Abbas II of Egypt

Abbas II of Egypt
Abbas II Hilmi
Khedive of Egypt and Sudan

Reign

7 January 1892 19 December 1914

Born
Birthplace

Alexandria or Cairo

Died

19 December 1944 (aged70)

Place of death Geneva

Predecessor

Tewfik Pasha

Successor

Hussein Kamel

Dynasty

Muhammad Ali Dynasty

HH Abbas II Hilmi Bey (also known as Abbas Hilmi Pasha) (Arabic: ) (14 July 1874 19
December 1944) was the last Khedive of Egypt and Sudan (8 January 1892 19 December 1914).[1]

Early life
Abbas II was the great-great-grandson of Muhammad Ali. He succeeded his father, Tewfik Pasha, as Khedive of
Egypt and Sudan. As a boy he visited the United Kingdom, and he had a British tutor for some time in Cairo. He
then went to school in Lausanne, and from there passed on to the Theresianum in Vienna. In addition to Arabic and
Turkish, he had good conversational knowledge of English, French and German.

Reign
He was still in college in Vienna when he assumed the throne of the Khedivate of Egypt upon the sudden death of
his father. He was barely of age according to Egyptian law; eighteen in cases of succession to the throne. For some
time he did not cooperate very cordially with the United Kingdom, whose army had occupied Egypt in 1882. As he
was young and eager to exercise his new power, he resented the interference of the British Agent and Consul General
in Cairo, Sir Evelyn Baring, later made Lord Cromer. At the outset of his reign, Khedive Abbas surrounded himself
with a coterie of European advisers who opposed the British occupation of Egypt and Sudan and encouraged the

Abbas II of Egypt
young Khedive to challenge Cromer by replacing his ailing prime minister with a nationalist. At Cromer's behest,
Lord Roseberry, the British foreign secretary, sent him a letter stating that the Khedive was obliged to consult the
British consul on such issues as cabinet appointments. In January 1894 Abbas, while on an inspection tour of
Egyptian army installations near the southern border, the Mahdists being at the time still in control of Sudan, made
public remarks disparaging the Egyptian army units commanded by British officers. The British commander of the
Egyptian army, Sir Herbert Kitchener, immediately offered to resign. Cromer strongly supported Kitchener and
pressed the Khedive and prime minister to retract the Khedive's criticisms of the British officers. From that time on,
Abbas no longer publicly opposed the British, but secretly created, supported, and sustained the nationalist
movement, which came to be led by Mustafa Kamil. As Kamil's thrust was increasingly aimed at winning popular
support for a National Party, Khedive Abbas publicly distanced himself from the Nationalists.
In time he came to accept British counsels. In 1899 British diplomat Alfred Mitchell-Innes was appointed
Under-Secretary of State for Finance in Egypt, and in 1900 Abbas paid a second visit to Britain, during which he
frankly acknowledged the great good the British had done in Egypt, and declared himself ready to follow their
advice and to cooperate with the British officials administering Egyptian and Sudanese affairs. The establishment of
a sound system of native justice, the great remission of taxation, the reconquest of Sudan, the inauguration of the
substantial irrigation works at Aswan, and the increase of cheap, sound education, each received his formal approval.
He displayed more interest in agriculture than in statecraft. His farm of cattle and horses at Qubbah, near Cairo, was
a model for scientific agriculture in Egypt, and he created a similar establishment at Muntazah, near Alexandria. He
married the Princess Ikbal Hanem and had several children. Muhammad Abdul Mun'im, the heir-apparent, was born
on 20 February 1899.
His relations with Cromer's successor, Sir Eldon Gorst, were excellent, and they co-operated in appointing the
cabinets headed by Butrus Ghali in 1908 and Muhammad Sa'id in 1910 and in checking the power of the Nationalist
Party. The appointment of Kitchener to succeed Gorst in 1911 displeased Abbas, and relations between him and the
British deteriorated. Kitchener often complained about "that wicked little Khedive" and wanted to depose him.
When the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers in World War I, the United Kingdom declared Egypt an
independent Sultanate under British protectorate on 18 December 1914 and deposed Abbas. Abbas supported the
Ottomans in the war, including leading an attack on the Suez Canal. His uncles Hussein Kamel and then Fuad I, the
British choices for their Protectorate, issued a series of restrictive orders to strip Abbas of property in Egypt and
Sudan and forbade contributions to him. These also barred Abbas from entering Egyptian territory and stripped him
of the right to sue in Egyptian courts. Abbas finally accepted the new order of things on 12 May 1931 and abdicated.
He retired to Switzerland where he died at Geneva 19 December 1944.

