IOR/L/PS/10/467

Papers concerning Britain’s declaration of Egypt as a British Protectorate in November 1914. The volume includes:

• Correspondence relating to Britain’s annexation of Cyprus in November 1914, and the status of Cypriots and Egyptians in Cyprus as British subjects (ff 120-125).
• Papers concerning the status of Egyptians as British subjects (ff 116-119, ff 78-83), including Foreign Office guidance on the new Egyptian Nationality Law, dated 9 June 1915 (f 83).
• Copies of two proclamations (undated, both translations in English) addressed to the ‘People of Egypt’ (ff 102-115, ff 87-99), one of which claims to have been authored by the Senoussi [Senussi]. The proclamations are responses to Britain’s declaration of Egypt as a British protectorate.
• Translated documents taken from prisoners on patrols of the Bir Mahadat [Bi’r al Mahdāt], which are anti-British in rhetoric (ff 73-77).
• A copy of an intercepted letter (in French), dated 26 December 1915, addressed to Mohammed Farid Bey [Muḥammad Farīd], and presumed by British intelligence officials to have been written by Abdul Aziz Shawish [‘Abd al-‘Azīz Shāwīsh] (ff 61-65).
• Secret reports from MI1 (Military Intelligence, Section 1), reporting intelligence relating to Egypt, Turkey and Germany (ff 47-58).
• Papers reporting on the movements and actions in 1917 of the ex-Khedive of Egypt [‘Abbās Ḥilmī Pasha], including his relations with Turkish officials (ff 5-36).

The volume’s principal correspondents are: the British Ambassador at Berne, Switzerland (Evelyn Mountstuart Grant Duff, Horace George Montagu Rumbold); the Foreign Office (chiefly Ralph Spencer Paget); the India Office (Arthur Hirtzel, John Evelyn Shuckburgh).