"I am now the most important man in the entire Ottoman Empire. I have returned the Holy Cities to the true believers; I have carried my victorious armies to places where the power of the Grand Signor was not know, and to places whose people had still not heard of gunpowder." Muhammad Ali's 1825 boast to his French military advisor, Georges Douin, proved prophetic. Less than ten years later, Muhammad Ali's Egyptian armies had campaigned, not only in the Hijaz and Sudan, but fought in Greece, Yemen, and Syria. Historians have followed such military campaigns to articulate a purposeful and progressive plan in which the Pasha of Egypt sought to extend his control over regions outside of Egypt in order to create a rival imperial base to the Ottoman sultan in Istanbul. Yet, this "master plan" for political ascendancy within the Ottoman system also relied on an emphasis of diplomatic equity in which Muhammad Ali attempted to place himself on a equal setting with the Ottomans within the European diplomatic corp. The rebuff of French diplomats by Husayn, the Dey of Algiers, in 1827 and successive raids against French shipping in the Mediterranean initiated a diplomatic crisis that King Charles X, dominated by domestic issues, was reluctant to press beyond a word of wars. Yet, this crisis presented Muhammad Ali with the opportunity to establish the diplomatic equity he sought in European circles. By 1829, Muhammad Ali approached French Foreign Minister Polignac and offered to invade Algeria. Polignac quickly accepted the offer with promises of financial and material support and in January 1830, the French government announced that Egyptian forces would avenge French honor and protect French shipping. Yet, by February 1830, the government of Charles X was forced to back away from their alliance with Egypt due to popular anger and European ridicule. This paper will examine the diplomatic preparations for an Egyptian invasion and occupation of Algeria, in which Muhammad Ali attempted to present himself as, not only an equal to the Ottoman sultan, but to articulate Egypt as rating great power status among European foreign ministries.