1945.
Mahmoud Fahmy El Nokrashy Pasha (April 26, 1888 – December 28, 1948) (Arabic: محمود فهمى النقراشى باشا, IPA: [mæħˈmuːd ˈfæhmi (e)nnoʔˈrɑːʃi ˈbæːʃæ]) was an Egyptian political figure. He was the twenty-seventh prime minister of the Kingdom of Egypt.[1]
Early life and education
Nokrashy was born in Alexandria on 26 April 1888 to a middle-class family. His father was an Egyptian accountant, and his mother, Hanifa was of Turkish origin.[2] Nokrashy was a graduate of the Ras Al Tin high school.[3]
Career
Nokrashy Pasha was a member of the Saadist Institutional Party (SIP) which supported a liberal monarchist programme.[4][5] He was also a member of the secret apparatus of the Wafd Party, Egypts then main nationalist party.[6]
Nokrashy Pasha and King Farouk in an official visit, 1947
Nokrashy Pasha served as the prime minister of Egypt twice. His first term was from 1945 to 1946 (he initially came to power after the murder of Ahmad Mahir Pasha) and the second from 1946 to 1948.[1] His second cabinet was a coalition government comprising members of the Saadist Institutional Party and the Liberal Constitutional Party.[7]
In 1948, Nokrashy Pasha became very concerned with the assertiveness and popularity of the Muslim Brotherhood.[8] Rumours of a Brotherhood coup against the monarchy and government had appeared, and the Brotherhood had already been implicated in the killing of Nokrashy Pashas predecessor.[8] Shortly after these rumours first gained currency, the prime minister formally outlawed the Brotherhood in December 1948, and this led directly to his own assassination.[8][9] In addition to the Brotherhood being officially declared an illegal organization, the assets of the Brotherhood were seized by the government and many Brotherhood members went to prison.
Assassination
Less than three weeks after these activities against the Brotherhood, Nokrashy Pasha was gunned down by Abdel Meguid Ahmed Hassan, who was a veterinary student at the University of King Fouad I and another member of the Brotherhood. The slaying occurred on 28 December 1948 at 10:00 am.[8][10][11][12] Nokrashy Pasha was killed in the main building of the Ministry of Interior by Hassan, who was wearing the uniform of a lieutenant.[12] Hassan shot him twice.[12] This crime in turn led to the assassination (by the political police) of Muslim Brotherhood leader Hasan Al Banna on 12 February 1949: despite the fact that Banna had condemned the murder of the prime minister, and had publicly called it a terrorist act incompatible with Islam.[8]
Hassan was arrested after the murder, and confessed that he was a member of the Brotherhood.[12] He reported that it was the prime ministers decision to crack down upon the Brotherhood that had motivated him to carry out the shooting. [12] Found guilty at his trial, he was soon afterwards hanged; three men who had knowingly helped him plan the assassination were sentenced to penal servitude for life.[12]
The Kingdom of Egypt (Arabic: المملكة المصرية, romanized: Al-Mamlaka Al-Miṣreyya, lit. The Egyptian Kingdom) was the legal form of the Egyptian state during the latter period of the Muhammad Ali dynastys reign, from the United Kingdoms recognition of Egyptian independence in 1922 until the abolition of the monarchy of Egypt and Sudan in 1953 following the Egyptian Revolution of 1952. Until the Anglo-Egyptian treaty of 1936, the Kingdom was only nominally independent, as the United Kingdom retained control of foreign relations, communications, the military, and Sudan. Officially, Sudan was governed as a condominium of the two states; however, in reality, true power in Sudan lay with the United Kingdom. Between 1936 and 1952, the United Kingdom continued to maintain its military presence, and its political advisers, at a reduced level, which resulted in the increase of Egyptian sovereignty and independence.
The legal status of Egypt had been highly convoluted, due to its de facto breakaway from the Ottoman Empire in 1805, its occupation by Britain in 1882, and the re-establishment of the Sultanate of Egypt (destroyed by the Ottomans in 1517) as a British protectorate in 1914. In line with the change in status from sultanate to kingdom, the title of the reigning Sultan, Fuad I, was changed from Sultan of Egypt to King of Egypt. Throughout the Kingdoms existence, Sudan was formally united with Egypt. However, actual Egyptian authority in Sudan was largely nominal due to United Kingdoms role as the dominant power in Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. As had been the case during the Khedivate of Egypt, and the Sultanate of Egypt, the Egyptian monarch was styled as the sovereign of "Egypt and Sudan".
During the reign of King Fuad, the monarchy struggled with the Wafd Party, a broadly based nationalist political organisation strongly opposed to British influence in Egypt, and with the British themselves, who were determined to maintain their control over the Suez Canal. Other political forces emerging in this period included the Communist Party (1925), and the Muslim Brotherhood (1928), which eventually became a potent political and religious force.
King Fuad died in 1936, and the throne passed to his 16-year-old son, Farouk. Rising nationalist sentiment in Egypt and Sudan, and British concern following Fascist Italys recent invasion of Abyssinia led to the Anglo-Egyptian treaty of 1936, which required the United Kingdom to withdraw all troops from Egypt proper (excluding Sudan), except in the Suez Canal Zone (agreed to be evacuated by 1949), but permitted the return of British military personnel in the event of war. The Kingdom was plagued by corruption, and its subjects saw it as a puppet of the British, notwithstanding the bitter enmity between King Farouk and the United Kingdom during the Second World War, as evidenced by the Abdeen Palace incident of 1942. This, coupled with the defeat in the Palestine War of 1948–1949, led to the 1952 Egyptian Revolution by the Free Officers Movement. Farouk abdicated in favour of his infant son Ahmed Fuad, who became King Fuad II. In 1953 the monarchy was abolished, and the Republic of Egypt was established. The legal status of Sudan was only resolved in 1953, when Egypt and United Kingdom agreed that it should be granted independence in 1956.
History
Sultanate and Kingdom
Further information: Sultanate of Egypt
During the Ottoman period, the country was administered as the Egypt Eyalet, followed by the autonomous tributary state of the Khedivate of Egypt ruled by the Muhammad Ali dynasty.
