ABSTRACT
Wingate’s downfall, like McMahon’s, was occasioned by a combination of factors. There were both genuine and invented reasons for his failure. The former were not brought out into the open but had a cumulative effect, leading to the invocation of the latter as the excuses for his removal. Wingate himself, in voluminous efforts to justify himself and reclaim his job which flouted the maxim ‘never complain, never explain’, overlooked the fact that – whatever the rights and wrongs and whatever your defence – if they want to get rid of you, they will. He had not the slightest suspicion that the real reasons were those which made his disapproved dealings with Egyptian nationalism the excuse for his ouster, almost as though he had been promoted to be High Commissioner in Egypt purely with that purpose in mind. When the moment came, he found that the royal connections he had cultivated from remarkably early in his career and the contacts he had nurtured in high places – and which led him to think himself impregnable – were of absolutely no practical use to him, except perhaps over the question of his shocking pension situation.2 No one spoke up for him openly.
