Chapter I: Front Matter

Transcriber's Note:

Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as
possible, including non-standard transcriptions of Arabic and some
inconsistent hyphenation. Some changes of spelling and punctuation
have been made. They are listed at the end of the text.

Italic text has been marked with _underscores_.
OE ligatures have been expanded.

Secret History of the English Occupation of Egypt

BOOKS BY WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT

_PROSE_

THE FUTURE OF ISLAM 1882
IDEAS ABOUT INDIA 1885
THE SECRET HISTORY SERIES
I THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH OCCUPATION OF EGYPT 1907
II INDIA UNDER RIPON 1909
III GORDON AT KHARTOUM 1911
IV THE LAND WAR IN IRELAND 1912
V MY DIARIES PART I. [THE SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA] 1919
VI MY DIARIES PART II. [THE COALITION AGAINST GERMANY] 1920

_POETRY_

LOVE SONNETS OF PROTEUS 1880 THE WIND AND THE WHIRLWIND 1883 IN VINCULIS 1889 A NEW PILGRIMAGE 1889 ESTHER AND LOVE LYRICS 1892 GRISELDA 1893 SATAN ABSOLVED 1899 SEVEN GOLDEN ODES OF ARABIA 1903 POETICAL WORKS. A COMPLETE EDITION 1914

SECRET HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH
OCCUPATION OF EGYPT

Being a Personal Narrative of Events

By

WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT

NEW YORK ALFRED·A·KNOPF MCMXXII

COPYRIGHT, 1922,
BY WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT

_Published, October, 1922_

_Set up and printed by the Vail-Ballou Co., Binghamton, N. Y._
_Paper furnished by W. F. Etherington & Co., New York, N. Y._
_Bound by the Plimpton Press, Norwood, Mass._

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

When I first arranged with Mr. Blunt to publish _The Secret History of the English Occupation of Egypt_, I suggested that he write for the American Edition a brief foreword bringing the book into even closer relation to the Anglo-Egyptian situation as it stands today. He thought this idea a good one, and agreed to write such a note. But Mr. Blunt was born in 1840, and has for a number of years been in failing health. In June he wrote me that he was so ill as to be quite unable to finish the foreword, which he had actually commenced to write. He felt furthermore that any advantage the edition would gain by having a new preface by him would be more than counterbalanced by any delay in the appearance of the book "at the present extremely critical moment."

He remarked further: "What could I have said more appropriate today as a new preface than the few words which already stand as the short preface I set to the first edition of my _Secret History_ (published in London and which you reprint in this new edition). This and my poem _The Wind and the Whirlwind_ (which you also give as an Appendix). Both are absolutely true of the present shameful position of England in Egypt and the calamity so closely threatening her Eastern Empire. What could I say more exactly suited? This is the punishment we are reaping today for our sin of that sad morning on the Nile which saw the first English gun open its thunder of aggression just forty years ago at Alexandria in the name of England's honour. What could I add to my words of grief and shame then uttered and repeated here? Let these stand for my new preface. My day is done. Alas! that I should have lived to see those words come true of England's punishment, more than true."

A. A. K.