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Muhammad Ali's rise to power
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==Defeat of the Mamluks== [[File:Mamluks, Horace Vernet.jpg|thumb|Massacre of the [[Mamluks]] at the [[Cairo]] citadel, painted by [[Horace Vernet]].]] Muhammad Ali now possessed the title of Governor of Egypt, but beyond the walls of Cairo his authority was everywhere disputed by the forces of the Mamluk beys, who were joined by the army of the silahdar of Hurshid Ahmed Pasha, as well as many Albanians who had deserted from his ranks. A plan was soon conceived to destroy the Mamluk beys encamped north of Cairo. On August 17, 1805, they were informed that the dam of the canal of Cairo was to be cut, and some chiefs of Muhammad Ali's party wrote to the Mamluks, informing them that the Pasha would go there early that morning with most of his troops to witness the ceremony, thus presenting the Mamluks with an opportunity to enter and seize the city. To further the deception, the double agents negotiated for monetary rewards in return for providing more detailed information. The dam, however, had been cut early in the preceding night, without any ceremony, and Muhammad Ali Pasha's forces were positioned to ambush the Mamluks. On the following morning, the Mamluk beys, at the head of sizeable forces, broke open the gate of the suburb [[al-Husainia]], and gained admittance into the city from the north through the gate called [[Bāb el-Futuh]]. They marched along the principal street for some distance, with kettledrums thudding behind each company, and were received with apparent joy by the citizens. At the mosque called the Ashrafia they separated, one party proceeding to the [[Al-Azhar Mosque]] and the houses of certain sheikhs, and the other continuing along the main street and through the gate called [[Bab Zuweyla]], where they turned up towards the Cairo citadel. Here they were fired upon from the surrounding houses by forces loyal to Muhammad Ali Pasha, which was a prelude to a massacre of the ambushed Mamluks. Falling back towards their companions, the Mamluks found the side streets blocked; and in that part of the main thoroughfare called [[Bain al-Kasrain]] they were caught between two fires. Thus shut up in a narrow street, some sought refuge in the collegiate mosque [[Barkukia]], while the remainder fought their way through the encircling cordon, abandoned their horses, and escaped over the city-wall on foot. Two Mamluks had in the meantime succeeded, by great exertions, in giving the alarm to their comrades in the vicinity of the Al-Azhar Mosque, thus enabling that faction to escape by the eastern gate called [[Bib al-Ghoraib]]. A horrible fate awaited those who had shut themselves up in the Barkukia. Having begged for quarter first and surrendered, they were immediately stripped nearly naked, and about fifty were slaughtered on the spot, while about the same number were dragged away. Among them were four beys, one of whom, driven to madness by Muhammad Ali's mockery, asked for a drink of water; but when his hands were untied that he might take the bottle, he snatched a dagger from one of the soldiers, rushed at the pasha, and fell covered with wounds. The wretched captives were then chained and left in the court of the pasha's house; and on the following morning the heads of their comrades who had perished the day before were skinned and stuffed with straw before their eyes. One bey and two others paid their ransom and were released; the rest were tortured and put to death in the course of the ensuing night. Eighty-three heads (many of them those of Frenchmen and Albanians) were stuffed and sent to Constantinople, with a boast that the Mamluk chiefs were utterly destroyed. Thus ended Muhammad Ali's first massacre of his too-confiding enemies. The Mamluk beys appear to have despaired of regaining their ascendancy after this, and most of them retreated to Upper Egypt, from where attempts at compromise failed. Al-Alfi offered his submission on the condition of the cession of the [[Fayum]] and other provinces; but this was refused, and that chief gained two successive but indecisive victories over Muhammad Ali Pasha's troops, many of whom deserted to the Mamluks. At length, after remonstrances had been received from the British and a promise had made by al-Alfi of 1500 purses, the Ottoman Porte consented to reinstate twenty-four Mamluk beys and to place al-Alfi at their head. This measure met with the opposition of Muhammad Ali, as well as the determined