After the expulsion of the French a power struggle ensued, which was won by Mohammed Ali , an officer in the Albanian Corps of the Ottoman forces. Widely regarded as the founder of modern Egypt, his dynasty was to change Egypt more radically than any ruler since Salah al-Din.

 

The Ottomans confirmed Mohammed Ali as Pasha in 1805, whereupon he proceeded to decapitate - literally and figuratively - what remained of the Mamluke power structure. The first time was on the occasion of his accession, where he tricked them into a coup attempt; six years later, he dispensed with the rest of the Mamluke leadership, inviting 470 Beys to a feast at the Citadel and slaughtering the lot.

Though nominally a vassal of the Ottoman sultan, Mohammed Ali's control was absolute. He confiscated private land for his own use and set about modernizing Egypt with European expertise, building railways, factories and canals. Meanwhile, his son Ibrahim led a murderous campaign to subjugate northern Sudan , of which the only positive result was the introduction of a special kind of cotton - henceforth Egypt's major cash crop.

When Mohammed Ali died insane in 1849, his power greatly reduced after disastrous adventurism in Greece and Syria, he was succeeded by Abbas (1848-54), who closed the country's factories and schools and opened Egypt to free trade, thus delaying the country's industrial development for the next century.

Abbas's successor, Said Pasha (1854-63), granted a concession to a French engineer, Ferdinand de Lesseps , to build the Suez Canal . The project was completed in 1869, by which time Khedive Ismail (1863-79) was in power. An ambitious and enlightened ruler, Ismail transformed Cairo, spending lavishly on modernization. However, exorbitant interest rates had to be paid on loans from European lenders. Egyptian indebtedness spiralled and, to stave off bankruptcy, Ismail sold his Suez Canal shares to the British government in 1875.

He was deposed and succeeded by his son Tewfiq (1879-92), whose own financial control was limited by the French and British, to the disgust of patriotic Egyptians. A group of army officers forced him to make power-sharing concessions and to appoint their leader, Ahmed Orabi , as Minister of War. France and Britain responded by sending in the gunboats, shelling Alexandria and landing an army at Ismailiya, which subsequently routed Orabi's forces at Tell el-Kebir and restored Tewfiq as a puppet ruler under British control.