In 1914, Khedive Abbas II sided with the Ottoman Empire and the Central Powers in the First World War, and was promptly deposed by the British in favour of his uncle Hussein Kamel, creating the Sultanate of Egypt. Ottoman sovereignty over Egypt, which had been hardly more than a legal fiction since 1805, now was officially terminated. Hussein Kamel was declared Sultan of Egypt, and the country became a British protectorate.
Aftermath of World War I
A group known as the Wafd (meaning "Delegation") attended the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 to demand Egypts independence.[citation needed] Included in the group was political leader, Saad Zaghlul, who would later become Prime Minister. When Zaghlul and three other Wafd members were arrested and deported to the island of Malta in March 1919, demonstrations started to occur in Egypt.[citation needed][4]
From March to April 1919, there were mass demonstrations that turned into uprisings. These are known in Egypt as the First Revolution. In November 1919, the Milner Commission was sent to Egypt by the British to attempt to resolve the situation. In 1920, Lord Milner submitted his report to Lord Curzon, the British Foreign Secretary, recommending that the protectorate should be replaced by a treaty of alliance.[citation needed]
As a result, Curzon agreed to receive an Egyptian mission headed by Zaghlul and Adli Pasha to discuss the proposals. The mission arrived in London in June 1920 and the agreement was concluded in August 1920. In February 1921, the British Parliament approved the agreement and Egypt was asked to send another mission to London with full powers to conclude a definitive treaty. Adli Pasha led this mission, which arrived in June 1921. However, the Dominion delegates at the 1921 Imperial Conference had stressed the importance of maintaining control over the Suez Canal Zone and Curzon could not persuade his Cabinet colleagues to agree to any terms that Adli Pasha was prepared to accept. The mission returned to Egypt in disgust.[citation needed]
In December 1921, the British authorities in Cairo imposed martial law and once again deported Zaghlul. Demonstrations again led to violence. In deference to the growing nationalism and at the suggestion of the High Commissioner, Lord Allenby, the UK recognized Egyptian independence in 1922, abolishing the protectorate, and converting the Sultanate of Egypt into the Kingdom of Egypt. Sarwat Pasha became prime minister. British influence, however, continued to dominate Egypts political life and fostered fiscal, administrative, and governmental reforms. Britain retained control of the Canal Zone, Sudan and Egypts external protection, the police, army, the railways and communications, the protection of foreign interests, minorities and Sudan pending a final agreement.[citation needed]
Representing the Wafd Party, Zaghlul was elected Prime Minister in 1924. He demanded that Britain recognize the Egyptian sovereignty in Sudan and the unity of the Nile Valley. On November 19, 1924, the British Governor-General of Sudan, Sir Lee Stack, was assassinated in Cairo and pro-Egyptian riots broke out in Sudan. The British demanded that Egypt pay an apology fee and withdraw troops from Sudan. Zaghlul agreed to the first but not the second and resigned.[5]
Recognition
King Farouk I, 1936–1952.
With nationalist sentiment rising, Britain formally recognized Egyptian independence in 1922, and Hussein Kamels successor, Sultan Fuad I, substituted the title of King for Sultan.[5] However, the British influence in Egyptian affairs persisted. Of particular concern to Egypt was Britains continual efforts to divest Egypt of all control in Sudan. To both the King and the nationalist movement, this was intolerable, and the Egyptian Government made a point of stressing that Fuad and his son King Farouk I were "King of Egypt and Sudan".[5]
World War II
Main articles: Egypt in World War II and North African campaign
The government of Egypt was legally neutral in World War II. The army was not in combat. In practice the British made Egypt a major base of operations against Italy and Germany, and finally defeated them both. Londons highest priority was control of the Eastern Mediterranean, especially keeping the Suez Canal open for merchant ships and for military connections with India and Australia.[6] Several battles of the North African campaign were fought on Egyptian soil, such as the Italian Invasion of Egypt , Battle of Sidi Barrani or the Battle of Mersa Matruh, First, Second Battles of El Alamein.
The government of Egypt, and the Egyptian population, played a minor role in the Second World War. When the war began in September 1939, Egypt declared martial law and broke off diplomatic relations with Germany. It did not declare war on Germany, but the Prime Minister associated Egypt with the British war effort. It broke off diplomatic relations with Italy in 1940, but never declared war, even when the Italian army invaded Egypt. King Farouk practically took a neutral position, which accorded with elite opinion among the Egyptians. The Egyptian army did no fighting. It was apathetic about the war, with the leading officers looking on the British as occupiers and sometimes holding some private sympathies toward the Axis.[7] In June 1940, the King dismissed Prime Minister Aly Maher, who got on poorly with the British. A new coalition government was formed with the Independent Hassan Pasha Sabri as Prime Minister briefly, followed by Hussein Sirri Pasha.[8]
Following a ministerial crisis in February 1942, the ambassador Sir Miles Lampson, pressed Farouk to have a Wafd or Wafd-coalition government replace Hussein Sirri Pashas government. On the night of 4 February 1942, British troops and tanks surrounded Abdeen Palace in Cairo and Lampson presented Farouk with an ultimatum. Farouk capitulated, Nahhas formed a government shortly thereafter. However, the humiliation meted out to Farouk, and the actions of the Wafd in cooperating with the British and taking power, lost support for both the British and the Wafd among both civilians and, more importantly, the Egyptian military.[9]
Post-war period
Most British troops were withdrawn to the Suez Canal area in 1947 (the British army maintained a military base there), but nationalist and anti-British sentiment continued to grow after the War. Anti-monarchy sentiments further increased following the disastrous performance of the Kingdom in the First Arab-Israeli War. The 1950 election saw a landslide victory of the nationalist Wafd Party and the King was forced to appoint Mostafa El-Nahas as the new Prime Minister. In 1951 Egypt unilaterally withdrew from the Anglo-Egyptian treaty of 1936 and ordered all remaining British troops to leave the Suez Canal.
