[See title link for original with Illustrations]
Suez Crisis
The Suez Crisis, also referred to as the Tripartite Aggression,[1] [2] (Arabic: لاثي - أزمة السويس العدوان الث ʾAzmat al-Sūwais / al-ʿIdwān al-Thalāthī; French: Crise du canal de Suez; Hebrew: מבצע קדש Mivtza' Kadesh "Operation Kadesh," or מלחמת סיני Milẖemet Sinai, "Sinai War") was an offensive war fought by France, the United Kingdom, and Israel against Egypt beginning on October 29, 1956.[3] [4] Less than a day after Israel invaded Egypt, Britain and France issued a joint ultimatum to Egypt and Israel, and then began to bomb Cairo. In a short time, and despite Israeli and British denials, considerable evidence showed that the two attacks were planned in collusion, with France as the instigator, Britain as a belated partner, and Israel as the willing trigger.[5] Anglo-French forces withdrew before the end of the year, but Israeli forces remained until March 1957, prolonging the crisis. In April, the canal was fully reopened to shipping, but other repercussions continued.
The attack followed the President of Egypt Gamal Abdel
Nasser’s decision of 26 July 1956 to nationalize the Suez
Canal, after the withdrawal of an offer by Britain
and the United States to
fund the building of the Aswan Dam, which was in response to Egypt’s new ties
with the Soviet Union and recognizing the People’s Republic of China
during the height of tensions between China and Taiwan.[6] The aims of
the attack were primarily to regain Western control of the canal and
precipitate the fall of Nasser from power,
whose policies were viewed as potentially threatening the strategic interests
of the three nations.
The three allies, especially Israel,
were mainly successful in attaining their immediate military objectives, but
pressure from the United States
and the USSR
at the United Nations and elsewhere forced them to withdraw. As a result of the
outside pressure Britain and
France failed in their
political and strategic aims of controlling the canal and removing Nasser from power. Israel fulfilled some of its objectives,
such as attaining freedom of navigation through the Straits of Tiran. As a
result of the conflict, the UNEF would police the Egyptian–Israeli border to
prevent both sides from recommencing hostilities.
Background
The Suez Canal was opened in 1869, after ten years of work
financed by the French and Egyptian governments.[7] 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;
it provided the shortest ocean link between the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. 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, the
Egyptian ruler was forced to sell his shares in the canal operating company to
the British government of Benjamin Disraeli. They were willing buyers and
obtained a 44% share in the canal’s operations for less than £4 million; this
maintained the majority shareholdings of the mostly French private investors.
With the 1882 invasion and occupation of Egypt,
the United Kingdom
took de facto control of the country as well as the canal proper, and its
finances and operations. The 1888 Convention of Constantinople declared the
canal a neutral zone under British protection.[8] In ratifying it, the Ottoman Empire agreed to permit international shipping to
pass freely through the canal, in time of war and peace.[9] The Convention came
into force in 1904, the same year as the Entente cordiale, between Britain and France.
Despite this convention, the strategic importance of the
Suez Canal and its control were proven during the Russo-Japanese War of
1904—1905, after Japan and Britain
entered into a separate bilateral agreement. Following the Japanese surprise
attack on the Russian Pacific Fleet based at Port Arthur
the Russians sent reinforcements from their fleet in the Baltic
Sea. The British denied the Russian fleet use of the canal and
forced it to steam around the entire continent of Africa, giving the Japanese
forces time to solidify their position in the Far East.
Suez Crisis
The importance of the canal as a strategic intersection
was again apparent during the First World War, when Britain and France
closed the canal to non-Allied shipping. The canal continued to be
strategically important after the Second World War as a conduit for the
shipment of oil. Petroleum business historian Daniel Yergin wrote of the
period: “[I]n 1948, the canal abruptly lost its traditional rationale....
[British] control 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.[10] At the time, Western Europe imported two million
barrels (bbls) per day from the Mideast, 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 bbls. daily from the Mideast.[11]
In August 1956 the Royal Institute of International
Affairs 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 in the Far East and the Baghdad
Pact in Iraq, Iran, or Pakistan. The report also points
out how the canal was used in past wars and could be used in future wars to
transport troops from the Dominions of Australia and New
Zealand in the event of war in Europe.
The report also cites the amount of material and oil which passes through the
canal to the United Kingdom,
and the economic consequences of the canal being put out of commission,
concluding: “The possibility of the Canal being closed to troopships
makes the question of the control and regime of the Canal as important to Britain
today as it ever was.”[12]
Events leading to the Suez
Crisis
Post-war years
In the aftermath of the Second World War, Britain
was reassessing its role in the region in light of the severe economic
constraints and its colonial history. The economic potential of the Middle
East, with its vast oil reserves, as well as the Suez Canal’s geo-strategic
importance against the background of the Cold War, prompted Britain to consolidate and
strengthen its position there. The kingdoms of Egypt
and Iraq
were seen as vital to maintaining strong British influence in the region.
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, increasingly it became a source of
growing tension in Anglo-Egyptian relations.[13] 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, and an
increasingly hostile attitude towards Britain and her presence in the
country. Added to this anti-British fervour was the role Britain had played in the creation of
Israel.[13] As a result, the actions of the Egyptian government began to mirror
those of its populace and an anti-British policy began to permeate Egypt’s relations with Britain.
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.[14] Britain
refused to withdraw from Suez, relying upon its
treaty rights, as well as the sheer presence of the Suez garrison. The price of such a course of
action was a steady escalation in increasingly violent hostility towards Britain and British troops in Egypt, which the Egyptian
authorities did little to curb.
On 25 January 1952, British attempts to disarm a
troublesome auxiliary police force barracks in Ismailia
resulted in the deaths of 41 Egyptians.[15] This in turn led to anti-Western
riots in Cairo
resulting in heavy damage to property and the deaths of several foreigners,
including 11 British citizens.[15] This proved to be a catalyst for the removal
of
Suez Crisis
the Egyptian monarchy. On 23 July 1952 a military coup by
the ‘Free Officers Movement’—led by Muhammad Neguib and future Egyptian President
Gamal Abdul Nasser—overthrew King Farouk and established an Egyptian republic.
