British Political Ambitions 67 Sudan Egyptian and from Egypt and an integral part of Egypt By His Excellency Mohib El Din Pasha Rushdi (1) - 1 -Sudan is the life of Egypt As for Sudan, it is life itself for Egypt because it is the source of the Nile. And it was Egypt that originally opened Sudan and did not spare any sacrifice in this endeavor, neither in men nor in money. This conquest began during the reign of Muhammad Ali and was completed during the reign of Ismail, who annexed the Great Lakes regions up to the sources of the Nile, Bahr el Ghazal, and the Equator, then the Red Sea coasts up to Cape Guardafui. He placed Uganda under Egyptian protection. He obtained from the Sublime Porte the administration of Suakin, Zeila, and their dependencies, and took for himself the title Khedive of Egypt and Lord of Nubia, Darfur, Kordofan, and Sennar. The Ottoman Sultanate's firmans recognized Egypt's possession of these Sudanese territories, and the powers recognized these same firmans. In 1885, the Egyptian government, under pressure from the British government, evacuated most of these Sudanese territories. However, they left with the intention of returning to them and with a firm resolve to reoccupy them at the first opportunity. This resolve is clearly evident from official Egyptian documents. The ministry of Sherif Pasha preferred to forgo accepting the abandonment of Sudan, even if it were temporary. On December 9, 1894, Riyad Pasha sent a memorandum to Sir Evelyn Baring in which he said: (1) His Excellency published these two chapters on May 17, 1922, when the Constitutional Committee was drafting the proposal that the King of Egypt is the King of Egypt and Sudan.