After Anglo-Turkish forces expelled the French in 1801, Muhammad Ali Pasha, an Albanian military commander of the Ottoman army in Egypt, seized power in 1805, and de facto established the Khedivate of Egypt. Egypt under the Muhammad Ali dynasty remained nominally an Ottoman province. In reality, the eyalet was practically independent, and actually went to war twice with the empire – in 1831-33 and 1839-41. Constantinople granted Egypt the status of an autonomous vassal state or Khedivate in 1867. Isma’il Pasha (1863 to 1879) and Tewfik Pasha (1879 to 1892) governed Egypt as a quasi-independent state under Ottoman suzerainty until the British occupation of 1882. Nevertheless, the Khedivate of Egypt (1867–1914) remained a de jure Ottoman province until 5 November 1914, when it was declared by the British Empire a British protectorate in reaction to the Young Turks of the Ottoman Empire joining the First World War on the side of the Central Powers.
Currency
A khedival decree was issued in 1834, adopting an Egyptian currency based on a bimetallic standard (gold and silver) on the basis of the Maria Theresa thaler, a popular trade coin in the region. The Egyptian pound was introduced, replacing the Egyptian kuruş as the chief unit of currency. The kuruş continued to circulate as 1⁄100 of a pound, with the kuruş subdivided into 40 para. After the proclamation of the Khedivate, the Egyptian pound was kept as the national currency. In 1885, the para ceased to be issued, and the kuruş was divided into tenths. These tenths were renamed milliemes (malleem) in 1916.