British officers held a monopoly on the Egyptian army’s strategic knowledge and command

Evidence

Now there are seventy-five British officers who control the Egyptian army, who confer among themselves about military secrets. Not one Egyptian officer knows why he is in Suakin instead of Tokar, or why he is in Wadi Halfa and not in Cairo. There is not one Egyptian in the Intelligence Bureau who does not disguise his attachment to the Sudan [aläqätahu ma al-Südän] and the dervishes. How many orders arrive here, how many reports are sent from the tribal chiefs to the government and even the Khedive himself and his ministers do not know a thing about them? — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 720

Categorization

• XREF: For the reader’s framework, this exemplifies the Egypt case: a veiled protectorate where an indigenous officer corps was hollowed out by embedded British controllers — contrast case against direct Sudanese administration.