Rebellion and Independence 239
arid schoolboys. First, the medieval Moslem university
el Azhar, then the Modern Law School, the Schools of
Medicine and Technical Colleges, and thereafter the
secondary schools, ail struck work and streamed about
the streets. The day on which the delegates wrere de-
ported passed off with nothing worse than noisy demon-
strations and some destruction of trams and lamps. But
next day the strike spread, and mobs of students,
strikers, and street gangs wrecked Anglophil newspaper
officesf stoned trains, and damaged or destroyed public
property until the British troops were called out and
several rioters shot. The next day (March n) disorder
spread to the Government Bureaux and to the Law
Courts, and all business in Cairo wras stopped. The day
after that mobs of peasants appeared in the provinces
and began everywhere tearing up rails and tearing down
wires. There was rioting at Damanhur, Zazazig, Man-
sura, and other provincial towns ; at Tanta the soldiers
defending the railway station from destruction shot
fifteen and wounded fifty rioters. Alexandria then
joined in, to the great alarm of the foreign community.
Little risings and riots broke out in all directions. The
younger Nationalist leaders preached rebellion ; the more
prominent or pusillanimous passed resolutions. The army
of occupation could do no more for the moment than
patrol the lines with armoured trains and pepper the
rioters with handbills from aeroplanes. The rioters then
began assaulting all trains and motor-lorries transporting
troops. One such attack in Cairo was only repulsed with
a loss to the rebels of thirteen killed and thirty wounded
(March 14). Thereafter the wrecking of trains and
stations, railways and telegraphs, and public buildings
became general; assaults on isolated British officers and
men began (March 15), The Bedawin now joined in and