description
compiled from reports received from official sources will I
trust give your Lordship a rough picture of events in Egypt
during the past fortnight. Much of the information received day
by day proves to be inaccurate and exaggerated later, but in the
present dispatch I have been careful to include only such
details as are almost certainly true."
Based on Foreign Office documents
371/1971 and 407/184, in Fifty years after the 1919 Revolution,
Al-Ahram commemorative volume
THE REVOLUTIONARIES, however, did not
see things quite the same way. The late Ahmed Bahaeddin's
account of 1919 gives the other side of the story.
"9.00am, a Sunday, the 9th of
March, 1919. The morning was neither cold nor hot, but warm and
pleasant.
"In the courtyard of the Law School
in Giza, the students were gathering quickly. The bell rang to
announce the beginning of classes, but the benches remained
empty. The students continued to gather in the yard; their words
grew more heated, almost inflamed. Saad Zaghlul and some of his
friends had been imprisoned, and the papers had failed to report
this, since censorship was imposed, but the previous evening,
some of the students had seen him, with their own eyes, getting
into a British car in front of Beit Al-Umma. The British
soldiers surrounding him had inserted bayonets into the muzzles
of their rifles, and all night people had spread the word. The
entire city was seized with anguish.
"What would they do?
"The dean of the School, Mr Dalton,
went out to them, trying to stifle the storm before its fury was
unleashed.
"He said to them: 'Leave politics
to your parents.'
"They said to him: 'Our parents
have spent the night in jail.'
"He said to them: 'Return to your
classes.'
"They replied: 'We will not study
law in a country where laws are trampled.'
"Yes, but what would they do?
If they were silent now, the cause would
be lost for long years to come. Would they go out in a
demonstration? Where to? To the streets heaving with the
Empire's victorious soldiers? And the people who had slumbered
for so long -- there was no guarantee that they would rise in
revolt. The whole matter seemed to be a new, strange experience,
without a single precedent that could serve as a guiding light.
"So they would have to ask those
members of the Wafd who had remained. Some of them flew to Beit
Al-Umma. They found Abdel-Aziz Fahmi, Saad's old friend from the
Legislative Council, on the terrace. He was shaken, crushed, his
nerves worn out. They fell upon him with the news of their
colleagues and their determination to go into the streets.
Abdel-Aziz Fahmi lost control: 'You are playing with fire. Let
us work in peace; do not increase the anger of the British.'
The students returned, beaten and
disconsolate, bewailing their fate. What would they say to their
colleagues? They had walked only a little way before the echoes
of slogans being shouted reached them: 'Long live Saad! Long
live independence!' The faces of their brothers appeared to
them, filling their path. The students had become restless, and
had not waited. Some of them had occupied the windows and the
benches, and begun to make speeches. They did not await the
return of the council, but burst through the gates, shouting.
The Revolution had been ignited.
"It was the first popular
revolution since the people of Cairo had resisted Napoleon's
army. After the university students, all the schools went on
strike. Then it was the turn of the tram workers, the taxi and
bus drivers, then the lawyers... The Sayeda Zeinab police
station, the following day, recorded the death of the first
martyr -- whose name is not known. Two days later, the first war
bulletin was issued, describing the revolutionaries as
'riff-raff', and announcing only six dead and 31 wounded.
"The number of dead began to rise.
"Tanta, 12 March: 16 dead, 49
wounded.
"Alexandria, 17 March: 16 dead, 24
wounded, 415 imprisoned.
"Damanhour, 17 March: 12 dead.
"Port Said, 21 March: 7 dead, 17
wounded.
"All these are only the figures
cited in the official British bulletins.
"This good land was transformed
into a terrible volcano, which would not stop erupting. All the
streets of Cairo were flooded with demonstrations: here, veiled
women demonstrating in Ibrahim Street; Al-Azhar students taking
bullets and seizing machine-guns from the British soldiers in
the streets of Al-Ghouriya; the workers of the railway depot
marching toward the station at Bab Al-Hadid; people digging
trenches in Al-Husseiniya and Al-Gamaliya and Bab Al-Sha'riya --
perhaps the same places where Napoleon's soldiers had fallen,
more than a hundred years before.
"The British set up a military
tribunal in Azbakiya Square to judge the revolutionaries, and
condemn them to sentences in prison or lashings of the whip. One
tribunal was not enough, and so they established another at
Al-Khalifa, then in Al-Qanatir Al-Khayriya, then Banha. Then
they tired of courts...
