The opening of the Suez Canal: the procession of ships in the canal (The Illustrated London News Picture Library)
The city of Port Said in the twentieth century (© Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS)
The Canal Company was hindering Egyptian development. Because of the onerous burden of paying for those 177,692 shares, the government had tithed a large portion of its future revenue to the company. In time, the completed canal might generate substantial income for the government, but that lay years in the future. Ismail could not wait a decade or more to move the country in the direction he wanted it to go. International politics would not halt while Egypt tried to close the gap, and for every year Egypt dallied, it fell further behind Europe. Even with the surge of revenue from cotton, Ismail would not be able to fund his ambitions and pay for the shares unless he went deeply into debt. Though he did not mind the idea of loans, he feared the loss of autonomy. His predecessor’s commitment to the Canal Company hamstrung the Egyptian government. Ismail’s solution was to undo the harm by weakening the company and humbling Lesseps.
That did not mean abandoning the canal itself. The work had proceeded too far, and with Napoleon apparently in favor of its completion, Ismail did not want to incur the hostility of France. And he was not opposed to the idea of a Suez Canal, only to a canal controlled by foreign interests. The trick was to supplant Lesseps without alienating France or undermining the canal’s completion. Not an easy task, but one that Ismail had obviously mulled in private for some time, because, within hours of the succession, he already knew what he was going to do. On January 20, 1863, he invited the consuls of Europe and America to the Citadel in Cairo. It was the same spot where his grandfather had slaughtered the Mamelukes. Ismail had no such plan for the consuls, but what he did altered the political landscape almost as dramatically.
Addressing the curious assembly, he was self-effacing. “I am profoundly aware of the magnitude of the task that God has imposed upon me in recalling my uncle to him. I hope, under the auspices of His Imperial Majesty the Sultan, my august sovereign, that I will be able to fulfill my task with dignity. I have unequivocally decided to consecrate to the country that I am called to administer all the energy which I possess…. I know that the basis of all good administration is order and economy in finances.” For that reason, he announced that he would go beyond the bureaucratic reforms of Said and create a civil list. That would end the age-old custom of private payoffs and graft. Salaries of bureaucrats would be published, and appointments made solely on the basis of qualifications. That in itself was surprising. Even European nations that professed to honor the notion of a professional civil service rarely did so in practice, and in the United States it was not until the 1880s that civil-service exams replaced the spoils system and blatant favoritism. But the next thing Ismail said astonished the consuls. It was, he declared, his intention to abolish the corvée.
He made it clear that this was not a caprice. The system of forced labor might have worked in past eras, he said, but it now “prevented the country from developing as fully as it was capable of.” In an argument that drew on the best traditions of European liberalism, he spoke of the moral injustice that the corvée represented, about how it robbed the fellahin of their God-given dignity and their rights as human beings. British officials were delighted, and the English press began to write the canal’s obituary. “The work cannot be carried on in the future without enormous expense,” wrote The Standard. “The poor stockholders in France, Egypt, and Turkey are ruined. The affair on which they have set their hearts will be barren of profits.” The Spectator was equally convinced of the project’s demise. “As forced labor is now to cease,” it editorialized, “the canal ceases.”
Ismail assured the diplomatic community that his target was not the canal per se. “I am more canaliste than M. De Lesseps,” he told the French consul general, “but I am also of a more positive mind. I believe that no work is more grand, and that none will be more productive for Egypt. But at the present moment, its bases are uncertain and badly defined. I will affirm them, and then, surpassing my predecessor, I will push the works to their completion.” His ultimate goal may have been to wrest control of the company, but as a patient, methodical man, he fought only one major battle at a time. By presenting himself as a reformer of a forced labor system that was reviled in Europe, Ismail could claim to be motivated by morality. His timing was also impeccable. Earlier that month, Abraham Lincoln had issued the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing the slaves in the Southern United States. That had been reported throughout the world, and though the issuance of the proclamation did not lead to the immediate end of slavery, it had symbolic resonance. In a similar fashion, Ismail called for an end to the corvée, though he did not immediately halt the transport of fellahin to the canal zone.
