Egypt to c.1919

The French occupation of Egypt was the first military incursion by an industrialising and aggressively expansionist Europe in the central Middle East, and it ushered in the modern era of Western hegemony. Muḥammad ?Ali came to Egypt in 1801 with an Ottoman expedition sent against the French. Muḥammad Alī‘s Albanian origin was less significant than his formation in and adherence to Ottoman ruling class culture and norms. Muḥammad Alī‘s reforms in the military, administration and education drew inspiration from earlier Ottoman reforms along French lines that had culminated in the Nizam-1 Cedid of Sultan Selim III. The elite that emerged in the middle decades had a larger proportion of Egyptians, men such as the engineer Alī Mubarak. The reign of Isma?il saw advances in intellectual life and the emergence of a ‘public’ that took an interest in and discussed issues affecting the political community. The Ottoman and Egyptian bankruptcies occurred simultaneously, and European creditor nations protected the bondholders’ interests.