Abstract
The colonial round in the Nile game started with the longstanding configuration shaped by the natural and climatic characteristics (Appendix A) that made Egypt the only actual user of the Nile waters with no considerable competition. However, such a situation, which had persisted for many centuries, was changed gradually by the British occupation of Egypt in 1882. During the 1890s, France’s desire to threaten British interests in Egypt, though unsuccessful, led to the first real attempt to build a dam to alter the water flow to Egypt. Britain then sought to control the entire Nile Basin, either under its direct administration or through concluding agreements with other colonial powers and with Ethiopia. By the beginning of the twentieth century, Britain’s dominating position on the Nile led to the comprehensive development of cotton cultivation in its colonies across the basin. This was associated with the commencement of the first large irrigation scheme and regulator dams in Sudan, the attempt to build a storage reservoir at Lake Tana, and the generation of hydropower at the outlet of Lake Victoria in Uganda. As a result, the colonial round comprised different scenes of conflict and cooperation over the Nile waters, ranging from the exchange of threats to the conclusion of agreements.
No one can hold Egypt securely unless he holds also the whole valley of the Nile. The sources of the river in hostile, or even in indifferent, lands must always be a grave cause of danger, or, at the best, anxiety. … Everything depended on the Nile. The more Egypt was developed, the greater grew the need for the regulation of the water. The rulers of Egypt need have troubled little about the fate of countries divided from them by so many leagues of rainless desert, but for the link of the all-important river …
Sir Sidney Peel (1904: 112, 135)
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Notes
- 1.
The letter is recorded by the Portuguese missionary Father Jerome Lobo (1789: 184–185) during his “voyage to Abyssinia,” and available at: https://archive.org/details/avoyagetoabyssi00johngoog (accessed on August 16, 2016).
- 2.
At the heart of the relations between Egyptian and Ethiopian rulers for centuries was the safety of the Christian minority in Egypt and the Muslim minority in Ethiopia.
- 3.
Since Saint Athanasius of Alexandria consecrated Frumentius, the first Primate of Abyssinia, at the beginning of the fourth century, every Orthodox Primate of Abyssinia had been consecrated by the Coptic Patriarch of the Church of Alexandria (Hozier 1869: 4). Only in the 1950s, the Coptic and Abyssinian Churches were separated in light of severe hydropolitical as well as geopolitical disputes (Sect. 4.2.3).
- 4.
Legendary chronicles tell, that “from this district [Abyssinia] the Queen of Sheba travelled to visit the capital of the Jewish Solomon, returning thence to the seat of her power at Axum, in Tigre, with the ark of the covenant and a Hebrew colony, and there raised a temple to the true God,” and that “the royal house of the country has directly descended from the Queen of the South, and the Negoos, or ruler of modern Ethiopia, claims descent from Menilek, an asserted child of Solomon by the Queen of Axum” (Hozier 1869: 3).
- 5.
Available at: https://archive.org/details/britishandforei00offigoog (accessed on August 16, 2016).
- 6.
- 7.
Available at: http://gis.nacse.org/tfdd/treaties.php?page=full&origin=river&tn=36 (accessed on August 16, 2016).
- 8.
Available at: https://archive.org/details/bindingofnilenew00peel
- 9.
Available at: https://archive.org/details/reportuponbasin00dupugoog (accessed on August 16, 2016).
- 10.
The exact wording of Garstin is worth reading, which stated, “In all projects connected with Nile regulation, the interests of Egypt are so closely linked with those of the Sudan, as to be well-nigh inseparable. Both countries must derive their water supply from the same sources, and the agricultural prosperity of both is mainly dependent upon the one river. It is, therefore, impossible to consider any important irrigation scheme, projected for the one country, without touching upon its possible effects as regards the other” (Garstin 1904: 193).
- 11.
Sir Murdoch McDonald was an adviser to the Egyptian Ministry of Public Works after the retirement of Sir William Garstin and up until 1921 (Kliot 1994: 35).
- 12.
Available at: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.79540 (accessed on August 16, 2016).
- 13.
The 1929 Exchange of Notes between Britain and Egypt in regard to the use of the waters of the River Nile for irrigation purposes, in addition to the 1925 Nile Commission Report and the letters exchanged between Lord Allenby and Zewar Pasha, are available by the Transboundary Freshwater Dispute Database at: http://gis.nacse.org/tfdd/treaties.php?page=full&origin=river&tn=92 (accessed on August 24, 2016).
- 14.
Available at: http://gis.nacse.org/tfdd/treaties.php?page=full&origin=river&tn=80 (accessed on August 24, 2016).
- 15.
Available at: http://gis.nacse.org/tfdd/treaties.php?page=full&origin=river&tn=142 (accessed on August 24, 2016).
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Samaan, M.M. (2019). The Colonial Round: The Opening Scene of Utilizing the Nile Waters Outside Egypt. In: The Nile Development Game. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02665-3_3
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