Abbas II of Egypt

Abbas II Hilmi

Khedive of Egypt and Sudan

Portrait of Abbas Hilmi II
Reign 8 January 1892 – 19(20)(21) December 1914
Predecessor Tewfik Pasha
Successor Hussein Kamel (Sultan of Egypt)
Khedivate Abolished
Born 14 July 1874 (1874-07-14)
Alexandria, Khedivate of Egypt[1]
Died 19 December 1944(1944-12-19) (aged 70)
Geneva, Switzerland
Burial Unknown
Spouse Ikbal Hanem
Marianna Török
Issue Prince Muhammad Abdel Moneim
Dynasty Muhammad Ali Dynasty
Father Tewfik Pasha
Mother Emina Ilhamy

Abbas II Hilmi Bey (also known as ‘Abbās Ḥilmī Pasha) (Arabic: عباس حلمي باشا‎) (14 July 1874 – 19 December 1944) was the last Khedive (Ottoman viceroy) of Egypt and Sudan, ruling from 8 January 1892 to 19 December 1914.[2][nb 1] In 1914, after Turkey joined the Central Powers in World War I, the nationalist Khedive was removed by the British, then ruling Egypt, in favor of his more pro-British uncle, Hussein Kamel, marking the de facto end of Egypt's four-century era as a province of the Ottoman Empire, which had begun in 1517.

Early life

Abbas II, the great-great-grandson of Muhammad Ali, was born in Alexandria, Egypt on 14 July 1874.[4] He succeeded his father, Tewfik Pasha, as Khedive of Egypt and Sudan on 8 January 1892. As a boy he visited the United Kingdom, and he had a number of British tutors in Cairo including a governess who taught him English.[5] In a profile of Abbas II, the boys' annual, Chums, gives a lengthy account of his education.[6] His father established a small school near the Abdin Palace in Cairo where European, Arab and Turkish masters taught Abbas and his brother Prince Mehemet Ali. An American officer in the Egyptian army took charge of his military training. He attended school at Lausanne, Switzerland;[7] then, at the age of twelve he was sent to the Haxius School in Geneva, in preparation for his entry into the Theresianum in Vienna. In addition to Turkish, he had good conversational knowledge of English, French and German.[5][7] He didn't speak Arabic.

Reign

He was still in college in Vienna when he assumed the throne of the Khedivate of Egypt upon the sudden death of his father, 8 January 1892. He was barely of age according to Egyptian law; normally, eighteen in cases of succession to the throne.[5] For some time he did not cooperate very cordially with the British, whose army had occupied Egypt in 1882.[3] As he was young and eager to exercise his new power, he resented the interference of the British Agent and Consul General in Cairo, Sir Evelyn Baring, later made Lord Cromer.[7] At the outset of his reign, Khedive Abbas II surrounded himself with a coterie of European advisers who opposed the British occupation of Egypt and Sudan and encouraged the young khedive to challenge Cromer by replacing his ailing prime minister with an Egyptian nationalist.[3] At Cromer's behest, Lord Rosebery, the British foreign secretary, sent Abbas II a letter stating that the Khedive was obliged to consult the British consul on such issues as cabinet appointments. In January 1894 Abbas II, while on an inspection tour of Egyptian army installations near the southern border, the Mahdists being at the time still in control of Sudan, made public remarks disparaging the Egyptian army units commanded by British officers.[3] The British commander of the Egyptian army, Sir Herbert Kitchener, immediately offered to resign. Cromer strongly supported Kitchener and pressed the Khedive and prime minister to retract the Khedive's criticisms of the British officers.

By 1899 he had come to accept British counsels.[8] Also in 1899 British diplomat Alfred Mitchell-Innes was appointed Under-Secretary of State for Finance in Egypt, and in 1900 Abbas II paid a second visit to Britain, during which he said he thought the British had done good work in Egypt, and declared himself ready to cooperate with the British officials administering Egypt and Sudan. He gave his formal approval for the establishment of a sound system of justice for Egyptian nationals, a great reduction in taxation, increased affordable and sound education, the inauguration of the substantial irrigation works such as the Aswan Low Dam and the Assiut Barrage, and the reconquest of Sudan.[7] He displayed more interest in agriculture than in statecraft. His farm of cattle and horses at Qubbah, near Cairo, was a model for agricultural science in Egypt, and he created a similar establishment at Muntazah, just east of downtown Alexandria. He married the Princess Ikbal Hanem and had several children. Muhammad Abdul Mun'im, the heir-apparent, was born on 20 February 1899.

Although Abbas II no longer publicly opposed the British, he secretly created, supported, and sustained the Egyptian nationalist movement, which came to be led by Mustafa Kamil. He also funded the anti-British newspaper Al-Mu'ayyad.[3] As Kamil's thrust was increasingly aimed at winning popular support for a National Party, Khedive Abbas publicly distanced himself from the Nationalists. Their demand for a constitutional government in 1906 was rebuffed by Abbas II, and the following year he formed the National Party, led by Mustafa Kamil Pasha, to counter the Ummah Party of the Egyptian moderates.[3][9] However, in general, he had no real political power. When the Egyptian Army was sent to fight Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi in Sudan in 1896, he only found out about it because the Austro-Hungarian Archduke Francis Ferdinand was in Egypt and told him after being informed of it by a British Army officer.[10]

His relations with Cromer's successor, Sir Eldon Gorst, however, were excellent, and they co-operated in appointing the cabinets headed by Butrus Ghali in 1908 and Muhammad Sa'id in 1910 and in checking the power of the Nationalist Party. The appointment of Kitchener to succeed Gorst in 1912 displeased Abbas II, and relations between the Khedive and the British deteriorated. Kitchener, who exiled or imprisoned the leaders of the National party,[3] often complained about "that wicked little Khedive" and wanted to depose him.

