The Suez Crisis, or the Second Arab–Israeli war, also called the Tripartite Aggression ( ar, العدوان الثلاثي, Al-ʿUdwān aṯ-Ṯulāṯiyy) in the
Arab world
The Arab world ( ar, اَلْعَالَمُ الْعَرَبِيُّ '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, refers to a vast group of countries, mainly located in Western A ...
and the Sinai War in
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
,Also known as the Suez War or 1956 War; other names include the ''Sinai war'', ''Suez–Sinai war'', ''1956 Arab–Israeli war'', the Second Arab–Israeli war, ''Suez Campaign'', ''Sinai Campaign'', ''Kadesh Operation'' and ''Operation Musketeer''
was an invasion of
Egypt
Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...
in late 1956 by Israel, followed by the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
and
France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
. The aims were to regain control of the
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal ( arz, قَنَاةُ ٱلسُّوَيْسِ, ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia. The long canal is a popular ...
for the Western powers and to remove Egyptian president
Gamal Abdel Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein, . (15 January 1918 – 28 September 1970) was an Egyptian politician who served as the second president of Egypt from 1954 until his death in 1970. Nasser led the Egyptian revolution of 1952 and introduced far-re ...
, who had just swiftly
nationalised
Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...
the foreign-owned
Suez Canal Company
Suez ( ar, السويس '; ) is a seaport city (population of about 750,000 ) in north-eastern Egypt, located on the north coast of the Gulf of Suez (a branch of the Red Sea), near the southern terminus of the Suez Canal, having the same b ...
, which administered the canal. Israel's primary objective was to re-open the blocked
Straits of Tiran
The straits of Tiran ( ar, مضيق تيران ') are the narrow sea passages between the Sinai and Arabian peninsulas that connect the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea. The distance between the two peninsulas is about . The Multinational Force an ...
. After the fighting had started, political pressure from the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
, the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
and the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
led to a withdrawal by the three invaders. The episode humiliated the United Kingdom and France and strengthened Nasser.
On 26 July 1956, Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal Company, which prior to that was owned primarily by British and French shareholders. On 29 October, Israel invaded the Egyptian
Sinai
Sinai commonly refers to:
* Sinai Peninsula, Egypt
* Mount Sinai, a mountain in the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt
* Biblical Mount Sinai, the site in the Bible where Moses received the Law of God
Sinai may also refer to:
* Sinai, South Dakota, a place ...
. Britain and France issued a joint ultimatum to cease fire, which was ignored. On 5 November, Britain and France landed
paratroopers
A paratrooper is a military parachutist—someone trained to parachute into a military operation, and usually functioning as part of an airborne force. Military parachutists (troops) and parachutes were first used on a large scale during Worl ...
along the Suez Canal. Before the Egyptian forces were defeated, they had blocked the canal to all shipping by sinking 40 ships in the canal. It later became clear that Israel, France and Britain had conspired to plan the invasion. The three allies had attained a number of their military objectives, but the canal was useless. Heavy political pressure from the United States and the USSR led to a withdrawal. U.S. president
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
had strongly warned Britain not to invade; he threatened serious damage to the British financial system by selling the U.S. government's
pound sterling
Sterling (abbreviation: stg; Other spelling styles, such as STG and Stg, are also seen. ISO code: GBP) is the currency of the United Kingdom and nine of its associated territories. The pound ( sign: £) is the main unit of sterling, and t ...
bonds. Historians conclude the crisis "signified the end of Great Britain's role as one of the world's major powers".
The Suez Canal was closed from October 1956 until March 1957. Israel fulfilled some of its objectives, such as attaining freedom of navigation through the
Straits of Tiran
The straits of Tiran ( ar, مضيق تيران ') are the narrow sea passages between the Sinai and Arabian peninsulas that connect the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea. The distance between the two peninsulas is about . The Multinational Force an ...
Anthony Eden
Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, (12 June 1897 – 14 January 1977) was a British Conservative Party politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1955 until his resignation in 1957.
Achieving rapid promo ...
resigned, Canadian external affairs minister
Lester Pearson
Lester Bowles "Mike" Pearson (23 April 1897 – 27 December 1972) was a Canadian scholar, statesman, diplomat, and politician who served as the 14th prime minister of Canada from 1963 to 1968.
Born in Newtonbrook, Ontario (now part of ...
won the
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor and armaments (military weapons and equipment) manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Chemi ...
, and the USSR may have been emboldened to invade Hungary.
Background
History of the Suez Canal
The
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal ( arz, قَنَاةُ ٱلسُّوَيْسِ, ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia. The long canal is a popular ...
was opened in 1869, after ten years of work financed by the French and Egyptian governments. The canal was operated by the Universal Company of the Suez Maritime Canal, an Egyptian-chartered company; the area surrounding the canal remained sovereign Egyptian territory and the only land-bridge between Africa and Asia.
The canal instantly became strategically important, as it provided the shortest ocean link between the
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...
and the
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by th ...
. The canal eased commerce for trading nations and particularly helped European colonial powers to gain and govern their colonies.
In 1875, as a result of debt and financial crisis, Egypt was forced to sell its shares in the canal operating company to the British government of
Benjamin Disraeli
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, (21 December 1804 – 19 April 1881) was a British statesman and Conservative politician who twice served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He played a central role in the creation o ...
. They were willing buyers and obtained a 44% share in the
Suez Canal Company
Suez ( ar, السويس '; ) is a seaport city (population of about 750,000 ) in north-eastern Egypt, located on the north coast of the Gulf of Suez (a branch of the Red Sea), near the southern terminus of the Suez Canal, having the same b ...
for £4 million (£472 million in 2020). This maintained the majority shareholdings of the mostly-French private investors. With the 1882 invasion and occupation of Egypt, the UK took ''de facto'' control of the country as well as the canal proper, its finances and operations. The 1888
Convention of Constantinople
The Convention of Constantinople is a treaty concerning the use of the Suez Canal in Egypt. It was signed on 29 October 1888 by the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Spain, France, Italy, the Netherlands, the Russian Empire, and the Otto ...
declared the canal a neutral zone under British protection. In ratifying it, the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...
agreed to permit international shipping to pass freely through the canal, in time of war and peace. The Convention came into force in 1904, the same year as the ''
Entente cordiale
The Entente Cordiale (; ) comprised a series of agreements signed on 8 April 1904 between the United Kingdom and the French Republic which saw a significant improvement in Anglo-French relations. Beyond the immediate concerns of colonial de ...
'' between Britain and France.
Despite this convention, the strategic importance of the Suez Canal and its control were proven during the
Russo-Japanese War
The Russo-Japanese War ( ja, 日露戦争, Nichiro sensō, Japanese-Russian War; russian: Ру́сско-япóнская войнá, Rússko-yapónskaya voyná) was fought between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire during 1904 and 1 ...
of 1904–1905, after Japan and Britain entered into a separate bilateral agreement. Following the Japanese surprise attack on the
Russian Pacific Fleet
, image = Great emblem of the Pacific Fleet.svg
, image_size = 150px
, caption = Russian Pacific Fleet Great emblem
, dates = 1731–present
, country ...
based at Port Arthur, the Russians sent reinforcements from their fleet in the
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain.
The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from ...
. The British denied the
Russian Baltic Fleet
, image = Great emblem of the Baltic fleet.svg
, image_size = 150
, caption = Baltic Fleet Great ensign
, dates = 18 May 1703 – present
, country =
, allegiance = (1703–1721) (1721–1917) (1917–1922) (1922–1991)(1991–present)
...
use of the canal after the
Dogger Bank incident
The Dogger Bank incident (also known as the North Sea Incident, the Russian Outrage or the Incident of Hull) occurred on the night of 21/22 October 1904, when the Baltic Fleet of the Imperial Russian Navy mistook a British trawler fleet fro ...
and forced it to steam around the
Cape of Good Hope
The Cape of Good Hope ( af, Kaap die Goeie Hoop ) ;''Kaap'' in isolation: pt, Cabo da Boa Esperança is a rocky headland on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula in South Africa.
A common misconception is that the Cape of Good Hope is t ...
in Africa, giving the
Imperial Japanese Armed Forces
The Imperial Japanese Armed Forces (IJAF) were the combined military forces of the Japanese Empire. Formed during the Meiji Restoration in 1868,"One can date the 'restoration' of imperial rule from the edict of 3 January 1868." p. 334. they ...
time to consolidate their position in East Asia.
The importance of the canal as a strategic intersection was again apparent during the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, when Britain and France closed the canal to non-
Allied
An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are called ...
shipping. The attempt by the German-led Ottoman Fourth Army to storm the canal in February 1915 led the British to commit 100,000 troops to the defence of Egypt for the rest of the war.
Oil
The canal continued to be strategically important after the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
as a conduit for the shipment of oil. Petroleum business historian
Daniel Yergin
Daniel Howard Yergin (born February 6, 1947) is an American author, speaker, energy expert, and economic historian. Yergin is vice chairman of S&P Global. He was formerly vice chairman of IHS Markit, which merged with S&P in 2022. He founded Ca ...
wrote of the period: "In 1948, the canal abruptly lost its traditional rationale. ... ritishcontrol over the canal could no longer be preserved on grounds that it was critical to the defence either of India or of an empire that was being liquidated. And yet, at exactly the same moment, the canal was gaining a new role—as the highway not of empire, but of oil. ... By 1955, petroleum accounted for half of the canal's traffic, and, in turn, two thirds of Europe's oil passed through it".
At the time, Western Europe imported two million barrels per day from the Middle East, 1,200,000 by tanker through the canal, and another 800,000 via pipeline from the Persian Gulf to the Mediterranean, where tankers received it. The US imported another 300,000 barrels daily from the Middle East. Though pipelines linked the oil fields of the
Kingdom of Iraq
The Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq ( ar, المملكة العراقية الهاشمية, translit=al-Mamlakah al-ʿIrāqiyyah ʾal-Hāshimyyah) was a state located in the Middle East from 1932 to 1958.
It was founded on 23 August 1921 as the Kingdo ...
and the
Persian Gulf states
The Arab states of the Persian Gulf refers to a group of Arab states which border the Persian Gulf. There are seven member states of the Arab League in the region: Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. ...
to the Mediterranean, these routes were prone to suffer from instability, which led British leaders to prefer to use the sea route through the Suez Canal. As it was, the rise of super-tankers for shipping Middle East oil to Europe, which were too big to use the Suez Canal, meant that British policy-makers greatly overestimated the importance of the canal. By 2000, only 8 percent of the imported oil in Britain arrived via the Suez canal with the rest coming via the Cape route.
In August 1956 the
Royal Institute of International Affairs
Royal may refer to:
People
* Royal (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name
* A member of a royal family
Places United States
* Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community
* Royal, Illinois, a village
* Royal, Iowa, a cit ...
published a report titled "Britain and the Suez Canal" revealing government perception of the Suez area. It reiterates several times the strategic necessity of the Suez Canal to the United Kingdom, including the need to meet military obligations under the
Manila Pact
Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is highly urbanized and, as of 2019, was the world's most densely populated ...
in the Far East and the
Baghdad Pact
The Middle East Treaty Organization (METO), also known as the Baghdad Pact and subsequently known as the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), was a military alliance of the Cold War. It was formed in 24 February 1955 by Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Turk ...
in Iraq, Iran, or Pakistan. The report also points out that the canal had been used in wartime to transport materiel and personnel from and to the UK's close allies in Australia and New Zealand, and might be vital for such purposes in future. The report also cites the amount of material and oil that passes through the canal to the United Kingdom, and the economic consequences of the canal being put out of commission, concluding:
After 1945
In the
aftermath of the Second World War
The aftermath of World War II was the beginning of a new era started in late 1945 (when World War II ended) for all countries involved, defined by the decline of all colonial empires and simultaneous rise of two superpowers; the Soviet Union (US ...
, Britain's military strength was spread throughout the region, including the vast military complex at Suez with a garrison of some 80,000, making it one of the largest military installations in the world. The Suez base was considered an important part of Britain's strategic position in the Middle East; however, it became a source of growing tension in Anglo-Egyptian relations.
Egypt's post-war domestic politics were experiencing a radical change, prompted in no small part by economic instability, inflation, and unemployment. Unrest began to manifest itself in the growth of radical political groups, such as the
Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt
In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood ( ar, جماعة الاخوان المسلمين ''jamāʿat /al-ikhwan/el-ekhwan al-muslimīn'', ) is a Sunni Islamist religious, political, and social movement,Eric Trager,The Unbreakable Muslim Brotherhood", ...
, and an increasingly hostile attitude towards Britain and its presence in the country. Added to this anti-British fervour was the role Britain had played in the creation of Israel.
In October 1951, the Egyptian government unilaterally abrogated the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936, the terms of which granted Britain a lease on the Suez base for 20 more years. Britain refused to withdraw from Suez, relying upon its treaty rights, as well as the presence of the Suez garrison. The price of such a course of action was a steady escalation in violent hostility towards Britain and British troops in Egypt, which the Egyptian authorities did little to curb.
On 25 January 1952, British forces attempted to disarm a troublesome auxiliary police force barracks in
Ismailia
Ismailia ( ar, الإسماعيلية ', ) is a city in north-eastern Egypt. Situated on the west bank of the Suez Canal, it is the capital of the Ismailia Governorate. The city has a population of 1,406,699 (or approximately 750,000, includi ...
, resulting in the deaths of 41 Egyptians. This in turn led to anti-Western riots in
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...
resulting in heavy damage to property and the deaths of several foreigners, including 11 British citizens. This proved to be a catalyst for the removal of the
Egyptian monarchy
Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt.
Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to:
Nations and ethnic groups
* Egyptians, a national group in North Africa
** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...
. On 23 July 1952 a
military coup
A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare
War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such ...
Gamal Abdul Nasser
Gamal Abdel Nasser Hussein, . (15 January 1918 – 28 September 1970) was an Egyptian politician who served as the second president of Egypt from 1954 until his death in 1970. Nasser led the Egyptian revolution of 1952 and introduced far-re ...
—overthrew King
Farouk
Farooq (also transliterated as Farouk, Faruqi, Farook, Faruk, Faroeq, Faruq, or Farouq, Farooqi, Faruque or Farooqui; ar, فاروق, Fārūq) is a common Arabic given and family name. ''Al-Fārūq'' literally means "the one who distinguishes b ...
and established an Egyptian republic.
Post–Egyptian Revolution period
In the 1950s, the Middle East was dominated by four interlinked conflicts:
* the
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
, the geopolitical battle for influence between the United States and the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
;
* the
Arab Cold War
The Arab Cold War ( ar, الحرب العربية الباردة ''al-Harb al-`Arabiyyah al-bāridah'') was a period of political rivalry in the Arab world from the early 1950s to the late 1970s as part of the broader Cold War. The generally a ...
, the race between different Arab states for the leadership of the
Arab world
The Arab world ( ar, اَلْعَالَمُ الْعَرَبِيُّ '), formally the Arab homeland ( '), also known as the Arab nation ( '), the Arabsphere, or the Arab states, refers to a vast group of countries, mainly located in Western A ...
;Vakikiotis, P. J. ''Nasser and His Generation'', pp. 230–232.
* the anti-colonial struggle of
Arab nationalists
Arab nationalism ( ar, القومية العربية, al-Qawmīya al-ʿArabīya) is a nationalist ideology that asserts the Arabs are a nation and promotes the unity of Arab people, celebrating the glories of Arab civilization, the language and ...
against the two remaining imperial powers, Britain and France, in particular the
Algerian War
The Algerian War, also known as the Algerian Revolution or the Algerian War of Independence,( ar, الثورة الجزائرية '; '' ber, Tagrawla Tadzayrit''; french: Guerre d'Algérie or ') and sometimes in Algeria as the War of 1 November ...
;
* and the
Arab–Israeli conflict
The Arab–Israeli conflict is an ongoing intercommunal phenomenon involving political tension, military conflicts, and other disputes between Arab countries and Israel, which escalated during the 20th century, but had mostly faded out by the ...
, the political and military conflict between the Arab countries and Israel.
Egypt and Britain
Britain's desire to mend Anglo-Egyptian relations in the wake of the coup saw the country strive for rapprochement throughout 1953 and 1954. Part of this process was the agreement, in 1953, to terminate British rule in Sudan by 1956 in return for Cairo's abandoning of its claim to
suzerainty
Suzerainty () is the rights and obligations of a person, state or other polity who controls the foreign policy and relations of a tributary state, while allowing the tributary state to have internal autonomy. While the subordinate party is cal ...
over the Nile Valley region. In October 1954, Britain and Egypt concluded the Anglo-Egyptian Agreement of 1954 on the phased evacuation of
British Armed Forces
The British Armed Forces, also known as His Majesty's Armed Forces, are the military forces responsible for the defence of the United Kingdom, its Overseas Territories and the Crown Dependencies. They also promote the UK's wider interests, s ...
troops from the Suez base, the terms of which agreed to withdrawal of all troops within 20 months, maintenance of the base to be continued, and for Britain to hold the right to return for seven years. The
Suez Canal Company
Suez ( ar, السويس '; ) is a seaport city (population of about 750,000 ) in north-eastern Egypt, located on the north coast of the Gulf of Suez (a branch of the Red Sea), near the southern terminus of the Suez Canal, having the same b ...
was not due to revert to the Egyptian government until 16 November 1968 under the terms of the treaty.
