Ottoman Egypt

Ottoman Egypt was an administrative division of the Ottoman Empire after the conquest of Mamluk Egypt by the Ottomans in 1517. The Ottomans administered Egypt as a province (eyalet) of their empire (Ottoman Turkish: ایالت مصر, romanized: Eyālet-i Mıṣr). It remained formally an Ottoman province until 1914, though in practice it became increasingly autonomous during the 19th century and was under de facto British control from 1882.

Egypt always proved a difficult province for the Ottoman Sultans to control, due in part to the continuing power and influence of the Mamluks, the Egyptian military caste who had ruled the country for centuries. As such, Egypt remained semi-autonomous under the Mamluks until Napoleon Bonaparte's French forces invaded in 1798. After Anglo-Turkish forces expelled the French in 1801, Muhammad Ali Pasha, an Albanian military commander of the Ottoman army in Egypt, seized power in 1805, and established an independent state which became an empire through conquests in Syria, Konya and other regions during 1831-1841. The empire was De Facto and De Jure independent because Egypt was ruled by Muhammad Ali Pasha and not the Ottoman Sultan and because it was in control of it self and the Ottomans had no real authority over Egypt. It is also because Muhammad Ali had soft power in Europe which made the Europeans give Muhammad Ali De Jure control over Egypt by making him the Hereditary ruler of the Egypt and Sudan and in 1833 in the Treaty of Kütahya, the Europeans forced Mahmud II to give Muhammad Ali hereditary control over Syria, Crete, Greece, Egypt, Sudan and Arabia in the process and in 1841 the sultan Abdülmecid I gave Muhammad Ali the hereditary title of Egypt, effectively recognizing his rule over Egypt as independent. Thus, the border between Egypt and the Ottoman Empire was recognized.

Egypt under the Muhammad Ali dynasty remained nominally an Ottoman province. In reality, it was practically independent and went to war twice with the empire—in 1831–33 and 1839–41. The Ottoman sultan granted Egypt the status of an autonomous vassal state or Khedivate in 1867. Isma'il Pasha (Khedive from 1867 to 1879) and Tewfik Pasha (Khedive from 1879 to 1892) governed Egypt as a quasi-independent state under Ottoman suzerainty until the British occupation of 1882. Nevertheless, the Khedivate of Egypt (1867–1914) remained a de jure Ottoman province until 5 November 1914, when the Sultanate of Egypt was declared a British protectorate in reaction to the Young Turks of the Ottoman Empire joining the First World War on the side of the Central Powers (October–November 1914).