Wafd electoral victory in Egypt intensified Anglo-Egyptian rivalry over Sudan in 1924

Evidence

The conflict in 1924 came to a head quickly. In January of that year, Sa`d Zaghlül became prime minister of Egypt, and his Wafd Party won the parliamentary elections on a platform of liberation for both Egypt and the Sudan. In September, negotiations resumed between the Wafd government and the British about the future status of the Sudan. Sir Lee Stack, the governor-general of the Sudan and commander (sirdär) of the Egyptian army, played a prominent role in these negotiations as he tried to lessen Egyptian involvement in the Sudan. Meanwhile, the Wafd Party and the Parliamentary Committee on Sudanese Affairs stepped up their efforts to contact Sudanese politicians and, when frustrated by the British, used the press to amplify their support. In June, British soldiers detained a Sudanese activist, Muhammad al-Mahdï, for trying to reach Cairo and visit Parliament. His forced return on a train to Khartoum prompted anti-British demonstrations. These were soon followed by a funeral for a high-ranking and popular Egyptian official, in which speeches about the unity of the Nile Valley provoked yet another demonstration. — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 1033

Categorization

• XREF: The Wafd’s ‘liberation of both Egypt and the Sudan’ claim parallels other dual-nationalist projects where the peripheral territory is subsumed by the metropole’s nationalism.