European, especially British, intervention is usually identified as the cause of the failure of this ambitious, well-planned and impressive "experiment," and two episodes are often mentioned as examples of how Europe managed to frustrate Mehmed Ali's ambitious policies. The first was the 1838 Balta Liman commercial treaty between Great Britain and the Sublime Porte, aimed at abolishing commercial monopolies throughout the Ottoman Empire at large but targeted specifically at Mehmed Ali's monopolies. … The second incident that is usually highlighted to stress how European efforts were most instrumental in aborting this impressive "experiment" in development was the firman of 1841 which was passed by the Ottoman Sultan but which was a result of European pressure. This firman stripped Egypt of the territorial possessions that it had managed to acquire during the preceding two decades and, of equal significance, reduced the size of its armed forces to 18,000 men during peacetime, only a small fraction of its original size.

Pays off: "Egyptian context explains the gap between plan and execution."

Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed…, loc. 41