Mrs. Kemmerich. In 1896, the Kemmerichs sold the hotel to Egyptian Hotels Ltd., a British company that subsequently leased it to the Compagnie Internationaldes Grands Hôtels. This company in turn was purchased by the Swiss hotel magnate Karl (Charles) Baehler. Shepheard's Hotel was famed for its grandeur, for its guests, and as a base for the military. It was renowned for its opulence, with stained glass, Persian carpets, gardens, terraces, and great granite pillars resembling those of the Ancient Egyptian temples. Its American Bar was frequented not only by Americans but also by French and British officers. There were nightly dances at which men appeared in military uniform and women in evening gowns. The bar was also known as the "long bar" because it was always so crowded that it required considerable waiting to get a drink. In 1941-42, when there were very real fears that the Wehrmacht's Afrika Korps under Erwin Rommel might take Cairo, a popular joke amongst the British and Australian soldiers waiting for service at the "long bar" was: "Wait until he [Rommel] gets to Shepheard's; that'll hold him up". The Suffering Bastard cocktail was created at the bar. Bartender Joe Scialom was looking to make a hangover drink for allied troops and according to story made one as a "cure" for the suffering soldiers who complained about the poor quality of liquor in the area. During the fighting, Nazi General Rommel allegedly said "I'll be drinking champagne in the master suite at Shepheard's soon". The "long bar" was popular with the cabinet of the Greek government-in-exile, and Harold Macmillan wrote in his diary on 21 August 1944 that the Greek government-in-exile should move to Italy to escape the "poisonous atmosphere of intrigue which reigns in Cairo. All previous Greek governments-in-exile have been broken in the bar of Shepheard's". Tourist shops faced the hotel from across the street, and there was a storeroom where officers could leave their excess luggage. Reviews of the hotel's cuisine varied over time. At an early stage, its food was said to leave "much to be desired" but, by the middle of the 20th century, others were describing the food as "as good as anything at Paris' Ritz, or Berlin's Adlon, or Rome's Grand". By the late 1940s the quality of the long established hotel appeared to have declined. The writer Philip Toynbee described it in his diary as an "ancient