Dinshaway Incident

The Dinshawai Incident occurred in Egypt in June 1906. It was an important impetus to the growing nationalist movement in that country.

In 1906 Egypt was a de-facto British protectorate. In June of that year five British officers decided to go pigeon hunting near the Nile Delta village of Dinshaway. During the course of the expedition, one of the British officers started to shoot and set fire to a grain pile in a village threshing floor. The local owner tried to seize the gun, and in the process five villagers were wounded including the owner's wife. The villagers turned against the officers and two of them were badly wounded, one later dying.

The British response was swift and harsh. Fifty-two members of the village were put on trial for premeditated murder. Thirty-two were found guilty, most were flogged, but four men of the village were hanged.

The incident caused outrage amongst the Egyptian population. For the first time urban intellectual critics of the British regime found common cause with the local peasantry. In the upsurge of protest that followed, the long-time British administrator of Egypt, Lord Cromer, was forced to resign.]