Marriages and issue

He married firstly in Cairo on 19 February 1895 Crimean Ikbal Hanim (Crimea, 22 October 1876 - Jerusalem, 10
February 1941) and had six children:
HH Princess Emine Hilmi Khanum Efendi (Montaza Palace, Alexandria, 12 February 1895 - 1954), unmarried
and without issue
HH Princess Atiye Hilmi Khanum Efendi (Cairo, 9 June 1896 - 1971), unmarried and without issue
HH Princess Fethiye Hilmi Khanum Efendi (27 November 1897 - 30 November 1923), unmarried and without
issue
HH Prince/HRH Prince Muhammad Abdel Moneim Bey Efendi, Heir Apparent and Regent of Egypt and Sudan
HH Princess Ltfiye evket Hilmi (Cairo, 29 September 1900 - ?), married in Istanbul on 5 May 1923 to Omar
Muhtar Katrcolu (1902 - amlca, near skdar, Bosphorus, 15 July 1935), and had issue:
Emine Needil Katrcolu (b. 1927), unmarried and without issue
Zehra Kadriye Katrcolu (b. 1929), married Ahmet Cevat Tugay have 4 sons and a daughter
HH Prince Muhammed Abdel Kader (4 February 1902 - Montreux, 21 April 1919)

Abbas II of Egypt
He married secondly at ubuklu, Bosphorus, on 1 March 1910 and divorced in 1913 Hungarian Noblewoman
Marianne Trk de Szendr, who took the name Zbeyde Cavidan Hanm (Philadelphia, Philadelphia County,
Pennsylvania, 8 January 1874 - aft. 1951), without issue.

Honours

Grand Cross of the Order of the Polar Star of Sweden-1890

Grand Cross of the Order of Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary-1891
Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George (GCMG)-1891
Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath (GCB)-1892
Grand Cross of the Legion d'Honneur of France-1892
Grand Cross of the Order of the Dannebrog of Denmark-1892
Grand Cross of the Order of the Netherlands Lion-1892
Order of the House of Osman of Ottoman Empire-1895
Order of Honour of Ottoman Empire-1895
Grand Cross of the Order of Leopold of Austria-1897
Grand Cross of the Order of Chula Chom Klao, special class of Siam-1897
Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO)-1900

Royal Victorian Chain (RVC)-1905

Grand Cross of the Order of Charles III of Spain-1905
Grand Cross of the Order of Duke Peter Friedrich Ludwig of Oldenburg-1905
Grand Cross of the Ducal Saxe-Ernestine House Order-1905
Grand Cross of the Order of Albert of Saxony-1905
Grand Cross of the Order of the Redeemer of Greece-1905
Grand Cross of the Order of Prince Danilo I of Montenegro-1905
Grand Cross of the Order of Carol I of Romania-1905
Grand Cross of the Order of Pius IX of the Vatican-1905
Grand Cross of the Order of Saint Stephen of Austria-Hungary-1905
Knight of the Order of St. Alexander Nevsky of Russia-1908
Knight of the Order of Saint Stanislaus (Imperial House of Romanov) of Russia-1908
Knight of the Order of the Royal House of Chakri of Siam-1908
Grand Cross of the Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus of Italy-1911
Grand Cross of the Order of Ludwig of Hesse-1911
Grand Cordon of the Order of Leopold of Belgium-1911
Grand Cross of the Order of the Star of Ethiopia-1911
Grand Cordon of the Sharifan Order of Ouissam Alaouite of Morocco-1913
Grand Cross of the Order of the Black Eagle of Albania-1914
Grand Cross w/Collar of the Order of the Red Eagle of Prussia-1914
Grand Cordon special class of the Order of the Exalted of Zanzibar-1914

Abbas II of Egypt

Bibliography

Cromer, Sir Evelyn Baring, Earl of. Abbas II. London: Macmillan, 1915. Available to read online [2]
Goldschmidt, Arthur, Biographical Dictionary of Modern Egypt. Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2000, pp.23.
Pollock, John. Kitchener: Architect of Victory, Artisan of Peace. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2001.
al-Sayyid, Afaf Lutfi. Egypt and Cromer: A Study in Anglo-Egyptian Relations. London: John Murray, 1968.
Sonbol, Amira, trans. & ed., The Last Khedive of Egypt: Memoirs of Abbas Hilmi II. Reading, UK: Ithaca Press,
1998.

References
[1] Chambers Biographical Dictionary, ISBN 0-550-18022-2, page 1
[2] http:/ / www. questia. com/ read/ 91777976

Al-Ahram on Abbas in exile: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2000/480/chrncls.htm and http://weekly.ahram.

org.eg/2000/480/chrncls.htm
Mehmet Ali genealogy: http://www.4dw.net/royalark/Egypt/egypt11.htm

This articleincorporates text from a publication now in the public domain:Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911).
"Abbas II". Encyclopdia Britannica (Eleventh ed.). Cambridge University Press.

External links

James Wood (1907). "Abbas Pasha". The Nuttall Encyclopdia.

"Abbas Pasha Hilmi". Collier's New Encyclopedia. 1921.

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