He also sought co-operation with France and the Ottoman Empire, but later he gradually grew more independent of outside backers, and appealed mainly to the Egyptian people to demand the end of the British occupation. Kamil often worked as an unofficial diplomat, touring the capitals of Europe on behalf of the Khedive, seeking support to end the “temporary” British occupation of Egypt. Kamil had what was described as a “complicated loyalties” owning to Egypt’s status as an Ottoman vilayat (province) that was self-governing under the descendants of Mohammad Ali the Great that had been occupied by Britain in 1882. Like most Egyptians of his generation, Kamil saw the Khedives as the legitimate rulers of Egypt, who in turn owned their loyalty to the Ottoman Sultan-Caliph in Constantinople. He also called on Khedive Abbas to grant constitutional government to his subjects. Realizing that Egypt could not militarily expel the British, Kamil confided his efforts to public relations, writing: “The wise among the British have realized the danger of their occupation of Egypt. What they need to know is the true feelings of the Egyptian nation, its fears, hopes, and the truth. This would force their government to evacuate the Nile Valley. The best thing that we Egyptians can do now is to advertise the truth to Europe with as many languages as possible, especially in English and French.”

The son of an Egyptian army officer, Kamil was trained as a lawyer at the French law school in Cairo and the Law Faculty at the University of Toulouse in France. In January 1893, as a university student Kamil first became famous when he led a group of students who destroyed the offices of the newspaper al-Muqattam which supported the British occupation of Egypt. As a passionate nationalist, he supported Egypt’s khedive, Abbas Hilmi II, who strongly opposed the United Kingdom’s occupation of Egypt and Sudan. A protegee of Abbas Hilmi, whom he first met in 1892, it was the khedive who paid for Kamil to be educated in Toulouse. The American historian Michael Laffan described Kamil as “…a spellbinding orator, tireless traveller, prolific writer and charismatic personality”. Kamil befriended the French Orientalist François Deloncle who promised to introduce him to French politicians, but instead gave him the job as his secretary, causing him to quit in disgust.

Kamil first came to widespread attention outside Egypt when presented a petition to the French Chamber of Deputies in Paris in June 1895 asking France to pressure Britain to leave Egypt. Kamil at the same time paid for a poster to be printed when shows him presenting a petition to Marianne in the “Temple of Reason” asking her to free Egypt with the miserable-looking Egyptian masses standing behind him while the British lion together with a British soldier holding a half-naked woman in chains who symbolized Egypt is in the foreground of the poster. To the right of Marianne stands Uncle Sam and other symbolic characters for the other nations of the world, who were all standing upright and look happy, showing where Kamil hopes that Marianne make Egypt like. Kamil’s poster with its symbolic representation of Egypt’s status was very popular, and was reprinted in many European and American newspapers in 1895. In a speech delivered in French in Toulouse on 4 July 1895, Kamil accused Lord Cromer of “purposively appointing incapable, indifferent or traitorous men at the head of Egyptian government ministries and other administrative positions. In this manner he not only manipulates these men like an instrument under his control but he uses the incompetence of these men to attempt and prove to Europe that our country lacks a governing managerial class.” In the same speech, Kamil called for French help, saying: “Yes gentlemen, it is France’s duty..to interfere and save us…France which has generously awakened Egypt from its profound sleep and has always treated us like its dearest offspring, earning in the process our eternal respect, emanating from the depths of our hearts and souls.”

Upon returning to Egypt, Kamil wrote and published a pamphlet in French (the language of Egypt’s elite) whose title Le peril anglais: Conséquence de l’occupation de l’Egypte par l’Angleterre gave away its thesis. From 1895 to 1907, Kamil visited France every year, always giving speeches and writing newspaper articles denouncing British rule in Egypt. Kamil’s friendship with the French writer Pierre Loti and the feminist Juliette Adam led to him being introduced to much of the French intelligentsia, who were impressed by the charismatic and intelligent young Egyptian who spoke and wrote fluent French. However, Kamil’s Francophile rhetoric was calculated as he told Abbas Hilmis’s secretary in a letter in September 1895: “Like any realistic person knows, nations only cater to their best interests. The French, just like the English; regardless of how they pretend to be loyal to us, will do whatever is in their best political interests. Therefore through our rapprochement and our amicability toward them we are merely employing a purposeful political maneuver to gain their trust and perhaps, even if it is temporary, we can benefit from them politically.” Kamil sometimes exaggerated the Francophilia of Egypt to win French support, as in a speech in Paris on 18 June 1899 when he said: “The war which your neighbors from across the English-Channel have been waging against your cultural influence and prestige on the banks of the Nile is without a name. English hate has especially targeted the French Language, for they have been zealously and tirelessly attempting to replace their language for yours.” Despite Kamil’s claims, French remained one of the official languages of Egypt until the 1952 revolution.

In 1900, Kamil founded the newspaper Al-Liwa’ (“The Standard”) as a platform for his views and utilized his skill as both a journalist and lawyer. He also founded a boys’ school open to Egyptian Muslims, Christians, and Jews. A Francophile, Kamil was much influenced by French republican values of Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité, seeing France as the embodiment of the values of progress, prosperity, and freedom. Kamil’s writing help to redefine loyalty to al-watan (“the homeland”) in terms stressing the importance of education, nizam (order), and love of al-watan, implicitly criticizing the state created by Mohammad Ali the Great, which was run on very militarist lines. Like many other Egyptian nationalists of the early 20th century, Kamil took pride in the achievements of the ancient Egyptian civilization, which for him showed that Egypt had a history of statehood going back thousands of years, which set the Egyptians apart from other peoples.