Britain's close relationship with the two
Hashemite
The Hashemites ( ar, الهاشميون, al-Hāshimīyūn), also House of Hashim, are the royal family of Jordan, which they have ruled since 1921, and were the royal family of the kingdoms of Hejaz (1916–1925), Syria (1920), and Iraq (1921 ...
kingdoms of
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
and
Jordan
Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...
were of particular concern to Nasser. In particular, Iraq's increasingly amicable relations with Britain were a threat to Nasser's desire to see Egypt as head of the Arab world. The creation of the
Baghdad Pact
The Middle East Treaty Organization (METO), also known as the Baghdad Pact and subsequently known as the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), was a military alliance of the Cold War. It was formed in 24 February 1955 by Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Turk ...
in 1955 seemed to confirm Nasser's fears that Britain was attempting to draw the Eastern Arab World into a bloc centred upon Iraq, and sympathetic to Britain. Nasser's response was a series of challenges to British influence in the region that would culminate in the Suez Crisis.
Egypt and the Arab leadership
In regard to the Arab leadership, particularly venomous was the feud between Nasser and the Prime Minister of Iraq,
Nuri al-Said
Nuri Pasha al-Said CH (December 1888 – 15 July 1958) ( ar, نوري السعيد) was an Iraqi politician during the British mandate in Iraq and the Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq. He held various key cabinet positions and served eight terms as ...
, for Arab leadership, with the Cairo-based Voice of the Arabs radio station regularly calling for the overthrow of the government in Baghdad. The most important factors that drove Egyptian foreign policy in this period was on the one hand, a determination to see the entire Middle East as Egypt's rightful sphere of influence, and on the other, a tendency on the part of Nasser to fortify his
pan-Arabist
Pan-Arabism ( ar, الوحدة العربية or ) is an ideology that espouses the unification of the countries of North Africa and Western Asia from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Sea, which is referred to as the Arab world. It is closely c ...
and nationalist credibility by seeking to oppose any and all Western security initiatives in the Near East.
Despite the establishment of such an agreement with the British, Nasser's position remained tenuous. The loss of Egypt's claim to Sudan, coupled with the continued presence of Britain at Suez for a further two years, led to domestic unrest including an assassination attempt against him in October 1954. The tenuous nature of Nasser's rule caused him to believe that neither his regime, nor Egypt's independence would be safe until Egypt had established itself as head of the Arab world. This would manifest itself in the challenging of British Middle Eastern interests throughout 1955.
US and a defence treaty against the Soviet threat
The United States, while attempting to erect an alliance in the form of a Middle East Defense Organization to keep the Soviet Union out of the Near East, tried to woo Nasser into this alliance. The central problem for American policy in the Middle East was that this region was perceived as strategically important due to its oil, but the United States, weighed down by defence commitments in Europe and the Far East, lacked sufficient troops to resist a Soviet invasion of the Middle East. In 1952, General
Omar Bradley
Omar Nelson Bradley (February 12, 1893April 8, 1981) was a senior Officer (armed forces), officer of the United States Army during and after World War II, rising to the rank of General of the Army (United States), General of the Army. Bradley ...
of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff declared at a planning session about what to do in the event of a Soviet invasion of the Near East: "Where will the staff come from? It will take a lot of stuff to do a job there".
As a consequence, American diplomats favoured the creation of a NATO-type organisation in the Near East to provide the necessary military power to deter the Soviets from invading the region. The Eisenhower administration, even more than the Truman administration, saw the Near East as a huge gap into which Soviet influence could be projected, and accordingly required an American-supported security system. American diplomat Raymond Hare later recalled:
The projected Middle East Defense Organization (MEDO) was to be centered on Egypt. A
United States National Security Council
The United States National Security Council (NSC) is the principal forum used by the President of the United States for consideration of national security, military, and foreign policy matters. Based in the White House, it is part of the Execu ...
directive of March 1953 called Egypt the "key" to the Near East and advised that Washington "should develop Egypt as a point of strength".
A major dilemma for American policy was that the two strongest powers in the Near East, Britain and France, were also the nations whose influence many local nationalists most resented. From 1953 onwards, American diplomacy had attempted unsuccessfully to persuade the powers involved in the Near East, both local and imperial, to set aside their differences and unite against the Soviet Union. The Americans took the view that, just as fear of the Soviet Union had helped to end the historic Franco-German enmity, so too could
anti-Communism
Anti-communism is political and ideological opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed after the 1917 October Revolution in the Russian Empire, and it reached global dimensions during the Cold War, when the United States and the ...
end the more recent Arab–Israeli dispute. It was a source of constant puzzlement to American officials in the 1950s that the Arab states and the Israelis had seemed to have more interest in fighting each other rather than uniting against the Soviet Union. After his visit to the Middle East in May 1953 to drum up support for MEDO, the Secretary of State,
John Foster Dulles
John Foster Dulles (, ; February 25, 1888 – May 24, 1959) was an American diplomat, lawyer, and Republican Party politician. He served as United States Secretary of State under President Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 to 1959 and was briefly ...
found much to his astonishment that the Arab states were "more fearful of
Zionism
Zionism ( he, צִיּוֹנוּת ''Tsiyyonut'' after ''Zion'') is a Nationalism, nationalist movement that espouses the establishment of, and support for a homeland for the Jewish people centered in the area roughly corresponding to what is ...
than of the Communists".
The policy of the United States was colored by considerable uncertainty as to whom to befriend in the Near East. American policy was torn between a desire to maintain good relations with NATO allies such as Britain and France who were also major colonial powers, and a desire to align
Third World
The term "Third World" arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Western European nations and their allies represented the " First ...
nationalists with the Free World camp. Though it would be entirely false to describe the coup deposing King Farouk in July 1952 as a
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
(CIA) coup, Nasser and his Society of Free Officers were nonetheless in close contact with CIA operatives led by Miles Copeland beforehand (Nasser maintained links with any and all potential allies from the
Egyptian Communist Party
The Egyptian Communist Party ( ar, الحزب الشيوعي المصري) (ECP) is a communist party in Egypt.
History and profile
The modern Egyptian Communist Party was formed in 1975 by a number of members of the former Egyptian Communist P ...
on the left to the
Muslim Brotherhood
The Society of the Muslim Brothers ( ar, جماعة الإخوان المسلمين'' ''), better known as the Muslim Brotherhood ( ', is a transnational Sunni Islamist organization founded in Egypt by Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan ...
on the right).
Nasser's friendship with certain CIA officers in Cairo led Washington to vastly overestimate its influence in Egypt. That Nasser was close to CIA officers led the Americans for a time to view Nasser as a CIA "asset". In turn, the British who were aware of Nasser's CIA ties deeply resented this relationship, which they viewed as an American attempt to push them out of Egypt. The principal reason for Nasser's courting of the CIA before the July Revolution of 1952 was his hope that the Americans would act as a restraining influence on the British should Britain decide on intervention to put an end to the revolution (until Egypt renounced it in 1951, the 1936 Anglo-Egyptian treaty allowed Britain the right of intervention against all foreign and domestic threats). In turn, many American officials, such as Ambassador Jefferson Caffery, saw the continued British military presence in Egypt as anachronistic, and viewed the Revolutionary Command Council (as Nasser called his government after the coup) in a highly favourable light.
Caffery was consistently very positive about Nasser in his reports to Washington right up until his departure from Cairo in 1955. The regime of King Farouk was viewed in Washington as weak, corrupt, unstable, and anti-American, so the Free Officers' July coup was welcomed by the United States. As it was, Nasser's contacts with the CIA were not necessary to prevent British intervention against the July coup as Anglo-Egyptian relations had deteriorated so badly in 1951–52 that the British viewed any Egyptian government not headed by King Farouk as a huge improvement. In May 1953, during a meeting with Secretary Dulles, who asked Egypt to join an anti-Soviet alliance, Nasser responded by saying that the Soviet Union has
Dulles informed Nasser of his belief that the Soviet Union was seeking world conquest, that the principal danger to the Near East came from the Kremlin, and urged Nasser to set aside his differences with Britain to focus on countering the Soviet Union. In this spirit, Dulles suggested that Nasser negotiate a deal that would see Egypt assume sovereignty over the canal zone base, but then allow the British to have "technical control" in the same way that Ford auto company provided parts and training to its Egyptian dealers.
Nasser did not share Dulles's fear of the Soviet Union taking over the Middle East, and insisted quite vehemently that he wanted to see the total end of all British influence not only in Egypt, but all the Middle East. The CIA offered Nasser a $3 million bribe if he would join the proposed Middle East Defense Organization; Nasser took the money, but then refused to join. At most, Nasser made it clear to the Americans that he wanted an Egyptian-dominated Arab League to be the principal defence organisation in the Near East, which might be informally associated with the United States.
After he returned to Washington, Dulles advised Eisenhower that the Arab states believed "the United States will back the new state of Israel in aggressive expansion. Our basic political problem ... is to improve the Moslem states' attitudes towards Western democracies because our prestige in that area had been in constant decline ever since the war". The immediate consequence was a new policy of "even-handedness" where the United States very publicly sided with the Arab states in several disputes with Israel in 1953–54. Moreover, Dulles did not share any sentimental regard for the Anglo-American "
special relationship
The Special Relationship is a term that is often used to describe the politics, political, social, diplomacy, diplomatic, culture, cultural, economics, economic, law, legal, Biophysical environment, environmental, religion, religious, military ...
", which led the Americans to lean towards the Egyptian side in the Anglo-Egyptian disputes. During the extremely difficult negotiations over the British evacuation of the Suez Canal base in 1954–55, the Americans generally supported Egypt, though at the same time trying hard to limit the extent of the damage that this might cause to Anglo-American relations.
In the same report of May 1953 to President
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (born David Dwight Eisenhower; ; October 14, 1890 – March 28, 1969) was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, ...
calling for "even-handedness", Dulles stated that the Egyptians were not interested in joining the proposed MEDO; that the Arabs were more interested in their disputes with the British, the French, the Israelis and each other than in standing against the Soviets; and that the "Northern Tier" states of Turkey, Iran and Pakistan were more useful as allies at present than Egypt. Accordingly, the best American policy towards Egypt was to work towards Arab–Israeli peace and the settlement of the Anglo-Egyptian dispute over the British Suez Canal base as the best way of securing Egypt's ultimate adhesion to an American sponsored alliance centered on the "Northern Tier" states.
The "Northern Tier" alliance was achieved in early 1955 with the creation of the Baghdad Pact comprising Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Iraq and the United Kingdom. The presence of the last two states was due to the British desire to continue to maintain influence in the Middle East, and Nuri Said's wish to associate his country with the West as the best way of counterbalancing the increasing aggressive Egyptian claims to regional predominance. The conclusion of the Baghdad Pact occurred almost simultaneously with a dramatic Israeli reprisal operation on the
Gaza Strip
The Gaza Strip (;The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p.761 "Gaza Strip /'gɑːzə/ a strip of territory under the control of the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas, on the SE Mediterranean coast including the town of Gaza.. ...
Unit 101
Commando Unit 101 ( he, יחידה 101) was a special forces unit of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), founded and commanded by Ariel Sharon on orders from Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion in August 1953. They were armed with non-standard weapons ...
commanded by
Ariel Sharon
Ariel Sharon (; ; ; also known by his diminutive Arik, , born Ariel Scheinermann, ; 26 February 1928 – 11 January 2014) was an Israeli general and politician who served as the 11th Prime Minister of Israel from March 2001 until April 2006.
S ...
did some damage to Egyptian Army forces.
The close occurrence of the two events was mistakenly interpreted by Nasser as part of coordinated Western effort to push him into joining the Baghdad Pact. The signing of the Baghdad Pact and the Gaza raid marked the beginning of the end of Nasser's once good relations with the Americans. In particular, Nasser saw Iraq's participation in the Baghdad Pact as a Western attempt to promote his archenemy Nuri al-Said as an alternative leader of the Arab world.
Nasser and the Soviet bloc
Instead of siding with either superpower, Nasser took the role of the spoiler and tried to play off the superpowers in order to have them compete with each other in attempts to buy his friendship.
Under the new leadership of
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...
, the Soviet Union was making a major effort to win influence in the so-called
Third World
The term "Third World" arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Western European nations and their allies represented the " First ...
. As part of the diplomatic offensive, Khrushchev had abandoned Moscow's traditional line of treating all non-communists as enemies and adopted a new tactic of befriending so-called "non-aligned" nations, which often were led by leaders who were non-Communists, but in varying ways and degrees were hostile towards the West. Khrushchev had realised that by treating non-communists as being the same thing as being anti-communist, Moscow had needlessly alienated many potential friends over the years in the Third World. Under the banner of anti-imperialism, Khrushchev made it clear that the Soviet Union would provide arms to any left-wing government in the Third World as a way of undercutting Western influence.
Chinese Premier
Zhou Enlai
Zhou Enlai (; 5 March 1898 – 8 January 1976) was a Chinese statesman and military officer who served as the first Premier of the People's Republic of China, premier of the People's Republic of China from 1 October 1949 until his death on 8 J ...
met Nasser at the 1955 Bandung Conference and was impressed by him. Zhou recommended that Khrushchev treat Nasser as a potential ally. Zhou described Nasser to Khrushchev as a young nationalist who, though no Communist, could if used correctly do much damage to Western interests in the Middle East. Marshal
Josip Broz Tito
Josip Broz ( sh-Cyrl, Јосип Броз, ; 7 May 1892 – 4 May 1980), commonly known as Tito (; sh-Cyrl, Тито, links=no, ), was a Yugoslav communist revolutionary and statesman, serving in various positions from 1943 until his deat ...
, who also came to know Nasser at the Bandung Conference told Khrushchev in a 1955 meeting that "Nasser was a young man without much political experience, but if we give him the benefit of the doubt, we might be able to exert a beneficial influence on him, both for the sake of the Communist movement, and ... the Egyptian people". Traditionally, most of the equipment in the Egyptian military had come from Britain, but Nasser's desire to break British influence in Egypt meant that he was desperate to find a new source of weapons to replace Britain. Nasser had first broached the subject of buying weapons from the Soviet Union in 1954.
Nasser and arms purchases
Most of all, Nasser wanted the United States to supply arms on a generous scale to Egypt. Nasser refused to promise that any U.S. arms he might buy would not be used against Israel, and rejected out of hand the American demand for a Military Advisory Group to be sent to Egypt as part of the price of arms sales.
Nasser's first choice for buying weapons was the United States. However his frequent
anti-Zionist
Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionism. Although anti-Zionism is a heterogeneous phenomenon, all its proponents agree that the creation of the modern State of Israel, and the movement to create a sovereign Jewish state in the region of Palestine ...
speeches and sponsorship of the Palestinian ''fedayeen'', who made frequent raids into Israel, rendered it difficult for the
Eisenhower administration
Dwight D. Eisenhower's tenure as the 34th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1953, and ended on January 20, 1961. Eisenhower, a Republican from Kansas, took office following a landslide victory ov ...
to get the approval of Congress necessary to sell weapons to Egypt. American public opinion was deeply hostile towards selling arms to Egypt that might be used against Israel. Moreover, Eisenhower feared doing so could trigger a Middle Eastern arms race. Eisenhower very much valued the Tripartite Declaration as a way of keeping peace in the Near East. In 1950, in order to limit the extent that the Arabs and the Israelis could engage in an
arms race
An arms race occurs when two or more groups compete in military superiority. It consists of a competition between two or more states to have superior armed forces; a competition concerning production of weapons, the growth of a military, and t ...
, the three nations which dominated the arms trade in the non-Communist world, namely the United States, the United Kingdom and France had signed the Tripartite Declaration, where they had committed themselves to limiting how much arms they could sell in the Near East, and also to ensuring that any arms sales to one side was matched by arms sales of equal quantity and quality to the other. Eisenhower viewed the Tripartite Declaration, which sharply restricted how many arms Egypt could buy in the West, as one of the key elements in keeping the peace between Israel and the Arabs, and believed that setting off an arms race would inevitably lead to a new war.
The Egyptians made continuous attempts to purchase heavy arms from
years before the 1955 deal.
Nasser had let it be known, in 1954–55, that he was considering buying weapons from the Soviet Union, and thus coming under Soviet influence, as a way of pressuring the Americans into selling him the arms he desired. Khrushchev, who very much wanted to win the Soviet Union influence in the Middle East, was more than ready to arm Egypt if the Americans proved unwilling. During secret talks with the Soviets in 1955, Nasser's demands for weapons were more than amply satisfied as the Soviet Union had not signed the Tripartite Declaration. The news in September 1955 of the Egyptian purchase of a huge quantity of Soviet arms via Czechoslovakia was greeted with shock and rage in the West, where this was seen as a major increase in Soviet influence in the Near East. In Britain, the increase of Soviet influence in the Near East was seen as an ominous development that threatened to put an end to British influence in the oil-rich region.
