The British conquest of Egypt, also known as the Anglo-Egyptian War (Arabic: الاحتلال البريطاني لمصر, romanized: al-iḥtilāl al-Brīṭānī li-Miṣr, lit.

It established firm British influence over Egypt at the expense of the Egyptians, the French, and the Ottoman Empire, whose already weak authority became nominal.

In their 1961 essay Africa and the Victorians, Ronald Robinson and John Gallagher argue that the British invasion was ordered to quell the perceived anarchy of the ‘Urabi Revolt, as well as to protect British control over the Suez Canal in order to maintain its shipping route to the Indian Ocean.

[5]: 382  Hopkins cites a letter from Edward Malet, the British consul general in Egypt at the time, to a member of the Gladstone cabinet offering his congratulations on the invasion: "You have fought the battle of all Christendom and history will acknowledge it.

[6]: 477  On Galbraith and al-Sayyid-Marsot's reading, Malet naïvely expected he could convince the British to intimidate Egypt with a show of force without considering a full invasion or occupation as a possibility.

[6]: 477–478  They also dwell on Admiral Beauchamp Seymour, who they claim hastened the start of the bombardment by exaggerating the danger posed to his ships by ‘Urabi's forces in his telegrams back to the British government.

[7] Tewfik Pasha, who had moved his court to Alexandria during the unrest, declared ‘Urabi a rebel and formally deposed him from his positions within the government.

‘Urabi then reacted by obtaining a fatwa from Al Azhar shaykhs which condemned Tewfik as a traitor to both his country and religion, absolving those who fought against him.

The British Army launched a probing attack at Kafr El Dawwar in an attempt to see if it was possible to reach Cairo through Alexandria.

This battle took place on 5 August 1882 between an Egyptian army under Ahmed 'Urabi and British forces headed by Sir Archibald Alison.

During the buildup to the battle at Tell El Kebir the specially raised 8th Railway Company RE operated trains carrying stores and troops, as well as repairing track.

On the day of the battle (13 September) they ran a train into Tell El Kebir station between 8 and 9 am and "found it completely blocked with trains, full of the enemy's ammunition: the line strewn with dead and wounded, and our own soldiers swarming over the place almost mad for want of water" (extract from Captain Sidney Smith's diary).

At 2 am on 13 September, Wolseley successfully sent a message to the Major General Sir Herbert Macpherson on the extreme left with the Indian Contingent and the Naval Brigade.

At Tell El Kebir a field telegraph office was established in a saloon carriage, which Arabi Pasha had travelled in the day before.

[12] Prime Minister Gladstone initially sought to put ‘Urabi on trial and execute him, portraying him as "a self-seeking tyrant whose oppression of the Egyptian people still left him enough time, in his capacity as a latter-day Saladin, to massacre Christians."

"[5]: 388  Consistent with this view, investment in Egypt increased during the British occupation, interest rates fell, and bond prices rose.