Since the establishment of Israel
in 1948, cargo shipments to and from Israel
had been subject to Egyptian authorization, search and seizure while attempting
to pass through the Suez Canal.[16] On 1 September 1951, the United Nations
Security Council Resolution 95 called upon Egypt: “... to terminate the
restrictions on the passage of international commercial ships and goods through
the Suez Canal, wherever bound, and to cease
all interference with such shipping.” This interference and confiscation,
contrary to the laws of the canal (Article 1 of the 1888 Suez Canal Convention), increased following
the coup.
Post-revolution period
Britain’s
desire to mend Anglo-Egyptian relations in the wake of the coup saw her 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 over the Nile
Valley region. In October
1954, Britain and Egypt concluded an agreement on the phased
evacuation of British 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.[17] The Suez Canal Company was not due to revert to the
Egyptian government until 16 November 1968 under the terms of the treaty.[18]
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.[19] This would manifest
itself in the challenging of British Middle Eastern interests throughout 1955.
Britain’s
close relationship with the two Hashemite kingdoms of Iraq and Jordan
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 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.[20] Nasser’s
response was a series of challenges to British influence in the region that
would culminate in the Suez Crisis.
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 “... 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.”[20] He also began to align Egypt with the kingdom
of Saudi Arabia—whose rulers were
hereditary enemies of the Hashemites—in an effort to frustrate British efforts
to draw Syria, Jordan and Lebanon into the orbit of the
Baghdad Pact. Nasser frustrated British attempts to draw Jordan into the pact by sponsoring
demonstrations in Amman, leading King Hussein to
dismiss the British commander of the Arab Legion Glubb Pasha in March 1956 and
throwing Britain’s
Middle Eastern security policy into chaos.[21]
Nasser struck a further blow against Britain by negotiating an arms deal with
communist Czechoslovakia in
September 1955[22] thereby ending Egypt’s reliance on Western arms.
Later, other members of the Warsaw Pact also sold arms to Egypt and Syria. In practice, all sales from
the Eastern Bloc were authorised by the Soviet Union, as an attempt to increase
Soviet influence over the Middle East. This
caused tensions in the United
States because Warsaw
Pact nations now had a strong presence in the region.
Suez Crisis
Increasingly Nasser came
to be viewed in British circles — and in particular by Prime Minister Anthony
Eden — as a dictator, akin to Benito Mussolini. Ironically, in the build up to
the crisis, it was the Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell and the left-leaning
tabloid newspaper The Mirror that first made the comparison between Nasser and
Mussolini. Anglo-Egyptian relations would continue on their downward spiral.
Nationalisation of the Suez Canal and the
road to crisis
Britain
was eager to tame Nasser and looked towards the United States for support. However,
President Eisenhower remained unresponsive; America’s
closest ally in the region, 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’, thought it wiser to propitiate him.”[23]
The events that brought the crisis to a head occurred in
the spring and summer of 1956. On 16 May, Nasser officially recognised the
People’s Republic of China,
a move that angered the U.S.
and its secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, a keen sponsor of Taiwan.[21]
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 project on 19 July.[21] Nasser’s response was the
nationalization of the Suez Canal. On 26 July,
in a speech in Alexandria, Nasser
gave a riposte to Dulles. During his speech he deliberately pronounced the name
of Ferdinand de Lesseps, the builder of the canal, a code-word for Egyptian
forces to seize control of the canal and implement its nationalization.[24] 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.[25]
The nationalization of the Suez Canal
hit British economic and military interests in the region. Eden was under immense domestic pressure from
Conservative MPs who drew direct comparisons between the events of 1956 and
those of the Munich Agreement in 1938. Since the
US 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. Eden was hosting a dinner for King Feisal II of Iraq
and his Prime Minister, Nuri es-Said, 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, Eden’s
private secretary, later recorded. “People forget that the policy at the time
was extremely popular.” Opposition leader Hugh Gaitskell was also at the
dinner. He immediately agreed that miltary action might be inevitable, but
warned Eden
would have to keep the Americans closely informed. Jo Grimond, who became
Liberal Party leader that November, thought if Nasser went unchallenged the
whole Middle East would go his way.[26]
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.
Nasser announces the
nationalization of the canal (Universal Newsreel, 30 July 1956)
Suez
Crisis
Anglo-Franco-American diplomacy
On 1 August 1956, a tripartite meeting was opened at 10 Downing Street
between British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd, U.S. Ambassador Robert D. Murphy and French
Foreign Affairs Minister Christian Pineau.[27] An alliance was soon formed
between Eden and Guy Mollet, French Prime Minister, with headquarters based in London. General Hugh
Stockwell and Admiral Barjot were appointed as Chief of Staff. 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.
