The ultimatum submitted by Sir Miles Lampson (later Lord Killearn), the British ambassador in Egypt, to King Faruq, on February 4, 1942, has come to be regarded as a landmark in Egypt's political history. It humiliated the palace, and brought the Wafd back to power after more than four years in the political wilderness. Yet the Wafd's return was made in unfortunate circumstances, as it resumed power by threat of British military intervention, and not by its own power. Thus the following two years, during which Nahhas was prime minister, heading a purely Wafdist government, witnessed a further decline in the Wafd's popularity and a parallel rise in the fortunes of anti-parliamentary movements headed by the Muslim Brothers. Now that the official British records, dealing with this period, have been made available to the public, a brief, but more accurate, resume of the events, is clearly warranted. But first it is interesting to recall some of the comments made on this topic by historians and politicians in the past. John Marlowe dismisses the events in a few lines, substituting 'urgent request' for ultimatum. He concludes, however, that Nahhas's circumstances of assuming power 'presented his opponents with a deadly weapon to use against him as soon as British protection is withdrawn.'1 A more detailed, but by no means accurate, evaluation is given by Z. M. Quraishi in his history of the Wafd. Following a description of the events leading up to the ultimatum and of the Lampson-Faruq confrontation that followed, Quraishi states: 'This was the first time when the British Government intervened in favour of a popular movement in Egypt. The people welcomed it with a demonstration of enthusiasm and happiness.'2 However, Quraishi continues that despite the so-called demonstrations of enthusiasm, the circumstances of the Wafd's assuming power enabled the King to mobilize the support of all the anti-Wafdist elements, and by accusing the Wafd of betrayal, to save both his throne and his prestige. 3 Observers of Egyptian politics know only too well, that a united antiWafd front was not a unique achievement and did not require a British ultimatum to bring about. Furthermore, the Wafd had already been branded as traitor, in certain political circles, following the 1936 Anglo-Egyptian treaty. As for Faruq's regaining his prestige, B. St. Clair McBride, Faruq's biographer, takes a more careful and probably more realistic attitude, when he describes the far-reaching consequences of Faruq's humiliation. He states that 'Lampson's action brought down the very Party the British had installed; it was the final inspiration and confirmation of their cause to those forces in Egypt working to rid themselves of Farouk and the British.' 4 In his Modern Egypt Tom Little goes even further when he claims that 'Lord Killearn [Lampson] had wrecked the triangle of forces within which the political life of Egypt was evolving by creating an implacable enmity between Britain and the King.' Secondly, he states that 'the gross insult of