As a result of his fiscal policies, government debt rose so drastically that he was forced to sell the canal shares to Britain and finally, in 1879, to abdicate in favor of his son, Muhammad Tawfik Pasha.
Many Egyptians resented the lingering colonial influence, and tensions finally boiled over in July 1956, when Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, supposedly to help fund a dam across the Nile River.
