Hydrology and Empire: The Nile, Water Imperialism and the Partition of Africa

Abstract

Why did the British march up the Nile in the 1890s? The answers to this crucial question of imperial historiography have direct relevance for narratives and theories about imperialism, in general, and the partition of Africa in the nineteenth century, in particular. They will also influence our understanding of some of the main issues in the modern history of the whole region, including state developments and resource utilisation. This article presents an alternative to dominant interpretations of the partition of Africa and the role of British Nile policies in this context. It differs from mainstream diplomatic history, which dominates this research field, in its emphasis on how geographical factors and the hydrological characteristics of the Nile influenced and framed British thinking and actions in the region. Realising the importance of such factors and the specific character of the regional water system does not imply less attention to traditional diplomatic correspondence or to the role of individual imperial entrepreneurs. The strength of this analytical approach theoretically is that it makes it possible to locate the intentions and acts of historical subjects within specific geographical contexts. Empirically, it opens up a whole new set of source material, embedding the reconstruction of the British Nile discourse in a world of Nile plans, water works and hydrological discourses.

Notes

For an overview and discussion of the literature on the ‘Partition of Africa', see Tvedt, The River Nile in the Age of the British; Tvedt, The Nile; Tvedt, The Southern Sudan.

The interpretation of British Nile policies in the late nineteenth century presented in this article is put in a much wider context in my book The River Nile in the Age of the British.

This expression is taken from Robinson and Gallagher's very influential book on Victorian imperialism and the partition of Africa, Africa and the Victorians. The Official Mind of Imperialism, 1961. This article quotes from their later edition Robinson and Gallagher (with Alice Denny), Africa and the Victorians. The Official Mind of Imperialism, 1981. Robinson and Gallagher claim that the overriding British motive in the region was ‘Security of the Empire’ and that the British became masters of the Nile not because they wanted to, but because they were forced to act by the European rivals. What compelled the British to occupy the regions south of Egypt was the fear that other European powers might take control over the Upper Nile as a lever to shore the British away from Suez. The occupation of the Upper Nile was thus seen as a pre-emptive measure by and large forced upon an unwilling and defensive British leadership by other European states muddling in the basin. According to this way of reasoning, the importance of Sudan in British imperial strategy was fundamentally shaped by its conceived role as a buffer state vis-à-vis other European powers in the defence of British positions in Egypt and not by its intrinsic value in their Nile strategy.

Quote from Robinson and Gallagher, ‘The Imperialism of Free Trade’, 15. More or less identical descriptions of the ‘value’ of the Upper Nile and southern Sudan are found in Sanderson, Education, Religion & Politics in Southern Sudan 1899–1964, Holt, A Modern History of the Sudan; Collins, Problems in African History; Collins, King Leopold, England and the Upper Nile 1899–1909; Collins, The Partition of Africa: Illusion or Necessity; Collins, Land Beyond the Rivers; Collins, Shadows in the Grass, Britain in the Southern Sudan, 1918–1956; Brown, Fashoda Reconsidered: The Impact of Domestic Politics on French Policy in Africa 1893–1898; Louis, The Robinson and Gallagher Controversy; Sanderson and Sanderson, Education, Religion & Politics in Southern Sudan 1899–1964; Bates, The Fashoda Incident of 1898; Lewis, The Race to Fashoda; Pakenham, The Scramble for Africa, 1876–1912; Louis and Winks, The Robinson and Gallagher Controversy; Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism, 1688–2000; Johnson, British Imperialism (Histories and Controversies); Smith, British Imperialism, 1750–1970, Webster, The Debate on the Rise of the British Empire.

This expression is taken from one of the most politically influential hydrologists in the 1890s, William Willcocks, see among other books, his two-volume study, 1889.

Robinson and Gallagher, Africa and the Victorians, 475.

Robinson and Gallagher, Africa and the Victorians, 474–75.

Quoted in Willcocks, Sixty Years in the East, 67.

Tignor, Modernization and British Colonial Rule in Egypt, 1882–1914, 234.

Crouchley, The Economic Development of Modern Egypt, 145.

See, for example, The Times for the years 1893 and 1894.

Scott-Moncrieff, ‘The Rile’, 414–15.

See, for example, Scott-Moncrieff, ‘The Rile’; Willcocks, Egyptian Irrigation; Willcocks and Craig, Egyptian Irrigation.

