Britain entered Egypt solely as transit to India, breaking the Mediterranean incorporation tradition

Evidence

The only continent Europe had not touched in the course of its colonial history was the Dark Continent of Africa. Its northern shores, populated by Arabic peoples and tribes, were well known and had belonged to the European sphere of influence in one way or another since the days of antiquity. Too well populated to attract settlers, and too poor to be exploited, these regions suffered all kinds of foreign rule and anarchic neglect, but oddly enough never—after the decline of the Egyptian Empire and the destruction of Carthage—achieved authentic independence and reliable political organization. … This age-old tradition, still followed in recent times by Italy and France, was broken in the eighties when England went into Egypt to protect the Suez Canal without any intention either of conquest or incorporation. The point is not that Egypt was wronged but that England (a nation that did not lie on the shores of the Mediterranean) could not possibly have been interested in Egypt as such, but needed her only because there were treasures in India. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 489

Categorization

• XREF: Prefigures the Suez metaphor in Orientalism and the way Egypt becomes a mere instrument of a larger imperial route.