Chapter III : Modernization
Since his accession to the post of wali, Muhammad Ali had begun to transform Egypt to fit his ambitions and it went by three great measures : developing the economy, institute a centralized bureaucracy and form new armies on the model of the West.
Egyptian economy was surely in one of the worst states of its history. The recurrent plagues had decimated a great part of its population, decreasing the wheat production and leading to famines which accentuated the phenomena. Trade was controlled by European companies, who instituted throughout the Levant, a “semi-colonial” system in which the Ottoman Empire had no control over its trade apart from a few symbolic measures. In Egypt, the rule of the Mamluks had resulted in high taxations to finance the Circassian elite. The system had to be changed.
He first began with a great nationalization of the arable lands throughout the country. The peasantry had lost its land and had to give all its productions to the state, which would then sell it on the international markets. The Egyptian peasants felt spoiled at first, but many grew accustomed to the system which guaranteed them a fix salary for their work and increased the living standard of many. This great land reform was profitable to Egypt because of the introduction of cotton in Egypt. The plant had become a substantial plantation because of the Industrial Revolution and Egypt became soon with British India and the Southern United States, one of the major areas of production in the world. But instead of just relying on the sale of non-manufactured goods, the Wali created a fabric factory in Cairo to transform the home production and sell these new fabrics in foreign countries. This factory employed around 20000 people in 1825 but due to the increasing rural exodus to Cairo, Muhammad Ali commissioned an enlargement of the factory to employ 10000 people more. It is often said that this fabric industry was the example that would led to the development of other industries over the years. But to be able to develop such a politic, Egypt needed an efficient bureaucracy.
The success of the cotton industry led to the expansion of the industrial facilities in 1826, although the machine pieces took years to arrive
Bureaucracy in Egypt before 1810, was minimalist, if non-existent. There was the wali appointed by Constantinople, who had to rule over the Mamluk elite but beyond that, there was no real system used for census, taxation and so on. Egypt was predominantly a feudal state where taxation was realized by tax-farmers who then gave back some money to the state [1]. He raised taxes on the tax-farmers, to the point they had to sell back their lands to escape the system. But with the removal of the Mamluk elite, Muhammad Ali was free to create a central bureaucracy with many positions to fill. He first revised the internal divisions of the country which did not correspond to the reality of the situation. The plagues had devastated the cities, which still had however a greater influence than the countryside. He reorganized Egypt in ten provinces responsible for taxation and maintain of order. In fact, this reorganization benefited mostly his family, the wali controlling most of the powers with the key positions controlled by his sons. But the state recruited many Egyptian recruits and formed them to become agents of the state, one of their first tasks being to collect the plantations which would then be sold. Owning all the land and giving a salary to all workers, the state could efficiently collect the taxes. This new bureaucracy was still in its infancy in 1821 but it offered a new mean of social mobility in the previously closed Egyptian society.
The enlargement of the bureaucracy was concentrated along Cairo and Alexandria from 1821 to 1825
It was then the national focus of the state to develop it throughout the region of Cairo and Alexandria, the two urban centres of Egypt. The first was the political, learning and industrial centre of the country, concentrating most of the high administration, the Al-Azhar University and also the cotton fabric industries. Alexandria on the other hand, was less populous but was the Egyptian door on the Western World. It was there that was installed the French embassy, there than English, Portuguese and French companies would come to buy Egyptian goods and also the only modern arsenal of Egypt, from where was assembled a new modern fleet, the Taba. The fleet along the Military was the primarily goal of all these reforms.
The Legation Quarter or "French Quarter was officialised in 1825
The French invasion of Egypt had showed the Middle-East that Europeans were way beyond them in military demesnes. But not paralysed by reactionaries elements like the Janissaries who had deposed Selim III, Muhammad Ali began an extensive but needed program of reformation of the army. Firstly, since centuries, the army of Egypt would be constituted of Egyptian soldiers. Having escaped integration of the caliphal army during the Arab Conquest, the peasantry was replaced by Nubian and Sudanese slaves which formed the backbone of the Fatimid army. Then it was the Mamluks and their cavalry. To acquire an army fit for his objectives, Muhammad Ali relied on a conscription system that touched most of the peasantry. This was a move that induced many peasants to flee as far as Syria to escape the system, others maiming themselves to escape the conscription. But in the end, it provided Muhammad Ali with thousands of recruits.
