Farouk of Egypt

===World War II===
{{See also|Egypt in World War II}}
Egypt remained neutral in World War II, but under heavy pressure from Lampson, Farouk broke diplomatic relations with Germany in September 1939.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=179}} On 7 April 1940, Queen Farida gave birth to a second daughter, Princess Fawzia, which greatly upset Farouk.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=187}} After Fawzia's birth, Farouk's marriage started to become strained as he wanted a son.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=188}} In Egypt, a son was much more valued than daughters for the kingdom's legacy; according to Egyptian law at the time a daughter could not inherit the throne, and Farouk was becoming widely viewed as lacking in masculinity due to the absence of a son.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=176}} Farouk consulted various doctors, who advised him to eat foods that were felt to increase sex drive, and Farouk became something of a bulimic, eating excessively and later becoming overweight.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=176}} Suspicions that Queen Farida was having an affair with aristocrat Wahid Yussri imposed strains on the marriage.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=187}}

Under the 1936 treaty, Britain had the right to defend Egypt from an invasion, which turned the [[Western Desert (Egypt)|Western Desert]] of Egypt into a battlefield when Italy declared war on Britain on 10 June 1940, and invaded Egypt.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=190}} Under the 1936 treaty, the Egyptians were obligated to assist the British with logistical services, but Maher frustrated this by appointing corrupt bureaucrats to positions such as presidency of the Egyptian state railroad who demanded ''[[baksheesh]]'' (bribe) in exchange for co-operating.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=186}} Owing to the strategic importance of Egypt, ultimately 2 million soldiers from Britain, Australia, India and New Zealand arrived in Egypt.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|pp=180 & 198}} Lampson was against Egypt declaring war on the Axis powers despite the Italian invasion of Egypt as having Egypt as a belligerent would mean Egypt would have the right to attend the peace conference once the Allies had won the war, and as Lampson put it, the Egyptians would make demands that would be "embarrassing" for the British at such a peace conference.{{sfn|Smith|1979|p=463}}[[File:ModernEgypt,_Farouk_I_with_Ministers,_DHP13655-3-5_01.jpg|alt=Farouk I with ministers|thumb|280x280px|Members of Ali Maher Pasha's second government surround  Farouk I (fourth from right), 1939]]

Farouk was greatly upset in 1940 when he learned that his mother, Queen Nazli, whom he viewed as a rather chaste figure, was having an affair with his former tutor, Prince [[Ahmed Hassanein]], who as a desert explorer, poet, Olympic athlete and aviator, was one of the most famous Egyptians alive.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=188}} When Farouk caught Hassanein reading passages from the Koran to his mother in her bedroom, he pulled out a handgun and threatened to shoot them, saying "you are disgracing the memory of my father, and if I end it by killing one of you, then God will forgive me, for it is according to our holy law as you both know".{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=189}} Distracting Farouk from thoughts of matricide was a meeting on 17 June 1940, with Lampson who demanded that Farouk dismiss Maher as prime minister and General al-Misri as chief of staff of the Egyptian Army, saying both were pro-Axis.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=190}} Lampson wrote to London: "I repeated I hoped that he realized we were in deadly earnest. He said he knew that full well, and cryptically, that so was he".{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=191}}

On 28 June 1940, Farouk dismissed Maher Pasha as prime minister, but refused to appoint Nahas Pasha as prime minister as Lampson wanted, saying that Nahas was full of "[[Bolshevik]] schemes".{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=191}} The new prime minister was Hassan Sabry, whom Lampson felt was acceptable, and despite his previous threats to kill him, Prince Hassanein was made ''chef de cabinet''.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=191}} Prince Hassanein had been educated at Oxford University and unusually for an Egyptian, was an Anglophile, having fond memories of his time in England when he studied at Oxford.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=191}} Lampson had come to detest Farouk by this time, and his favorite advice to London was "the only thing to do is kick the boy out".{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=191}} In November 1940, the Prime Minister Sabry died of a heart attack when delivering his opening speech to Parliament and was replaced with [[Hussein Serry Pasha]].{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=193}} Farouk felt very lonely as a king, not having any real friends, made worse by the very public feud between Queen Farida and Queen Nazli as the former hated the latter for her attempts to dominate her.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|pp=193–196}} Farouk's best friend was Pulli, who was more of a "man Friday".{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=193}} Maher had made contacts on behalf of the king with General al-Misri, on "sick leave" since June 1940; with a group of anti-British officers in the Egyptian Army, and Hassan el Banna, the Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, to discuss a possible anti-British uprising when the Axis broke through the British lines.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|pp=195–196}} Egypt together with the American South was one of the few places in the world suitable for growing cotton, a water-intensive and labor-intensive crop that was traditionally known as "white gold" owing to the high prices it fetched. World War II created a huge demand for cotton, and after the United States entered the war in late 1941, so many American men were called up for service with the armed forces that Egypt became the only source of cotton for the Allies. For those who owned farmland in Egypt on which cotton was grown, the Second World War was a time of prosperity as the high prices of cotton counteracted the effects of wartime inflation.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=225}}

