Now let's have a look at the reforms in Egypt throughout the 19th Century. There were reforms that were begun by Muhammad Ali. At the end of the 18th Century, Egypt was in a state of anarchy. As a result of the conflicts between various Mamluk groups. The Mamluks were slave soldiers originally. But actually even though they began as slave soldiers, being soldiers they were eventually the power to be. And it is they who controlled Egypt for very many years long before the invasion of Napoleon. The French invasion, however, in 1798 ushered in a new era in Egypt's history. A struggle for power between the French and the Ottomans, a struggle for power between the Ottomans and the Mamluks, after the removal of the French. And Muhammad Ali who arrived in Egypt in 1801 as second in command of Albanian troops who had been sent by the Ottomans. To take over the rule of Egypt, from the French. Muhammad Ali himself took control of Egypt and forced the Ottomans to recognize him as the governor of Egypt. Between 1809 and 1812, Muhammad Ali went about destroying the power of the Mamluks, who remained a powerful military force in Egypt until then. There was a huge massacre of Mamluks by Muhammad Ali in Cairo in 1811. And their power in Egypt was brought to an end. The crushing of the Mamluks in Egypt in 1811 by Muhammad Ali was similar to the removal of the Janissaries that took place in the Ottoman Empire in 1826. But whereas, in the Ottoman Empire, reforms made progress and were halted at various junctures, in Muhammad Ali's case, reforms continued tirelessly. The first step for Muhammad Ali was the rebuilding of the army in Egypt after the model of European conscript armies. He tried, initially, by bringing slaves from the Sudan as recruits for Egypt's army, but this was a terrible failure. Between 1820 and 1824 Muhammad Ali brought to Egypt some 20,000 Sudanese but most of them died. Muhammad Ali then took the revolutionary step of recruiting Egyptian Arab peasants for the Egyptian Army. This was a revolutionary step because for the first time it was the local population, the people of the country serving in the military much like the conscript armies in Europe. And the conscripting of Egyptian Arab peasants into the Egyptian Army paved the way gradually in the future to the rise of these Arabs to power in Egypt. In the meantime under Muhammad Ali, the Egyptian Army was still officered by Turkish Circassian officers, that is, officers who remained from the Turkish bureaucracy and military or from the Mamluk armies of the past. Generally speaking, Egypt was not under the same military pressure as the Ottoman Empire. Where military reforms led to reforms in many other domains. In Egypt, it is military reform that is indeed, an inducement for reforms in other regions, in other spheres. But there is also a stress on economic development in Egypt, as distinguished from the system that took place in the Empire. Economic development in Egypt was a very important facet for the promotion of local wealth that would enable Muhammad Ali to maintain his power. Ministries were developed and provincial administration was advanced. Extensive duties were given to provincial officials, such as supervising conscription and taxation, public works and economic development. And of course, learning from Europe. The dispatch of students abroad to learn in Europe began with Muhammad Ali in 1813. Vocational schools were established in Egypt. A school for military officers in 1816. For accountants in 1826, for civilian administrators in 1829 and 1834. For doctors, the study of medicine in 1827, for the study of languages in 1835, an economic modernization was a critical source of resources for Muhammad Ali's regime. This meant the construction of irrigation works and the development of the market for export, especially cotton. Muhammad Ali established industrial monopolies that were entirely under his control. He also established rather ambitious factory industries that were in the end much less successful. These factory industries were established specially for army needs for the manufacture of products from iron, leather, and also even shipbuilding. There was a considerable increase in Egyptian trade. And the direction of trade was much more with Europe than with the Ottoman Empire, as had been the case before. By 1849 cotton accounted for 31% of Egyptian exports. All under the control of the central government of Muhammad Ali. Communications were improved very impressively. The use of steamboats on the Nile and in the canals. And the construction of new canals, such as the opening of the Mahmoudia Canal in 1819, linking Cairo with Alexandria. The population of Alexandria rose from 15,000 in 1805 to 150,000 in 1847. With a large number of foreigners. Egypt was transformed from a condition of anarchy as it had been before the Napoleonic invasion when Egypt was still under the reign of the Mamluks into a strong, centralized state which possessed unprecedented power over its people. During the period from 1811 until 1841, Muhammad Ali was engaged in a series of foreign military adventures. In 1811 to 1813 he took a successful campaign to subjugate the Wahabis, the Islamic fundamentalists in the Hijaz in order to strengthen the sultan's position in the region, operating on the sultan's behalf of course. And in 1818, he destroyed the Wahabi base in Central Arabi in the Najd. In 1839, he was once again occupied with the Arabian Peninsula. In 1820 to 1826 he brought the Sudan under Egyptian control, that didn't prove to be a very profitable conquest. During the 1820s he assisted the Sultan against the Greeks, but then as we have already seen, in 1831, he invaded Syria to fight against the Ottomans. And he might have considered advancing as far as Istanbul, if it weren't for his fear of the Russians and other Europeans. In 1840, he eventually had to settle only for Egypt, and its hereditary governorship, in his family. Malcolm Yaffe discusses the possible reasons for these adventurous undertakings of Muhammad Ali. And there are various theories that have been brought up to explain Muhammad Ali's behavior. One of these is that he was an Arab nationalist. That he had an Arab state in his mind. But this theory doesn't hold much ground, as Muhammad Ali didn't even speak Arabic, but Turkish and regarded Egyptian Arabs with a measure of contempt. And Arab nationalism in the 1830s or the 1840s was hardly spoken about at all. Arabism as an identity was a nationalism expressed at the very end of the 19th century and hardly at all in Muhammad Ali's time. There is another theory that he was an Egyptian nationalist. That Muhammad Ali was engaging in this expansion as an Egyptian ruler, adopting Egyptian national goals. It's true that Egypt was his base, but Muhammad Ali didn't have any notion of Egyptian nationalism. And Egyptian nationalism was also an identity which comes to the fore only at the end of the 19th Century, way beyond Muhammad Ali's time. A third theory sees Muhammad Ali acting as a, in the Muslim and Ottoman context. Seeking advancement within the Ottoman system, that is increasing his power as a local potentate within the Ottoman system. A fourth theory sees Muhammad Ali simply as a military adventurer. And I think the answer to this variation of theories is found in the combination of the third and the fourth, that is Muhammad Ali was a combination of one acting in the Muslim and Ottoman context, seeking to advance his own power within the Ottoman system. As an autonomous ruler within the Ottoman system and as a military adventurer. The ideas of nationalism that some wished to associate with him are a figment of their imagination.