Protocol of Sèvres
Three months after Egypt’s
nationalization 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 British and French would then argue that Egypt’s control
of such an important route was too tenuous, and that it needed be placed under
Anglo-French management. David Ben-Gurion did not trust the British in view of
their treaty with Jordan 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.[28]
Motivation of the involved states
The interests of the parties were various. Britain
was anxious lest it lose efficient access to the remains of its empire. Both
the French and the British felt that Nasser
should be removed from power. The French “held the Egyptian president
responsible for assisting the anticolonial rebellion in Algeria.”[29] France was nervous about the growing influence
that Nasser exerted on its North African
colonies and protectorates. Both Britain
and France
were eager that the canal should remain open as an important conduit of oil. Israel wanted to reopen the Straits of Tiran
leading to the Gulf
of Eilat to Israeli
shipping, and saw the opportunity to strengthen its southern border and to
weaken what it saw as a dangerous and hostile state. The Israelis were also
deeply troubled by Egypt’s
procurement of large amounts of Soviet weaponry that included 530 armored
vehicles, of which 230 were tanks; 500 guns; 150 MiG 15 jet fighters; 50
Iluyshin-28 bombers; submarines and other naval craft. The influx of this
advanced weaponry altered an already shaky balance of power.[30] Israel believed Egypt had formed a secret alliance
with Jordan and Syria.[31]
Washington disagreed with
Paris and London
on whether to use force to resolve the crisis. 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.”[32] The British, Washington’s
closest ally, “felt abandoned by the American government.”[33] Eden did not expect the
Eisenhower administration to oppose the military operation in light of the 1953
Iranian coup d’état and the 1954 Guatemalan coup d’état. There was a secret
American commitment called “Plan Omega” to bring the Egyptian leader down – but
by covert means and over a longer period – which had been entered into at the
end of March 1956, before the seizure of the Canal company.[34] Prior to the
operation, London
deliberately neglected to consult the Americans, trusting instead 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. This proved to be
a critical miscalculation. Although Eisenhower later insisted that he first
learned of the outbreak of hostilities by “reading it in the newspapers”, he
knew that aircraft of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) were taking
high-altitude photos of the allied activities. Further information came from
human sources in London, Paris and Tel Aviv. US spy chief Allen Dulles later confirmed that “intelligence
was well alerted as to what Israel
and then
Suez Crisis
Britain
and France were likely to do
... In fact, United States
intelligence had kept the government informed”.[35]
Invasion
Operation Kadesh: The Israeli operation in the Sinai
Peninsula
Operation Kadesh received its name from ancient Kadesh,
located in the northern Sinai and mentioned several times in the Hebrew
Pentateuch. Israeli military planning for this operation in the Sinai hinged on
four main military objectives; Sharm el-Sheikh, al-Arish, Abu Uwayulah, and the
Gaza Strip. The Egyptian blockade of the Tiran Straits was based at Sharm el-Sheikh
and, by capturing the town, Israel
would have access to the Red Sea for the first time since 1953, which would
allow it to restore the trade benefits of secure passage to the Indian Ocean.
The Gaza Strip 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 attack would
present even more of a risk. al-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.
The conflict began on 29 October 1956.[36] Because Israel’s intelligence service expected Jordan to enter the war on Egypt’s
side,[37] Israeli soldiers were stationed along the Israeli-Jordanian frontier.
The Israel Border Police
militarised the Israel-Jordan border, including the Green Line with the West Bank, during the first few hours of the war. This
resulted in the killing of 48 Arab civilians by the Israel Border Police, and
is known as the Kafr Qasim massacre. This event and the resulting trials of
officers had major effects on Israeli law relating to the ethics in war and
more subtle effects on the legal status of Arab citizens of Israel.
Early actions in Southern Sinai
Anglo-French para drops on the Suez
Canal and Israeli conquest of Sinai The Israeli chief-of-staff, Major General
Moshe Dayan, first planned to take the vital Mitla Pass.
Dayan planned for the Battalion 890 of the Paratroop Brigade, under the command
of Lieutenant Colonel Rafael Eitan, a veteran of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and
future head of the IDF, to drop at Parker’s Memorial, near one of the defiles
of the pass, Jebel Heitan. The rest of the brigade, under the command of
Colonel Ariel Sharon would then advance to meet with the battalion, and
consolidate their holdings.
On 29 October, Operation Kadesh - the invasion of the
Sinai, began when Israel
air-dropped a battalion into the Sinai Peninsula, east of the Suez Canal near
the Mitla Pass. In conjunction with the para drop,
four Israeli P-51 Mustangs using their wings and propellers, cut all overhead
telephone lines in the Sinai, severely disrupting Egyptian command and
control.[38]
Israeli para in Sinai near the Mitla Pass
Suez
Crisis
Early actions along the Gulf of Aqaba,
and the central front
Meanwhile, the 9th Infantry Brigade captured
Ras an-Naqb, an important staging ground for that brigade’s later attack
against Sharm el-Sheikh. Instead of attacking the town by a frontal attack,
they enveloped the town, and negotiated their way through some of the natural
chokepoints into the rear of the town, and surprised the Egyptians before they
could ready themselves to defend. The Egyptians surrendered, with no Israeli
casualties sustained.
The 4th Infantry Brigade, under the command of
Colonel Josef Harpaz, captured al-Qusaymah, which would be used as a jumping off
point for Destroyed Egyptian tanks and vehicles litter the Sinai following heavy fighting, 1956 the assault against Abu Uwayulah.
Battle of Jebel Heitan, Paratroop Brigade under attack
The portion of the Paratroopers under Sharon’s command continued to advance to meet
with the 1st Brigade. En route, Sharon assaulted Themed, and was able to
storm the town through the Themed Gap, and was able to capture the settlement.
On the 30th, Sharon
linked up with Eytan near Nakla.
Dayan had no more plans for further advances beyond the
passes, but Sharon
decided to attack the Egyptian positions at Jebel Heitan. Sharon would send his lightly armed
paratroopers against dug-in Egyptians supported by air and heavy artillery, as
well as tanks. Although the Israelis succeeded in forcing the Egyptians to
retreat, the heavy casualties sustained would surround Sharon with controversy. Most of the deaths
sustained by the Israelis in the entire operation, were sustained at Jebel
Heitan.
Air operations, first phase
From the outset, the Israeli air force flew paratroop
drops, supply flights and medevac sorties. Israel’s new French Dassault
Mystere IV jet fighters provided air cover for the transport aircraft. In the
initial phase of the conflict, the Egyptian air force flew attack missions
against advancing Israeli ground troops. The Egyptian tactic was to use their
new Russian MiG-15 jets as fighter escorts, while their older British De
Havilland Vampire and Gloster Meteor jets conducted strikes against Israeli
troops and vehicles. In the air combat the Israelis shot down no fewer than
seven and as many as nine[39] Egyptian jets, with the loss of one Israeli
aircraft,[40] but Egyptian strikes against the ground forces continued through
to 1 November.[41] With the attack by the British and French air forces and
navies, President Nasser ordered his pilots to disengage and fly their planes
to bases in Southern Egypt. The Israeli Air Force
was then free to strike Egyptian troops at will, as the Israelis advanced into
the Western Sinai. On the 3rd
November Israeli jets attacked a British vessel, the Black Swan class sloop HMS
Crane near the Gulf of Aqaba. In defending
herself, Crane shot down one aircraft[42]
Suez Crisis
Naval operations
On 30 October Egypt
dispatched the Ibrahim el Awal, a ex-British Second World War era Hunt class
destroyer, to Haifa
with the aim of shelling that city’s coastal oil installations. On 31 October
the Ibrahim el Awal reached Haifa
and began bombarding the city with its four 102 mm (4 inch) guns. Soon after,
Israeli warships challenged the Ibrahim el Awal and the Egyptian warship
immediately retreated. The Israeli warships gave chase and together with the
Israeli Air Force, succeeded in damaging the vessel’s turbo generator and
rudder. Left without power and unable to steer, the Ibrahim el Awal surrendered
to the Israeli navy.[39] The Egyptian frigate was subsequently
incorporated[43]into the Israeli navy and renamed Haifa.