Suez Emergency
According to the BBC, In October 1951 a tense stand-off between the British and Egyptian governments broke down over the number of UK troops stationed in the country. In response, the British government mobilised 60,000 troops in 10 days, in what was described as the biggest airlift of troops since World War Two.[10]
As the British refused to leave their base around the Suez Canal, the Egyptian government cut off the water and refused to allow food into the Suez Canal base, announced a boycott of British goods, forbade Egyptian workers from entering the base and sponsored guerrilla attacks. The situation turned the area around the Suez Canal into a low level war zone. On 24 January 1952, Egyptian guerrillas staged an attack on the British forces around the Suez Canal, during which the Egyptian Auxiliary Police were observed helping the guerrillas. In response, on 25 January, General George Erskine sent British tanks and infantry to surround the auxiliary police station in Ismailia and gave the policemen an hour to surrender their arms in the grounds. The police were arming the guerrillas. The police commander called the Interior Minister, Fouad Serageddin, Nahass right-hand man, who was smoking cigars in his bath at the time, to ask if he should surrender or fight. Serageddin ordered the police to fight "to the last man and the last bullet". The resulting battle saw the police station levelled and 43 Egyptian policemen killed together with 3 British soldiers. The Ismailia incident outraged Egypt. The next day, 26 January 1952, was "Black Saturday", as the anti-British riot was known. It saw much of downtown Cairo which the Khedive Ismail the Magnificent had rebuilt in the style of Paris, burned down. Farouk blamed the Wafd for the Black Saturday riot, and dismissed Nahas as prime minister the next day and replaced by Aly Maher Pasha.
Dissolution
On 23 July 1952, the Free Officers Movement, led by Mohamed Naguib and Gamal Abdel Nasser, toppled King Farouk in a coup détat that began the Egyptian Revolution of 1952. On 26 July, Farouk abdicated in favour of his seven-month-old son, Ahmed Fuad, who became King Fuad II. At 6pm the same day, the now former king departed Egypt on the royal yacht, along with other members of the royal family, including the new infant king. Following precedent for a sovereign under the age of majority, a Regency Council was formed, led by Prince Muhammad Abdel Moneim. The Regency Council, however, held only nominal authority, as real power lay with the Revolutionary Command Council, led by Naguib and Nasser.
Popular expectations for immediate reforms led to the workers riots in Kafr Dawar on 12 August 1952, which resulted in two death sentences. Following a brief experiment with civilian rule, the Free Officers abolished the monarchy, and declared Egypt a republic on 18 June 1953, abrogating the constitution of 1923. In addition to serving as head of the Revolutionary Command Council, and Prime Minister, Naguib was proclaimed as Egypts first President, while Nasser was appointed as Deputy Prime Minister.
Demographics
Ethnic Egyptians made up the majority of the population in Egypt. However, thousands of Greeks, Jews, Italians, Maltese, Armenians and Syro-Lebanese were present in Egypt. These communities were known as the Mutamassirun (Egyptianized). Despite the fact these communities were foreigners, they took part in Egyptian society and were considered to be homogenous groups by Egyptian nationalists. The Mutammassirun community had most of its members leaving Egypt in the 1950s. After the Suez Crisis of 1956, more than 1,000 of 18,000 people who carried British or French nationality were expelled and were only allowed to take one suitcase with them and a small sum of cash.[11]
See also
Egypt
1952 Egyptian Revolution
Farouk I (/fəˈruːk/; Egyptian Arabic: فاروق الأول Fārūq al-Awwal; 11 February 1920 – 18 March 1965) was the tenth ruler of Egypt from the Muhammad Ali dynasty and the penultimate King of Egypt and the Sudan, succeeding his father, Fuad I, in 1936 and reigning until his overthrow in a military coup in 1952.
His full title was "His Majesty Farouk I, by the grace of God, King of Egypt and the Sudan". As king, Farouk was known for his extravagant playboy lifestyle. While initially popular, his reputation eroded due to the corruption and incompetence of his government. He was overthrown in the 1952 coup détat and forced to abdicate in favour of his infant son, Ahmed Fuad, who succeeded him as Fuad II. Farouk died in exile in Italy in 1965.
His sister, Princess Fawzia bint Fuad, was the first wife and consort of the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.[3]
Early life and education
Portrait by Philip de László, 1929
He was born as His Sultanic Highness Farouk bin Fuad, Hereditary Prince of Egypt and Sudan, on 11 February 1920 (Jumada al-Awwal 21, 1338 A.H.) at Abdeen Palace, Cairo, the eldest child of Sultan Fuad I (later King Fuad I) and his second wife, Nazli Sabri.[4][5] He had Albanian, Circassian, Turkish, French and Greek ancestry.[6][7][8][9] Farouks first languages were Egyptian Arabic, Turkish and French (the languages of the Egyptian elite), and he always thought of himself as an Egyptian rather than as an Arab, having no interest in Arab nationalism except as a way of increasing Egypts power in the Middle East.[10] Egypt at that time was quite rich, but its wealth was very maldistributed. The pashas, representing less than .5% of all landowners, owned a third of all cultivated land in the country.[11]
In addition to his sisters, Fawzia, Faiza, Faika and Fathia,[12] he had one half-sister from his fathers previous marriage to Princess Shivakiar Khanum Effendi, Princess Fawkia. Fuad gave all of his children names starting with F after an Indian fortune-teller told him names starting with F would bring him good luck.[13] King Fuad kept tight control over his only son when he was growing up and Farouk was only allowed to see his mother once every day for an hour.[14] The prince grew up in the very closeted world of the royal palaces, and he never visited the Great Pyramids at Giza until he became king, despite the fact that only 19 kilometres (12 mi) separated the Abdeen Palace from the Pyramids.[15] Farouk had a very spoiled upbringing with the Sudanese servants when meeting him always getting down on their knees to first kiss the ground and then his hand.[16] Aside from his sisters, Farouk had no friends when growing up as Fuad would not allow any outsiders to meet him.[17]