Crouchley, The Economic Development of Modern Egypt, 148.

This was a system of forced labour where poor people in their thousands and tens of thousands were forced to work to clean and repair the irrigation canals in order to hinder them from silting up and to help with the maintenance of the canal banks, etc. This system was abolished during the first few decades of British rule mainly due to an improved water control system. For a description of the system, see, for example, Willcocks, Egyptian Irrigation.

Willcocks, Report on Perennial Irrigation and Flood Protection of Egypt, 5. This was a government publication.

Quoted in Robinson, ‘Imperial Problems in British Politics, 1880–1895’, 277.

Ross, ‘Irrigation and Agriculture in Egypt’, 188.

Willcocks, Report on the Nile and Proposed Reservoirs, in CAIRINT, 3/14/232, NRO. This was written in 1893 and circulated among the government officials.

Willcocks, Report on the Nile and Proposed [email protected] 3/14/232, 9.

Willcocks, Report on the Nile and Proposed [email protected] 3/14/232, 5. The direct gain to the state was said to be from sale of reclaimed lands and the increase of the annual revenue derived from them. Indirect gain to the state, but direct gain to the country, resulted from increased value of agricultural produce, the rise in the price of land and in the land rents, increase in custom revenue, etc.

Note upon the proposed modifications of the Aswan Dam Project, by Garstin, 14 Nov. 1894, Inclosure in No. 166, FO 407/126.

Cromer to Earl of Kimberley 15 Nov. 1894, in further correspondence respecting the affairs of Egypt, Jan. to June 1894, FO/407/126.

Garstin, Note on the Public Works Department for the year 1894, 19 Feb. 1895, Inclosure 3 in No 51, FO/407/131.

Garstin, A note, in Willcocks, Report on Perennial Irrigation and Flood Protection of Egypt, 53.

Willcocks, Report on Perennial Irrigation and Flood Protection of Egypt, 45.

See, for example, Mr Rodd to the Earl of Kimberley 3 Aug. 1894, referring to the protest of the London Society of Antiquarians against the proposed Nile reservoir. In further correspondence respecting the Affairs of Egypt, FO/407/127.

Scott-Moncrieff, ‘The Nile’, 417.

Memorandum by Sir William Garstin, Inclosure 1 in No. 30, FO/407/144.

Garstin, 1907, Note on the Sudan Irrigation Service, in Inclosure No. 2, Report of the Finance, Administration and Conditions of the Sudan, 1906, 53–58, London.

Garstin, Report on the Soudan, HMSO Parliamentary Accounts and Papers; Garstin, Despatch from His Majesty's Agent and Consul-General Cairo Enclosing a Report as to Irrigation Projects on the Upper Nile.

Willcocks, Report on Perennial Irrigation and Flood Protection of Egypt, 12.

Mason-Bey, ‘Note sur les nilome`tres et le mesurage des affluents du Nil, notamment du Nil blanc’. See also Linant de Bellefonds, Mémoires sur les principaux travaux d'utilité publique exécutés en Egypte depuis la plus haute antiquité jusqu'à nos jours.

Ventre-Bey, Hydrologie du bassin du Nil: Essai sur la prevision des crues du Fleuve'.

Willcocks, Report on Perennial Irrigation and Flood Protection of Egypt, 12.

For a description of the role of water-measuring stations in the Sudan for rational water planning in Egypt before 1885 (see Chelu, De l'Equateur a´ la Mediterranée, 2–38).

Chelu, De l'Equateur a´ la Mediterranée, 35.

See, for example, Milner, England in Egypt, 197–98.

See Willcocks, Report on the Nile and Proposed [email protected] 3/14/232.

Ross, ‘Irrigation and Agriculture in Egypt’, 191.

Scott-Moncrieff, ‘The Nile’, 405.

Garstin, ‘Fifty Years of Nile Exploration and Some of Its Results’, 135. The leading Nile expert in this century, Hurst, summarised more than a generation later what the water planners in the 1890s understood and that the occupation of the Sudan was ‘the great landmark’ in recent research on the Nile (see Hurst, ‘Progress in the Study of the Hydrology of the Nile in the Last Twenty Years’, 440).

Willcocks, Report on Perennial Irrigation and Flood Protection of Egypt, Appendix III:11.

Willcocks, Report on Perennial Irrigation and Flood Protection of Egypt, Appendix III:11.

