Introduction xix
writing an account of Modern Egypt. The subject has
hitherto almost always been approached from the angle
of the British occupation. Some of the most interesting
and important works, such as those of Milner, Cromer,
Colvin, and other proconsuls or their partisans, have been
written not only from that angle, but on the assumption
that Modern Egypt has been made by the British. Again
other works are an inverted form of these Anglo-Saxon
attitudes, and argue that the British ruling class have
spoiled the Egyptians as ruthlessly as did the Mame-
lukes. Such is the attitude adopted by a few English
authors like Mr. Wilfred Blunt, by a majority of French
and foreign writers, and by most native authors. In either
case, much more attention is paid to the English, to what
they have or have not done, to their difficulties, and to
their disinterested or diplomatic motives, than to the
Egyptian nation itself.
Now, although we are naturally most attracted by this
aspect of Egyptian affairs, yet it is none the less super-
ficial. The general course of developments in Egypt
would not have been so very different in its broad lines
if the British Empire had never existed. In an earlier
phase it made little difference whether rule over Egypt
was, for the moment, in the hands of a Circassian like
Ibrahim or of an Albanian like Mehemet Ali. And in a
later phase it would have made no very great difference
to the course of history in Egypt if, instead of a Cromer
and a Kitchener, there had been a de Blignieres or a
Lyautey. If this be doubted we have only to compare
the course of events in Egypt with that in other North
African countries. For Egypt is only a sector of the
long front between the European and Eastern political
systems ; and the rise of the Egyptian nation takes its
proper place geographically and historically in the long