France and the Egyptian support for the Algerian rebellion
Over the same period, the French Premier
Guy Mollet
Guy Alcide Mollet (; 31 December 1905 – 3 October 1975) was a French politician. He led the socialist French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) from 1946 to 1969 and was the French Prime Minister from 1956 to 1957.
As Prime Minister ...
, where the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) rebels were being verbally supported by Egypt via transmissions of the Voice of the Arabs radio, financially supported with Suez Canal revenue and clandestinely owned Egyptian ships were shipping arms to the FLN. Mollet came to perceive Nasser as a major threat. During a visit to London in March 1956, Mollet told Eden his country was faced with an Islamic threat to the very soul of France supported by the Soviet Union. Mollet stated: "All this is in the works of Nasser, just as Hitler's policy was written down in ''
Mein Kampf
(; ''My Struggle'' or ''My Battle'') is a 1925 autobiographical manifesto by Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler. The work describes the process by which Hitler became antisemitic and outlines his political ideology and future plans for Germ ...
''. Nasser has the ambition to recreate the conquests of Islam. But his present position is largely due to the policy of the West in building up and flattering him".
In a May 1956 gathering of French veterans, Louis Mangin spoke in place of the unavailable Minister of Defence and gave a violently anti-Nasser speech, which compared the Egyptian leader to Hitler. He accused Nasser of plotting to rule the entire Middle East and of seeking to annex Algeria, whose "people live in community with France". Mangin urged France to stand up to Nasser, and being a strong friend of Israel, urged an alliance with that nation against Egypt.
Egypt and Israel
Prior to 1955, Nasser had pursued efforts to reach peace with Israel and had worked to prevent cross-border Palestinian attacks. In February 1955,
Unit 101
Commando Unit 101 ( he, יחידה 101) was a special forces unit of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), founded and commanded by Ariel Sharon on orders from Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion in August 1953. They were armed with non-standard weapons ...
, an Israeli unit under
Ariel Sharon
Ariel Sharon (; ; ; also known by his diminutive Arik, , born Ariel Scheinermann, ; 26 February 1928 – 11 January 2014) was an Israeli general and politician who served as the 11th Prime Minister of Israel from March 2001 until April 2006.
S ...
, conducted a raid on the Egyptian Army headquarters in Gaza in retaliation for a ''
Palestinian fedayeen
Palestinian fedayeen (from the Arabic ''fidā'ī'', plural ''fidā'iyūn'', فدائيون) are militants or guerrillas of a nationalist orientation from among the Palestinian people. Most Palestinians consider the fedayeen to be " freedom fig ...
'' attack that killed an Israeli civilian. As a result of the incident, Nasser began allowing raids into Israel by the Palestinian militants. The raids triggered a series of Israeli
reprisal operations
Reprisal operations ( he, פעולות התגמול, ') were raids carried out by the Israel Defense Forces in the 1950s and 1960s in response to frequent fedayeen attacks during which armed Arab militants infiltrated Israel from Syria, Egypt ...
, which ultimately contributed to the Suez Crisis.
Franco-Israeli alliance emerges
Starting in 1949 owing to shared nuclear research, France and Israel started to move towards an alliance. Following the outbreak of the Algerian War in late 1954, France began to ship more and more arms to Israel. In November 1954, the Director-General of Israel's Ministry of Defense
Shimon Peres
Shimon Peres (; he, שמעון פרס ; born Szymon Perski; 2 August 1923 – 28 September 2016) was an Israeli politician who served as the eighth prime minister of Israel from 1984 to 1986 and from 1995 to 1996 and as the ninth president of ...
visited Paris, where he was received by the French Defense Minister
Marie-Pierre Kœnig
Marie Joseph Pierre François Kœnig or Koenig (10 October 1898 – 2 September 1970) was a French general during World War II during which he commanded a Free French Brigade at the Battle of Bir Hakeim in North Africa in 1942. He started a pol ...
, who told him that France would sell Israel any weapons it wanted to buy. By early 1955, France was shipping large amounts of weapons to Israel. In April 1956, following another visit to Paris by Peres, France agreed to totally disregard the Tripartite Declaration, and supply even more weapons to Israel. During the same visit, Peres informed the French that Israel had decided upon war with Egypt in 1956. Peres claimed that Nasser was a genocidal maniac intent upon not only destroying Israel, but also exterminating its people, and as such, Israel wanted a war before Egypt received even more Soviet weapons, and there was still a possibility of victory for the Jewish state. Peres asked for the French, who had emerged as Israel's closest ally by this point, to give Israel all the help they could give in the coming war.
Frustration of British aims
Throughout 1955 and 1956, Nasser pursued a number of policies that would frustrate British aims throughout the Middle East, and result in increasing hostility between Britain and Egypt. Nasser saw Iraq's inclusion in the Baghdad Pact as indicating that the United States and Britain had sided with his much hated archenemy
Nuri as-Said
Nuri Pasha al-Said CH (December 1888 – 15 July 1958) ( ar, نوري السعيد) was an Iraqi politician during the British mandate in Iraq and the Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq. He held various key cabinet positions and served eight terms as ...
's efforts to be the leader of the Arab world, and much of the motivation for Nasser's turn to an active anti-Western policy starting in 1955 was due to his displeasure with the Baghdad Pact. For Nasser, attendance at such events as the Bandung conference in April 1955 served as both the means of striking a posture as a global leader, and of playing hard to get in his talks with the Americans, especially his demand that the United States sell him vast quantities of arms.
Nasser "played on the widespread suspicion that any Western defence pact was merely veiled colonialism and that Arab disunity and weakness—especially in the struggle with Israel—was a consequence of British machinations." He also began to align Egypt with the kingdom of
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...
—whose
rulers
A ruler, sometimes called a rule, line gauge, or scale, is a device used in geometry and technical drawing, as well as the engineering and construction industries, to measure distances or draw straight lines.
Variants
Rulers have long ...
were hereditary enemies of the
Hashemites
The Hashemites ( ar, الهاشميون, al-Hāshimīyūn), also House of Hashim, are the royal family of Jordan, which they have ruled since 1921, and were the royal family of the kingdoms of Hejaz (1916–1925), Syria (1920), and Iraq (1921 ...
—in an effort to frustrate British efforts to draw
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
, Jordan and
Lebanon
Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus li ...
into the orbit of the
Baghdad Pact
The Middle East Treaty Organization (METO), also known as the Baghdad Pact and subsequently known as the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), was a military alliance of the Cold War. It was formed in 24 February 1955 by Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Turk ...
. Nasser struck a further blow against Britain by negotiating an arms deal with communist
in September 1955 thereby ending Egypt's reliance on Western arms. Later, other members of the
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republic ...
also sold arms to Egypt and Syria. In practice, all sales from the
Eastern Bloc
The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc and the Soviet Bloc, was the group of socialist states of Central and Eastern Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America under the influence of the Soviet Union that existed du ...
were authorised by the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
, as an attempt to increase Soviet influence over the Middle East. This caused tensions in the United States because
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republic ...
nations now had a strong presence in the region.
Nasser and 1956 events
Nasser and Jordan
Nasser frustrated British attempts to draw Jordan into the pact by sponsoring demonstrations in
Amman
Amman (; ar, عَمَّان, ' ; Ammonite language, Ammonite: 𐤓𐤁𐤕 𐤏𐤌𐤍 ''Rabat ʻAmān'') is the capital and largest city of Jordan, and the country's economic, political, and cultural center. With a population of 4,061,150 a ...
, leading King
Hussein of Jordan
Hussein bin Talal ( ar, الحسين بن طلال, ''Al-Ḥusayn ibn Ṭalāl''; 14 November 1935 – 7 February 1999) was King of Jordan from 11 August 1952 until his death in 1999. As a member of the Hashemite dynasty, the royal family of ...
in the
Arabization of the Jordanian Army command
The Arabization of the Jordanian Army command ( ar, تعريب قيادة الجيش العربي, ''Ta'reeb Qiyadat Al-Jaysh Al-Arabi'') saw the dismissal of senior British officers commanding the Arab Legion by King Hussein and the subsequent r ...
to dismiss the British commander of the
Arab Legion
The Arab Legion () was the police force, then regular army of the Emirate of Transjordan, a British protectorate, in the early part of the 20th century, and then of independent Jordan, with a final Arabization of its command taking place in 195 ...
, Sir
John Bagot Glubb
Lieutenant-General Sir John Bagot Glubb, KCB, CMG, DSO, OBE, MC, KStJ, KPM (16 April 1897 – 17 March 1986), known as Glubb Pasha, was a British soldier, scholar, and author, who led and trained Transjordan's Arab Legion between 1939 an ...
(known to the Arabs as Glubb Pasha) in March 1956, throwing Britain's Middle Eastern security policy into chaos. After one round of bloody rioting in December 1955 and another in March 1956 against Jordan joining the Baghdad Pact, both instigated by Cairo-based Voice of the Arabs radio station, Hussein believed his throne was in danger. In private, Hussein assured the British that he was still committed to continuing the traditional Hashemite alliance with Britain, and that his sacking of Glubb Pasha and all the other British officers in the Arab Legion were just gestures to appease the rioters.
Nasser and Britain
British Prime Minister
Anthony Eden
Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, (12 June 1897 – 14 January 1977) was a British Conservative Party politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1955 until his resignation in 1957.
Achieving rapid promo ...
was especially upset at the sacking of Glubb Pasha, and as one British politician recalled:
After the sacking of Glubb Pasha, which he saw as a grievous blow to British influence, Eden became consumed with an obsessional hatred for Nasser, and from March 1956 onwards, was in private committed to the overthrow of Nasser. The American historian Donald Neff wrote that Eden's often hysterical and overwrought views towards Nasser almost certainly reflected the influence of the amphetamines to which Eden had become addicted following a botched operation in 1953 together with the related effects of sustained sleep deprivation (Eden slept on average about 5 hours per night in early 1956).
Increasingly Nasser came to be viewed in British circles—and in particular by Eden—as a dictator, akin to
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (; 29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party. He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in 194 ...
. In the build-up to the crisis, the Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell and the left-leaning tabloid newspaper ''The Mirror'' made the first comparison between Nasser and Mussolini. Anglo-Egyptian relations would continue on their downward spiral.
Britain was eager to tame Nasser and looked towards the United States for support. However, Eisenhower strongly opposed British-French military action. America's closest Arab ally, Saudi Arabia, was just as fundamentally opposed to the Hashemite-dominated Baghdad Pact as Egypt, and the U.S. was keen to increase its own influence in the region. The failure of the Baghdad Pact aided such a goal by reducing Britain's dominance over the region. "Great Britain would have preferred to overthrow Nasser; America, however uncomfortable with the '
Czech arms deal
Czech may refer to:
* Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe
** Czech language
** Czechs, the people of the area
** Czech culture
** Czech cuisine
* One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus'
Places
* Czech, ...
', thought it wiser to propitiate him."
The United States and the Aswan High Dam
On 16 May 1956, Nasser officially recognized the
People's Republic of China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
, which angered the U.S. and Secretary Dulles, a sponsor of the
Republic of China
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northeast ...
. This move, coupled with the impression that the project was beyond Egypt's economic capabilities, caused Eisenhower to withdraw all American financial aid for the
Aswan Dam
The Aswan Dam, or more specifically since the 1960s, the Aswan High Dam, is one of the world's largest embankment dams, which was built across the Nile in Aswan, Egypt, between 1960 and 1970. Its significance largely eclipsed the previous Aswan L ...
project on 19 July.
The Eisenhower administration believed that if Nasser were able to secure Soviet economic support for the high dam, that would be beyond the capacity of the Soviet Union to support, and in turn would strain Soviet-Egyptian relations. Eisenhower wrote in March 1956 that "If Egypt finds herself thus isolated from the rest of the Arab world, and with no ally in sight except Soviet Russia, she would very quickly get sick of the prospect and would join us in the search for a just and decent peace in the region". Dulles told his brother, CIA director
Allen Dulles
Allen Welsh Dulles (, ; April 7, 1893 – January 29, 1969) was the first civilian Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), and its longest-serving director to date. As head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the early Cold War, he ov ...
, "If they he Sovietsdo make this offer we can make a lot of use of it in propaganda within the satellite bloc. You don't get bread because you are being squeezed to build a dam".
Finally, the Eisenhower administration had become very annoyed at Nasser's efforts to play the United States off against the Soviet Union, and refused to finance the Aswan high dam. As early as September 1955, when Nasser announced the purchase of the Soviet military equipment via Czechoslovakia, Dulles had written that competing for Nasser's favor was probably going to be "an expensive process", one that Dulles wanted to avoid as much as possible.
1956 American peace initiative
In January 1956, to end the incipient arms race in the Middle East (set off by the Soviet Union selling Egypt arms on a scale unlimited by the Tripartite Declaration and with France doing likewise with Israel), which he saw as opening the Near East to Soviet influence, Eisenhower launched a major effort to make peace between Egypt and Israel. Eisenhower sent out his close friend
Robert B. Anderson
Robert Bernard Anderson (June 4, 1910 August 14, 1989) was an American administrator, politician, and businessman. He served as the Secretary of the Navy between February 1953 and March 1954. He also served as the Secretary of the Treasury from ...
to serve as a secret envoy who would permanently end the Arab–Israeli dispute. During his meetings with Nasser, Anderson offered large quantities of American aid in exchange for a peace treaty with Israel. Nasser demanded the return of Palestinian refugees to Israel, wanted to annex the southern half of Israel and rejected direct talks with Israel. Given Nasser's territorial and refugee-related demands, the Israeli Prime Minister
David Ben-Gurion
David Ben-Gurion ( ; he, דָּוִד בֶּן-גּוּרִיּוֹן ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary national founder of the State of Israel and the first prime minister of Israel. Adopting the name ...
suspected that Nasser was not interested in a settlement. Still, he proposed direct negotiations with Egypt in any level.
A second round of secret diplomacy by Anderson in February 1956 was equally unsuccessful. Nasser sometimes suggested during his talks with Anderson that he was interested in peace with Israel if only the Americans would supply him with unlimited quantities of military and economic aid. In case of Israeli acceptance to the
Palestinian right of return
The Palestinian right of return is the political position or principle that Palestinian refugees, both first-generation refugees (c. 30,000 to 50,000 people still alive )"According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency – the main body ...
and to Egypt annexing the southern half of Israel, Egypt would not accept a peace settlement. The United States or the
United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...
would have to present the Israeli acceptance to all Arabs as a basis for peace settlements. It is not clear if Nasser was sincerely interested in peace, or just merely saying what the Americans wanted to hear in the hope of obtaining American funding for the Aswan high dam and American weapons. The truth will likely never be known as Nasser was an intensely secretive man, who managed to hide his true opinions on most issues from both contemporaries and historians. However, the British historian P. J. Vatikitos noted that Nasser's determination to promote Egypt as the world's foremost anti-Zionist state as a way of reinforcing his claim to Arab leadership meant that peace was unlikely.
Hasan Afif El-Hasan says that in 1955–1956 the Americans proposed to Nasser that he solve the Arab–Israeli conflict peacefully in exchange for American finance of the High Dam on the Nile river, but Nasser rejected the offer because it would mean siding with the West (as opposed to remaining neutral) in the Cold War. Since the alternative to a peace agreement was a war with unpredictable consequences, Nasser's refusal to accept the proposal was irrational, according to el-Hasan.
Canal nationalisation
Nasser's response was the nationalisation of the
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal ( arz, قَنَاةُ ٱلسُّوَيْسِ, ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia. The long canal is a popular ...
. On 26 July, in a speech in
Alexandria
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria ...
, Nasser gave a riposte to Dulles. During his speech he deliberately pronounced the name of
Ferdinand de Lesseps
Ferdinand Marie, Comte de Lesseps (; 19 November 1805 – 7 December 1894) was a French diplomat and later developer of the Suez Canal, which in 1869 joined the Mediterranean and Red Seas, substantially reducing sailing distances and times ...
, the builder of the canal, a code-word for Egyptian forces to seize control of the canal and implement its nationalisation. He announced that the Nationalization Law had been published, that all assets of the Suez Canal Company had been frozen, and that stockholders would be paid the price of their shares according to the day's closing price on the
Paris Stock Exchange
Euronext Paris is France's securities market, formerly known as the Paris Bourse, which merged with the Amsterdam, Lisbon, and Brussels exchanges in September 2000 to form Euronext NV. As of 2022, the 795 companies listed had a combined market ...
. That same day, Egypt closed the canal to Israeli shipping. Egypt also closed the
Straits of Tiran
The straits of Tiran ( ar, مضيق تيران ') are the narrow sea passages between the Sinai and Arabian peninsulas that connect the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea. The distance between the two peninsulas is about . The Multinational Force an ...
to Israeli shipping, and blockaded the
Gulf of Aqaba
The Gulf of Aqaba ( ar, خَلِيجُ ٱلْعَقَبَةِ, Khalīj al-ʿAqabah) or Gulf of Eilat ( he, מפרץ אילת, Mifrátz Eilát) is a large gulf at the northern tip of the Red Sea, east of the Sinai Peninsula and west of the Arabian ...