"The tram company got out a few
cars, driven by British soldiers and guarded by armoured
vehicles. The people then stopped taking the tram. It looked
funny, rolling along, empty but for a few British soldiers. All
the Egyptians began to take horse-driven carts, and you would
see senior officials next to banat al-balad, sitting on the
carts and exchanging the latest news.
"The Revolution spread through all
the provinces, to an extent that no one could have dreamed of.
The peasants left their fields and ripped up the railway lines;
first between Tanta and Talla, then the contagion spread, and
the entire Upper Egypt line was cut. The railway stations were
burned, and travel was impossible except by boat, along the Nile
or the canals. The British warned that they would burn the
villages nearest to any point at which the lines had been cut,
but the resistance did not wane. In the midst of all this, we
find all the members of the Wafd and the former ministers
looking on at the storm, unable to grasp it, thinking that it
was just disobedience, and would soon pass. They issued a
declaration: 'Attacking people or property is forbidden by
divine legislation and positive law. Cutting off transport
clearly harms the people, since it comes between them and their
direct interests, and prevents the movement of crops and cash.
This kind of aggression deprives the Egyptians of the sympathy
they expect.'
"The storm, however, refused this
logic, and did not pause. The following day, the demonstrators
attacked the Bedouins at police stations in Fayoum, and violent
struggles ensued, which, according to the official bulletin,
claimed 400 dead and wounded. In the cities of Upper Egypt, the
British retreated and barricaded themselves in houses or
schools, which were soon surrounded by the people. The British
sent out pleas for reinforcement.
"In Assiut, the most violent
incidents took place. The revolutionaries attacked police
stations and seized weapons. Councils of lawyers were formed to
ensure security and oversee the responsibilities of government.
The British, citizens and soldiers alike, retreated into one of
the schools, and the people launched armed attacks every day.
The British sent two planes to bomb
Assiut, but the revolutionaries did not give up. They sent an
armed train, bristling with soldiers, and at the village of Deir
Muwwas the peasants attacked it and stopped it. An enormous
battle followed, in which tens of British commanders and
officers fell dead.
"The British resorted to sending a
battleship up the Nile to Assiut. Once again, at Dayrout,
thousands of peasants armed with ancient rifles and sticks
stopped the ship; hundreds leapt into the water and sought to
take it by force.
"The ship escaped this battle, but
was exposed to a similar attack at Nazali Ganoub, before
reaching Assiut, shuddering from its many wounds, to save the
besieged forces."
Ahmed Bahaeddin, Ayyam Laha Tarikh (Days
with a History)
FOLLOWING the arrest of Zaghlul and the
ensuing political protest, for the first time in a hundred
years, veiled upper-class women poured out of the harem and onto
the streets, to join their voices to those of the demonstrators.
In the words of Huda Sha'rawi, who led
the women's movement: "We women held our first
demonstration on 16 March to protest the repressive acts and
intimidation practised by the British authority. In compliance
with the orders of the authority we announced our plans to
demonstrate in advance but were refused permission. We began to
telephone this news to each other, only to read in Al-Muqattam
that the demonstration had received official sanction. We got on
the telephone again, telling as many women as possible that we
would proceed according to schedule the following morning. Had
we been able to contact more than a limited number of women,
virtually all the women of Cairo would have taken part in the
demonstration.
"On the morning of 16 March, I sent
placards to the house of the wife of Ahmed Bey Abu Usbaa,
bearing slogans in Arabic and French painted in white on a
background of black -- the colour of mourning. Some of the
slogans read 'Long live the supporters of Justice and Freedom',
others said Down with Oppressors and Tyrants' and 'Down with
Occupation'.
"We assembled according to plan at
the Garden City park, where we left our carriages. Having agreed
upon our route and carefully instructed the young women assigned
to carry the flag and placards in front we set out in columns
towards the legation of the United States and intended to
proceed from there to the legations of Italy and France.
However, when we reached Qasr Al-Aini Street, I observed that
the young women in front were deviating from the original plan
and had begun to head in the direction of Beit Al-Umma (the
House of the Nation) as Saad Zaghlul's house was called. I asked
my friend Wagida Khulussi to find out why we were going towards
Saad Pasha's house and she returned saying that the women had
decided it was a better route. According to our first plan we
were to have ended our demonstration there. Reluctantly, I went
along with this change. No sooner were we approaching Zaghlul's
house than British troops surrounded us. They blocked the street
with machine guns, forcing us to stop along with the students
who had formed columns on both sides of us.