The Italians had only advanced within {{convert|80|km|mi}} of Egypt before stopping at [[Sidi Barrani]], and on 9 December 1940, the British launched an offensive that drove the Italians back into Libya.{{sfn|Weinberg|2004|pp=210–211}} In response, in January 1941, German forces were dispatched to the Mediterranean to assist the Italians and on 12 February 1941, the [[Afrika Korps]] under the command of [[Erwin Rommel]] arrived in Libya.{{sfn|Weinberg|2004|pp=214–215}} Starting on 31 March 1941, a [[Wehrmacht]] offensive drove the British out of Libya and into Egypt.{{sfn|Weinberg|2004|pp=222–223}} As 95% of Egyptians live in the Nile river valley, the fighting in the Western Desert only affected the Bedouin nomads who lived in the desert.{{sfn|Weinberg|2004|p=504}} At the same time in 1941 that Rommel was inflicting a series of defeats on the British in the Western Desert, Farouk wrote to [[Adolf Hitler]] promising him that when the Wehrmacht entered the Nile river valley, he would bring Egypt into the war on the Axis side.{{sfn|Weinberg|2004|p=223}} The American historian [[Gerhard Weinberg]] wrote that the fact that Farouk wanted to see his country occupied by [[Fascist Italy (1922–1943)|Fascist Italy]] and [[Nazi Germany]] was not a sign of great wisdom on his part and that he never understood "that Axis rule of Egypt was likely to be far more oppressive than British".{{sfn|Weinberg|2004|p=504}}
[[File:King Farouk & Ibrahim Atallah with Military academy graduates 1941.jpg|thumb|Farouk with [[Egyptian Military Academy|Military academy]] graduates, 1941|260x260px]]
During the hardships [[Egypt in World War II|of the Second World War]], criticism was levelled at Farouk for his lavish lifestyle. His decision not to put out the lights at his palace in [[Alexandria]] when the city was [[Blackout (wartime)|blacked out]] because of German and Italian bombing was deemed particularly offensive by the Egyptian people. This was a large contrast to the British royal family back in England, who were well known to have an opposite reaction to the bombings near their home. Owing to the continuing British occupation of Egypt, many Egyptians, Farouk included, were positively disposed towards Germany and Italy, and despite the presence of British troops, Egypt remained officially neutral until the final year of the war. Consequently, Farouk's Italian servants were not interned, and there is an unconfirmed story that Farouk told British Ambassador Sir Miles Lampson (who had an Italian wife), "I'll get rid of my Italians when you get rid of yours". Many Italians in Egypt, mostly men, were interned in British concentration camps, such as the notorious camp Fayed, {{convert|40|km|mi}} outside of Cairo. Treatment of these prisoners in those camps was extreme and physically excessively harsh, many losing inordinate amounts of body weight and contracting typhus. In January 1942, when Farouk was away on vacation, Lampson pressured Serry Pasha into breaking diplomatic relations with [[Vichy France]].{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|pp=198–199}} As the king was not consulted about the severing of ties with Vichy France, Farouk used this violation of the constitution as an excuse to dismiss Serry and announced he planned to appoint Maher as prime minister again.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=199}} Serry knew that his government was likely to be defeated on a motion of no confidence when Parliament opened on 3 February 1942, and in the meantime demonstrations by students at Cairo University and Al-Azhar University had broken out, calling for a German victory.{{sfn|Smith|1979|p=468}}

