[quote=@Letter Bee]
<Snipped quote by Lady Lascivious>

To be honest, I had worries about that last part, and it was my absolute limit or close to it.

As for the British willingness to cede that much control to Egypt, well, it helps that Egypt [i]already had the land[/i] the British allowed them to [i]keep[/i]. The British and the Ottomans were prepared to drive them off said land, but concessions were made to have the British betray the Ottomans and deal with Egypt as a (subordinate) partner instead.

I'm sure that the Wikipedia page for Muhammad Ali of Egypt said that he already controlled the territory he claimed and was about to overrun the Ottomans themselves.
[/quote]

Again - I'm not arguing against it at all. I think it's unrealistic, and the British would oppose it as it would upset the balance of power in the region and destabilize things, as well as being greedy imperialistic little bastards. The conservative and traditionalist factions do not have the 20/20 vision of history with which to realize that would be by far the best deal they could get, and him ceding Crete and making other such concessions would, in my view, absolutely infuriate them, since such factions are rarely motivated by purely rational logic. 

I assumed we were playing a setting that allowed more low probability stuff to occur - and "peasant rebellion lead by a military genius and supplied by Russia in exchange for one of their longest running strategic goals" didn't seem all that outlandish to me, to be honest.

EDIT: An alternative proposal. A bad harvest leads to severe food shortages and unrest, instead of a plague.