Violence in Defence of Empire: The British Armyand the 1919 Egyptian Revolution

Abstract

Violence in Defence of Empire: The British Army and the 1919 Egyptian Revolution

The Egyptian revolution of spring 1919 posed a serious challenge to British imperial rule in the wake of the First World War, and has traditionally been examined solely through political, diplomatic and economic lenses. Within these approaches the counter-revolutionary response of the British colonial state, principally involving the use of military force, has been ignored. The British military campaign to suppress the 1919 Egyptian revolution was one of the most significant and violent operations launched to contain anti-colonial nationalist unrest during the 1919–1922 «crisis of empire» period. This article addresses the general development of the campaign to end the revolutionary upheaval and focuses in on two case studies to examine how British army units, often isolated from assistance, dealt with unrest. The violent nature of the campaign to suppress the revolution highlights the flexible and context specific nature of British imperial policing as it developed after 1918, and challenges assumptions on the «minimum necessary force» approach that has come to characterise Britain's small colonial wars of the twentieth century.