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연구정보
[정치] 글래드스턴의 제국정책 연구 : 1882년 이집트 점령을 중심으로
이집트 국내연구자료 기타 안덕광 영남대학교 발간일 : 2017-04-29 등록일 : 2017-07-20 원문링크
The British occupation of Egypt in 1882 was a turning point in the history of imperialism. Triggered by this incident, European great powers started to clash for their territorial exploitation of Africa. Simultaneously Gladstone's moral stance as a liberalistic leader with the moral foreign policy underwent a severe blow. However, the problem on Gladstone's own role and real motive in the decision of the occupation of Egypt has relatively less been dealt for its consequence. Therefore, there is not enough explained the gap between Gladstone's idea of idealistic liberalism and the real politics of the occupation of Egypt.
The most controversial issues in Gladstone's decision of the invasion of Egypt in 1882 are as follows: Firstly, was this carried out under any long-term scheme to expand the British imperial territory or undertook this as a responsive act triggered by the military rebellion in Egypt then? Secondly, who, among his cabinet men, the British parliament, the foreign officials on the spot, journalists, and domestic businessmen-investors, influenced most on Gladstone's final decision to invade Egypt by force even by breaking his principle of moral foreign policy?
In order to trace Gladstone's real motive the author analyzed the extremely detailed process of Gladstone's final decision-making for occupation, mainly utilizing primary documents such as, Gladstone's diaries, private letters between Gladstone himself, his close entourage and his family and personal notes to the foreign officials to Egypt, memorandum, and unpublished articles then, which were rarely dealt in the existing studies.
After examining all these factors, the author can get to several important conclusions as follows.
Firstly, Gladstone's occupation of Egypt in 1882 was never a planned action with any long-term scheme or follow-up measure after the occupation. Because Gladstone did not seriously considered the Egyptian issue until the summer of 1882. After receiving reports from the foreign officials on the massacre of Alexandria 1882, Gladstone suddenly changed his stance, accused Urabi's military rebellion as an immoral provocation and finally decided to invade Egypt by force.
Secondly, Gladstone's full-out change of viewpoint was resulted from exaggerated and prejudiced reports by British officials stationed to Egypt. Those people had such a world view as the Western Europe, as a superior, should be the model to the savage people and should implant European culture on the Egyptian soil. They also believed that they must change the Egyptian politics modelling after the British Constitution. In their eyes, Urabi was not a nationalist person, but a dangerous obstacle, who was to be removed.
Thirdly, the next pressing force upon Gladstone's decision to invade Egypt was domestic investors and the media, who were mutually closely-connected in term of financial interests of the Suez Canal. From June to July in 1882, British media endlessly exaggerated a series of the incidentㄴ in Egypt as ‘ threatening crisis' and intimidated public opinion. The media stirred up domestic investors to respond to the escalating financial crisis in Egypt, the crisis in the Suez Canal, the political crisis of the Massacre of Alexandria, and Urabi's military rebellion. Finally the British media gave Gladstone the impulse to condemn Urabi as 'an evil incarnate' of violating morality and justice.
Fourthly, we can say that Urabi's Arab nationalism had the feature of the movement for modernization of Egypt as well as the feature of military rebellion. It can not be justified whether Urabi's nationalist movement came up to a 'crisis', critical enough to call for the British military intervention. Even though many Egyptian intellectuals were inclined toward western constitutionalism, they rallied for Urabi since he was a moderate person. Therefore, we need a deeper analysis of the diverse political groups and positions of Egyptian nationalists.
Lastly, it is an undeniable fact that Gladstone's moral foreign policy with the six principles which were declared in the Midlothian Campaign faced a serious limitation in the wake of the invasion of Egypt. However, to say that Gladstone's foreign policy was a mere political hypocrisy or simple rhetoric is too simplistic or absolutist an interpretation of the past. Rather, it would be right to say that Gladstone was indeed pulled along the situation in Egypt. Gladstone tried to explicate the occupation itself as morally inevitable, defining Urabi's rebellion itself as a moral crisis. Later Gladstone reproached his foreign officials for their overexaggerated reports. Besides, he hoped that British army would withdraw from the occupation of Egypt as soon as possible after British army subdued the rebellion. In sum, it is more appropriate to say that Gladstone's invasion of Egypt was not a disclose of the hypocrisy of his moral foreign policy but rather an exposure of its limit.
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| 이전글 | [정치] 이집트의 대영 독립투쟁(1914-1922) : 이집트 민족주의자의 움직임을 중심으로 | 2017-07-20 |
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| 다음글 | [정치] 이집트 국내 갈등의 분석과 해결에 대한 연구 | 2017-07-21 |