[Forum Game] - World in Revolution: 1861 Mk. IV

[Luftwafer]

Inductions into the Royal order of the Seraphim for the year of 1866

In the Year 1866 the Kingdom of Sweden announced the great men of Europe who would be inducted into the highest royal order of the Seraphim, they included:

Archduke Karl Ludwig Joseph Maria of Austria: For his Patronage of the arts and science.

Edouard Drouyn de Lhuys (Foreign minister of the French Empire): For his extraordinary efforts and actions to bring in a new age of good feelings and commercial cooperation between The French Empire and the Kingdom of Sweden.

Alexander Mikhailovich Gorchakov (Foreign minister of the Russian Emperor): For his unceasing efforts to encourage global peace and prosperity. In addition to sustaining the mutually beneficial balance of power inside Europe.

Victor Emmanuel II of Italy: For his successful effort to create a lasting and stable arrangement to the 'Roman' question.

King Ludwig II of Bavaria: For his quick and decisive action to stop the violence that was plaguing the German region.

All of these great men were invited to the palace of the king in Stockholm at the king's expense if they so wished, however that was not necessary in order to receive the order.​

 

[Cloud Strife]

Treaty of Amsterdam​

ARTICLE I.
From the day of the exchange of the Ratifications of the present Treaty there shall be reaffirmation of Peace and Friendship, between Her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, His Majesty the Emperor of the French, His Majesty the King of Italy, His Imperial Majesty the Sultan, on the one part, and His Majesty the Emperor of All the Russias, on the other part; as well as between their heirs and successors, their respective dominions and subjects, in perpetuity, and that there shall be Acknowledgment of the Inviolable territories of their Realms between His Imperial Majesty the Sultan, on the one part, and His Majesty the Emperor of All the Russias, on the other part. The following terms are henceforth resolved and sworn.

ARTICLE II.
No foreign warships, in excess of the number of four in the total of all nations, are to be allowed to transit the Turkish straits during peacetime, with these limits excused for the allies of His Imperial Majesty the Sultan during periods when the Sublime Porte is contracted in a state of warfare.

ARTICLE III.
Peacetime foreign warships shall be permitted two weeks to complete their transit of the Turkish Straights.

ARTICLE IV.
The Turkish Straights are confirmed as composite to the Inviolable Sovereignty of the Sultan, and as such he may close them at his prerogative during times of war.

ARTICLE V.
The Powers in contact with the Black Sea resolve to the listed limitations on forces in the Black Sea, the Sea of Azoz, and all adjacent tributaries thereof, with the exception of the Danube. The included territories are hereafter described as the Black Sea and its environs.

ARTICLE VI.
The Powers on which the preceding article applies, hereby agree to the listed limitations on Navies in the Black Sea. Each power shall enjoy a parity of one-one with the other Powers of the Black Sea and its environs, no matter the class of vessel. The minimum number permitted vessels shall be thus: four (4) heavy warships, eight (8) ships of the frigate class, and twelve (12) minor vessels.

ARTICLE VII.
The Powers on which Article V applies, hereby agree to the listed limitations on Navies in the Black Sea and its environs. Each Power shall have no more than eight (8) heavy warships, sixteen (16) ships of the frigate class, and twenty-four minor (24) vessels. These limitations are imposed by evaluation of the class of vessel, and thus the parity requirement shall only apply to those vessels currently on the Black Sea and its environs.

ARTICLE VIII.
Minor discrepancies shall be excused for a period no longer than three-months, and these discrepancies shall not be permitted to exceed (1) heavy ship, two (2) frigates, or three (3) minor vessels in variance; this exception does not apply to a combination of these classifications, but in the division of the classifications; (i.e, one heavy ship and two frigates shall not be permitted to be in excess at simultaneous moment without being in contradiction of this article).

ARTICLE IX.
Any change in the composition of vessels in the Black Sea and its environs must be reported to the other Black Sea Powers or be subject to violation of this treaty in contradiction to its terms. These restrictions will the only restrictions regarding the militarization of the Black Sea and its environs.

ARTICLE X.
Recognizing the need to aid in the protection of the Sublime Porte following the loss of maritime protection, Her Majesty the Queen and His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of the French shall aid in the development and modernization of the Ottoman Navy.

ARTICLE XI.
The terms of this treaty in supervision of the restrictions on military vessels on the Black Sea and its environs shall be reviewed in ten (10) years by all Black Sea Powers following the ratification of this document. In twenty (20) years, the governing terms of this treaty excepting those regulating the Straights shall expire. Any attempt to unilaterally disoblige the terms of this treatise will be equated to a violation of the treatise and thus a breach of the treaty.

ARTICLE XII.
This treaty shall supersede all previous treaties contracted between the Powers concerning maritime matters in the Black Sea and its environs.

ARTICLE XIII.
The present Treaty shall be ratified, and the Ratifications shall be exchanged at Amsterdam in the space of 6 weeks, or sooner if possible.

In witness whereof the respective Plenipotentiaries have signed the same, and have affixed thereto the Seal of their Arms. Done at Amsterdam, the 30th day of the month of June, in the year 1865.

--
[X] Lord Stanley, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
[] All Ratifiers of the Treaty of Paris (1856)

--
[Annex A] Declaration by Her Majesty's Government that Her Majesty shall cease peaceful relations, and invoke any necessary punitive measures against whatever party first disobeys the terms of the treaty before the natural expiration in twenty years.

[X] Lord Derby, Prime Minister

On the advice of the Interim Romanian Government desirous to secure the tranquility of the Black Sea littoral under it administration, the Kaiser signals the ratification of this agreement by Austria and its reaffirmation by Romania.

 

[Gorganslayer]

It is with much sorrow, that the Belgian Government announces the passing of King Leopold I. The people of Belgium mourn his loss and hope that his legacy will continue to be upheld and expanded on by his son, King Leopold II.

~ Charles Rogier, Prime Minister of Belgium​

 

[TJDS]

The Nafplio Protocols
Protocols for the Guarentee of Fiscally Responsible and Good Governance in the Kingdom of Hellenes
​

Article I. The Russian Empire (henceforth referred to as Russia) does hereby agree to lower interest rates on debt owed by the Kingdom of Hellenes (henceforth referred to as Greece) to 0.5% per annum, effective immediately for the fiscal year in which these Protocols were signed.

Article II. Russia does hereby agree to forgive [800 m. statbucks] in debt owed by Greece.

Article III. Greece does hereby agree to establish the Committee for Debt Management, which shall consist of independent experts of good and respected moral character and Russian Representatives, and shall have investigatory and monitoring powers on Greek economic policy, tax collection and management systems. The Committee for Debt Management is to be established, in conjunction with the approval of these protocols, by Act of Parliament of the Parliament of the Hellenes.

[x] Dimitrios Voulgaris, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Hellenes
[x] Alexander Gorchakov, Foreign Minister of the Russian Empire​

 

[Kho]

Joint Agreement Between France and Egypt.

Alexandria, 23 February 1865​

Preamble.

The Emperor, Government, and People of the French Empire (hereafter ‘France’), and the Khedive, Government, and People of the Egyptian Khedivate (hereafter ‘Egypt’), desirous of once more establishing peaceful and amicable relations between one and the other, have agreed to the Articles written hereunder whereto the undersigned duly authorised to that effect have set their seals:-​

Part I. Establishment of Peace​

Article I.

There shall be from the conclusion of this treaty, a firm inviolable and universal peace and friendship between France on the one part, and Egypt, on the other, made by the free consent of both parties.​

Section I.

Egypt shall at all times host a garrison of up to twenty-thousand French soldiers in total split between the cities of Port Sa’id, Cairo, and Alexandria; subject to change during periods of war which affect and occupy Egypt or French interests in Egypt. Egypt shall pay the cost of [thirty-million (30,000,000) stat-bucks] to maintain this force.​

Section II.

Egypt shall at all times maintain a regular army of no more than forty-thousand regulars; subject to change during periods when Egypt is at war.​

Section III.

In the interests of establishing and re-establishing amicable relations between France and Egypt and ensuring the rights of French subjects in Egypt, the French Consulate in Egypt shall be re-opened and expanded to accommodate the new rights and responsibilities of France in Egypt.​

Part II. Delineation of Rights and Obligations with Regards to the Suez Canal Zone​

Article II.

The Suez Canal Zone and Port Sa’id are an integral part of Egypt, on lease to France for a period of ninety-nine years, subject to French law, from the date of the completion of the Suez Canal.

Section I.

Egyptian citizens moving through, working, studying, dwelling, or for any other reason present in the Suez Canal Zone, shall be subject to Egyptian law.​

Article III.

The legal nationality of the Universal Maritime Suez Canal Company (hereafter ‘the Company’) is Egyptian.​

Article IV.

Contrary to the Edict of 1856, Egypt does not have the right to appoint the President of the Board of Directors of the Company. The President of the Board of Directors of the Company shall be appointed subject to a vote by the shareholders.​

Article V.

Per the Edict of 1856, Egypt must be consulted about toll rights on the Suez Canal (hereafter ‘the Canal’).​

Article VI.

The Company is made up of four-hundred-thousand (400,000) shares of five-hundred (500) francs each. Before this treaty, one-hundred-and-seventy-six-thousand-six-hundred-and-two (176,602, or 44%) belonged to Egypt. As of this treaty, two-hundred-thousand shares (200,000, or 50%) belong to Egypt.​

Article VII.

Per the Edict of 1856, Egypt, being the licensing authority, has a right to 15% of total disposable income [profit] on an annual basis.​

Article VIII.

Per the Edict of 1856, Egypt is entitled to thirty-thousand (30,000) francs [one-hundred-and-fifty-three-thousand-three-hundred-and-twenty-five (153,325) stat-bucks] fixed annual payment, fixed for forty-eight years by the Edict. Extension and increase to be agreed upon at the end of this period.​

Article IX.

Egypt shall have a right of repurchase should France ever divest itself of its concession. Moreover, Egypt has an automatic first offer to purchase any shares in the Company should France ever seek to sell them.
France shall have an automatic first offer to purchase any shares in the Company should Egypt ever seek to sell them.​

Article X.

The hierarchy of the Company, as set by the Edict of 1856, shall be upheld. Its four main organisational elements, in descending order, are:​

The Annual General Meeting of Shareholders
The Board of Directors
The Management Committee
The Superior Agency.​

Article XI.

The Annual General Meeting welcomes anyone with more than twenty-five (25) shares in the company.​

Article XII.

The Board of Directors is composed of thirty-two members nominated by the Annual General Meeting. The President of the Board of Directors, per Article IV of the present treaty, shall be appointed subject to shareholder vote. The President serves for 8 years. Fifty per cent (50%) of the Board of Directors’ members must be Egyptian nationals who have been domiciled in Egypt for at least 25 years, and the other fifty per cent (50%) must be French nationals.​

Article XIII.

The Management Committee is formed of the President of the Board of Directors, the top company manager, and four administrators. It meets on a weekly basis. Two of the four administrators must be Egyptian nationals who have been domiciled in Egypt for at least 25 years, and the other two must be French nationals.​

Article XIV.

The Superior Agency manages the Egyptian departments of the company. Its office must be located in Cairo. It is responsible for the operation, improvement, and expansion of the Canal. French departments of the Company shall have offices in Paris.​

Article XV.

France, through the Company, shall endeavour to educate local Egyptians so that they can attain the level of expertise necessary for them to serve at every level of the Company. It shall set aside five percent (5%) of all posts at every level for Egyptian, to be increased by a further five percent (5%) every nine (9) years for the period of ninety-nine (99) years of the lease.​

Section I.

Towards achieving this, schools staffed by French and Egyptian teachers, as well as institutions of higher education, shall be constructed in the Suez Canal Zone.​

Article XVI.

The Company, with an eye to its civilising mission, shall endeavour to invest more generally in the modernisation of Egypt – this shall primarily consist of reinvestment into education and infrastructure.​

Article XVII.

France shall prioritise Egypt with regards to providing French teachers, technicians, experts &c. for Egypt’s institutions of higher education and military academies. One hundred Egyptians shall also be enrolled in French universities annually as a joint programme to further educate Egyptians.
​

[X] Mohammad Sharif Pasha, Nazir of the Nizara of Foreign Affairs
[] Edouard Drouyn de Lhuys, Foreign Minister of the Empire

 

[etranger01]

Franco-Egyptian Joint Agreement

[X] Edouard Drouyn de Lhuys, Foreign Minister of the Empire

 

[jacob-Lundgren]

The Nafplio Protocols
Protocols for the Guarentee of Fiscally Responsible and Good Governance in the Kingdom of Hellenes
​

Spoiler

Article I. The Russian Empire (henceforth referred to as Russia) does hereby agree to lower interest rates on debt owed by the Kingdom of Hellenes (henceforth referred to as Greece) to 0.5% per annum, effective immediately for the fiscal year in which these Protocols were signed.

Article II. Russia does hereby agree to forgive [800 m. statbucks] in debt owed by Greece.

Article III. Greece does hereby agree to establish the Committee for Debt Management, which shall consist of independent experts of good and respected moral character and Russian Representatives, and shall have investigatory and monitoring powers on Greek economic policy, tax collection and management systems. The Committee for Debt Management is to be established, in conjunction with the approval of these protocols, by Act of Parliament of the Parliament of the Hellenes.

[x] Dimitrios Voulgaris, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Hellenes
[] Alexander Gorchakov, Foreign Minister of the Russian Empire​

[X] Alexander Gorchakov, Foreign Minister of the Russian Empire

 

[TJDS]

The Nafplio Protocols
Protocols for the Guarentee of Fiscally Responsible and Good Governance in the Kingdom of Hellenes
​

Article I. The Russian Empire (henceforth referred to as Russia) does hereby agree to lower interest rates on debt owed by the Kingdom of Hellenes (henceforth referred to as Greece) to 0.5% per annum, effective immediately for the fiscal year in which these Protocols were signed.

Article II. Russia does hereby agree to forgive [800 m. statbucks] in debt owed by Greece.

Article III. Greece does hereby agree to establish the Committee for Debt Management, which shall consist of independent experts of good and respected moral character and Russian Representatives, and shall have investigatory and monitoring powers on Greek economic policy, tax collection and management systems. The Committee for Debt Management is to be established, in conjunction with the approval of these protocols, by Act of Parliament of the Parliament of the Hellenes.

[x] Dimitrios Voulgaris, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Hellenes
[x] Alexander Gorchakov, Foreign Minister of the Russian Empire​

Addendum to the Nafplio Protocols

Article I will be amended to read as follows: The Russian Empire (henceforth referred to as Russia) does hereby agree to lower interest rates on debt owed by the Kingdom of Hellenes (henceforth referred to as Greece) to 0.25% per annum, effective immediately for the fiscal year in which these Protocols were signed.

[x] Dimitrios Voulgaris, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Hellenes
[x] Alexander Gorchakov, Foreign Minister of the Russian Empire

 

[Mikkel Glahder]

​

Boundary Treaty of 1866 between Chile and Bolivia
​

Article 1. The line of demarcation of the boundaries between Bolivia and Chile in the desert of Atacama, shall, hereafter, be parallel 24° south latitude from the littoral of the Pacific to the eastern limits of Chile, so that Chile on the south and Bolivia on the north will have possession and dominion of the territories extending from the mentioned parallel 24°, exercising in them all acts of jurisdiction and sovereignty corresponding to owners of the land.

The exact survey of the line of demarcation between the two countries shall be undertaken by a commission of properly qualified experts, half of whose members shall be appointed by each one of the high contracting parties.

