Europe’s first unified stance in 1839 halted Mehmed Ali’s gains

Evidence

What prevented their age-old rivalry from being resolved in this happy and blissful manner was not the stubbornness of Husrev, who, as much as he hated Mehmed Ali, would not have been able to stand this formidable pressure. It was, rather, the unified position that Europe took for the first time in the rivalry between the Sultan and the Egyptian vali: at five in the morning of the very same day that Husrev was to reply to Mehmed Ali’s demands (27 July 1839) the representatives of the five European powers (Great Britain, France, Prussia, Austria and Russia) handed the Grand Vizier a collective note asking the Porte “to suspend any final determination [of the Eastern Question] without their concurrence.” This gave Husrev the breathing space he needed, and with a unified Europe behind him, which denied Mehmed Ali the French assistance he was counting on, he not only rejected the vali’s demands for his own resignation, but repeated his demands that the vali hand back areas he had occupied and return the Ottoman fleet that had defected to Alexandria. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1561

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader question of how the Concert of Europe policed the Eastern Question and intervened in Ottoman affairs.