Page 24 - Gulf Precis (V)_Neat

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41. This usurpation, however, was shortlived ; it lasted only until Turki’a
ion Fey sal, who at the tirno was conducting military operations near Katif
in HaBa, could return to Riadh. Meshari was then executed, and Feyaal
Buocoeaed liis father na Sultan of Nejd.
42. Feyaal was about 34 years of age. He at once applied himself to
restore order in the central provinces, where recent events had thrown overy-
thing into confusion.

XI— (1) Second Egyptian invasion. (2) British pressure oompela
the Egyptians to withdraw, 1836—1840.
43. Very small leisure however was allowed him for this task. In 1836
a large Egyptian force was assembled at Medina, and Feysil was summoned
as a vassal to bring in a contingent of troops to the Egyptian General. Feysal
evaded this demand ; but when he found the following year that the preten­
sions of a rival Prince, his cousin Khalid, were about to he forcibly taken up
by the Egyptians, he made a tender of full submission. It was too late. The
Egyptian General, with the pretender Khalid in his wake, advanced into
Nejd and after a battle near Riadh became master of the country. In
December 1838 Ilasa and Katif were added to the Egyptian conquests, and
Faysal, having surrendered himself to Khurslied Pasha, was sent a prisoner to
Egypt. Khurslied Pasha now threw off the cloak afforded by Khalid’s claims
to the throne, and declared Nejd an appanage of Egypt.
44. The Foreign Office has some bulky records of this period relating to
affairs in Arabia, hut there is little in them of value with reference to the purposes
of this Precis. For the Wahabis had now been swallowed up by the Egyptian
power, and therefore not only was the attention of the Indian Government
concentrated on the Egyptians only, but its policy became coloured by exclu­
sively European considerations. Lord Palmerston was at that time triump­
hantly carrying through, in the teeth of France as administered by M. Thiers,
his determination to reduce Mahomed Ali, the too powerful Pasha of Egypt,
to a proper subordination as vassal of the Porte.
45. Instead therefore of viewing the downfall of Wahabi fanaticism and
the rise of semi-civilised Egypt in its stead with any of that indifference or
complacency which, if the event could be repeated, might now perhaps be felt,
the Indian Government omitted no effort of diplomacy to counteract the pro­
gress of the Egyptian Generals. The Resident in the Persian Gulf entered a
formal protest against the proceedings of Khurslied Pasha, and took written
engagements from the maritime Chiefs of Oman that they would sedulously
cultivate their relations with the British Government, abide by its wishes
and instructions, and above all resist to the last extremity all attempts of
Khurslied Pasha to subjugate them. It was even seriously in contemplation
to blockade the Arabian ports in the Persian Gulf held by Egyptian troops,
when at last the strong remonstrances addressed to Mahomed Ali by Her
Britannic Majesty’s Consul-General at Cairo were found to have had their
effect, and in May 1840 the Egyptians evacuated Nejd. The Amir Khalid,
however, was left behind as Vali of the province.

XII.—Government of Khalid as Turkish. Vicegerent. 1840 41-
46. It is noticeable that Khnlid accepted this office by direct appointment
from the Sublime Porte ; for it was at this juncture and in this way that the
Turkish Government first came forward as claimant to all the rights of sover­
eignty in Central Arabia acquired hy the conquests of its Lieutenant, Mahomed
Ali, and his Egyptian troops. In allowing this arrangement Khurslied Pasha
seems to have intended that Khalid’s Government should ho carried on under
control from an Egyptian Agent to be established at Medina.
^47. Khalid’e short rule is marked hy two occasions of contact with the
British Government. In the first instance, ho addressed a very friendly letter
to the British Native Agent at Bahrein, expressing an earnest desire to renew
the amicable and cordial relations which formerly subsisted between his .
grandfather, Sand, and the British Government, hinting that he had wishoa
beforo to open the correspondence, hut had been prevented by his Lgyp