Once the dividing line is determined it shall be marked by visible and permanent landmarks, the expense of which shall be borne equally by the governments of Bolivia and Chile.

Article 2. Notwithstanding the territorial division specified in the foregoing article, the republics of Bolivia and Chile shall share equally the proceeds of the exploitation of the guano deposits discovered in Mejillones, and in all such further deposits of this same fertilizer which may be discovered in the territory comprised between 23° and 25° south latitude, as well as the export duties which shall be collected upon the minerals mined within the same territorial extension herein previously specified.

Article 3. The Republic of Bolivia undertakes to establish a customs house and open up the port at Mejillones, with the number of officers which the development and commerce may require. This customs house shall be the only revenue office which shall be empowered to receive the proceeds of the guano and the export duties on metals to which the preceding article refers.

The Government of Chile may appoint one or more revenue officers, duly authorized to exercise the right of supervision and inspection of the receipts of the referred-to customs of Mejillones, and to receive directly from the same office quarterly, on in such manner as may be mutually decided upon by both States, the portion of the profit due to Chile to which Article 2 refers.

Article 4. Exemption from all export duties is granted on the products of the territories comprised between 24° and 25° south latitude, which may be exported through the port of Mejillones. The natural products of Chile introduced through the port of Mejillones shall likewise be exempt from all import duties.

Article 5. The method of exportation or sale of guano, and the export duties assessed upon minerals, to which Article 2 of the treaty refers, shall be mutually agreed upon by the high contracting parties, either by means of special agreements or according as both may consider more convenient or appropriate.

Article 6. The contracting republics bind themselves not to transfer their rights to the possession or dominion of the territory which is divided between them by the present treaty, in favour of any other State, association or private individual. In case either of them may wish to effect such a transfer, the purchaser may only be the other contracting party.

Article 7. With respect to the losses which the question of limits between Bolivia and Chile has caused, as is well-known, to those individuals who together were the first to exploit effectually the guano deposits of Mejillones and whose work was suspended by order of the authorities of Chile the 17th of February, 1863, the high contracting parties agree to pay equally to said individuals an indemnity of eighty thousand pesos, paid from the per cent of the revenue of the customs house at Mejillones.

Signed

[X] Álvaro Covarrubias Ortúzar, Chilean Minister of Foreign Affairs
[X] Juan R. Muñoz Cabrera, Bolivian Plenipotentiary in Santiago

 

[Kho]

الخديوية المصرية
al-Khadawiyya al-Misriyya

In Response to Secretary of State Horatio Seymour
​

Sir, I write in response to a letter received from your honoured person by my Nizara earlier this week. On receiving your letter I could not but be compelled to sense its most urgent tone and the need for immediate action on my part given what appears to be, from your words, a highly critical and time-sensitive situation in the United States of America. I thus wasted no time whatsoever in writing to the Nazir of War who, deeply troubled by the content of your letter and the ramifications lack of swift action could have for your honoured person's homeland, wrote immediately to the Hekmadar Liwa' of the Sudan informing him of this state of affairs. Upon being informed by the Hekmadar Liwa' of the clear crisis their homeland is undergoing in their - dare I say, due to their - absence, the officers mentioned in your letter wasted no time whatsoever in promptly departing for Cairo. Many of the other officers were of a mind to leave immediately too, but we assured them that their services - despite the quite serious situation - have not been requested.

The four officers mentioned in your letter - that is to say, John Pope, John Reynolds, Henry Slocum, and Gouverneur Warren - were until very recently present in Alexandria. As the situation appears to us extremely time-sensitive, His Majesty the Khediveh directed me to permit the steam frigate Shir Jihad to carry the officers to New York without a moment's delay. We hope our swift action in this regard will prove helpful in ensuring the success of your honoured person's homeland in repelling the crisis alluded to in your letter. Our prayers are with the Government and People of the United States of America during this no doubt extraordinarily difficult period, and we pray also that the mutual cooperation and altogether amicable relations which have heretofore existed between our two nations will persist perpetually.

In Friendship from His Excellency's Government,
NAZIR of the NIZARA for FOREIGN AFFAIRS, Mohammad Sharif Pasha​

 

[Frymonmon]

[X] Juan R. Muñoz Cabrera, Bolivian Plenipotentiary in Santiago

 

[Dadarian]

John Alexander MacDonald (L), George Brown (LC), Joseph Howe (RC), and Chartres Brew (R)

The 1867 Election
Prologue
​

The Kingdom was forged! By a trilinear set of policies (anti-Americanism, Loyalism, and Collective Protection), the British North American Act was passed through the British Parliament without issue, and the Kingdom of Canada was formed from seven initial colonies; British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland. With a stiff upper lip, the disparate colonies of British North America were united under a single Crown, subject only to responsible government, the Queen, and God.

However, as the elections of 1867 were established and the various (now provincial) governments began organising themselves, it became apparent that this election would be hard fought. High off his immense success, John A. MacDonald was confident in his success. A well known drunk, MacDonald often regaled his allies on his plans for the nation whilst at one of his many parties. On the actual stump though, MacDonald was focused on a singular issue, the West. The scope of the distance between British Columbia and Ontario was vast, some 2,300 kilometers from the Westernmost edge of Ontario to the Easternmost edge of British Columbia. To which, the grand gesture to British Columbia, the Western Intercolonial Railway, was going to be build, which in turn with the Eastern Intercolonial Railway (going from Quebec to Halifax) would connect all of Canada in one sweeping iron line. The Tories under MacDonald were sure of their success in this effort, herculean though it was.

This captured the minds of many Ontarians, Quebecois, and New Brunswickian, however the Liberal opposition was unimpressed. None moreso than George Brown, the defacto head of the rather decentralised party (or more accurately, federal alliance of provincial parties). Brown had been advocating Westward expansion for decades, only to be coopted by his rival, MacDonald. Denied and betrayed by his longest held public platform of popular support, Brown did what he could to turn the public on MacDonald and secure himself a victory. To which, he spoke often and indepth on the need of a Supreme Court of Canada, distinct from Britain. This was due to the precedent found in the British Columbia colonial (now provincial) court which gave Natives equal judicial rights as white citizens. Now, Canada is a country heavily populated by Natives, at this time numbering in the hundreds of thousands. With such an important precedent set in the lower courts, it needed to either be rescinded or applied nationally. As such, in a needed Act of Parliament, the Liberals promised to bring a Supreme Court to Ottawa and forever solve the BC Judicial Question.

Sadly for MacDonald and Brown, they were not the only individuals who were active politically in the nation. Two obscure movements with immense provincial strength were also to be confronted. The first was in Nova Scotia, and headed by well regarded and indeed beloved orator Joseph Howe. The Anti-Confederation Party, led by Howe, had a singular purpose. End the Confederal experiment in Nova Scotia with Canada and return to the Crown as a separate colony. Howe, well known in Ottawa as a philanthropist and beloved son of Nova Scotia, spoke often across Nova Scotia on the issue. This was the last hurrah, he spoke in Halifax, in the election we shall have our freedom or we shall forever be indebted to Ottawa. One last push by the Anti-Confederates, for if they were defeated in this election, they knew that the Party would dissolve and the movement fail forevermore.

In British Columbia, a similar but distinctly unique party was formed under Gold Commissioner and High Constable of British Columbia. Chartes Brew, the sole dissenting voice of the Chilcotin Case, would rally about him a reaction against the tact taken by the colonial (now provincial) administration and court. Akin to the Tories in the East, Brew established the Anti-Reform Party in the hopes of turning back the tide of pro-Native sentiment, and reestablishing dominance of the white colonialist within the province. These men of the Anti-Reform Party (Brew included) would be equally horrified and tempted from the sentiment that ebbed from Ottawa's Liberals. Although the Anti-Reform was highly untrusting of any liberals, they were intrigued by the idea of solving what they saw was the most horrid and immoral decision in a generation for the good of all citizens of British Columbia.

With these four factions lined up, the election would begin in a sense of unknowning. While MacDonald was expected to win, the combination of the three opposition parties could be enough to deny MacDonald a working majority and hang the parliament, an act which would be seized by the Anti-Confederation and perhaps the Anti-Reform parties as a noted failure of the Confederal experiment and a need to return to the previous status quo.

 

[Kho]

A Comprehensive & Sweeping History of the Development of the Egyptian Military during the First Half of the Nineteenth Century

Part 1

A Note on Honorifics​

Pasha and Bey are Ottoman distinctions conferred on soldiers, sailors, and civilians by the Ottoman sultan. These were also conferred by the Wali of Egypt - most likely unique to him due to his powerful position relative to all other Ottoman Walis. The distinctions, in Egyptian military terms, tended to distinguish those of higher and lower ranks - though this was not always necessarily the case. Those ranked above Amiralay [Brigadier General] were generally Pashas, while most Qa'im Maqams [Colonels] and some Bikbashis [Lieutenant Colonels] were Beys/Beks.
The term Effendi was used for those officers of the regular army who were neither Pashas nor Beks, but were literate in Arabic or Turkish and had graduated from the new military schools established by Mohammad 'Ali Pasha. Those who were illiterate or semi-literate officers, or senior non-commissioned officers, were addressed with the honorific of Agha. This term is very broad and has many other uses.

The Period 1805-1821​

'I was born in a village in Albania and my father had ten children besides me, who are all dead; but, while living, not one of them ever contradicted me. Although I left my native mountains before I attained to manhood, the principal people in the place never took any step in the business of the commune, without previously inquiring what was my pleasure. I came to this country an obscure adventurer, and when I was yet a Bimbashi [captain], it happened one day that the commissary had to give each of the Bimbashis a tent. They were all my seniors, and naturally pretended to a preference over me; but the officer said, - "Stand ye all by; this youth, Mohammad 'Ali, shall be served first," and I advanced step by step, as it pleased God to ordain; and now here I am' - (rising a little on his seat, [Barker comments] and looking out of the window which was at his elbow, and commanded a view of the Lake Mareotis [to the south of Alexandria]) - 'and now here I am. I never had a master,' - (glancing his eye on the roll containing the Imperial firman).

- Recorded by the British Consul at Alexandria Mr. John Barker, 1826​

The French invasion of Egypt, under Napoleon I, put into place the circumstances necessary for the rise to power of the greatest Egyptian leader in many centuries – Mohammad 'Ali Pasha. Playing his Ottoman overlords, nominally in control of Egypt, and the established Mameluke ruling class against one another, he was eventually able to secure for himself the position of Wali of Egypt in 1805.

A shrewd political animal, he saw clearly the threat posed to him by the Mamelukes and put his every effort into ensuring their annihilation. Knowing that a conventional conflict with them would be near impossible to win, he directed his arsenal of trickery and intrigue against the Mameluke leaders. In mid-1811, under the pretext of hosting a celebration in honour of his son, he had all senior Mamelukes gather in the Cairo Citadel. What followed was a complete massacre and the breaking forever of Mameluke power in Egypt. What generation after generation of Egyptian Walis had never dreamed of achieving, Mohammad 'Ali did in a day.

But none of them was Mohammad 'Ali.

The Great Pasha, Mohammad 'Ali ​

Born in Macedonia, the man who would carve himself into Egyptian history as the 'Father of Modern Egypt', the 'Great Pasha', came to Egypt as a lowly Albanian irregular to fight the French. Exceptionally courageous and a natural leader, he rose swiftly through the ranks and quickly proved himself capable of seizing any opportunity that presented itself to him. Finding himself the new military governor of Egypt in 1803, Mohammad 'Ali allied with a Mameluke Bey to depose the Ottoman-appointed viceroy of Egypt - Khusrev Pasha. The Wali was besieged at Damietta in late 1803 and deposed. The cunning Muhammad 'Ali then turned on his Mameluke ally and seized power in Cairo with the support of the populace. Working his way through numerous temporary alliances with the Ottoman viceroys, Mamelukes, and the ulema [religious scholars], Mohammad 'Ali was more or less in control of Egypt by 1805. With the people of Cairo threatening open revolt if Mohammad 'Ali was not appointed Wali, the Ottoman sultan had little choice but to make the appointment. The reign of the Great Pasha had begun - but the consolidation of his rule was far from over. No less than a year later, in 1806, Sultan Selim III attempted to transfer the Wali to Salonika instead, but found that the Wali was far too powerful in Egypt to be dislodged so easily.

'...his eyes were of that peculiar grey which seems especially to belong to remarkable men; they were bright and set deep in the head. A strange wild fire gleamed in them at times, and they shot forth ireful glances, which few could withstand; but when in a mirthful mood they twinkled with a droll, malicious fun. Sometimes anger and humour were so quaintly blended in their expression that it was difficult to know which predominated.'

- Last British Consul During the Great Pasha's Reign; Charles Murray, A Short Memoir of Mohammed Ali​

In March 1807, fearing that the French would once more attempt an invasion in Egypt and predicting that the Egyptians could stand little chance before a European army, the British landed a force of 5,300 men led by General Alexander MacKenzie-Fraser in Alexandria. After a four-day battle, Alexandria fell, most of its garrison managing to escape. The aim of the British was to cement Mameluke rule in Egypt - whom the Wali was combatting in Upper Egypt at the time. Negotiating a hasty truce with the Mamelukes, Mohammad 'Ali turned his attention to the British invaders.

Advancing on Rosetta, Major General Wauchope occupied what appeared to be an empty town. Exploration of Rosetta's streets quickly revealed his critical error: the town's garrison threw open the wooden lattice windows of the buildings’ upper stories and opened up a terrible fire on the British. The Major General. along with 200 others, would perish before Egyptian fire.

The Wali offered the British peace with all the advantages they could have hoped to secure through the Mamelukes: grain for British soldiers, trading rights, secure lines of communication with India. The British dismissed his offers and war resumed, allowing the Wali's eager Albanian and Turkish troops to reap more British lives.

Sending over 2,500 troops to take Rosetta, the British were once more repelled and their besieging force utterly crushed by the Wali's soldiers. 120 British prisoners were paraded through Cairo's streets, along with the heads of a further 100 Britons. Following negotiated peace between France and Russia in late 1807, the British withdrew in September leaving Alexandria to Mohammad 'Ali Pasha. Though prisoners were exchanged, over 50 Britons would remain behind to begin a new life as slaves. Amongst these was one Private Thomas Keith of Edinburgh who was sold to Tussun, son of Mohammad 'Ali. He converted to Islam and took on the name Ibrahim Agha, rising quickly to become commander of Tussun's cavalry.

In 1810, the Mamelukes once again rose up in rebellion against the Wali. Unflinchingly, Mohammad 'Ali dealt them a crushing defeat at the battle of al-Lahun Bridge. Even after this, however, the Mamelukes continued their plotting and scheming - and so, they would have to be crushed. But at this point, another threat had also reared its head.

The Sa'udi-led Wahhabis of Najd had by the 1790s gained control of most of the Arabian Peninsula. Increasingly confident, they attacked Iraq, Syria, and the Hijaz, sacking the Shi'ite holy city of Karbala in 1802. The holy place was destroyed and all men massacred. By 1805, the Sa'udis had managed to seize the two holiest cities in Islam, Mecca and Medina, vandalising the tomb of the Prophet Mohammad and humiliating the Ottoman sultan who claimed to be the protector of these holy places. Neither the Mamelukes of Iraq nor the Wali of Hijaz were able to defeat the Sa'udis, and soon enough the upstart puritanical Wahhabis began interfering even with the annual pilgrimage. With no one else to turn to, the sultan was forced to call on the traditional protector of the Hijaz: the Wali of Egypt.

