Egyptian nationalists claimed the Sudan as rightful Egyptian territory needing reconquest.

Evidence

However they were represented, the Sudanese were clearly considered by many Egyptians to be a part of Egypt, and this connection developed into a pronounced sense of possessiveness about the Sudan by the late nineteenth century. In an article published in Paris several years after the famous slavery trial of the pashas, the charismatic nationalist leader Mustafa Kämil wrote that “the Sudan, as is clear to the reader, is a piece of Egypt and has been stripped from her without legal right.” Voicing his fear that the British were ready to conquer the Sudan, a fear shared by many in Egypt and soon to be proven correct, Kämil characterized the country as “Egyptian property” to which the British had no right. So as not to leave doubts about the forcible nature of Egypt’s potential reconquest of the region lost to the Mahdï, Kämil announced that “our army, even less than our whole army, would have been enough to accomplish this result.” — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 58

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the ‘colonized colonizer’ dynamic found in other double-colonial settings; Balfour’s language about Egypt recurs here inverted toward Sudan.