The Suez Crisis, sometimes called in the Arab world the Tripartite Aggression, erupted between the end of October and the first week of November 1956. Britain, France and Israel invaded Egypt with the aim of regaining Western control of the Suez Canal (it had been nationalised by Egypt), and removing Egyptian President Gamal Nasser. Pressure from the USA, Soviet Union and the UN led to a withdrawal by the three invaders. A humiliation for Britain and France, but a political boost for Nasser and the Soviet Union. The verdict of history is that Suez signified the end of Britain’s role as one of the world’s major powers. Was this true?
Crisis background
Some history to understand and contextualise the
event is worth sketching. France had built the Suez Canal in 1869. When in 1875
the Khedive went bankrupt Britain bought Egypt’s 44% stake. At that stage 80%
of traffic through Suez was British. It’s not true as often claimed that
Disraeli decided this off his own bat. Nor was it the start of an extended
British commitment in Egypt. Such a commitment was the unintended consequence
of a pragmatic policy. The aim was the opposite, to control but minimise British
entanglements in the east.
Egypt, never officially part of the Empire, was a
British ‘protectorate’ but without legal support. Egypt had been pivotal to
Britain’s global strategic position, with the Suez Canal critical for India and
Far East trade links and for its proximity to Britain’s Gulf oil supplies. When
the protectorate was ended in 1922 little changed, as Britain kept a strong
base and armed forces at Suez. Britain’s Cairo Embassy was in practice the
Middle East’s dominant power centre.
Protecting the Canal
The November 1942 battle of El Alamein was fought not
so much to defend Egypt, but to prevent Axis control of the Suez Canal. Though
Britain had difficulty convincing the Americans of its importance, this was
rightly seen as vital for supplies to Britain in World War II. It also made
better and more time effective use of available shipping. A huge array of
manpower, firepower and airpower was deployed against the German Afrika Corps
to this end.
In 1952 a coup overthrew Egypt’s monarchy and established a republic. Nasser emerged as the strong man. He was a nationalist who aspired to leadership of the wider Arab world, and there was a steady rise in hostility to British troops in Egypt. Nasser’s anti-colonialism and Arab nationalism, popular in the region, were seen as a clear threat to Britain’s influence in Jordan and Iraq, and to France, with its control of Algeria.
In 1953-54 Britain worked hard to mend relations with
Egypt and agreed on a phased reduction of troops from its retained Suez base.
The Canal was re-scheduled to come under Egyptian ownership in 1968. But relations
with Egypt remained tense, as Nasser looked to play the major powers off
against each other. After being armed mainly by the US, Egypt acquired
substantial armaments from Czechoslovakia, signed off by the Soviet Union. Nasser
also hawked around a project for a high dam in Aswan, to see who would seek to gain
influence by paying for it.
Collusion
In July 1956 Egypt nationalised the Suez Canal. Convinced
Nasser must be removed, Britain, France and Israel then discussed a secret
plan in a meeting at Sevres. Israel would invade Egypt, moving towards the Suez Canal, on the pretext
of rooting out territorial infiltrators. Britain and France would then condemn
this, telling ‘both sides’ they had to stop fighting. Each would be told to
retreat 16km from the canal, and then British and French troops would be landed
to ‘protect the canal zone’.
On 1st November British and French aircraft
began strikes against Egypt. By the evening Egypt’s 200 plane air force had
been destroyed. Airborne landings by British and French paratroops followed,
with bombing and Royal Marine attacks on Port Said causing huge damage to the
city. Most of the Canal Zone was soon occupied. But Egypt sank all the vessels
in the canal, blocking it to shipping. Some 2000-3000 Egyptians were killed in
the operation.
US intervention
On 6th November PM Eden announced a cease-fire
without discussing it with either France or Israel. This followed a demand from
the UN and heavy political and diplomatic pressure, particularly from the US.
President Eisenhower had strongly warned Britain not to invade (the CIA knew in
detail of the plans). He credibly threatened to sell the US government’s pound
sterling bonds, which would have caused serious financial damage to Britain.
An embarrassing withdrawal then began. The Suez Canal
was not re-opened until March. And Israel didn’t complete its pull-out until
April 1957. Collusion between the three invaders was thinly disguised and widely
recognised at the time. But Britain doubled down, continuing absurdly to deny
it for years. It later emerged there had been opposition from several military
and political figures, including First Sea Lord Louis Mountbatten, but at the
time there were few resignations apart from Eden, who quit on grounds
of ill health.
Policy failure
Suez wasn’t just about global trade, principally oil,
but also political influence. A major symbol of British global power it became an obsession for Prime Minister Eden. The USSR had to be kept
out of the area. Comparisons were made with Hitler and Mussolini, and how it
would have been better to have stopped them at source. This was clearly true. But
Egypt hadn’t invaded other nations or laid claim to other territories, so the
circumstances were in no way analogous. And the Suez Canal did run right
through Egypt.
So what are the other myths? Against common wisdom Suez
did not mark the watershed in the decline of the British Empire - that had been
in WWI nearly 40 years earlier with the Grand Declaration on India and the
Treaty of Versailles. The retreat from the Middle East had also begun well
before Suez, with Palestine in 1948 and Abadan in 1951. It’s just that slow
learners hadn’t appreciated it.
In the way of these things few could later be found to
defend the Suez action, but the British public at the time, with its usual
ignorance of foreign policy issues, mainly supported it. There was some anger when the
Canal was nationalised, but views were generally resigned to the fait accompli by October, particularly
as dire warnings of chaos if Egypt managed the Canal proved groundless. Yet in
November, once British troops were actually at war, public opinion quickly came
to support the action - a ‘rally round the flag’ moment.
Diplomatic fallout
The Soviets threatened to launch nuclear attacks on
European cities. This might not have been taken seriously - aerial
photography suggested Soviet leader Khrushchev was exaggerating his capability -
but it fuelled the fire. The Soviet invasion to put down the Hungarian
rebellion took place simultaneously. It was a violent repression, but not
firmly opposed by the West, mainly because world attention was distracted by
Suez.
Says Alex von Tunzelmann, “Suez was the tipping point
between the period of imperial European rule, where France and Britain had a
major say in the world…and the US and Soviet Union having a lot more sway. It
represented a move towards superpowers, rather than empires, running the show”.
But British influence was declining without Suez. Foreign Secretary at the time
Selwyn Lloyd later said “Suez became the excuse, the scapegoat for what was
happening to Britain in the world, for all that flowed from the loss of power
and economic weakness”.
Finally even now it’s sometimes said by those of nationalist inclinations that a humiliated Britain was stitched up by the US. That things were going fine if only the Americans hadn’t pulled the rug. This is quite untrue and the final myth of the episode. Eden and his Chancellor of the Exchequer Harold Macmillan had fatally convinced themselves that the Americans would permit the invasion. The US warned Eden in public and private that he should not even contemplate such a course. The State Department believed the reaction in the Arab and Moslem world, and in the Third World beyond, could open the Middle East to the Soviet Union and it would be lost to the West for good.
Longer term legacy
Britain, reduced to an international pariah and
threatened with severe economic sanctions, had no choice but to disengage. That
Eden lied to Britain’s major ally and guarantor of its freedom, as well as to
the public at large, damaged UK-US relations for some time. Eden’s successor as
Prime Minister, Macmillan, worked to improve things. But as former Secretary of
State Dean Acheson famously remarked in 1962, “Britain has lost an empire and
not yet found a role”.
No comments:
Post a Comment