The Wali immediately spotted an opportunity. The Albanians, who had for long provided him with a power base, had grown increasingly restless and troublesome. They had to be destroyed.

For whom the bell tolls​

Sending them piecemeal into the desert to confront the Sa'udis, he was able to slowly remove them and replace them with far more disciplined Egyptians for his new army. A campaign in the Hijaz would also provide an opportunity to take control of both sides of the Red Sea - for the Hijaz had for a long time been slipping out of Ottoman control and Egypt could easily fill in the vacuum. For this, however, the Wali would require a navy - and Egypt had no seafaring tradition of which to speak, However, permission from the sultan to build a navy was secured, and Mohammad 'Ali would have his way.

With Suez being Egypt's only Red Sea port, and as it had no resources by which to assemble a fleet. The fleet and its resources would be assembled on the Mediterranean before being transported on camel-back to the Suez where the ships were assembled. Attempts to circumnavigate Africa were beyond the means of the yet inexperienced Egyptian sailors, and when Mohammad 'Ali attempted to convince his men to do it they simply refused.

Greeks and Italians designed the Wali's ships while Turks and Egyptians built them. The 200-ton Corvettes carried 50 cannons and could at will be converted into mobile platforms for mortars so as to shell the interior of coastal fortresses. Bricks were half the size of Corvettes and carried 20 cannons. The Pasha of Tripoli [in Libya] also donated some galleys which were disassembled and transported over land to the Suez. Powered by galley slaves, they were far more manoeuvrable in the Red Sea. With his fleet ready, he was prepared to begin his campaign in the Hijaz. But before setting out on campaigns abroad, the Wali had to get his house in order.

1811 was the year of reckoning for the Mamelukes. Their military power having been broken by the French at the Battle of the Pyramids, they now only posed a political nuisance. There was no place for them in Mohammad 'Ali's Egypt. Invited to Cairo to celebrate the assignment of Tussin, the Wali's son, as leader of the expedition to the Hijaz on 1 March 1811, 500 Mameluke leaders arrived dressed in their finest to parade through Cairo's narrow streets. Trapped in one of these same roads (this one leading up to the gates of the Citadel), they Mamelukes were methodically massacred in Cairo's narrow streets. Those intelligent enough to avoid the ceremony were quickly caught and decapitated. Some managed to escape south to Nubia, while others escaped to Libya and gave up on ever returning to Egypt: they would go on to form the prosperous settlement of Misrata.

Massacre at the Citadel​

The only Mamelukes who would remain in Egypt after the massacre were those who were the personal slaves of the Wali and his family. But the Mamelukes as a truly relevant institution were forever shattered. Mohammad 'Ali now released his 17-year old son, already a veteran of the wars against the Mamelukes, into the Hijaz with 15,000 men. The campaign was, despite Tussun's courage becoming immediately apparent and his successful liberation of both Mecca and Medina, an overall failure. The Albanian and Turkish troops preferred to run away at the quickest opportunity than fight, and were an altogether undisciplined rabble. On more than one occasion they left Tussun and his loyal Mameluke Ibrahim Agha [Thomas Keith] more or less alone to face the zealous Arab tribals. Mohammad 'Ali quickly realised that he would need to find a replacement for this rabble.

Even as all this happened, the sultan in Istanbul was yet conspiring to remove the Wali and put in his place someone else. In 1813 one Latif Agha was sent by the Wali to present the keys of Mecca and Medina to the sultan. During his stay, Latif was given the title of pasha and encouraged to rebel against the Wali. Returning to Cairo, rumours quickly spread that he had returned with a firman deposing Mohammad 'Ali - who was at the time in Arabia seeing to the Wahhabi threat. He was informed by his loyal deputy, Mohammad Lazoglu, of this threat and swiftly returned to Cairo to deal with the upstart Latif. By the time he returned, however, Mohammad Lazoglu had already summarily beheaded the traitor at the foot of the Citadel. The Wali grew ever more suspicious and distrusting of the sultan.

In 1815, he chose to personally lead his men into the Arabian interior so as to crush the Wahhabis once and for all. The losses were tremendous, but several important settlements, as well as the port of Qunfidah, were captured. His men were promised six dollars for every head they brought him, and soon enough 5,000 heads were before his tent. The Wali returned to celebrate in Mecca, impaling bodies outside the cities gates and before every coffeehouse and resting place on the Jeddah-Mecca road.

Meanwhile, Tussun - who was governor of Medina - had begun to show signs of independence. Leaving Ibrahim Agha in his place, he had gone on campaign against the Sa'udis. When Mohammad 'Ali arrived in Medina he sent the Mameluke after Tussun with 250 riders. He would be slain along with his men by a Sa'udi ambush on the road, taking down four men before he fell. Tussun then, unbeknownst to his father, chose to negotiate with ibn Sa'ud, leader of the Wahhabis. The Sa'udis renounced their claims to Mecca and Medina and promised not to harass pilgrims, and to recognise the Ottomans as their overlords. Tussun relinquished the Qasim region and recognised Sa'udi control over the northern tribes of Arabia.

Having had to return to Cairo so as to deal with the consequences of Napoleon's defeat, Mohammad 'Ali would not come to know what his son had done for some time. He would not approve. The Wali refused to ratify Tussun's treaty and 'Abdullah ibn Sa'ud made clear that he had no interest in establishing peaceful relations. The situation soon deteriorated and a new revolt arose in the Hijaz. Tussun's return was met coldly, and the young man died of plague in November of 1815.

Wayward Disappointment: A Young Tussun​

Another of the Wali's sons, Ibrahim, would take up command. Also a veteran of the wars with the Mamelukes, he had chased their last remnants into the Sudan only a few years earlier. He was given 8,000 men and unleashed upon Arabia.

In September 1816, Ibrahim landed his army in Hijaz and began his campaign. He swiftly bribed and threatened several Arab tribes into joining him earning himself an additional 6,000 mounted infantrymen. These Arabs, along with Bedouins, would form the vanguard of Ibrahim's advance, while the main expeditionary force remained in reserve. Those who attempted to flee were chased down and personally massacred by the cold-eyed commander. Though he experienced some minor setbacks, iron discipline and relentlessness meant he had slowly secured territories in Arabia until he reached the Sa'udi capital of Dar'iya in April 1818. The town would be utterly destroyed, its date palms cut, and its people massacred. It would never again be rebuilt. 'Abd Allah bin Sa'ud, leader of the Wahhabis, would be sent to Istanbul where his head was crushed in a mortar and his body hung up for public display.

With the Hijaz secured, the Wali turned his eyes south, sending a small force of 2,000 men under Hassan Bey Shamashurghi to take the Siwa Oasis in 1819. The battle was brief, bloody, and decisive. Though the Siwans would prove restless, the last of the five oases of the Wester Desert now came under Egyptian control, paving the way for Mohammad 'Ali's southward march.

However, the Wali was not deceived by his successes in Arabia. He remembered the French invasion of Egypt, and he had seen the professional soldiers of the British. What he needed was a professional modern army. His first attempt came in 1815, but the unruly Albanians realised that the Wali planned to enforce French discipline and drill, and so they plotted the Wali's downfall. When their plot was foiled, they rioted. It was becoming increasingly apparent that further reliance on the Albanians was not sound policy - the Wali viciously resumed sending them to be obliterated against the Wahhabis and firmly decided to turn elsewhere for troops. That elsewhere was the Sudan. And so began the Wali's mission to create an all-black Sudanese army loyal to none but himself.

An expeditionary force of 4,000 men was set up under the leadership of his 22-year old son, Isma'il, with the trusted 'Abdin Bek as his lieutenant. The expedition was joined by over 700 'Ababda Arabs who were masters of the desert routes.
A battery of 12 guns was under the command of an American, George Bethune English. A Harvard graduate, he had joined the bar before turning to theology. His studied caused him to lose faith in Christianity - his doubts were expressed in a book, The Grounds of Christianity Examined. He would later join the U.S. Marines as a lieutenant and would serve in the Mediterranean for a while before resigning his commission, converting to Islam, and joining Mohammad 'Ali under the name Mohammad Effendi. His innovations included the use of camels in pulling artillery. Another American convert to Islam, W. S. Bradish, who went by the name Khalil Agha, also accompanied the expedition.

Marching into Nubia, Isma'il found himself at odds with the Sha'iqiya tribes which controlled much of Nubia and had begun expanding south at the expense of Mek Nimr, King of Shendi. The ferocious tribals refused Isma'il's demands that they surrender their weapons and horses and till the fields like their Nubians servants. They did not fear the northerners and would not surrender to them.

'They (the Sha’iqiya) are singularly fearless in attack, and ride up to the very faces of their enemy with levity and gaiety of heart as to a festival, or with joy as if to meet friends from whom they had been long separated; they then give the “Salam Aleikum!” “Peace be with you!”—the peace of death, which is to attend the lance that instantly follows the salutation: mortal thrusts are given and received, with the words of love upon the lips. This contempt of life, this mockery of what is most fearful, is peculiar to themselves—the only people to whom arms are playthings and war a sport; who among their enemies seek nothing but amusement, and in death fear nothing but repose.'

- George Waddington & Barnard Hanbury, two Englishmen who accompanied the expedition.​

But the tribals were about to receive a very cruel introduction to modern arms. On November 4 1820, the Egyptians marched against the town of Kurti, meeting a Sha'iqiya force there on an open field - brilliant for the power Sha'iqiya cavalry charges, but perfect also for artillery. In the Sha'iqiya tradition, it was a young woman that gave the signal to attack. The charge was powerful and only a counter charge by 'Abdin Bek prevented the Egyptians from breaking. As their artillery had not, in fact, made it to the battlefield yet, the Egyptians relied on volley after volley of musket fire. The Sha'iqiya were scattered, and the Egyptians won the day.

Conquerors of a Bygone Age; Sha'iqiya Warriors​

What followed was carnage. Promising 50 piastres for every ear his soldiers brought him, Isma'il unwittingly unleashed his men upon both the dead and the living. Villages were raided and the ears of the living were harvested by the Egyptian soldiers. By the end of it, over 600 earless women had to be moved to safety on an islan on the Nile by Isma'il. On his return home, his father reprimanded him for his actions. Professional armies did not act like that, and, most importantly, 'one cannot achieve one's goal without winning the hearts of the people.'

And Egyptian brutality only served to garner the hatred of the Sha'iqiya. They gathered at Jabal Daiqa and waited on the Egyptians. Having lost much of their men at Kurti, the Sha'iqiya were forced to arm untrained peasants. These were given courage by local fikis who covered the peasants in 'sacred dust' to make them invulnerable to Egyptian weapons. By this point, Egyptian artillery had arrived. Though the peasant soldiers managed to reach the Egyptian lines a few times, what followed was a massacre. As they peasants turned to escape, the Egyptian cavalry entered the fray - despite this, the hippopotamus hide shields were shockingly resilient, and the peasants often refused to die until shot a few times.

Soon enough, the Mek Nimr of Shendi arrived to tender his submission - the arrogant Isma'il barely recognised the 60-year old king, offering him neither tea nor tobacco. It was a serious insult in a region defined by its rigid codes of conduct. Malik Sha'us, leader of the Sha'iqiya, also came to realise the futility of resistance and soon enough, on May 15 1821, tendered his submission. However, his request that the Sha'iqiya be allowed to serve in the army rather than till the fields was accepted, and the Arab tribals became a reliable corps of irregular cavalry for Egypt.

Isma'il then continued down the Nile towards the Funji Empire of Sinnar, reaching the junction of the White and Blue Niles where the future cities of Khartoum and Omdurman would lie. Following the Blue Nile southward, he entered the Sinnar capital to find it empty of troops and its king ready and willing to submit. It was a miserable reward for a lengthy expedition, and soon the summer rainy season set in and all kinds of diseases were unleashed upon the Egyptians. Isma'il grew increasingly brutal in his attempt to keep his men occupied and by June his father no longer had any patience left. The trusty Ibrahim was dispatched to take care of securing slaves for the Wali's dream army. After all, war had broken out in Greece and the Wali would soon need to dispatch troops to the defence of the Empire.

His Father's Son: A Young Ibrahim​

Ever efficient, Ibrahim set up a system to quickly deliver male slaves north for the planned army. Their families were sent to the Hijaz where they were sold to finance Ibrahim's army, which then raided far south into the land of the poorly armed but formidable Dinkas. At the same time, a census of the Jazira region was carried out and a permanent system of taxation and collection put in place. Ibrahim was only getting started, but illness forced him back to Cairo before he could complete all his work. Mohammad Bek Khusro, the Wali's son in law and Daftardar [treasurer], would be entrusted with the next expedition - this time the target was Darfur and Kordofan.

Mohammad Bek Khusro was, in the words of two French travellers, 'a tiger in human form'. Leading his three-thousand men and thirteen guns to Dongola, he waited on Isma'il to send word of the submission of Sinnar before going ahead with his campaign. Emissaries were sent demanding the submission of Kordofan. Musallim al-Maqdum, the Governor of Kordofan - at the time part of the Sultanate of Darfur -, rejected Mohammad Bek Khusro's ultimatum. In August 1821, the Daftardar set out. He would meet the medieval army of Kordofan at the Battle of Bara. Though courageous, and though their swords did damage even to the Egyptian weapons, it was ultimately futile. Like the Sha'iqiya before them, bravery, courage and the warrior spirit of these Fur warriors fell before Egyptian guns.

The Egyptians took the Kordofan capital of al-'Ubayd, imposing fines on the merchants and seizing all slaves. The Sultan of Darfur prepared an army to confront the Egyptians, but treachery amongst his commanders ultimately meant it had to be recalled before it could engage the Egyptians. With matters becoming critical in Greece, the invasion of Darfure was called off and the Daftardar was commanded to raid the Nuba Hills for slaves. The region would supply Egypt with tens of thousands of slaves for its armies over the next century, though would not yet be completely pacified as of 1865.

By late 1821, a tax scheme introduced by one Hanna al-Tawil was so exploitative that it caused an open revolt all over the Nile valley. Only the actions of the able governor of Berber province prevented the rebellion from getting out of hand. Al-Tawil, who had made a break for Egypt, was quickly captured and brought back to reform his tax system - much to the Wali's delight, one reform was the acceptance of male slave as payment - for Mohammad 'Ali, healthy male slaves were more valuable even than jewels, or the gold which Isma'il fruitlessly searched the Sudan for. By 1822, the skilful administration of 'Abdin Bek and Mahu Bek meant that taxes were flowing seamlessly from the Sudan to Cairo. All seemed well and Isma'il was given permission to return to the northern Sudan.

The boy who had been so appalled by the cutting of ears at the beginning of the campaign had by this point become a brutal, even casually callous, man. Angered and frustrated at not having succeeded as much as he had hoped in sending slaves to Cairo, he decided to make demands of one of the major chiefs of the pacified Ja'aliyin tribe, ordering one of their leaders - Nimr Mohammad - to hand over 6,000 slaves and the equivalent of $30,000 to Isma'il so he could send it to his father. The chief naturally protested to this absurd demand - he did not, however, expect Isma'il's furious reaction. The boy struck the older man across the face with his pipe, breaking it. The Ja'ali chief would return with his men later the same day and burn Isma'il alive in his home. Every Egyptian in the area was massacred, along with Isma'il's Greek doctor whom many still remembered had gleefully collected the ears of young women two years earlier. His teeth would be pried out with spears, and he would be impaled on spear point in the way that had become a habit of his dead master's.