Fuad, who did not speak Arabic, insisted that the crown prince learn Arabic so he could talk to his subjects.[15] Farouk became fluent in classical Arabic, the language of the Quran, and he always gave his speeches in classical Arabic.[18] As a child, Farouk showed a facility for languages, learning Arabic, English, French and Italian, which were the only subjects he excelled in.[15] The more honest of Farouks tutors often wrote comments on his childhood essays such as "Improve your bad handwriting and pay attention to the cleanliness of your notebook" and "It is regrettable that you do not know the history of your ancestors".[15] The more sycophantic of his tutors wrote comments like "Excellent. A brilliant future awaits you in the world of literature" on an essay that began with the sentence "My father had a lot of ministers and I have a cat".[15] Farouk was known for his love of practical jokes, a trait that continued as an adult. For instance, he liked to free the quail that the game keepers had captured on the grounds of the Montaza Palace, and he once used an air gun to shoot out the windows at the Koubbeh Palace.[19] When Queen Marie of Romania visited the Koubbeh Palace to see Queen Nazli, Farouk asked her if she wanted to see his two horses; when she answered in the positive, Farouk had the horses brought into the royal harem, which greatly displeased the two queens as the animals defecated all over the floor.[20] Farouks Swedish au pair, Gerda Sjöberg, wrote in her diary: "The truth doesnt exist in Egypt. Breaking promises is normal. Farouk is already perfect at this. He loves to lie. But its amazing Farouk is as good as he, given his mother." [21] Knowing of his familys genetic predisposition to obesity, King Fuad kept Farouk on a strict diet, warning him that the male descendants of Muhammad Ali the Great tended to get obese very easily.[15]
Farouks closest friend when growing up and later as an adult was the Italian electrician at the Abdeen Palace, Antonio Pulli, who became one of Egypts most powerful men during his reign.[19][20][22] An attempt to enroll Farouk at Eton was thwarted when he failed the entrance exams.[18] Before his fathers death, he was educated at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, England. The Italophile Fuad wanted to have Farouk educated at the Turin Military Academy, but the British High Commissioner Sir Miles Lampson vetoed this choice as growing Italian claims for the entire Mediterranean to be Mare Nostrum ("Our Sea") made it unacceptable for the Crown Prince to be educated in Italy.[18]
In October 1935, Farouk left Egypt to settle at Kenry House in the countryside of Surrey to attend the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich as an extramural student.[20] Farouk attended classes occasionally at "the Shop", as the academy was known, to prepare himself for the entrance exam.[23] Farouk stayed at Kenry House and twice a week was driven in a Rolls-Royce to the Royal Military Academy to attend classes, but still failed the entrance exam.[23] One of Farouks tutors, General Aziz Ali al-Misri, complained to King Fuad that the principal problem with Farouk as a student was he never studied and expected the answers to be given to him when he wrote his exam.[24] Instead of studying, Farouk spent his time in London where he went shopping, attended football matches with the Prince of Wales, and visited restaurants and brothels.[25] Farouks other tutor, the famous desert explorer, Olympic athlete and poet Ahmed Hassanein reported to King Fuad that Farouk was studying hard, but the inability of the crown prince to pass entrance exams supports General al-Misris reports.[24] When King George V died in January 1936, Farouk represented Egypt at his funeral in Westminster Abbey.[26]
On 28 April 1936, King Fuad died of a heart attack and Farouk left England to return to Egypt as king.[26] Farouks first act as king was to visit Buckingham Palace to accept the condolences of King Edward VIII, one of the few Englishmen whom Farouk liked, and then he went to Victoria Station to take a train to Dover and was seen off by the Foreign Secretary, Sir Anthony Eden.[27] At Dover, Farouk boarded a French ship, the Côte dAzur, which took him to Calais.[27] After a stop in Paris to shop and visit the Elysee Palace, Farouk took the train to Marseilles, where he boarded an ocean liner, the Viceroy of India to take him to Alexandria, where he landed on 6 May 1936.[27] Upon landing in Alexandria, Farouk was greeted by huge crowds who shouted "Long live the king of the Nile!" and "Long live the king of Egypt and the Sudan!".[27] In 1936, Farouk was known by his subjects as al malik al mahbub ("the beloved king").[28] Besides inheriting the throne, Farouk also received all of the land that his father had acquired, which amounted to one seventh of all the arable land in Egypt.[29] As the Nile river valley has some of the most fertile and productive farmland in the entire world, this was a considerable asset.[30] Fuad left Farouk a fortune worth about US$100 million (a sum worth US$1,862,130,434 in 2020 dollars when adjusted for inflation) plus 30,000 hectares (75,000 acres) of land in the Nile river valley, five palaces, 200 cars and 2 yachts.[30] Farouks biographer, William Stadiem, wrote:
no pharaoh, no Mameluke, no khedive ever began a reign with such unquestionable, enthusiastic goodwill as King Farouk. And none was as unprepared to rule. Here was a completely sheltered, virtually uneducated sixteen-year old, expected to fill the spats of his wily, politically astute father in a loaded tug-of-war between nationalism, imperialism, constitutionalism, and monarchy.[30]
Ascension
King Farouk I of Egypt
Farouk I, c. 1937
Upon his coronation, the 16-year-old King Farouk made a public radio address to the nation, the first time a sovereign of Egypt had ever spoken directly to his people in such a way:
And if it is Gods will to lay on my shoulders at such an early age the responsibility of kingship, I on my part appreciate the duties that will be mine, and I am prepared for all sacrifices in the cause of my duty. ... My noble people, I am proud of you and your loyalty and am confident in the future as I am in God. Let us work together. We shall succeed and be happy. Long live the Motherland!