"I was determined the demonstration
should resume. When I advanced, a British soldier stepped
towards me pointing his gun, but I made my way past him. As one
of the women tried to pull me back, I shouted in a loud voice
'Let me die so Egypt shall have an Edith Cavell'... Continuing
in the direction of the soldiers, I called upon the women to
follow. A pair of arms grabbed me and the voice of Regina
Khayyat rang in my ears: 'This is madness. Do you want to risk
the lives of the students? It will happen if the British raise a
hand against you.' At the thought of our unarmed sons doing
battle against the weaponry of British troops, and of the
Egyptian losses sure to occur, I came to my senses and stopped
still. We stood still for three hours while the sun blazed down
on us. The students meanwhile continued to encourage us, saying
that the heat of the day would soon abate.. "
Huda Sha'rawi, Harem Years
THE BRITISH commandant of the Cairo
Police, Russell Pasha, was later to recount the same incident,
and the role the police was ordered to play: "At a given
signal I closed the cordon and the ladies found their way
opposed by a formidable line of Egyptian conscript police who
had been previously warned that there were not to use violence
but to stand still... considerable licence was given them by
their officers to practice their ready peasant wit on the smart
ladies who confronted them." In a letter to his father, he
described the women's demonstration in even more condescending
tones: "My next problem was a demonstration by the native
ladies of Cairo. This rather frightened me as if it came to pass
it was bound to collect a big crowd and my orders were to stop
it. Stopping a procession means force and any force you use on
women puts you in the wrong. Well' they assembled in motor cars,
etc. got out and started to walk in a procession... I let them
get a little way and then blocked them in with police supported
by troops and there the dear things had to remain for an hour
and a half in the hot sun with nothing to sit on except the curb
stone."
BIMBASHI [Joseph] McPherson, an Oxford
scholar, was Ma'mur Zapt (Head of the Secret Police) in Cairo
during this same period. In a long letter to his brother, he
described vividly the days which followed Zaghlul's deportation
on 9 March, observing the events from his own vantage point and
pouring into his account his personal mixed feelings:
"[t]he refusal to let Zaghlul and
party go to Europe, and their arrest for sedition at the
beginning of March -- whether justified or not -- formed the
immediate pretext for anti-British demonstrations, which began
on 9 . 3 . 19, by a rowdy group of students smashing up trains
and lamps.
"On 10 . 3 . 19 a rowdy mob looted
the shops in the Muski, and played the fool generally. They
passed the Governorate, and commenced to smash the windows there
also and I had a lot of fun with Russell Bey, the Commandant of
Police and my Assistant Dykes chasing them at the head of bodies
of Police troops and men of the guard Company.
"We broke a good many heads, and
made several arrests, but the mob would never stand, however big
numerically, or however big their talk and their sticks and
clubs; but their running away pace was really fine. The show was
repeated in the evening, many of the rioters taking refuge in
the mosques if pursued.
"Many trams had been stopped and
damaged in the past couple of days, so I put Secret Agents in
the main Depots, and on the Electric Power Station, and applied
to the military authorities for armed guards, at these places,
which were granted, none too soon, for on 13 . 3 . 19, the big
tram depot at Shubra was attacked, and the crowd only beaten off
when two or three had been shot.
"That day, Thursday, I had a good
deal of fun; an imposing procession mainly of Azhar Sheikhs was
making for the Citadel Square to demonstrate, but we got a
strong body of police on their flanks, and without interfering
with the form of the procession, its course was altered, so that
they marched into the parade ground of the Governorate. It was
difficult to make them realise that they were all prisoners,
especially the Standard bearer, who marched proudly into the
Spider's parlour, waving an immense banner with the legend:
Students of Al-Azhar
Live FREE Egypt
Down with the Tyrants
"As a result of this and other
captures, we were full up by the evening; so the leaders were
sent to the Citadel to be dealt with by the military; the
youngsters summarily caned on the orthodox surface, and the rest
kicked out.
"From about 6.00pm wearing a
tarboosh, I sauntered about in the neighbourhood of Sidna
Hussein and Al-Azhar. At the former, groups were openly
discussing all sorts of seditious schemes, and a café I entered
in front of the mosque, was full of plotters, many of whose
faces were familiar as Government officials, discharged
political prisoners, etc.
"Though apparently not recognised I
got so many black and suspicious looks, that I moved on to
Al-Azhar, where there was less light. I could not get at the
door for the multitude of sheikhs and others in the open space
in front. One sheikh of Al-Azhar was haranguing an audience of
many hundreds from the top of a pile of stones, telling them
that they must scorn death itself in their efforts to destroy
the tyrant, and throw off his yoke, and promising Paradise to
'Martyrs' in the holy cause. I asked his name and was told
Fath'Allah. In scattered smaller groups money was being handed
over by the Central Revolutionary Committee to stir up risings
in the Provinces and to cut railways and other communications.
