, in 1911, Sir Eldon
Gorst was replaced by Lord Kitchener--a patent warning to the
nationalists that sedition would be given short shrift by the iron hand
which had crushed the Khalifa and his Dervish hordes at Omdurman.
Kitchener arrived in Egypt with the express mandate to restore order,
and this he did with thoroughness and exactitude. The Egyptians were
told plainly that England neither intended to evacuate the Nile valley
nor considered its inhabitants fit for self-government within any
discernible future. They were admonished to turn their thoughts from
politics, at which they were so bad, to agriculture, at which they were
so good. As for seditious propaganda, new legislation enabled Lord
Kitchener to deal with it in summary fashion. Practically all the
nationalist papers were suppressed, while the nationalist leaders were
imprisoned, interned, or exiled. In fact, the British Government did its
best to distract attention everywhere from Egypt, the British press
co-operating loyally by labelling the subject taboo. The upshot was that
Egypt became quieter than it had been for a generation.

However, it was only a surface calm. Driven underground, Egyptian unrest
even attained new virulence which alarmed close observers. In 1913 the
well-known English publicist Sidney Low, after a careful investigation
of the Egyptian situation, wrote: "We are not popular in Egypt. Feared
we may be by some; respected I doubt not by many others; but really
liked, I am sure, by very few."[148] Still more outspoken was an article
significantly entitled "The Darkness over Egypt," which appeared on the
eve of the Great War.[149] Its publication in a semi-scientific
periodical for specialists in Oriental problems rendered it worthy of
serious attention. "The long-continued absence of practically all
discussion or even mention of Egyptian internal affairs from the British
press," asserted this article, "is not indicative of a healthy
condition. In Egypt the superficial quiet is that of suppressed
discontent--of a sullen, hopeless mistrust toward the Government of the
Occupation. Certain recent happenings have strengthened in Egyptian
minds the conviction that the Government is making preparations for the
complete annexation of the country.... We are not concerned to question
how far the motives attributed to the Government are true. The essential
fact is that the Government of the Occupation has not yet succeeded in
endearing, or even reco