As Farouk was extremely popular with the Egyptian people, it was decided by the Prime Minister, Aly Maher, that Farouk should not return to Britain as that would be unpopular, though one of the regents, Prince Muhammad Ali, had wanted Farouk to keep trying to be admitted on a full-time basis to the Royal Military Academy as a means of getting him out of the country.[31] Since under Egyptian law women could not inherit the throne, Farouks cousin Prince Muhammad Ali was next in line to the throne. Prince Muhammad Ali was to spend the next 16 years scheming to depose Farouk so he could become king.[31] Egypt was in the process of negotiating a treaty that would reduce some of the British privileges in Egypt and make the country more independent in exchange for keeping Egypt in the British sphere of influence.[32] The ambitions of Benito Mussolini to dominate the Mediterranean led the Wafd—traditionally the anti-British party—to want to keep the British presence in Egypt, at least as long as Mussolini kept calling the Mediterranean Mare Nostrum.[33] For both the Wafd and the British, it was convenient to keep Farouk in Egypt so that when he signed the new Anglo-Egyptian treaty, it would not be seen as under duress as it would be if Farouk was living in Britain.[31] Sir Miles Lampson believed he together with assorted other British officials like the kings tutor, Edward Ford, could mould Farouk into an Anglophile.[34] Lampsons plans were derailed when it emerged that Farouk was more interested in duck-hunting than Fords lectures and that the king had "bragged" he would "have the hell" with the British, saying they had humiliated him for long enough.[34]
The fact that Farouk had dismissed all of the British servants employed by his father, while keeping the Italian servants, suggested he had inherited Fuads Italophilia.[35] Farouk especially resented Lampsons attempts to set himself up as a surrogate father, finding him impossibly patronising and rude, complaining that at one moment Lampson would address him as a king and the next moment would call him to his face a "naughty boy".[28] Lampson was 55 when Farouk acceded to the throne and he never learned how to treat the teenage Farouk as an equal.[28] The official was charmed by Egypt, which he regarded as a wondrous exotic land, but as his Arabic was not particularly good, his contacts with ordinary Egyptians were only on a superficial level.[36] Lampson was fluent in French and his social contracts were almost entirely with the Egyptian elite. Lampson wrote in his diary about the death of King Fuad: "Slippery customer though he was, he was an immense factor in the situation here and... we could always in the last resort get him to act in any particular line that we wished".[37] About Farouk, Lampson wrote he did not expect to have "a young immature King on our hands. I frankly dont know quite how that problem is going to be handled".[37]
Farouk was enamored of the glamorous royal lifestyle. Although he already had thousands of acres of land, dozens of palaces and hundreds of cars, the youthful king often traveled to Europe for grand shopping sprees, earning the ire of many of his subjects. It is said that he ate 600 oysters a week.[38] His personal vehicle was a red 1947 Bentley Mark VI, with coachwork by Figoni et Falaschi; he dictated that, other than the military jeeps which made up the rest of his entourage, no other cars were to be painted red.[39] In 1951, he bought the pear-shaped 94-carat Star of the East diamond and a fancy-coloured oval-cut diamond from jeweller Harry Winston.
He was most popular in his early years, and the nobility largely celebrated him. For example, during the accession of the young King Farouk, "the Abaza family had solicited palace authorities to permit the royal train to stop briefly in their village so that the king could partake of refreshments offered in a large, magnificently ornamented tent the family had erected in the train station."[40] The Chief Accountant to Farouk was Yadidya Israel, who was secretly working with the Free Officers movement that removed the King in 1952, as was the Abaza familys own Wagih Abaza, who later became governor of six governorates in post-Farouk Egypt.[41][42][43]
Farouk I in military uniform
Farouk saluting Egyptian citizens assembled in Abdeen Square in Cairo, c. 1937
Farouks accession initially was encouraging for the populace and nobility, due to his youth and Egyptian roots through his mother Nazli Sabri. Standing 60 tall and extremely handsome in his teenage years, Farouk was viewed as a sex symbol in his early years, making the cover of Time magazine as a leader to watch while Life magazine in article on him called the Abdeen Palace "possibly the most magnificent royal place in the world" and Farouk "the very model of a young Muslim gentleman".[44] However, the situation was not the same with some Egyptian politicians and elected government officials, with whom Farouk quarreled frequently, despite their loyalty in principle to his throne. There was also the issue of the British influence in the Egyptian government, which Farouk viewed with disdain. Farouks accession had changed the dynamic of Egyptian politics from being a struggle of an unpopular king vs. the popular Wafd party as it was under his father to that of a popular Wafd vs. an even more popular king.[45] The Wafd Party, led by Nahas Pasha, had been the most popular party in Egypt since it had been founded in 1919, and the Wafd leaders felt threatened by Farouks popularity with ordinary Egyptians.[45] Right from the start of Farouks reign, the Wafd—who claimed to speak alone for Egypts masses—saw Farouk as a threat and Nahas Pasha worked constantly to clip the kings power, confirming the prejudices that Farouk had inherited from his father against the Wafd.[46] When Nahas and the other Wafd leaders traveled to London to sign the Anglo-Egyptian treaty in August 1936, they stopped over in Switzerland to hold discussions with former Khedive Abbas II about how best to depose Farouk and put Abbas back on the throne. [31]
The dominant figure in the Wafd was Makram Ebeid, the man widely considered to be the most intelligent Egyptian politician of the interwar era.[47] Ebeid was a Coptic Christian, which made it unacceptable for him to be prime minister of Muslim majority Egypt, and so he exercised power via his protege Nahas, who was the official party leader.[47] Leaders in the Wafd like Ali Maher, opposed to Ebeid and Nahas, looked to Farouk as a rival source of patronage and power.[47] Both Ebeid and Nahas disliked Maher, regarding him as an intriguer and an opportunist, and found a further reason to dislike him even more when Maher became Farouks favorite political adviser.[48] The nationalistic Wafd Party was the most powerful political machine in Egypt, and when the Wafd was in power, it tended to be very corrupt and nepotistic.[49] Those excluded from opportunities for corruption, like Maher Pasha, made much of the corruption, in particular the baleful influence of Nahas Pashas dominating wife[who?] (who insisted on giving high government jobs to members of her family, no matter how unqualified they were).[49] Though the Wafd Party had been founded in 1919 as the anti-British party, the fact that Nahas Pasha championed the 1936 treaty as the best way of keeping Mussolini from conquering Egypt as he had done Ethiopia, paradoxically led Lampson to favor Nahas and the Wafd as the most pro-British party, in turn leading opponents of the Wafd to attack them for "selling out" by signing a treaty which allowed the British to keep their garrisons in Egypt.[50] As Farouk could not stand the overbearing Lampson, and saw the Wafd as his enemies, the king naturally aligned himself with the anti-Wafd factions and those who saw the treaty as a "sell out".[51] Lampson personally favored deposing Farouk and putting his cousin Prince Muhammad Ali on the throne in order to keep the Wafd in power, but feared that a coup would destroy the popular legitimacy of Nahas.[52]