Following a ministerial crisis in February 1942, the British government, through its [[List of Ambassadors from the United Kingdom to Egypt|ambassador in Egypt]], Sir Miles Lampson, pressed Farouk to have a [[Wafd Party|Wafd]] or Wafd-coalition government replace [[Hussein Sirri Pasha]]'s government. Lampson had Sir Walter Monckton flown in from London to draft an abdication decree for Farouk to sign as Monckton had drafted the abdication decree for Edward VIII and it was agreed that Prince Mohammad Ali would become the new king.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=201}} Lampson wanted to depose Farouk, but General [[Robert Stone (British Army officer)|Robert Stone]] and [[Oliver Lyttleton]] both argued that if Farouk agreed to appoint Nahas Pasha prime minister that the public reaction to "throwing the boy out for giving us at 9 p.m. the answer which we should have welcomed at 6 p.m." would be highly negative.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=203}} Reluctantly, Lampson agreed that Farouk could stay if he agreed to make Nahas prime minister.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=203}} Farouk asked his military how long the Egyptian Army could hold Cairo against the British and was told at most they could for two hours.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=208}} On the night of 4 February 1942, [[Abdeen Palace incident of 1942|soldiers surrounded Abdeen Palace]] in Cairo and Lampson presented Farouk with an ultimatum. While a battalion of infantry took up their positions around the palace with the roar of tanks could be heard in the distance, Lampson arrived at the Abdeen Palace in his Rolls-Royce together with General Stone.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=203}} As the doors to Abdeen Palace were locked, one of the officers present used his revolver to shoot open the door and Lampson stormed in, demanding to see the king at once.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=203}} Farouk initially started to sign the abdication degree that Lampson had placed on his desk, but Prince Hassanein, who was present as a sort of mediator, intervened and spoke to Farouk in Turkish, a language which he knew that Lampson did not speak.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=204}} Unknown to Lampson, three of Farouk's Albanian bodyguards were hiding behind the curtains in his study with orders to shoot the ambassador if he should touch Farouk.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=205}} Prince Hassanein's intervention had its effect, and Farouk turned to Lampson to say he was giving in.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=204}} Farouk capitulated, and Nahhas formed a government shortly thereafter. However, the humiliation meted out to Farouk, and the actions of the Wafd in co-operating with the British and taking power, lost support for both the British and the Wafd among both civilians and, more importantly, the [[Military of Egypt|Egyptian military]]. At the time, the incident caused the Egyptian people to rally around their king, on 11 February 1942 (his birthday by Western standards), he received was loudly cheered by the crowd on Abdeen Square.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=208}} General Stone wrote Farouk a letter of apology for the incident.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|pp=255–256}} Air Marshal [[William Sholto Douglas]] wrote that Lampson had made a huge error in "treating King Farouk as if he were nothing but a naughty and rather silly boy... Farouk was naughty and he was still very young... but to my mind, and taking a hard-headed view, he was also the King of Egypt".{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=207}}

After the humiliation of the Abdeen Palace incident, Farouk lost interest in politics for the moment, and he abandoned himself to a lifestyle of hedonism as he became obsessed with "collecting" women by sleeping with them, having his closest friend, the Italian valet Antonio Pulli, bring in fair-skinned women from the dance halls and brothels of Cairo and Alexandria to his palaces for sex.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|pp=212–213}} Despite his great wealth, Farouk was a kleptomaniac who always took something valuable such as a painting or a piano from whatever member of the Egyptian elite he stayed with, as no one could say no to the king and if he indicated he wanted something, his subjects had to give it to him.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|pp=78–79}}{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=79}}{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=255}} When one of the daughters of the Ades family, one of the richest Jewish families in Egypt, rebuffed Farouk's advances, he arrived unannounced at the Ades family's estate on an island in the Nile with Pulli telling the Adeses that the king had come to hunt the gazelles.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=255}} Rather than have the kleptomaniac Farouk stay at their estate and wipe out the gazelles on their island, the Adeses agreed that their 16-year-old daughter would go to the Abdeen palace to be courted by the king.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|pp=255–256}}

In April 1942, at a luncheon with Lampson and King George II of Greece, Farouk refused to speak to Lampson and told George that he would be wasting his time meeting the Wafd ministers as they were all ''ces canailles'' ("these scoundrels").{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=210}} On 2 July 1942, Lampson visited the Abdeen Palace to tell Farouk that there was a real possibility of Axis forces taking Cairo and suggested that the king should flee to Khartoum if the Afrika Corps took Cairo.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=210}} Farouk who had no intention of decamping to Khartoum simply walked out of the room.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|pp=210–211}} After the Battle of El Alamein, the Axis forces were driven out of Egypt and back into Libya, which caused Farouk to change his views over to a markedly pro-British direction.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|pp=215–218}} Air Marshal Douglas, one of the few British people whom Farouk was friends with, gave him the uniform of a RAF officer, which became the king's favorite uniform.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|pp=218–219}}

