The Birth of Modem Egypt 35
said Napoleon at St. Helena. Perhaps it was the worse
for England, for Egypt, and for Europe that he was
stopped.
It was not long before Napoleon's place was filled
and his policy followed by another adventurer. Mehemet
Ali is accepted by most historians as the founder of
Modern Egypt. But he himself in character and career
belongs rather to medieval Europe. Like his contem-
poraries, the founders of free nations in Servia and
Greece, he secured for the future Egyptian nation the
first foundation of national sovereignty—administrative
separation from the Ottoman Empire. But, unlike them,
he was not himself a national of the new nation, and his
policy was as personal and as predatory as that of Napo-
leon. For, like Napoleon, he aimed at making Egypt a
stepping-stone to the Empire of the East. Cairo had
been the capital of the Khalifate until Selim transferred
it to Constantinople. There was no political or geo-
graphical reason why Cairo, commanding the land bridge
between Asia and Africa and the sea communications
between the British Empire and Asia, should not become
the capital of the East instead of Constantinople on its
land bridge between Europe and Asia and on the sea
passage between the Russian Empire and Europe, But
Mehemet Ali had not even that ideal for or interest in
Egypt. And had he conquered Constantinople he would,
like Napoleon, have centred his reformed empire there
and not at Cairo.
Mehemet Ali failed, as did Napoleon, in reaching Con-
stantinople, and for the same reason. The nearer he got
to Constantinople the more he imperilled his position
in Egypt, and the more he incurred opposition from
England. But he came nearer to success than did Napo-
leon, For iis armies reached the gates of Constantinople,