"مذكرة حول مطالبة تركيا بالسيادة على السواحل الشرقية للبحر الأحمر والجزيرة العربية بالكامل، ومطالبة مصر بالسيادة على الساحل الغربي بالكامل للبحر الأحمر أيضاً بما في ذلك الساحل الإفريقي من السويس حتى رأس عسير." [و‎‎٣] (٧٠/٥)

Printed for the use of the Foreign Office. March 10, 1874.
/. T —
CONFIDENTIAL.
Memorandum on the Turkish Claim to Sove
reignty over the Eastern Shores of the Red
Sea and the whole of Arabia; and on the
Egyptian Claim to the whole of the Western
Shore of the same Sea, including the African
Coast from Suez to Cape Guardafui.
Townhend's Dates.
Beke's Pamphlet, p. 6.
THERE are so many other circumstances con
nected with the above claims on the part of Turkey
■and Egypt, (such, for instance, as the purchase by
France of certain tracts of territory from native
Chiefs; the conclusion of separate Treaties by
England with Chiefs claiming independence; and
the claim of Abyssinia to portions of the territory
claimed by Egypt); that it has been thought that
a consecutive history of the events which have taken
place in that quarter of the globe during the last
fifty years or so would be more likely to elucidate
the general question than would be series of
memoranda prepared upon each of these subjects
separately.
Before proceeding, however, to give such a narra
tive, it is necessary to give a short statement of the
events which have taken place in Egypt and Arabia
from the time when portions of those countries
came into the possession of the Turks.'
In 1517 Sultan Selim I added Egypt to the
Ottoman Empire.
In the same century (Dr. Beke says 1558) the
Turks, under Sultan Selim II, drove the Portuguese
out of the Red Sea, and took possession of all its
harbours and coasts in the name of the Sultan, in his
character of Caliph, or Head of the Mahommedan
Faith ; but the shallowness of this claim will here
after be alluded to.
[201] B