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Egypt
Formally independent under Britain's Unilateral Declaration of 28 February 1922, Egypt won full sovereignty only after the 1952 Free Officers' revolution, the 1954 evacuation agreement and the departure of the last British troops in June 1956.
- Independence
- June 18, 1956
- Before
- Kingdom of Egypt (British Suez Canal Zone base)
- Metropole
- United Kingdom
- Leader
- Gamal Abdel Nasser
- Transition
- Negotiated
- Movement
- Wafd Party (founded 1918); Free Officers Movement (1952)
“The British Protectorate over Egypt is terminated, and Egypt is declared to be an independent sovereign State.”
— British Government, delivered by High Commissioner Lord Allenby to Sultan Fuad, February 28, 1922
Occupation, Protectorate and the 1919 Revolution
Britain occupied Egypt in 1882, ruling behind the khedive while Egypt remained nominally Ottoman, and declared a formal protectorate in December 1914. When Britain exiled Saad Zaghloul and other Wafd leaders in March 1919, a nationwide revolution followed. On February 28, 1922, Britain unilaterally ended the protectorate and declared Egypt an independent sovereign state, but reserved four matters to itself: imperial communications, defence, the protection of foreign interests and minorities, and the Sudan.
A Constrained Kingdom, 1922–1952
Sultan Fuad became King Fuad I in March 1922, and a constitution followed in 1923. The Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936 ended the wider occupation but left British troops in the Suez Canal Zone. During the Second World War British forces returned in strength, and in February 1942 British tanks surrounded Abdeen Palace to force King Farouk to appoint a Wafd government. Defeat in the 1948 Arab–Israeli war, guerrilla attacks on British forces in the Canal Zone, the British assault on the Ismailia police on January 25, 1952 and the burning of Cairo the next day undermined the monarchy.
Revolution and Evacuation, 1952–1956
On July 23, 1952, the Free Officers overthrew Farouk, and the monarchy was abolished in June 1953. Muhammad Naguib became the first president, but Gamal Abdel Nasser emerged as the dominant figure and signed the evacuation agreement of October 19, 1954. The last British troops left in June 1956 (June 13 by most accounts), and on June 18 Nasser raised the Egyptian flag over Navy House at Port Said, the date the archive takes as the end of British military presence and Egypt's Evacuation Day. His nationalisation of the Suez Canal Company that July provoked the Anglo-French-Israeli invasion, whose failure signalled the decline of British power in the region.
Chronology
- September 1882 — British occupation begins after the Battle of Tel el-Kebir
- March 1919 — Revolution follows the exile of Saad Zaghloul
- February 28, 1922 — Britain's Unilateral Declaration of Egyptian independence
- August 26, 1936 — Anglo-Egyptian Treaty signed
- July 23, 1952 — Free Officers overthrow King Farouk
- June 18, 1956 — Evacuation Day: Nasser raises the flag at Port Said after the last British troops leave (June 13); the archive's independence date
- July 26, 1956 — Nasser nationalises the Suez Canal Company
Aftermath
The Suez Crisis made Nasser a champion of Arab nationalism and of the Non-Aligned Movement. Egypt backed liberation movements across Africa, hosted exiled nationalists in Cairo through the government-funded African Association (founded 1955) and was a leading member of the radical Casablanca Group formed in 1961. It united with Syria as the United Arab Republic from 1958 to 1961.
Legacy
Egypt's long assertion of sovereignty, from the 1919 revolution to the Suez Crisis of 1956, helped dismantle British dominance in the region. It made the country a centre of Arab nationalism and Non-Alignment and an important early supporter of liberation movements elsewhere in Africa.