The British Occupation 105
by native Egyptian regiments led by native Egyptian
Colonels in alliance with the Constitutionalists. And the
army, it must be remembered, was the only repre-
sentation allowed to the native fellaheen, who provided
not only the ranks but the regimental officers of
these tf Egyptian'' regiments. There were, no doubt,
grievances involved. Under Said the colonelcies had
been open to Egyptians, but Ismail had promoted only
Circassians, Syrians, and Arabs, as being more showy.
The general officers had always been Turks. Thus the
Egyptian regimental officers found themselves relegated
with their rank and file to working as navvies on canals
and roads. Or if they had to fight, found their lives
thrown away, as in Abyssinia, by the bad strategy and
staffwork of the palace proteges. And the accession of
Tewfik brought no redress but only reductions of pay and
promotion to pay the foreign control and the foreign
creditors.
Of the three fellah Colonels of the Egyptian regi-
ments one soon became conspicuous, not so much by his
ability as by being a typical fellah. This was Ahmed Bey
Arabi, the son of a village sheikh, a student of el Azhar
and an A.D.C. under 'Said. Simple and slow, but with
a shrewd eye for essentials—impressive from his bigness
and benevolence and a sincere speaker of the religious
rhetorical class—a fellah who could overcome the
temperament and tradition of his race enough to
take action against authority—Arabi had all the mak-
ings of a Garibaldi, except the military eye and experi-
ence. He and his colleagues had been opposed to Ismail
and to the " Turkish " ruling class, and they were at no
time anti-Christian or anti-foreign. Their real sanction
and support was not so much from the soldiers they
commanded as from their own class mates, the village