ABSTRACT
Egypt's national movement, aiming at its liberation, took the British by surprise. The March riots erupted unexpectedly. On December 18, 1914, the Asquith government proclaimed that Egypt had become a British protectorate. It changed the legal status of Egypt and detached the country from Turkey permanently. The Egyptians had reason to believe that the Protectorate was only temporary - a wartime measure of sorts. When they realized after the war that the British showed no enthusiasm for implementing their publicly pronounced obligation, a crisis in Anglo-Egyptian relations was bound to come. Additional reasons exacerbated the antagonism against the British. The civilian population was very much inconvenienced by the massive pressure of the imperial troops. The Foreign Office, under Curzon's control while Balfour was in Paris, rejected out of hand the idea of an Egyptian delegation coming to London or Paris.