On the night of 31 October in the northern Red Sea, the British light cruiser HMS Newfoundland
challenged then engaged the Egyptian frigate Domiat, reducing it to a burning
hulk in a brief gun battle. The Egyptian ship was then sunk by the escorting
destroyer HMS Diana, with 69 surviving Egyptian sailors rescued.[44]
The Ibrahim el Awal after its capture by the Israeli navy Anglo-French task
force
To support the invasion, large air forces had been
deployed to Cyprus and Malta by Britain
and France
and many aircraft carriers were deployed. The two airbases on Cyprus were so congested that a
third field which was in dubious condition had to be brought into use for
French aircraft. Even RAF Luqa on Malta was extremely crowded with
RAF Bomber Command aircraft. The British deployed the aircraft carriers HMS
Eagle, Albion and Bulwark and France
had the Jean Bart, Arromanches and La Fayette on station. In addition, HMS
Ocean and Theseus acted as jumping-off points for Britain’s helicopter-borne
assault (the world’s first).
In the morning of 30 October Britain
and France sent ultimatums
to Egypt and Israel.
They initiated Operation Musketeer on 31 October, with a bombing campaign. Nasser responded by sinking all 40 ships present in the
canal closing it to all shipping - shipping would not move again until early
1957. On 3 November F4U-7 Corsairs from the 14.F and 15.F Aéronavale taking off
from the French carriers Arromanches and La Fayette, attacked the aerodrome at Cairo.
On late 5 November, an advance element of the 3rd
Battalion of the British Parachute Regiment dropped on El Gamil Airfield, a
narrow strip of land. Having taken the airfield, the remainder of the battalion
flew in by helicopter. The Battalion then secured the area around the airfield.
They moved up towards Port Said
with air support before digging in at 13:00 to hold until the beach assault. At
first light on 6 November, Commandos of Nos 42 Commando and 40 Commando Royal
Marines stormed the beaches, using landing craft of World War II vintage
(Landing Craft Assault and Landing Vehicle Tracked). The battlegroup standing
offshore opened fire, giving covering fire for the landings and causing
considerable damage to the Egyptian batteries and gun emplacements. The town of
Port Said sustained
great damage and was seen to be alight.
A battle-damaged de Havilland Sea Venom on HMS Eagle
Suez
Crisis
2ème RPC paratroopers patrol in Port Said.
October 1956
Acting in concert with British forces, 500 heavily armed
paratroopers of the French 2nd Colonial Parachute Regiment (2ème
RPC), hastily redeployed from combat in Algeria, jumped over the al-Raswa
bridges from Noratlas Nord 2501 transports of the Escadrille de Transport (ET)
1/61 and ET 3/61, together with some combat engineers of the Guards Independent
Parachute Company. Despite the loss of two soldiers, the western bridge was
swiftly secured by the paras, and F4U Corsairs of the Aéronavale 14.F and 15.F
flew a series of close-air-support missions, destroying several SU-100 tank destroyers.
F-84Fs also hit two large oil storage tanks in Port Said, which went up in flames and
covered most of the city in a thick cloud of smoke for the next several days.
Egyptian resistance varied, with some positions fighting back until destroyed,
while others were abandoned with little resistance.
In the afternoon, 522 additional French paras of the 1er
REP (Régiment Étranger Parachutiste, 1st Foreign Parachute Regiment)
were dropped near Port Fouad. These were also constantly supported by the
Corsairs of the French Aéronavale, which flew very intensive operations: for
example, although the French carrier La Fayette developed catapult problems, no
less than 40 combat sorties were completed. The French were aided by AMX-13
light tanks. In total, 10 French soldiers were killed and 30 injured during the
landing and the subsequent battles.
British commandos of No. 45 Commando assaulted by
helicopter, meeting stiff resistance, with shore batteries striking several
helicopters, while friendly fire from British carrier-borne aircraft caused
casualties to 45 Commando and HQ. Street fighting and house clearing, with
strong opposition from well-entrenched Egyptian sniper positions, caused
further casualties. The 2nd Bn of the Parachute Regiment landed by
ship in the harbour. Centurion tanks of the British 6th Royal Tank
Regiment were landed and by 12:00 they had reached the French forces.
Total British dead were 16, with 96 wounded.[] Total
French dead was ten and the Israelis lost 189. The number of Egyptians killed
was “never reliably established”. It is estimated 650 were killed by the
Anglo-French operation and between 1,000 and 3,000 were killed by Israel.[]
[45]
End of hostilities
International reaction
The operation, aimed at taking control of the Suez Canal, 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; as events
unfolded, the U.S. decided
it could not criticise outside Soviet suppression of the Hungarian revolt and
simultaneously avoid opposing outside aggression by its two principal European
allies and Israel.
Despite having no commercial or military interest in the area, many countries
were concerned with what was a growing rift between Western allied nations.
