Egypt and the Sudan by Gabriel R Warburg

Author:Gabriel R Warburg [Warburg, Gabriel R]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Middle East, General
ISBN: 9781135172978
Google: Tnh0DwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2018-10-24T02:57:41+00:00

It was quite clear that while Sirri Pasha abided by the terms of the 1936 treaty and was therefore quite acceptable to the British, he lacked any popular support and hence was dependent on Faruq’s whims. The return of the Wafd was thereafter only a matter of time.

The basic difference in the relations between Britain and the Wafd between the pre-treaty years and those after 1936 lay, according to Deeb, in Britain’s willingness to support the Wafd against the palace. Young King Faruq, in those early years, possessed the popularity his father had lacked and thus was able to unite the anti-Wafdist opposition, as he did in 1937. Indeed it became quite clear that Faruq, having become the centre of the opposition, containing not only ‘Ali Mahir or Mustafa al-Maraghi, but also Muhammad Mahmud and, after the Wafd’s split in 1937, Ahmad Mahir and Nuqrashi, was less dependent on Britain and hence increasingly dangerous.42 Another reason for Britain’s willingness to support the Wafd may have been the latter’s decline and hence increased dependence on collaboration with the British authorities. With the departure of large sections of the urban bourgeoisie, who had left the Wafd with Nuqrashi and Mahir in 1937–1938, the Wafd’s power base had shrunk. To this one should add the fact that throughout the 1930s both Misr al-Fatah and especially the Muslim Brethren had already undermined Wafdist support among the effendiyya. Hence the Wafd, though still capable of winning in any freely conducted elections, could no longer be identified as the national movement of Egypt.43 The third and probably dominant factor in Britain’s gradual shift to a pro-Wafdist posture ever since 1939 was the realization that the Wafd was the only power in Egypt both capable and willing to support the Allies’ war effort. With a pro-Axis King surrounded by a nationalist-Islamic anti-British leadership, the Wafd became the only effective and reliable alternative. True, the Sa‘dists had openly declared their support for Britain and, unlike the Wafd, had even demanded that Egypt declare war against Italy and Germany. However, the Kutla Sa‘diyya had no grass-root support and hence, with little parliamentary backing, had to depend on Faruq. The view which, according to al-Tabi‘i, prevailed in both London and Cairo was that the Wafd would have to be brought back to power under British auspices so as to make its dependency on the British authorities as complete as possible.44

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