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Assuming that he is referring to the 1882 invasion of Egypt by Britain, and if it is indeed a British military service rifle from that time period, then it ought to be a .577/.450 Martini-Henry .... (Mind you, there is also a fairly good possibility that it could be something like a .303 "Citadel" Martin-Enfield rifle, which would also be a single shot, of course ....) I guess we'll need to see pictures to be sure ....
Here is one famous illustration depicting the daybreak assault of the Black Watch on Egyptian entrenchments during the Battle of Tel-el-Kebir, 13 September 1882, followed by another rather less formal print showing them in possession of their objective minutes later .....
Click thumbnails to enlarge ....
"Now for the rest of the story ..."
By 1880, Britain had acquired a controlling interest in the Suez Canal Company by purchasing all of the shares owned by the deeply indebted Egyptian Khedive (ruler of Egypt, under the nominal control of the Ottoman Empire). Understandably, the Canal had become vital to Britain as the most direct route to India, and Britain thereafter played a very active role, along with France in a system of "Dual Control" under a commission of "advisors", in the Khedive's government.
The Egyptian Army mutinied in 1881 and the ringleaders (under a former Colonel, Arabi Pasha) took effective control of the country although keeping the Khedive in nominal power. The Ottoman Empire was really too weak to do anything about the situation, and Britain felt it had no choice but to intervene militarily to restore the former status quo.
The Egyptians significantly strengthened and extended the defences of the harbour at Alexandria (Egypt's main port city) in the hope of denying a landfall to the British. Following an ultimatum to dismantle the forts and allow the British Mediterranean Fleet to enter the harbour, which the Egyptians ignored, the fleet began a massive bombardment of those defences at 7:00 a.m. on 11 July 1882 - the Egyptian fortifications and artillery were largely neutralized, and the Egyptian forces in Alexandria retreated towards Cairo. The relatively small numbers of Royal Marines and Naval shore parties available for landing were entirely insufficient to make any pursuit, and in any event were fully occupied with restoring order in the city.
The first regular British troops arrived and were landed on July 18, and a continuous buildup of troops and supplies went on until the arrival of General Sir Garnet Wolseley (the British officer charged with command of the invasion) with more troops on the 16th of August. The Egyptians clearly expected the British to move inland against Cairo from this "beach-head" at Alexandria, and had been moving troops into position and strengthening fortifications in their expected path. Wolseley let it be known (for the benefit of the many spies in Alexandria feeding information to the enemy) that he was embarking his force with the intention of reducing the fortifications around Rosetta at the eastern end of the Bay of Aboukir (30 or 40 miles east of Alexandria) and then landing his force there to take advantage of another route, complete with an alternate railway line, to Cairo.
The bulk of the British force embarked on August 18th .... the British warships and transports then sailed and took up position opposite the Aboukir forts on the 19th with all apparent preparations for commencing a bombardment and assault on the following day. Having forced the concentration of Egyptian forces in the northern end of the Nile delta and then causing them great consternation by shifting the apparent point of attack, the entire fleet struck anchor that night and sailed east to the Suez Canal, easily occupying Port Said (at the Mediterranean end) , Suez (at the Red Sea end) and Ismailia (roughly in the middle) which was the main city on the Canal east of Cairo, and connected to the Capital by various roads, rail lines and subsidiary canals.
By August 24 the British forces had been largely disembarked at Ismailia and began a methodical advance eastward. The Egyptian Army finally took a stand in very strong entrenched positions at Tel-el-Kebir, and the British continued to bring in more troops. (Amusingly, the Turkish Sultan finally issued a decree in Istanbul on September 5th, declaring Arabi to be a rebel, and on September 6th some Turkish troops were dispatched from Crete. As can be imagined, the British didn't give a hoot one way or the other ...)
When finally ready, Wolseley marshalled his forces (about 13,000 strong, against about twice as many entrenched Egyptian troops) and moved them into assault position during the moonless night of September 12/13. The assault was launched in the predawn light on September 13. Although resistance was quite strong at the outset the British forces over-ran their objectives quite quickly, and within a half hour or so the Egyptian defenders were fleeing in disorder toward Zagazig (about 15 miles west of Tel-el-Kebir, and 40 miles northeast of Cairo). British forces pursued quickly to prevent them from rallying, and Zagazig was occupied that afternoon. An immediate forced march on Cairo resulted in the Capital being occupied on the evening of September 14, and Arabi was captured.
Following defeat of the mutinous Egyptian Army in 1882, although Egypt remained nominally part of the Ottoman Empire until WWI, Britain assumed effective control and in fact maintained troops there continuously until the 1956. Most of the senior oficers of the Egytian Army were British for a long time thereafter. This brings us back to the "Citadel" Martini-Enfield rifles I mentioned at the start. Early in the 20th century, Britain supplied Egypt with a large quantity of .303 caliber Martini-Enfield rifles for refurbishment, and that work was performed at the Citadel Armoury in Cairo. Generally, these rifles will have all the normal British markings (Crown, Royal Cypher, date, etc.) completely "stripped" from the surface of the receiver - because it "just wouldn't do" to have military arms with official British ownership/acceptance marks supplied to the Egyptian army when that country was technically still a part of the Ottoman Empire, not the British Empire. (Very much a "wink, wink ... nudge, nudge ... say no more" type of situation, in view of the reality of things.) The primary markings on the receiver will instead be the Crescent and Star symbol of Egypt, over the word "CITADEL" (in English) over an early 1900's date, on the left side ...
British Troops who took part in the battles of 1882-85 were awarded the Brtish "Egypt' Medal (with appropriate bars) and if involved in the 1882 campaign against the mutinous Egyptian Army were also decorated by the Egyptian ruler with the "Khedive's Star" .... These are rather poor reproductions ....
All the problems with the Sudan (which had been occupied by Egypt decades earlier) also began in 1882, by the way. The self-proclaimed Mahdi and his forces took advantage of the problems in Egypt to seize effective control of the Sudan (except for the capital city, Khartoum, and a few other strongholds) during 1882. General Gordon was subsequently beseiged in Khartoum in 1884/85 and the relief expedition finally sent up the Nile arrived too late (by just a few days) to prevent the city from falling to the Mahdists. They remained in effective control of the Sudan until it was finally re-conquered in 1898 by Anglo-Egyptian forces under the command of General Herbert Horatio Kitchener. (A young subaltern by the name of Winston Churchill was in that one ... which is when he creditied his Model 1896 Mauser pistol with saving his life when he was surrounded and attacked by a bunch of Dervishes .....)
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GrantR Canada
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