On 25 July 1914, at the onset of World War I, Abbas II was in Constantinople and was wounded in his hands and cheeks during a failed assassination attempt. On 5 November 1914 when Great Britain declared war on Turkey, he was accused of deserting Egypt by not returning home forthwith. The British also believed that he was plotting against their rule,[7] as he had attempted to appeal to Egyptians and Sudanese to support the Central Powers against the British, so when the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers in World War I, the United Kingdom declared Egypt a Sultanate under British protection on 18 December 1914 and deposed Abbas II.[3][11] During the war, Abbas II supported the Ottomans, including leading an attack on the Suez Canal. He was replaced by the British by his uncle Hussein Kamel from 1914 to 1917, with the title of sultan.[3][9] Hussein Kamel issued a series of restrictive orders to strip Abbas II of property in Egypt and Sudan and forbade contributions to him. These also barred Abbas from entering Egyptian territory and stripped him of the right to sue in Egyptian courts. This did not prevent his progeny, however, from exercising their rights. Abbas II finally accepted the new order on 12 May 1931 and formally abdicated. He retired to Switzerland, where he wrote The Anglo-Egyptian Settlement (1930)[8] and died at Geneva on 19 December 1944, aged 70.[7][nb 1]

Marriages and issue

His first marriage in Cairo on 19 February 1895 was to Ikbal Hanem (b. Crimean Peninsula, Russian Empire, 22 October 1876 - d. Jerusalem, 10 February 1941), and they had six children - two sons and four daughters:

His second marriage in Çubuklu, Turkey on 1 March 1910 was to Hungarian noblewoman Marianna Török de Szendrö, who took the name Zübeyde Cavidan Hanım (b. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S., 8 January 1874 - d. aft. 1951). They divorced in 1913 without issue.

Honours

Honours
date Award Nation Ribbon
1890 Order of the Polar Star, Grand Cross Sweden
1891 Order of Franz Joseph, Grand Cross Austria-Hungary
1891 Order of St Michael and St George, Knight Grand Cross (Honorary) United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
1892 Order of the Bath, Knight Grand Cross (Honorary) United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
1892 Légion d'honneur, Grand-Croix France
1892 Order of the Dannebrog, Grand Cross Denmark
1892 Order of the Netherlands Lion, Knight Grand Cross The Netherlands
1895 Order of the Medjidie, 1st Class Ottoman Empire
1895 Order of Osmanieh, 1st Class Ottoman Empire
1897 Order of Leopold, Grand Cross Austria-Hungary
1897 Order of Chula Chom Klao, Knight Grand Cordon Kingdom of Siam
1900 Royal Victorian Order, Knight Grand Cross (honorary) United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
1905 Royal Victorian Chain United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland
1905 Order of Charles III, Grand Cross Kingdom of Spain
1905 House and Merit Order of Peter Frederick Louis, Grand Cross Grand Duchy of Oldenburg
1905 Saxe-Ernestine House Order, Grand Cross Duchy of Saxe-Altenburg, Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and Duchy of Saxe-Meiningen[nb 2]
1905 Order of Albert, Grand Cross Saxony
1905 Order of the Redeemer, Grand Cross Greece
1905 Order of Prince Danilo I, Knight Grand Cross Montenegro
1905 Order of Carol I, Grand Cross Romania
1905 Order of Pius IX, Knight Grand Cross Vatican[nb 3]
1905 Order of Saint Stephen, Grand Cross Austria-Hungary
1908 Order of St. Alexander Nevsky, Knight Russia
1908 Order of Saint Stanislaus (Imperial House of Romanov), Knight Russia
1908 Order of the Royal House of Chakri, Knight Kingdom of Siam
1911 Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus, Knight Grand Cross Italy
1911 Order of Ludwig, Grand Cross Grand Duchy of Hesse
1911 Order of Leopold, Grand Cordon Belgium
1911 Order of the Star, Grand Cross Ethiopia
1913 Order of Ouissam Alaouite, Grand Cross Morocco
1914 Order of the Black Eagle, Grand Cross Albania
1914 Order of the Red Eagle, Grand Cross with Collar Prussia
1914 Order of the Exalted, Grand Cordon Sultanate of Zanzibar

Ancestry

Notes

  1. 1 2 Sources give different dates for the death of Abbas. Some state that date as 20 or 21 December 1914.[3]
  2. ↑ These three duchies were small independent free states that became part of the German Empire before World War I.
  3. ↑ The Vatican City did not officially exist as a nation until 1929.

Footnotes

References

Further reading

External links

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Abbas II of Egypt
Born: 14 July 1874 Died: 19 December 1944
Regnal titles
Preceded by
Tewfik Pasha		 Khedive of Egypt and Sudan
7 January 1892 – 19 December 1914 		Deposed
British intervention during World War I
Succeeded by
Hussein Kamel
as Sultan of Egypt and Sudan
Titles in pretence
Loss of title
Deposed by United Kingdom
 — TITULAR —
Khedive of Egypt and Sudan
19 December 1914 – 19 December 1944		 Succeeded by
Muhammad Abdul Moneim
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