He had the numbers for his army but he also required a modern staff, initiated to the last military doctrines from the West : quantity serves nothing without quality. He could count on military experts, mostly French ones who while not very numerous had obtained their own quarter in Alexandria and Cairo, a move that angered many Egyptian who accused these Western devils to profane the land of Egypt and committing many crimes inside this special quarter. One of the most prominent of these “local” advisers was Josèphe Anthelme Sève, a French sailor who had taken part in the Napoleonic battles taking part in Trafalgar and Waterloo. Recruited by the Wali to modernize the Navy and the Artillery, he settled in Egypt where he converted to Islam and then was called Soliman Pasha al-Faransawi (Soliman Pasha the French). His help was substantial in many military domains and he was one of the closest advisors of the Wali.
Muhammad, Ibrahim and the colonel Sève
While there were Western advisors in Egypt, Muhammad Ali wanted not to depend on them too much. For that he began sending promising recruits to France where they were expected to learn the basics of Western military and French. Learning French was a prerequisite to a great work of translation that emerged during this period and who was often compared with the great translation from Greek to Arab during the first years of the Islamic World. Helped by the establishment of the first Arabic printing press in the Bulaq quarter of Cairo, used also for publishing the official news of the government, new ideas penetrated Egypt. Mostly military at first, the texts were soon ranging from sociology to history. This movement was just at its beginning during the period we describe, most students would come back to Egypt during the 1830’s. However modernization was not seen positively by everyone in Egypt.
The Reaction and the Sudanese Rebellion of 1825
While Reforms had positive aspects overall for the Egyptian Society, there was contestation, mainly from religious authorities. The ulemas who had helped Muhammad Ali getting the post of Wali, were soon removed from any secular power, the new wali confining them to a purely religious and moral role. But it was easier said than done, and on Fridays during the Great Prayer, the most reactionaries elements of the religion often criticized the course of the country. In March 1823, an ulema who had been advocating to return to the things of the Past was arrested with some of his collaborators, for siding with the Wahhabists. It provoked a movement of contestation in Nubia, the region of Aswan, which was however controlled by the authorities. Later in 1826, a cheikh of the Al-Azhar University issued a fatwa against some of the new printed French books, accusing them of spreading lies into the minds of the faithful. Despite his position he received the same fate than the imam of Aswan and was prosecuted for Wahabism. Muhammad had slowly turned against him a part of the religious establishment, and despite all his measures, the threat of fanatism represented by Salafists and Wahhabits spread among some of the clergy. The population was uncertain about the situation but opposed some of the new measures, mainly conscription and the work in the industry. But it was in Sudan that the situation was the tensest.
Occupation and “Integration” of the Sudan was indeed akin to a form of Egyptian colonialism. There the population faced a dire repression, high taxation, forced work to plunder the riches of the countryside, mainly Ivory and Tropical Wood. Agents of Egypt even captured slaves up to the Nuba mountains to serve the regime. Some tribes still refused to acknowledge the suzerainty of Egypt. To face these threats, the wali instituted a garrison in Khartoum of local soldiers, the Gihadija “who would face any perturbation of Order”. It would soon come to use with the Sudanese Rebellion of 1825. Localized and small in range, the rebellion was soon took care of by the Garrison who grew in numbers, from 6000 soldiers at the beginning to 18000 at the end, including an Egyptian Artillery Corps to help the local infantry. The situation was however not calm and the Garrison was ordered to attack any adversary to Egyptian rule.
At the beginning of 1827, Egypt had changed. The military trained in the Western way used new smaller cannons instead of the great fixed cannons used by the Ottomans before the Toth Reforms. The infantry also faced the basics of basic training instead of being thrown into battle without any war preparations.
The Egyptian Army was organised in five great divisions :
- the Army of Egypt of Ibrahim Pasha, the most brilliant general of the all Army
- the Army of Alexandria of Mehmet Pasha, a quite inefficient general but better than none in charge
- the Army of the Levant of Iskender Bey, a megalomaniac but popular general
- the Khartoum Garrison
- the Taba, the fleet built upon French model based in the arsenal of Alexandria
And an occasion of testing these new armies soon appeared ….
[1] A system that quite looks like the system that the Ancien Régime used in France before the Révolution, "les fermiers généraux" being financiers who gave money to the state and then collected the taxes. Estimations say that over half of taxes did not go to the state but to these financiers who were also the bankers of the regime. An awful and inefficient system if you ask me but with the complex nature of society at this time, it's a bit understanbable
Next time, chapter 4 : The Greek War
Happy new year to all ! (even if it's still 2014 for me right now
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