1949 Armistice Agreements
The 1949 Armistice Agreements were signed between Israel and Egypt,
According to the Egyptian historian Abd al-Azim Ramadan, the events leading up to the nationalisation of the Suez Canal Company, as well as other events during Nasser's rule, showed Nasser to be far from a rational, responsible leader. Ramadan notes Nasser's decision to nationalise the Suez Canal without political consultation as an example of his predilection for solitary decision-making.
British response
The nationalisation surprised Britain and its
Commonwealth
A commonwealth is a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. Historically, it has been synonymous with "republic". The noun "commonwealth", meaning "public welfare, general good or advantage", dates from the ...
. There had been no discussion of the canal at the
Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conference
Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conferences were biennial meetings of Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom and the Dominion members of the British Commonwealth of Nations. Seventeen Commonwealth Prime Ministers' Conferences were held betwee ...
in London in late June and early July. Egypt's action, however, threatened British economic and military interests in the region. Prime Minister Eden was under immense domestic pressure from Conservative MPs who drew direct comparisons between the events of 1956 and those of the
Munich Agreement
The Munich Agreement ( cs, Mnichovská dohoda; sk, Mníchovská dohoda; german: Münchner Abkommen) was an agreement concluded at Munich on 30 September 1938, by Nazi Germany, Germany, the United Kingdom, French Third Republic, France, and Fa ...
in 1938. Since the U.S. government did not support the British protests, the British government decided in favour of military intervention against Egypt to avoid the complete collapse of British prestige in the region.What we failed to learn from Suez Telegraph (1 November 2006). Retrieved on 8 September 2011.
Eden was hosting a dinner for King
Feisal II
Faisal II ( ar, الملك فيصل الثاني ''el-Melik Faysal es-Sânî'') (2 May 1935 – 14 July 1958) was the last King of Iraq. He reigned from 4 April 1939 until July 1958, when he was killed during the 14 July Revolution. This regici ...
of Iraq and his Prime Minister,
Nuri es-Said
Nuri Pasha al-Said Companion of Honour, CH (December 1888 – 15 July 1958) ( ar, نوري السعيد) was an Iraqi politician during the Mandatory Iraq, British mandate in Iraq and the Hashemite Kingdom of Iraq. He held various key cabinet ...
, when he learned the canal had been nationalised. They both unequivocally advised Eden to "hit Nasser hard, hit him soon, and hit him by yourself" – a stance shared by the vast majority of the British people in subsequent weeks. "There is a lot of humbug about Suez,"
Guy Millard
Sir Guy Elwin Millard (22 January 1917 – 26 April 2013) was a British diplomat who was closely involved in the Suez crisis, and afterwards ambassador to Hungary, Sweden and Italy.
Career
Guy Elwin Millard was educated at Wixenford, Charterho ...
, one of Eden's private secretaries, later recorded. "People forget that the policy at the time was extremely popular." Leader of the Opposition Hugh Gaitskell was also at the dinner. He immediately agreed that military action might be inevitable, but warned Eden would have to keep the Americans closely informed. After a session of the House of Commons expressed anger against the Egyptian action on 27 July, Eden justifiably believed that Parliament would support him; Gaitskell spoke for his party when he called the nationalisation a "high-handed and totally unjustifiable step". When Eden made a ministerial broadcast on the nationalisation, Labour declined its right to reply.
However, in the days that followed, Gaitskell's support became more cautious. On 2 August he said of Nasser's behaviour, "It is all very familiar. It is exactly the same that we encountered from Mussolini and Hitler in those years before the war". He cautioned Eden, however, that " must not, therefore, allow ourselves to get into a position where we might be denounced in the
Security Council
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, and ...
as aggressors, or where the majority of the
Assembly
Assembly may refer to:
Organisations and meetings
* Deliberative assembly, a gathering of members who use parliamentary procedure for making decisions
* General assembly, an official meeting of the members of an organization or of their representa ...
was against us". He had earlier warned Eden that Labour might not support Britain acting alone against Egypt. In two letters to Eden sent on 3 and 10 August 1956, Gaitskell condemned Nasser but again warned that he would not support any action that violated the
United Nations Charter
The Charter of the United Nations (UN) is the foundational treaty of the UN, an intergovernmental organization. It establishes the purposes, governing structure, and overall framework of the UN system, including its six principal organs: the ...
. In his letter of 10 August, Gaitskell wrote:
Two dozen Labour MPs issued a statement on 8 August stating that forcing Nasser to denationalise the canal against Egypt's wishes would violate the UN charter. Other opposition politicians were less conditional in their support. Former Labour Foreign Minister
Herbert Morrison
Herbert Stanley Morrison, Baron Morrison of Lambeth, (3 January 1888 – 6 March 1965) was a British politician who held a variety of senior positions in the UK Cabinet as member of the Labour Party. During the inter-war period, he was Minis ...
hinted that he would support unilateral action by the government.
Jo Grimond
Joseph Grimond, Baron Grimond, (; 29 July 1913 – 24 October 1993), known as Jo Grimond, was a British politician, leader of the Liberal Party for eleven years from 1956 to 1967 and again briefly on an interim basis in 1976.
Grimond was a lo ...
, who became Leader of the Liberal Party that November, thought if Nasser went unchallenged the whole Middle East would go his way.
In Britain, the nationalisation was perceived as a direct threat to British interests. In a letter to the British Ambassador on 10 September 1956, Sir
Ivone Kirkpatrick
Sir Ivone Augustine Kirkpatrick, (3 February 1897 – 25 May 1964) was a British diplomat who served as the British High Commissioner in Germany after World War II, and as the Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, the hig ...
, the Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office wrote:
If we sit back while Nasser consolidates his position and gradually acquires control of the oil-bearing countries, he can and is, according to our information, resolved to wreck us. If Middle Eastern oil is denied to us for a year or two, our
gold reserves
A gold reserve is the gold held by a national central bank, intended mainly as a guarantee to redeem promises to pay depositors, note holders (e.g. paper money), or trading peers, during the eras of the gold standard, and also as a store of v ...
will disappear. If our gold reserves disappear, the sterling area disintegrates. If the sterling area disintegrates and we have no reserves, we shall not be able to maintain a force in Germany, or indeed, anywhere else. I doubt whether we shall be able to pay for the bare minimum necessary for our defence. And a country that cannot provide for its defence is finished.
Direct military intervention, however, ran the risk of angering Washington and damaging Anglo-Arab relations. As a result, the British government concluded a secret military pact with France and Israel that was aimed at regaining control over the Suez Canal.
French response
The French Prime Minister
Guy Mollet
Guy Alcide Mollet (; 31 December 1905 – 3 October 1975) was a French politician. He led the socialist French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) from 1946 to 1969 and was the French Prime Minister from 1956 to 1957.
As Prime Minister ...
, outraged by Nasser's move, determined that Nasser would not get his way. French public opinion very much supported Mollet, and apart from the
French Communist Party
The French Communist Party (french: Parti communiste français, ''PCF'' ; ) is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism. The PCF is a member of the Party of the European Left, and its MEPs sit in the European Unit ...
, all of the criticism of his government came from the right, who very publicly doubted that a socialist like Mollet had the guts to go to war with Nasser. During an interview with publisher
Henry Luce
Henry Robinson Luce (April 3, 1898 – February 28, 1967) was an American magazine magnate who founded ''Time'', ''Life'', ''Fortune'', and ''Sports Illustrated'' magazine. He has been called "the most influential private citizen in the America ...
, Mollet held up a copy of Nasser's book ''The Philosophy of the Revolution'' and said: "This is Nasser's ''Mein Kampf''. If we're too stupid not to read it, understand it and draw the obvious conclusions, then so much the worse for us."
On 29 July 1956, the
French Cabinet
The Government of France (French: ''Gouvernement français''), officially the Government of the French Republic (''Gouvernement de la République française'' ), exercises executive power in France. It is composed of the Prime Minister, who i ...
decided upon military action against Egypt in alliance with Israel, and Admiral Nomy of the French Naval General Staff was sent to Britain to inform the
leader
Leadership, both as a research area and as a practical skill, encompasses the ability of an individual, group or organization to "lead", influence or guide other individuals, teams, or entire organizations. The word "leadership" often gets vi ...
s of that country of France's decision, and to invite them to co-operate if interested. At the same time, Mollet felt very much offended by what he considered to be the lackadaisical attitude of the Eisenhower administration to the nationalisation of the Suez Canal Company. This was especially the case because earlier in 1956 the Soviet Foreign Minister
Vyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Mikhaylovich Molotov. ; (;. 9 March Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates">O._S._25_February.html" ;"title="Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O. S. 25 February">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dat ...
had offered the French a deal whereby if Moscow ended its support of the FLN in Algeria, Paris would remain in
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
but become "semi-neutralist" in the
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
.
Given the way that Algeria (which the French considered an integral part of France) had become engulfed in a spiral of increasing savage violence that French leaders longed to put an end to, the Mollet administration had felt tempted by Molotov's offer, but in the end, Mollet, a firm
Atlanticist
Atlanticism, also known as Transatlanticism, is the belief in or support for a close relationship between the peoples and governments in Northern America (the United States and Canada) and those in Europe (the countries of the European Union, the ...
, had chosen to remain faithful to NATO. In Mollet's view, his fidelity to NATO had earned him the right to expect firm American support against Egypt, and when that support proved not forthcoming, he became even more determined that if the Americans were not willing to do anything about Nasser, then France would act.
Commonwealth response
Among the "White Dominions" of the
British Commonwealth
The Commonwealth of Nations, simply referred to as the Commonwealth, is a political association of 56 member states, the vast majority of which are former territories of the British Empire. The chief institutions of the organisation are the Co ...
, Canada had few ties with the Suez Canal and twice had refused British requests for peacetime military aid in the Middle East. It had little reaction to the seizure before military action. By 1956 the
Panama Canal
The Panama Canal ( es, Canal de Panamá, link=no) is an artificial waterway in Panama that connects the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific Ocean and divides North and South America. The canal cuts across the Isthmus of Panama and is a conduit ...
was much more important than Suez to Australia and New Zealand; the following year two experts would write that it "is not vital to the
Australian economy
Australia is a highly developed country with a mixed-market economy. As of 2022, Australia was the 14th-largest national economy by nominal GDP (Gross Domestic Product), the 20th-largest by PPP-adjusted GDP, and was the 22nd-largest goods ...
". The memory, however, of the two nations fighting in two world wars to protect a canal which many still called their "lifeline" to Britain or "jugular vein", contributed to Australian Prime Minister
Robert Menzies
The name Robert is an ancient Germanic given name, from Proto-Germanic "fame" and "bright" (''Hrōþiberhtaz''). Compare Old Dutch ''Robrecht'' and Old High German ''Hrodebert'' (a compound of ''Hrōþ, Hruod'' ( non, Hróðr) "fame, glory ...
and New Zealand Prime Minister
Sidney Holland
Sir Sidney George Holland (18 October 1893 – 5 August 1961) was a New Zealand politician who served as the 25th prime minister of New Zealand from 13 December 1949 to 20 September 1957. He was instrumental in the creation and consolidation o ...
, supporting Britain in the early weeks following the seizure. On 7 August Holland hinted to his parliament that New Zealand might send troops to assist Britain, and received support from the opposition. On 13 August, Menzies, who had travelled to London from the United States after hearing of the nationalisation and became an informal member of the
British Cabinet
The Cabinet of the United Kingdom is the senior decision-making body of His Majesty's Government. A committee of the Privy Council, it is chaired by the prime minister and its members include secretaries of state and other senior ministers.
...
discussing the issue, spoke on the BBC in support of the Eden government's position on the canal. He called the dispute over the canal "a crisis more grave than any since the Second World War ended". An elder statesman of the Commonwealth who felt that Nasser's actions threatened trading nations like Australia, he argued publicly that Western powers had built the canal but that Egypt was now seeking to exclude them from a role in its ownership or management.Brian Carroll; From Barton to Fraser; Cassell Australia; 1978 South Africa's
Johannes Strijdom
Johannes Gerhardus Strijdom (also spelled Strydom in accordance with Afrikaans spelling; 14 July 1893 – 24 August 1958), also known as Hans Strijdom and nicknamed the Lion of the North or the Lion of Waterberg, was the fifth prime minister o ...
stated "it is best to keep our heads out of the beehive". His government saw Nasser as an enemy but would benefit economically and geopolitically from a closed canal, and diplomatically from not opposing a nation's right to govern its internal affairs.
The "non-white Dominions" saw Egypt's seizing of the canal as an admirable act of
anti-imperialism
Anti-imperialism in political science and international relations is a term used in a variety of contexts, usually by nationalist movements who want to secede from a larger polity (usually in the form of an empire, but also in a multi-ethnic so ...
, and Nasser's Arab nationalism as similar to Asian nationalism. Indian Prime Minister
Jawaharlal Nehru
Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru (; ; ; 14 November 1889 – 27 May 1964) was an Indian anti-colonial nationalist, secular humanist, social democrat—
*
*
*
* and author who was a central figure in India during the middle of the 20t ...
was with Nasser when he learned of the Anglo-American withdrawal of aid for the Aswan Dam. As India was a major user of the canal, however, he remained publicly neutral other than warning that any use of force, or threats, could be "disastrous". Suez was also very important to the
Dominion of Ceylon
Between 1948 and 1972, Ceylon The Sri Lanka Independence Act 1947 uses the name "Ceylon" for the new dominion; nowhere does that Act use the term "Dominion of Ceylon", which although sometimes used was not the official name. was an independent ...
's economy, and it was renegotiating defence treaties with Britain, so its government was not as vocal in supporting Egypt as it would have likely been otherwise. Pakistan was also cautious about supporting Egypt given their rivalry as leading Islamic nations, but its government did state that Nasser had the right to nationalise.
Western diplomacy
On 1 August 1956, a tripartite meeting was opened at
10 Downing Street
10 Downing Street in London, also known colloquially in the United Kingdom as Number 10, is the official residence and executive office of the first lord of the treasury, usually, by convention, the prime minister of the United Kingdom. Along wi ...
between British Foreign Secretary
Selwyn Lloyd
John Selwyn Brooke Lloyd, Baron Selwyn-Lloyd, (28 July 1904 – 18 May 1978) was a British politician. Born and raised in Cheshire, he was an active Liberal as a young man in the 1920s. In the following decade, he practised as a barrister and s ...
, U.S. Ambassador Robert D. Murphy and French Foreign Affairs Minister
Christian Pineau
Christian Pineau (; 14 October 1904, in Chaumont-en-Bassigny, Haute-Marne, France – 5 April 1995, in Paris) was a noted French Resistance fighter, who later served an important term as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1956 through 1958.
Life ...
.
An alliance was soon formed between Eden and
Guy Mollet
Guy Alcide Mollet (; 31 December 1905 – 3 October 1975) was a French politician. He led the socialist French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) from 1946 to 1969 and was the French Prime Minister from 1956 to 1957.
As Prime Minister ...
,
French Prime Minister
The prime minister of France (french: link=no, Premier ministre français), officially the prime minister of the French Republic, is the head of government of the French Republic and the leader of the Council of Ministers.
The prime minister i ...
, with headquarters in London. General
Hugh Stockwell
General Sir Hugh Charles Stockwell, (16 June 1903 – 27 November 1986) was a senior British Army officer most remembered for commanding the Anglo-French ground forces during the Suez Crisis and his service as Deputy Supreme Allied Commander ...
Chief of Staff
The title chief of staff (or head of staff) identifies the leader of a complex organization such as the armed forces, institution, or body of persons and it also may identify a principal staff officer (PSO), who is the coordinator of the supporti ...
. Britain sought co-operation with the United States throughout 1956 to deal with what it maintained was a threat of an Israeli attack against Egypt, but to little effect.
Between July and October 1956, unsuccessful initiatives encouraged by the United States were made to reduce the tension that would ultimately lead to war. International conferences were organised to secure agreement on Suez Canal operations but all were ultimately fruitless.
Almost immediately after the nationalisation, Eisenhower suggested to Eden a conference of maritime nations that used the canal. The British preferred to invite the most important countries, but the Americans believed that inviting as many as possible amid maximum publicity would affect world opinion. Invitations went to the eight surviving signatories of the Constantinople Convention and the 16 other largest users of the canal: Australia, Ceylon, Denmark, Egypt, Ethiopia, France, West Germany, Greece, India, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Portugal, Soviet Union, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. All except Egypt—which sent an observer, and used India and the Soviet Union to represent its interests—and Greece accepted the invitation, and the 22 nations' representatives met in London from 16 to 23 August.
