THE REOCCUPATION OF NORTHERN AFRICA 383 
and was succeeded by his brother, Ahmed Fuad, who, as 
Sir Valentine Chirol reported in 1920, was ‘‘universally 
disrespected.” ! 
During 1915 and 1916, there were military operations on 
the western frontier of Egypt and in Dar-Fur and the 
British and Turks were engaged near the Suez Canal; the 
British campaigns in Palestine, Mesopotamia, Gallipoli, and 
Saloniki were organized in part with Egypt as a base. 
While the British had announced that the burden of the war 
was not to fall on the Egyptians, they could not save them 
from the economic dislocation due to the war, and, in the 
stress of the great effort which all the Allied Powers made 
as the war progressed, almost inevitably the Egyptians 
were pressed into service. Before the long struggle termi- 
nated, hundreds of thousands of Egyptians? had been 
engaged as soldiers and laborers, and many had frozen in 
the winter campaign in Palestine and many more had died 
of disease. The £200,000,000 of military expenditures in 
Egypt did not reach the fellaheen or was swallowed up in 
the high cost of living, and the war ended with the mass of 
the Egyptian people — Bedouin, fellaheen, and townsmen 
— ready for the first time to join in any anti-British agita- 
tion which might be started. This change in the temper of 
the Egyptian people was not realized in London, or at 
least no change of policy had been formulated to deal 
with it. 
When, two days after the Armistice, the Prime Minister, 
Hussein Rushdi Pasha, suggested that he head a delegation 
to London, he was told that the time was inopportune, since 
the British Cabinet was too busy with preparations for the 
! The Times (London), April 13,1920. See also his letter in The Times of 
April 21, 1920. 
2 The Nationalists claim that the number reached 1,000,000, i.e., one 
thirteenth of the total population.