This was followed by tribal revolts all over the Sudan, worsened by an unrelated fellahin revolt in Upper Egypt. It fell to the Daftardar to save the situation. Hiring some five-hundred Fur warriors to bolster his forces, and gathering the Sha'iqiya who surprisingly remained loyal to the Egyptians, he marched to Metemma, across the river from the heartland of the revolt; Shendi. Believing himself to be meeting with potential allies, the Daftardar instead received a spear to the chest - right below the shoulder. It was not fatal, but it was sufficient to bring down his fury upon Metemma, then Shendi. Men were impaled en masse and families burned alive in their homes, their children branded and sent to Cairo as slaves. The Daftardar would pursue the fleeing chief Nimr until the latter reached the safety of the Abyssinian borderlands, dwelling in there for over twenty years before dying naturally. For their loyalty, the Sha'iqiya were rewarded magnificently. For his utter cruelty, the Daftardar would be rewarded in 1833 with a bowl of poison from his father-in-law.

The Wali's dream of creating an army of black slaves ultimately failed. Not enough could be tranported to Cairo, many who were transported died on the way, and those who were eventually trained had to be sent back to replace soldiers dying in the Sudan - most of diseases rather than of any actual fighting. To maintain his slave army, the Wali found himself having to buy slaves from Darfur slave caravans, which was far too expensive and unsustainable in the long-run. As a short-term solution, the Wali turned to recruiting fellahin. Previously forbidden from carrying arms or serving in the military, four-thousand such men were called up for a three-year enlistment, trained, and sent to the Sudan. It was to be a temporary measure. It would, however, be the beginning of a conscription tradition for the Wali's army, his Nizam al-Jadid. At the time, though, things all looked altogether bleak.

Through the Eye of the Needle​

Many later historians would agree that 1820 would mark, for Mohammad 'Ali, a watershed year. He had been the Wali of Egypt for fifteen years and had achieved what no Egyptian Wali before him had ever thought possible. Cairo's control over the provinces had been tightened and corruption in the local bureaucracy had been subjected to a war no less vicious than those the Wali waged on the battlefield. His control had also been tightened by, amongst other things, the conducting in 1813-14 of a cadastral survey which was critical in helping abolish the tax farming system and the immunities on agricultural lands belonging to mosques and pious foundations (awqaf). The removal of the Mamelukes was obviously another major step towards securing Cairo's control over Egypt.
The Wali's centralising drive and systematic removal at every level of unnecessary middlemen meant that more and more revenue could be funnelled into the Wali's coffers. In a move which showcased the Wali's genius, a wide-ranging system of monopolies was established which ensured that all staple goods and cash crops were sold only to government warehouses at fixed prices. As a result of this, what was a meagre income of eight million francs in 1805 had by 1821 become fifty million francs. This meant the Wali could engage in unprecedented public works - a key example being the Mahmudiyya canal. The project lasted from April 1817 until early 1820. The canal would link Alexandria with the western branch of the Nile. Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians worked on the project - many coerced into doing so by the Wali. When completed, it was seventy-two kilometres long and had cost 7.5 million francs.

What Mohammad 'Ali had effectively done was organise the economy of Egypt and reap its vast potential wealth, something the Ottomans had utterly failed to do. But by 1820 it seemed like everything was coming to a head - the Egyptian people had been pushed to unimaginable levels of misery by both the monopolies and corvée labour. Labour shortages were already becoming apparent, and it seemed like Egypt's rural society was just about to crack under the weight of the Wali's taxes. And yet 1820 was not the end of Mohammad 'Ali. If anything, it was only the beginning.

In 1821, the fate of Egypt became forever changed. It was the year in which Egypt's experimentation with the cultivation of long-staple cotton - named Jumel cotton in honour of the Frenchman who helped Mohammad 'Ali discover it, but later widely known as Mako or Egyptian cotton -, and also the year in which a modern conscription-based army was officially founded. These two would become the cornerstone of the Wali's future policy: unprecedented profits from cotton sales were used to construct his new army, build up his navy, erect factories and numerous schools, hospitals, and palaces.

Two military schools were built in to train the Wali's officer corps, one in Aswan and one in Farshut just north of Aswan, and the conscription from the fellahin masses meant that over thirty-thousand men had been recruited into his Nizam al-Jadid army by 1821.

The introduction of a conscription-based army, in particular, seismically changed Egyptian society as it, for the first time in centuries if not thousands of years, allowed indigenous Egyptians to enter the military and created a greater need for more and more institutions to support such a modern army and the increasingly demands on Egypt's economy by foreign nations. Many factories were opened purely with supplying the army's needs in mind, and many schools were likewise opened in order to create an educated officer class for the army, and most hospitals built were more or less military hospitals constructed near permanent military camps. As early as 1819 the Wali had ordered the instituting of a programme of vaccination against smallpox throughout the whole country which would take of quickly during the 1820s.

The Wali's state-induced growth to promote industrialisation would become a model for many industrialising countries in the latter half of the 19th century - it would be a stunning and undeniable success. Such success would manifest itself in the extraordinary difference between the Hijaz campaign - which was a logistical nightmare and whose soldiers were poorly trained Maghribis, Armenians, Greeks, and Sudanese - and later campaigns in the 1820s and 1830s where Egypt was able to field armies of extraordinary size while keeping them in supply, well-paid, well-fed, and adequately clothed.

The Period 1822-1833
​

'I am now the most important man [l'homme du jour] in the entire Ottoman Empire. I have returned the Holy Cities [of Mecca and Medina] to the true believers; I have carried my victorious armies to places where the power of the Grand Signor [the Ottoman Sultan] was not known, and to places whose people had still not heard of gunpowder. My right arm, my son Ibrahim, will conquer Morea and the moment his mission is crowned with success, I shall call him back and return these lands to their legitimate master. I will call back my forces, raise [new] conscripts, complete my regiments and then grab the pashaliks of Damascus and Acre ... I will organize une grande armée and I shall not stop except at the Tigris and Euphrates.'

- Mohammad 'Ali to a French Military Advisor, 1825​

In the beginning, French and Italian veterans were tasked with training the new officer corps, but by 1825 these were joined by an official French military mission headed by General Boyer.
However, the Wali's bold scheme to recruit from Egypt's indigenous population was not going to be smooth. The people of Egypt resisted military service and resented it - for the fellah, nothing could be worse than being torn from his family and village to be pressed into military service. This matter cannot be undestated, and the extreme forms of homesickness experienced by Egyptians soldiers shocked many observers.

'...the numbers of persons who pined to death, sinking under the influence of this unmedicable malady [are] very considerable.'

- Dr. John Bowring, 1840​

'Home-sickness [al-ishtiydq ila al-watan] is a disease that often afflicts the new soldiers after leaving their homes, families and things familiar to them. This leads them to depression, melancholy, soreness, tiredness and sometimes to death. Therefore, they have to be kept occupied as much as possible and to be promised their imminent return home . . . As much as possible soldiers have to be kept in a happy, content state and their officers have to be ordered to be gentle with them . . . and to make them believe that the dangers they are about to encounter are not grave.'

- From a specially issued pamphlet by Chief Physician of the Army Clot Bey​

The Wali was undeterred and his programme of forced conscription went ahead.

The fellahin were no strangers to being pressed into the Wali's service - the building of the Mahmudiyya Canal had been secured largely through forced labour. Thus when the Wali's troops surrounded a village and forced all its young men out in chains, the wailing of the women and the pleading of the old men had already become something of a tradition. It was not so different to the slave raids that occurred further south.

Unlike Europe, Egypt was extremely underpopulated - all sons could generally expect to inherit a good amount of land and so there were no young men actively seeking to build up a life and wealth independent of their family or village, especially not in the army.

'Since the fellahin are not used to military service, they should not be dragged into the army by force. We have to attract their minds to it ... This can be done by employing some preachers who should convince the fellahin that [serving in the army] is not like corvée ... Alternatively, we can remind them of how easy it was for the French [while they were in Egypt] to collect Copts to serve in their army owing to their eagerness to serve their faith. If that was the case with the Copts, it will certainly be more so with the fellahin whose hearts have been enflamed by their piety and their zeal in defending Islam.'​

- Mohammad 'Ali advising Ibrahim on how to go about conscription, 29 March 1822​

While the Wali at first sought to appeal to religious sentiments to make villagers more amenable to serving, this proved nothing but a fanciful ideal, and force was the only way. Moreover, the early conscription drives struggled with more than simply inspiring zeal - there was no proper way to carry out medical check-ups on the conscripts, and none would exist until Cloth Bek's arrival in the 1830s and the construction at Abu Za'bal of a medical school (later moved to Qasr al-'Aini) whose graduates could examine the conscripts. The nature of conscription thus sometimes resulted in whole villages packing up and running away from the Wali's men, resulting in even less land being tilled. By 1830 this practice was so common that it was not uncommon to find, in the late 1830s, whole villages completely abandoned and buried. Ultimately, the village shaykhs were tasked with ensuring their villagers remained put, and that any who left for cities or some other reason were ordered to return and contribute to the growth of their home village. This proved difficult when the village shaykh himself conspired with those fleeing conscription - and the Wali dealt with it in Article 36 of Qanun al-Filaha (1830) which ordered any shaykh found guilty of this whipped two-hundred times.

When this did not work completely, harsher measures were introduced in Article 118 of al-Qanun al-Muntakhab (1844) which ordered shaykhs to report missing individuals and their whereabouts rather than having to capture or return them home. If such a report was not submitted within four days of the disappearance, the shaykh would be hanged.

The potential conscripts turned to self-mutilation. But the Wali punished them severely for this, imprisoning them for life and conscripting their relatives instead. Some attempted to resist conscription gangs physically, but it was to no avail.

The need for greater control over the population eventually led to Egypt's first ever census for its northern provinces in 1827 (culminating in 1845 in the drafting of the first national census based on the number of households), and village shaykhs were burdened with the responsibility of ensuring young men were ready when the conscription gangs arrived in their village. This census was one way of combatting desertion and inefficient conscription techniques. New hospitals were set up to care for those unable to serve and get them in serving order. Desertion itself was meanwhile combatted in various ways - soldiers were tattooed with visible marks on their hands and legs, they were confined to their barracks and every aspect of their life controlled, they were expected to report their presence at least twice daily, and those who were married were prevented from seeing wife or family. Outside the barracks, special police kept a watch all over Egypt and ensured any discovered deserters swiftly returned to their barracks. Moreover, a tezkere system was placed - literally certificated or passports that had information about each person, their father's name, their village, their physical description - which each person had to carry with them whenever travelling outside their village.

Thus conscription did not only bring conscription, it brought a whole change in the way the Egyptian government operated and interacted with the citizenry, and changed the way the citizenry perceived and interacted with the government. It was no longer a far-off and distant thing that could be largely ignored but was now very actively involved in the lives of near enough every single Egyptian. Not only did conscription create involvement, it enabled the government to subjugate and build up the institutions necessary to truly subjugate and rule Egypt. It was unprecedented and, despite the inefficiencies which doubtlessly existed, highly successful.

Among the Wali's successes was his ability, as mentioned, to recruit European officers to train (and even lead) his army. By 1807 alone he had hired over four-hundred European advisors and instructors. By 1826, European advisors were attached to every infantry regiment. Amongst the most famous and most successful of these was one Octave Joseph-Anthelme Sève, who would join the Wali, convert to Islam, take up the name Sulayman Pasha [al-Faransawi], and reach the highest positions in the army and marrying into the Wali's family. Asked by the Wali if it was possible to create in Egypt a modern army, he responded that it was, if he was provided time, money, and the Wali's full cooperation. A veteran of the Napoleonic wars, having fought in Italy, Russia, and finally, at Waterloo, he proved himself courageous and eventually gained the favour of the Egyptian army. It is said that an unhappy recruit one day attempted to shoot him during a parade - from a distance of twenty metres - but missed. The pasha turned angrily on his men, sword drawn, cursing their deplorable marksmanship and offering to fight them all on the spot. This, and many other such acts, cowed and impressed his soldiers, and eventually endeared him to them.

'Becoming a Mussulman, he accepted all the accessories of that faith, and had a well-filled harem. He avoided European society, and only countenanced foreigners when business forced him into their association. In spite of an habitual air of dignified reserve he could unbend on occasion, and, being of versatile mind and well informed, was often very entertaining. … He was a brave and good soldier, and had he left a staff as good as the well-drilled army, he would have conferred a great benefit upon Egypt.'

- William W. Loring, A Confederate General in Egypt, 1884​

Egyptian By Spilled Blood: Sulayman Pasha​

And Sulayman Pasha was not the only example, the Wali attracted into his army French, Italian, Polish, Spanish, German, English, and American soldiers. They provided the kind of leadership that could not be created within Egypt in a matter of three or even ten years. It was the kind of leadership any well-drilled, well-armed modern army needed. George English, an American adventurer, led troops directly on the battlefield in a similar fashion to Sulayman Pasha, while others (the majority, in fact) operated as instructors and aided in establishing firmly the educational apparatus required to produce the self-sustaining and self-regenerating officer corps Mohammad 'Ali wanted.

By 1831, Egyptian officers were being trained just outside Cairo in infantry, cavalry, and artillery specialist schools. Meanwhile, the Egyptian Military Academy, founded in 1811 in Cairo, was relocated to Aswan and a new academy was founded in France in 1826: the Egyptian Military Academy in Paris. As early as 1820 delegations of students were being sent to France, Austria, Italy, and Britain to learn in the military academies of those countries, many in France graduating and spending time in higher institutions of military education before serving in the French military for a period of two years. Such missions continued throughout Mohammad 'Ali Pasha's reign and to a lesser extent in the reigns of his successors. In the early days, however, the principal teacher was to be Sulayman Pasha who was responsible for supervising the training of both the cadets and the soldiers. Specifically, he was to coordinate the activities of the various schools in order to swiftly and efficiently form new battalions from the recently trained soldiers headed by the newly trained cadets

Although greatly influenced by the French model, particularly the example set forth by Napoleon, the Wali was no blind follower and often found inspiration closer to home - particularly in the radical reforms introduced by Sultan Selim III and his Nizam-i Cedid. In 1822 Sulayman Pasha, 'Uthman Effendi Nur al-Din (one of Egypt's greatest admirals, who had gone to France in 1816 on an educational mission and returned in 1820), Ahmad Effendi Muhandis (stationed at the Bulaq Press to translate French military manuals), Ibrahim Pasha, Ahmad Pasha Tahir Governor of Jirja, Mohammad Bey Lazoglu (head of the Aswan military school and later Minister of War) were instructed by the Wali to draw up an organisational plan for the new army. It was immediately turned down on completion on the basis that it was blindly following Napoleon's model.

'Although the plan that Sulayman Aga [not yet pasha at this point] had put down is a wonderful one ... it has been implemented by Napoleon to lead an army composed of several thousand troops. Our army, however, is a new one which we have only recently begun creating.'​

- The Wali to his son Ibrahim, 11 April 1822​

Two weeks later, another organisational scheme for the army was commissioned, this time with an express instruction from the Wali for it to be constructed along the lines of Sultan Selim III's army. The names of military ranks were changed, and so familiar ones were used rather than the unfamiliar ones in Sultan Selim's army. However, this new army was not designed to empower its soldiers, instead cementing the authority of the Turko-Circassian masters of Egypt. Higher ranks were forbidden (until 1862-3) to the indigenous soldiers who could not command more than twenty-five soldiers, and the language of command was for a considerable period Turkish.

