State crisis in Egypt 1942
The state crisis in Egypt in 1942 was a series of political clashes between the Egyptian-Sudanese King Faruq , the Wafd party under their party leader Mustafa an-Nahhas Pascha and the former colonial power Great Britain in the spring of 1942 during the Second World War . It was the third major crisis in the Kingdom of Egypt since it was founded in 1922.
Course of the crisis
Beginning
In June / July 1940, after the fascist Kingdom of Italy entered the war, the Kingdom of Egypt was occupied by Great Britain, which was based on the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936.
Despite the occupation and the Italian invasion of September 1940, Egypt's political system remained formally in tact as it had been since the 1923 Constitution . Great Britain forced the removal of Prime Minister Ali Maher Pascha , but otherwise did not interfere in day-to-day political affairs. On November 15, 1940, King Faruq Hussein appointed Sirri Pasha Prime Minister. Like his predecessors Ali Maher and Hassan Sabry Pascha , the latter pursued a strictly neutral foreign policy, but showed sympathy for the Axis powers . Nevertheless, internal tensions increased in the country and the population split into an axis-friendly and allied camp.
At the beginning of February 1942, when the German Africa Corps began a successful offensive towards Egypt, Faruq wanted to replace Hassan Sabry with Ali Maher, but then decided to keep the previous government in office, which could not rely on a parliamentary majority . When the Wafd party got wind of this, it protested and called for a government under Mustafa an-Nahhas Pasha.
British intervention
After the crisis began, the British government under Winston Churchill intervened. Through her ambassador, Sir Miles Lampson , she asked the king to choose between a Wafd government under Mustafa an-Nahhas or a Wafd coalition government under Hussein Sirri Pasha. Great Britain wanted to win over the Egyptian-Sudanese population, in which the Wafd party was very popular, and convince Egypt, which had the most powerful army in the Middle East before the war , to join the war on the side of the Allies. The influence of the axis-friendly forces around King Faruq should also be eliminated.
Faruq hesitated and tried to postpone the appointment of Mustafa an-Nahhas. Lampson finally decided to put the king under pressure by threatening his deposition. At first the monarch was not impressed and withstood the pressure. Because of his popular authority , some members of the British government also expressed concern. Lampson won the support of Oliver Lyttelton , who was then Minister of State for the Middle East, and was able to increase the pressure on Faruq.
On the night of February 4, 1942, General Robert Stone , the Commander in Chief of the British Forces in Egypt, surrounded the Abdeen Palace , the official royal residence of Faruq in Cairo , with soldiers and tanks. All connections of the king to the outside world were cut, so that he could not call the army or the royal guard for help. Lampson presented Faruq with a completed declaration of abdication, which had been drawn up by Sir Walter Monckton . Overwhelmed, Faruq gave in and appointed Nahhas head of government.
consequences
British intervention sparked outrage in large parts of the local population. The internal disputes reached civil war-like conditions. There were demonstrations in which solidarity with the king and the Axis powers was expressed, acts of sabotage and attacks on British facilities in the country. Parts of the Wafd party also condemned British politics. Despite its victory in the parliamentary elections of February 24, 1942, the party lost support from the majority of civilians as well as the Egyptian military because of its cooperation with the British. During the war it increasingly became a symbol of collaboration with the British. Islamist forces such as the Muslim Brotherhood or the Young Egyptian Party fueled the anti-monarchist mood in their favor and called for the proclamation of an Islamic republic . Due to the tense situation, Mustafa an-Nahhas began to rule largely dictatorially and suspended parliament. But the country found no calm.
In July 1942, Faruq, urged by his axis-friendly advisor and the military, instructed two Egyptian military pilots to fly over the British-German lines in Egypt to inform the General Staff of the German troops in North Africa about British positions. From then on, Egypt regularly delivered espionage information to the German Reich through its consul in Istanbul . The king ordered the Egyptian general staff to establish contact with the German and Italian staff and, together with his most important advisor, Ali Maher, established contacts with the National Socialists , but rejected their radical anti-Semitism and the Holocaust .
In October 1944, Faruq ousted the party from government and appointed Ahmad Mahir Pasha from the Saadian institutionalized party as prime minister. On February 24, Egypt told the German Reich and Japan war and forced the withdrawal of 1,946 British. The Egyptian-British relations remained permanently damaged by the crisis.
See also
- State crisis in Egypt 2013/2014
- Sudan crisis
- State crisis in Egypt 1928
- State crisis in Egypt in 1952
literature
- Charles D. Smith: February 4, 1942: Its Causes and Its Influence on Egyptian Politics and on the Future of Anglo-Egyptian Relations, 1937-1945 , International Journal of Middle East Studies . Cambridge University Press, 1979.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Dolf Sternberger, Bernhard Vogel, Dieter Nohlen, Klaus Landfried (Eds.): The election of parliaments and other state organs / Volume II: Africa: Political organization and representation in Africa De Gruyter, 1978, ISBN 978-3-11 -004518-5 , p. 253.
- ^ The Chronicle: History from the 20th Century to the Present , Wissenmedia, 2006, ISBN 978-3577146418 , p. 296.
- ^ Dolf Sternberger, Bernhard Vogel, Dieter Nohlen, Klaus Landfried: The election of parliaments: Volume II: Africa, first half volume . 1978, p. 294.
- ↑ Hitler - King of Hearts ( Memento of the original from March 24, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