Though he justified his opposition on moral grounds, Ismail’s true motives were more ambiguous. He had not taken a strong stance against the corvée before, and his personal irrigation projects had benefited from its use. Soon after announcing the abolition of the system, he did what people in positions of authority often do: he issued a “clarification.” He said that, while he opposed the frivolous, abusive, and exploitative use of the corvée, he believed that it could still be levied for public works that were essential for the common good. His later actions were consonant with a strong moral animus to human bondage. He aggressively extended Egyptian influence into the Sudan for the sole purpose, he said, of eliminating slavery in East Africa. Yet that also provided an unimpeachable rationale for increasing the size of his realm and collecting more taxes.
In truth, no one has any idea what Ismail felt in his heart about the corvée. Unlike Lincoln, he had not dedicated his life to ending forced labor, and his strong opposition came as a surprise. At best, his position was a combination of expediency, opportunism, and morality. Fighting the legitimacy of the corvée would loosen the hold of the company on Egypt and gain the sympathy of many Europeans. It was a brilliant tactic, and if it also soothed the conscience of the king, all the better.3
In February, Ismail left for Constantinople to get the sultan’s support. The trip went well, and Ismail was formally made viceroy at an investiture ceremony. Sultan Abdul Aziz was the same age as Ismail, and he had replaced his brother Abdul Mejid in mid-1861. Like Ismail, he was new to power and eager to make his mark. Breaking from tradition, Abdul Aziz began to travel abroad, and after hosting Ismail in Constantinople, he went to Egypt in April 1863. No Ottoman ruler had gone to Egypt since the conquest of the country by Selim I in the sixteenth century. Abdul Aziz treated the trip as an opportunity to remind the Egyptians that they were still part of the Ottoman Empire. Ismail looked on the visit as a chance not only to impress his overlord, but to alert him that Egypt could be a formidable competitor.
The sultan’s visit was one of the most lavish affairs of Ismail’s entire reign, surpassed only by the celebrations organized in 1869 for the opening of the canal. Each ruler had a specific agenda. Ismail wanted the sultan to grant him the right of succession from father to son. As it stood, the hereditary office of viceroy went to the oldest male of the family. The sultan wanted more tribute. Both anticipated protracted negotiations that would last months and probably years. These would be conducted by trusted retainers and ministers, and the two monarchs would not have discussed details. Instead, they toured the Pyramids, prayed at the tomb of Shaikh Badawi in Tanta, visited model farms, went to the antiquities museum run by Auguste Mariette, and attended one banquet after another. No record exists of what the two rulers discussed, but the Suez Canal was certainly part of the agenda. Abdul Aziz may have technically possessed the authority to determine what would be done, but that was not the point of going to Egypt. He was determined to shake things up in the empire, and he needed the revenue that Egypt provided. And though he was sultan, he was also a visitor, and he would not have been so impolite as to confront his host.
For the Suez Canal Company, these were painf
ul months. At the end of 1862, it had seemed that nothing could halt the canal’s progress. Said’s death shattered the status quo. Palmerston’s government was invigorated by Ismail’s stance. Lesseps was demoralized. In an attempt to placate Ismail and stroke his vanity, he announced that the company would name the city by Lake Timsah “Ismailia.” The viceroy may have been flattered, but his policies did not change. British officials throughout Europe and the Ottoman Empire took advantage of the situation. Once again, they raised the issue of the lands that had been granted to the company, and suggested to Ismail and to Abdul Aziz that giving the Canal Company sovereign land was humiliating, as well as illegal.