The Wali and his men were not blind followers, and drills that looked good on paper but were ineffectual in reality were very swiftly scrapped and replaced. Difficulties with desertion amongst the officer corps (usually due to an inability to follow the instructions of senior officers) were dealt with by increasing their pay considerably. It was effective. The Wali was more reluctant, however, when it was suggested that he raise soldiers' pay also. The size of regiments was originally fixed at four thousand men, divided into five battalions of eight-hundred men. This was later altered so that each regiment was made up of four battalions of eight-hundred-and-sixteen men, bringing the size of a regiment to three-thousand-two-hundred-and-sixty-four men.

While over twenty-thousand Sudanese slaves had been sent up to Egypt from 1820-24, only three-thousand of these remained alive by 1824. The Albanians had long ago proven their uselessness. And so it was that at these initial stages of the project that mass-conscription of the fellahin was arrived at as a permanent (rather than the four-thousand temporary) solution.

'...the people of Egypt are not as accustomed to military service as the people of Europe. Moreover, our government is not as strong as theirs. This being the case ... we have to accommodate our needs to our capabilities and ... to advance one step at a time putting things right as we go along. We also have to be realistic and remedy our deficiencies as time goes by.'​

- Mohammad 'Ali to Ibrahim, 19 June 1823​

As noted above, by 1823 the four-thousand fellahin soldiers had increased by thirty-thousand. These were placed under drillmasters and were trained in a new military camp established in Bani Adiy near Manfalut in Middle Egypt.
While these were trained, the remaining Sudanese slaves were placed in the camps at Aswan and Farshut, along with the four-thousand initial fellahin conscripts, and formed into ten battalions of eight-hundred men each.

The oppressive situation quickly led to a relatively minor fellahin rebellion in Minufiya in 1823, which was put down personally by the Wali and his household troops. In the same year the village of 'Asir in the Hijaz fell to Wahhabis, and the Wali saw an opportunity to test his new troops. A regiment of two-thousand-five-hundred soldiers from the Aswan-Farshut camps, not yet finished with their training, was rushed across the Red Sea to put the Wahhabis down. Two more regiments were formed for good measure and sent down into the Sudan. When such regiments were created, they were given their regimental banners in a festive ceremony where the Wali gave a speech.

'This banner is the symbol of victory, of pride, of life and of faith ... Make sure it does not fall while there is still a breath of life left in any one of you. If it does fall - God forbid - then let the spot on which it falls be the spot on which you die.'

- Mohammad 'Ali Pasha to soldiers of newly formed regiments​

​

The Speech at the Flag​

​

In November 1823, still waiting on news to arrive revealing how the troops fared, the Wali went to oversee the training troops at Bani Adiy, inviting both the British and French Consuls to watch with him. The Consuls were wholly impressed, and the Wali also.

'Every other day [the Pasha] has a grand Review and four regiments are exercised in the plain [to the west of the camp] not as an ordinary Review but as a 'petite guerre' and it really is astonishing the figure they make.'​

- British Consul Henry Salt, 20 January 1824​

The training of the soldiers was aimed at creating absolute and swift obedience to orders without hesitation or pause. The battalion was to become a machine that operated exactly as its commanding officer bid it, when he bid it. When drilling the new soldiers, every action - no matter how complex - was broken down into its most basic parts. The soldiers were placed in small units and then trained to perform these movements in a standard, uniform manner, in complete synchrony with one another. Only after they had been thoroughly drilled and trained in these small units were they permitted to move on to more complex movements in larger and larger formations. At every level of the army, there was to be utter uniformity. All that happened did so according to strict rules that were carefully upheld and propagated - enforcement of military laws and the widespread use of manuals were important in this regard.

'[The purpose of these laws is] to prevent absolutely and completely the officers and soldiers from acting according to their own choice and accord. [The aim is to reach such a level of uniformity] that would allow any soldier on being moved from one unit to another or on being promoted to a higher rank to still be able to recognise the same system and not encounter what he is not accustomed to ... The basis of all military strength is order and complete obedience.'​

- From the 'Introduction' to the Qanun al-Dakhiliyya legal code​

With training manuals, the goal of uniformity was finally achieved. These specified the detailed manner in which certain acts were to be performed and so brought about a stricter way to discipline soldiers. When drilling, nothing went uncontrolled - not even the glance of the soldier or the position of the chin relative to the neck. When a signal was given, an exact movement occurred. After constant drilling and training, the soldier ceased to be an individual and became a cog in the machine. A soldier could be moved from one regiment to another without any difficulty or change in rules or drills or signals from the commanding officer. Thus the Egyptian army became a literal edifice to nizam, order, in every sense. The revolutionary contribution of training manuals - though by no means the only contributing factor - to the creation of this edifice could not be understated. However, training manuals and drills were one thing, and the heat, frenzy, and confusion of battle was another thing altogether. While the Wali enjoyed displaying his soldiers to his governors and foreign dignitaries and encouraging the illusion of absolute discipline, there is no doubt that he was under no illusions whatsoever. He was, after all, a man of war. And as a man of war, he understood well the significance of the spectacle itself, the importance of even an illusion.

This was not to say, of course, that the Wali's new army was not effective on the field. While Mohammad 'Ali was still in Manfalut, news reached him of an incredible feat in 'Asir; a force of over twenty-five thousand Wahhabis had been soundly defeated by the Egyptian force of two-thousand-five-hundred. It seemed that even semi-trained, these new soldiers wer formidable indeed. The trusted, loyal, and utterly professional Ibrahim quickly found himself at home with this new, disciplined fellahin army, and he never ceased praising their courage - which was far more than he had to say for his Turko-Circassian officers.

The Nizam al-Jadid proved key in March of 1824 when a massive explosion rocked the Citadel, killing some four-thousand people. Moving into the traumatised city, a battalion of the new troops quickly isolated the powder magazine and helped to restore order. It appeared that the explosion was orchestrated by Albanians unhappy about the Wali's military reforms. It was, in many ways, the final hurrah of an old order that had been well and truly dislodged. Another larger rebellion broke out in April of 1824 under the leadership of a Mahdist pretender called Shaykh Radwan which threatened to spread throughout Middle Egypt. Inspired by the Wali's conscription and tax policies, the revolt managed to gather to itself thirty-thousand men, and Shaykh Radwan swiftly declared Mohammad 'Ali an infidel.

The rebels apprehended many governors and the rebellion threatened to spread swiftly to other provinces. Reluctant to use force, local governors attempted to subdue the rebels with intimidation and terror, but to no avail. The new soldiers were sent in - a serious move, as many of the conscripts were from these rebelling areas - and they met with severe resistance. Rumours even spread that as many as seven-hundred soldiers had defected In the event, some forty-five officers were shot before their soldiers, and the men held.

With the Wali's now fully trained troops committed to putting down the rebels, that affair was settled in less than two weeks. Osman Bek, commander of the First Regiment, led his three-thousand infantrymen and five-hundred cavalrymen into the heart of the rebellion near Qina where Radwan was hiding. The Shaykh fled into the desert and the rebellion was quickly put down completely thereafter. It was a deeply impressive result, the loyalty of the troops even more so.
One example of unwavering loyalty reached the Wali: a soldier, it was said, had met his father on the battlefield and found that he was with the rebels. Pleading with him to abandon the rebellion, the soldier in question could not convince him and proceeded to kill him. Hearing this, the Wali immediately wrote to Mohammad Bey Lazoglu and ordered him to promote the man to the rank of lieutenant. With such massive successes, all the Wali's doubts about conscripting fellahin were assuaged and he set out to recruit from their ranks without reservations. By the mid-1830s, the Wali would have an army of over one-hundred-and-thirty-thousand - 2.6 percent of the Egyptian population at the time.

The Wali worked seriously not only towards establishing and arming this new force, but to ensuring that Egypt could be self-reliant when it came to supplying and arming its soldiers, as well as seeing to their medical needs. At first he was satisfied with importing weaponry, and in the wake of the Napoleonic wars and disarmament all across Europe, cheap weaponry was only too available.

But soon enough he set his sights on locally mass producing weapons. While Egyptian gun-makers had a long history, their efforts alone were not sufficient for the kind of production the Wali required. He sent Egyptians who, along with those being educated in matters of military command and artillery leadership, learned Western gun-making techniques (others were sent to learn medicine, chemistry, mechanical engineering, shipbuilding, and much else). Even before 1830 had arrived, Cairo and Alexandria had their own arsenals which churned out copies of Western weapons for Egypt's military. It would be Africa's first military-industrial complex. Even with his new Egyptian engineers, British, French and other European experts were hired to help with Egypt's nascent military-industrialisation programme. Soon another arsenal arose in Rosetta, and by 1833 the three arsenals employed some fifteen-thousand Egyptians and produced an array of firearms, artillery, ammunition, uniforms, and other equipment. Output was impressive: over three-thousand muskets were finished every month. While howitzers, mortars, and cannons were produced largely in Cairo and Alexandria, powder factories were set up between both locations, producing vast amounts of gunpowder.

Textile mills soon began to produce the trademark white military uniforms of the Egyptian troops, while tanning factories produced belts, cartridge boxes, shoes, and saddles. A tarboush [fez] factory was even set up at Fouah where managers were brought from Tunis to direct some two-thousand employees make the unique red caps. In an odd state of affairs, the majority – if not all – of this factory’s employees were women, and women could be found in smaller quantities in most other factories.

As mentioned above, vaccination plans were put forward by the Wali as early as 1819. The disease killed a frightful number of Egyptians annually and contributed heavily to the high mortality rate - increasing it by fifty per thousand, thus raising overall annual death rates to around four per thousand. In 1824 the Wali requested that the French Consul-General secure French doctors to oversee the vaccination programme, and three arrived in 1825 to begin the systematic vaccination of first Lower Egypt and then Middle Egypt. When Clot Bey arrived in Egypt and took over the whole health establishment, vaccination was extended over the entirety of Egypt. Clot Bey would go on to write various instruction manuals on how doctors and village barbers could go about vaccinating on their own, and his efforts would see the establishment in Cairo of the Azbakiyya Hospital (1840) which would vaccinate thousands of children per month.

The Father of the Modern Egyptian Medical Tradition: Clot Bey​

The Wali also issued official instructions to the governors of the various port cities, like Alexandria and Damietta, on how to go about quarantining foreigners arriving from disease-stricken cities. Official quarantine regulation was issued and quickly enforced. 1831 saw the first concerted, international effort, to control a disease outbreak after an international board made up of various foreign consuls met in Alexandria.

But it was the army that saw the greatest attention in this regard. In 1827 Clot Bey built two permanent military hospitals; one at Abu Za'bal for the Jihad Abad training camp in Hankah, North Cairo, and the Mahmudiyya Hospital in Alexandria. The Abu Za'bal Hospital was later moved to Qasr al-'Aini, where it became the famed hospital at that location. These hospitals were among the finest institutions in Egypt and conformed with the latest medical norms in Europe.

'... Kasr el-'Aini hospital. Well maintained. The work of Clot Bey - his hand is still to be seen [Clot Bey had departed the year before this was written]. Pretty cases of syphilis ... Several have it in the arse. At a sign from the doctor, they all stood up on their beds (it was like army drill) and opened their anuses with their fingers to show their chancres. Enormous infundibula ...'

- Gustave Flaubert, 1849​

The Qasr al-'Aini hospital also hosted a prestigious medical school where Clot Bey himself taught (and later years saw the opening of more schools, such as a school for midwives). These students of Qasr al-'Aini were usually graduates of al-Azhar, who formed the only suitable literate class of people in Egypt at the time.
Those who graduated there were mostly Arabic-speaking Egyptians and went on to serve as military doctors attached to the various infantry and cavalry regiments of the Egyptian army. They thus formed the nucleus of Egypt's new military medical corps established in 1831. (Infantry Regiments were assigned one European and three Egyptian doctors, while Cavalry Regiments were assigned one European and two Egyptian doctors. Egyptian doctors were given the rank of second lieutenant and were under the supervision of their respective colonel or brigadier - who would not interfere with their professional work.)
Scabies and syphilis were particularly difficult to deal with, and those soldiers who contracted them while on campaign often had to be sent back to Egypt for treatment. Campaigns, particularly those in Syria, quickly revealed that there were not enough funds to ensure military hospitals on campaign functioned as they should - lack of funds meant, in fact, that conditions in these hospitals were deplorable for the most part. Clot Bey attempted to take preventative action by having the wives of soldiers and officers - who were permitted to follow armies on campaign and had their own dwellings - trained to do check-ups on the women and teach them to do check-ups on their husbands in turn. However, even if this were successful - information on this matter being scarce - it does not consider the contact of soldiers with other women, particularly prostitutes. (While prostitution is forbidden under Islamic law, it was, in fact, legal in Egypt until 1834 when it was banned in urban centres and near military camps, but permitted in rural areas. In an ironic turn it was the movement of great bodies of men - in armies - that caused a rise in prostitution during this period.)

Those injured in battle were inspected by doctors. If their injuries were permanent, they were judged disabled or half-disabled. Those who were half-disabled continued to serve, sometimes organised into battalions formed of half-disabled soldiers and led by a half-disabled officer. They also served on guard duty and as servants in military hospitals. Those deemed fully disabled were given a certificate confirming them to be unfit for military service and shipped back to Egypt, where they were entitled to a pension. The reality of the matter was, however, that they often did not get their pension.

Due to the language barrier faced by the first students at the Qasr al-'Aini medical school (Clot Bey and the other instructors were Europeans who could not speak Arabic, their students Egyptians who spoke no European tongue), the education process took place through translators. This made for slow learning and potential miscommunications. The issue was overcome when Shaykh Rifa'a al-Tahtawi returned from France and was assigned to the Medical School to translate various medical books and compile a French-Arabic dictionary with some twenty students. When the first batch of medical students graduated, many were employed to teach future students and thus the education process was swiftly Arabised.

Entrenched in Egypt, as he was, and with his power over the Hijaz and Sudan secure, Mohammad 'Ali longed only to possess Syria. He had since before the Hijaz campaign had his eyes on the rich province and had repeatedly asked of the sultan to grant it to him. Egypt lacked good quality timber, and Syria was famed worldwide for its trees and other raw resources. Even with the timber-rich Sudan in his hands, the Wali sought after Syria and all the riches and strategic advantages it offered. It would not be granted him, however. If the Wali wished to create a truly formidable and independent navy, he would need to secure it.

'As for demanding these regions [Alanya, Antalia, Cilicia] it is based on the fact that they are well-wooded regions, and verily the nation that possesses no timbered land will find excessive difficulty in maintaining her fleet. All this is self-evident. As you know, England is a poorly wooded country, and when it sought to obtain timber from Austria, the latter country rejected the request. Indeed, Egypt is in the same position. In confirmation of my suggestion is the instruction I previously received from you in which you said, "My son, give as much care to the matter of timber as you would to crippling the army of Constantinople."'

- Ibrahim Pasha to his father before the 'Peace of Kutahia', 1833​

In 1824, the Wali was appointed by the sultan to deal with the uprising in Morea. The revolt in Greece had been ongoing since 1821, and eastern Mediterranean shipping had been struggling due to Greek raids for some time. By this point not only was the Wali's military far superior to that of the sultan, but he had also secured for himself a French-built navy, whose crews had been drilled and trained by French instructors. Seeing the usefulness of the Egyptian army in putting down the rebellion, Sultan Mahmud II saw also the advantages of weakening such an army due to combat losses, or at the very least keeping the Wali too busy to threaten Ottoman rule elsewhere.

In the early years of the revolt, the Egyptians had mostly carried out naval operations, along with Ottomans and Barbary ships, to resupply Turkish garrisons on the Greek coast. A particularly successful raid was carried out in the Gulf of Corinth where some thirty Greek ships were captured and the prosperous merchant town of Galaxidi was bombarded and then destroyed.

