The Denshawai incident is the name given to a dispute which occurred in 1906 between British Army officers and Egyptian villagers in Denshawai, Egypt, which would later become of great significance in the nationalist and anti-colonial consciousness of the Egyptians. It is considered by some historians, such as Peter Mansfield who wrote The British in Egypt (1971), to mark a turning point in the British presence in the country. Though the incident itself was fairly small in terms of the number of casualties and injuries, the British officers' response to the incident, and the significant consequences were what led to its lasting impact. The incident was commemorated by the establishment of the Denshway Museum.

Causes

There were many tensions that led up to the Denshawai incident. The Egyptian people had had a growing sense of nationalism long before the British occupation of Egypt in 1882 and the revolt of Ahmed Urabi.^[2] The Urabi Revolt was motivated by the idea of revolution and liberation of the Egyptian people from their Turkish overlords; it led to the Anglo-Egyptian War. The Egyptian government was taken over and directed by Evelyn Baring, 1st Earl of Cromer. He was in charge of economic reforms and worked to eliminate the debt caused by the Ottoman khedival regime. The success of these reforms was mainly enjoyed by the upper classes.^{[citation needed]}

Since the Turkish khedival regime, the upper--mainly Turkish--classes benefited from the British occupation, to the exclusion of the Egyptian people.^[3] The middle class, predominantly Egyptian, was the primary group in Egypt to resist the British occupation. They criticized the British for not dealing with the khedival government's corruption. Positions in the Egyptian government were filled by the British officers. Newspaper writers maintained that, if not for the policies of the British government in Egypt, those positions could have been easily filled by capable, educated Egyptians.^{[citation needed]}

Incident

The incident was reported in The Egyptian Gazette of the time, which was under the British editor, Rowland Snelling. The Consul-General of Egypt, Lord Cromer, actively influenced the reporting and publication of news articles in the newspaper.^[4]

At 1 pm, on 13 June 1906, five British officers set off to hunt pigeons at Denshawai. They were Captain Bull, Lieutenant Smithwick, Captain Bostock, Lieutenant Porter, and Major Pine-Coffin. Along the way, they were met by villagers who warned them in Arabic not to shoot pigeons in the area. The warnings were not taken seriously. It was a common practice that the opinion of Egyptians were not taken into consideration by British officers.^[4] After they started shooting, the fellaheen villagers became upset due to the fact that the pigeons were cultivated by them as a source of food and also due to the fact that a fire broke out which the villagers accused the officers of starting. A scuffle broke out, and one of the British officers fired his gun, wounding four villagers, including a woman who eventually died of her injuries, which provoked further attack upon the officers.^[4][5]

One of the officers managed to escape from the scene and fled back on foot towards the British camp in the intense noontime heat. He later collapsed outside the camp and died, most likely of heatstroke. A villager who came upon him there tried to assist and help him, but when other soldiers from the camp saw the villager alongside the body of the dead officer, they assumed that he had killed the officer, and killed him in turn; the soldiers that killed the villager were later stabbed by an Egyptian teenager.^[6]

The Trial

Egypt was under effective control of Lord Cromer. He believed that Egyptians were untrustworthy witnesses. He argued that floggings and other methods of torture were required to uncover the truth of what happened.^[7] Additionally, Major-General Bullock, the Commanding Officer of the Army of Occupation, requested that the accused be tried under Khedival Decree rather than the reformed, Egyptian penal code. This decree was established in 1895 to "deal very swiftly and summarily" with crimes by the "natives" against officers of the occupying army. It allowed more severe punishments than was possible under the Egyptian justice system.^[4]

The day following the incident, the British Army arrested fifty-two men in the village (identified as members of the involved scuffle). Five judges were assigned to adjudicate: Boutros Pasha Ghali (who was also the Minister of Justice), Ahmed Fathy Zaghlul, William Hayter, Lieutenant Colonel Ludlow, and Mr Bond. Only one of the judges was a Muslim.^[4]

