A Military History of Modern Egypt: From the Ottoman Conquest to the Ramadan War (review)

Andrew McGregor's new book attempts a daunting feat—distilling 460 years of Egyptian military history into just over 300 pages. The first effort to do so in any language, it provides a handy reference tool, but will not appeal to all.

A Military History of Modern Egypt starts with a quick review of geography and ethnicity, useful and often missing in similar works. There follows a less helpful potted history of Egypt from 2575 BC to 1517 AD. Finally, in Chapter Three, this book starts living up to its title with a concise examination of Portuguese-Mamluk naval campaigns, and the Ottoman-Mamluk War of 1516–17. Then comes a rapid transition to Ali Bey al-Kabir's regime (1760–62) and Napoleon's Egyptian campaign.

McGregor picks up the pace with an interesting look at French efforts to control Egypt (1798–1800), followed by a good account of Muhammad Ali (Mehmed Ali) and his Nizam al-Jadid. The author also provides extensive coverage of Egyptian campaigns in Arabia, Greece, Syria, and North East Africa from 1810 to 1840. The latter forms a segue taking the reader into Ethiopian and Sudanese battles of the 1870s–1890s. Subsequent chapters deal with Egypt's role in World Wars I and II; the Free Officers' Coup of 1952; antipartisan operations in Yemen during the 1960s; and three wars with Israel.

Assessing this book is difficult. McGregor took on an ambitious task, and his effort has value. It also has very few notes, making it difficult to determine where he obtained his data. The bibliography is not extensive, and it is obvious McGregor sometimes relied on less than perfect sources. Citations would have improved this book, so we could determine the source of interesting statements like the Egyptian military archives suffering "from looting by the British in 1882"; or the purchase of 600 modern Krupp guns in the 1870s; or Napoleon ordering his Cairene police to have 400 prostitutes "beheaded, sewn into sacks, and thrown in the Nile."

One might also question McGregor's views on the value of individuals in Egyptian military history. Possibly Valentine Baker did "fall victim to the sexual phobias of Victorian England," then again, maybe he really was a masher and a cad. Add typos—"1823" rather than 1523, "Munsinger" rather than Munzinger—plus diversions to non-Egyptian topics like Circassians in other Arab forces in 1948, and these combine to reduce the book's appeal.

Still, this reviewer suggests readers interested in North East Africa, the Middle East, and Ottoman or Egyptian history consider A Military History of Modern Egypt.