3 - Nationalism, Independence & the First Civil War 1942–72

Summary

Sudanese independence

The Sudan was the first African territory administered by Britain to be granted independence after World War Two. The Sudan's civil war, also the first in post-colonial Africa, began, with the Torit Mutiny, a few months before independence was attained on 1 January 1956. Both the timing and the terms of the Sudan's independence were less a product of nationalist mobilization than of international diplomacy, arising out of the Sudan's de facto status as a colony of two countries. Britain was forced to take the issue of self-determination for the Sudan seriously when Egypt raised the issue of the Sudan's future status after the war, thus giving the early nationalist parties their opening.

Post-war Anglo-Egyptian competition in the Sudan

Britain's dominant position in the Sudan had been formalized in the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1899, which recognized the Sudan as an Egyptian possession administered by British officials on behalf of the King of Egypt. The Governor-General was appointed by the Egyptian King on the recommendation of the British government. At the time Egypt was under British occupation. From 1898 to 1924 the Governor-General of the Sudan was also Commander-in-Chief (Sirdar) of the Egyptian army. The issue of sovereignty was thus academic, as the Egyptian crown could scarcely be said to be exercising full sovereignty in Egypt itself. During World War One the British further bolstered their position in the Sudan by rehabilitating Sayyid Abd al-Rahman al-Mahdi, the posthumous son of the Mahdi and leader of the Ansar sect, which was ideologically both anti-Turkish and anti-Egyptian. This opportunistic alliance on both sides not only undercut the appeal to Sudanese Muslims of Britain's war-time enemy, the Turkish Sultan, but it also provided a focus for anti-Egyptian sentiment in the years immediately following the war, and helped to further distance the British (through their patronage of ‘SAR’) from Egypt in Sudanese eyes. After the war, Egypt achieved formal (though still qualified) independence from Britain, but its share in the administration of the Sudan was progressively limited, until all Egyptian soldiers and administrators were expelled from the country in 1924. From that time until 1946 the internal administration of the Sudan was a British administration, whose main decisions were made without reference to Egypt.