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The Anzacs, Empire, and Race in First World War Egypt

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The Anzacs, Empire, and Race in First World War Egypt A Darker Face: The ANZACs, Empire, and Race in First World War Egypt by Adam J. Bielka B.A., Simon Fraser University, 2014 Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Department of History Faculty of Arts and Social Science Adam J. Bielka 2016 SIMON FRASER UNIVERSITY Summer 2016 Approval Name: Adam Johann Bielka Degree: Master of Arts Title: A Darker Face: The ANZACs, Empire, and Race in First World War Egypt Examining Committee: Chair: Jeremy Brown Associate Professor Paul Sedra Senior Supervisor Associate Professor Thomas Kuehn Supervisor Associate Professor Aaron Windel Supervisor Assistant Professor Jeffrey Sachs External Examiner Post-Doctoral Fellow International Studies Simon Fraser University Date Defended: August 25, 2016 ii Abstract During the First World War, over 100,000 soldiers from Australia and New Zealand were deployed to Egypt, with many staying for months or years. This thesis explores the interactions between Australasian soldiers and Egyptian civilians over the course of the war, investigating how the actions and attitudes of Australasians differed from the traditional agents of British imperialism in Egypt, with a specific emphasis on the ANZACs’ peculiar racial thought. The chapters examine (a) how Australasian imperial ideology was significantly less paternalistic than Britons’ in Egypt (b) how the Australasians’ penchant for ascribing Egyptians with blackening monikers affected imperial relationships and (c) how Australasians racialized different types of non-whites in Egypt. Keywords: ANZAC; First World War; blackness; Australasian racism; Egypt; imperialism iii Dedication This thesis is dedicated to Private Langford Wellman Colley-Priest, the sole ANZAC diarist I read over the course of this study to decry his co-nationals’ mistreatment of Egyptian civilians iv Acknowledgements I would like to first thank my examining committee, especially my supervisor Dr. Paul Sedra, who has put up with innumerable lacklustre drafts with admirable patience and continually provided to-the-point critiques. Secondly, I would like to give my acute gratitude to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the Canadian taxpayer, whose generous funding has been instrumental in my ability to complete this thesis. Thirdly, I would like to thank all those foreign academics who helped strengthen this thesis by so graciously responding to my cold e-mail inquiries about Australasian historiography: Drs. Christina Spittel, David Carter, Phillip Mead, Robert Dixon, Peter Stanley, Jenny Gregory, Karen Fox, Bruce Scates, Peter Clayworth, and Dolores Janiewski. Lastly, I would like to emphatically thank everyone who pitched in to proofread or edit a segment of this thesis: Dr. Dimitris Krallis, Dr. Sarah Walshaw, Michelle Derrick, Alice Huang, Graeme Niedtner, Bruce Dyck, Nathaniel Kierkegaard, Jennifer Chutter, Jashan Singh Randhawa, Jennifer Wilmot, Alexander Strohschein, and most of all, my Mother. v Table of Contents Approval .......................................................................................................................... ii Abstract .......................................................................................................................... iii Dedication ...................................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgements ......................................................................................................... v Table of Contents ........................................................................................................... vi List of Figures................................................................................................................ viii Chapter 1. Introduction ............................................................................................. 1 1.1. Egyptian Historiography .......................................................................................... 4 1.2. ANZAC Historiography ........................................................................................... 7 1.3. Chapter Outlines ................................................................................................... 12 1.4. The Geography of ANZAC-Egyptian Interaction ................................................... 13 1.5. Methodology ......................................................................................................... 15 Chapter 2. The Good Friday Riot and the ANZACs’ Deviant Imperial Ideology.................................................................................................. 18 2.1. Australian Justification .......................................................................................... 20 2.1.1. Egyptian Initiation .................................................................................... 21 2.1.2. Siege Victims ........................................................................................... 22 2.1.3. Fun .......................................................................................................... 25 2.2. Britons Aghast ...................................................................................................... 27 2.3. British Imperialism ................................................................................................ 27 2.4. Colonial Ideology in British Wartime Arrivals ......................................................... 30 2.5. Imperial Ideology in Australasia ............................................................................ 32 2.6. ANZAC Imperial Ideology in Egypt........................................................................ 35 2.7. ANZAC Imperial Practice in Egypt ........................................................................ 37 2.8. Tensions of Imperial Ideology ............................................................................... 39 2.9. Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 42 Chapter 3. Diggers Shouting “Nigger!”: The Introduction of a Blackening Discourse to Egypt ................................................................................ 44 3.1. Race Discourse in Britain and Australasia ............................................................ 45 3.2. Bringing the Binary Abroad ................................................................................... 48 3.3. Black Slurs ........................................................................................................... 49 3.4. A Dehumanizing Discourse .................................................................................. 52 3.5. Black Denotation .................................................................................................. 53 3.6. Shades of Black .................................................................................................... 55 3.7. Receiving Designations of Blackness ................................................................... 56 3.8. Blackness in the Context of the 1919 Revolution .................................................. 60 Chapter 4. Dodging Denigration: Examining Exceptions to ANZAC Racism in Egypt ..................................................................................... 63 4.1. The Australasian Foundations of Prejudice ........................................................... 64 vi 4.2. The Ambassadors of Egypt................................................................................... 68 4.3. Affluent Egyptians ................................................................................................. 71 4.4. Romanticized Fellaheen ....................................................................................... 74 4.5. Indian Soldiers ...................................................................................................... 79 4.6. Conclusion ............................................................................................................ 83 Chapter 5. Conclusion ............................................................................................. 85 Archival Sources ......................................................................................................... 88 Published Primary Sources ........................................................................................ 90 Other Primary Sources ............................................................................................... 92 Secondary Sources ..................................................................................................... 94 vii List of Figures Figure 1. Main Australasian Bases in Egypt, 1915 ................................................ 14 Figure 2. The Was’ah: Cairo’s Red Light District, 1914 ......................................... 19 viii Chapter 1. Introduction During one scene in Naguib Mahfouz’s First World War literary epic, Palace Walk, a shaykh recounts an unhappy story about being robbed. “‘Yesterday I was walking into the Muski when two Australian soldiers blocked my way. They told me to hand over everything I had,” he complains to another character.1 Dejectedly, the shaykh agreed, emptying his pockets of his sole possession, an ear of corn. To his continued dismay, he recounts how one of the Australians “took it and kicked it like a ball. The other snatched my turban. He unwound the cloth from it, ripped it, and flung it in
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