SOAS Research Online

Abstract

Although Anglo-Egyptian negotiations began in 1920, it was only in 1936 that a treaty was concluded. This was mainly due to the radical change of the Wafd's tactics in the 1930's from extremism to moderation. Chapter I suggests the reasons for this and describes the successful attempts of the wafd to persuade the Egyptian public to accept an alliance with Britain. Though signs of the Fascist imperialist aims had begun to appear in the mid 1930's, Nahhas and his colleagues do not appear to have been convinced of a real and immediate Italian danger, and may have used the Abyssinian crisis as a face-saving pretext. Chapter II, discusses these topics and also the reasons for the desire in Britain to have a treaty with Egypt, Chapter III is devoted to a discussion of the reasons of the Palace and minority parties in Egypt, and of some extreme Conservatives in Britain, for opposing the 1936 negotiations, and their attempts to wreck them. Chapters IV, V, and VI give a detailed account of the military, Sudan, and the civil clauses of the treaty, and reactions to them in Britain and Egypt. The Appendix gives the texts of the 1936 treaty (with a map printed at the War Office to illustrate it) and an important memorandum handed by Nahhas, the Prime Minister, to Lampson, the High Commissioner, on 1 June 1936.