Willcocks, Report on Perennial Irrigation and Flood Protection of Egypt, Appendix III:10.

Ross, ‘Irrigation and Agriculture in Egypt’, 189.

See Tvedt, The River Nile in the Age of the British, 19–51. See also Lugard, The Rise of Our East African Empire and how he uses the hydrological argument in favour of British occupation of the area (vol II: 584).

For a detailed description of the composition and role of sadd, see Rzoska, The Nile.

Lombardini, Essai sur l'Hydrographie du Nil and Chelu, De l'Equateur a´ la Mediterranée. See also Willcocks, Report on Perennial Irrigation and Flood Protection of Egypt, Appendix III, 10–11 and Mason-Bey, ‘Note sur les nilomètres et le mesurage des affluents du Nil, notamment du Nil blanc’ discussing how removal of the sadd could increase the water flow to Egypt.

Robinson and Gallagher, ‘The Imperialism of Free Trade’, 15.

Robinson and Gallagher, Africa and the Victorians, 372.

Ibid., 25.

Scott-Moncrieff's expression in Scott-Moncrieff, ‘The Nile’, 410.

Garstin, Report upon the Basin of the Upper Nile with Proposals for the Improvement of that River, 166.

Scott-Moncrieff, ‘The Nile’, 418.

Cromer, 1908, II, 110.

Cromer, 1908, II, 461.

MacGregor, ‘The Upper Nile Irrigation Projects’, 3, 10 Dec. 1945, Allan Private Papers 589/14/48, Sudan Archives, Durham.

In 1890, there were 18 British officials in the Public Works Department compared with four in the Financial Department: The Under-Secretary of State, Inspector-General of Irrigation, four Inspectors of Irrigation, three Assistant Inspectors of Irrigation, one Director of Works and eight engineers (List of Appointments held by English Officials, Inclosure in No 33, Baring to Salisbury, 26 Jan. 1890, FO 407/99).

Cromer, 1908, II, 464.

Ibid.

See Ch. LIV on ‘Irrigation’ in Cromer, 1908, II, 456–65.

Milner, England in Egypt, 310.

Ibid.

Cromer, 1908, II, 465.

Quoted in Zetland, 171.

Cromer to Salisbury, 21 Oct. 1891, FFO 141/284.

Ibid.

Cromer to Salisbury, 14 Nov. 1891, FO 141/283.

Cromer to Rosebery, 27 Dec. 1893, further correspondence respecting the finances of Egypt 1893, FO/407/124. Rosebery answered immediately and supported Cromer's strategy.

Cromer to Granville, 3 April 1884, FO 633/6.

Cromer to Granville, 21 Jan. 1884, FO 633/6.

Cromer to Rosebery, 23 Feb. 1886, FO 633/6.

Extract from a minute by General the Viscount Wolseley, Adjutant-General to the Forces concurred in by H.R.H. the Commander in Chief, and forwarded by the Secretary of State for war, 13 Jan. 1890, FO 141/274/16.

Cromer to Salisbury, 27 Feb. 1898, Annual Report for 1898, FO 407/146.

Report by Mr Garstin on the Province of Dongola, Inclosure in No. 12, further correspondence respecting the affairs of Egypt, April to June 1897, FO/407/143.

Gleichen, 1905, 280. See also the reports written by Garstin, 1899a, 1899b.

Earl of Cromer, Report by his Majesty's Agent and Consul-General on the Finances, Administration and Conditions of Egypt and the Sudan, 1899.

Cromer's ‘Letter of introduction’, iii, in Garstin, Report upon the Basin of the Upper Nile with Proposals for the Improvement of that River.

Peel, The Binding of the Nile and the New Soudan, 263.

Earl of Cromer, Report by His Majesty's Agent and Consul-General on the Finances, Administration and Conditions of Egypt and the Sudan 1903, 19.

Cromer to Salisbury 13 March 1890, FO 141/276/84.

See correspondence respecting the lawsuit brought against the Egyptian government with regard to the appropriation of money from the general reserve fund to the expenses of the Dongola expedition, Egypt. No. 1 (1897), London, Harrison and sons, in FO 633/66.

Salisbury to Queen Victoria, 25 July 1898, CAB 41/24/42.

