266 • 15 EGYPT'S STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCEplus a commitment to drive the remaining British troops from the Nile
Valley. The latter aim eclipsed the former, as Premier Nahhas repudiated
the 1936 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty he himself had signed and began sending
Egyptian commandos to fight against British troops in the Canal Zone.
Not surprisingly, the British struck back, killing fifty Egyptian policemen in
January 1952. Now the rumble of popular anger turned into an explosion.
On a Saturday morning hundreds of Egyptians, better organized than any
mob of demonstrators had ever been before, fanned across central Cairo
and set fire to such European landmarks as Shepheard's Hotel, Groppi's
Restaurant, the Turf Club, the Ford Motor Company showroom, and many
bars and nightclubs. Only after much of Cairo had burned to the ground
did either Faruq or Nahhas try to stop the rioting, looting, and killing.
"Black Saturday" proved that the old regime could no longer govern Egypt.
Who would? Some people thought the Muslim Brothers had set the fire
and were about to seize power. Others looked to the communists. Few sus¬
pected that the army, humiliated in Palestine and generally assumed to be
under palace control, would take over Egypt and kick out the king.The 1952 Military Coup
However, on 23 July 1952, the army did just that. An officers' secret society,
using a popular general named Muhammad Nagib as its front man, seized
control of the government in a bloodless coup d'état. Neither Britain nor
the US intervened to stop them. Three days later Faruq abdicated and went
into exile. Sweeping reforms followed as the patriotic young officers, like
their counterparts in Turkey a generation earlier, took the places and pow¬
ers (though not the perquisites) of the rich leaders of the old regime. Polit¬
ical parties were abolished and the Parliament dissolved. The military junta
would rule until a new political system, which the officers said would be
more truly democratic, could replace the discredited 1923 constitution. A
land reform decree limited the total area any Egyptian might own to about
200 acres (81 hectares). All excess lands were bought from their owners
with government bonds and redistributed (along with the royal estates) to
Egypt's landless peasants. Many schools and factories were opened. Foreign
supporters began to claim that Egypt's new rulers, the first real Egyptians to
govern the country in more than 2,000 years, were also the best Egypt had
ever had. But early in 1954, the figurehead leader, General Nagib, widely
viewed as a moderate, was eased from power by the real mastermind of the
young officers, Colonel Gamal Abd al-Nasir (often anglicized as Gamal
Abdel Nasser). Nagib's removal and later house arrest dampened the en¬
thusiasm of some foreigners—and Egyptians—for the revolution.