Farouk of Egypt

==Overthrow==
[[File:Egyptian King Farouk Empire Bedroom Suite.jpg|left|thumb|King Farouk seven-piece [[Empire style|Empire]] bedroom suite crafted by the Parisian ''[[ébéniste]]'' Antoine Krieger]]
Farouk was widely condemned by his people for his corrupt and ineffectual governance, failure to expel foreign influence in Egypt's affairs, and the Egyptian army's failure in the [[1948 Arab–Israeli War]] to stop the expulsion of Palestinians by paramilitary Zionist forces and to prevent the creation of the state of [[Israel]]. Public discontent against Farouk rose to new levels, and the 1951 film ''[[Quo Vadis (1951 film)|Quo Vadis]]'' was banned in Egypt out of the fear the audiences would identify the fat Emperor [[Nero]] played by [[Peter Ustinov]] with Farouk.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=334}} Farouk usually spent his summers in Alexandria to escape the summer heat in Cairo, and on the night of 20 July was gambling at the Royal Automobile Club when he received a phone call from Prime Minister Serry saying he had learned from a police spy that the Free Officers were planning to launch a coup sometime that summer.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=16}} Serry also warned that Farouk's plans to appoint General Sirri Amer, a man deeply involved in the arms scandal, as War Minister would turn the officer corps against him; a plan that ultimately failed when even General Amer realised he was too unpopular with the officer corps to be an effective War Minister, causing him to refuse the appointment.{{sfn|Gordon|1989|p=235}} When Farouk asked Serry to read out a list of who was involved in the conspiracy, he laughingly dismissed them as too junior to pose a threat, appointed his brother-in-law [[Ismail Chirine]] War Minister with orders to "clean up" the Army and returned to the Montaza Palace, unworried.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=16}}{{sfn|Gordon|1989|p=235}}

The appointment of Chirine as War Minister spurred the Free Officers into action, and on 22 July their leaders, General [[Muhammad Naguib]] and Colonel [[Gamal Abdel Nasser]], decided on a coup the next day.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=17}} Learning from one of his spies that the coup was due to begin tomorrow, at about 7 pm, Farouk ordered the arrest of all the Free Officers.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=17}} Two Free Officers living in Alexandria were so convinced the coup would fail that the evening of 23 July that they went to the Montaza palace to confess and seek a royal pardon.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=17}} Finally, on the night of 23 July 1952, the Free Officers, led by Naguib and Nasser, staged a military coup that launched the [[Egyptian Revolution of 1952]]. The Free Officers, knowing that warrants had been issued for their arrest, launched the coup that night, storming the staff headquarters in Cairo, killing two and wounding two on the night of 23 July and by about 1:30 am, Cairo was under their control.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=18}}

In Alexandria, Farouk appealed to Caffery for help, accusing the Free Officers of all being Communists.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|pp=18–19}}{{sfn|Thornhill|2004|p=896}} Despite the strained relations with Britain, Farouk also appealed to Britain to intervene; the "Black Saturday" riot had convinced the Churchill government that to intervene in Egypt would entail guerrilla warfare in the Nile river valley, which ruled out intervention.{{sfn|Thornhill|2004|pp=895–896}} Ali Maher, who sided with the Free Officers and was appointed prime minister by them, arrived in Alexandria on 24 July to tell Farouk that the Free Officers wanted Naguib to be War Minister and the dismissal of his "kitchen cabinet".{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=20}} On 25 July, Farouk went with a machine gun by his side to the [[Ras El Tin Palace]], driving his red Mercedes-Benz down the streets of Alexandria at high speed.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=20}} The Ras El Tin Palace was located right by Alexandria harbor under the guns of the Egyptian Navy's warships, as the Navy had stayed loyal.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=20}} Farouk had his loyal Sudanese Guard, which was 800 strong, build barricades around the palace.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=20}} Late on the morning of 25 July, the palace was surrounded by troops loyal to the Free Officers, who attempted to storm it, only to be repulsed by the Sudanese Guard.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=21}} Farouk, who was an expert marksman, used his hunting gun to kill four of the attackers himself as they sought to race across the palace grounds.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=22}} After several hours of fighting, Caffery was able to arrange a ceasefire.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=22}}
[[File:King_Farouk_departure_in_1952.jpg|alt=King Farouk departure in 1952|thumb|Farouk's final departure from Egypt to exile, 26 July 1952]]
On the morning of 26 July 1952, Maher arrived at the Ras El Tin Palace to present Farouk with an ultimatum drafted by Naguib telling the king he must abdicate and leave Egypt by 6 pm the next day or else the troops loyal to the Free Officers would storm the palace and execute the king.{{sfn|Thornhill|2004|p=898}} By this time, tanks and artillery had arrived outside the palace, and Farouk agreed to abdicate.{{sfn|Thornhill|2004|p=898}} At about 12:30 pm, Farouk, in the presence of a Supreme Court justice and Caffery, nearly cried as he signed the instrument of abdication.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=23}} At about 5:30 pm Farouk left the palace, was saluted by the Sudanese Guard, said farewell to his best friend Pulli who was not allowed to leave Egypt, and at the dock, boarded the royal yacht ''[[El Mahrousa]]'' to leave Egypt for the last time.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|pp=24–25}} The ''Mahrousa'' was the same yacht that had taken Ismail the Magnificent to Italy when he was deposed in 1879, which Farouk kept brooding about during his voyage to [[Naples]].{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=322}} The [[Abaza family]]'s Fouad Pasha Abaza, a businessman who held several official positions, notably sent the only message that King Farouk of Egypt received on the royal yacht as he was exiled from Egypt.[https://web.archive.org/web/20171023144839/http://www.moqatel.com/openshare/Behoth/Siasia21/Thawra1952/sec076.htm]

