In his “Memories of Two Eras” (zekrayati fi ahdein), royal-palace-turned-presidential-palace chief of protocol Salah Al-Shahed reminisces about the last days of the Egyptian monarchy, offering glimpses of the possible courses of action that former king Farouk could have taken to save his throne. One thing that undermined Farouk's popularity was the failure of his first marriage to queen Farida. “I heard Ibrahim Abdel-Hadi Pasha say that the king wanted to divorce Farida,” Al-Shahed writes. “Several months passed before the king mentioned the subject to me. I told him that the queen had the sympathy of all the women in the country, so he would be ignoring the opinion of half his subjects if he divorced her.”
“Am I not a human being and entitled to end a marriage I am not happy with,” the king asked. “Of course you are a human being. But someone in your position has to look at things from every angle,” Al-Shahed replied, according to the version given in his memoirs.
Farouk then changed the subject. A few months later, he divorced Farida.
However, the king was not the only one in trouble in his love life. Nazli, the queen mother, was rumoured to have had an amorous liaison with palace chief of staff Ahmed Hassanein Pasha. And Farouk's sister princess Fathia eloped with Riyad Ghali, a junior foreign ministry official, who ended up shooting her and attempting suicide.
By the time king Farouk had found himself another wife in Nariman Sadek, the royal family was firmly established in the public eye as dysfunctional and even slightly unethical — not the image to give the public in a conservative society if you want to hold onto the throne.
At the same time, the palace was caught in the power struggle between the country's most popular political party, the Wafd, and the British forces in the country. The latter wanted to maintain a strong military presence in Egypt for strategic reasons, something that most Egyptians — including the palace — took exception to.
When Wafd Party leader Mustafa Al-Nahhas abrogated the 1936 Treaty with Britain in late 1951, things came to a head. The abrogation of the Treaty meant that the British troops had no legal grounds for their continued presence on the Canal Zone in Egypt, and as a result the Egyptian government was not only challenging British imperial interests, but also starting a low-intensity military conflict that threatened to get out of hand.
In the months that followed, Egyptian officials allowed — perhaps even encouraged — armed resistance against the British forces stationed on the canal.
In response the British accused the local Egyptian police of helping guerrilla fighters attack their camps.
On 25 January 1952, a battle took place in Ismailia between the Egyptian police and the British army. Nearly 50 Egyptian policemen were killed, and the day is now celebrated as Police Day in Egypt.
The British had upped the political ante, and from now on the palace — which had no love for either the Wafd or the British — was wrong-footed. On 26 January, one day after the battle in Ismailia, Cairo itself was set alight by angry mobs.
Calm was restored with difficulty, but already the country was under martial law and looking for a credible leader to handle the worst political crisis since the Palestine War in 1948. In his memoirs, Al-Shahed recalls how Ali Maher Pasha, the man who was to form the next government, arrived at the cabinet offices at 2am on the morning of 27 January 1952 sitting in an ambulance.
But even this veteran politician could not allay the wrath of the British, the discontents of the police force, and the disillusionment of the general public. Within six months of his taking office, the Free Officers Movement, active for nearly four years, finally made its move, and Farouk was the first to fall.
The established political parties, especially the Wafd, could conceivably have filled the political vacuum that resulted from the fall of the monarchy with a blend of conventional wisdom and left-of-centre populism. But Gamal Abdel-Nasser, the mastermind of the revolution who at the time was presenting himself as junior to Mohamed Naguib, the apparent leader of the coup, had no intention of allowing this to happen.
In the first few months after the 1952 Revolution, Abdel-Nasser held talks with various politicians about the future of the political parties in the country. Muslim Brotherhood guide Hassan Al-Hodeibi argued that all the parties should be dissolved, no doubt hoping that his group, not officially a political party, would receive a substantial share of power.
However, he too was to be bitterly mistaken, as Abdel-Nasser had other plans in mind.
It is interesting to note that although one of the main issues that triggered the 1952 Revolution was the loss of Palestine in the 1948 War, the Free Officers, once they had taken power, put the issue on the backburner, preferring to focus on the transition of power.
Meanwhile, in other parts of the Arab world Palestine remained a burning issue. Iraq, for example, citing pan-Arab aspirations, wanted to annex Syria and form a powerful state in what was then dubbed the Fertile Crescent. King Abdullah of Transjordan wanted to take control of the West Bank to add weight and status to his tiny country.
At the same time, Abdel-Rahman Pasha Azzam, the first secretary-general of the Arab League, was the region's main advocate of Arab unity, and Al-Shahed recalls in his memoirs that when Haj Amin Al-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem and a prominent Palestinian leader, came to Cairo, Azzam Pasha invited him to lecture about Palestine.
The Muslim Brotherhood was also enthusiastic about the Palestinian cause, but the Egyptian government, both before and after the revolution, remained cautious. Al-Shahed notes, for example, that during the negotiations between the government of prime minister Ismail Sidqi Pasha and the British in 1946, the issue of Palestine was not even on the agenda.