resistance of the majority of the Mamluks, who, rather than have al-Alfi at their head, preferred their present condition; for the enmity of al-Bardisi had not subsided, and he commanded the voice of most of the other beys. Proceeding however with its plans, the Ottomans sent a naval squadron under Salih Pasha, shortly before appointed high admiral, which arrived at Alexandria on 1 July 1806 with 3,000 regular troops and a successor to Muhammad Ali, who was to receive the pashalik of [[Salonika]]. Muhammad Ali professed his willingness to obey the commands of the Porte, but stated that his troops, to whom he owed a vast sum of money, opposed his departure. He induced the ''ulema'' to sign a letter, praying the sultan to revoke the command for reinstating the beys, persuaded the chiefs of the Albanian troops to swear personal allegiance to him, and sent 2000 purses contributed by them to Istanbul. Al-Alfi was at that time besieging Damanhur, and he gained a signal victory over the Pasha's troops; but the dissensions of the Mamluk beys squandered their last chance at regaining power. Al-Alfi and his partisans failed to raise the sum promised to the Porte; [[Kayserili Hacı Salih Pasha|Salih Pasha]] received plenipotentiary powers from Istanbul, but in consequence of the letter from the ulema; and, on the condition of Muhammad Ali's paying 4,000 purses to the Porte, it was decided that he should continue in his post as governor of Egypt, and the reinstatement of the beys was abandoned. Fortune continued to favor Muhammad Ali, for in the following month al-Bardisi died, aged forty-eight years; and soon after, a scarcity of provisions caused al-Alfi's troops to revolt and mutiny. They reluctantly raised the siege of Damanhur, being in daily expectation of the arrival of a British army; and at the village of Shubra-ment, al-Alfi was struck by a sudden illness, and died on January 30, 1807, at the age of fifty-five. Thus was Muhammad Ali relieved of his two most formidable enemies; and shortly after he defeated Shahin Bey, with the loss to the latter of his artillery and baggage and 300 men killed or taken prisoners. ===Fraser campaign=== On March 17, 1807, a British fleet appeared off Alexandria, with nearly 5,000 troops, under the command of General [[Alexander Mackenzie-Fraser]], and commenced the [[Alexandria expedition of 1807]]. The people of Alexandria, being disaffected towards Muhammad Ali, opened the city's gates to the British. Here they first heard of the death of al-Alfi, upon whose cooperation the expedition had counted for its success. The British immediately despatched messengers to al-Alfi's successor and to the other Mamluk beys, inviting them to Alexandria. The British resident, Major Missett, having urged the importance of taking [[Rosetta]] and [[El Rahmaniya|Rahmaniya]] in order to secure supplies for Alexandria, General Fraser, with the concurrence of the admiral, Sir [[John Thomas Duckworth]], detached the 31st [[regiment]] and the [[Chasseurs Britanniques]], accompanied by some [[field artillery]] under Major-General Wauchope and Brigadier-General Meade. Those troops entered Rosetta without opposition; but as soon as they had dispersed among the narrow streets, the local garrison opened a deadly fire on them from the latticed windows and the roofs of the houses. The British retreated towards Aboukir and Alexandria, with 185 killed and 281 wounded, General Wauchope and three officers being among the former, and General Meade and nineteen officers among the latter. The heads of the slain were fixed on stakes on each side of the road crossing the Azbakeya in Cairo. Muhammad Ali, meanwhile, had been conducting an expedition against the Mamluk beys in Upper Egypt, and after defeating them near [[Asyut]], he heard of the arrival of the British. Alarmed lest the surviving Mamluk beys should join the British, especially as they were already far north of his position, he immediately sent messengers to his rivals, promising to comply with all their demands if they should join him in expelling the invaders. His proposal being agreed to, both armies marched northwards towards Cairo on opposite sides of the river. The possession of Rosetta being deemed indispensable, Brigadier-General Sir [[William Stewart (1774–1827)|William Stewart]] and Brigadier-General [[John Oswald (British Army officer)|John Oswald]] were sent there with 4,000 men. For thirteen days the town was bombarded without effect; and on April 20, news arrived from an advance guard at [[Al Hamed]] of sizeable