ABSTRACT
Before McMahon reached Cairo, in reaction to the Ottoman Empire entering the First World War on the side of Germany, General ‘Conky’ Maxwell, Commander-in-Chief of British forces in Egypt, had proclaimed martial law on 3 November 1914, outlawing nationalist activities and suppressing the nationalist papers, Al Liwa’ and Al Garidah. Britain declared war on the Porte on 5 November. The following day, Maxwell announced that no assistance from Egypt would be called for in the conduct of the war. On 18 December, after much hesitation over the advisability or otherwise of annexing the country and, Cromer claimed, ‘deferring to local opinion’, which argued against it,2 Britain declared Egypt a Protectorate – known for want of a more technically appropriate name as the Velvet Protectorate – which was no longer to be under even the titular suzerainty of Istanbul. ‘The tie with Turkey’, Cromer generalised, had ‘never been of the smallest benefit to Egypt or to the Egyptians.’3
