The Diary of Dorothy Priest, December 19th 1914

We’ve done it! And it’s about time too.

I wonder what David thinks about it. This is what we’ve done.  We’ve declared Egypt to be a British protectorate and set up a Sultan.  I suppose we really couldn’t conveniently do it before, because Egypt was under Turkey and we have not fought against Turkey and we have fought for Turkey since we have had anything to do with Egypt and so we couldn’t after defending one part of the Ottoman Empire quietly help ourselves to another part.  But this time it was the Khedive’s and the Kaiser’s fault and there was nothing else to do, apparently, and the way was made clear for our act which will do no end of good to Egypt as well as us and which we really deserve as a reward for all we have done for them.  The Kaiser won’t find his Ottoman so easy to recline on now; one at least of the legs has gone wrong.  The bombardment in Yorkshire appears to have been rather more serious than we thought at first.

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