Britain Invades Egypt

By the early 1880s Egypt, though nominally an Ottoman province, was deeply indebted to European creditors, and Britain and France had imposed financial control over its affairs. Resentment at foreign interference fuelled a nationalist movement in the army led by Colonel Ahmed Urabi, known as Arabi Pasha, which demanded reform and gained wide support.

Alarmed by the unrest and by anti-foreign riots in Alexandria, and anxious to safeguard the Suez Canal, Britain intervened militarily in 1882. A British army under Sir Garnet Wolseley landed and decisively defeated Urabi's forces at the Battle of Tel el-Kebir on 13 September 1882, and the next day occupied Cairo.

Urabi was captured, tried, and exiled to Ceylon. Although Britain claimed the occupation was temporary and Egypt remained formally under the khedive and Ottoman suzerainty, British control endured for decades. Egypt became in effect a British protectorate, a status formalized in 1914, and the occupation shaped the politics of the region until well into the twentieth century.