While 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 instructed then-Secretary of State John Foster Dulles to oppose “with
all its skill” any attempt to apply sanctions on Israel.[46]
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-controlled Senate would not
Suez Crisis
cooperate 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.”[46]
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.”[46]
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.[47] On 31 October, also 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. 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 Resolution 119; it decided to call an
emergency special session of the General Assembly for the first time, as
provided in the 1950 “Uniting for Peace” resolution, in order to make appropriate
recommendations to end the fighting.[47]
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 skeptical of the efficacy of US diplomatic efforts at the UN,
but later gave full credit to Eisenhower’s role in stopping the war.[48] In the
early hours of 2 November, the General Assembly adopted the United States’
proposal for Resolution 997 (ES-I); it called for an immediate ceasefire, the
withdrawal of all forces behind the armistice lines, an arms embargo, and the
reopening of the Suez Canal, which was
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 U N
Charter.[47] [49] 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.[50] This proposal of the emergency force and the resulting
cease-fire was made possible primarily through the efforts of, Lester B.
Pearson, the 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; he
tried to be even-handed between the two sides, while denouncing Eden and
co-sponsors of the aggression vigorously. Nehru had a powerful ally in the US
president Dwight Eisenhower who, if relatively silent publicly, went to the
extent of using America’s
clout in the IMF to make Eden and Mollet back down.[51] Portugal and Iceland
went so far as to suggest ejecting Britain
and France
from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) defense pact if they didn’t
withdraw from Egypt.[52] Nehru achieved his objective of protecting Egypt’s sovereignty and Nasser’s honour; the
Suez War ended in Britain’s humiliation and Eden
later resigned.[51] Britain
and France agreed to
withdraw from Egypt within a
week; Israel
did not.
Meanwhile on 7 November in Israel,
David Ben-Gurion addressed the Knesset in a victory speech that would set Israel on a collision course with the UN, the US and
others. He declared a great victory and that the 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.[53] [54] He also made an
oblique reference to his intention to annex the Sinai Peninsula.[53] Isaac
Alteras [55] 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.[53]
The speech immediately drew increased international pressure on Israel
to withdraw.[54] Later on 7 November 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 UK and French troops from
Suez Crisis
Egyptian territory.[47] 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.’[53]
The Soviet Union applied
military pressure, threatening to intervene on the Egyptian side, and to launch
rocket attacks on Britain, France and Israel.[53] [56] Although the Soviet
Union’s position in the Crisis was as helpless as was the United States’
regarding Hungary’s uprising, Premier Nikolai Bulganin sent written
thunderbolts from the Kremlin to London, Paris and Tel Aviv. The
Soviet leader’s notes used threatening phrases like “rocket weapons”, “third
world war”, “use of force” and a threat to “the very existence of Israel”, all
open enough to interpretation to be an effective bluff.[57] Eisenhower’s
reaction to these threats was, “If those fellows start something, we may have
to hit ‘em - and, if necessary, with everything in the bucket.”[58] Eisenhower
immediately ordered the U-2s into action over Syria
and Israel
to search for any Soviet airforces on Syrian bases, so the British and French
could destroy them. He told Under Secretary of State Herbert Hoover Jr. 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.”[59] Eden was
not worried by the apparent Soviet threat, since Britain
was itself a nuclear power and his government had extensive knowledge of all
the Soviet Union’s weapons. 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.
Financial pressure
The United States
also put financial pressure on Great
Britain to end the invasion. Because the
Bank of England had lost $50 million (US)
between 30 October and 2 November, and England’s
oil supply had been damaged 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 Sterling Bond holdings. The US
Government held these bonds in part to aid post war Britain’s economy (during the Cold
War), and as partial payment of Britain’s
enormous World War II debt to the US Government, American
corporations, and individuals. It was also part of the overall effort of
Marshall Plan aid, in the rebuilding of the Western European economies.
Britain’s
then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Harold Macmillan, advised his Prime Minister,
Anthony Eden, 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 simply 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 the
version he told to the Cabinet.[60]
In concert with U.S.
actions Saudi Arabia 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. The other NATO members refused to sell oil they
received from Arab nations to Britain
or France.[61]
Cease fire
The British government faced political and economic
pressure. Sir Anthony Eden, the British Prime Minister, 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.[62] 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.[63] Eisenhower was
Suez Crisis
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.”[64]
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.[65] The
Israelis refused to host any UN force on Israeli controlled territory and left
the Sinai in March, 1957. Before the withdrawal the Israeli forces
systematically destroyed infrastructure in Sinai peninsula
(roads, railroads, telephone lines) and all houses in the Arab villages of Abu
Ageila and El Quseima.[66] Before the railway was destroyed, Israel Railways
took captured Egyptian railways equipment including six locomotives[67] and a 30-ton
breakdown crane.[68]
The UNEF was formed by forces from countries that were not
part of the major alliances (NATO and the Warsaw
Pact — though Canadian 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.[69] [70]
Aftermath
The imposed end to the crisis signalled the definitive
weakening of the United Kingdom
and France
as global powers. Middle-sized powers were no longer free to act independently.
Nasser’s standing in the Arab world was
greatly improved, with his stance helping to promote pan-Arabism. Although
Egyptian forces had stood no chance against the three allies, many Egyptians
believed that Nasser had won the war
militarily. The Suez Crisis may have directly led to the 14 July Revolution in Iraq.
