ABSTRACT
The stirrings of disillusionment which were perceptible at the beginning of the 1930s had, by that decade’s end, crystallized into widespread social discontent with the ‘liberal experiment’ initiated in the 1920s. All those associated with the regime – the politicians, the political parties, and even the palace – had been discredited as self-seeking and corrupt or stooges of the British; even the brief spell of euphoria which had greeted the resumption of parliamentary life after the Sidqi regime was brought down quickly dissipated. By the onset of the Second World War the social and political crises in Egypt had become entrenched and endemic. The 1940s thus represented the last paroxysms of life for this ill-fated political regime and witnessed the emergence of competing alternative forces as significant players in the field of power.