Farouk had something of a mania for collecting things ranging from Coca-Cola bottles to European art to ancient Egyptian antiques.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=213}} Farouk became addicted to eating and drinking soft-drinks, ordering his French chefs at the Abdeen palace to cook enormous meals of the finest French food, which he devoured and which caused him to become obese.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|pp=214–215}} Farouk came to be known as "the king of the night" owing to the amount of time he spent in the exclusive ''Auberge des Pyramides'' nightclub in Cairo, where he spent his time socializing, smoking cigars and drinking orangeade.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=222}} Farouk also indulged in much childish behavior at the ''Auberge des Pyramides'' like throwing bread balls at the other patrons.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=222}} Farouks's grandfather, [[Isma'il Pasha|Ismail the Magnificent]], had rebuilt Cairo in the style of Paris and during Farouk's reign, Cairo was considered to be a glamorous city, the most Westernized and wealthy city in the Middle East.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=180}} As a result, various celebrities from the West were constantly passing through Cairo and were invited to socialize with the king.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|pp=219–220}}[[File:Farouk_and_Churchill.jpg|thumb|Farouk meeting Winston Churchill in Cairo, 1942]]Farouk also met various Allied leaders. South African Prime Minister [[Jan Christian Smuts]] called Farouk "surprisingly intelligent".{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=219}} U.S. Senator [[Richard Russell Jr.]], who represented Georgia, a cotton-growing state, found he had much in common with Farouk and stated he was "an attractive, clear-eyed young man&nbsp;... very much on the job&nbsp;... well above the ordinary run of rulers".{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=219}} The American financier and diplomat [[Winthrop W. Aldrich]] discovered that Farouk was very informed about the workings of the international gold market, saying the king had a sharp eye for business.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=219}} Air Marshal Douglas wrote "I began to genuinely like Farouk. There was no indication then there was anything that was vicious about him, although at times his flippancy became annoying. Another failing of his was that he appeared to be almost fanatically keen on acquiring great wealth&nbsp;... he revealed all too clearly his shortsightedness in stating openly that one of his main interests in life was to increase that fortune. This led him into currying favor with the rich people in Egypt, as they did with him, at the expense of the common people, in whom he had little or no interest".{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|pp=222–223}} Douglas concluded that the king was "an intelligent young man&nbsp;... he was by no means the fool that he appeared to be through the stupid way in which he quite often behaved in public".{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=223}} However, a meeting with the British prime minister [[Winston Churchill]] in August 1942 when Farouk stole his watch did not make the best impression; though Farouk later returned the watch, presenting his theft of Churchill's watch as merely a practical joke, saying he knew "the English had a great sense of humor".{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|pp=216–217}} Farouk had pardoned a thief in exchange for teaching him how to be a pickpocket, a skill that Farouk used on Churchill, much to the latter's chagrin.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=217}}

In the time honored fashion, the Wafd government headed by Nahas proved to be an extremely corrupt and Nahas is widely considered to be one of the most corrupt Egyptian prime ministers of all time.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|pp=224–225}} Nahas fell out with his patron, [[Makram Ebeid]], and expelled him from the Wafd at the instigation of his wife.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=225}} Ebeid retaliated with ''The Black Book'', a detailed expose published in the spring of 1943 listing 108 cases of major corruption involving Nahas and his wife.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=225}} On 29 March 1943, Ebeid visited the Abdeen Palace to present Farouk with a copy of ''The Black Book'' and asked that he dismiss Nahas for corruption.{{sfn|Morsy|1994|p=100}} Farouk attempted to use the furor caused by ''The Black Book'' as an excuse to dismiss the extremely unpopular Nahas, who had become Egypt's most hated man, but Lampson warned him via Prince Hassanein that he would be deposed if he dismissed his prime minister.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=226}} Lampson in a dispatch to Sir Anthony Eden, who was once again Foreign Secretary, argued that Egypt needed political calm and to allow Farouk to dismiss Nahas would cause chaos as the latter would start "ranting" against the British.{{sfn|Morsy|1994|p=101}} General Stone recommended that Lampson not be allowed to depose Farouk under the grounds that such a step was likely to cause anti-British rioting in Egypt which would require putting down, which Stone was opposed to on public relations grounds.{{sfn|Morsy|1994|p=101}} At the same time, Farouk, notwithstanding his own frequent unfaithfulness, had become enraged when he learned that Queen Farida was having an affair with the British painter, [[Simon Elwes]], who had to flee Egypt to escape.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=227}} Lampson taunted Farouk when he learned that Queen Farida was pregnant again, saying he hoped she was bearing a son and that the boy was Farouk's.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=227}}

