The reasons why the British government sent a fleet of ships to the coast of Alexandria is a point of historical debate, as there is no information available that is capable of identifying a definitive cause for the invasion. In their 1961 essay Africa and the Victorians, Ronald Robinson and John Gallagher argue that the British invasion was ordered in order to quell the perceived anarchy of the Orabi Revolt, as well to protect British control over the Suez Canal in order to maintain its shipping route to the Indian Ocean.