Egypt's khedives built the Suez Canal and borrowed their way into British control
In 1867 the Ottoman sultan gave Egypt's ruler Isma'il Pasha a new title, khedive, and near-total control of domestic affairs. Isma'il used that freedom for grand European-style modernisation, including the Suez Canal. The debts it ran up opened the door to foreign meddling and, in 1882, a British invasion.
The story starts with the French. Napoleon invaded Ottoman Egypt in 1798, and his army surrendered in 1801. Out of the turmoil rose Muhammad Ali, an Ottoman officer recognised as governor from 1805 to 1848. He crushed rival factions, pushed his rule into Sudan, Arabia and Syria, and remodelled the state with European advisers. Although forced out of Syria by 1841, he won the sultan's agreement that his descendants would inherit the governorship, founding a dynasty.
His successors kept modernising but leaned ever harder on foreign loans. Isma'il, a grandson educated partly in Paris, took power in 1863 and wanted Egypt to resemble a constitutional monarchy; in November 1866 he opened a consultative chamber of 75 elected delegates that met annually. Sultan Abdulaziz issued a decree on 8 June 1867 making him khedive, a title of Persian origin that set him above ordinary Ottoman governors. By doubling his tribute to Istanbul, Isma'il also secured succession by primogeniture, and a further decree in 1873 let him borrow abroad and enlarge his army without limit.
The Suez Canal opened in 1869, and Egyptian power stretched down the Red Sea and into northeastern Africa, peaking with Isma'il's push into Equatoria before the Mahdist uprising in Sudan from 1881 brought setbacks. The price was ruinous debt, which gave European powers growing leverage over Egyptian affairs.
Resentment of that influence fed a nationalist movement, the Urabi revolution, between 1879 and 1882 under Isma'il's son and successor Tawfiq. Britain invaded in 1882, crushed the revolt and took control of the country. The formal Ottoman tie survived on paper until 1914, when Britain cut it and unilaterally declared a protectorate, the Sultanate of Egypt.
Source: Khedivate of Egypt