1822 saw Demetrius Hypsilantes - a member of the Greek diaspora from an influential Istanbuli family - land in Greece. He was, it seemed, the choice of the Philiki Hetaira (a secret Greek nationalist organisation popular in the diaspora) for the future king of a unified Greece. The idea of a unified Greece was, unfortunately, less widespread amongst actual Greeks. With ambitious plans to create a great modern army and march on Istanbul, he hired a French Napoleonic veteran, Colonel Baleste, to create a Greek nationalist revolutionary force. The only problem was, there were no nationalist revolutionaries in Greece. Undeterred, Baleste recruited various French and Italian officers and designed an eccentric black uniform. It did not get much support from many Greeks, and the 'Baleste Regiment' would become distinguished for having more officers than men.

Meanwhile, however, Greek irregulars (formed of klephts [bandits] and armatolis [policemen] - who were usually former-klephts - more interested in loot and personal enrichment than any notion of 'Greek independence') proved more successful. Turks in Morea were massacred and Turkish coastal fortresses began to fall - those within usually promised safe passage to Turkish territory if they surrendered, before being massacred anyway. Navarino fell to the Greeks, where Turkish heads and limbs were stacked, and then the old Ottoman capital of Tripolitsa also fell. A massacre ensued and thousands of prisoners were sold into slavery. Having seen their fair share (and with Demetrius Hypilantes now broke) the European officers left for more profitable destinations, and Baleste left for Crete. His regiment, much dilapidated, was taken up by an Italian officer and became the 'Tarella Regiment'. It was joined by more European Philhellenes and would be massacred at Peta in July of 1822 after their Greek allies abandoned them. Realising their young men were going to Greece to die, the governments of Europe swiftly clamped down on the channels funnelling European volunteers through Marseilles to Greece. 1822 saw the official declaration of Greek independence by a largely symbolic assembly with no real power. On the ground, the real war continued.

Greek piracy, while profitable for the pirates, meant that a revolutionary navy could not truly be built-up as most Greek sailors were drawn to the more lucrative business of piracy. When a navy was constructed, at last, its command structure was a mess and operations were sluggish at the very best. However, the Ottoman navy suffered tremendously at the sudden disappearance of Greeks from their navy. For a long time the prime recruits for the Ottoman, the woes of the Ottoman navy for the next half-century would largely be due to the loss of their Greek sailors. With Turkish conscripts now manning Ottoman vessels, quality - already suffering - continued its decline. So terrible was the state of the Ottoman navy that ships' guns were not actually lowered or raised, merely pointed. Turkish volleys were thus ludicrously inaccurate, but highly dangerous to any unwary birds or fishes unfortunate enough to be passing by.

As it were, the ramshackle Greek navy was not much better off and relied heavily on fireships. These were no threat to well-drilled, disciplined navies, but could wreak havoc on lesser ones. Like that of the Ottomans. A stunning example of fireship use against the Ottomans was displayed at the Battle of Chelma in 1770 when a single Russian fireship managed to come up beside an Ottoman 85-gun battleship and set it ablaze. The subsequent explosion took out fifteen (of sixteen) battleships and resulted in the loss of some ten-thousand Ottoman sailors. Leading the Greek fireship initiative was one Constantine Kanaris who was on a personal vendetta to avenge the population of Chios after their massacre, enslavement, or exile. Most other Greek sailors, however, used to the profits of piracy, were very reluctant to partake in fireship actions, and so the tactic remained very isolated, and by 1824 it was near enough impossible to persuade crews to partake in them.

In one of his most famous exploits, Kanaris snuck up on an Ottoman fleet harboured in the Gulf of Smyrna to celebrate the last day of Ramadan. Bringing his fireship alongside the unwisely illuminated flagship of Kaptan-i Derya [Grand Admiral of the Ottoman Navy] Kara 'Ali. The ship was set alight and the flames spread quickly. In the bowels of the ship, the cries of wretched prisoners from Chios rang out through the harbour. Boats that were launched quickly capsized beneath the weight of the many escaping sailors, and Kara 'Ali himself perished beneath a falling spar. The disaster was complete when the powder room caught fire. Two-thousand crewmen perished. Chios was avenged. Kanaris would become an eternal Greek hero.

Bane of the Ottoman Fleet: Constantine Kanaris​

And so when 1824 dawned, the Ottomans were in an altogether miserable state. Their horrendous military display had shocked Europe. With no one else to turn to, the sultan called up Mohammad 'Ali to save the situation.

In preparation for the Egyptian force he would send, Mohammad 'Ali sent forth his skilled admiral, Isma'il Gibraltar Pasha (who had one old corsair captain, Giustiniani as a tactical advisor), to clear the sea lanes of Greek pirates. The island of Kasos, a pirate base, was caught unawares by the admiral and more than five-hundred pirates were slain. The admiral's Albanian soldiers were then loosed and over two-thousand women and children were seized and enslaved. With sea lanes secured, the Wali prepared to send his forces to Greece, led by his trusted son and lieutenant, Ibrahim Pasha.

No more than five months after the sultan had sent to him for aid, the Wali had prepared and transported seventeen-thousand of his newly-trained infantry along with seven hundred cavalrymen and four artillery batteries. Among the Wali's men were ex-Philhellenes who had transferred their loyalty to him.
The war in Morea was viewed by the Wali as an opportunity to test these four regiments (out of six newly trained ones) and see just how loyal, disciplined and well-trained they were in real war. Their successes, once they landed, would not simply prove to be great, but greatly alarming also. Against rebels whom the Ottomans had struggled the robust Egyptian army rammed home defeat after forceful defeat.

Orchestrating a shock winter landing in Crete, when the Greek navy had retired for the winter, Ibrahim set about subduing the island with his usual efficiency. The Cretans were relatively well-armed due to the efforts of a new wave of Philhellenes - this time not veterans, but idealistic youths who held romantic notions about Greece. Many of them fluent in the ancient language, they quickly came to see that it was a dead language no longer in use by modern Greeks. Moreover, while these youths expected to find a Greece with the democratic national spirit which fathered Western Euanpe, the heir to the ancients, what they in fact found were a disinterested Greek populace who saw themselves as Easterners and heirs to Orthodox Byzantium before anything else. While some had their illusions destroyed by the realities of war, others became disillusioned due to the fractious nature of Greek politics and lack of national cohesion. Others yet were not opposed to buying Turkish slaves in the markets and indulging in their own Oriental fantasies. Perhaps the most famous of these Philhellenes was the English poet George Byron, who would die bedridden after a short military career, bled to death with leeches by his physicians.

The mountains look on Marathon--
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,
I dreamed that Greece might still be free;
For standing on the Persians' grave,
I could not deem myself a slave.​

I watched thee when the fever glazed thy eyes,
Yielding my couch and stretched me on the ground,
When overworn with watching, ne'er to rise
From thence if thou an early grave hadst found.​

With Crete secured, and with civil war raging in Greece between the factions in the wake of their 'victory' over the Turks, none were prepared for Ibrahim's winter landing in south-west Morea, at Methoni. Now ashore, Ibrahim consolidated his forces while a Greek force of some seven-thousand brilliantly-clad irregulars hurled abuse at the relatively plainly-clothed Egyptians. Abuse and insults were a key element of Greek military strategy and were used to great effect throughout the war. An Egyptian force less than half the size of the Greek one quickly scattered the rabble, and Ibrahim moved to capture Navarino.

One of the first to fall to the Greeks, Navarino had been the site of treachery, massacre, and desecration of the dead. Having secured the surrender of the Turkish garrison in 1821, in return for safe passage, a horrific slaughter commenced when the gates were opened. Men, women, and newborns were killed indiscriminately, the living had their limbs hacked off and heads were piled up. Bodies were tossed over the walls and left to rot. The Greek defenders realised fully what their fate would be if the Egyptians took Navarino.

Leading the defence of Sfaktiria was Alexandros Mavrokordatos - a later President and three-time Prime Minister of Greece. The island of Sfaktiria, lying at the entrance of the bay of Pylos and gateway to both Old and New Navarino, was quickly overrun by a powerful amphibious assault by some three-thousand Egyptians. Mavrokordatos managed a rather astonishing escape on board the Greek ship Ares. With the island under Egyptian control, food was quickly cut-off from both Old and New Navarino, and the two fortresses soon had no choice but to capitulate. To the shock of the Greeks, Ibrahim's men did not descend on them in a frenzy and his promise of safe passage was upheld. It was not, of course, a moment of mercy or remorse from the cold son of Mohammad 'Ali, but a display of the utter discipline and professionalism of the Egyptian army compared with the Greek rabble.

Though his attempt to relocate his fleet to Navarino met with failure due to Greek resistance (resulting in the destruction of the Egyptian prize ship, Asia, and some two frigates, three corvettes, and fifteen transports by Greek fireships), Ibrahim was in a powerful position. The area around Navarino was swiftly secured and Greeks from Rumeli quickly headed back home after word reached of a Turkish offensive in the north. The Piedmontese mercenary, Colonel Gubernatis, who had once attempted to create a Greek regular army, cut his losses and joined Ibrahim.

A Greek force three thousand strong, under the leadership of Grigorios Dikaios, gathered at the village of Maniakli to face Ibrahim. On seeing the Egyptian force, half of the force promptly deserted the night before the battle, and the battle ended in Greek defeat and Dikaios' death. The defeat did, however, inspire more Greeks to the cause of preventing an Egyptian advance northward. The dispassionate Ibrahim would, however, outmanoeuvre them on their home ground at every encounter. Ibrahim continued his advance in order to secure provisions for his soldiers, though the Greeks proved irritating at sea as they attempted to cut-off his lines of communication. In a move that very nearly cost the Egyptians the war, Kanaris struck out with his fireships at Alexandria when nearly the entirety of the Egyptian fleet was there. A sudden change in winds, however, meant the fireship was blown away at the last moment thus saving the Egyptian fleet. Mohammad 'Ali was enraged at his sailors' negligence in allowing the enemy into the harbour. Catastrophe struck the Navy when Admiral Isma'il Gibraltar Pasha died at sea, his body washing ashore at Damietta where a local shaykh quickly buried him. (Strangely enough, the dead, whether officers or normal soldiers, received no official funerals in Mohammad 'Ali Pasha's armies; the date of their death was simply recorded and their name crossed from registers while their property - if they had any - became state property.)

Nevertheless, Ibrahim's successes in Morea continued, and even the coming of the Maniats - who claimed Spartan heritage - could not check his plundering. In early 1826 he was ordered to Missolonghi just north of Morea where he linked up with Mehmed Rashid Pasha, wali of Rumeli, who was besieging the city. Despite repeated assaults, the resistance proved tenacious. Ibrahim decided to take the various fortifications in the swampy lagoons bordering Missalonghi, which was an overall success - though the island of Klissova proved difficult to take. In a rare moment of tactical misjudgement, Ibrahim ordered a head-on assault on the island which garnered him nothing but serious losses, including one of his brilliant commanders, Hussayn Bek. The Egyptians, however, displayed impressive discipline and courage.

'When the infidels saw these troops approaching from the sea-side they fired their cannons and their guns like rain on the believers' heads, who in spite of this, kept on advancing towards the shore heedless of the danger befalling them. When they nearly reached the shore, however, the Cretan soldiers as well as the Anatolian ones stopped advancing and only the [Egyptian] nizami troops were proceeding giving up their lives for the sake of the faith and the [Ottoman] State ... During the advance of the nizami troops, however, the standard-bearer of the 20th Battalion could not advance because of difficulties in walking in the mud. He was then approached by Hamza Aga, the major of the same battalion, who took the banner from him ... Shortly afterwards his adjutant-major approached him and insisted on carrying the banner himself ... and marched a few yards with it before being hit by a bullet fired by the infidels. Seeing this, one of the evlad-i Arab [lit. sons of Arabs] lieutenants rushed to his side and took the banner from him, but was soon hit himself and the banner was taken by a corporal who was also hit and killed on the spot. Then one of the sergeants took the banner but was hit by various bullets in different parts of his body. A soldier rushed to carry the banner but was also soon hit by bullets and the banner was then carried by one of the corporals, Hussayn the namesake of the Martyr of Kerbela. When the Serasker [Commander-in-Chief], Ibrahim Pasha, saw that the signs of defeat were spreading among his troops he shouted at them saying, "I am not one of those who turn their backs on fighting when the going gets tough. Look at me and see my forehead stained with blood and sand." He then pulled his sword from its sheath, dismounted from his horse, and marched forward through the water until he was submerged up to his neck ... On seeing this, the soldiers were filled with faith and courage and soon followed their commander depending on no one but God who said in His Book, "It was incumbent upon Us to assist the believers."'

- From a Report to the Wali regarding Missalonghi front, 13 March 1826​

After Greek attempts to relieve the city via sea failed (the Turks, it seemed, having finally learned how to deal with fireships), the nine thousand desperate defenders of the city decided it was time to attempt a breakout. Though the night-time breakout was well-organised, a deserter had already alerted the Turco-Egyptian force to the plan, and the besiegers rained fire on the escaping besieged. Of the fifteen hundred who managed to reach safety, only two hundred would be noncombatants. The victory was bitterly won for Ibrahim, for he only had five thousand men left. Retiring to Morea, he waited on reinforcements and would spend the rest of 1826 subduing all resistance. Rumours had spread as early as 1825 that Ibrahim's vision for Greece was bereft of Greeks and full of Egyptians, and his brutal subjugation of the population and seizure of all foodstuff gave credence them. Athens fell to the Turks in 1827, and it was becoming increasingly clear that the Greek revolution no longer had a leg to stand on.

Despite his successes, the Wali found himself increasingly burdened not only with maintaining the war effort and supplying his own men, but also tasked with supplying both the Egyptian and Ottoman navies.

'...they are so helpless and inefficient that they cannot even fix the masts of their frigates ... Your Highness knows only too well the amount of supplies you were kind enough to offer them. You also know the amount of food they ate and swallowed when they were in Alexandria.'

- A disgusted Ibrahim to his father regarding the Ottomans, 1825​

It did not help that the Wali was, despite his efforts, reprimanded for not doing enough and forced to cooperate with his long-time rival Khusrev Pasha, who was by now Kaptan-i Derya [Grand Admiral of the Ottoman Navy].

Following the sultan's successful destruction of the Janissaries in June of 1826 (something sultan after sultan had attempted and failed to do), a request was sent to the Wali for Egyptian officers who would help in training the new Asakir-i Mansure-i Muhammediye (the Victorious Soldiers of Muhammad). The Wali, however, refused, suspicious of the sultan's future intentions and seeking to keep his well-trained officers close. After all, the Wali had seen what had become of many of the powerful walis of the Empire, such as 'Ali Pasha of Janina, and Daud Pasha of Baghdad. He deftly submitted his inability to send any of his officers on the unconvincing basis that they were more well-paid than their Ottoman counterparts, and sending them could thus create potential friction between the soldiers and difficulties for the sultan. The presence of Khusrev Pasha was a constant irritation to Mohammad 'Ali and Ibrahim, and the Wali used all his power to persuade Istanbul to remove Khusrev and give Ibrahim free reign over naval operations - to no avail. The wali of Rumeli, Mehmed Rashid Pasha, was also a cause of annoyance and constantly interfered in Ibrahim's activities.

