ABSTRACT
Starting with Robert Clive’s victory at Plassey in 1757, it took the British about a century to extend their rule to the whole of the Indian subcontinent. Throughout this period, and long after, Britain fought hard to keep open its shortest communication line to India via the Middle East. When Napoleon Bonaparte’s conquest of Egypt in 1798 disrupted this (sea-land-sea) route, the British allied with the Ottoman Turks to attack the French fleet off the Egyptian coast. France suffered defeat; and the Ottomans reclaimed Egypt. But the French continued to exercise political influence in Cairo. Rivalry between France and Britain – which persisted throughout the construction of the Suez Canal (1859–69) – was not resolved until 1882, when the British conquered Egypt.