One of Farouk's mistresses, Irene Guinle, who was his "official mistress" in the years 1941–1943, described him as something of an immature "man-child" having no interest in politics and given to childish behavior like making bread balls at restaurants "to flip at the fancy people coming in and watch how they'd act when he hit the mark. How he roared with that laugh".{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|pp=64–65}} Guinle in an interview stated: "Farouk never wrote a letter, never read a paper, never listened to music. His idea of culture was movies. He never even played cards until I made the mistake of buying him a 'shoe' and teaching him how to play ''[[Baccarat|chemin de fer]]''. He got hooked on that. Farouk was an insomniac. He had three telephones by his bed, which he would use to ring up his so-called friends at three in the morning and invite them to come over to his palace to play cards. No one could refuse the king".{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=64}}

The British novelist [[Barbara Skelton]] replaced Guinle as the "official mistress" in 1943. Skelton called Farouk very immature and "a complete philistine", saying: "He was very adolescent. He didn't have the stuff to be a great king, he was too childish. But he never lost his temper, he was incredibly sweet, with a good sense of humor".{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=76}}
[[File:Farouk_I_of_Egypt_during_al_Mawlid.jpg|alt=Farouk I of Egypt during al Mawlid|thumb|221x221px|Farouk during [[Mawlid]] (prophet Muhammad's birthday) in 1943.]]
In November 1943, Farouk went driving with Pulli in his red Cadillac to Ismalia to see a yacht he just purchased when he was involved in an automobile incident when his attempt to bypass a British Army truck by speeding caused him to hit another car head-on.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|pp=229–230}} At attempt to place Farouk on a stretcher failed when the grossly overweight king turned out to be too heavy, causing the stretcher to break under his weight.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|pp=229–230}} Farouk had suffered two broken ribs as a result of the car accident, but he liked being in a British Army hospital so much, flirting with the nurses, that he pretended to be injured far longer than what he really was.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=230}} As a result, Farouk missed the [[Cairo Conference]] when the U.S. President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]], the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the Chinese Generalissimo [[Chiang Kai-shek]] all arrived in Cairo to discuss war plans against Japan for 1944, through he appeared to have no regrets, preferring to spend his time flirting with the nurses and buying them gifts that were worth more than their annual salaries.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=231}} On 15 December 1943, Farouk was finally forced to end his convalescence when Farida gave birth to another daughter, Princess Fadia, which disappointed him, and caused him to lash out in anger against her for only giving him daughters.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=231}} Reflecting a continuing interest in the [[Balkans]], the region where his family came from, Farouk by 1943 hosted King [[Zog I of Albania]], King [[Peter II of Yugoslavia]] and King [[George II of Greece]], telling all three kings that he wanted Egypt to play a role in the Balkans after the war, as he was proud of his Albanian ancestry.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=231}}