Frustrated, the Wali sent to Istanbul demanding the Khusrev be relieved of his duties or else Egypt would pull out of the war. The threat was effective and Khusrev was removed, providing Ibrahim greater freedom to operate. His contribution continued to be vital and the war seemed to be coming to a close, but by 1827 (despite the clear Greek defeat) it was apparent that Europe was slowly coming to a consensus that Greece was to gain its independence from the Porte. This was confirmed in the Treaty of London of July 1827, where France, Britain, and Russia (hereafter 'the Allies') agreed to blockade Morea so as to enforce an armistice. At this point, many of European advisors serving with Egypt's regiments, as well as those teaching in its various military schools, became distinctly uncomfortable with serving in Egypt. It had very suddenly become rather unpopular, and so, many - including Boyer and his French mission - departed.

Increasingly worried by this development, the Wali wrote to Istanbul and noted the great danger posed by European fleets gathering near Navarino. The Ottoman Grand Vizier was, however, utterly unconcerned, and though the Greeks had accepted the Allies' offer that Greece become an autonomous province under the suzerainty of the sultan, the Ottomans refused to accept this. They did not think they had anything to fear from the Europeans. The Wali and his son knew better, however.

'Regarding the present situation there are two issues worth thinking of. The first is that the moves of the Europeans are merely a bluff; the second is that the fleets will, in fact, try to intercept our navies. If they are only bluffing then this is exactly what we want ... However, you know well that when those who take charge of states and kingdoms confront such issues, they anticipate the worst outcome rather than [simply] hoping for the best. If, therefore, the Europeans are not bluffing ... then we have to realise that we cannot stand up against them, and the only possible outcome [if we do so] will be sinking the entire fleet and causing the death of up to thirty- or forty-thousand men ... Then it will be said that Mohammad 'Ali Pasha was the cause of this disaster and my name will always be stained with such a disgrace ... Taking the responsibility of wasting thirty- or forty-thousand lives is no easy task. I have, therefore, stopped sending letters to my son encouraging him to fight on. Wars are not won only by depending on God and trusting in Him, but also by putting all possible human effort into it. God has ordered us in His Book [not only] to stand up to the enemy [but also] to spare no effort in confronting him. This, however, necessitates a thorough knowledge of the art of war. Unfortunately, my dear friend, although we are men of war [ehlli harbdan], yet we are still in the alpha beta of that art (alifba), whereas the Europeans are way ahead of us and have put their theories [about war] into practice ... [Contemplating all of this] one thinks of accepting the lesser of two evils, namely, the principle of independence [for the Greeks] and [conducting it through] Austrian mediation. This will mean unfortunately that ... all the effort and money that I have put into this affair will have been wasted together with my soldiers and officers ... Here I am at a loss: shall I be grieved at the calamity of the Sublime State [devlet-i aliyye] or at my lost effort? I am, therefore, most sorrowful and anguished.'

- Mohammad 'Ali Pasha to his agent in Istanbul, 6 October 1827​

The Allies had intended to play only a peacekeeping role, and not to engage in hostilities. Sir Edward Codrington, the British commander of the Allied fleet, had other ideas, however. While the Turco-Egyptian navies were blockaded, the Greeks were given more or less free reign to raid Ottoman shipping in the Gulf of Corinth. Attempts to deal with the raiders were frustrated by Codrington. Infuriated by this, Ibrahim - in direct conformity with the sultan's orders - increased the brutality inflicted on the Greeks under his control. Attempts by the Allies to entreat him met with failure due to his whereabouts being unknown. With forty-three Egyptian ships trapped in Navarino, it appeared that the Egyptian navy was in dire straits indeed.

On 20 October 1827, the Wali's fears came to be. The Allied fleet sailed into Navarino Bay and took up lines before the crescent formations of the Turco-Egyptian fleet. For reasons unknown, a Turkish ship opened fire first, resulting in an all-out Allied assault. More than six thousand men were lost, to the Allied one-hundred and seventy-two. It took less than three hours for the Ottoman navy to be destroyed, along with the Wali's beloved Egyptian navy. Bar one frigate (the French-built La Leone) the fleet he spared no effort or money to build, which was to be the pride of Islam, now slept upon the Mediterranean's seabed. All due to the stubbornness and lack of vision in Istanbul.

Catastrophe at Navarino
​

No victory and no profit was to be had in Morea any longer, and any territorial expansion in the region was now out of the question in the eyes of Mohammad 'Ali. It was a difficult pill to swallow, years, resources, and Egyptian lives had been spent on what now transpired to be a useless war. He would think a thousand times in future before joining the sultan on any military expedition, and calls for military assisstance in the Caucuses, Moldavia, and Anatolia were rejected by the Wali.

In Morea, Ibrahim continued to hold on to his possessions, and the lack of provisions meant he was forced to buy foodstuff from Ionian merchants. Ill-disciplined Albanian soldiers mutinied due to the conditions, but the trusty Egyptian troops held fast. Ibrahim was placed in a difficult position when the British governor of Ionia put a halt to all trade between the merchants and Ibrahim. Still, Ibrahim held fast until the French landed a force fourteen-thousand strong in the Gulf of Coron in late August of 1828.
Knowing the futility of warring with the Europeans, the Wali, despite the Porte's demands that Ibrahim continue his campaign in Morea, swiftly negotiated the Convention of Alexandria with Codrington. The Europeans guaranteed the safe withdrawal of his son and the Egyptian forces from Greece, and the Wali agreed to order Ibrahim to relinquish his possessions and evacuate Morea. By October 5 1828, Ibrahim had sailed out with the last of his soldiers.

'Most Sorrowful and Anguished': The Convention of Alexandria​

Despite his withdrawal, Ibrahim left the fortresses of Navarino, Rhion, Coron, Patras, Chloumoutsi, and Modon under Ottoman control. However, only Rhion was manned well enough to offer any resistance to the French before being taken. The Russians took advantage of the weakened condition of the Ottomans to declare their own war against the sultan in 1828, intent on annihilating Ottoman power once and for all. The Ottomans still had fight in them, however, despite the Wali's refusal to assist, and the Ottoman Empire would persist after signing peace with the Russian in 1829, ceding Georgia and agreeing to large war indemnity from the sultan. Greece, in the meanwhile, gained its independence and would, in 1832, invite a German prince - Otto of Bavaria - to be king. So divided were they that they could not quite manage to choose an ethnic Greek.

To his frustration, the Wali was denied Syria by the sultan, and given Crete in its stead (which the Wali had already captured and never intended to return either way). Being denied Syria after all his efforts infuriated Mohammad 'Ali, and a clash with the sultan was now more or less inevitable.

For the next two years, he would direct his efforts towards rebuilding his forces and repairing the damage incurred during the war in Morea. The French approached him during this period, offering a joint expedition for the capture of the Barbary States of Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers. Though interested at first, the Wali ultimately turned his efforts towards preparing for the taking of the true prize: Syria.

Despite this, activities in the Sudan continued, and in 1831 Khurshid Pasha, Hikmadar Liwa' [Governor-General] of the Sudan, led a force of six thousand soldiers into the Taka region [in Eritrea, just beyond the modern town of Kassala]. There, he demanded the submission of the Hadendowa [Hadendoa] tribals. They declined and withdrew to a nearby forest where they then proceeded to teach the better-armed Egyptians a lesson in tactics.

Fearsome Warriors: A Hadendoa 'Fuzzy-Wuzzy'
'An' 'ere's to you, Fuzzy-Wuzzy, with your 'ayrick 'ead of 'air - / You big black boundin' beggar - for you broke a British square!'​

With fifteen-hundred men less than he had before and nothing to show for the loss, Khurshid Pasha retreated to Khartoum. Well-armed and disciplined though they were, the Egyptians still had a ways to go - even at this point in its development, the Egyptian military had not developed (and would not develop even by 1860) a French-style general staff, though its homegrown officers were by now far better educated and experienced than they had been in 1822 (most, if not all, were now literate and 'good handwriting' was a condition for promotion). Indeed, one of the key factors behind the relative strength of the Wali's forces was, future historians would stress, the fact that it had effective commanders from top to bottom.

This officer corps was formed of, in its senior echelons, of the Wali's blood relatives (like Ibrahim), in-laws (like Sulayman Pasha), and his freed slaves. During the war in Greece, for instance, the head of the navy was Muharram Bek, the Wali's son-in-law, and later it was his son (and future Wali) Mohammad Sa'id Pasha who took up overall command of the navy. Other leading officers included Ibrahim Pasha Yegen (a nephew), 'Abbas Pasha (grandson and future Wali), Mahmud Sharif Pasha (a nephew), Ahmad Pasha Yegen (another nephew). These relatives formed the core of the officer corps. Cementing them, the Wali appointed his own personal mamelukes in senior positions as a second component of the officer corps. Many of these had been trained by Sulayman Pasha at Aswan in 1820-23, and later at a staff college established in 1825. These, in particular, remained somewhat uneducated and were a source of constant irritation to Ibrahim Pasha, who did not think them as disciplined and brave as the soldiers.
The final component was made up of Turko-Circassian students whom the Wali had sent to Europe previously and who became central to both the army and the bureaucracy in the years and decades to come. These were generally loyal, brave, and eager to please the Wali, but were at odds with their mameluke counterparts and often after personal profit - and, of course, nepotism was rife amongst them (which was not surprising, as many of the senior officials were there only due to having ties to the Wali). Fully aware that it was his presence alone that ensured the officer corps could function as it should, Ibrahim wanted to get rid of them all and replace them with indigenous Egyptian officers with whom he was certain he could create a real esprit de corps. (These Turkish officers, he would say, are good for nothing, smoke all day, and have people to wash their hands. When an Arab soldier heard him say this, he asked him how he could say such things when he was himself a Turk.
'I am not a Turk,' he replied. 'I came as a mere child to Egypt, and since then the Egyptian sun has changed my blood and made me wholly Arab.' Indeed, while Egyptian nationalism cannot be said to have come to being during Mohammad 'Ali's reign, the seeds were certainly planted.)

But allowing Arabs into the upper echelons of the officers corps was never an option in the Wali's mind. The officer corps was, however, buttressed in the early 1830s when the failure of the Polish November Uprising in Russia created an abundance of Polish military emigres. Ibrahim quickly persuaded his father to hire some of them, and over four-hundred Poles were hired. Among these was Colonel August Szule - who later converted to Islam and took up the name Jozef Agha -, an engineering expert who proved himself repeatedly over the years. The Wali even attracted General Henryk Dembinski himself, who arrived in 1833 and provided a detailed analysis of the Egyptian military.

Hero of the November Uprising and the Hungarian Revolution: Henryk Dembinski​

However, despite high hopes on both sides, Russian machinations ensured that this particular mission ended in failure.

Meanwhile in Cairo, wishing this time to build ships in Egypt rather than buy them from elsewhere, the Wali hired a French engineer, one Louis-Charles de Cersiy, who swiftly began constructing a naval arsenal in Alexandria in mid-1829. By 1832 the fleet lost at Navarino had been replaced many times over, and the Wali had produced the first African-launched ship-of-the-line. Not even the sultan could match the military capabilities of the Wali - either on land or sea - and by 1833 the Wali had twelve ships-of-the-line, twelve frigates, and many other lesser ships largely commanded by Egyptians. In addition to this, a naval school was established at Ras al-Tin run entirely by French officers. So great was the military build-up - to the extent that the weekly Friday holiday was cancelled - that European powers began to speculate as to what it could possibly all be for. They would find out in October of 1831.

The First Egyptian-Ottoman War, 1831-33
​

Egypt had incurred grave losses in Greece, and the sultan's promised rewards did not materialise. This simply could not stand, and the European powers - being aware of that state of affairs - to some extent agreed. In late 1831, with the sultan embroiled in subduing revolts in Albania and Bosnia, the Wali struck. As fate would have it, the Wali of Acre, 'Abd Allah Pasha, refused to return to Egypt a few thousand Egyptians who had fled to avoid conscription.

In a stunning eight-month period beginning in October 1831, Ibrahim led a force of thirty-thousand men into Syria, taking Jaffa, Jerusalem, and arriving at Acre. Even Napoleon had stalled before the walls of the city, but Ibrahim had every intention to take it. Assault after assault failed to breach the city's walls, and the commander settled in for a siege with his troops. In April 1832, the Ottomans finally managed to organise themselves enough to declare the Wali a rebell and gather a force to face Ibrahim. Excited by the opportunity to get some action and move away from the constant shells from Acre, Ibrahim moved against the Ottoman army.

On hearing of Ibrahim's coming, the Ottoman commander turned his horse around post-haste and promptly fled back to Istanbul. His army disintegrated but managed to rally once more near Homs where Ibrahim swiftly taught them their grievous error in ever having done so. With the threat removed, he led his troops back to continue besieging Acre. On May 27 a powerful Egyptian assault managed to finally breach the city's walls. Of its six-thousand defenders, only four hundred lived to be imprisoned by the Egyptians, among them 'Abd Allah Pasha himself. In Cairo, rather than be punished, the Wali received him with praise, commending him on his brave defence and lambasting the Ottomans for failing him.

Ibrahim continued to Damascus which fell before him without a battle. Every Ottoman army sent against him tasted defeat. The Syrian population, especially the Christians, were very welcoming of Egyptian takeover of the province and optimistic that they would be far better than the Ottomans. It would not take long for them to be cured of this optimism, but Ibrahim made use of it while it lasted. Another force near Homs was easily routed and a forced march to Aleppo saw the Egyptians take it despite the Ottoman force reaching it first - so hostile were the people of Aleppo to the Ottomans that they simply could not enter. They greeted Ibrahim's army with cheers. Hussayn Pasha, the commander of the Ottoman force, decided to retreat rather than face Ibrahim under such disadvantageous circumstances. The way into Anatolia was thus open wide before Ibrahim.

'Abbas Pasha was sent forth into the Adana region while Ibrahim personally seized Alexandretta, finding their an enormous stock of provisions meant for the Ottoman army. The Grand Vizier and former-wali of Rumeli, Mohammad Rashid Pasha, was sent against Ibrahim with a force of fifty-three thousand men. Ibrahim chose the field of battle near Konya and had his troops drill and prepare repeatedly for the battle, going through their expected battlefield movements again and again until they became second nature.

December 21, 1832 was a foggy day, and the Egyptian practice proved vital for their victory. At only fifteen-thousand men, the Egyptians were highly outnumbered. Due to the fog, the Ottoman bombardment of the Egyptian positions proved ineffective. Egyptian counter-bombardment was, however, far more lethal and caused utter chaos on the Ottoman lines. It quickly became apparent that the Ottoman left wing had swung far away from the rest of the army, leaving it isolated. Ibrahim ordered his elite Guardia Regiment forward to attack the isolated Ottoman left-wing.

It was Ahmad Pasha al-Minkali, a courageous and exceptionally skilled commander, who led the thunderous cavalry strike that broke the Ottoman lines utterly.

Hero of the Battle of Konya: Ahmad Pasha al-Minkali​

The Ottoman Grand Vizier attempted to rally his men in person but found himself lost in the fog and was captured by the Egyptians. The Ottoman army attempted to counterattack for just over half an hour, but was soundly repulsed again and yet again. Broken, the remains of the Ottoman army turned and fled. This tremendous victory over an army three times the size of his own increased Ibrahim's prestige immensely and left open for him the road to Istanbul. And so he did.

