Battle of Tel el-Kebir

In 1882 Britain sent an army to Egypt to crush the nationalist officers led by Ahmed Urabi, who had taken control of the government. Wolseley landed at Ismailia on the Suez Canal and chose to strike at the main Egyptian fortified line at Tel el-Kebir. His army marched across the desert by night, guided by the stars, and went in with the bayonet at first light. The Egyptian trenches were overrun in a short, sharp fight, and Cairo fell within days.

The campaign opened an occupation that gave Britain control of Egyptian finance and much of its government while keeping the khedive as a figurehead. Urabi was tried, and his death sentence was commuted to exile in Ceylon, where he lived for nearly twenty years. Egyptian historians have often seen him as an early nationalist, while British accounts at the time described the movement as a military mutiny. The Egyptian casualty figures are British estimates and probably not reliable.