India, Egypt And Sudan Up To 1914 (1/2) Flashcards

Question

What was the situation in Sudan by 1895?

Answer 1

• The Mahdist revolt against the Egyptian government in the Sudan, which had broken out in 1881 and brought about the death of General Gordon at Khartoum in 1885 had left the area in a weakened state • Khalifa Abdullah succeeded the Mahdi and tried to bring the peoples of the Sudan together under his leadership but the state was plagued by war from internal resistance fighters, disease and famine

Answer 2

• Gladstone had always intended to withdraw British troops from Egypt as soon as it was safe. However, Sir Evelyn Baring said that a British evacuation policy for Egypt would be impossible because there was no one who was sufficiently strong or popular to hand the power to. With the crumbling of the Ottoman Empire Egypt became more vital to Britain year by year and by 1889 Salisbury (who became Conservative PM in 1885) accepted Egypt was a permanent responsibility and a first priority in British policy – so naturally that the territories to the south of Egypt were high priority too • Britain was also concerned about French and German expansion inland in East Africa fearing that the flow of the Nile could be artificially stopped with the result that Egypt’s agriculture would be destroyed and the country ruined • Between 1888 and 1898 the headwaters of the Nile were the prize in an extended game of chess played by the governments of Britain, Germany, Italy and France and King Leopold II of the Belgians • Salisbury, therefore, signed a treaty with the Germans in 1890 where they agreed to take Tanganyika while the British took Kenya and Uganda. In 1894, King Leopold pledged not to push his estate’s boundaries to the Upper Nile. Italian expansion on the Red Sea coast at Massawa was regarded as beneficial by the British since it diverted the Khalifa’s attention from the Egyptian borders and Britain had encouraged Italian ambitions there since 1885, in gratitude they promised in 1891 to keep clear of the Nile Valley. However, the Italian forces were defeated as Adowa in 1896, whilst trying to seize Abyssinia so the divisionary help was lost • Salisbury now had an excuse for a British campaign in the Sudan – it could be sold to the public as a campaign to aid Italy and uphold European civilisation against African barbarianism. It also welcomed the opportunity to avenge general Gordon and, as the French remained hostile the possibility of a French intrusion was one of the reasons why the government sanctioned the first stage of the conquest of the Sudan in March 1896

Answer 3

• General Sir Herbert Kitchener, head of the Egyptian army in 1896, was given orders to penetrate Sudanese territory as far as Dongola. Kitchener was determined to go further take Khartoum and conquer the whole region. Kitchener had little imagination and less education. He treated troops as mere cogs in a military machine – he was ‘never seen to address or even notice a private soldier’. Kitchener was a complex character. He was not without a sense of humour: cursed with poor eyesight all his life, he was such a poor shot he named his gundogs Bang, Miss, and Damn. But he had met Gordon as a young soldier and the thought of avenging Gordon brought out the hard man in Kitchener. He encouraged his troops ‘to regard their enemy as vermin – unfit to live’ • He won a resounding success at the Battle of Omdurman 2 September 1898 – at a cost of fewer than fifty British/Egyptian dead there were 11000 Dervish killed and many of the wounded were either shot or left for dead. Winston Churchill condemned this ‘inhumane slaughter’. After the battle, Kitchener proceeded to order the destruction of the Mahdi’s tomb and carried off the Mahdi’s head as a trophy. Omdurman was tantamount to a massacre, which, more than any other encounter between European and native armies, illustrated the gulf between the technology of the industrialised powers and that of their opponents in Africa and Asia • The initial Egyptian expeditionary force of 10,000 was transported up the Nile by a fleet of pleasure steamers to Wadi Halfa. A railway was then constructed into the heart of the Dervish territory

Answer 4

• Salisbury ordered Kitchener to go to Fashoda on the headwaters of the Nile – where a French expedition under Major Marchand had arrived. The both pressed the nations’ claims to the area, Kitchener treated Marchand courteously and, tactfully, had the Egyptian flag rather than the British one hoisted over Fashoda. Kitchener won nothing but praise for his tactful handling of the Fashoda incident, however, Marchand was completely isolated but Kitchener could keep in touch with London via a telegraph cable on the bed of the Nile and the British had an overwhelming force • The British press, however, published that Britain and France were on the brink of war • Fortunately for Salisbury, faced with firmness and overwhelming force, Marchand withdrew, believing that he had upheld his own and his country’s honour. He had the wisdom to realise that by turning Britain into an enemy, perhaps even an ally of Germany, France’s power in Europe would be fatally determined and the French government was already facing internal problems. By an agreement in 1899, the French promised to stay out of the Nile Valley in return for territory in the west

