Egypt declared independence in 1922, although Britain did not withdraw all its troops until after the 1956 Suez Crisis.

The British occupation saw an increase in archaeological fieldwork, tourism, and irrigation projects to boost Egypt’s cotton production and exportation. Britain won, restored the Khedival authority in Cairo, and established a ‘veiled protectorate’ over Ottoman-Egypt until the First World War. The British military occupied Egypt in 1882 to protect financial interests in the country, culminating in a violent war. Dissatisfaction with European and Ottoman rule led to a nationalist revolt in 1879. Isma’il Pasha sold Egypt’s shares of the Suez Canal Company to Britain in 1875 in the wake of a financial crisis. Shortly thereafter, French investors financed the construction of the Suez Canal to connect the Mediterranean and Red Seas. From 1852, Britain kept an increased presence in northern Egypt to maintain the overland trade route to India and to oversee the construction of the Cairo–Alexandria railway, the first British railway built on foreign soil.

The first Arabic-speaking country to experience overlapping colonial encroachments by European powers, Egypt became an autonomous state within the Ottoman Empire under the rule of Muhammad Ali Pasha (1805-1848) and his male successors. Egypt held particular interest for Victorians as a strategic gateway to the Orient.

British influence in egypt today