15 of the nations supported the American-British-French position of international operation of the canal; Pakistan chose its western allies over its sympathy for Egypt's anti-western position despite resulting great domestic controversy. Ceylon, Indonesia, and the Soviet Union supported India's competing proposal—which Nasser had preapproved—of international supervision only. India criticised Egypt's seizure of the canal, but insisted that its ownership and operation now not change. The majority of 18 chose five nations to negotiate with Nasser in Cairo led by Menzies, while their proposal for international operation of the canal would go to the Security Council.R. G. Menzies; ''Speech is of Time''; Cassell; London; 1958
Menzies' 7 September official communique to Nasser presented a case for compensation for the Suez Canal Company and the "establishment of principles" for the future use of the canal that would ensure that it would "continue to be an international waterway operated free of politics or national discrimination, and with financial structure so secure and an international confidence so high that an expanding and improving future for the Canal could be guaranteed" and called for a convention to recognise Egyptian sovereignty of the canal, but for the establishment of an international body to run the canal. Nasser saw such measures as a "derogation from Egyptian sovereignty" and rejected Menzies' proposals. Menzies hinted to Nasser that Britain and France might use force to resolve the crisis, but Eisenhower openly opposed the use of force and Menzies left Egypt without success.
Instead of the 18-nation proposal, the United States proposed an association of canal users that would set rules for its operation. 14 of the other nations, not including Pakistan, agreed. Britain, in particular, believed that violation of the association rules would result in military force, but after Eden made a speech to this effect in parliament on 12 September, the US ambassador Dulles insisted "we do not intend to shoot our way through" the canal. The United States worked hard through diplomatic channels to resolve the crisis without resorting to conflict. "The British and French reluctantly agreed to pursue the diplomatic avenue but viewed it as merely an attempt to buy time, during which they continued their military preparations." The British, Washington's closest ally, ignored Eisenhower's pointed warning that the American people would not accept a military solution.
On 25 September 1956 the Chancellor of the Exchequer
Harold Macmillan
Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986) was a British Conservative statesman and politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963. Caricatured as "Supermac", he ...
met informally with Eisenhower at the
White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...
. Macmillan misread Eisenhower's determination to avoid war and told Eden that the Americans would not in any way oppose the attempt to topple Nasser. Though Eden had known Eisenhower for years and had many direct contacts with him during the crisis, he also misread the situation. The Americans refused to support any move that could be seen as
imperialism
Imperialism is the state policy, practice, or advocacy of extending power and dominion, especially by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining political and economic control of other areas, often through employing hard power (economic and ...
or
colonialism
Colonialism is a practice or policy of control by one people or power over other people or areas, often by establishing colonies and generally with the aim of economic dominance. In the process of colonisation, colonisers may impose their relig ...
, seeing the US as the champion of
decolonisation
Decolonization or decolonisation is the undoing of colonialism, the latter being the process whereby imperial nations establish and dominate foreign territories, often overseas. Some scholars of decolonization focus especially on separatism, in ...
. Eisenhower felt the crisis had to be handled peacefully; he told Eden that American public opinion would not support a military solution. Eden and other leading British officials incorrectly believed Nasser's support for
Palestinian fedayeen
Palestinian fedayeen (from the Arabic ''fidā'ī'', plural ''fidā'iyūn'', فدائيون) are militants or guerrillas of a nationalist orientation from among the Palestinian people. Most Palestinians consider the fedayeen to be " freedom fig ...
against Israel, as well as his attempts to destabilise pro-western regimes in Iraq and other Arab states, would deter the US from intervening with the operation. Eisenhower specifically warned that the Americans, and the world, "would be outraged" unless all peaceful routes had been exhausted, and even then "the eventual price might become far too heavy". London hoped that Nasser's engagement with communist states would persuade the Americans to accept British and French actions if they were presented as a ''
fait accompli
Many words in the English vocabulary are of French origin, most coming from the Anglo-Norman spoken by the upper classes in England for several hundred years after the Norman Conquest, before the language settled into what became Modern Engli ...
''. This proved to be a critical miscalculation.
Franco-British-Israeli war plan
Objectives
Britain was anxious lest it lose efficient access to the remains of its empire. Both Britain and France were eager that the canal should remain open as an important conduit of oil.
Both the French and the British felt that Nasser should be removed from power. The French "held the Egyptian president responsible for assisting the anti-colonial rebellion in Algeria". France was nervous about the growing influence that Nasser exerted on its North African colonies and protectorates.
Israel wanted to reopen the
Straits of Tiran
The straits of Tiran ( ar, مضيق تيران ') are the narrow sea passages between the Sinai and Arabian peninsulas that connect the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea. The distance between the two peninsulas is about . The Multinational Force an ...
leading to the
Gulf of Aqaba
The Gulf of Aqaba ( ar, خَلِيجُ ٱلْعَقَبَةِ, Khalīj al-ʿAqabah) or Gulf of Eilat ( he, מפרץ אילת, Mifrátz Eilát) is a large gulf at the northern tip of the Red Sea, east of the Sinai Peninsula and west of the Arabian ...
to Israeli shipping, and saw the opportunity to strengthen its southern border and to weaken what it saw as a dangerous and hostile state. This was particularly felt in the form of attacks injuring approximately 1,300 civilians emanating from the Egyptian-held
Gaza Strip
The Gaza Strip (;The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p.761 "Gaza Strip /'gɑːzə/ a strip of territory under the control of the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas, on the SE Mediterranean coast including the town of Gaza.. ...
.
The Israelis were also deeply troubled by Egypt's procurement of large amounts of Soviet weaponry that included 530 armoured vehicles, of which 230 were tanks; 500 guns; 150 MiG-15 jet fighters; 50 Ilyushin Il-28 bombers; submarines and other naval craft. The influx of this advanced weaponry altered an already shaky balance of power. Israel was alarmed by the Czech arms deal, and believed it had only a narrow window of opportunity to hit Egypt's army. Additionally, Israel believed Egypt had formed a secret alliance with Jordan and Syria.
British planning
In July 1956, Eden ordered his Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Field Marshal Gerald Templer, to begin planning for an invasion of Egypt. Eden's plan called for the Cyprus-based 16th Parachute Brigade (United Kingdom), 16th Independent Parachute Brigade Group to seize the canal zone. The Prime Minister's plan was rejected by Templer and the other service chiefs, who argued that the neglect of parachute training in the 16th Independent Parachute Brigade rendered his plan for an airborne assault unsuitable. Instead, they suggested the sea-power based Contingency Plan, which called for the Royal Marines to take Port Said, which would then be used as a base for three British divisions to overrun the canal zone.
In early August, the Contingency Plan was modified by including a strategic bombing campaign that was intended to destroy Egypt's economy, and thereby hopefully bring about Nasser's overthrow. In addition, a role was allocated to the 16th Independent Parachute Brigade, which would lead the assault on Port Said in conjunction with the Royal Marine landing. The commanders of the Allied Task Force led by General Stockwell rejected the Contingency Plan, which Stockwell argued failed to destroy the Egyptian Armed Forces.
Franco-Israeli planning
In July 1956, IDF chief of staff General Moshe Dayan advised Prime Minister
David Ben-Gurion
David Ben-Gurion ( ; he, דָּוִד בֶּן-גּוּרִיּוֹן ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary national founder of the State of Israel and the first prime minister of Israel. Adopting the name ...
that Israel should attack Egypt at the first chance, but Ben Gurion stated he preferred to attack Egypt with the aid of France. On 7 August 1956 the French Defense Minister Maurice Bourgès-Maunoury asked Ben Gurion if Israel would attack Egypt together with France, to which he received a positive reply. On 1 September 1956 the French government formally asked that France and Israel begin joint planning for a war against Egypt. By 6 September 1956, Dayan's chief of operations General Meir Amit, was meeting with Admiral Pierre Barjot to discuss joint Franco-Israeli operations. On 25 September 1956 Peres reported to Ben Gurion that France wanted Israel as an ally against Egypt, and that the only problem was Britain, which was opposed to Israel taking action against Nasser. In late September 1956, the French Premier
Guy Mollet
Guy Alcide Mollet (; 31 December 1905 – 3 October 1975) was a French politician. He led the socialist French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) from 1946 to 1969 and was the French Prime Minister from 1956 to 1957.
As Prime Minister ...
had embarked upon a dual policy of attacking Egypt with Britain, and if the British backed out (as Mollet believed that they might), with Israel. On 30 September 1956 secret Franco-Israeli talks on planning a war started in Paris, which were based on the assumption that Britain would not be involved. The French very much wanted to use airfields in Cyprus to bomb Egypt, but being not certain about Britain's attitude, wanted to use Israeli airfields if the ones in Cyprus were not free. Only on 5 October 1956 during a visit by General Maurice Challe to Britain where he met with Eden, were the British informed of the secret Franco-Israeli alliance.
On 22 October 1956, during negotiations leading to the Protocol of Sèvres, David Ben-Gurion, Prime Minister of Israel, gave the most detailed explanation ever to foreign dignitaries, of Israel's overall strategy for the Middle East. Shlaim called this Ben-Gurion's "grand design". His main objection to the "English plan" was that Israel would be branded as the aggressor while Britain and France would pose as peace-makers.
Instead he presented a comprehensive plan, which he himself called "fantastic", for the reorganization of the Middle East. Jordan, he observed, was not viable as an independent state and should therefore be divided. Iraq would get the East Bank in return for a promise to settle the Palestinian refugees there and to make peace with Israel while the West Bank would be attached to Israel as a semi-autonomous region. Lebanon suffered from having a large Muslim population which was concentrated in the south. The problem could be solved by Israel's expansion up to the Litani River, thereby helping to turn Lebanon into a more compact Christian state. ... Israel declares its intention to keep her forces for the purpose of permanent annexation of the entire area east of the El Arish-Abu Ageila, Nakhl-Sharm el-Sheikh, in order to maintain for the long term the freedom of navigation in the Straits of Eilat and in order to free herself from the scourge of the infiltrators and from the danger posed by the Egyptian army bases in Sinai. ... "I told him about the discovery of oil in southern and western Sinai, and that it would be good to tear this peninsula from Egypt because it did not belong to her, rather it was the English who stole it from the Turks when they believed that Egypt was in their pocket. I suggested laying down a pipeline from Sinai to Haifa to refine the oil."
Protocol of Sèvres
In October 1956, Eden, after two months of pressure, finally and reluctantly agreed to French requests to include Israel in Operation Revise. The British alliances with the Hashemite kingdoms of Jordan and Iraq had made the British very reluctant to fight alongside Israel, lest the ensuing backlash in the Arab world threaten London's friends in Baghdad and Amman. The coming of winter weather in November meant that Eden needed a pretext to begin Revise as soon as possible, which meant that Israel had to be included. This was especially the case as many Conservative backbenchers had expected Eden to launch operations against Egypt in the summer, and were disappointed when Eden had instead chosen talks. By the fall of 1956, many Tory backbenchers were starting to grow restive about the government's seeming inability to start military action, and if Eden had continued to put off military action for the winter of 1956–57, it is possible that his government might not have survived.
Three months after Egypt's nationalisation of the Suez Canal company, a secret meeting took place at Sèvres, outside Paris. Britain and France enlisted Israeli support for an alliance against Egypt. The parties agreed that Israel would invade the Sinai. Britain and France would then intervene, purportedly to separate the warring Israeli and Egyptian forces, instructing both to withdraw to a distance of 16 kilometres from either side of the canal.The Protocol of Sèvres 1956 Anatomy of a War Plot Users.ox.ac.uk. Retrieved on 8 September 2011.
The British and French would then argue that Egypt's control of such an important route was too tenuous, and that it needed to be placed under Anglo-French management.
David Ben-Gurion
David Ben-Gurion ( ; he, דָּוִד בֶּן-גּוּרִיּוֹן ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary national founder of the State of Israel and the first prime minister of Israel. Adopting the name ...
did not trust the British in view of their treaty with
Jordan
Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...
and he was not initially in favour of the plan, since it would make Israel alone look like the aggressor; however he soon agreed to it since such a good opportunity to strike back at Egypt might never again present itself.
Under the Protocol of Sèvres, the following was agreed to:
* 29 October: Israel to invade the Sinai.
* 30 October: Anglo-French ultimatum to demand both sides withdraw from the canal zone.
* 31 October: Britain and France begin Revise.
Anglo-French Operation Musketeer
Stockwell offered up Operation Musketeer (1956), Operation Musketeer, which was to begin with a two-day air campaign that would see the British gain air superiority. In place of Port Said, Musketeer called for the capture of
Alexandria
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria ...
. Once that city had been taken in assault from the sea, British armoured divisions would engage in a decisive battle of annihilation somewhere south of
Alexandria
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria ...
and north of
Cairo
Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...
.
Musketeer would require thousands of troops, leading the British to seek out France as an ally. To destroy the 300,000-strong Egyptian Army in his planned battle of annihilation, Stockwell estimated that he needed 80,000 troops, while at most the British Army could spare was 50,000 troops; the French could supply the necessary 30,000 troops to make up the shortfall.
On 11 August 1956, General Charles Keightley was appointed commander of Musketeer with the French Admiral Barjot as his deputy commander. The appointment of Stockwell as the Allied Task Force commander charged with leading the assault on Egypt caused considerable disappointment with the other officers of the Task Force. One French officer recalled that Stockwell was
By contrast, the majority of the officers of the Task Force, both French and British, admired André Beaufre as an elegant yet tough general with a sharp analytical mind who always kept his cool. Most of the officers of the Anglo-French Task Force expressed regret that it was Beaufre who was Stockwell's deputy rather the other way around. A major problem both politically and militarily with the planning for Musketeer was the one-week interval between sending troops to the eastern Mediterranean and the beginning of the invasion. Additionally, the coming of winter weather to the Mediterranean in late November would render the invasion impossible, which thus meant the invasion had to begin before then. An additional problem was Eden, who constantly interfered with the planning and was so obsessed with secrecy that he refused to tell Keightley what his political objectives were in attacking Egypt: namely, whether he wanted to retake the Suez Canal or topple Nasser, or both. Eden's refusal to explain to Keightley just what exactly he was hoping to accomplish by attacking Egypt exasperated Keightley to no end, and greatly complicated the planning process.
In late August 1956, the French Admiral Pierre Barjot suggested that Port Said once again be made the main target, which lessened the number of troops needed and thus reduced the interval between sending forces to the eastern Mediterranean and the invasion. Beaufre was strongly opposed to the change, warning that Barjot's modification of merely capturing the canal zone made for an ambiguous goal, and that the lack of a clear goal was dangerous.
In early September, Keightley embraced Barjot's idea of seizing Port Said, and presented Revise.
Britain's First Sea Lord, Louis Mountbatten, Admiral Louis Mountbatten strongly advised his old friend Prime Minister Anthony Eden against the Conservative plans to seize the Suez canal. He argued that such a move would destabilize the Middle East, undermine the authority of the United Nations, divide the Commonwealth and diminish Britain's global standing. His advice was not taken; he tried to resign but the political leadership of the Royal Navy would not let him. Instead he worked hard to prepare the Royal Navy for war with characteristic professionalism and thoroughness.
Anglo-French Operation Revise
Operation Revise called for the following:
* Phase I: Anglo-French air forces to gain air supremacy over Egypt's skies.
* Phase II: Anglo-French air forces were to launch a 10-day "aero-psychological" campaign that would destroy the Egyptian economy.
* Phase III: Air- and sea-borne landings to capture the canal zone.
On 8 September 1956 Revise was approved by the British and French cabinets.
Both Stockwell and Beaufre were opposed to Revise as an open-ended plan with no clear goal beyond seizing the canal zone, but was embraced by Eden and Mollet as offering greater political flexibility and the prospect of lesser Egyptian civilian casualties.
Israeli Operation Kadesh
At the same time, Israel had been working on Operation Kadesh for the invasion of the Sinai. Dayan's plan put an emphasis on air power combined with mobile battles of encirclement. Kadesh called for the Israeli Air Force to win Air supremacy, air superiority, which was to be followed up with "one continuous battle" in the Sinai. Israeli forces would in a series of swift operations encircle and then take the main Egyptian strong points in the Sinai.
Israeli military planning for the operation hinged on four main military objectives: Sharm el-Sheikh, Arish, Abu Uwayulah (Abu Ageila), and the
Gaza Strip
The Gaza Strip (;The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p.761 "Gaza Strip /'gɑːzə/ a strip of territory under the control of the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas, on the SE Mediterranean coast including the town of Gaza.. ...
. Egyptian blockaded the Tiran Straits (based at Sharm el-Sheikh) since 1953, and by capturing the town, Israel would regain access to the Red Sea and trade benefits of secure passage to the
Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by th ...
. The
Gaza Strip
The Gaza Strip (;The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p.761 "Gaza Strip /'gɑːzə/ a strip of territory under the control of the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas, on the SE Mediterranean coast including the town of Gaza.. ...
was chosen as another military objective because Israel wished to remove the training grounds for Fedayeen groups, and because Israel recognised that Egypt could use the territory as a staging ground for attacks against the advancing Israeli troops. Israel advocated rapid advances, for which a potential Egyptian flanking manoeuvre, flanking attack would present even more of a risk. Arish and Abu Uwayulah were important hubs for soldiers, equipment, and centres of command and control of the Egyptian Army in the Sinai. Capturing them would deal a deathblow to the Egyptian's strategic operation in the entire Peninsula. The capture of these four objectives were hoped to be the means by which the entire Egyptian Army would rout and fall back into Egypt proper, which British and French forces would then be able to push up against an Israeli advance, and crush in a decisive encounter.
