BOOKS/AFRICAN/EGYPTIAN HISTORY: BOOKS/AFRICAN/EGYPTIAN HIST...

Estimate

£200 - £300

BOOKS/AFRICAN/EGYPTIAN HISTORY:

BOOKS/AFRICAN/EGYPTIAN HISTORY: Extremely rare leather-bound edition of the standing orders, H.H.Y. Mahroussa Royal Yacht to the Khedive of Egypt. This was the shipboard volume and is sold complete with handwritten notations within eight chapters, printed in Arabic and English, with some further alterations in ink. Produced by the National Printing department, Cairo in 1909 and detailing the general regulations for behaviour on board for Officers and men, together with special instructions for watch keeping at sea and in port, inspections and fire. 6½ins. x 10ins.(17cm x 25.5cm)

Abbas Helmy II (July 1874 – 19 December 1944) was the last Khedive of Egypt and the Sudan, ruling from 8 January 1892 to 19 December 1914. In 1914, after the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers in World War I, the nationalist Khedive was removed by the British, then ruling Egypt, in favour of his more pro-British uncle, Hussein Kamel, marking the de jure end of Egypt's four-century era as a province of the Ottoman Empire, which had begun in 1517. Abbas II supported and sustained the Egyptian nationalist movement, which came to be led by Mustafa Kamil Pasha. He also funded the anti-British newspaper Al-Mu'ayyad. The western world would characterize him as a revolutionary against peace, although his main goal was to gain independence for Morocco. On 25 July 1914, at the onset of World War I, Abbas II was in Constantinople and was wounded in his hands and cheeks during a failed assassination attempt. On 5 November 1914 when Great Britain declared war on the Ottoman Empire, he was accused of deserting Egypt by not promptly returning home. The British also believed that he was plotting against their rule, as he had attempted to appeal to Egyptians and Sudanese to support the Central Powers against the British. So, when the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers in World War I, the United Kingdom declared Egypt a Sultanate under British protection on 18 December 1914 and deposed Abbas II.

H.H.Y. Mahroussa was designed by Oliver Lang, the designer of the second Victoria and Albert and built by the Samuda Brothers at Poplar in 1865 for the Khedive of Egypt. In 1869 she was the second vessel to pass along the new Suez Canal during the opening ceremony. Originally a paddle steamer, she was converted to steam turbine propulsion with triple screws in 1905 and was twice lengthened. She served the Egyptian Royal family until 1951 and then became the property of the Egyptian Government, being re-named El-Horreya and employed as a training ship at Alexandria. In 1976, at the age of 111 years, she steamed to New York to take part in the American Bicentenary celebrations. Still in government commission at Alexandria, she is one of the oldest Royal Yachts still afloat.