Very Good Turkish, Ottoman (1500-1928) Original autograph manuscript letter signed by Khedive Abbas Hilmi Pasha II of Egypt. 20,5x16,5 cm. In Ottoman script. 1 p. 6 lines. Sent to an unknown recipient who he called 'Efendim hazretleri' in elqab of the letter. He mentions that he received a telegraph of the recipient. He celebrated 'eid' ('Iyd-i said'). Abbas II Helmy Bey, was the last Khedive (Ottoman viceroy) of Egypt and Sudan, ruling from 8 January 1892 to 19 December 1914. In 1914, after the Ottoman Empire joined the Central Powers in World War I, the nationalist Khedive was removed by the British, then ruling Egypt, in favor of his more pro-British uncle, Hussein Kamel, marking the de jure end of Egypt's four-century era as a province of the Ottoman Empire, which had begun in 1517. Abbas Hilmy, the great-great-grandson of Muhammad Ali, was born in Alexandria, Egypt on 14 July 1874.[4] He succeeded his father, Tewfik Pasha, as Khedive of Egypt and Sudan on 8 January 1892. In 1887 he was ceremonially circumcised together with his younger brother Mohammed Ali Tewfik. The festivities lasted for three weeks and were carried out under great pomp. As a boy, he visited the United Kingdom, and he had a number of British tutors in Cairo including a governess who taught him English.[5] In a profile of Abbas II, the boys' annual, Chums, gives a lengthy account of his education. His father established a small school near the Abdin Palace in Cairo where European, Arab and Ottoman masters taught Abbas and his brother Mohammed Ali Tewfik. An American officer in the Egyptian army took charge of his military training. He attended school at Lausanne, Switzerland; then, at the age of twelve, he was sent to the Haxius School in Geneva, in preparation for his entry into the Theresianum in Vienna. In addition to Arabic and Ottoman Turkish, he had good conversational knowledge of English, French, and German. He was still in college in Vienna when he assumed the throne of the Khedivate of Egypt upon the sudden death of his father, 8 January 1892. He was bare of age according to Egyptian law; normally, eighteen in cases of succession to the throne. For some time he did not cooperate very cordially with the British, whose army had occupied Egypt in 1882. As he was young and eager to exercise his new power, he resented the interference of the British Agent and Consul General in Cairo, Sir Evelyn Baring, later made Lord Cromer. At the outset of his reign, Khedive Abbas II surrounded himself with a coterie of European advisers who opposed the British occupation of Egypt and Sudan and encouraged the young khedive to challenge Cromer by replacing his ailing prime minister with an Egyptian nationalist. At Cromer's behest, Lord Rosebery, the British foreign secretary, sent Abbas II a letter stating that the Khedive was obliged to consult the British consul on such issues as cabinet appointments. In January 1894 Abbas II made an inspection tour of Sudanese and Egyptian frontier troops stationed near the southern border, the Mahdists being at the time still in control of Sudan itself. At Wadi Halfa the Khedive made public remarks disparaging the Egyptian army units commanded by British officers. The British commander of the Egyptian army, Sir Herbert Kitchener, immediately threatened to resign. Kitchener further insisted on the dismissal of a nationalist under-secretary of war appointed by Abbas II and that an apology be made for the Khedive's criticism of the army and its officers. By 1899 he had come to accept British counsels. Also in 1899 British diplomat, Alfred Mitchell-Innes was appointed Under-Secretary of State for Finance in Egypt, and in 1900 Abbas II paid a second visit to Britain, during which he said he thought the British had done good work in Egypt and declared himself ready to cooperate with the British officials administering Egypt and Sudan. He gave his formal approval for the establishment of a sound system of justice for Egyptian nationals, a great reduction in taxation...