King Faisal II and Prime Minister Nuri-es-Said were murdered within two years
of their advice to Eden to “hit Nasser hard and
quickly”.[71] Egyptian sovereignty and ownership of the Canal had been confirmed
by the United States
and the United Nations. In retirement Eden
maintained that the military response to the crisis had prevented a much larger
war in the Middle East. Israel had been expecting an
Egyptian invasion in either March or April 1957, as well as a Soviet invasion
of Syria.[72] The crisis also arguably hastened the process of decolonization,
as many of the remaining colonies of both Britain
and France
gained independence over the next several years. Some argued that the imposed
ending to the Crisis led to over-hasty decolonisation in Africa,
resulting in civil wars and military dictatorships.[73] 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.[74] The failure of the Anglo-French
mission was also seen as a failure for the United States, since the western
alliance had been weakened and the military response had ultimately achieved
nothing. The Soviets got away with their violent suppression of the rebellion
in Hungary,
and were able to pose at the United Nations as a defender of small powers
against imperialism.[75]
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 authorization to use military force if requested by any Middle Eastern
nation to check aggression and, second, 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.[74]
Egypt
In October 1956, when the Suez Crisis erupted, 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. Foreign observers reported that members of Jewish
families were taken hostage, apparently to insure that those forced to leave
did not speak out against the Egyptian
Suez Crisis
government. Some 25,000 Jews, almost half of the Jewish
community left, mainly for Europe, the United States and South America,
and Israel,
after being forced to sign declarations that they were leaving voluntarily, and
agreed with the confiscation of their assets. Similar measures were enacted
against British and French nationals in retaliation for the invasion. By 1957
the Jewish population of Egypt
had fallen to 15,000.[76]
The imposed ending to the Crisis gave Nasser
an inflated view of his own power. In his mind, he had defeated the combined
forces of the United Kingdom,
France and Israel, whereas in fact the military operation
had been “defeated” by pressure from the United States. 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.[77]
Britain
The political and psychological impact of the crisis’s
denouement had a fundamental impact on British politics. Anthony Eden was
accused of misleading parliament and resigned from office on 9 January 1957,
after significant pressure was leveled by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and
the United States
government.[78] Eden
had barely been prime minister for two years by the time of his resignation,
and his unsuccessful handling of the Suez Crisis eclipsed the successes he had
achieved in various government and opposition roles over the previous 30
years.[79]
His successor, Harold Macmillan, greatly accelerated
decolonisation and sought to recapture the benevolence of the United
States.[80] The two leaders enjoyed a close friendship from their first meeting
at a highly successful conference in Bermuda
in March 1957. 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 continual refusals to send any British
troops to Vietnam,
even as a token force, despite President Lyndon B. Johnson’s persistent
requests, was partially due to the Americans failing to support Britain
during the Suez Crisis.
The events leading to Eden’s resignation marked the last
significant attempt Britain
made to impose its military will abroad without U.S. support, until the Falklands
War in 1982. Macmillan was every bit as determined as Eden
had been to stop Nasser, although he was more
willing to enlist American support. Some argue that the crisis also marked the
final transfer of power to the new superpowers, the United States and the Soviet
Union.[81]
Despite the US
uncooperation, and although British domestic politics suffered, the British
relationship with the United
States did not suffer lasting consequences
from the crisis. “The Anglo-American ‘special relationship’ was revitalised
immediately after the Suez Crisis.” “The two governments ... engaged in almost
ritualistic reassurances that their ‘special relationship’ would be restored
quickly.”[82] Eisenhower himself later stated privately that he regretted his
opposition to the combined British, French and Israeli response to the
Crisis.[83] After retiring from office Eisenhower came to see the Suez Crisis
as perhaps his biggest foreign policy mistake. Not only did he feel that the United States weakened two crucial European Cold
War allies, but he created in Nasser a man
capable of dominating the Arab world. In later years a revisionist view held
that the real mistake during the Crisis was made not by Eden but by Eisenhower, since in failing to
support his allies he gave the impression that the West was divided and weak,
which the Soviets were quick to exploit.[84] Revisionists further argued that
by failing to show enough leadership in finding a diplomatic solution to the Crisis,
Eisenhower and the United Nations had made the Anglo-French military response
inevitable. Eisenhower was intensely worried supporting his allies might harm
his chances of winning re-election - had the invasion been launched on 7
November, his reaction might have been more muted and the whole Canal would
have been taken by the British and French troops.[63]
The American Secretary of State John Foster Dulles was
diagnosed with colon cancer and underwent surgery during the week of the Suez war. During a visit
by the UK Foreign Secretary, Selwyn Lloyd, at the Walter
Reed Hospital
in Washington,
Dulles suddenly asked, ‘Selwyn, why did you stop? Why didn’t you go through
with it and get Nasser down?’ Lloyd was
astonished and replied, ‘If you had so much as winked at us ...’ Lloyd gasped.
The record of a bedside visit by President Eisenhower five days earlier shows
his Secretary of State made an almost identical remark.[85]
Suez Crisis
France
Franco-American ties never recovered from the Suez crisis.[86] There
were various reasons for this. “Prior to the Suez Crisis, 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 Dien Bien Phu in 1954.[86] The
incident demonstrated the weakness of the NATO 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 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.”[87]
According to the protocol of Sèvres agreements, France secretly transmitted parts
of its own atomic technology to Israel,
including a detonator.[88]
Israel
An Israeli soldier stands next to an Egyptian gun that had
blocked the Tiran Straits Israeli Chief of Staff, Moshe Dayan (at left)
speaking at Sharm el Sheikh. To his right is Avraham Yoffe, commander of the 9th
Brigade whose forces captured the strategic position Israel emerged victorious from the
war. Its forces executed a military campaign that leading military theorist B.H.
Liddell Hart termed “brilliant.”[89] The Israel Defense Forces gained
confidence from the campaign. The war proved that Israel was capable of executing
large scale military maneuvers in addition to small night-time raids and
counter insurgency operations. David Ben-Gurion, 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.’[90] The war also had tangible benefits
for Israel.
The Straits of Tiran, closed by Egypt
since 1951 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 U.N. Peacekeepers in Sinai. Operation
Kadesh bought Israel
an eleven year lull on its southern border with Egypt.[91] 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.[92]
Other parties
Lester B. Pearson, who would later become the Prime
Minister of Canada,
was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 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 for Canada in 1965, without references to that
country’s past as a colony of France
and Britain.
The Egyptian government had objected to Canadian
Suez Crisis
peacekeeping troops on the grounds that their flag at that
time included a British ensign. As Prime Minister, Pearson would advocate the
simple Maple Leaf that was eventually adopted. After Suez,
Cyprus, Aden
and 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 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 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 liberation movement and penetrating the Arab
countries.[93]
Notes
[1] The Suez Crisis is also known as the Suez War or 1956
War, commonly known in the Arab world as the Tripartite aggression; 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
[2] “Port Said Remembers ‘Tripartite Aggression’ of 1956’”
(
http://www.dailystaregypt.com/article.aspx?ArticleID=3658).
Daily News
Egypt.
.
[3] Damien Cash “Suez
crisis” The Oxford
Companion to Australian History. Ed. Graeme Davison, John Hirst and Stuart
Macintyre. Oxford
University Press, 2001.