Much of Kamil’s writings anticipated later Third World nationalism as he gave extensive coverage in Al-Liwa to independence movements in India (modern India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh) and the Netherlands East Indies (modern Indonesia), suggesting that independence activists in both places shared a common predicament with people like himself, as all were members of an oppressed “East” dominated by the West. In 1900, Kamil who had hoped that France might intervene in the Boer War on behalf of the Transvaal and Orange Free State wrote: “What a lesson for us who counted on Europe!” After the Entente Cordial of 1904 and the Russian-Japanese war of 1904-05, Kamil became ardent Japanophile, praising the Japanese as an “Eastern” people who had modernized and as a role model for Egypt. Under the terms of the Entene Cordial of April 1904, France recognized Egypt as being in the British sphere of influence in exchange for which Britain recognized Morocco in the French sphere of influence. Kamil gave the Russo-Japanese war extensive coverage in Al-Liwa’ and praised the Japanese for having modernized without losing their Japanese identity. Viewing the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II as a reformer, at the same time, Kamil constantly covered reforming efforts in the Ottoman Empire and expressed the hope that Abdul Hamid would be a great reformer like the Meiji Emperor of Japan. Much of Kamil’s writings in Al-Liwa urged Abdul Hamid to be more like the Meiji Emperor in giving the Ottoman empire “vigor” in embracing modernizing reforms. On 28 March 1904, Kamil wrote to a French friend, Juliette Adam that he was writing a book on Japan “so as to explain to the people how to rise, and to encourage them by the current striving of the Japanese”. In June 1904, Kamil wrote to Adam that he had finished his book on Japan, saying: “I have just finished the first volume of my book on Japan. The chief reason which has pushed me to do it is to profit by the current of great sympathy that my compatriots have for the Japanese to tell them that those people are so strong only because they are patriotic. I believe that it will have a ringing effect. I have never tired myself so much as these last days”.

In another article in September 1904, Kamil wrote that the Japanese victories against Russia were “a glory for every Easterner”. When Kamil learned that his French friend Pierre Loti who was supporting Russia against Japan had ended their friendship over the issue, a disappointed Kamil wrote to Adam on 9 June 1905:

Kamil’s cause was strengthened by the Dinshaway Incident on 13 June 1906 in which four peasants were hastily tried and hanged for having assaulted uniformed British officers who were shooting pigeons in their village. The Dinshaway incident galvanized the Egyptian nationalist movement, and Kamil used the case of an Egyptian farmer beaten to death by British troops after he attempted to help a British officer sickened with sunstroke together with the hanging of four Egyptian farmers for supposedly instigating the alleged murder of the officer to rouse nationalist anger, becoming the spokesman of the Egyptian nationalist movement. In an article in Le Figaro on 11 July 1906, Kamil wrote: “A tragic affair took place in the Egyptian delta village of Dinshaway, which has managed to emotionally touch humanity in its entirety.” Kamil’s article in Le Figaro first brought international attention to the Dinshaway incident, and on 15 July 1906, Kamil visited London. Kamil translated his article into English and mailed it to every MP, where giving speeches all over Britain recounting the Dinshaway affair.

On 26 July 1906 Kamil gave a speech at the Carlton Hotel in London, which began with highlighting the history of the Coptic minority in Egypt to counter Cromer’s “fanaticism” argument before attacking Cromer for his neglect of the Egyptian educational system, charging that entire generations of Egyptians had gone uneducated since he had taken charge of the Egyptian fiances. Kamil then turned to the Dinshaway incident, saying: “Lord Cromer established this special tribunal in Dinshaway which has revolted everyone . . . a tribunal which follows no legal code and no laws. . . . Its existence was an outrage against the humanity and civil rights of the Egyptian people and a blemish on the honor of British civilization.”. Afterwards, Kamil visited 10 Dowding Street to meet the Prime Minister, Henry Campbell-Bannerman. Campbell-Bannermann asked Kamil for a list of Egyptians capable of being ministers, leading him to write down 32 names, several of whom were appointed to the Egyptian cabinet. The Dinshaway incident led to Lord Cromer resigning in March 1907, and in his resignation letter, Cromer for the first time referred to Kamil by name, writing: “If I were younger I should rather enjoy fighting the Khedive, Mustafa Kamil and their English allies, and moreover, I think I should beat them”.

Fazlur Rahman Malik argues that even though he was necessarily secular, his nationalism was inspired by an Islamic past. This appears to be the natural conclusion as Egypt had remained under the Islamic Caliphate system for centuries before. The British often accused him of advocating pan-Islam, and it is well known that he supported the Ottoman Sultan against the Egyptian Government and the British who dominated Egypt in the dispute over Taba in May 1906, even though later in his life he moved away from supporting Egypt as a part of an all-encompassing Islamic world, and more as a unique territorial entity.

He was supported strongly by Mohammad Farid, a prominent member of Egypt and Sudan’s aristocracy. With Farid’s assistance, Kamil founded the National Party in December 1907, two months before his death. His funeral was the occasion for a massive demonstration of popular grief, being attended by hundreds of thousands who saw Kamil as their champion. Farid, who spent his last penny supporting the country’s national liberation movement, became the leader of the National Party after Kamil’s death.