Despite the regency council, Farouk was determined to exercise his royal prerogatives. When Farouk asked for a new railroad station to be built outside of the Montazah palace, the council refused under the grounds that station was only used twice a year by the royal family, when they arrived at the Montazah palace to escape the summer heat in Cairo and when they returned to Cairo in the fall.[53] Unwilling to take no for an answer, Farouk called out his servants and led them to demolish the station, forcing the regency council to approve building a new station.[54] To counterbalance the Wafd, Farouk from the time he arrived back in Egypt started to use Islam as a political weapon, always attending the Friday prayers at the local mosques, donating to Islamic charities, and courting the Muslim Brotherhood, the only group capable of rivaling the Wafd in terms of the ability to mobilize the masses.[28] Farouk was known in his early years as the "pious king" as unlike his predecessors he went out of his way to be seen as a devout Muslim.[28] The Egyptian historian Laila Morsy wrote that Nahas never really tried to reach an understanding with the Palace, and treated Farouk as an enemy from the start, seeing him as a threat to the Wafd.[46] The Wafd ran a powerful patronage machine in rural Egypt and the enthusiastic response of the fellaheen to the king as he threw gold coins at them during his tours of the countryside was viewed by Nahas as a major threat.[47] Nahas sought to prevent the king from "parading" himself before the masses, claiming that the kings royal tours cost the government too much money, and as the Wafd was a secularist party, charged that Farouks overt religiosity violated the constitution.[46] However, the attacks by the secularist Wafd on Farouk for being too pious a Muslim estranged conservative Muslim opinion who rallied in defense of the "pious king".[55] As the Coptic Christian minority tended to vote as a bloc for the Wafd and many prominent Wafd leaders like Ebeid were Copts, the Wafd was widely seen as the "Coptic party".[47] The aggressive defense by Nahas of secularism as a core principle of Egyptian life and his attacks against the king as a danger for being a devout Muslim led to a backlash and the charge that secularism was merely a device for allowing the Coptic Christian minority to dominate Egypt at the expense of the Muslim Arab majority.[47]
Sir Edward Ford, who served as the kings tutor, described him as a relaxed, gregarious and easy-going teenager whose first act upon meeting him in Alexandria was to take him swimming in the Mediterranean.[56] However, Ford also described Farouk as incapable of learning and "totally incapable of concentration".[57] Whenever Ford began a lesson, Farouk would immediately find a way to end it by insisting that he take Ford out for a drive to see the Egyptian countryside.[58] In an interview in 1990, Ford described Farouk as: "He was half a private schoolboy of nine or ten and half a sophisticated young man of twenty-three, able to sit next to a great man like Lord Rutherford and impress him a great deal, usually by bluffing. He did have a very good eye, a royal eye. In England, he was able to spot the most valuable rare book in the Trinity College library in Cambridge. It may have been pure luck. But it impressed everyone. And he spoke wonderful English and Arabic".[58] In turn, Farouk explained to Ford why upper-class Egyptian men were still using the titles left over from the Ottoman Empire such as pasha, bey and effendi, which Ford learned that a pasha was equivalent to being an aristocrat, a bey was equivalent to a title of knighthood and an effendi to being an esquire.[54] Ford wrote in his notebook: "A pasha may perhaps be defined as a person who looks important, a bey thinks himself important, an effendi hopes to be important".[54] When Farouk went on his tour of Upper Egypt in January 1937, going down the Nile on the royal yacht Kassed el Kheir, Ford complained that Farouk never asked for a single lesson, as he was more interested in watching the latest films from Hollywood.[59] Despite the fact that Upper Egypt was the poorest region in Egypt, various mudirs (governors) and sheikhs held camel races, gymnastic events, stick boxing matches, banquets and concerts in honor of the king, which led Ford to write of a "record of unrivaled stardom, of which Greta Garbo might well be envious".[60]
King Farouk coin
Coin issuance after Farouks coronation, 1937
On 29 June 1937, Farouk turned 17 under the Islamic lunar calendar, and since in the Islamic world a baby is considered to be one year old at the time of birth, by Muslim standards he was celebrating his 18th birthday.[61] As he was considered 18, he thus attained his majority, and the Regency Council, which had irked Farouk so much, was dissolved.[61] Farouks coronation, held in Cairo, on 20 July 1937, outdid the coronation of George VI, which had just taken place that May, as Farouk held larger parades and fireworks displays than had taken place in London.[62] For his coronation, Farouk reduced the fares on the Nile steamers and at least two million fellaheen (Egyptian peasants) took advantage of the price cut to attend his coronation in Cairo.[61] Farouks coronation speech implicitly criticized the land-owning Turco-Circassian elite that he himself was a part of, as Farouk declared: "The poor are not responsible for their poverty but rather the wealthy. Give to the poor what they merit without their asking. A king is a good king when the poor of the land have the right to live, when the sick have the right to be healed, when the timid have the right to be tranquil and when the ignorant have the right to learn".[63] Farouks coronation speech, which was unexpectedly poetic, was written by his tutor, the poet Ahmed Hassanein, who felt that the king should present himself as the friend of the fellaheen to undercut the populist Wafd Party.[63] Further cementing Farouks popularity was the announcement made on 24 August 1937, that he was engaged to Safinaz Zulficar, the daughter of an Alexandria judge.[64] Farouks decision to marry a commoner instead of a member of the Turco-Circassian aristocracy increased his popularity with the Egyptian people.[64]