[4] Roger Owen “Suez Crisis”
The Oxford
Companion to the Politics of the World, Second edition. Joel Krieger, ed.
Oxford University Press Inc.
2001.
[5] How Britain France and Israel Got Together (
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,824571,00.html),
Time, November 12,
1956. “Within 24 hours after Israel
invaded Egypt, Britain and France
joined in an ultimatum to Egypt
and Israel—and
then began to bomb
Cairo.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry
talked of “the unexpected intervention of Britain
and France.”
Britain’s
Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd
protested: “There was no prior agreement between us.”
Despite their words, there was plenty of evidence to show that the two attacks
were
planned in collusion (“orchestration” was the French word
for it). In this conspiracy, France
was the instigator, Britain
a belated partner, and
Israel
the willing trigger.”
[6] “Suez
crisis” The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Politics. Ed. Iain McLean and Alistair
McMillan. Oxford University Press, 2003.
[7] Turner, Barry. Suez
1956: The First Oil War. pp. 21–4.
Retrieved 18 March 2007.
[9] Howard M. Sachar. A History of Israel from the Rise of Zionism to
Our Time. Published by Alfred A. Knopf (New
York). 1976. ISBN
0-394-28564-5.
[10] Yergin, p. 480
[11] STATE OF
BUSINESS:
Middle-East Echoes (
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,824597,00.html),
Time, November 12, 1956
[12] Donald Watt, “Britain
and the Suez Canal”, Royal Institute of International
Affairs, 1956, p. 8.
[13] Darwin,
p. 207. “Nothing could have been better calculated to lash popular Muslim
feeling to new fury... and to redouble Egyptian hostility
to Britain
on whose ‘betrayal’ of the Palestine Arabs the catastrophe could easily be
blamed.”
[14] Butler,
p. 111
[15] Darwin,
p. 208
[16] Mohamed ElBaradei (1982), “The Egyptian-Israeli Peace
Treaty and Access to the Gulf of Aqaba: A New
Legal Regime”, American
Journal of International Law 76 (3): 532-554
[17] Butler,
p. 112
News. 26 July 1956. .
[19] See: Michael N. Barnett, Confronting the Costs of
War: Military Power, State, and Society in Egypt
and Israel (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1992), 82-83.
[20] Darwin,
p. 210
[21] Kissinger, p. 529
[22] Darwin,
p. 211
[23] Kissinger, p. 528
[24] Kissinger, p. 530
Suez Crisis
16
[25] BBC On This Day, 1956: Egypt
seizes Suez Canal (http:/ / news. bbc. co. uk/ onthisday/ hi/ dates/ stories/
july/ 26/ newsid_2701000/
2701603. stm)
[26] http:/ / www. telegraph. co. uk/ culture/ 3656288/
What-we-failed-to-learn-from-Suez. html
[27] Le Canal de Suez et la nationalisation par le Colonel
Nasser, Les Actualité Française - AF, 08.01.1956 (http:/ / mp4. ina. fr/ ogp/
contenu_video. php?id_notice=AFE85006880&
random=3614851046)
[28] http:/ / users. ox. ac. uk/ ~ssfc0005/
The%20Protocol%20of%20Sevres%201956%20Anatomy%20of%20a%20War%20Plot. html
[29] Risse-Kappen 1995. p. 85.
[30] Zeev Schiff, A History of the Israeli Army, p. 65-66,
Simon and Schuster (1974)
[31] http:/ / www. jewishvirtuallibrary. org/ jsource/
History/ bulganin. html
[32] Risse-Kappen 1995. p. 87.
[33] Risse-Kappen 1995. p. 89.
[34] http:/ / www. lrb. co. uk/ v15/ n04/ keith-kyle/
lacking-in-style
[35] http:/ / militaria. forum-xl. com/ viewtopic.
php?f=53& t=599
[36] Risse-Kappen 1995. p. 94.
[37] Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, p.289
[38] Herzog (1982) p.118
[39] Herzog, The Arab-Israeli Wars, p.138 Random House, (1982)
[40] Nordeen, Lon Fighters Over Israel
London 1991 p.
198
[41] Bishop, Chris ed. The Aerospace Encyclopedia of Air
Warfare Volume Two: 1945 to the present Aerospace Publishing London 1997
pp.148-153 ISBN 1874023883
[42] House of Commons Debates 19 December 1956 vol 562
c180W (http:/ / hansard. millbanksystems. com/ written_answers/ 1956/ dec/ 19/
hms-crane-aircraft-attack)
[43] Max Wurmbrand, The Valiant of Israel, p. 80, Massada Press Ltd
(1967)
[44] Pimlott - editor British Military Operations,
1945-1984 London Guild Publishing 1984 p.78
[45] Donald Neff, Warriors at Suez. Amana Books, Vermont. 1988. ISBN 0-915597-58-6. Page 414.
Quotes UN report: “thousands of wounded
and dead bodies all over Sanai (sic)”. Neff estimates
4,000 Egyptians wounded and 6,000 captured or missing in Sinai and a further
900
wounded by the Anglo-French.
[46] Divine, Robert (1981). Eisenhower and the Cold War. New York: Oxford
University Press. pp.
64-66.
[47] Establishment of [[United Nations Emergency
Force|UNEF (http:/ / www. un. org/ en/ peacekeeping/ missions/ past/
unef1backgr2. html)], Background] at UN.org
[48] Love, Kennett (1969). Suez: The Twice-Fought War. New York: McGraw Hill. pp. 557–558.
[49] Hendershot, Robert; Family Spats: Perception,
Illusion, and Sentimentality in the Anglo-American Special Relationship
[50] UNGA Emergency Special Sessions (http:/ / www. un.
org/ ga/ sessions/ emergency. shtml)
[51] ‘Nothing common and there is no wealth’ (http:/ /
www. indianexpress. com/ news/ nothing-common-and-there-is-no-wealth/ 587133/
0)
[52] Brecher, Jeremy (2 April 2003). “Uniting for Peace”
(http:/ / www. zmag. org/ content/ showarticle. cfm?SectionID=1&
ItemID=3376), Z
Magazine. Retrieved on 28 February 2007.
