Saad Zaghloul in the Seychelles
By Julien Durup a student of history
Saad Zaghloul Pasha ibn Ibrahim was an intelligent Egyptian national hero who arrived in exile in the Seychelles on 9 March 1922 on board the Clematis, a British man-of-war. Soon after his arrival he was known simply as ‘Pasha’. Pasha was born in July 1859 in the village of Ibyana, in the Nile Delta, from parents of modest means and his father died when he was only five years old. As a peasant he managed to elevate himself to the rank of Pasha a title which was abolished by Egypt in the 1950s.
HMS Clematis
He started his post-secondary education at Al-Azhar University in Cairo where he became a politician and was arrested and imprisoned by the British. After his incarceration he practiced Law and became very active in nationalist movements. In 1918 he led a delegation in Paris which demanded complete independence from Britain.
Saad Zaghloul
Photo by W Hanselman a Jewish photographer
The British in turn demanded that Pasha end his political agitation. When he refused, they exiled him to Malta along three other nationalists. This banishment caused the ‘first populace revolution’ in Egypt and forced General Edmund Allenby, (the bloody Bull), to return him back to Egypt where he was welcomed as a hero. At the end of 1921 he was rearrested and sent to the Seychelles where he arrived with W Makram Ebied Bey, a cabinet minister who acted as interpreter and secretary. Four more ministers followed them and they were: M F Barakat Pasha, M A Barakat Bey, M E Nahas Bey, and Sinnot Hanna Bey along with a valet and cook for Pasha. They were lodged in three bungalows at Bel Air and Saint Louis. Pasha and his secretary were at Bel Air, and the remainder at Saint Louis.
During all his exiles, his wife (of high birth) Sophia Moustafa Fahmi, preferred to stay behind to continue the struggle, and for that she was later known as the “Mother of Egypt”. Sophia spoke many languages including French and was the daughter of Moustafa Fahmi Pasha (who was born in Crete of Turkish parents). Moustafa Fahmi Pasha was also a two term Prime minister of Egypt.
Mrs Zaghloul Pasha
Sophia was in touch with Mahatma Gandhi, and was known as Madame Zaghloul Pasha by the French community (including a few Seychellois) in Egypt. One of the Seychellois, Mrs Marie Guénard née Gardette, a poet, wrote a poem in honour of her in April 1922. An enchanting poem titled “Autour de l’Exile”. She wrote many poems, one of them in May 1916 was dedicated to his nephew France Lanier, a volunteer in the French army. France died in action in Champagne-Ardenne during the First World War. During that time, many Seychellois fought and died for France, including Joseph Marie François Charles Savy; sadly no proper study had been done on them.
In the Seychelles the authorities never imposed restriction on Pasha’s movements, but he was never allowed to leave the Seychelles. As a friendly and pleasing man, and member of the ‘Freemasons’, Pasha frequented the very rich and influential families. He apparently did not invite people for banquets at his domicile but attended dinner parties hosted by his ministers and regularly attended feasts at Government House. As a jovial man he soon, according to oral tradition, fell in love with an aristocratic lady, who used to roam around Victoria in her rickshaw decorated with garlands. She was apparently Mrs Widow Edmée Anais Avice du Buisson née Morel. She later had two children (twins), by him and they were known as Marie Gaëtanne Avice du Buisson and Joseph Gaëtan Avice du Buisson, both born on 22 June 1923 at Mahé. They were known as Gaëtanne and Gaëtan. Gaëtanne, according to hearsay, had a very good resemblance of Pasha and she later left the Seychelles and married an Englishman and settled in England and Gaëtan seems also to have left the Seychelles.
Pasha was granted permission to leave the Seychelles and left on HMS Curlew for Gibraltar on 18 August 1922; he may have had his final sexual intercourse with Edmée on that day or a few days before. Sperm apparently can stay inside a women for 5 days and if that were the case, she might have conceived before or after 18 August 1922, the twins were born (22 June 1923). This was a long pregnancy of 44 weeks, however, that is not unusual in itself.
Even though the story of his offspring was much known, little is known if Pasha knew that he was the father of the twins, and one wonders if Edmée later informed him of the births of his two love-children.
During Pasha’s sojourn in the Seychelles he visited another political deportee at Anse Etoile named Sultan Mahamood Ali Shirrah of Somaliland, who was one of the worst treated exiles in the Seychelles. He apparently told the Sultan “Your father had spoiled your chances by not educating you; otherwise you would have been a king.”
Pasha occasionally enjoyed champagne and ‘Stout Porter’, known locally as “porter” and in one his farewell parties he contributed 2,000 rupees to the poor of Seychelles.
His five ministers later left the Seychelles on the 5th of June 1923 on the SS Karapara for Mombasa, en route to Egypt.
In 1923 Pasha was allowed to return to Egypt from Gibraltar and in February 1924 he became Prime minister of Egypt. He later died in Cairo on the 23rd of August 1927.
Saad Zaghloul statue in Alexandria and Museum/Mausoleum in Cairo
Sources:
- C/SS/2 Seychelles National Archives.
- John Calais F/2.14 Vol. II p. 59 Seychelles National Archives.
- Mahamed M Grad: A touching Glimpse of History and Reunion of a Somali Royalty.
- Saad Zaghloul-eNotes.com Reference.
- William McAteer: To be a Nation 2008: pp. 43-47
- Ex info: Guy Savy and William McAteer.
- Grace Thompson Seton: Mme. Zaghloul Pasha of Egypt: The New York Times,16 April 1922.