At first, Ismail listened politely to British advice, but he was offended by their presumption that they could question his legal right to do what he pleased in his own domain. He stuck to his initial strategy. He would fight the corvée rather than contest the legitimacy of the earlier concessions. He did not trust the British, and he did not believe that it was wise to attack directly a project that had the blessing of the French emperor. “Napoleon is not a man that one ought to offend, if one can avoid it,” he told a minister in Constantinople after the investiture ceremony. To make his position clear, Ismail issued two new firmans that reaffirmed many of the rights of the company that had first been granted by Said. He stipulated that the company would no longer be required to pay for the extension of the Sweet Water Canal to the port of Suez. Instead, the Egyptian government would take over the cost, and the company would forfeit the lands it would have controlled along the banks for that stretch. Ismail also confirmed the obligations of his government to pay for the shares that Said had purchased, though the payments were restructured to give his treasury greater flexibility to meet the installments.
The British were incensed. Bulwer called these new concessions “stupid and traitorous measures.” Palmerston’s ministers contended that Ismail was overstepping his authority. Only the sultan had the right to decide the fate of the canal, and the British hinted to Ismail, as they had to Muhammad Ali and to Said, that flouting the sultan could put his viceroyalty at risk. Ismail, however, ignored these warnings and pushed ahead. He began discussions with the company about ending the corvée, and to conduct the negotiations, he deputized one of his most talented diplomats, Boghos Nubar Nubarian.4
Nubar was a brilliant thirty-seven-year-old Armenian, born in Smyrna (now Izmir), on the Aegean coast of Turkey, to a family of what had been known in the Ottoman Empire as “dragomen.” Originally, the dragomen were simply translators, but over time they became vital intermediaries in all diplomatic and commercial interactions between the Ottomans and the Europeans. A dragoman was part diplomat, part counselor, and part translator, and because of their unique position, dragomen were quietly able to exercise enormous influence and accumulate immense wealth. Armenians and Greeks, who by virtue of ethnicity and religion were outsiders at the Ottoman court, excelled, and the official dragoman of the Porte was usually drawn from their number. Because they were Christian, Armenians and Greeks tended to be more accepted in Europe.
Though the term and the formal office of dragoman fell into disuse in the nineteenth century, the role remained. Nubar’s uncle served as Muhammad Ali’s translator, and he insisted that his nephew be equipped with the same skills. Nubar was sent to school in Switzerland and then went to college in Toulouse. He was adept at languages. In later years, it was rumored that he could speak as many as eleven; that may have been an exaggeration, but he did master Arabic, Turkish, French, English, Spanish, and German.
Nubar was more than a clever linguist, however. He was a cultural chameleon. Starting in the 1840s, he became the interlocutor of choice for the viceroys in delicate commercial negotiations. From an early age, he was privy to the inner circles of power. He moved as comfortably among the divans of Constantinople as he did through the salons of Paris. He dressed in the latest European fashion, though always with a maroon fez and always with the distinctive thick mustache of an Armenian gentleman. He could and did discuss world affairs with Palmerston and Stratford Canning de Redcliffe. He also could navigate through the labyrinthine financial and commercial mazes of Europe. He was a man of many countries, and he was embraced by rulers of many countries. Charming and erudite, he was one of those shadowy figures who wield power behind the scenes and without whom the gears of international relations would become hopelessly clogged.
That Nubar was able to serve successive viceroys was itself a minor miracle. From the time of the Mamelukes, Egyptian officials usually rose and fell with the ruler whom they served, and if they survived the change of regime, they were rarely appointed to positions thereafter. Nubar served not only the Europhilic Said and Ismail; he was also trusted by Abbas. It was a testament to Nubar’s skill and to his ability to secure patronage that he became one of the most influential members of Ismail’s court. He was nothing if not well connected. He married the daughter of an Armenian grandee in Constantinople, and her brother was close to Sultan Abdul Aziz himself. Nubar was Ismail’s best asset during the years of negotiations over the status of Egypt within the empire. With perfect pitch for the nuances of Ottoman politics, Nubar knew when to use silky words and when to offer bribes, and his connections to the Porte, in addition to his extensive experience in Europe, were invaluable.
