The War 219

even so, this new phase of Egyptian nationalism
not taken seriously by British authorities.
The Sultan Hussein did not live long to assert his
new dignity against the insubordination of his youthful
subjects or against, what he minded much more, the
unceremoniousness of his British advisers. He was
succeeded (October 19, 1917) by his brother, Ahmed
Fuad, who was at that time too unknown and insignificant
to draw fire. Thereafter the nationalist activists turned
their attention exclusively to the British.
All the old grievances against the British had been
aggravated by the war. The employment of British
officials in posts previously held by natives, a process
that had been interrupted early in the war by recruit-
ment for war organisations, now revived, with a reflux
of British war unemployed. In place of the three to four
hundred of British officials under Cromerism, there were
at the end of the war one thousand six hundred to one
thousand seven hundred. The percentage of Egyptian
executive employes sank from twenty-seven per cent, in
1905 to twenty-three per cent, in 1920. The new war
organisations were staffed by British, and the old peace
departments were swamped with new British appoint-
ments. British officials also occupied all the posts out-
side the administration itself, which provided pay on
which a European could live. The middle-class Egyptian
had received an education that fitted him solely for sub-
ordinate official employment. He now saw himself de-
prived of all possible promotion and of many posts that
had hitherto been his.
Moreover, the new British officials were obviously
appointed because they wanted a job, not because there
was a job wanting them. There was no longer any
question of their being experts, and only too often some