French historians cast Mehmed Ali as a Napoleon whose dreams Britons frustrated

Evidence

For their part, French historians saw Mehmed Ali as owing a lot of his greatness to his resemblance to Napoleon. Both men, it is argued, had a dream they wanted to fulfill and both had their dreams frustrated by the British. In his Mohamed Aly et Napoléon Driault, in typical romantic manner, accepted both men’s self-characterizations: while the great French Emperor saw himself as a descendant of the Caesars, Mehmed Ali was more like a Pharaoh. Both, Driault believed, shared a deep-seated desire to revive a great power and to found an enlightened regime. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1672