The influential book by Langer [1935] 1968, argues that Prompt in his speech Soudan Nilotique made ‘some rather indiscreet speculations'. If the water in the great lake reservoirs were not let out in time, the summer supply of Egypt could be ‘cut in half'. If the reservoirs were thrown open suddenly and the whole flood sent down to Egypt, the ‘civilization of the Nile could be drowned out by one disaster' (Langer, The Diplomacy of Imperialism (first ed. 1935), 127). He was, therefore, one actor on the Egyptian scene creating British fear of French intentions, Langer suggests. In Bates (1984), the whole of the first chapter is devoted to a description of what is described as the threatening visions which Prompt talked about that fatal afternoon of 20 Jan. 1893. Bates argues further that Prompt had a real influence on French and probably British policy. Collins (1969) makes the following statement: ‘Prompt did not confine his remarks (in 1893, my comment), however, simply to Nile hydrology. He suggested that a dam constructed on the Upper Nile could destroy Egypt. He who controlled Fashoda controlled Egypt' (Collins, 1968b, 16). Collins also writes that Fashoda ‘had long been considered the hydrological key to the basin of the Upper Nile' and 'the point where the Nile waters could best be controlled' (Ibid., 4). This story of the fears that Prompt created is repeated in Collins (2005) (see the Encyclopedia of African History, I, 459), and the story of Victor Prompt's role is also mentioned in general books on the theory of peace and war (Brown, Theories of War and Peace an International Security Reader, 200).

One was entitled ‘La Vallée du Nil' and was given on 6 Feb. 1891; another lecture was ‘Note sur les résérvoirs d'eau dans la Haute Egypte’, held on 26 Dec. 1891; then came the herostratic 'Soudan Nilotique' on 20 Jan. 1893 and finally ‘Puissance éléctrique des cataracts' on 28 Dec. 1894.

Ibid., 44. The text reads: ‘Le doute n'est plus permis, et il faut reconnaître que l'Égypte d'aujourd'hui est menacée dans toutes ses richesses et dans son existence même, par la nature des choses, sans avoir besoin, pour cela, de supposer que les rivaerains au-dessus de Wady-Halfa peuvent utiliser l'eau d'étiage et en priver l'Égypte absolument.’

Ibid., 48.

Ibid., 51.

Ibid., 56–58.

Ibid., 60.

Ibid.

Prompt, 1893, 95.

Ibid., 72.

Prompt, 1893, 101.

Prompt, 1893, 109.

White, The Expansion of Egypt under Anglo-Egyptian Condominium. Silva White communicated with Wingate and was familiar with British policies.

Cocheris, Situation internationale de l'Egypte et du Soudan.

See, for example, Willcocks, Report on Perennial Irrigation and Flood Protection of Egypt, Appendix III: He wrote ‘… all the small ponds and pools cease to aid the stream, and if they are very extensive, as they are south of Fashoda, they diminish the discharge considerably by their large evaporating areas', and he dismisses Prompt, described as a railway man, and his findings, as the findings of a layman (Willcocks, Report on Perennial Irrigation and Flood Protection of Egypt, 17). These speculations were left out of the official report published the next year, but his were rational and realistic, while Prompt's were irrational and not very realistic. Also, Magnus repeats the idea that Fashoda' was regarded hydrographically as the key point on the Upper Nile' (Magnus, Kitchener, Portrait of an Imperialist, 138).

Baker, The Albert N'yanza, Great Basin of the Nile and Explorations of the Nile Sources, I, 44.

Emin Pasha, ‘Strombarren des Bahr el-Gebel’, 273. See also Chavanne, Afrika’s Strome und Flusse and Kloden von, Das Stromsystem des oberen Nil.

Brown simply misunderstood the nature of the geography and hydrology of the Nile: 'The strategic centre of this region was the ancient fort of Fashoda at the headwaters of the Nile' (see Brown, Fashoda Reconsidered, 23).

Lugard, The Rise of Our East African Empire, II, 584.

Ibid., 560. Lugard echoed the viewpoints forwarded by Samuel Baker again and again. He had said: ‘No wells. No Arabs’, and was suggesting that London should occupy the headwaters of the Nile so as to take power in the whole basin (see Baker, ‘Egypt's Proper Frontier’; Baker, Three Articles in The Times; Baker, Samuel. An Interview with Sir Samuel Baker, Pall Mall Gazette, ‘Extra’ No, 8, 12 March 1884b, in Sudan Pamphlets, 28).

Ibid., 584.

See Tvedt, The River Nile in the Age of the British for a more detailed discussion of the importance of the European rivalry in the valley.