ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that the existence and implementation of martial law was hardly temporary in Egypt; instead, it was an integral feature of the wartime state, one that provided the civil and military authorities with the rationale for consolidating and maintaining their power. The declaration of martial law was bound up with Britain’s formal assertion of sovereignty over Egypt and was instrumental to the assertion of sovereignty itself. A reconsideration of martial law is therefore necessary for not only understanding the nature of the occupation but also for how it facilitated the creation of a wartime state that transformed all aspects of Egyptian life. With the establishment of martial law and the protectorate, the Egyptian government issued a number of emergency legal measures intended to clamp down on political dissent. When examining the historiography of the Great War in Egypt, the decision to declare martial law is glossed over or briefly mentioned.
