All Sir Garnet! The Battle of Tel el-Kebir, 13 September 1882

It signalled a new age of empire – an age of armed intervention by industrialised European armies. The Scramble for Africa had begun. In this extended extract from his new book, MHM Editor Neil Faulkner analyses the battle in which Victorian Britain destroyed an Egyptian nationalist movement and took possession of the country.

The issue could not have been simpler. Egypt had been bankrupted by interest payments on loans incurred to fund an over-ambitious programme of infrastructure projects. To sustain the flow of payments to British and French bankers, it had been placed under ‘dual control’ by colonial administrators. The Khedive of Egypt, nominally a subject of the Ottoman Sultan, had become a vassal of Anglo-French finance-capital. In effect, the Egyptian peasantry – the fellahin – was being fleeced to pay the bondholders of London and Paris.

In 1881, the country had exploded into revolution. A group of radical army officers, backed by the military rank-and-file and the mass of the Egyptian people, had pushed aside the puppet Khedive and assumed control of the country.

OPPOSITE The Bombardment of Alexandria, 11 July 1882. Admiral Seymour’s ironclads smashed the Egyptian coastal batteries in a few hours. But the Egyptian Army simply retreated inland. An army of invasion would be needed. — The Bombardment of Alexandria, 11 July 1882. Admiral Seymour’s ironclads smashed the Egyptian coastal batteries in a few hours. But the Egyptian Army simply retreated inland. An army of invasion would be needed.

Not only was the flow of interest payments threatened, but the security of the Suez Canal, which, since its opening in 1869, had become vital to the global communications of the British Empire, seemed imperilled.

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