Congratulations, your Majesty, for...giving Egypt to an Albanian?

Viscount Palmerston to Queen Victoria

Carlton Terrace, 1st February 1841

Viscount Palmerston presents his humble duty to your Majesty, and in submitting this letter from Earl Granville, which coupled with the despatches [sic] from Sir Robert Stopford virtually show that the Turkish Question is brought to a close, begs most humbly to congratulate your Majesty upon this rapid and peaceful settlement of a matter which at different periods has assumed appearances so threatening to the peace of Europe.

********

(Muhammad Ali Pasha, part Peter the Great, part Joseph Stalin, part Leopold II of Belgium and all around despot.  Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Lord Palmerston is the origin of today’s entry, a peer who was something of a jack-of-all trades in the Victorian government, serving at various times as Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition, Home Secretary, among others.  Palmerston was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in 1841.   During his time in office, Palmerston helped bring some protection to child queens Maria II of Portugal and Isabella II of Spain as well as (however uneasy) peace in the region.  He also participated in establishing the Kingdom of Belgium and in acquiring Hong Kong and forcing Chinese trade with Britain. 

But of greatest interest in 1840 and into 1841 was the Oriental Crisis of 1840, a political issue that was part of the larger Egyptian-Ottoman War.  In 1840, Egypt was technically still part of the Ottoman Empire, although it had been ruled semi-independently by a group of Egyptian nobles up until the end of the eighteenth century.  Following a brief period of French imperial rule, Egypt came under control of an Albanian-Ottoman military commander, Mehmet Ali Pasha or Muhammad Ali Pasha.  (Muhammad and Mehmet are spelled the same way in Arabic and Turkish, and there is apparently some disagreement on which is correct.  So I’m just going to call him MAP to split the difference.  It’s also much easier to type.)

Anyway, MAP had something of a Robin Hood/Pablo Escobar appeal to ordinary Egyptians who were sick of being passed around like a disease among the French, the Ottomans, and the nobility.  MAP was a foreigner, but a common man who apparently had some charm and excellent PR skills.  And so over the next thirty odd years, MAP became a leader who was sort of a combination of Peter the Great (he wanted to European-like militia in Egypt) and Joseph Stalin (collectivization of land and forced labor are AWESOME!).  So in other words, MAP was smart and ambitious, but not a guy you’d want as a boss.

In 1825, MAP provided assistance to the Ottomans fighting the Greeks in their war for independence.  MAP agreed to send his son Ibrahim to help, but only on the condition that MAP would receive Crete, Cyprus, Syria, and a chunk of southern Greece as his own personal domain.  In other words, MAP was trying to do what Leopold II of Belgium did in the Congo before Leopold was even born.  Initially Ibrahim was a smashing success in Greece until he was finally stopped for good near Mani, Greece. 

The war ended in Greek independence in 1832.  MAP thought he was still owed his territory because he did help as planned, but the Ottomans refused to give it to him.  So MAP decided to take Syria by force, capturing it from a very weakened Ottoman army.  This sparked the aforementioned Egyptian-Ottoman War, in which MAP’s forces (led again by Ibrahim) tore through the Ottoman military so definitively that by the summer of 1840 the entire Ottoman navy ended up defecting in fear and exhaustion.   

Although Britain, Russia, Prussia, Austria, and France had had some involvement in the area since the Greek war, MAP’s annihilation of the Ottomans made the European powers decide that it was finally time for an intervention.  (Right now I’m imagining Victoria, Tsar Alexander I of Russia, Ferdinand I of Austria, Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, and Sultan Abdul Mejid sitting around on couches, tearfully reading letters to a surly MAP of how his addiction to power had hurt him, and that he needed to go to rehab NOW or lose them forever.) The French had ambitions of their own in North Africa and had warmed up to the idea of siding with MAP against the Ottomans.  But when France realized that all of the other powers supported the Ottomans, the French relented and joined in the plans to halt MAP’s ambitions.

MAP was offered complete control of Egypt, Sudan, southern Syria, and part of modern day Israel as part of the Convention of London.  Signed in July 1840, the Convention stipulated that these territories would still technically be part of the Ottoman Empire, but MAP and his heirs would have total control.  MAP had just ten days to accept; if he delayed he would lose the Syrian portion of his proposed territory.  If he delayed ten more days, the entire deal was off.  MAP did not provide an answer, still believing that the French ambitions in Africa would cause them to jump ship and support his cause.  British and Austrian forces wasted no time in going after MAP, finally forcing him to surrender in Acre, Palestine in November 1840. 

MAP did indeed lose Syria and Crete and had to shrink his mighty military down to 18,000, but he and his heirs kept control of Egypt and Sudan.  MAP had gotten what he’d wanted, although his territory was not quite as large as he’d originally hoped.  This war over Egypt and Syria had also put one more giant chink in the armor of the once-mighty Ottoman Empire, now earning it the title of the “sick man of Europe.”

The Stopford to whom Palmerston mentions was Admiral Sir Robert Stopford, the British admiral who had led the forces that eventually took down MAP.  This naval battle was also notable in that it was said to be the first in which a military force made full use of steam power.  The Earl Granville was Palmerston’s under-Secretary at the time.  It is assumed that the letter of Granville’s in which Palmerston refers is the final memorandum on the Oriental Crisis of 1840.

I found myself a little puzzled at exactly what Palmerston is congratulating Victoria for in terms of the peace reached.  In her available letters during this time, she gave one very brief mention of the whole affair to Uncle Leopold.  It’s safe to assume that she was well-versed in what was happened throughout the course of events, but it seems to me that the bulk of the work probably fell to Palmerston, Granville, and then onto the military.  But I suppose Palmerston’s letter to Victoria wouldn’t have been as well-received if he’d congratulated himself, would it?