French Egypt

Could France have held onto Egypt after Napoleon was in it? I know I'm missing a lot of information about it, but was there anyway that France could have Egypt until the 20th century? Maybe even a French North Africa, what do you think?
 

katchen

Banned
Not after Napoleon I, but quite possibly well after Napoleon III, after the Suez Canal was built. It might have meant at some point, taking over Libya and building a railroad from Algeria and Tunisia to Cairo and Khartoum and it definitely would have meant stationing French troops at Suez and facing down Great Britain--possibly allying with Russia or Germany to say no to the UK.
That is when the British would have had to look seriously at a Palestine Canal through the Galilee and the Arabah, flooding the Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee, either with Ottoman cooperation or by taking Palestine away from the Ottomans.
 
Yeah- if you want a French Egypt, then your best bet is during the 1860s. If the French were more decisive and willing to risk even more of their money, they might have taken the lead against the wave of Egyptian nationalism that almost took Egypt out of the sphere of France and Britain.
Instead, the British got involved and got a client state until the 50s.


Of course, the British wouldn't be that happy with the French gaining such an ally, but I don't think it would cause too much of a crisis in their diplomatic relations.
 
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