In late 1943, Farouk started a policy giving support to student and working men's association and in early 1944 paid a visit to Upper Egypt, when he donated money to victims of the malaria epidemic.{{sfn|Morsy|1994|pp=107–108}} In April 1944, Farouk attempted to sack Nahas as prime minister over the latter's response to the malaria epidemic in Upper Egypt. {{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=235}} Reflecting the importance of controlling patronage in Egypt, Nahas Pasha had gone on a separate relief tour of Upper Egypt apart from the king and founded a relief organization, the Nahas Institute, in his own name instead of the king as was normal to treat the thousands sickened with malaria.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=235}} Farouk told Lampson that "there could not be two kings in Egypt" and the "semi-royal" nature of Nahas's tour of Upper Egypt was an insult to him.{{sfn|Morsy|1994|p=111}} Farouk attempted to soften the blow by announcing the new prime minister would be the well known Anglophile Prince Hassanein, but Lampson refused to accept him.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=235}} Lampson attempted to have Farouk deposed again, sending off a telegram to Churchill advising him to take "direct control" of Egypt.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=235}} Lampson once again threatened Farouk, who remained flippant and dismissive.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|pp=236–237}} When Prince Hassanein tried to persuade Lampson to accept the dismissal of the deeply corrupt Wafd government as an improvement, the ambassador was unmoved, leading the normally Anglophile Hassanein to say the Egyptians were getting tired of British influence in their internal affairs.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|pp=236–238}} By 1944, the withdrawal of much the British garrison in Egypt together with the view that to depose Farouk would make a nationalist martyr led to much of the British Foreign Office feeling that Lampson's constant plans to replace the king would do more harm than good.{{sfn|Morsy|1994|p=110}} [[Walter Guinness, 1st Baron Moyne|Lord Moyne]], the junior British foreign minister in charge of Middle Eastern affairs, told Lampson that his plans to depose Farouk in 1944 would damage Britain's moral position in the world and force the British to send more troops to Egypt to put down the expected riots when the main concern was the Italian theater of operations.{{sfn|Morsy|1994|p=112}} General [[Bernard Paget]] rejected Lampson's plans to depose Farouk as the Egyptian Army was loyal to him, and to depose the king would mean going to war against Egypt, which Paget called an unnecessary distraction.{{sfn|Morsy|1994|p=112}}

The day before Farouk was tentatively due to be deposed, Prince Hassanein arrived at the British Embassy with a letter for Lampson saying: "I am commanded by His Majesty to inform Your Excellency that he has decided to leave the present Government in Office for the time being".{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=238}} As Nahas became unpopular, he sought to embrace Arab nationalism to rally support, having Egypt join the Arab League in October 1944 and speaking more and more about "the Palestine question".{{sfn|Morsy|1994|p=115}} In October 1944, when Lampson went away for a vacation in South Africa, Farouk finally dismissed Nahas as prime minister on 8 October 1944, and replaced him with Ahmed Maher, the brother of Ali Maher.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=239}} The dismissal of Nahas was seen by Lampson as a personal defeat, who complained in his diary that he would never have a politician "in our pocket" like him again, and was seen as a decisive turning point when Farouk had finally outwitted Lampson.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|pp=239–240}} But at the same time, Lampson admitted that Nahas by his corruption had become a liability, and that Britain could not continue to support a corrupt government in the long run, as the British people would not tolerate going to war with Egypt to keep someone like Nahas in office.{{sfn|Morsy|1994|p=117}}

On 6 November 1944, [[Walter Guinness, 1st Baron Moyne|Lord Moyne]] was assassinated in Cairo by two members of the extreme right-wing Zionist group, [[Lehi (militant group)|Lehi]], better known as the Stern Gang.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=244}} The two assassins, [[Eliyahu Bet-Zuri]] and [[Eliyahu Hakim]], gunned down Lord Moyne and his chauffeur, but were then captured by the Cairo police.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=244}} Afterwards, Bet-Zuri and Hakim were tried and sentenced to death by an Egyptian court.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=245}} Farouk came under strong pressure from American Zionist groups to pardon the two assassins while Lampson pressured him not to pardon the assassins.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=245}} For a time, Farouk escaped the matter by sailing on the royal yacht ''Mahroussa'' to Saudi Arabia to go on the ''haji'' to Mecca and meet King Ibn Saud.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=247}} In March 1945, the assassins of Lord Moyne were hanged, and for the first time, Farouk was accused in the United States of being anti-Semitic.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=246}}
[[File:Franklin_D._Roosevelt_and_King_Farouk_of_Egypt_at_Great_Bitter_Lake_in_Egypt_-_NARA_-_196056.jpg|alt=Franklin D. Roosevelt and King Farouk of Egypt at Great Bitter Lake in Egypt|thumb|Farouk and [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] at Great Bitter Lake, Egypt, 1945]]