Answer 5

• In 1899, there was an agreement between Britain and Egypt whereby Anglo-Egyptian Sudan was established • This would be administrated in an arrangement known as a condominium – Sudan would be run by the British with Egyptian support • Lord Kitchener was appointed as the first Governor-General (who officially ruled in the name of the Khedive of Egypt). He was succeeded by General Reginald Wingate from 1902 • Kitchener was rewarded £30000 for his work in Sudan. He contributed some of it to the setting up of the Gordon Memorial College at Khartoum which trained young Sudanese to run their own country • Despite Egyptian expectations, Britain frustrated ambitions for the unification of the two countries

Answer 6

• In the 1890s, political opposition to British rule grew amongst the educated Indian professional classes • An outlet for protest was founded in the emergence of the growth of nationalist newspapers • Both Bal Tilak, editor of Kesari, and Shivram Paranjee, founder of Kaal (in 1898) were imprisoned for stirring up hostilities • Tilak was the first leader of the Indian independence movement, and was known as ‘the father of the Indian unrest’. He formed a close alliance with many Indian National Congress leaders and Tilak was accused of inciting the murder of a medical officer • The popularity of Kaal led to Pranjee’s arrest for sedition in 1908. He served 19 months imprisonment and hard labour – released in 1910. The British authorities banned the paper and confiscated his writings • The Abhinar Bharat (Young Indian) organisation, founded by brothers Vinayak and Ganesh Damodar Savarkar in 1903, became the home for several hundred revolutionaries and political activists. Vinayak wrote regular newsletters to his counterparts in India as well as carrying out revolutionary propaganda in London. It established branches in several parts of India and carried out assassinations of British officials, including the district magistrate, Arthur Jackson, and a London based military advisor, Lieutenant-Colonel Curzon-Wyllie in 1909. Vinayak was charged with the Jackson murder and imprisoned in 1910. The society was formally disbanded in1952. • The partition of Bengal prompted the most vociferous opposition • Tilak was at the forefront of a swadeshi, or self-sufficiency, a campaign designed to undermine British rule • Petitions, protests and public boycotts of British goods took place • The 6-year campaign was successful in as much as Bengal was reunited in 1911. Its methods and principles greatly influenced the later campaigns of Gandhi

Answer 7

o Kitchener conquered the Egyptian Sudan – culminating in the Battle of Omdurman and the fall of Khartoum in 1898 o Many of the Sudanese did welcome the downfall of the Mahdist regime, which had severely damaged the Sudanese economy and see a population decline of 50% through famine, disease, persecution, and warfare. However, the arrival of the British meant little more than exchanging one oppressor for another o It took Britain more than 30 years to subdue the tribes in South Sudan. Britain attempted to create a modern government, introduce new penal codes, establish land tenure rules and a system of taxation for the first time in Sudan which incensed the Sudanese people. Tribes refused to renounce their customs and pay taxation; inter-tribal feuds persisted, bringing down the heavy hand of British law o A total of 33 punitive expeditions were mounted to force tribesmen to accept the new order and rebellious natives were often brutally treated o There were further Mahdist uprisings in 1900, 1902-3, 1904 and 1908. A series of swift public hangings accompanies the last as the British sought to make an example of the rebels – not even affording them a trial o The region did, however, experience considerable economic development in the hands of the British, particularly in the Nile valley. Telegraph and railway lines were extended to like key areas in northern Sudan and port Sudan opened in 1906, as the country’s principal outlet to the sea. In 1911, a joint government/private initiative set up the Gezira Scheme to provide high-quality cotton for British textile industry and there were also improvements in irrigation schemes

Answer 8

-The rebellion had begun among sepoys serving in the Bengal army. They were mainly peasant soldiers from North India and proud of their military status which set them above the ordinary labourers. However, in 1857, grievances about pay and changes to their condition of service exploded -The traditional explanation for the outbreak of the rebellion was that the cartridges in the new Enfield rifles they had been issued with had been greased in animal fat, which offended their religious sensibilities: for both Muslims and Hindus, contact with impure cow or pork fat was religiously unacceptable -However, the real triggers were the anger felt by landlords and nobles who had been deprived of their lands by Governor General Dalhousie, as well as long-standing social and cultural grievances relating to British rule

Answer 9

-The sepoys in Bengal refused to obey orders in Feb. 1857. Other battalions followed suit. At meerut, outside Delhi, sepoys turned on their British officers and a mob set upon local Europeans. Sepoys seized control in most of the Northern cities and there was a short lived attempt to resurrect the old Mughal emperor as a figurehead -British attempts as westernisation from the 1830s contributed to fears of cultural and religious attack, inflamed by the apparent imposition of caste breaking rules in the Indian army. -The sepoys were joined not only by sections of the urban population but also by rural populations -Some rebels were discontented landowners who had lost out under British rule, others were peasants who resented taxation or joined the rebellion to get back at feuding neighbours

