The Dinshawai Incident occurred in Egypt in June 1906. It gave impetus to the growing nationalist movement in that country. 1906 (MCMVI) was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ...
In 1906 Egypt was a de factoBritish protectorate. In June of that year five British officers decided to go pigeon hunting near the Nile Delta village of Dinshawai. During the course of the expedition, fire from one of the guns set fire to a pile of grain on a village threshing floor. In response, the owner of the threshing floor tried to seize the gun; five villagers, including the owner's wife, were wounded in the ensuing melee. Two officers were badly wounded in the struggle, one later dying from heat stroke. 1906 (MCMVI) was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... Pigeon redirects here. ... NASA satellite photograph of the Nile Delta (shown in false colour) The Nile Delta is the delta formed in Northern Egypt where the Nile River spreads out and drains into the Mediterranean Sea. ... The Dinshawai Incident occurred in Egypt in June 1906. ...
The British response to this occurrence 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 male villagers were hanged.
The Egyptian population was outraged by this incident. For the first time, urban intellectual critics of the British regime found common cause with the local peasantry. The long-time British administrator of Egypt, Lord Cromer, was forced to resign in the wake of protests over this incident. Evelyn Baring, 1st Earl of Cromer (1841-1917) was a British statesman, diplomat and colonial administrator. ...
It should also be noted that pigeons are (or were) domestic animals in Egypt - at the time they were raised in large tower-like structures typically built on top of Egyptian households.
In the summer of that year, a group of British Army officers went on a pigeon hunt near the Nile Delta town of Dinshaway.
Returning in force to the village, a military tribunal convicted 52 of the villagers of premeditated murder; though most were just beaten, four were hanged.
The incidents now under investigation in Iraq make Dinshaway seem quaint by comparison; but its lesson is how quickly and unpredictably reaction to these kinds of outrages can be transformed into larger movements and major political shifts both "over there" and here at home.
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