(navigation image) Search: Advanced Search Anonymous User (login
or join us) See other formats  Full text of "The Egyptian
Problem"  the abandonment of all claims to Syria, a Firman
making the Pashalik of Egypt hereditary in his family and
autonomous. Egyptian Nationalists make great play with the
autonomy which Mehemet Ali wrung out of the Sultan. But they
forget that it was subject Xo many not unimportant reservations
which effectively clipped the old lion's claws. The strength of
the military and naval forces he was henceforth allowed to
maintain was very drastically reduced. He remained a vassal of
the Ottoman Empire, and in its official hierarchy the rank
assigned to him was actually inferior to that of the Sheikh-ul-
Islam and of the Grand Vizier—as Abdul Hamid was fond of
reminding the ex-Khedive Abbas when his visits to Constantinople
happened to be inopportune. Mehemet Ali was then over seventy,
and he never recovered from the blow that had shattered the
ambitions of a lifetime. He had travelled a lon