Anglo-Egyptian Sudan

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Anglo-Egyptian Sudan" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (August 2014) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

Anglo-Egyptian Sudan السودان اﻹنجليزي المصري (Arabic) as-Sūdān al-Inglīzī al-Maṣrī
1899–1956
Flags of the UK and Egypt Emblem
Status	Condominium of the United Kingdom and the Kingdom of Egypt
Capital	Khartoum
Common languages	English and Literary Arabic (official) Nubian, Beja, Sudanese Arabic, Nuer, Dinka, Fur and Shilluk
Religion	Predominantly: Sunni Islam Minority: Christianity, Traditional African religions
Governor-General
• 1899–1916	Reginald Wingate
• 1954–1956	Alex Knox Helm
Chief Minister
• 1952–1954	Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi
• 1954–1956	Ismail al-Azhari
Historical era	British Imperial
• Established	19 June 1899
• Self-rule	22 October 1952
• Independence	1 January 1956
Area
1951[1]	2,505,800 km2 (967,500 sq mi)
Population
• 1951[1]	8,079,800
Currency	Egyptian pound
Preceded by Succeeded by Mahdist Sudan Sultanate of Darfur Shilluk Kingdom Lado Enclave Protectorate of Uganda Italian Libya Republic of Sudan (1956–1969)
Today part of	Egypt Libya South Sudan Sudan Uganda

Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (Arabic: السودان الإنجليزي المصري as-Sūdān al-Inglīzī al-Maṣrī) was a condominium of the United Kingdom and Egypt between 1899 and 1956, corresponding mostly to the territory of present-day South Sudan and Sudan. Legally, sovereignty and administration were shared between both Egypt and the United Kingdom, but in practice the structure of the condominium ensured effective British control over Sudan, with Egypt having limited local power and influence.^{[clarification needed]} In the meantime, Egypt itself fell under increasing British influence. Following the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, Egypt pushed for an end to the condominium, and the independence of Sudan. By agreement between Egypt and the United Kingdom in 1953, Sudan was granted independence as the Republic of the Sudan on 1 January 1956. In 2011, the south of Sudan itself became independent as the Republic of South Sudan.

In the 19th century, whilst nominally a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire, Egypt had acted as a virtually independent state since Muhammad Ali's seizure of power in 1805. Seeking to supplant and ultimately replace the Ottoman Empire as the dominant regional power, Muhammad Ali declared himself Khedive, and expanded Egypt's borders both southwards into Sudan, and eastwards into the Levant and Arabia, the latter at the expense of the Ottoman Empire. Territory in Sudan was annexed by Egypt, and governed as an integral part of the country, with Sudanese granted Egyptian citizenship. Ultimately, the intervention of the Great Powers in support of the Ottoman Empire forced Egypt to return all Levantine and Arabian territory to the Ottomans upon Muhammad Ali's death. However, there was no such impediment to Egypt's southward expansion.

During the reign of Muhammad Ali's grandson, Isma'il Pasha, Egypt consolidated and expanded its control of the Sudan as far south as the Great Lakes region, whilst simultaneously acquiring territory in modern-day Chad, Eritrea, Djibouti, and Somalia. Additionally, the hitherto unsanctioned use of the title Khedive was formally approved by the Ottoman Sultan. Egypt was at the height of its power, with Isma'il seeking the establishment of a contiguous African empire that could be a bulwark against European expansion in Africa^{[citation needed]}.

Isma'il's grand ambitions were, however, cut short by Egypt's ruinous defeat in the Ethiopian-Egyptian War, which exacerbated pre-existing financial problems in the country caused by his cripplingly expensive programmes of rapid modernisation. This led ultimately to the Great Powers deposing Isma'il in 1879 in favour of his son, Tewfik Pasha. Egypt thereafter withdrew from all territories outside of Sudan, and Egypt proper.

Discontent with the rule of Tewfik sparked two revolts in 1881, the Mahdist Revolt in Sudan, and the Orabi Revolt in Egypt proper. Whilst the military intervention of the United Kingdom in 1882 crushed the Orabi Revolt, and restored Tewfik's nominal authority in Egypt proper, the Mahdist Revolt continued to expand, leaving Sudan under the effective rule of the Mahdist rebels.

The British military presence in Egypt transformed the country into a virtual protectorate of the United Kingdom. Though it remained de jure a self-governing vassal state of the Ottoman Empire, true power now rested with the United Kingdom's representative in Cairo. In the following decade, the United Kingdom reformed and remodelled the Egyptian military on British lines, and British and Egyptian forces gradually defeated the Mahdist rebels, and restored the nominal authority of the Egyptian Khedive in Sudan. However, as in Egypt proper, this authority was compromised by the reality of effective British control.

In 1899, the United Kingdom forced Abbas II, Tewfik's successor as Khedive, to transform Sudan from an integral part of Egypt into a condominium in which sovereignty would be shared between Egypt and the United Kingdom. Once established, the condominium witnessed ever-decreasing Egyptian control, and would for most of its existence be governed in practice by the United Kingdom through the Governor-General in Khartoum. For the remainder of his reign, this would be one of the flashpoints between the nationalist Khedive Abbas II and the United Kingdom, with Abbas seeking to arrest and reverse the process of increasing British control in Egypt and Sudan.

Following the Ottoman Empire's entry in to the First World War as a member of the Central Powers in 1914, the United Kingdom deposed the anti-British Abbas II in favour of his pro-British uncle, Hussein Kamel. The legal aspect of the nominal Ottoman sovereignty was terminated, and the Sultanate of Egypt, destroyed by the Ottoman Empire in 1517, was re-established with Hussein Kamal as Sultan. Despite the restoration of the nominal sultanate, British power in Egypt and Sudan was undiminished, as the United Kingdom declared Egypt to be a formal protectorate of the United Kingdom. Whilst Egypt was not annexed to the British Empire, with the British King never becoming sovereign of Egypt, Egypt's status as a protectorate precluded any actual independence for the sultanate. For all intents and purposes, the Sultanate of Egypt was as much controlled by the United Kingdom as the Khedivate of Egypt had been. Rising nationalist anger at British control led to the Egyptian Revolution of 1919, prompting the United Kingdom to recognise Egyptian independence in 1922 as the Kingdom of Egypt. Egyptian nationalists, and Sudanese favouring union with Egypt, demanded that Sudan be included within the bounds of the kingdom, with the term "Kingdom of Egypt and Sudan" entering the nationalist vernacular. However, in the terms of the legal instrument by which the United Kingdom recognised Egyptian independence, it specifically reserved the issue of the governance of Sudan as a question to be resolved in the future. Defying Egyptian and Sudanese demands, the United Kingdom gradually assumed more control of the condominium, edging out Egypt almost completely by 1924.

In the decades that followed, Egyptian and Sudanese discontent and anger at continued British rule in Sudan increased. On 16 October 1951, the Egyptian government abrogated the agreements underpinning the condominium, and declared that Egypt and Sudan were legally united as the Kingdom of Egypt and Sudan, with King Farouk as the King of Egypt and the Sudan. This was superseded by the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 eight months later, which overthrew King Farouk. The new revolutionary government under Muhammad Naguib and Gamal Abdel Nasser made Sudanese independence a priority. Naguib himself was half-Sudanese, and had been born and raised in Khartoum. Under continued pressure, the United Kingdom conceded to Egypt's demands in 1953, with the governments of both Egypt and the United Kingdom agreeing to terminate the condominium, and grant Sudan independence in 1956. On 1 January 1956, Egyptian and British sovereignty over Sudan duly ended, and Sudan became independent.