Mohamed Naguib

Mohamed Bey Naguib Youssef Qutb El-Qashlan (الرئيس اللواء محمد بي نجيب يوسف قطب القشلان, ; 19 February 1901 – 28 August 1984), also known as Mohamed Naguib, was an Egyptian military officer and revolutionary, who along with Gamal Abdel Nasser, was one of the two principal leaders of the Free Officers movement of 1952 that toppled the monarchy of Egypt and the Sudan (including modern day South Sudan), leading to the establishment of the Republic of Egypt, and the independence of Sudan, and eventually South Sudan in 2010.

Mohamed Naguib was born on 19 February 1901 in Khartoum, Anglo-Egyptian Sudan to Youssef Naguib and Zohra Ahmed Othman.

Zohra was from an Egyptian family residing in Sudan, while Youssef was a ranking officer of the Egyptian Armed Forces who had come from a notable Egyptian family of army officers.

Naguib was the eldest of nine children.

Naguib attended secondary and military school at Gordon Memorial College in Khartoum, graduating in 1918.

He joined the Egyptian Royal Guard in 1923.

In 1927, Naguib became the first Egyptian military officer to obtain a law license.

In 1929 he earned a postgraduate degree in political economy, and then another postgraduate degree in civil law in 1931.

In December 1931, Naguib was promoted to the rank of captain.

He moved to the border patrol in Arish in 1934.

The Free Officers were a group of nationalist army officer veterans of the unsuccessful nationalist uprisings of 1935–36 and 1945–46 as well as the 1948 Arab Israeli War, fiercely opposed to the continuing presence of British military personnel in Egypt and Sudan since 1882, and the attendant political role that the United Kingdom had in Egyptian affairs.

Additionally, they viewed the Egyptian and Sudanese monarchy as weak, corrupt, and incapable of protecting Egyptian and Sudanese national interests, particularly against the United Kingdom, and the State of Israel.

In particular, they held King Farouk responsible for the poor conduct of the war in Palestine in which 78% of the former Mandate for Palestine was lost to the newly proclaimed State of Israel, and some three quarters of Palestine's Muslim and Christian population were variously expelled from the country, or fled into exile.

The movement had been led originally by Gamal Abdel Nasser, and was composed exclusively of servicemen who were all under 35 years of age and from low-income backgrounds.

He was part of the military committee that carried out the terms of the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936.

In Khartoum, he founded a newspaper for the Egyptian Armed Forces in 1937, and he was promoted to the rank of major on 6 May 1938.

Naguib tendered his resignation in protest following the Abdeen Palace incident of 1942.

Naguib wrote in his autobiography that he had resigned because he had broken his oath of allegiance to the King by failing to prevent the British siege of the palace, but that Abdeen Palace officials thanked him for his actions regardless and refused to accept his resignation.

Naguib subsequently continued his upward trajectory through the hierarchy of the Egyptian military, achieving the rank of lieutenant colonel and the post of regional governor of the Sinai Peninsula in 1944.

He took on leadership of the mechanized infantry of the Sinai in 1947, and was promoted to brigadier general in 1948.

A distinguished and decorated general who was wounded in action in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, he became the leader of the Free Officers Movement of nationalist army officers opposed to the continued presence of British troops in Egypt and Sudan, and the corruption and incompetence of King Farouk.

Naguib performed outstandingly during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, where he was wounded seven times.

For his service he was awarded the first military star of Fuad as well as the title of Bey.

He was also subsequently awarded with the directorship of the Egyptian Military Academy, where he would ultimately encounter the members of the Free Officers Movement.

Mohamed Naguib was first introduced to the Free Officers Movement by Abdel Hakim Amer during his tenure as the director of the Royal Military Academy in Cairo.

Nasser, who like Naguib was a veteran of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, felt that the movement needed an older officer from a distinguished military background in order to be taken seriously.

The highly respected and nationally famous Naguib was the obvious choice, and he was invited to assume leadership of the movement.

While this proved successful in strengthening the Free Officers, it would later cause great friction within the movement, and an eventual power struggle between the elder Naguib and the younger Nasser.

Historians have noted that whilst Naguib understood his position and duty as being the movement's bona fide leader, the younger Free Officers saw him as a figurehead who would yield to the collective decision-making of the movement, giving Naguib a more limited, symbolic role.

His celebrated status as a hero of the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, along with his jovial personality and elder statesmen demeanor also made him appear as a reassuring figure to the Egyptian public, who had not previously been exposed to Nasser and the other Free Officers.

The Free Officers chose to govern at first via Aly Maher Pasha, a former prime minister who was known for his opposition to the United Kingdom's occupation of Egypt, and its interference in Egyptian affairs.

The next evening, Naguib met with British diplomat John Hamilton.

During the meeting Hamilton assured Naguib that the British government supported the abdication of King Farouk, that the Churchill government viewed the coup as an internal Egyptian matter, and that the United Kingdom would intervene only if it felt that British lives and property in Egypt were in danger.

The prospect of British intervention on behalf of Farouk was the biggest threat to the Revolution, and Hamilton's message to Naguib gave the Free Officers the reassurance that they needed to follow through with deposing the King.

Following the toppling of Farouk in July 1952, Naguib went on to serve as the head of the Revolutionary Command Council, the prime minister, and first president of Egypt, successfully negotiating the independence of Sudan (hitherto a condominium of Egypt and the United Kingdom), and the withdrawal of all British military personnel from Egypt.

On 23 July 1952 at about 1 am, the Free Officers launched the revolution with a coup d'état to depose King Farouk.

Naguib was immediately appointed as Commander in Chief of the Army in order to keep the loyalty of the Armed Forces firmly behind the Revolution.

On the morning of 26 July 1952, Maher arrived at the Ras El Tin Palace where Farouk was staying in order to present him with an ultimatum from Naguib: he was to abdicate his throne, and leave Egypt by 6 pm the following day, or the Egyptian troops gathered outside Ras El Tin would storm the palace and arrest him.

Farouk agreed to the terms of the ultimatum, and the following day, in the presence of Maher, and the United States Ambassador Jefferson Caffery, boarded the Royal yacht Mahrousa, and left Egypt.

His tenure as president came to end in November 1954 due to disagreements with other members of the Free Officers, particularly with Nasser, who forced him to resign and succeeded him as president.