Egypt in the years of British patronage, 1882-1899. The contribution to the history of British emipre in the 19th century

Primarily, Great Britain occupied Egypt due to strategic and defence reasons (a route to India) in 1882; commercial and financial interests appeared secondary. At first the British Government again and again alleged that soldiers would leave as soon as they would establish the order and tranquillity and would renew the authority of the Khedive. Her Majesty's Government repeated this allegation more then sixty times until the WWI broke out. Between the years 1882 and 1914 Egypt was neither a colony nor protectorate de iure, nevertheless the British Consul-General in Cairo administrated the country in a de facto colonial way; the Khedive symbolised only the formal Head of State. During the ensuing decades, the British realised economic, politic, and administrative reforms. Improvement of irrigation system meant the greatest achievement. In the nineties, the reorganization of the Egyptian Administration caused the rise of the nationalist movement, which in 1906 culminated in Dinshaway Incident that forced the well-known proconsul Lord Cromer to leave Egypt. The Sudan always influenced Egyptian events. In 1885 the Mahdi and his followers conquered Khartoum and the rest of the Sudanese territory. Thirteen years later the Mahdists were routed by the British-Egyptian army at the Battle of Omdurman and than both..