(b. 1875–d. 1944) (r. 1892–1914) last khedive of Egypt After 1841, when Sultan Mahmud II (r. 1808–1839) made Mehmed Ali hereditary governor of Egypt, the political status of Egypt was complicated. It was still technically an Ottoman province but its governors, who later held the title of khedive (viceroy), enjoyed complete independence of action. Further complicating the situation, Great Britain occupied the country in 1882 and declared it a British protectorate, all the while asserting that the khedive governed Egypt as an Ottoman province. When the reigning khedive, Tawfiq, died in 1892, his son Abbas was only 17 years old and legally could not ascend the throne. But Lord Cromer, Egypt’s unofficial British governor, stepped in to suggest that according to the Muslim lunar calendar Abbas was, in fact, already 18. Legality aside, Abbas Hilmi assumed the title of khedive and received an imperial patent from Ottoman sultan Abdulhamid II (r. 1876–1909) confirming his office. Cromer’s intervention in his enthronement was emblematic of the troubled relationship that Abbas had with his country’s British occupiers. While he owed his throne to the British, he sought to establish his own independent course, especially when promoting Egyptian sovereignty over the recently conquered territory of Sudan. In 1894 Abbas clashed with Lord Kitchner, the British commander of the Egyptian army in the Sudan, and demanded his resignation. Again Lord Cromer intervened, and Kitchner remained in his post.
For the rest of his reign, Abbas Hilmi looked for allies who might get the British out of Egypt and thus help establish him as sole ruler of the country. Initially he contacted the French and the Ottomans for help; when neither seemed willing to take on the British over the question of who rightly governed Egypt, Abbas Hilmi turned to the Egyptian nationalists who were agitating for British withdrawal. Abbas supported several nationalist newspapers and for a time was a political ally of Mustafa Kamil (1874–1908), who became the founder of the National Party. He also consistently supported the Ottoman sultan Abdьlhamid II as the champion of Muslim countries’ resistance to European imperialism. But with the sultan’s fall from power in 1909, Abbas Hilmi developed a grander scheme that would designate him caliph of a revived Arab-Muslim empire.
The khedives often spent their summers in Turkish Istanbul, and Abbas Hilmi chose do so in the summer of 1914. When the Ottoman Empire entered World War I (1914–18) as an ally of Germany on October 29, 1914, Abbas did not immediately return to Egypt, thus raising British concerns about his intentions and loyalties. When the khedive finally returned to Cairo in December, the British quickly acted by declaring unilaterally on December 18, 1914 that Egypt was independent of the Ottoman Empire, but still a British protectorate. The next day the British deposed Abbas Hilmi in favor of his uncle, Husayn Kamil (1853–1917), who was given the title sultan of Egypt. Egypt’s place as a part of the Ottoman Empire had come abruptly to an end.
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