KING FUAD OF EGYPT

Evening Star, Issue 22325, 29 April 1936, Page 9

KING FUAD OF EGYPT

DEATH ANNOUNCED GALLANT FIGHT FOR LIFE Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright CAIRO, April 28. (Received April 29, at 9 a.m.) King Fuad died after a morning rally. The funeral takes place on April 30. King Fuad rallied during the morning, and received a number of palace officials. The doctors stated that his resistance was superhuman. King Fuad’s Australian dentist, Mr Bret Day, kept solitary vigil in the bed chamber for the past four nights. The King was full of confidence in him,

and refused other nursing assistance. He told the doctors in the morning: “ I am not going to die.” He read the newspapers, and discussed the general situation. He was’ confident that he would overcome his illness by sheer will power.

Picturesque crowds of all classes, learning of the gallant fight, assembled in-the square facing tho palace, and shouted: “ God preserve the King.” Great political importance is attached to the King’s death owing to the part the throne has played in complicated party struggles. REGRET IN BRITAIN (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, April 28. (Received April 29, at noon.) The news of the death of King Fuad was received in London with great regret. The assistant to the Diplomatic Corps (Mr M. J. B. Monk) called at the Egyptian Legation this afternoon, also at Kenry House, Kingston-on-Thames, where the heirapparent Prince Faruk is residing, to express the condolences of the Foreign Secretary. The prince also received a private message of sympathy from King Edward, and the British Government telegraphed a message to the Egyptian Government.

GROWN PRINCE PROCLAIMED KING KING FUAD’S LAST MOMENTS. CAIRO, April 28. (Received April 29, at 1.35 p.m.) Crown Prince Faruk has been proclaimed King. He leaves London on Thursday and arrives at Alexandria on May 5. ' King Fuad on the last four days was unable to eat or drink, and suffered acute pain from a gangrenous throat. The British-United States Press says King Fuad died while reading a telegram from Prince Faruk, which fell from his hands. One of the King’s last acts was to sign the new agreement dealing with the Suez Canal. Prince Faruk could not believe the news of the death until he telephoned to his mother. He hopes to be allowed to return to England after the appointment of a Regency Council. He was preparing to enter the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich. A MODERN ORIENTAL King Fuad of Egypt was a man of unusually independent judgment who had a thirst for knowledge which was not to be slaked by the mere statement of general facts. He differed almost in every respect from the Oriental potentate of tradition. He kept in the closest possible touch with all that went on in Egypt, and set his face against any of that laxity in the administration which is supposedly characteristic of Oriental countries. His energy was remarkable in a country where the climate does not conduce to excessive effort. His brisk walk, and sharp, active movements betrayed the former officer of the Italian Field in which he served during his youth. King Fuad had a fair knowledge of English, but did not speak it with any facility. French and Italian he spoke as fluently as Arabic, for he was educated chiefly in Italy and Switzerland. He made a point, however, of keeping himself informed of British developments, both political and otherwise, and he was able to size up a situation very rapidly. At heart he was very little interested in politics, but education was his lifelong hobby. By the foundation of the Egyptian University, and in many other directions, he gave a powerful stimulus to the better education of the young people of his country—both men and women. In Egypt, as in Turkey, the old usages are fast disappearing before the onslaughts of modernity, which the King carried right into the home. He caused the veil to be abandoned, he was the originator of education for women, and he formed the Museum of Hygiene in Cairo, which is specially designed for the training of mothers and the upbringing of children. King Fuad’s rare hours of leisure were spent with Queen Nazi! and her four children —the little Crown Prince Ferouk and three young Princesses—in their private apartments or in the spacious grounds of one or other of the Royal palaces. Before his lise to power he was an indefatigable public worker, and was able to bring about many social improve-

ments during the period when he was aide-de-camp to the late Khedive, Abbas Hilmi. Aclimed Fuad Pasha was a son of the late Khedive Ismail Pasha. He was born on March 26, 1868. The Khedive Abas Hilmi, deposed by .Britain after the outbreak of the war, was his uncle. After receiving a military training at Turin and Rome, Fuad entered the Turkish military service, and was for a time employed as military attache at Vienna. Eventually he returned to Egypt, where he administered his great estates, but he was at the same time entrusted by the Khedive with official missions.

After the deposition of Abbas Hilmi, his uncle, Hussein, was made Sultan of Egypt. Qn his death in 1917 Fuad succeeded to the title. In 1922, when Britain recognised Egypt as an independent sovereign State, he took the title of King Fuad 1., and laid down that the succession should go to the first born in the direct male line. Thus his son, Prince Faruk. is the heir to the throne. The ex-Khedive Abbas Hilmi was expressly excluded from the succession, but not bis heirs.