The Egyptian negotiators knew that the British would want to find a new military base after leaving Egypt, and they thought that the British would redeploy their troops to either Palestine or Cyprus.
Al-Shahed asks if the course of history would have changed had the Egyptians and the British made a deal in 1946. “Only God knows what would have happened had the 1946 Agreement been signed and the British had turned Palestine into a military base,” he writes.
The Egyptian public at the time perceived the Zionist threat in Palestine as being a small one posed by gangs that could easily be defeated by the Arab armies. This view was also held by Azzam Pasha, whose opinions on the matter were hardly questioned.
In the run-up to the 1948 War, young Arabs volunteered to take up arms against the Jewish militia in Palestine, and they were helped by army officers who had left official service to join the guerrilla activities. When Egypt finally sent its army into the war, the orders came from king Farouk himself, who acted without informing the then prime minister Al-Noqrashi Pasha.
Al-Shahed recalls in his book that no one in the country voiced opposition to the 1948 War, with the exception of former prime minister Ismail Sidqi Pasha who was immediately labelled unpatriotic.
“The 1948 War was an honourable episode for the Egyptian army, which was small and modestly equipped. Moreover, the army was not defeated as some have claimed, even managing to take and retain control of Lod and Ramla,” Al-Shahed writes.
In December 1948, Al-Noqrashi Pasha was assassinated, and Ibrahim Abdel-Hadi formed a new government. The British tried to reactivate the 1936 Treaty in return for supplying Egypt with much-needed weapons, but Abdel-Hadi turned them down.
Eventually, public discontent with the continuing British occupation, the bitterness of the 1948 War, and the declining popularity of the royal family all took their toll. The defining moment came in early 1952.
“I will never forget the sad day of 26 January 1952, when Egyptian civilisation, born of science and art, was turned into flames and smoke and dust by a group of irresponsible ruffians,” Al-Shahed comments of the day Cairo went up in flames.According to Al-Shahed, a senior police officer, Abdel-Hadi Najmeddin, led a crowd of “policemen, students and vagabonds” in protests hostile to both the king and the government. Street-peddlers also used the turmoil to find new clients in scenes that struck horror into Al-Shahed.
“Sellers of sesame bread, lettuce and carrots took the opportunity presented by the disorder and the crowds camping in the garden of the cabinet to go inside the building and ply their trade,” he writes.
On 26 January 1952 at 5 pm the army was deployed and martial law declared. Minister of defence Haydar Pasha voiced fears of a possible coup against the monarchy and told officials in the palace he had intelligence to this effect. For his part, Al-Shahed recalls the last days of Farouk's reign in his memoirs.
“As soon as Hussein Sirri Pasha resigned as prime minister on 20 July, Asila Hanim, the mother of queen Nariman, called me and told me that the king intended to ask Al-Hilali Pasha to form a new government,” he writes. He told Asila Hanem that Al-Hilali had made his conditions clear, including the “purging of [top officials] Elias Andraos, Karim Thabit, Mohamed Hassan and Helmi Hussein.”
Asila Hanim told Al-Shahed that the king had already agreed to these conditions “in the presence of [journalists] Ali Amin, Mostafa Amin and Mohamad Hassanein Heikal and [minister of state] Farid Zaaluk.” Hafiz Afifi Pasha, the chief of staff, then congratulated Al-Hilali on his new position and asked him his opinion of Ismail Sherine, who was married to Farouk's sister princess Fawziya.
According to Al-Shahed, Al-Hilali praised Sherine, and though he had wanted to appoint Mortada Al-Maraghi as minister of defence agreed to make him minister in return for the king's dismissal of the top officials.
However, Sherine was not pleased with the appointment. In fact, according to Al-Shahed the news almost brought him to tears. “Sherine refused to be sworn in and tried to kiss the king's hand,” Al-Shahed writes. “He begged the king to save his throne by bringing the Wafd Party back to power.”
“I am a servant of the people and the throne,” Sherine said, in the account given by Al-Shahed. “But the only man who can save the throne is [Wafd leader] Mostafa Al-Nahhas,” he added, adamant that the monarchy itself was in danger.
“There are clear signs of a coup brewing in the army that intends to overthrow the throne. Please give me the chance to prove my loyalty to your majesty,” Sherine said. “Bring Al-Nahhas back from Europe. I guarantee you that once the people see their leader among them, they will rally around the throne.”
The king, afraid of the popularity of Al-Nahhas, hesitated. Then he reluctantly gave Sherine permission to bring Al-Nahhas back to Egypt.
However, according to Al-Shahed the plan was stopped by chief of staff Hafiz Afifi, who interceded with the king to stop the proposal. “Sherine has little experience of political life. He is still green behind the eyes. If Al-Nahhas is appointed to the post, he will personally take part in removing your majesty,” Afifi told the king.
The conversation took place on 20 July 1952. Three days later, the Free Officers made their move.