Farouk was forced to abdicate and went into exile in [[Monaco]] and Italy, where he lived for the rest of his life, arriving in Naples on 29 July 1952.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=324}} Immediately following his abdication, Farouk's baby son, Ahmed Fuad, was proclaimed [[Fuad II of Egypt|King Fuad II]], but for all intents and purposes Egypt was now governed by Naguib, Nasser, and the Free Officers. On 18 June 1953, the revolutionary government formally abolished the monarchy, ending 150 years of the Muhammad Ali dynasty's rule, and Egypt was declared a republic.

The Egyptian government quickly moved to auction off the King's vast collection of trinkets and treasures,<ref name="Herald">{{cite news|url=http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article12637606|title=Sale of the Century|date=31 January 1954|newspaper=The Sun-Herald|access-date=11 April 2013|location=Sydney, New South Wales|page=13}}</ref> including his seven-piece bedroom suite that was inspired by [[Napoleon]] and [[Joséphine de Beauharnais|Josephine's]] suite at the [[Château de Malmaison]].<ref>{{cite web|title=Prime Provenance: The King Farouk Bedroom Suite|url=http://www.artfixdaily.com/blogs/post/9242-prime-provenance-the-king-farouk-bedroom-suite|website=ArtfixDaily|access-date=24 November 2015}}</ref> Among the more famous of his possessions was one of the rare [[1933 double eagle]] coins, though the coin disappeared before it could be returned to the United States. (It later reappeared in New York in 1996 and was eventually sold at auction for more than seven million dollars.)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://coins.about.com/od/famousrarecoinprofiles/p/1933_Gold_Eagle.htm|title=1933 Gold Double Eagle|author=Susan Headley|publisher=About.com|access-date=5 July 2013|archive-date=14 September 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130914101924/http://coins.about.com/od/famousrarecoinprofiles/p/1933_Gold_Eagle.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref> Attracting much prurient interest both in Egypt and abroad was the revelation that Farouk owned one of the largest collections of pornography in the world, as he possessed a vast collection numbering into the hundreds of thousands of pornographic photographs, postcards, calendars, playing cards, watches, glasses, and so on.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=328}} Farouk's obsession with collecting also ranged into diamonds, dogs, stamps, rubies, Fabergé eggs, ancient Tibetan coins, medieval suits of armour, aspirin bottles, razor blades, paper clips and Geiger counters.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=328}} At the Koubbeh Palace, it was discovered that Farouk had collected 2,000 silk shirts, 10,000 silk ties, 50 diamond-studded golden walking sticks and one autographed portrait of Adolf Hitler.{{sfn|Stadiem|1991|p=328}}

The 94-carat Star of the East diamond and another diamond bought from Harry Winston had not been paid for by the time of the King's overthrow in 1952; three years later an Egyptian government legal board entrusted with the disposal of the former royal assets, ruled in Winston's favour. Nevertheless, several years of litigation were needed before Winston was able to reclaim the Star of the East from a safe-deposit box in Switzerland.