The marriage of the king and a commoner was presented to the world as matter of romantic love, but in fact the marriage had been arranged by Queen Nazli, who herself was a commoner and did not want her son to marry a princess from the Turco-Circassian elite who would outrank her.[64] Queen Nazli had chosen Zulficar as her daughter-in-law because she was 15 years old and thus presumably could be molded, and came from an upper-middle-class family like herself (Zulficars mother was a lady-in-waiting to Queen Nazli) and was fluent in French, the language of Egypts elite.[64] Zulficars father refused to give permission for the marriage under the grounds that his daughter was 15 and too young to be married, and decided to take a vacation in Beirut.[65] Unwilling to take no for an answer, Farouk phoned the police chief of Alexandria, who arrested Judge Zulficar as he was boarding the ship for Beirut, and the judge was taken to the Montaza Palace.[65] At the Montaza palace, Farouk was waiting and bribed Judge Zulficar into granting permission for the marriage by making him into a pasha.[65] At Salfinaz Zulficars 16th birthday party, Farouk arrived in his Alfa Romeo automobile to propose marriage, and at the same time renamed her Farida because he believed names that started with F were lucky.[65] (Safinaz is Persian for "pure rose" while Farida is Arabic for "the only one"; Farouks decision to give his bride an Arabic name appealed to the masses).[65] Farouk gave Farida a cheque for a sum in Egyptian pounds equivalent to $50,000 US dollars as a wedding dowry and a diamond ring worth just as much for the engagement.[65] Outside of the Ras El Tin Palace, when the wedding was announced, 22 people were crushed to death and 140 badly injured when the crowd rushed forward to hear the news.[65]
In the fall of 1937, Farouk dismissed the Wafd government headed by Prime Minister Mostafa El-Nahas and replaced him as Prime Minister with Mohamed Mahmoud Pasha.[66] The immediate issue were Nahass attempts to dismiss Farouks chef de cabinet Ali Maher together with Farouks Italian servants, but the more general issue was who would rule Egypt: the Crown or Parliament?[66] As a number of ministers in the new government were pro-Italian at the same time that Mussolini was increasing the number of Italian troops in Libya, Farouks move was seen as pro-Italian and anti-British. Lampson delivered what he called a "little lecture" to Farouk, reporting to London: "It will be fatal if the boy [Farouk] comes to think he is invincible and can play any trick he likes. Personally I have always liked him and he certainly has a most remarkable intelligence and courage—one begins to fear almost too much of the latter".[66] At a meeting at the Abdeen Palace in December 1937, where Lampson declared that London was opposed to the Mahmoud government, Lampson reported: "I found him rather baffling to deal with—in extraordinary good humour and apparently taking the whole thing rather flippantly whist at times relapsing into a very kingly attitude".[67] Farouk told Lampson that he didnt care if the Wafd had a majority in Parliament, as he was the king and he wanted a prime minister who would obey him, not Parliament.[67] Lampson ended the meeting by saying Quos deus vult perdere prius dementat ("Those God wishes to destroy, he first makes mad").[67]
A banquet organised on the occasion of the royal wedding of Farouk to Farida. The persons appearing in the photograph are (from left to right): Princess Nimet Mouhtar; Farouks paternal aunt, Farouk, Queen Farida, Sultana Melek (1869–1956), widow of Hussein Kamel, Farouks paternal uncle; Prince Muhammad Ali Ibrahim, Farouks 2nd cousin once removed.
On 20 January 1938, Farouk married Farida in a sumptuous public event with Cairo lit up by floodlights and colored lights on the public buildings while boats on the Nile had likewise had colored lights, making the river seem a ribbon of light at night.[68] Farida wore a wedding dress that Farouk had bought her, which was handmade in Paris and cost about $30,000 US dollars.[69] The royal wedding made Farouk even more popular with the Egyptian people, and he dissolved parliament for elections in April 1938 with the full prestige and wealth of the Crown being used to support parties opposed to the Wafd.[67] The prime minister, Nahas Pasha, used the familiar Wafd slogan "The king reigns; he does not rule", but the Wafd suffered a massive defeat in the election.[67] In 1938, Farouk was approached by the Iranian ambassador with a message from Reza Khan, the Shah of Iran, asking that his sister be married to Mohammad Reza, the Crown Prince of Iran.[70] When a group of Iranian emissaries arrived in Cairo bearing gifts from Reza Khan such as a "diamond necklace, diamond brooch, diamond earrings", Farouk was not impressed, taking the Iranian delegation on a tour of his five palaces to show them proper royal splendor and asked if there was anything comparable in Iran.[71] Nonetheless, Farouk agreed in a joint press communique issued with Reza Khan on 26 May 1938, that Princess Fawzia would marry Crown Prince Mohammad Reza, who first learned that he was now engaged to Fawzia when he read the press release.[71]
Farouk broke with Muslim tradition by taking Queen Farida everywhere with him, and letting her go unveiled.[72] On 17 November 1938, Farouk became a father when Farida gave birth to Princess Farial, a considerable disappointment as Farouk wanted a son, all the more because he knew his cousin, Prince Muhammad Ali, was scheming to take the throne.[73] In March 1939, Farouk sent the royal yacht Mahroussa to Iran to pick up the Crown Prince.[71] On 15 March 1939, Mohammad Reza married Fawzia in Cairo and afterwards Farouk took his brother-in-law on a tour of Egypt, showing him his five palaces, the Pyramids, Al-Azhar University and other sites in Egypt.[71] In April 1939, the German propaganda minister, Dr. Josef Goebbels, visited Cairo and received a warm welcome from the king.[74] The Danzig crisis which led to World War II later that year had already begun when Farouk met Goebbels, and the meeting caused Lampson much alarm, as he suspected the king was an Axis sympathizer.[74] In August 1939, Farouk appointed his favorite politician, Maher Pasha, prime minister.[75]
Reign
Farouk I in military uniform
Farouk I, c. 1938
World War II
See also: Egypt in World War II
Egypt remained neutral in World War II, but under heavy pressure from Lampson, Farouk broke diplomatic relations with Germany in September 1939.[76] On 7 April 1940, Queen Farida gave birth to a second daughter, Princess Fawzia, which greatly upset Farouk.[77] After Fawzias birth, Farouks marriage started to become strained as he wanted a son.[78] In Egypt, a son was much more valued than daughters for the kingdoms legacy; according to Egyptian law at the time a daughter could not inherit the throne, and Farouk was becoming widely viewed as lacking in masculinity due to the absence of a son.[79] Farouk consulted various doctors, who advised him to eat foods that were felt to increase sex drive, and Farouk became something of a bulimic, eating excessively and later becoming overweight.[79] Suspicions that Queen Farida was having an affair with aristocrat Wahid Yussri imposed strains on the marriage.[77]
