British Imperialism In Egypt In The Early 20th Century

The British regime’s style of ruling Egypt was backed by the idea of imperialism which was not new for Britain in the early 20th century. Egypt was nothing more than another British colony in the Middle East. The British looked down on the Egyptians and believed that, while they may not have been at an intellectual disadvantage compared to the Brits, they still were not capable of governing themselves. For these reasons, Britain made Egypt a British colony in 1882 and had no intention of turning it into an independent country. Egypt had an active nationalist movement fighting for independence, but, Britain did not accept the movement as legitimate because the Egyptian race was deemed incapable of running its own government. The British, for this reason, used a few different modes of repression to attempt to keep the Egyptians under their control, including shooting protesters, controlling the press, and declaring martial law.
This was one of the easiest ways for Britain to fight the nationalists, but, it proved to not be the smartest. The machine gun was often used in these situations and, many times, innocent people in the area were killed, along with many protestors. The British soldiers were not very careful when they shot and they often harmed others who were not intended to be killed. For example, there was an instance where a group of people were shot while leaving a mosque because the British confused them with protestors. Another time, a stray machine gun bullet struck and killed a man watching the protests from his window. Those killed, especially those who were innocent, became sources of inspiration for the nationalists and made them a larger problem for Britain. These issues certainly did not help the British to change the nationalist opinion of the Egyptian