Anglo-Egyptian War (1882) - Reasons For The Invasion

Reasons For The Invasion

The reasons why the British government sent a fleet of ships to the coast of Alexandria is a point of historical debate, as there is no information available that is capable of identifying a definitive cause for the invasion.

In their 1961 essay Africa and the Victorians, Ronald Robinson and John Gallagher argue that the British invasion was ordered in order to quell the perceived anarchy of the Orabi Revolt, as well to protect British control over the Suez Canal in order to maintain its shipping route to the Indian Ocean.

A.G. Hopkins rejects Robinson and Gallagher's argument, citing original documents and second-hand sources to claim that there was no perceived danger to the Suez Canal from the Orabi movement, and that Orabi' and his forces were not chaotic "anarchists", but rather maintained law and order. He alternatively argues that British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone's cabinet was motivated by protecting the interests of British bondholders with investments in Egypt as well as pursuit of domestic political popularity. Hopkins cites the British investments in Egypt that grew massively leading into the 1880s, partially as a result of the Khedive's debt from construction of the Suez Canal, as well as the close links that existed between the British government and the economic sector. He writes Britain's economic interests occurred simultaneously to a desire within the ruling Liberal Party for a militant foreign policy in order to gain political domestic political popularity to compete with the Conservative Party. Hopkins cites a letter from Sir Edward Malet, the British consul general in Egypt at the time, to a member of the Gladstone Cabinet offering his congratulations on the invasion, "You have fought the battle of all Christendom and history will acknowledge it. May I also venture to say that it has given the Liberal Party a new lease of popularity and power."

John Galbraith and Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid-Marsot make a similar argument to Hopkins, though their argument focuses on how individuals within the British government bureaucracy used their positions to make the invasion appear as a more favourable option to Gladstone's cabinet. First, they describe a plot by Edward Malet in which he portrayed the Egyptian government as unstable to his superiors in the British cabinet in order to provoke a British military intervention, which Galbraith and al-Sayyid-Marsot write contributed to the decision to invade. They portray him as having been naive, that he believed that he could convince the British government to militarily intimidate the Egyptian government, though he never imagined a full-out invasion or occupation. They also describe the actions of Admiral Beauchamp Seymour, commander of the British fleet that bombarded Alexandria, who personally hastened the start of the bombardment by exaggerating the danger posed by Orabi's forces in Alexandria to his ships in his telegrams back to the British government.