Farouk declared war on the Axis Powers, long after the [[North Africa campaign|fighting in Egypt's Western Desert]] had ceased.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|pp=249–250}} On 13 February 1945, Farouk met President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States on abroad the cruiser [[USS Quincy (CA-71)|USS ''Quincy'']], anchored in the [[Great Bitter Lake]].{{sfn|Buhite|1986|p=120}} Farouk seemed confused by the purpose of the meeting with Roosevelt, talking much about how after the war he hoped more American tourists would visit Egypt and Egyptian-American trade would increase.{{sfn|Buhite|1986|p=120}} Through the meeting consisted mostly of pleasantries, Roosevelt did give Farouk the gift of a [[Douglas C-47]] plane, to add to his airplane collection.{{sfn|Buhite|1986|p=121}} After meeting Roosevelt, the king met Churchill who according to Lampson:<blockquote>told Farouk that he should take a definite line in regard to the improvement of the social conditions in Egypt. He ventured to affirm that nowhere in the world were the conditions of extreme wealth and extreme poverty so glaring. What an opportunity for a young Sovereign to come forward and champion the interests and living conditions of his people. Why not take from the rich Pashas some of their superabundant wealth and devote it to the improvement of the living conditions of the ''fellaheen''?.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=249}} </blockquote> Farouk was more interested in learning if Egypt would be allowed to join the new United Nations and learned from Churchill that only nations that were at war with the Axis powers would be allowed to join the United Nations, which would replace the League of Nations after the war.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=249}}

In 1919, it had been a great humiliation for the Egyptians that Egypt had been excluded from the [[Paris Peace Conference]] that led to the [[Treaty of Versailles]] and the [[League of Nations]], causing the [[1919 Egyptian Revolution|revolution of 1919]].{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=250}} Farouk was determined that this time that Egypt would be a founding member of the United Nations, which would show the world that the country was ending British influence in Egyptian affairs.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=250}} On 24 February 1945, Prime Minister Maher had the Chamber of Deputies issue declarations of war against Germany and Japan, and as he was leaving the Chamber, he was assassinated by Mahmoud Isawi, a member of the pro-Axis Young Egypt Society.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=250}} Isawi was shaking Maher's hand and then pulled out his handgun, shooting the prime minister three times while screaming that he had betrayed Egypt by declaring war on Germany and Japan.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=250}} When Lampson arrived at the Koubbeh Palace to see Farouk, he wrote he was shocked instead to see instead "it was the wicked Aly Maher who was receiving condolences".{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=251}} As a result, Egypt attended the peace conference in San Francisco in April 1945 that founded the United Nations.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=250}}
[[File:Arab_Leaders_during_the_Anshas_conference_(cropped).jpg|alt=Arab Leaders during the Anshas conference|thumb|One side of the [[Inshas|Anshas]] conference called upon by king Farouk. From right to left: [[Abdullah I of Jordan|Abdullah I]] of Jordan, Farouk, Syrian president [[Shukri al-Quwatli]], Emir [[Abd al-Ilah]] of Iraq, and crown prince [[Saud of Saudi Arabia|Saud]] of Saudi Arabia, 1946]]
The new prime minister, [[Mahmoud El Nokrashy Pasha]], demanded that the British finally keep the terms of the 1936 treaty by pulling out of the Nile river valley while university students rioted in Cairo demanding the British leave Egypt altogether.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=251}} Lampson by 1945 was widely seen in Whitehall as a man with an unrealistic view of Anglo-Egyptian relations and only Lampson's friendship with Churchill kept him on as an ambassador in Cairo.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=252}} The new Labour government that came into office in July 1945 wanted a new relationship with Egypt, and Farouk let it be known he wanted a new British ambassador.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=252}} The new Labour Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, a man of working-class origins, found the aristocratic Lampson to be a snob, and moreover Lampson's vehement disapproval of the Labour government's policy towards India further isolated him.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|pp=252–253}} For all these reasons, Bevin was well disposed to Farouk's entreaties to replace Lampson.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=253}} Farouk had vaguely promised to carry out social reforms, a major concern in London as the wartime inflation had led to increases in support for the [[Egyptian Communist Party (ar-Rayat ash-Sha'ab)|Egyptian Communist Party]] on the left and the Muslim Brotherhood on the right, and was willing to negotiate a new relationship with Britain.{{sfn|Smith|1979|p=477}} Moreover, once the war had ended, the Wafd had returned to its traditional anti-British political position, which led Whitehall to conclude that Farouk was London's best hope of keeping Egypt in the British sphere of influence.{{sfn|Smith|1979|p=478}} The Egyptian ambassador in London passed on messages from Farouk blaming Lampson all the problems in Anglo-Egyptian relations, and stated that Farouk would be willing to return to his father's policies of opposing the Wafd and of seeking British "moral support" after the war.{{sfn|Smith|1979|p=476}}