194 • 12 THE RISE OF NATIONALISMarmy. Although the British consul won the battles by bullying the ministers
and asking his own government to send more troops to Egypt, he lost the
trust of the youthful khédive. Seeking to undermine Cromer, Abbas created
a clique of European and native supporters. Among the latter was an artic¬
ulate law student named Mustafa Kamil, who emerged as a potent palace
propagandist in Europe and Egypt. In the ensuing years, he converted what
had been Abbas's secret society into a large-scale movement, the (revived)
National Party. He founded a boys' school and a daily newspaper, in order
to spread nationalist ideas. As his popularity grew, Mustafa cared more
about obtaining a democratic constitution than about the khedive's pre¬
rogatives. He and his followers always viewed the evacuation of British
troops from Egypt as their main goal.
In 1906 an incident occurred that spread Mustafa Kamil's fame. A group
of British officers went to shoot pigeons in a village called Dinshaway. Due
to some misunderstandings between the villagers and the officers, a fracas
broke out. A gun went off, setting a threshing floor on fire. Another bullet
wounded a peasant woman. The villagers began to beat the officers with
clubs. One of the latter escaped, fainted after running several miles, and
died of sunstroke. The British authorities, suspecting a premeditated as¬
sault, tried fifty-seven farmers before a special military court, which found
many of them guilty of murder. Four were hanged and several others
flogged in the presence of their families as an object lesson to the Din¬
shaway villagers. These barbarous sentences appalled Mustafa Kamil, most
Egyptians, and even many Europeans, for at that time people were shocked
by atrocities that now seem tame. Mustafa exploited this reaction to win
new followers and hasten Cromer's retirement. He publicly established the
National Party in December 1907 but tragically died two months later.
Mustafa's successors disagreed about their tactics and aims. Was the Na¬
tional Party for Muslims against Christian rulers or for all Egyptian people
opposed to the British occupation? If the latter, could Egypt expect support
from its nominal overlord, the Ottoman Empire? Should the party seek na¬
tional independence by peaceful or revolutionary means? If the latter,
would it oppose Khedive Abbas and other large landowners? Should it seek
economic and social reform, or stress evicting the British from Egypt? How
could a party made up of mainly lawyers and students, with few backers in
the Egyptian army, persuade Britain to leave? More moderate leaders ar¬
gued that constitutional government should precede independence. The
British consul who replaced Cromer in 1907 neutralized the Nationalist
threat by wooing Khedive Abbas and the more conservative landowners to
Britain's side. The next consul won peasant support through his agrarian