Egyptian financial bankruptcy forfeited its claim to the Sudan.

Evidence

With the British occupation, all the goals of the “Egypt for the Egyptians” movement were lost, and so was the political autonomy of the Ottoman Egyptian ruling classes. Now, with their own authority to govern slipping through their fingers,Tawfïq’s ministers awakened to the imminent loss of Egypt’s long-held territory in the south. They pleaded with the British authorities to intercede on Egypt’s behalf and put down the Mahdï’s rebellion, but the new consul-general and agent, Lord Cromer, refused. He and his counterparts in the Foreign Office in London officially recognized Egypt’s claims to the Sudan and the source of the Nile, yet the bankruptcy of Egypt’s finances precluded the organization of any military campaign. In effect, the Egyptian bankruptcy meant that an empire that could not support itself lost its right to the name. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 305

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader literature on how imperial collapse is often fiscal rather than military - an empire that cannot fund itself loses legitimacy.