Answer 10

-Although large areas of India were untouched by the rebellion, the cost in terms of human suffering was immense. The emperor’s sons were swiftly executed so that remaining rebels lost any hope of restoring the Mughal dynasty to rule over India -Delhi and Lucknow were devastated; villages burnt; rebels tortured and British officers, their wives and children murdered. -British rule was not entirely reasserted until June 1858 following a final battle at Gwalior, some 180 miles south of Delhi -If the rebellion had been precipitated by the increasing British presence and control, if not interference, in India, the post rebellion period produced more of the same -The post rebellion era saw Britain use India as a means to recoup the costs of suppressing the revolt- hence it’s rapid extension of the rail network and, for instance, of the tea trade

Answer 11

-If the relationship between ruler and ruled had been tense and antagonistic before the rebellion, this was of course further aggravated by the rebellion itself, British reprisals thereafter, and by reporting it received within Britain, which emphasised the violence of the Indian rebels, whilst ignoring much of the brutality of the British -Belief that the East could be ‘westernised’ was questioned and this fuelled the arrogance of British people buoyed up by social Darwinist theories of superiority. Although the British tried to act in a more religiously sensitive way after the rebellion, they also grew more aloof -Whereas the earlier years of the century had seen some degree of curiosity about and even admiration for the ‘exotic’ and unfamiliar Indian culture, after 1858 a greater degree of separation set in -Although the British liked to believe they were administering India fairly, they imposed legal systems which favoured themselves. These were far too complex and expensive to help the poor, particularly in matters of land tenure -Similarly the supposed equality of opportunity offered by British rule may have provided more educational opportunities for some of the wealthier Indians who formed the new professional classes, but it did little for the mass of peasants; and even those with education found it hard to obtain promotions beyond lower ranks of the colonial bureaucracy -Some Indian princes and large landlords supported the Raj. However, for more of the population, British rule was regarded with indifference or resentment- despite the colonial pageantry and displays which tried to suggest otherwise

Answer 12

-The British built railways- but these were gears to needs of control and trade; most villages lacked even mud roads -The British offered markets for Indian agricultural produce- but this encouraged specialisation in the higher value cash crops (rice and wheat) at the cost of lower value grains (rye, barley etc) which were the main food staple for most of the population. India became dependent on food imports and consumption per head declined -The British developed schemes for irrigation and land improvements- but these only took place where they supported British commercial interests and affected only 6% of the land -The British provided Indians with cheap British manufacturers- but India was unable to develop viable industries of it’s own and its economy was skewed -The British provided schools and universities- but only the privileged few could benefit; illiteracy remained widespread -The British provided jobs for Indians- on the railways, in the army, police and civil service and as clerks. However, only a minority of Indians could obtain such employment, which was often physically demanding and/ or racially aggravated -Poverty continued; death rates from famine were high

Answer 13

-Universities were established in Bombay, Madras and Calcutta in 1857 while elite schools such as Rajkumar college, Mayo college and Bombay’s cathedral school were set up in order to produce ‘Westernised oriental gentlemen’ -In the 30 years following 1857, some 60,000 Indians entered the universities, overwhelmingly in arts, but some 2000 in law -Of the 1712 Calcutta students to graduate by 1882, over a third entered government service and slightly more went into the legal profession -Graduates of the 3 universities by 1882 accounted for some 1100 appointments to government service -Social reformer Mary carpenter visited India four times between 1866 and 1875: she helped establish a corps of British teachers for India, girls’ schools in Bombay and Ahmedbadad, and a college to train female Indian teachers

Answer 14

-The greatest change to the Indian economy following the changes of 1858 was a growth investment- particularly in the railways, which were built more for strategic than economic purposes but which certainly helped stimulate trade and the development of previously inaccessible areas -Some European style factories were built although, since the bulk of manufactured goods came from Britain, there was virtually no heavy industry -Subsistence farming prevailed, although the number of tea plantations increased from just 1 in 1851 to 295 by 1871; and there was an increase in the domestic production of raw cotton for export to Britain in the 1880s and 1890s

Answer 15

Many British believed their ‘benign rule’ in India was a genuinely liberating experience for Indians. The Whig reformist T.B Macauley believed that educating Indians to ensure they became ‘English in taste, in opinions, in morals’, was sufficient to justify the British domination of India