Reflecting this emphasis on encirclement was the "outside-in" approach of Kadesh, which called for Israeli paratroopers to seize distant points first, with those closer to Israel to be seized later. Thus, the 202nd Paratroop Brigade commanded by Colonel
Ariel Sharon
Ariel Sharon (; ; ; also known by his diminutive Arik, , born Ariel Scheinermann, ; 26 February 1928 – 11 January 2014) was an Israeli general and politician who served as the 11th Prime Minister of Israel from March 2001 until April 2006.
S ...
was to land in the far-western part of the Sinai to take the Mitla Pass, and thereby cut off the Egyptian forces in the eastern Sinai from their supply lines.
American intelligence
The American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was taking high-altitude photos of the allied activities, and more details came from human sources in London, Paris, and Tel Aviv. CIA chief
Allen Dulles
Allen Welsh Dulles (, ; April 7, 1893 – January 29, 1969) was the first civilian Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), and its longest-serving director to date. As head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) during the early Cold War, he ov ...
said that "intelligence was well alerted as to what Israel and then Britain and France were likely to do ... In fact, United States Intelligence Community, United States intelligence had kept the government informed".
Forces
Britain
British troops were well-trained, experienced, and had good morale, but suffered from the economic and technological limitations imposed by post-war austerity. The 16th Independent Parachute Brigade Group, which was intended to be the main British strike force against Egypt, was heavily involved in the Cyprus Emergency, which led to a neglect of paratroop training in favour of Counterinsurgency, counter-insurgency operations. The Royal Navy could project formidable power through the guns of its warships and aircraft flown from its carriers, but lacked amphibious capability.
The Royal Navy had just undergone a major and innovative carrier modernisation program. The Royal Air Force (RAF) had just introduced two long-range bombers, the Vickers Valiant and the English Electric Canberra, but owing to their recent entry into service the RAF had not yet established proper bombing techniques for these aircraft. Despite this, General Sir Charles Keightley, the commander of the invasion force, believed that Airpower, air power alone was sufficient to defeat Egypt. By contrast, General
Hugh Stockwell
General Sir Hugh Charles Stockwell, (16 June 1903 – 27 November 1986) was a senior British Army officer most remembered for commanding the Anglo-French ground forces during the Suez Crisis and his service as Deputy Supreme Allied Commander ...
, the Task Force's ground commander, believed that methodical and systematic armoured operations centred on the Centurion tank, Centurion battle tank would be the key to victory.
France
French troops were experienced and well-trained but suffered from cutbacks imposed by post-war politics of economic austerity. In 1956, the French Armed Forces was heavily involved in the Algerian war, which made operations against Egypt a major distraction. French paratroopers of the elite ''2nd Marine Infantry Parachute Regiment, Regiment de Parachutistes Coloniaux'' (RPC) were extremely experienced, battle-hardened, and very tough soldiers, who had greatly distinguished themselves in the fighting in Indochina and in Algeria. The men of the RPC followed a "shoot first, ask questions later" policy towards civilians, first adopted in Vietnam, which was to lead to the killing of a number of Egyptian civilians. The rest of the French troops were described by the American military historian Derek Varble as "competent, but not outstanding".
The main French (and Israeli) tank, the AMX-13, was designed for mobile, flanking operations, which led to a tank that was lightly armoured but agile. General André Beaufre, who served as Stockwell's subordinate, favoured a swift campaign of movement in which the main objective was to encircle the enemy. Throughout the operation, Beaufre proved himself to be more aggressive than his British counterparts, always urging that some bold step be taken at once. The French Navy had a powerful carrier force which was excellent for projecting power inland, but, like its British counterpart, suffered from a lack of landing craft.
Israel
American military historian Derek Varble called the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) the "best" military force in the Middle East while at the same time suffering from "deficiencies" such as "immature doctrine, faulty logistics, and technical inadequacies". The IDF's Chief of Staff, Major General Moshe Dayan, encouraged aggression, initiative, and ingenuity among the Israeli officer corps while ignoring logistics and armoured operations. Dayan, a firm infantry man, preferred that arm of the service at the expense of armour, which Dayan saw as clumsy, pricey, and suffering from frequent breakdowns.
At the same time, the IDF had a rather disorganised logistics arm, which was put under severe strain when the IDF invaded the Sinai. Most of the IDF weapons in 1956 came from France. The main IDF tank was the AMX-13 and the main aircraft were the Dassault Dassault Mystère IV, Mystère IVA and the Dassault Ouragan, Ouragan. Superior pilot training was to give the Israeli Air Force an unbeatable edge over their Egyptian opponents. The Israeli Navy consisted of two destroyers, seven frigates, eight minesweepers, several landing craft, and fourteen torpedo boats.
Egypt
In the Egyptian Armed Forces, politics rather than military competence was the main criterion for promotion. The Egyptian commander, Field Marshal Abdel Hakim Amer, was a purely political appointee who owed his position to his close friendship with Nasser. A heavy drinker, he would prove himself grossly incompetent as a general during the Crisis. In 1956, the Egyptian military was well equipped with weapons from the Soviet Union such as T-34 and IS tank family#IS-3, IS-3 tanks, MiG-15 fighters, Ilyushin Il-28 bombers, SU-100 self-propelled guns and assault rifles.
Rigid lines between officers and men in the Egyptian Army led to a mutual "mistrust and contempt" between officers and the men who served under them. Egyptian troops were excellent in defensive operations, but had little capacity for offensive operations, owing to the lack of "rapport and effective small-unit leadership".
Invasion
Casualties
British casualties stood at 22 dead and 96 wounded, while French casualties were 10 dead and The Israeli losses were 172 dead and 817 wounded. The number of Egyptians killed was "never reliably established". Egyptian casualties to the Israeli invasion were estimated at 1,000–3,000 dead and 4,000 wounded, while losses to the Anglo-French operation were estimated at 650 dead and 900 wounded.Schiff, A History of the Israeli Army, 1870–1974, p. 70, Straight Arrow Books (1974) 1,000 Egyptian civilians are estimated to have died.
End of hostilities
Anti-war protests in Britain
Although the public believed the British government's justification of the invasion as a separation of Israeli and Egyptian forces, protests against the war occurred in Britain after it began. On the popular television talk show ''Free Speech'', an especially bitter debate took place on 31 October with the leftist historian A. J. P. Taylor and the Labour journalist and future party leader Michael Foot calling their colleague on ''Free Speech'', the Conservative MP Robert Boothby, Baron Boothby, Robert Boothby, a "criminal" for supporting the war. One television critic spoke of ''Free Speech'' during the war that "the team seemed to not only on the verge of, but actually losing their tempers.... Boothby boomed, Foot fumed and Taylor trephined, with apparent real malice...."Cole, Robert ''A.J.P. Taylor the traitor Within the Gates'', London: Macmillan 1993, p. 149 The angry, passionate, much-watched debates about the Suez war on ''Free Speech'' mirrored the divided public response to the war. The British government pressured the BBC to support the war, and seriously considered taking over the network.
Eden's major mistake had been not to strike in July 1956 when there was widespread anger at Nasser's nationalisation of the Suez Canal Company, as by the fall of 1956 public anger had subsided, with many people in Britain having come to accept the ''
fait accompli
Many words in the English vocabulary are of French origin, most coming from the Anglo-Norman spoken by the upper classes in England for several hundred years after the Norman Conquest, before the language settled into what became Modern Engli ...
'', and saw no reason for war. This was especially the case as Eden's claims that the Egyptians would hopelessly mismanage the canal had proven groundless, and that by September 1956 it was clear that the change of management had not affected shipping. Even more importantly, Eden's obsession with secrecy and his desire to keep the preparations for war as secret as possible meant that the Eden government did nothing in the months running up to the attack to explain to the British people why it was felt that war was necessary. Many of the reservists who were called up for their National Service in the summer and fall of 1956 recalled feeling bewildered and confused as the Eden government started preparing to attack Egypt while at the same time Eden insisted in public that he wanted a peaceful resolution of the dispute, and was opposed to attacking Egypt. The British author David Pryce-Jones recalled that as a young officer, after the ultimatum was submitted to Egypt he had to explain to his troops why war with Egypt was necessary without believing a word that he was saying. Only one British soldier, however, refused to fight.
Gaitskell was much offended that Eden had kept him in the dark about the planning for action against Egypt, and felt personally insulted that Eden had just assumed that he would support the war without consulting him first. On 31 October he cited in Parliament the fact that, despite Eden's claim that the British government had consulted closely with the Commonwealth, no other member nation did; in the Security Council, not even Australia had supported the British action. He called the invasion
The stormy and violent debates in the House of Commons on 1 November 1956 almost degenerated into fist-fights after several Labour MPs compared Eden to Hitler. Yet the Prime Minister insisted, "We [are not] at war with Egypt now.[…] There has not been a declaration of war by us. We are in an armed conflict." The British historian A. N. Wilson wrote that "The letters to ''The Times'' caught the mood of the country, with great majority opposing military intervention...." The journalist Malcolm Muggeridge and actor Robert Speaight wrote in a public letter that
The Suez Crisis played a key role in the reconciliation of the Gaitskellite and Bevanism, Bevanite factions of the Labour Party (UK), Labour Party, which both condemned the invasion, after the 1955 Labour Party leadership election, 1955 leadership election. Gaitskell was so impressed by his erstwhile rival Aneurin Bevan's forceful condemnation of the invasion that he offered him the role of Shadow Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, Shadow Foreign Secretary, replacing Alfred Robens, Baron Robens of Woldingham, Alfred Robens.
Lady Violet Bonham Carter, an influential Liberal Party member, wrote in a letter to the ''Times'' that
According to public opinion polls at the time, 37% of the British people supported the war while 44% were opposed. ''The Observer'' newspaper in a leader (editorial) attacked the Eden government for its "folly and crookedness" in attacking Egypt while The Manchester Guardian, ''The Manchester Guardian'' urged its readers to write letters of protest to their MPs. ''The Economist'' spoke of the "strange union of cynicism and hysteria" in the government and ''The Spectator'' stated that Eden would soon have to face "a terrible indictment". The majority of letters written to MPs from their constituents were against the Suez attack. Significantly, many of the letters come from voters who identified as Conservatives. The historian Keith Feiling wrote "the harm done seems to me terrifying: for my part I have resigned from the party while the present leader is there". The law professor and future Conservative cabinet minister Norman St John-Stevas, Baron St John of Fawsley, Norman St. John-Stevas wrote at the time:
The historian Hugh Trevor-Roper expressed regret that no senior minister resigned and hoped "some kind of national Tory party can be saved from the wreck". A master at Eton College in a letter to his MP declared:
The Labour Party and the Trade Union Congress organised nation-wide anti-war protests, starting on 1 November under the slogan "Law, not war!" On 4 November, at an anti-war rally in Trafalgar Square attended by 30,000 people (making it easily the biggest rally in London since 1945), the Labour MP Aneurin Bevan accused the government of "a policy of bankruptcy and despair". Bevan stated at the Trafalgar rally:
Inspired by Bevan's speech, the crowd at Trafalgar Square then marched on
10 Downing Street
10 Downing Street in London, also known colloquially in the United Kingdom as Number 10, is the official residence and executive office of the first lord of the treasury, usually, by convention, the prime minister of the United Kingdom. Along wi ...
chanting "Eden Must Go!", and attempted to storm the Prime Minister's residence. The ensuing clashes between the police and the demonstrators which were captured by television cameras had a huge demoralising effect on the Eden cabinet, which was meeting there. The British historian Anthony Adamthwaite wrote in 1988 that American financial pressure was the key factor that forced Eden to accept a ceasefire, but the public protests, declining poll numbers and signs that many Conservative voters were deserting the government were important secondary factors.
Support for Eden
According to some historians, the majority of British people were on Eden's side. On 10 and 11 November an opinion poll found 53% supported the war, with 32% opposed.
The majority of Conservative constituency associations passed resolutions of support to "Sir Anthony". Gilbert Murray was among Oxford scholars who signed a statement supporting Eden; such an act by the famous advocate of Internationalism (politics), internationalism amazed both sides. He explained that, if not stopped, he believed Nasserism would become a Soviet-led worldwide anti-western movement. British historian Barry Turner (journalist), Barry Turner wrote that
A. N. Wilson wrote that
The economist Roy Harrod wrote at the time that the "more level-headed British, whom I believe to be in the majority though not the most vocal" were supporting the "notable act of courage and statesmanship" of the government. Eden himself claimed that his mail went from eight to one against the military action immediately after its start, to four to one in support on the day before the ceasefire.
The conflict exposed the division within the Labour Party between its middle-class internationalist intelligentsia who opposed the conflict, and working-class voters who supported it. One Conservative MP wrote: "I have lost my middle-class followers, but this has been at least balanced by backing from working-class electors who normally vote Socialist and who favour a strong line on Suez".
The Labour MP Richard Crossman said that "when the Labour Party leadership tried to organise demonstrations in the Provinces of the kind they'd held in Trafalgar Square, there was great reluctance among the working classes, because we were at war. It was Munich in reverse. And it was very, very acute". Fellow Labour MP James Callaghan agreed: "The wikt:horny-handed, horny-handed sons of toil rallied to the call of the bugle. They reacted against us in the same way as they did against Neville Chamberlain, Chamberlain a few months after Munich".Braddon, p. 111. "My working mates were solidly in favour of Eden", recalled future Labour and SDP MP David Owen. Comparing opposition to Suez to what he described as the Cambridge Apostles's "defeatist, even traitorous" support of pre-World War II appeasement, Owen told Kenneth Harris (journalist), Kenneth Harris, "there was Gaitskell ... criticizing Eden, and here were these men working alongside me, who should have been his natural supporters, furious with him. The ''Daily Mirror'' backed Gaitskell, but these men were tearing up their ''Daily Mirror''s every day". Callaghan recalled that up until the fighting started "we had public opinion on our side; but as soon as we actually went to war, I could ''feel'' the change". Another Labour MP, Barbara Castle, recalled that Labour's protest against the conflict was "drowned in a wave of public jingoism".
During the 1957 Lewisham North by-election, Lewisham North and 1957 Warwick and Leamington by-election, Warwick and Leamington by-elections held in February and March 1957, Labour instructed its activists not to emphasise their opposition to Suez because the government's action had considerable support. Callaghan believed that the Conservatives increased their majority at the 1959 United Kingdom general election, 1959 election in part because working-class voters were still angry at the party for opposing the conflict. The Labour MP Stanley Evans resigned from his seat and his membership of the party due to his support for British action in Suez.
International reaction
The operation, aimed at taking control of the Suez Canal, Gaza Strip, Gaza, and parts of Sinai, was highly successful for the invaders from a military point of view, but was a disaster from a political point of view, resulting in international criticism and diplomatic pressure. Along with the Suez crisis, the United States was also dealing with the near-simultaneous Hungarian revolution of 1956, Hungarian revolution. Vice-President Richard Nixon later explained: "We couldn't on one hand, complain about the Soviets intervening in Hungary and, on the other hand, approve of the British and the French picking that particular time to intervene against Nasser". Beyond that, it was Eisenhower's belief that if the United States were seen to acquiesce in the attack on Egypt, that the resulting backlash in the Arab world might win the Arabs over to the Soviet Union.
Despite having no commercial or military interest in the area, many countries were concerned with the growing rift between Western allied nations. The Swedish ambassador to the Court of St. James's, Gunnar Hägglöf wrote in a letter to the anti-war Conservative M.P. Edward Boyle, Baron Boyle of Handsworth, Edward Boyle,
The attack on Egypt greatly offended many in the Islamic world. In Pakistan, 300,000 people showed up in a rally in Lahore to show solidarity with Egypt while in Karachi a mob chanting anti-British slogans burned down the British High Commission. In Syria, the government blew up the Kirkuk–Baniyas pipeline that allowed Iraqi oil to reach tankers in the Mediterranean to punish Iraq for supporting the invasion, and to cut Britain off from one of its main routes for taking delivery of Iraqi oil. King Saud of Saudi Arabia imposed a total oil embargo on Britain and France.
When Israel refused to withdraw its troops from the Gaza Strip and Sharm el-Sheikh, Eisenhower declared, "We must not allow Europe to go flat on its back for the want of oil." He sought UN-backed efforts to impose economic sanctions on Israel until it fully withdrew from Egyptian territory. Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson and minority leader William Knowland objected to American pressure on Israel. Johnson told the Secretary of State
John Foster Dulles
John Foster Dulles (, ; February 25, 1888 – May 24, 1959) was an American diplomat, lawyer, and Republican Party politician. He served as United States Secretary of State under President Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 to 1959 and was briefly ...
that he wanted him to oppose "with all its skill" any attempt to apply sanctions on Israel. Dulles rebuffed Johnson's request, and informed Eisenhower of the objections made by the Senate. Eisenhower was "insistent on applying economic sanctions" to the extent of cutting off private American assistance to Israel which was estimated to be over $100 million a year. Ultimately, the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party-controlled United States Senate, Senate would not co-operate with Eisenhower's position on Israel. Eisenhower finally told Congress he would take the issue to the American people, saying, "America has either one voice or none, and that voice is the voice of the President – whether everybody agrees with him or not." The President spoke to the nation by radio and television where he outlined Israel's refusal to withdraw, explaining his belief that the UN had "no choice but to exert pressure upon Israel".
