Colonial Policing During the ‘Crisis of Empire’: The British Army’s Suppression of the 1919 Egyptian Revolution

Abstract This article examines one of the key campaigns waged by the British Army during the 1919–22 ‘crisis of empire’. The suppression of the Egyptian Revolution in March-April 1919 witnessed the British employ a number of techniques that would come to characterise interwar colonial policing and post–1945 counter-insurgency, including collective punishment, summary military courts, and repressive violence. The campaign was characterised by a permissive operating environment, underpinned by martial law powers, in which local commanders and military units had considerable freedom to operate. Despite the considerable variation in local practice, the employment of force in Egypt was characterised by the concept of moral effect; violence was intended to psychologically overwhelm the Egyptian population. The suppression of the Egyptian Revolution in 1919 thus highlights the extent to which the crisis of empire both heralded elements of a new 20 th -century colonial policing model and looked back to 19 th -century imperial warfare.