ABSTRACT
The political and financial reasons for peace were matched by military reasons, for if the British would not negotiate, they could no longer fight. Popham could not play the geopolitical part he had given to himself, owing to his failure to reach the Red Sea in time to blockade the French army, had it retreated from Alexandria and Cairo by way of Upper Egypt, or to open the way for British trade. Popham and Wellesley represented alternative geopolitical views of the Middle East as a bridge or as a barrier. The British template remained unchanged, because nothing happened to compel the British to make changes. Ronald Robinson and John Gallagher once sparked a long-running debate on the question whether the British, fearful in the 1890s of the Franco-Russian Alliance and the price Germany would ask for cooperation, deserted Constantinople for Cairo.
