Transcriber's Note:
Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully aspossible, including non-standard transcriptions of Arabic and someinconsistent hyphenation. Some changes of spelling and punctuationhave been made. They are listed at the end of the text.
Secret History of the English Occupation of Egypt
BOOKS BY WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT
PROSE
- THE FUTURE OF ISLAM 1882
- IDEAS ABOUT INDIA 1885
- THE SECRET HISTORY SERIES
- I THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH OCCUPATION OF EGYPT 1907
- II INDIA UNDER RIPON 1909
- III GORDON AT KHARTOUM 1911
- IV THE LAND WAR IN IRELAND 1912
- V MY DIARIES PART I. [THE SCRAMBLE FOR AFRICA] 1919
- VI MY DIARIES PART II. [THE COALITION AGAINST GERMANY] 1920
POETRY
- LOVE SONNETS OF PROTEUS 1880
- THE WIND AND THE WHIRLWIND 1883
- IN VINCULIS 1889
- A NEW PILGRIMAGE 1889
- ESTHER AND LOVE LYRICS 1892
- GRISELDA 1893
- SATAN ABSOLVED 1899
- SEVEN GOLDEN ODES OF ARABIA 1903
- POETICAL WORKS. A COMPLETE EDITION 1914[Pg iii]
SECRET HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH
OCCUPATION OF EGYPT
Being a Personal Narrative of Events
By
WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT
NEW YORK ALFRED·A·KNOPF MCMXXII
COPYRIGHT, 1922,
BY WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT
Published, October, 1922
Set up and printed by the Vail-Ballou Co., Binghamton, N. Y.
Paper furnished by W. F. Etherington & Co., New York, N. Y.
Bound by the Plimpton Press, Norwood, Mass.
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
PUBLISHER'S NOTE
When I first arranged with Mr. Blunt to publish The Secret History ofthe English Occupation of Egypt, I suggested that he write for theAmerican Edition a brief foreword bringing the book into even closerrelation to the Anglo-Egyptian situation as it stands today. He thoughtthis idea a good one, and agreed to write such a note. But Mr. Blunt wasborn in 1840, and has for a number of years been in failing health. InJune he wrote me that he was so ill as to be quite unable to finish theforeword, which he had actually commenced to write. He felt furthermorethat any advantage the edition would gain by having a new preface by himwould be more than counterbalanced by any delay in the appearance of thebook "at the present extremely critical moment."
He remarked further: "What could I have said more appropriate today as anew preface than the few words which already stand as the short prefaceI set to the first edition of my Secret History (published in Londonand which you reprint in this new edition). This and my poem The Windand the Whirlwind (which you also give as an Appendix). Both areabsolutely true of the present shameful position of England in Egypt andthe calamity so closely threatening her Eastern Empire. What could I saymore exactly suited? This is the punishment we are reaping today for oursin of that sad morning on the Nile which saw the first English gun openits thunder of aggression j