1906: Four Egyptians for the Denshawai Incident

ExecutedToday.com ^ | June 28th, 2017 | Headsman

[CheshireTheCat]

On this date in 1906, four Egyptian villagers were hanged by the British after a UK soldier died in riot begun by a pigeon hunt.

The Denshawai Incident — which is still to this day commemorated by its own museum — as an isolated event was one of those little local indignities that comprise a foreign military occupation. By the intersection of highhandedness on the one side and accumulated anger on the other it would become what George Bernard Shaw dubbed “the Denshawai Horror.”

On June 13, a mere 15 days before the executions in this post, a gaggle of bored Tommies* set out hunting pigeons in the Nile Delta. This was for the locals an irksome pastime inasmuch as the villagers raised these tame birds in brick towers for agrarian use — as Shaw noted:

Try to imagine the feelings of an English village if a party of Chinese officers suddenly appeared and began shooting the ducks, the geese, the hens and the turkeys, and carried them off, asserting that they were wild birds, as everybody in China knew, and that the pretended indignation of the farmers was a cloak for the hatred of the Chinese, and perhaps for a plot to overthrow the religion of Confucius and establish the Church of England in its place!....

[pierrem15]

Reminds me of an incident I heard about involving my father's family, although no one was killed or guillotined.

My father, his older brother and a soon to be uncle by marriage were hunting one day on my grandfather's large farm in North Africa.

Seeing a gazelle in tall grass somewhere farther off one took a shot at it. They went to the spot to look for the animal but saw no blood and just thought they had missed. So they went home unsuccessful that afternoon.

After dinner at my grandfather's place there was a furious pounding on the door. The local Arab village head was there to complain to my grandfather that a villager had taken a bullet in the arse after my father and his companions were seen hunting. My grandfather arranged for medical care and paid some damages and upbraided the miscreants for not being more careful.

When my father retold this story much mirth was had, but my youngest uncle took offense and complained to my father that they could have killed someone, to which his older brother replied, "But it was only an Arab."

[TexasGator]

English occupation brought prosperity to Egypt. This incident was exploited by the German Empire.