"Sheikh Fath'Allah's discourse bore
fruit the next morning, 14 . 3 . 19, when his audience, excited
to such a point that their natural cowardice was overcome,
attacked a patrol in the Muski, firing revolvers into an
armoured car, and attacking with sticks and stones and smashing
and looting houses and shops. They only desisted when forty of
them had been laid out, twelve of them stone dead.
15 . 3 . 19: The ESR (Egyptian State
Railway) was on partial strike, dislocating the train service;
and as days went on, riots and murders increased in Cairo, and
sinister rumours came in from the provinces.
16 . 3 . 19: An English Bimbashi of
Police telephoned to say that he and his force had been
overpowered by rioters at Bulaq, and that he had narrowly
escaped, and had taken refuge at the Assistance Publique
[government emergency medical service]. I instantly sent
armoured troops who relieved him but not before several had been
killed.
20 . 3 . 19: Hardie of the Ministry of
Education came to help me, and stuck pretty much at the
telephone whilst I promulgated sentences on students and other
rioters. He did not however limit himself to work in the office.
He came with me on several outside stunts."
On this day and the following, McPherson
and his companion made a large number of arrests, and fought
"out and through a murderous but cowardly crowd;" they
arrested the King of the Berberin [Sudanese], head of the
professional association of the domestic servants, described as
potential cut-throats; raided a house and arrested ring-leader
Yussef Abdel-Ghaffar and his fellow conspirators and
investigated the murders of Mr Walter Davies -- to which his
"Berberin domestic servant" was an accessory, having
introduced the assailants into the house -- and his next door
neighbour Dany Bresson and foiled "a plot to slaughter
Russell Bey, the Commandant of Police."
Meanwhile, he added, "the Provinces
were all ablaze, as in India in the time of the Mutiny. You
probably read in the papers of the murder and mutilation of a
number of British officers in the Luxor train, and many similar
cases."
The Societies of the Black Hand and the
Red Eye "engineered mainly from Al-Azhar, who blackmailed
the population, as well as the emissaries of the Revolutionary
party of Al-Azhar" who were going around government offices
inciting employees to go out on strike from 3 to 5 April were
keeping the Bimbashi's hands full, but his wrath was only
unleashed by the connivance of "Englishmen, in nearly every
ministry and department -- miserable old women most of them --
good for little but cackling and tippling at the club, who by
their arrogant attitude towards the natives in the past, their
general ignorance and impotence, have done much to bring Egypt
into this shameful impasse, and are not likely to do much to get
it out of the mess -- gutless and invertebrate!" Much more
than danger, the Bimbashi feared a British loss of face:
"The humiliation of these days was bad enough; clerks and
officials turning up if and as they liked, even here in the
Governorate, which ought to be the centre of discipline; and
weaklings like A (my acting Chief) put up with it and were
alarmed and annoyed when I, for instance, proposed punishing;
but the shame awaiting us was beyond all anticipation:
Allenby whose coming, so ardently and
hopefully anticipated, had been a bitter disappointment and a
failure from the first, undoing much good work which Bulfin (the
army commander in Egypt) was achieving, had the inspiration of a
madman, and in opposition to his own advisors at the Residency,
who were weak enough to agree with him in most things, and in
violation of the basic laws of government, and of common sanity,
decided as a sop to Cerberus to pay the blackmail demanded and
set up Zaghlul and their other false gods on a pedestal, in
opposition to solemn declarations of our statesmen and his own
proclamations; so on 7 . 4 . 19 the proclamations re these
heroes were annulled and an announcement posted up that Zaghlul
and co. were to be released and allowed to proceed to Paris...
"Banners were displayed everywhere,
mostly Turkish, on balconies and housetops, the roofs of trams,
and on cars, and in the hands of howling lunatics in the
streets, women emancipated for the occasion making stump
orations, children and rapscallions of all sorts shouting ribald
doggerels in contempt of the fallen tyrants and in the reception
porch of the official palace where we are supposed to shield the
dignity and honour of the Sultan whom we have set up, were
representatives of every crime and vice that the East knows, in
brazen naked effrontery, exacting the salutations of the palace
chamberlains and officers.
"My first act was to put up a
mourning card in my office... "
Bimbashi McPherson, A
Life in Egypt
