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HH Abbas II Hilmi Bey (also known as Abbas Hilmi Pasha) was the last Khedive of Egypt and Sudan between 1892 and 1914, when he was ousted by his uncle Hussein Kamel and the British after supporting Egyptian nationalist and Anti-British sentiment. Following that incident, he retired to Switzerland, but still claims his former titles and has contact to various Ottoman diplomats.
History[]
Early Life[]
Abbas II was the great-great-grandson of Muhammad Ali, Wāli of Egypt between 1805 and 1848. As a boy he visited the United Kingdom, and had a British tutor for some time in Cairo. He then went to school in Lausanne, and from there passed on to the Theresianum in Vienna. In addition to Arabic and Turkish language, he had good conversational knowledge of English, French and German.
Reign[]
He was still in college in Vienna when he assumed the throne of the Khedivate of Egypt upon the sudden death of his father Tewfik Pasha in 1892. He was barely of age according to Egyptian law; eighteen in cases of succession to the throne. For some time he did not cooperate very cordially with the United Kingdom, whose army had occupied Egypt in 1882. As he was young and eager to exercise his new power, he resented the interference of the British Agent and Consul General in Cairo, Sir Evelyn Baring, 1st Earl of Cromer. At the outset of his reign, Khedive Abbas surrounded himself with a coterie of European advisors who opposed the British occupation of Egypt and Sudan and encouraged the young Khedive to challenge Cromer by replacing his ailing prime minister with a nationalist. At Cromer's behest, Lord Roseberry, the British foreign secretary, sent him a letter stating that the Khedive was obliged to consult the British consul on such issues as cabinet appointments. In January 1894 Abbas, while on an inspection tour of Egyptian army installations near the southern border, the Mahdists being at the time still in control of Sudan, made public remarks disparaging the Egyptian army units commanded by British officers. The British commander of the Egyptian army, Sir Herbert Kitchener, immediately offered to resign. Cromer strongly supported Kitchener and pressed the Khedive and prime minister to retract the Khedive's criticisms of the British officers. From that time on, Abbas no longer publicly opposed the British, but secretly created, supported, and sustained the nationalist movement, which came to be led by Mustafa Kamil. As Kamil's thrust was increasingly aimed at winning popular support for a National Party, Khedive Abbas publicly distanced himself from the Nationalists.
In time he came to accept British counsels. In 1899 British diplomat Alfred Mitchell-Innes was appointed Under-Secretary of State for Finance in Egypt, and in 1900 Abbas paid a second visit to Britain, during which he frankly acknowledged the great good the British had done in Egypt, and declared himself ready to follow their advice and to cooperate with the British officials administering Egyptian and Sudanese affairs. The establishment of a sound system of native justice, the great remission of taxation, the reconquest of Sudan, the inauguration of the substantial irrigation works at Aswan, and the increase of cheap, sound education, each received his formal approval. He displayed more interest in agriculture than in statecraft. His farm of cattle and horses at Qubbah, near Cairo, was a model for scientific agriculture in Egypt, and he created a similar establishment at Muntazah, near Alexandria. He married the Princess Ikbal Hanem and had several children. Muhammad Abdul Mun'im, the heir-apparent, was born on 20 February 1899.
His relations with Cromer's successor, Sir Eldon Gorst, were excellent, and they co-operated in appointing the cabinets headed by Butrus Ghali in 1908 and Muhammad Sa'id in 1910 and in checking the power of the Nationalist Party. The appointment of Kitchener to succeed Gorst in 1911 displeased Abbas, and relations between him and the British deteriorated. Kitchener often complained about "that wicked little Khedive" and wanted to depose him.
The Weltkrieg[]
At the onset of the Weltkrieg, Abbas was on a visit in Constantinople, where he was wounded by an assassin and suffered injuries in the face and his hands. Following that, he stayed in Turkey for the time being to cure his wounds. When Great Britain declared war on Turkey on 5 November 1914, he was accused of deserting Egypt by not promptly returning home. Also, the British feared that he would barter a deal with the Central Powers to cleanse Egypt and Sudan of British influence. Because of that, the United Kingdom declared the Khedivate of Egypt void and proclaimed an Egyptian Sultanate under British protection on 18 December 1914. Abbas II was deposed and replaced with his uncle Hussein Kamel, who became the first Egyptian Sultan since the 16th century.
Post-Abdication[]
When Hussein Kamel died after only 3 years in 1917, his only son, Prince Kamal al-Din Husayn, declined the succession, so that his brother Ahmed Fuad ascended the throne as Fuad I. With the signing of the Peace with Honour, Egypt remained under British control. However, Arab nationalism led to violent riots which convinced the British to unilaterally declare Egyptian independence in 1922, abolishing the protectorate and establishing an independent Kingdom of Egypt. Britain retained control of the Canal Zone, Sudan and Egypt's external protection. When the 1925 British Revolution broke out, Egypt occupied Sudan, but was forced to give control over the Suez Canal to Germany, and the Sinai Penninsula over to the Ottoman Empire.
Marriages and Progeny[]
He married first in Cairo on 19 February 1895, and had six children:
- HH Princess Emine Hilmi Khanum Efendi (Montaza Palace, Alexandria, 12 February 1895 - ?), unmarried and without issue
- HH Princess Atiye Hilmi Khanum Efendi (Cairo, 9 June 1896 - ? ), unmarried and without issue
- HH Princess Fethiye Hilmi Khanum Efendi (27 November 1897 - 30 November 1923), unmarried and without issue
- HH Prince/HRH Prince Muhammad Abdel Moneim Bey Efendi, Heir Apparent and Regent of Egypt and Sudan
- HH Princess Lütfiye Şevket Hilmi (Cairo, 29 September 1900 - ?), married in Constantinople on 5 May 1923 to Omar Muhtar Katırcıoğlu (1902 - Çamlıca, near Üsküdar, Bosphorus, 15 July 1935), and had issue:
- Emine Neşedil Katırcıoğlu (b. 1927),
- Zehra Kadriye Katırcıoğlu (b. 1929),
- HH Prince Muhammed Abdel Kader (4 February 1902 - Montreux, 21 April 1919)
He married second to Marianne Török de Szendrö (Who later took the name Zübeyde Cavidan Hanım) at Çubuklu, Bosphorus, on 1 March 1910, and divorced her in 1913 (with no children)