On 30 October, the Security Council held a meeting, at the request of the United States, when it submitted a draft resolution calling upon Israel immediately to withdraw its armed forces behind the established armistice lines. It was not adopted because of British and French vetoes. A similar draft resolution sponsored by the Soviet Union was also rejected.Establishment of UNEF, Background at UN.org On 31 October, also Protocol of Sèvres, as planned, France and the UK launched an air attack against targets in Egypt, which was followed shortly by a landing of their troops at the northern end of the canal zone. Later that day, considering the grave situation created by the actions against Egypt, and with lack of unanimity among the permanent members preventing it from exercising its primary responsibility to maintain international peace and security, the Security Council passed United Nations Security Council Resolution 119, Resolution 119; it decided to call an emergency special session of the United Nations General Assembly, General Assembly for the First emergency special session of the United Nations General Assembly, first time, as provided in the 1950 "Uniting for Peace" United Nations General Assembly Resolution 377, resolution, in order to make appropriate recommendations to end the fighting.
The emergency special session was convened 1 November; the same day Nasser requested diplomatic assistance from the U.S., without requesting the same from the Soviet Union; he was at first sceptical of the efficacy of U.S. diplomatic efforts at the UN, but later gave full credit to Eisenhower's role in stopping the war.
In the early hours of 2 November, the General Assembly adopted the United States' proposal for Resolution 997 (ES-I); the vote was 64 in favour and 5 opposed (Australia, New Zealand, Britain, France, and Israel) with 6 abstentions. It called for an immediate ceasefire, the withdrawal of all forces behind the 1949 Armistice Agreements#With Egypt, armistice lines, an arms embargo, and the reopening of the Suez Canal, which was now blocked. The Secretary-General was requested to observe and report promptly on compliance to both the Security Council and General Assembly, for further action as deemed appropriate in accordance with the UN Charter. Over the next several days, the emergency special session consequently adopted a series of enabling resolutions, which established the first United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF), on 7 November by Resolution 1001.UNGA Emergency Special Sessions Un.org. Retrieved on 8 September 2011. This proposal of the emergency force and the resulting cease-fire was made possible primarily through the efforts of Lester B. Pearson, the Minister of Foreign Affairs (Canada), Secretary of External Affairs of Canada, and Dag Hammarskjöld, the Secretary-General of the United Nations. The role of Nehru, both as Indian Prime minister and a leader of the Non Aligned Movement was significant; the Indian historian Inder Malhotra wrote that "Now Nehru—who had tried to be even-handed between the two sides—denounced Eden and co-sponsors of the aggression vigorously. He had a powerful, if relatively silent, ally in the U.S. president Dwight Eisenhower who went to the extent of using America's clout in the International Monetary Fund, IMF to make Eden and Mollet behave".
The Indian historian Inder Malhotra wrote about Nehru's role that: "So the Suez War ended in Britain's humiliation. Eden lost his job. Nehru achieved his objective of protecting Egypt's sovereignty and Nasser's honour".'Nothing common and there is no wealth' Indianexpress.com (5 March 2010). Retrieved on 8 September 2011. Britain and France agreed to withdraw from Egypt within a week; Israel did not. A rare example of support for the Anglo-French actions against Egypt came from West Germany; though the Cabinet was divided, the Chancellor Konrad Adenauer was furious with the United States for its "chumminess with the Russians" as Adenauer called the U.S. refusal to intervene in Hungary and voting with the Soviet Union at the UN Security Council, and the traditionally Francophile Adenauer drew closer to Paris as a result. Adenauer told his Cabinet on 7 November that Nasser was a pro-Soviet force that needed to cut down to size, and in his view the attack on Egypt was completely justified. Adenauer maintained to his Cabinet that the French had every right to invade Egypt because of Nasser's support for the FLN in Algeria, but the British were partly to blame because they "inexplicably" shut down their Suez Canal base in 1954.Schwarz, Hans-Peter ''Konrad Adenauer: A German Politician and Statesman in a Period of War, Revolution and Reconstruction, 1952–1967'' Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1995 p. 242. What appalled Adenauer about the crisis was that the United States had come against the attack on Egypt and voted with the Soviet Union at Security Council against Britain and France, which led Adenauer to fear that the United States and Soviet Union would "carve up the world" according to their own interests with no thought for the interests of European states. Adenauer refused to cancel a planned visit to Paris on 5–6 November 1956 and his summit with Mollet was clearly meant to be seen as a gesture of moral support. Adenauer was especially worried by the fact that the American embassy in Bonn would not provide a clear answer as to what was the American policy in response to the Bulganin letters.Schwarz, Hans-Peter ''Konrad Adenauer: A German Politician and Statesman in a Period of War, Revolution and Reconstruction, 1952–1967'' Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1995 p. 244. One of Adenauer's aides Fritz von Eckardt commented about the opening ceremony in Paris where Mollet and Adenauer stood side by side while the national anthems were played that "In the most serious hour France had experienced since the end of the war, the two governments were standing shoulder by shoulder". During the summit in Paris, Mollet commented to Adenauer that a Soviet nuclear strike could destroy Paris at any moment, which added considerably to the tension and helped to draw the French and Germans closer.
On 7 November, David Ben-Gurion addressed the Knesset and declared a great victory, saying that the 1949 Armistice Agreements, 1949 armistice agreement with Egypt was dead and buried, and that the armistice lines were no longer valid and could not be restored. Under no circumstances would Israel agree to the stationing of UN forces on its territory or in any area it occupied.A Restless Mind: Essays in Honor of Amos Perlmutter, Amos Perlmutter, Benjamin Frankel, Routledge, 1996 , Michael Brecher Essay, pp. 104–117. Books.google.com. Retrieved on 8 September 2011. He also made an oblique reference to his intention to annex the Sinai Peninsula. Isaac Alteras writes that Ben-Gurion 'was carried away by the resounding victory against Egypt' and while 'a statesman well known for his sober realism, [he] took flight in dreams of grandeur.' The speech marked the beginning of a four-month-long diplomatic struggle, culminating in withdrawal from all territory, under conditions far less palatable than those envisioned in the speech, but with conditions for sea access to Eilat and a UNEF presence on Egyptian soil. The speech immediately drew increased international pressure on Israel to withdraw. That day in New York, the emergency session passed Resolution 1002, again calling for the immediate withdrawal of Israeli troops to behind the armistice lines, and for the immediate withdrawal of British and French troops from Egyptian territory. After a long Israeli cabinet meeting late on 8 November, Ben-Gurion informed Eisenhower that Israel declared its willingness to accept withdrawal of Israeli forces from Sinai, 'when satisfactory arrangements are made with the international force that is about to enter the canal zone'.
Soviet threats
Although the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
's position in the crisis was as helpless as was the United States' regarding Hungary's uprising, Premier Nikolai Bulganin threatened to intervene on the Egyptian side, and to launch rocket attacks on Britain, France and Israel. Bulganin accused Ben-Gurion of supporting European colonialism, and Mollet of hypocrisy for leading a socialist government while pursuing a right-wing foreign policy. He did however concede in his letter to Eden that Britain had legitimate interests in Egypt.
The Soviet threat to send troops to Egypt to fight the Allies led Eisenhower to fear that this might be the beginning of World War III. One of Eisenhower's aides Emmet Hughes recalled that the reaction at the White House to the Bulganin letters was "sombre" as there was fear that this was the beginning to the countdown to World War III, a war that if it occurred would kill hundreds of millions of people. In private, Eisenhower told Undersecretary of State Herbert Hoover Jr. of his fears that: If the Soviet Union did go to war with NATO allies Britain and France, then the United States would be unable to remain neutral, because the United States' obligations under NATO would come into effect, requiring them to go to war with the Soviet Union in defence of Britain and France. Likewise, if the Soviet Union attacked Israel, though there was no formal American commitment to defend Israel, the Eisenhower administration would come under heavy domestic pressure to intervene. From Eisenhower's viewpoint, it was better to end the war against Egypt rather than run the risk of this escalating into the Third World War, in case Khrushchev was serious about going to war in defence of Egypt as he insisted in public that he was. Eisenhower's reaction to these threats from the Soviet Union was: "If those fellows start something, we may have to hit 'em — and, if necessary, with everything in the bucket." Eisenhower immediately ordered Lockheed U-2 flights over Syria and Israel to search for any Soviet air forces on Syrian bases, so the British and French could destroy them. He told Hoover and CIA director Allan Dulles, "If the Soviets attack the French and British directly, we would be in a war and we would be justified in taking military action even if Congress were not in session." (The Americans excluded Israel from the guarantee against Soviet attack, however, alarming the Israeli government.) The U-2 showed that Soviet aircraft were not in Syria despite the threats.
Khrushchev often claimed to possess a vast arsenal of nuclear-tipped Intercontinental ballistic missile, ICBMs, and while disclaiming any intention of starting a war, maintained that he would be more than happy to turn a conventional war into a nuclear one if war did come. U-2 flights over the Soviet Union, which were intended to discover if the country really did have the nuclear arsenal that it claimed to have, only started in July 1956, and it was not until February 1959 that it firmly established that Khrushchev had Missile gap, vastly exaggerated his nuclear strength. In fact, the supposedly huge Soviet arsenal of ICBMs, with which Khrushchev would wipe out the cities of Britain, France, Israel, and if necessary the United States consisted only of four ''R-7 Semyorka, Semyorka'' missiles stationed at a swamp south of Arkhangelsk. From the viewpoint of Eisenhower, in 1956 he had no way of knowing for certain whether Khrushchev's nuclear braggadocio was for real or not. Earlier in 1956, Dulles had warned Eisenhower that Khrushchev was "the most dangerous person to lead the Soviet Union since the October Revolution" as Khrushchev was "not a coldly calculating person, but rather one who reacted emotionally. He was obviously intoxicated much of the time and could be expected to commit irrational acts." Khrushchev later admitted in his memoirs that he was not seriously "thinking of going to war" in November 1956 as he claimed at the time as he lacked the necessary ICBMs to make good his threats.
Financial pressure
The United States also put financial pressure on the UK to end the invasion. Because the Bank of England had lost $45 million between 30 October and 2 November, and Britain's oil supply had been restricted by the closing of the Suez Canal, the British sought immediate assistance from the IMF, but it was denied by the United States. Eisenhower in fact ordered his Secretary of the Treasury, George M. Humphrey, to prepare to sell part of the US Government's Gilt-edged securities, Sterling Bond holdings. The UK government considered invading Kuwait and Qatar if oil sanctions were put in place by the US.
Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer,
Harold Macmillan
Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986) was a British Conservative statesman and politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963. Caricatured as "Supermac", he ...
, advised his Prime Minister,
Anthony Eden
Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, (12 June 1897 – 14 January 1977) was a British Conservative Party politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1955 until his resignation in 1957.
Achieving rapid promo ...
, that the United States was fully prepared to carry out this threat. He also warned his Prime Minister that Britain's foreign exchange reserves simply could not sustain the devaluation of the pound that would come after the United States' actions; and that within weeks of such a move, the country would be unable to import the food and energy supplies needed to sustain the population on the islands. However, there were suspicions in the Cabinet that Macmillan had deliberately overstated the financial situation in order to force Eden out. What Treasury officials had told Macmillan was far less serious than what he told the Cabinet.
In concert with U.S. actions,
Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...
started an oil embargo against Britain and France. The U.S. refused to fill the gap until Britain and France agreed to a rapid withdrawal. Other NATO members refused to sell oil they received from Arab nations to Britain or France.
Ceasefire
Because the British government faced political and economic pressure, the Prime Minister, Sir Anthony Eden, announced a cease fire on 6 November, warning neither France nor Israel beforehand. Troops were still in Port Said and on operational manoeuvres when the order came from London. Port Said had been overrun, and the military assessment was that the Suez Canal could have been completely taken within 24 hours. Eisenhower initially agreed to meet with Eden and Mollet to resolve their differences, but then cancelled the proposed meeting after Secretary of State Dulles advised him it risked inflaming the Middle Eastern situation further.The effect of Prime Minister Anthony Eden's illness on his decision-making during the Suez crisis ''Qjmed.oxfordjournals.org'' (6 May 2005). Retrieved on 8 September 2011.
Eisenhower was not in favour of an immediate withdrawal of British, French and Israeli troops until the US ambassador to the United Nations, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. pushed for it. Eden's predecessor Sir Winston Churchill commented on 22 November, "I cannot understand why our troops were halted. To go so far and not go on was madness." Churchill further added that while he might not have dared to begin the military operation, nevertheless once having ordered it he would certainly not have dared to stop it before it had achieved its objective. Without further guarantee, the Anglo-French Task Force had to finish withdrawing by 22 December 1956, to be replaced by Danish and Colombian units of the UNEF.
The Israelis refused to host any UN force on Israeli controlled territory and withdrew from the Sinai in March 1957. Before the withdrawal the Israeli forces systematically destroyed infrastructure in the Sinai peninsula such as roads, railways and telephone lines, and all houses in the villages of Abu Ageila and El Quseima. Before the railway was destroyed, Israeli troops confiscated Egyptian National Railways equipment including six locomotives and a 30-ton Crane (railroad)#Breakdown cranes, breakdown crane for use by Israel Railways.
The UNEF was formed by forces from countries that were not part of the major alliances (
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
and the
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Pact (WP) or Treaty of Warsaw, formally the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, was a collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Poland, between the Soviet Union and seven other Eastern Bloc socialist republic ...
—though Canadian Armed Forces troops participated in later years, since Canada had spearheaded the idea of a neutral force). By 24 April 1957 the canal was fully reopened to shipping.
Aftermath
Egyptian sovereignty and ownership of the canal had been confirmed by the United States and the United Nations. In retirement, Anthony Eden, the British Prime Minister at the time, maintained that the military response had prevented a much larger war in the Middle East. In the context of the Egyptian–Czechoslovak arms deal, massive armament of Egypt via Czechoslovakia, Israel had been expecting an Egyptian invasion in either March or April 1957, as well as a Soviet invasion of Syria. The crisis may also have hastened decolonisation, as many of the remaining British and French colonies gained independence over the next few years. Some argued that the imposed ending to the Crisis led to over-hasty Decolonisation of Africa, decolonisation in Africa, increasing the chance of civil wars and military dictatorships in newly independent countries."Suez: The 'betrayal' of Eden" BBC News (30 October 2006). Retrieved on 8 September 2011.
The fight over the canal also laid the groundwork for the Six-Day War in 1967 due to the lack of a peace settlement following the 1956 war and rising of tensions between Egypt and Israel.Suez Canal Crisis Novaonline.nvcc.edu. Retrieved on 8 September 2011. Additionally, the Soviet Union was able to avoid most repercussions from its concurrent violent suppression of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956, rebellion in Hungary, and were able to present an image at the United Nations as a defender of small powers against
imperialism
Imperialism is the state policy, practice, or advocacy of extending power and dominion, especially by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining political and economic control of other areas, often through employing hard power (economic and ...
.
As a direct result of the Crisis and in order to prevent further Soviet expansion in the region, Eisenhower asked Congress on 5 January 1957 for authorisation to use military force if requested by any Middle Eastern nation to check aggression and, secondly, to set aside $200 million to help Middle Eastern countries that desired aid from the United States. Congress granted both requests and this policy became known as the Eisenhower Doctrine.
The Soviet Union made major gains with regards to influence in the Middle East. As American historian John Lewis Gaddis wrote:
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...
's much publicised threat expressed through letters written by Nikolai Bulganin to begin rocket attacks on 5 November on Britain, France, and Israel if they did not withdraw from Egypt was widely believed at the time to have forced a ceasefire. Accordingly, it enhanced the prestige of the Soviet Union in Egypt, the Arab world, and the Third World, who believed the USSR was prepared to launch a Nuclear warfare, nuclear attack on Britain, France, and Israel for the sake of Egypt. Though Nasser in private admitted that it was American economic pressure that had saved him, it was Khrushchev, not Eisenhower, whom Nasser publicly thanked as Egypt's saviour and special friend. Khrushchev later boasted in his memoirs:
Khrushchev took the view that the Suez crisis had been a great triumph for Soviet nuclear brinkmanship, arguing publicly and privately that his threat to use nuclear weapons was what had saved Egypt. Khrushchev claimed in his memoirs:
The conclusion that Khrushchev drew from the Suez crisis, which he saw as his own personal triumph, was that the use of nuclear blackmail was a very effective tool for achieving Soviet foreign policy goals. Therefore, a long period of crises began, starting with the Berlin Crisis of 1961, Berlin crisis (beginning later in November 1958) and culminating in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. U.S. Secretary of State
John Foster Dulles
John Foster Dulles (, ; February 25, 1888 – May 24, 1959) was an American diplomat, lawyer, and Republican Party politician. He served as United States Secretary of State under President Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 to 1959 and was briefly ...
perceived a power vacuum in the Middle East, and he thought the United States should fill it. His policies, which ultimately led to the Eisenhower Doctrine, were based on the assumption that Nasser and other Arab leaders shared America's fear of the Soviet Union, which was emphatically not the case. In fact, Nasser never wanted Egypt to be aligned with one single superpower, and instead preferred the Americans and Soviets vying for his friendship.