Nubar, however, was no one’s servant. Though he rarely questioned his instructions, he frequently ignored them. By the end of his career, he had outlasted not just Said and Ismail but their successors as well. Ultimately, he did as much harm as good to the country he served. He helped precipitate the collapse of Ismail’s regime in the 1870s, and he then tried and failed to prevent a British invasion of Egypt in 1882. But even these upheavals were not fatal to his career. He went on to become prime minister, bridling under British control and the sycophancy of the Egyptian court, before succumbing at last to advancing age. His fifty-year career spanned the last half of the nineteenth century, and, determined that his legacy and vision be understood, he wrote his memoirs in the final years of his life. It was the rich, dense volume of a proud, bitter man, chronicling the rise and decline of the heirs of Muhammad Ali, written in elegant French, full of anger toward those, like Said and Ismail, who Nubar believed had led Egypt to penury and humiliation.
Nubar remained an Egyptian patriot. He worked tirelessly to construct a country that could withstand the cultural, financial, and political pressure of Europe. His idol, not surprisingly, was Muhammad Ali. He also respected Ismail’s father and Muhammad Ali’s son, Ibrahim. In Nubar’s eyes, they were men of great wisdom who had changed everything in the Near East, and part of their greatness lay in their recognition of the strengths of Europe. Like them, he hoped to take the best of European culture, adapt it to Egypt, and use it to fulfill Muhammad Ali’s dream of an “Arab Empire.” But Nubar believed that he was more capable of serving the interests of Egypt than any of Muhammad Ali’s children and grandchildren. If orders from Ismail would, in Nubar’s opinion, jeopardize Egyptian autonomy, he disregarded them. That should have doomed his career, and perhaps his life, but he made himself irreplaceable. No one had his connections within diplomatic circles, and during the first years of Ismail’s reign, he was indispensable not just in the struggle with the Canal Company but in negotiations with the Porte to transform Ismail from the sultan’s viceroy into an autonomous ruler only nominally under the Ottoman umbrella.
Nubar had three causes: the end of the corvée, the transformation of the Egyptian judicial system, and his own enrichment. He achieved all three by the mid-1870s. He was paid substantial sums by Ismail, and he also obtained payments from the enemies of Lesseps in the 1860s and from bankers and businessmen interested in Egyptian opportunities in the 1870s. His desire for wealth is not difficult to fathom. As an Armenian in an Arab and Turkish world, he saw wealth and the good will of the ruler as the only paths to power. His interest in reforming the judicial system was a reaction against the abuses of the capitulations that exempted Eur
opeans from Ottoman courts. European entrepreneurs who did business in Egypt could defraud Egyptians, knowing full well that their own consuls would never rule against them in the consular courts.
But Nubar’s reasons for fighting the injustice of the corvée are harder to fathom. Like Ismail, he seems to have been animated by a combination of morality and expediency. In his memoirs, he described the depredations that the fellahin faced when working on the canal. Subject to beatings by indifferent overseers, they also suffered from the knowledge that back home, their crops were left unattended and might not be salvageable, which meant more debt in order to pay for food for the rest of the year. “The fellahs,” he wrote to his wife in 1863, “work without pay, without food. What men! My God! They are separated for more than fifty days from their wives and children. I would like all of those who speak of how well they are treated to be treated themselves the same way.”
More than Ismail, Nubar may have genuinely empathized with the plight of the Egyptian fellahin. He had absorbed European liberalism while living in Western Europe, and forced labor was incompatible with that value system. He viewed the condition of the Egyptian peasantry with a mixture of disgust and compassion. Seeing how they were treated was a continual reminder of the wide gap between Egypt and Western Europe. Of course, had Nubar taken a more critical look at Europe, he would have noticed that the lot of the Welsh coal miner or the textile worker of Lille was not much better. What he noticed instead was European arrogance, which he hated. In letters to his wife, he raged at how they treated him and other “Orientals” as children in need of instruction. His ancestors had been kings and patriarchs while the French and English were still living in mud hovels! But he respected the material progress of Europe, and wanted the same for Egypt.
Parting the Desert Page 24