reinforcements en route to rescue the besieged town. General Stewart was compelled to retreat, and a [[dragoon]] was despatched to Lieutenant-colonel Macleod, commanding at Al Hamed, with orders to fall back. However, the messenger was unable to penetrate the cordon around the British advance guard, by then besieged in Hamad, and the message was not delivered. The advance guard in Hamad, consisting of a detachment of the 31st, two companies of the 78th, one of the 35th, and De Rolls regiment, with a picquet of dragoons, the whole mustering 733 men, was surrounded and, after a gallant resistance, the survivors, who had expended all their ammunition, became prisoners of war. General Stewart managed to regain Alexandria with the remainder of his force, having lost nearly 900 men. Some hundreds of British heads were now exposed on stakes in Cairo, and the prisoners were marched between the mutilated remains of their countrymen. ===Reaction=== [[File:A Mamluk from Aleppo.jpg|thumb|One of the last Mamluks, painted by William Page in 1816-1824]] Divisions soon emerged within the ranks of the Mamluk beys, with one party desiring to cooperate with the British, and the other seeking to continue cooperation with Muhammad Ali Pasha. The dissensions proved ruinous to their cause; and General Fraser, despairing of their assistance, evacuated Alexandria on September 14. From that date to the spring of 1811 the Mamluk beys from time to time relaxed certain of their demands; the pasha on his part granted them some of what before had been withheld. The province of the Fayum, and part of those of Giza and [[Beni-Suef]], were ceded to Shahin bey; and a great portion of the Said, on the condition of paying land-tax, to the others Mamluk beys. Many of them took up their abode in Cairo, but peace was not secured. Several times during that period Mamluk forces clashed with those of Muhammad Ali Pasha in indecisive battles. Early in the year 1811, during a lull in tensions, after preparations for an expedition against the Wahhabis in Arabia were completed, all the Mamluk beys then in Cairo were invited to the ceremony in the Cairo citadel for investing Muhammad Ali's favorite son, [[Tusun]], with a pelisse and the command of the army. On March 1, 1811, Shahin Bey and the other chiefs (with one exception) repaired with their retinues to the citadel, and were courteously received by the Pasha. Having taken coffee, they formed in procession, and, preceded and followed by Muhammad Ali's troops, slowly descended the steep and narrow road leading to the great gate of the citadel. As soon as the Mamluks arrived at the citadel's gate it was suddenly shut before them. The last of those to leave before the gate was shut were Albanians under [[Salih Kush]]. To these troops, their chief now made known the Pasha's orders to massacre all the Mamluks within the citadel. They proceeded to climb the walls and roofs of nearby houses that hemmed in the road in which the Mamluks were confined, and some stationed themselves upon the eminences of the rock through which that road is partly cut. They then opened fire on their victims; and immediately the troops at the tail end of the procession, who also had the advantage of higher ground, followed suit. Of the betrayed chiefs, many were killed in the opening volleys; some, dismounting and throwing off their outer robes, vainly sought, sword in hand, to return and escape by some other gate. However, the few who gained the summit of the citadel experienced the same fate as the rest, for no quarter was given. Four hundred and seventy Mamluks entered the citadel; and of these very few, if any, escaped. However, folklore has it that one of the Mamluk beys succeeded in escaping by leaping with his horse from the ramparts, and alighted uninjured although the horse was killed by the fall. Others say that he was prevented from joining his comrades, and discovered the treachery while waiting by the gate. He fled and made his way to Syria. The massacre of the Mamluks at the Cairo citadel was the signal for an indiscriminate slaughter of the Mamluks throughout Egypt, orders to this effect having been transmitted to every governor. In Cairo itself the houses of the Mamluk beys were given over to the soldiery. During the two following days the Muhammad Ali Pasha and his son Tusun rode about the streets and tried to stop the atrocities; but order was not restored until 500 houses had been pillaged. The heads of the beys were sent to Istanbul.
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