Battle of Tell El Kebir
1882 battle
The Battle of Tel El Kebir (often spelled Tel-El-Kebir), fought on 13 September 1882 at Tell El Kebir in Egypt, 110 km north-north-east of Cairo, proved the decisive engagement of the Anglo-Egyptian War of 1882. A British army led by Lieutenant General Sir Garnet Wolseley approached under cover of darkness and defeated an entrenched Egyptian force under the command of Ahmed ʻUrabi in a sudden assault.
Background
Bombardment and invasion of Alexandria
On May 20, 1882, a combined Franco–British fleet arrived at Alexandria. At the same time, Egyptian troops were reinforcing the coastal defenses of the city in anticipation of an attack. These events heightened tension in Alexandria, and eventually triggered tumultuous rioting with loss of life on both sides. As a result of the riots, an ultimatum was sent to the Egyptian government demanding they order Urabi's officers in Alexandria to dismantle their coastal defence batteries. The Egyptian government refused. Meanwhile, tension increased between Britain and France over the crisis, as most of the losses had been non-French, the principal European beneficiaries of the revolution would be the French. Thus, the French government refused to support this ultimatum and decided against armed intervention.
When the ultimatum was ignored, Admiral Seymour gave the order for the Royal Navy to bombard the Egyptian gun emplacements at Alexandria.
“Battle of Tell El Kebir” enters the record as 1882 battle. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Battle, Tell and Kebir can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Battle of Tell El Kebir” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Battle, Tell and Kebir provides the most credible route into that argument.
Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1420382. The Library of Congress control number is sh2014000402. Authority coordinates are 30.667, 31.933. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1882.
Official terminology may obscure informal participation, dissent or communities documented only indirectly. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.
- Event chronology
- Institutional context
- Locating named record creators
Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Battle of Tell El Kebir”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Battle of Tell El Kebir primary sources, Battle of Tell El Kebir archive and Battle research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Battle of Tell El Kebir”?
- What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
- Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Battle of Tell El Kebir” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.