Fear of Russian expansion toward India, not lost markets, drove Palmerston’s opposition.

Evidence

That some of the country’s products were processed locally rather than exported in a raw form to British factories must have been irksome to Palmerston. He might also have been affronted by the Pasha’s “illiberal” policies of conscription, corvée and high taxation. Palmerston, however, was concerned above all about the dangers that the Pasha’s territorial expansion were causing to Istanbul. These military activities, Palmerston rightly believed, were pushing Istanbul to seek assistance from the Russians who were only too eager to provide the Sultan with all the help he needed, thus giving them the perfect opportunity to interfere in Ottoman affairs. It was the prospect of Russia’s increased influence in Istanbul and its southward expansion towards India rather than any loss of actual or potential markets in the eastern Mediterranean that inflamed Palmerston’s feelings against Mehmed Ali’s monopoly policies. For it was precisely the system of monopolies that the Pasha had introduced, Palmerston again rightly thought, that allowed the Pasha to syphon profits accrued from the agricultural and commercial sectors to the military, thus enabling him to build a powerful army and a formidable navy that he then used to threaten the Sultan’s dominions. Ultimately Palmerston’s greatest concern was for British possessions in Asia; his greatest fear was that Russia might interfere there. In other words, what was at stake was the British market in Asia rather than the much smaller ones in the eastern Mediterranean. Both London and Bombay viewed Mehmed Ali as causing a grave threat to these important markets by his giving the Russians the opportunity and the pretext to encroach onto Ottoman lands, and possibly to do away with the Ottoman Empire altogether. Palmerston’s motto of “the preservation of the integrity of the Ottoman Empire” was his most effective bulwark against possible Russian aggression and was not a “malicious” act directed at Egypt. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1569

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in Ottoman-British-Egyptian relations and to broader literature on the Eastern Question and Great Game rivalry with Russia.