Under the 1936 treaty, Britain had the right to defend Egypt from an invasion, which turned the Western Desert of Egypt into a battlefield when Italy declared war on Britain on 10 June 1940, and invaded Egypt.[80] Under the 1936 treaty, the Egyptians were obligated to assist the British with logistical services, but Maher frustrated this by appointing corrupt bureaucrats to positions such as presidency of the Egyptian state railroad who demanded baksheesh (bribe) in exchange for co-operating.[81] Owing to the strategic importance of Egypt, ultimately 2 million soldiers from Britain, Australia, India and New Zealand arrived in Egypt.[82] Lampson was against Egypt declaring war on the Axis powers despite the Italian invasion of Egypt as having Egypt as a belligerent would mean Egypt would have the right to attend the peace conference once the Allies had won the war, and as Lampson put it, the Egyptians would make demands that would be "embarrassing" for the British at such a peace conference.[83]
Farouk I with ministers
Members of Ali Maher Pashas second government surround Farouk I (fourth from right), 1939
Farouk was greatly upset in 1940 when he learned that his mother, Queen Nazli, whom he viewed as a rather chaste figure, was having an affair with his former tutor, Prince Ahmed Hassanein, who as a desert explorer, poet, Olympic athlete and aviator, was one of the most famous Egyptians alive.[78] When Farouk caught Hassanein reading passages from the Koran to his mother in her bedroom, he pulled out a handgun and threatened to shoot them, saying "you are disgracing the memory of my father, and if I end it by killing one of you, then God will forgive me, for it is according to our holy law as you both know".[84] Distracting Farouk from thoughts of matricide was a meeting on 17 June 1940, with Lampson who demanded that Farouk dismiss Maher as prime minister and General al-Misri as chief of staff of the Egyptian Army, saying both were pro-Axis.[80] Lampson wrote to London: "I repeated I hoped that he realized we were in deadly earnest. He said he knew that full well, and cryptically, that so was he".[85]
On 28 June 1940, Farouk dismissed Maher Pasha as prime minister, but refused to appoint Nahas Pasha as prime minister as Lampson wanted, saying that Nahas was full of "Bolshevik schemes".[85] The new prime minister was Hassan Sabry, whom Lampson felt was acceptable, and despite his previous threats to kill him, Prince Hassanein was made chef de cabinet.[85] Prince Hassanein had been educated at Oxford University and unusually for an Egyptian, was an Anglophile, having fond memories of his time in England when he studied at Oxford.[85] Lampson had come to detest Farouk by this time, and his favorite advice to London was "the only thing to do is kick the boy out".[85] In November 1940, the Prime Minister Sabry died of a heart attack when delivering his opening speech to Parliament and was replaced with Hussein Serry Pasha.[86] Farouk felt very lonely as a king, not having any real friends, made worse by the very public feud between Queen Farida and Queen Nazli as the former hated the latter for her attempts to dominate her.[87] Farouks best friend was Pulli, who was more of a "man Friday".[86] Maher had made contacts on behalf of the king with General al-Misri, on "sick leave" since June 1940; with a group of anti-British officers in the Egyptian Army, and Hassan el Banna, the Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, to discuss a possible anti-British uprising when the Axis broke through the British lines.[88] Egypt together with the American South was one of the few places in the world suitable for growing cotton, a water-intensive and labor-intensive crop that was traditionally known as "white gold" owing to the high prices it fetched. World War II created a huge demand for cotton, and after the United States entered the war in late 1941, so many American men were called up for service with the armed forces that Egypt became the only source of cotton for the Allies. For those who owned farmland in Egypt on which cotton was grown, the Second World War was a time of prosperity as the high prices of cotton counteracted the effects of wartime inflation.[89]
The Italians had only advanced within 80 kilometres (50 mi) of Egypt before stopping at Sidi Barrani, and on 9 December 1940, the British launched an offensive that drove the Italians back into Libya.[90] In response, in January 1941, German forces were dispatched to the Mediterranean to assist the Italians and on 12 February 1941, the Afrika Korps under the command of Erwin Rommel arrived in Libya.[91] Starting on 31 March 1941, a Wehrmacht offensive drove the British out of Libya and into Egypt.[92] As 95% of Egyptians live in the Nile river valley, the fighting in the Western Desert only affected the Bedouin nomads who lived in the desert.[93] At the same time in 1941 that Rommel was inflicting a series of defeats on the British in the Western Desert, Farouk wrote to Adolf Hitler promising him that when the Wehrmacht entered the Nile river valley, he would bring Egypt into the war on the Axis side.[94] The American historian Gerhard Weinberg wrote that the fact that Farouk wanted to see his country occupied by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany was not a sign of great wisdom on his part and that he never understood "that Axis rule of Egypt was likely to be far more oppressive than British".[93]
Farouk with Military academy graduates, 1941
During the hardships of the Second World War, criticism was levelled at Farouk for his lavish lifestyle. His decision not to put out the lights at his palace in Alexandria when the city was blacked out because of German and Italian bombing was deemed particularly offensive by the Egyptian people. This was a large contrast to the British royal family back in England, who were well known to have an opposite reaction to the bombings near their home. Owing to the continuing British occupation of Egypt, many Egyptians, Farouk included, were positively disposed towards Germany and Italy, and despite the presence of British troops, Egypt remained officially neutral until the final year of the war. Consequently, Farouks Italian servants were not interned, and there is an unconfirmed story that Farouk told British Ambassador Sir Miles Lampson (who had an Italian wife), "Ill get rid of my Italians when you get rid of yours". Many Italians in Egypt, mostly men, were interned in British concentration camps, such as the notorious camp Fayed, 40 kilometres (25 mi) outside of Cairo. Treatment of these prisoners in those camps was extreme and physically excessively harsh, many losing inordinate amounts of body weight and contracting typhus. In January 1942, when Farouk was away on vacation, Lampson pressured Serry Pasha into breaking diplomatic relations with Vichy France.[95] As the king was not consulted about the severing of ties with Vichy France, Farouk used this violation of the constitution as an excuse to dismiss Serry and announced he planned to appoint Maher as prime minister again.[96] Serry knew that his government was likely to be defeated on a motion of no confidence when Parliament opened on 3 February 1942, and in the meantime demonstrations by students at Cairo University and Al-Azhar University had broken out, calling for a German victory.[97]
PHOTO ORIGINALE VINTAGE EGYPTE PREMIER à prix réduit MINISTRE PACHA MAHMOUS NOKRAS 5X7 POUCES 1945