In a decision that potentially altered the course of history, Mohammad 'Ali ordered his son to halt his march. He felt that opinion in Europe was slowly turning against him and so sought to pause before making any further moves. A Russian envoy arrived at Cairo expressing strongly Russia's opposition to an Egyptian conquest of Istanbul and threatening direct military action should Egypt attempt any such thiing. France, having established very close ties with the Wali, expressed complete support for the Wali's ambitions. Britain remained quiet and so the sultan and his Wali entered negotiations. The sultan demanded immediate Egyptian withdrawal from Syria and the Wali naturally declined, responding with his own outrageous demands for territory in the Ottoman heartlands. The old Ottoman capital at Bursa soon fell to Ibrahim, pressing home the Wali's demands. With no help from Britain coming, the sultan - in a move that horrified both France and Britain - turned to Russia for help. Perhaps equally shocked, the Tsar nevertheless accepted this and sent a naval squadron in February 1833, followed by another with some five-thousand Russian soldiers who landed on the Asian side of the Bosphorus. This strange and dangerous alliance between Russia and the Ottomans attracted French and British attention and a peace agreement was swiftly arrived at.

The Peace of Kutahia was reached in May 1833. It retracted the sultan's earlier declaration of Muhammad 'Ali as a rebel and reinstated him as Wali of Egypt in addition to granting him the Hijaz and Crete. Ibrahim was named as wali of the Syria, Acre, Damascus, Tripoli [in the Levant], and Aleppo. In addition, Ibrahim was named as muhassil [tax-collector] of the province of Adana in southern Anatolia. The Wali thus managed to secure official recognition of his newly expanded power and dominions. But this recognition had to be renewed annually by the sultan, something that left the Pasha subject to the whims of the sultan and the intrigues of his courtiers. The Wali was also to continue paying an annual tribute, though the exact amount was subject to great disputes and was never paid by the Wali.
Meanwhile, in 1833 the Ottomans were forced to pay the Russians back for the assistance rendered. The otherwise innocent Treaty of Hunkar Iskelesi contained a secret clause affirming that the Dardanelles would be closed at the Tsar's wishes to any naval force seeking access to the Black Sea. Attempts to conscripts Syrians quickly turned the population against the Wali and gained uprisings. But these were put down and the Wali, in his usual manner, got his way.

[OOC: This post is incomplete. The final section will experience improvement when I am less sleep-deprived, and more pictures will be added throughout to alleviate any cases of 'wall-text' experienced by anyone who actually chooses to read this. A general read-through to iron out issues etc. will also be carried out.]

 

[Arrowfiend]

United States of Great Colombia
Estados Unidos de Gran Colombia

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José María Rojas Garrido, President of the United States of Great Colombia
Presidente de la Gran Colombia

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Domestic Affairs
On the Death of Napoleon III
On European Developments in 1876
Proclamation regarding the end of the Ecuadorian War
Proclamation regarding French Treaties with South American Nations

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Foreign Correspondence
To Prussia and Austria on the OEIC
Treaty of Maracaibo
Wallis-Seymour Treaty
Declaration of War against Peru and Ecuador
Extension of the Treaty of Maracaibo to Ecuador
Treaty of Quito
Recognition of the Dominican Republic
To the French Empire (1877)
Treaty of Panama
Treaty of Caracas
On the Outbreak of War between Brazil and the Argentine Alliance

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[Cloud Strife]

The Congress of Prague

Prague Castle, circa 1860s.​

In a spirit of comity and cooperation, the high contracting powers--henceforth referenced as the powers--agree to the following points;

Article, the First; the territories of Austrian Italy are to be divided. Kaiser Franz Joseph of Austria grants to his niece, the territories known as the Veneto (the modern Italian provinces of Padova, Rovigo, Treviso, Venice, Verona, Vicenza) to his niece, Archduchess Mathilda and her lawful descendants free and clear of all obligations to the Imperial Throne. The Kaiser reserves to himself the the remainder of Austrian Italy to himself and his lawful descendants.

Article, the Second; Archduchess Mathilda and Crown Prince Umberto of Italy shall wed and the Italian Crown Prince given the right to administer the lands granted to his future wife as part of the Kingdom of Italy. Should Archduchess Mathilda predecease his Royal Highness Umberto without birthing lawful heirs Umberto shall be considered the heir to Archduchess Mathilda's rights in regards to the Veneto.

Article, the Third; Both the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy agree to recognize and respect the territories and borders of each nation.

Article, the Fourth; The powers desirous of ameliorating the situation in Romania agree to summon Prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen to assume the responsibilities of Prince of Romania. Should Prince Karl accept, the Kaiser grants to him all his rights and interests over Romania. Should the Prince not accept the European Congress shall work towards finding a suitable sovereign for the Romanians.

Article, the Fifth; The Emperor of All the Russias sells all his interests and control of the territory of the Kingdom of Poland (Congress Poland) free and clear to the Kaiser of Austria for financial compensation. ($750m in statbucks, payment period will be over three years, in payment tranches of $300m, $250m, $200m) Henceforth the Kaiser is to be King of Poland.

Article, the Sixth; All contracting parties shall do their utmost to preserve the stability and balance of Europe.

Article, the Seventh; This agreement shall come into effect upon the ratification of the Austrian Empire, the Kingdom of Italy, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Empire of All the Russias.

Signed,
[x] Agenor Romuald Gołuchowski, Graf von Gołuchowo for the Austrian Empire

---

Summary:
-Veneto (the modern Italian provinces of Padova, Rovigo, Treviso, Venice, Verona, Vicenza) to Italy.
-Congress Poland to Austria.
-Romania granted independence under Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen.
-Russia is paid $750m in stat bucks, payment period will be over three years, in payment tranches of $300m, $250m, $200m.
-General agreement by Italy and Austria to respect each other's borders.

 

[jacob-Lundgren]

The Congress of Prague

Prague Castle, circa 1860s.​

Spoiler

In a spirit of comity and cooperation, the high contracting powers--henceforth referenced as the powers--agree to the following points;

Article, the First; the territories of Austrian Italy are to be divided. Kaiser Franz Joseph of Austria grants to his niece, the territories known as the Veneto (the modern Italian provinces of Padova, Rovigo, Treviso, Venice, Verona, Vicenza) to his niece, Archduchess Mathilda and her lawful descendants free and clear of all obligations to the Imperial Throne. The Kaiser reserves to himself the the remainder of Austrian Italy to himself and his lawful descendants.

Article, the Second; Archduchess Mathilda and Crown Prince Umberto of Italy shall wed and the Italian Crown Prince given the right to administer the lands granted to his future wife as part of the Kingdom of Italy. Should Archduchess Mathilda predecease his Royal Highness Umberto without birthing lawful heirs Umberto shall be considered the heir to Archduchess Mathilda's rights in regards to the Veneto.

Article, the Third; Both the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy agree to recognize and respect the territories and borders of each nation.

Article, the Fourth; The powers desirous of ameliorating the situation in Romania agree to summon Prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen to assume the responsibilities of Prince of Romania. Should Prince Karl accept, the Kaiser grants to him all his rights and interests over Romania. Should the Prince not accept the European Congress shall work towards finding a suitable sovereign for the Romanians.

Article, the Fifth; The Emperor of All the Russias sells all his interests and control of the territory of the Kingdom of Poland (Congress Poland) free and clear to the Kaiser of Austria for financial compensation. ($750m in statbucks, payment period will be over three years, in payment tranches of $300m, $250m, $150m) Henceforth the Kaiser is to be King of Poland.

Article, the Sixth; All contracting parties shall do their utmost to preserve the stability and balance of Europe.

Article, the Seventh; This agreement shall come into effect upon the ratification of the Austrian Empire, the Kingdom of Italy, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Empire of All the Russias.

Signed,
[x] Agenor Romuald Gołuchowski, Graf von Gołuchowo for the Austrian Empire

Spoiler

---

Summary:
-Veneto (the modern Italian provinces of Padova, Rovigo, Treviso, Venice, Verona, Vicenza) to Italy.
-Congress Poland to Austria.
-Romania granted independence under Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen.
-Russia is paid $750m in stat bucks, payment period will be over three years, in payment tranches of $300m, $250m, $150m.
-General agreement by Italy and Austria to respect each other's borders.

[X] Alexander Gorchakov, Foreign Minister of the Russian Empire

______________________________________________


The Tsar will be releasing a statement regarding this treaty and as well Russia will be announcing a treaty with our friends in Romania. This day has brought great changes to europe but many more are ahead. The job of map makers is never complete. I would like to personally thank Bismarck for his efforts the recent months at assisting in mediating affairs in eastern and central europe.


Alexander Gorchakov~Foreign Minister of the Russian Empire

 

[oxfordroyale]

The Congress of Prague

Prague Castle, circa 1860s.​

In a spirit of comity and cooperation, the high contracting powers--henceforth referenced as the powers--agree to the following points;

Article, the First; the territories of Austrian Italy are to be divided. Kaiser Franz Joseph of Austria grants to his niece, the territories known as the Veneto (the modern Italian provinces of Padova, Rovigo, Treviso, Venice, Verona, Vicenza) to his niece, Archduchess Mathilda and her lawful descendants free and clear of all obligations to the Imperial Throne. The Kaiser reserves to himself the the remainder of Austrian Italy to himself and his lawful descendants.

Article, the Second; Archduchess Mathilda and Crown Prince Umberto of Italy shall wed and the Italian Crown Prince given the right to administer the lands granted to his future wife as part of the Kingdom of Italy. Should Archduchess Mathilda predecease his Royal Highness Umberto without birthing lawful heirs Umberto shall be considered the heir to Archduchess Mathilda's rights in regards to the Veneto.

Article, the Third; Both the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy agree to recognize and respect the territories and borders of each nation.

Article, the Fourth; The powers desirous of ameliorating the situation in Romania agree to summon Prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen to assume the responsibilities of Prince of Romania. Should Prince Karl accept, the Kaiser grants to him all his rights and interests over Romania. Should the Prince not accept the European Congress shall work towards finding a suitable sovereign for the Romanians.

Article, the Fifth; The Emperor of All the Russias sells all his interests and control of the territory of the Kingdom of Poland (Congress Poland) free and clear to the Kaiser of Austria for financial compensation. ($750m in statbucks, payment period will be over three years, in payment tranches of $300m, $250m, $150m) Henceforth the Kaiser is to be King of Poland.

Article, the Sixth; All contracting parties shall do their utmost to preserve the stability and balance of Europe.

Article, the Seventh; This agreement shall come into effect upon the ratification of the Austrian Empire, the Kingdom of Italy, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Empire of All the Russias.

Signed,
[x] Agenor Romuald Gołuchowski, Graf von Gołuchowo for the Austrian Empire

---

Summary:
-Veneto (the modern Italian provinces of Padova, Rovigo, Treviso, Venice, Verona, Vicenza) to Italy.
-Congress Poland to Austria.
-Romania granted independence under Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen.
-Russia is paid $750m in stat bucks, payment period will be over three years, in payment tranches of $300m, $250m, $150m.
-General agreement by Italy and Austria to respect each other's borders.

[X] Bettino Ricasoli, Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Italy

 

[etranger01]

The International Telegraph Union​

Acknowledging the present disorganized state of international telegraphy,

Recognizing the necessity of a standard of communication to encourage the flow of information, traffic, and commerce between the nations of Europe,

The undersigned agree to the following:

I. That the International Telegraph Union is an international organization comprised of the undersigned and dedicated to improving international communication and communications infrastructure. New signatories shall be permitted to sign freely so long as they share a land border with a member of the organization.

II. To accept a standard format and line composition for international telegraph lines.

III. To allow for cross-border telegraph lines with messages to be reviewed at the nearest cross-border station, and thus to abolish the practice of transferring messages between border stations.

IV. To set fixed rates for telegraph fees, in accordance with the size and particular needs of the individual nation.

V. To commit to a general improvement of telegraphic infrastructure and lines of communication between the signatory nations.

VI. The International Telegraph Union shall meet each year in Paris to confirm adherence to these standards and to explore further methods of improving international communication.

[X] France
[X] Italy
[X] Switzerland
[X] The North German Confederation
[X] Russia
[X] Belgium
[X] Austria
[X] Sweden-Norway
[X] The Netherlands
[ ] Any nation bordering a signatory

--

The Latin Monetary Union​

Recognizing the need for a unified standard of currency in order to encourage the flow of commerce and trade between them,

The undersigned agree to the following:

I. That the Latin Monetary Union shall be an international organization comprised of the signatories and that new signatories may be admitted through adherence to the terms below and the agreement of the existing signatories.

II. That the ratio of exchange between gold and silver shall be initially established by a committee of the members at one to fifteen-point-five. This ratio shall be subject to review and alteration every four years.

III. That the Monetary Union shall establish standardized coins of multiple denominations for use by each state; each state commits to using these coins only and in the designated purity.

IV. The Latin Monetary Union shall meet each year in Paris to confirm adherence to these strictures and to consult on additional measures necessary to accomplish its goals.

[X] France
[X] Italy
[X] Belgium
[X] Switzerland

((OOC: Neither of these treaties requires an order. To join the ITU, just post your signature in-thread or let me know on IRC. Future LMU signatories require a little more negotiation.))

 

[Julius Maximus]

The Congress of Prague

Prague Castle, circa 1860s.​

In a spirit of comity and cooperation, the high contracting powers--henceforth referenced as the powers--agree to the following points;

Article, the First; the territories of Austrian Italy are to be divided. Kaiser Franz Joseph of Austria grants to his niece, the territories known as the Veneto (the modern Italian provinces of Padova, Rovigo, Treviso, Venice, Verona, Vicenza) to his niece, Archduchess Mathilda and her lawful descendants free and clear of all obligations to the Imperial Throne. The Kaiser reserves to himself the the remainder of Austrian Italy to himself and his lawful descendants.

Article, the Second; Archduchess Mathilda and Crown Prince Umberto of Italy shall wed and the Italian Crown Prince given the right to administer the lands granted to his future wife as part of the Kingdom of Italy. Should Archduchess Mathilda predecease his Royal Highness Umberto without birthing lawful heirs Umberto shall be considered the heir to Archduchess Mathilda's rights in regards to the Veneto.

Article, the Third; Both the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Italy agree to recognize and respect the territories and borders of each nation.

Article, the Fourth; The powers desirous of ameliorating the situation in Romania agree to summon Prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen to assume the responsibilities of Prince of Romania. Should Prince Karl accept, the Kaiser grants to him all his rights and interests over Romania. Should the Prince not accept the European Congress shall work towards finding a suitable sovereign for the Romanians.

Article, the Fifth; The Emperor of All the Russias sells all his interests and control of the territory of the Kingdom of Poland (Congress Poland) free and clear to the Kaiser of Austria for financial compensation. ($750m in statbucks, payment period will be over three years, in payment tranches of $300m, $250m, $150m) Henceforth the Kaiser is to be King of Poland.

Article, the Sixth; All contracting parties shall do their utmost to preserve the stability and balance of Europe.

Article, the Seventh; This agreement shall come into effect upon the ratification of the Austrian Empire, the Kingdom of Italy, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Empire of All the Russias.

Signed,
[x] Agenor Romuald Gołuchowski, Graf von Gołuchowo for the Austrian Empire

---

Summary:
-Veneto (the modern Italian provinces of Padova, Rovigo, Treviso, Venice, Verona, Vicenza) to Italy.
-Congress Poland to Austria.
-Romania granted independence under Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen.
-Russia is paid $750m in stat bucks, payment period will be over three years, in payment tranches of $300m, $250m, $150m.
-General agreement by Italy and Austria to respect each other's borders.

[x] Signed, Prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen
[x] Signed, Otto von Bismarck, Minister-President of Prussia

 

[Kongo87]

OOC: ($750m in statbucks, payment period will be over three years, in payment tranches of $300m, $250m, $150m)

300+250+150 = 700