The trial happened on 24 June 1906. No minutes were taken. The defendants were indicted under charges of pre-meditated murder and robbery with violence. All 52 defendants testified for a total of 34 minutes, barely enough time to state their names and alibis. Hassan Aly Mahfouz (owner of the pigeons), Youssef Hussein Selim, El Sayed Issa Salem, and Mohamed Darweesh Zahran, were convicted of pre-meditated murder of the officer who had died of heatstroke, with the claim that their actions had put him in that deadly position. It was necessary to convict them with pre-mediated murder in order to sentence them to death. It was reported in the Al Muqattam at the time that the gallows were erected in Denshawai before the trial was concluded. Twelve other villagers were found guilty and sentenced to various prison terms. Eight men were sentenced to be whipped 50 times.^[3][4]

Hassan was hanged in front of his own house in front of his family, which was uncharacteristic of the usual protocol in capital punishment. This decision sparked outrage among the Egyptian public and was described by the nationalist press as being especially cruel and an "outright symbol of tyranny".^[8]

Darweesh's last words from the gallows were: “May God compensate us well for this world of meanness, for this world of injustice, for this world of cruelty.”^[8]

Aftermath

Concerned with growing Egyptian nationalism, British officials thought it best to show their strength and make an example of the villager leaders involved. Many were arrested, and four charged with murder. This decision inflamed Egyptian nationalist sentiment.^[8] Some Egyptian leaders later affirmed that the incident, and the British response to it, led them to suppose that co-operation with the British Empire was "totally unacceptable"^[9] and impossible. The belief that co-operation was impossible increased leaders' concerns about British pressure to widen the franchise in Egypt, and caused them to push harder for the removal of British forces from Egypt.^[10]

In the long run, this incident, along with the rise in Egyptian nationalism, led to an anti-colonial struggle in Egypt during World War I. During the war, the Egyptian Expeditionary Force was stationed in Egypt. Its presence resulted in the major expenditure of food and resources to fight the Ottoman Empire. This had been a long time goal of Egyptian nationalists. As the war continued, the unrest sparked by the Denshawai incident was further aggravated by inflation, as well as food shortages in the country; severely damaging the Egyptian economy.^{[citation needed]}

By 1919, Egypt was ripe for revolt. While the Allies were attempting to reach a post-war agreement, the Egyptian leaders, known as the Wafd, which later gave its name to the major political party, were denied entrance to France to meet with the Versailles peacemakers. Among other things, the Wafd wanted a greater share in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, Egypt's joint colony with Britain. The Versailles refusal led to most of the Egyptian government resigning, and resulted in mass demonstrations, which led to riots. These riots, and the grievances that triggered them, provided Egyptian nationalists with both a focus for unified action, and a base of support that was wider than any they had attracted in the prewar decades.^[11]

This decision was used by national and anti-foreign elements to inflame public opinion in Egypt. Britons who called the tribunal and its legality into question, were accused of being unpatriotic and supporting the “venal agitators” in Egypt.

Guy Aldred, who in 1907 compared the execution of Madan Lal Dhingra with the immunity given to the British officers in this incident, was sentenced to twelve months' hard labour for publishing The Indian Sociologist.

George Bernard Shaw, in the preface to his play John Bull's Other Island, gave the public more of his view of the incident. In a passage more noted for its picturesque description than for its literal accuracy, he stated:

[T]hey had room for only one man on the gallows, and had to leave him hanging half an hour to make sure [he was dead] and give his family plenty of time to watch him swinging, thus having two hours to kill as well as four men, they kept the entertainment going by flogging eight men with fifty lashes each.

He then went on in the same vein:

If her [England’s] empire means ruling the world as Denshawai has been ruled in 1906 – and that, I am afraid, is what the Empire does mean to the main body of our aristocratic-military caste and to our Jingo plutocrats – then there can be no more sacred and urgent political duty on earth than the disruption, defeat, and suppression of the Empire, and, incidentally, the humanization of its supporters…

Legacy

Fifty years later, the Egyptian journalist Mohamed Hassanein Heikal said "the pigeons of Denshawai have come home to roost", to describe the aftermath of the Anglo-French strikes in Egypt in 1956.

"The Hanging of Zahran" is a poem by Salah Abdel Sabour about the incident. Nagui Riad made the film Friend of Life, based on the poem.

"27 June 1906, 2:00 pm" is a related poem by Constantine P. Cavafy, that starts: "When the Christians took and hanged/ the innocent boy of seventeen/ his mother who there beside the scaffold/ had dragged herself..."

The incident is mentioned in Ken Follett's 1980 spy novel The Key to Rebecca, set in Egypt.