Nasser saw the Eisenhower Doctrine as a heavy-handed American attempt to dominate the Middle East (a region that Nasser believed he ought to dominate), and led him to ally Egypt with the Soviet Union as an effective counter-weight. It was only with the quiet abandonment of the Eisenhower Doctrine in a National Security Council review in mid-1958 that Nasser started pulling away from the Soviet Union to resume his preferred role as an opportunist who tried to use both superpowers to his advantage, playing on their animosity.
The American historian Arthur L. Herman says that the episode ruined the usefulness of the United Nations to support American ideals:
Military thought
The great military lesson that was reinforced by the Suez War was the extent that the desert favoured highly fluid, mobile operations and the power of aerial interdiction. French aircraft destroyed Egyptian forces threatening paratroopers at Raswa and Israeli air power saved the IDF several days' worth of time. To operate in the open desert without air supremacy proved to be suicidal for the Egyptian forces in the Sinai. The Royal Marine helicopter assault at Port Said "showed promise as a technique for transporting troops into small landing zones". Strategic bombing proved ineffective.
Revise Phase II failed to achieve its aim of breaking Egyptian morale while at the same time, those civilian deaths that did occur helped to turn world opinion against the invasion and especially hurt support for the war in Britain. Egyptian urban warfare tactics at Port Said proved to be effective at slowing down the Allied advance. Finally, the war showed the importance of diplomacy. Anglo-French operations against Egypt were militarily successful, but proved to be counterproductive as opinion in both in the home front in Britain and France and the world abroad, especially in the United States, was against the operation.
Europe
In West Germany, the Chancellor Konrad Adenauer was shocked by the Soviet threat of nuclear strikes against Britain and France, and even more by the quiescent American response to the Soviet threat of nuclear annihilation against two of NATO's key members. The Bulganin letters showcased Europe's dependence upon the United States for security against Soviet nuclear threats while at the same time seeming to show that the American nuclear umbrella was not as reliable as had been advertised. As a result, the French became determined to acquire their own nuclear weapons rather than rely upon the Americans, while Germany became even more interested in the idea of a European "Third Force" in the Cold War. This helped to lead to the formation of the European Economic Community under the 1957 Treaty of Rome, which was intended to be the foundation of the European "Third Force". The European Economic Community was the precursor to the European Union.
Egypt
With the prompt withdrawal of UK and French troops, later followed by Israeli troop withdraw, Egypt kept control of the Suez Canal. After the fighting ended, the Egyptian Chief-of-Staff Abdel Hakim Amer accused Nasser of provoking an unnecessary war and then blaming the military for the result. The British historian D. R. Thorpe wrote that the outcome gave Nasser "an inflated view of his own power", thinking he had overcome the combined forces of the United Kingdom, France and Israel, failing to attribute their withdrawal to pressure from the superpowers.
Despite the Egyptian defeat, Nasser emerged a hero in the Arab world. American historian Derek Varble commented, "Although Egyptian forces fought with mediocre skill during the conflict, many Arabs saw Nasser as the conqueror of European colonialism and Zionism, simply because Britain, France and Israel left the Sinai and the northern Canal Zone.” The Greek-American historian P. J. Vatikiotis described Nasser's speeches in 1956 and after as providing "superficial explanations of Egypt's military collapse in Sinai, based on some extraordinary strategy" and that "simplistic children's tales about the Egyptian air force's prowess in 1956 were linked in the myth of orderly withdrawal from Sinai. All this was necessary to construct yet another myth, that of Port Said. Inflating and magnifying odd and sporadic resistance into a Battle of Stalingrad, Stalingrad-like tenacious defense, Port Said became the spirit of Egyptian independence and dignity."
During the Nasser era, the fighting at Port Said become a symbol of Egyptian victory, linked to a global anti-colonial struggle. Of Nasser's post-Suez hubris, Thorpe wrote, "The Six-Day War against Israel in 1967 was when reality kicked in—a war that would never have taken place if the Suez crisis had had a different resolution.” Of Tawfiq al-Hakim's writings about the 1956 and 1967 wars, Vatikiotis summarizes: "Were bluffing and histrionics in the nature of Nasser? It was bluffing that led to the crushing of Egypt in 1967, because of the mass self-deception exercised by leaders and followers alike ever since the non-existent 'Stalingrad which was Port Said' in 1956."
Abolishing civil liberties
In October 1956, when the Suez Crisis erupted, Nasser brought in a set of sweeping regulations abolishing civil liberties and allowing the state to stage mass arrests without charge and strip away Egyptian nationality law, Egyptian citizenship from any group it desired; these measures were mostly directed against the History of the Jews in Egypt, Jews of Egypt. As part of its new policy, 1,000 Jews were arrested and 500 Jewish businesses were seized by the government. A statement branding the Jews as "Zionists and enemies of the state" was read out in the mosques of Cairo and Alexandria. Jewish bank accounts were confiscated and many Jews lost their jobs. Lawyers, engineers, doctors and teachers were not allowed to work in their professions. Thousands of Jews were ordered to leave the country. They were allowed to take only one suitcase and a small sum of cash, and forced to sign declarations "donating" their property to the Egyptian government.Jewish Refugees from Arab Countries Jewishvirtuallibrary.org. Retrieved on 8 September 2011. Some 25,000 Jews, almost half of the Jewish community left, mainly for Israel, Europe, the United States and South America. By 1957 the Jewish population of Egypt had fallen to 15,000.
Britain
The political and psychological impact of the crisis had a fundamental impact on Politics of the United Kingdom, British politics.
Anthony Eden
Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, (12 June 1897 – 14 January 1977) was a British Conservative Party politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1955 until his resignation in 1957.
Achieving rapid promo ...
was accused of misleading parliament and resigned from office on 9 January 1957. Eden had been prime minister for less than two years when he resigned, and his unsuccessful handling of the Suez Crisis eclipsed the successes he had achieved in the previous 30 years as foreign secretary in three Conservative governments.
Eden's successor,
Harold Macmillan
Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986) was a British Conservative statesman and politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963. Caricatured as "Supermac", he ...
, accelerated the process of decolonisation and sought to restore Britain's special relationship with the United States. He enjoyed a close friendship with Eisenhower, dating from the North African Campaign#Operation Torch, North African campaign in World War II, where General Eisenhower commanded allied invasion forces and Macmillan provided political liaison with Winston Churchill. Benefiting from his personal popularity and a healthy economy, Macmillan's government increased its Parliamentary majority in the 1959 United Kingdom general election, 1959 general election. The Suez crisis, though a blow to British power in the Near East, did not mark its end. Britain intervened successfully in Jordan to put down riots that threatened the rule of King Hussein in 1958 and in 1961 deployed troops to Kuwait to successfully deter an Iraqi invasion; the latter deployment had been a response to the threats of the Iraqi dictator General Abd al-Karim Qasim that he would invade and annex Kuwait. However, at the same time, though British influence continued in the Middle East, Suez was a blow to British prestige in the Near East from which the country never recovered. Britain evacuated all positions East of Suez by 1971, though this was due mainly to economic factors.
Increasingly, British foreign policy thinking turned away from acting as a great imperial power. During the 1960s there was much speculation that Prime Minister Harold Wilson's continued refusals to send British troops to the Vietnam War, even as a token force, despite President Lyndon B. Johnson's persistent requests, were partially due to the Americans failing to support Britain during the Suez Crisis. Edward Heath was dismayed by the U.S. opposition to Britain during the Suez Crisis; as Prime Minister in October 1973 he refused the U.S. permission to use any of the UK's air bases to resupply during the Yom Kippur War, or to allow the Americans to gather intelligence from Akrotiri and Dhekelia, British bases in Cyprus.
However, the British relationship with the United States did not suffer lasting consequences from the crisis. "The Anglo-American 'Special Relationship, special relationship' was revitalised immediately after the Suez Crisis", writes Risse Kappen. The United States wanted to restore the prestige of its closest ally and thus "The two governments...engaged in almost ritualistic reassurances that their 'special relationship' would be restored quickly". One example came with Britain's first Thermonuclear weapon, hydrogen bomb test Operation Grapple which led to the 1958 U.S.–UK Mutual Defence Agreement. Six years after the crisis, the Americans amazed the British by selling them state-of-the-art missile technology at a moderate cost, which became the UK Polaris programme.
The war led to the eviction of GCHQ from several of its best foreign signals intelligence collection sites, including Far East Combined Bureau, the new Perkar, Ceylon site, recently developed at a cost of £2 million (equivalent to £ million in ), and RAF Habbaniya, Iraq.
France
France–United States relations, Franco-American ties never recovered from the Suez crisis. There were various reasons for this. Previously there had already been strains in the Franco-American relationship triggered by what Paris considered U.S. betrayal of the French war effort in Indochina at Battle of Dien Bien Phu, Dien Bien Phu in 1954. The incident demonstrated the weakness of the
NATO
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
alliance in its lack of planning and co-operation beyond the European stage. Mollet believed Eden should have delayed calling the Cabinet together until 7 November, taking the whole canal in the meantime, and then veto with the French any UN resolution on sanctions. From the point of view of General Charles de Gaulle, the Suez events demonstrated to France that it could not rely on its allies; the British had initiated a ceasefire in the midst of the battle without consulting the French, while the Americans had opposed Paris politically. The damage to the ties between Paris and Washington, D.C., "culminated in President de Gaulle's 1966 decision to withdraw from the military integration of NATO". The Suez war had an immense impact on French domestic politics. Much of the French Army officer corps felt that they been "betrayed" by what they considered to be the spineless politicians in Paris when they were on the verge of victory just as they believed they had been "betrayed" in Vietnam in 1954, and accordingly become more determined to win the war in Algeria, even if it meant overthrowing the French Fourth Republic, Fourth Republic to do so.Sowerwine, Charles ''France Since 1870'', London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009 p. 278. The Suez crisis thus help to set the stage for the military disillusionment with the Fourth Republic, which was to lead to the May 1958 crisis in France, collapse of the republic in 1958. According to the protocol of Sèvres agreements, France secretly transmitted parts of its France and weapons of mass destruction, own atomic technology to Israel, including a detonator.
Israel
The Israel Defense Forces gained confidence from the campaign. The war demonstrated that Israel was capable of executing large scale military manoeuvres in addition to small night-time raids and counter-insurgency operations.
David Ben-Gurion
David Ben-Gurion ( ; he, דָּוִד בֶּן-גּוּרִיּוֹן ; born David Grün; 16 October 1886 – 1 December 1973) was the primary national founder of the State of Israel and the first prime minister of Israel. Adopting the name ...
, reading on 16 November that 90,000 British and French troops had been involved in the Suez affair, wrote in his diary, 'If they had only appointed a commander of ours over this force, Nasser would have been destroyed in two days.'Keith Kyle reviews ''Divided we stand'' by W. Scott Lucas and ''Blind Loyalty'' by W. J. Hudson· LRB 25 February 1993 Lrb.co.uk. Retrieved on 8 September 2011.
The war also had tangible benefits for Israel. The
Straits of Tiran
The straits of Tiran ( ar, مضيق تيران ') are the narrow sea passages between the Sinai and Arabian peninsulas that connect the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea. The distance between the two peninsulas is about . The Multinational Force an ...
, closed by Egypt since 1950 was re-opened. Israeli shipping could henceforth move freely through the Straits of Tiran to and from Africa and Asia. The Israelis also secured the presence of UN Peacekeepers in Sinai. Operation Kadesh bought Israel an eleven-year lull on its southern border with Egypt.
Israel escaped the political humiliation that befell Britain and France following their swift, forced withdrawal. In addition, its stubborn refusal to withdraw without guarantees, even in defiance of the United States and United Nations, ended all Western efforts, mainly American and British ones, to impose a political settlement in the Middle East without taking Israel's security needs into consideration.
In October 1965 Eisenhower told Jewish fundraiser and Republican party supporter Max M. Fisher that he greatly regretted forcing Israel to withdraw from the Sinai peninsula; Vice-President Nixon recalled that Eisenhower expressed the same view to him on several occasions.
Other parties
Lester B. Pearson, who would later become the Prime Minister of Canada, was awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes established by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor and armaments (military weapons and equipment) manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with the prizes in Nobel Prize in Chemistry, Chemi ...
in 1957 for his efforts in creating a mandate for a United Nations Peacekeeping Force, and he is considered the father of the modern concept of peacekeeping. The Suez Crisis contributed to the adoption of a new national flag of Canada in 1965, as the Egyptian government had objected to Canadian peacekeeping troops on the grounds that their flag at that time included a British ensign. As Prime Minister, Pearson would advocate the simple Flag of Canada, Maple Leaf Flag that was eventually adopted.
After Suez, Cyprus, Aden, and
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to Iraq–Turkey border, the north, Iran to Iran–Iraq ...
became the main bases for the British in the region while the French concentrated their forces at Bizerte and Beirut. UNEF was placed in the Sinai (on Egyptian territory only) with the express purpose of maintaining the cease-fire. While it was effective in preventing the small-scale warfare that prevailed before 1956 and after 1967, budgetary cutbacks and changing needs had seen the force shrink to 3,378 by 1967.
The Soviet Union, after long peering through the keyhole of a closed door on what it considered a Western sphere of influence, now found itself invited over the threshold as a friend of the Arabs. Shortly after it reopened, the canal was traversed by the first Soviet Navy warships since World War I. The Soviets' burgeoning influence in the Middle East, although it was not to last, included acquiring Mediterranean bases, introducing multipurpose projects, supporting the budding Palestinian nationalism, Palestinian liberation movement and penetrating the Arab countries.MILITARIA • Toon onderwerp – Suez Crisis: Operation Musketeer . Militaria.forum-xl.com. Retrieved on 8 September 2011. Nasser claimed to be the defender of the Palestinian cause, but his anti-Israel warlike rhetoric damaged the Palestinians since it convinced many Israelis to oppose Israeli–Palestinian peace process, reconciliation with the Palestinians.
See also
* Closure of the Suez Canal (1967-1975)
* Protocol of Sèvres
* Operation Tarnegol
* Egyptian National Military Museum 1956 war hall
* 1956 riots in Iraq
General
* United Kingdom–United States relations
* France–United Kingdom relations
* France–United States relations
* Israel–United States relations
* Israeli casualties of war
* List of modern conflicts in the Middle East
Notes
References
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* Bromberger, Merry and Serge ''Secrets of Suez'' Sidgwick & Jackson London 1957 (translated from French ''Les Secrets de l'Expedition d'Egypte'' by James Cameron)
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* Doran, Michael. ''Ike's Gamble'', Free Press. Oct.2016.
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* Kingseed, Cole Christian. ''Eisenhower and the Suez Crisis of 1956'' (1995)
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* Lahav, Pnina. "The Suez Crisis of 1956 and Its Aftermath: A Comparative Study of Constituons, Use of Force, Diplomacy and International Relations." ''Boston University Law Review'' 95 (2015): 1297–135 online *
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* pp. 118–130 on historiography
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* Pearson, Jonathan. (2002) ''Sir Anthony Eden and the Suez Crisis: Reluctant Gamble'' (Springer, 2002) online *
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* Shlaim, Avi. “The Protocol of Sevres, 1956: Anatomy of a War Plot.” ''International Affairs'' 73#3 1997, pp. 509–530 online
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* Smith, Simon C. ed. ''Reassessing Suez 1956: New perspectives on the crisis and its aftermath'' (Routledge, 2016).
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* Troen, S. Ilan. "The Protocol of Sèvres: British/French/Israeli Collusion Against Egypt, 1956." ''Israel Studies'' 1.2 (1996): 122-13 online
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* . Chapter 24 is devoted entirely to the Suez Crisis.
Further reading
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* (translated from French by Richard Barry)
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''Suez and the high tide of Arab nationalism'' ''International Socialism'' 112 (2006)
(French)
* [http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/projects/suez/suez.html Bodleian Library Suez Crisis Fiftieth anniversary exhibition]
Suez index at Britains-smallwars.com – accounts by British servicemen who were present
(French translation)
Speech by Gamal Abdel Nasser (Original text in Arabic)
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Media links
Newsreel film, British Prime Minister's broadcast at Britishpathe.com
* Blue Vanguard ' (1957), National Film Board of Canada film for the United Nations about its role in restoring peace after the Suez Crisis (60 min, Ian MacNeill, dir.)
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