[53] Eisenhower and Israel: U.S.-Israeli Relations,
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[57] http:/ / militaria. forum-xl. com/ viewtopic.
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[58] http:/ / www. globalsecurity. org/ military/ ops/ suez. htm
[59] Kyle, Keith Suez: Britain’s
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[60] Kyle, Keith Suez: Britain’s
End of Empire in the Middle East p. 464
[61] Kennett Love, Suez: The
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[62] http:/ / www. historylearningsite. co. uk/
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arcvhives ECPAD MO56141AR14
[66] [[Noam Chomsky Chomsky, Noam (1983). The Fateful
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[67] Cotterell, Paul (1984). The Railways of Palestine and Israel. Tourret Publishing. pp.
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January 14, 1958. . Retrieved March 5, 2009. Suez Crisis
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[70] “Suez
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[71] http:/ / news. bbc. co. uk/ 1/ hi/ world/ middle_east/
6085264. stm
[72] Kyle, Keith Suez: Britain’s
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[73] http:/ / news. bbc. co. uk/ 1/ hi/ world/ middle_east/
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[74] http:/ / novaonline. nvcc. edu/ eli/ evans/ his135/
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[75] Delauche, Frederic Illustrated History of Europe: A
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[76] http:/ / www. jewishvirtuallibrary. org/ jsource/
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[78] R. F. Holland (1985), European Decolonization,
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[79] (http:/ / www. pbs. org/ behindcloseddoors/
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[80] J. M. Brown & W. R. Louis (eds) (1999), The
Oxford History of the British Empire, Vol. 4:
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[81] “Suez Crisis - Aftermath” (http:/ / www.
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[84] Reynolds, Paul (24 July 2006). “Suez:
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5199392. stm). BBC News. .
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[86] Risse-Kappen 1995. p. 103.
[87] Risse-Kappen 1995. p. 84.
[88] Affaire de Suez, Le Pacte Secret (http:/ / www.
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References
·
Arnstein, Walter L. (2001). Britain Yesterday and Today: 1830
to the Present. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978-061800-104-0.
·
Barnett, Michael N. (1992). Confronting the
Costs of War: Military Power, State, and Society in Egypt
and Israel.
Princeton, NJ.: Princeton
University Press. ISBN
978-0691078830.
·
Bregman, Ahron (2002). Israel’s Wars:
A History Since 1947. London:
Routledge. ISBN 0-415-28716-2.
·
Bromberger, Merry and Serge Secrets of Suez
Sidgwick & Jackson London
1957 (translated from French Les
Secrets de l’Expedition d’Egypte by James Cameron)
·
Butler,
L. J. (2002). Britain
and Empire: Adjusting to a Post-Imperial World. London: I.B. Tauris. ISBN 1-86064-449-X.
·
Childers, Erskine B. (1962). The Road To Suez. MacGibbon & Kee.
ASIN B000H47WG4.
·
Darwin, John (1988). Britain and Decolonisation: The
Retreat From Empire in the Post Cold War World.
Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-29258-8.
·
Hendershot, Robert M. (2008). Family Spats:
Perception, Illusion, and Sentimentality in the Anglo-American
Special Relationship. VDM Verlag. ISBN 978-3-639-09016-1.
·
Herzog, (1982) The Arab-Israeli Wars Random
House
·
Hyam, Ronald (2006). Britain’s Declining Empire: The
Road to Decolonisation 1918-1969. Cambridge
University Press. ISBN 0-521-68555-9.
·
Kissinger, Henry (1994). Diplomacy. Simon &
Schuster. ISBN 0-671-51099-1.
·
Kyle, Keith (2003). Suez:
Britain’s End of Empire in the
Middle East. I.B. Tauris. ISBN 1-86064-811-8.
·
Leuliette, Pierre
(1964). St. Michael and the Dragon: Memoirs of a Paratrooper. Houghton Mifflin.
·
Reynolds, David (1991/2000). Brittania
Overruled: British Policy and World Power in the Twentieth Century.
Longman. ISBN 0-582-38249-1. Suez Crisis
18
·
Risse-Kappen, Thomas (1995). Cooperation among
Democracies: The European Influence on U.S. Foreign
Policy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press. ISBN
06910346446.
·
Tal, David, ed (2001). The 1956 War. London: Frank Cass
Publishers. ISBN 0-7146-4394-7.
·
Verbeek, Bertjan (2003). Decision-Making in Great Britain During the Suez Crisis. Small Groups and a
Persistent Leader. Aldershot:
Ashgate Publishing. ISBN 978-0-75463-253-5.
·
Yergin, Daniel (1991). The Prize: The Epic Quest
for Oil, Money, and Power. New York
City: Simon & Schuster.
ISBN 0-671-50248-4.. Chapter 24 is devoted entirely to the
Suez Crisis.
External links
·
Israel’s
Second War of Independence (http:/ / www. azure. org. il/ magazine/ magazine.
asp?id=355), essay in
Azure magazine.
·
Sinai Campaign 1956 (http:/ / www. jafi. org.
il/ education/ 100/ maps/ sinai. html)
·
Canada
and the Suez Crisis (http:/ / www. suezcrisis. ca/ )
·
July 2006, BBC, Suez
50 years on (http:/ / news. bbc. co. uk/ 1/ hi/ world/ middle_east/
5199392. stm)
·
Suez and the high
tide of Arab nationalism (http:/ / www. isj. org. uk/ index. php4?id=249&
issue=112)
International Socialism 112 (2006)
·
Detailed report on the Suez campaign by Ground Forces Chief of Staff
General Beaufre, French Defense Ministry
archive (http:/ / www. servicehistorique. sga. defense.
gouv. fr/ 04histoire/ dossierdushd/ suez/
suezcarr2. htm)
(French)
·
Bodleian Library Suez Crisis Fiftieth
anniversary exhibiiton (http:/ / www. bodley. ox. ac. uk/ dept/ scwmss/
projects/ suez/ suez. html)
·
Suez index
(http:/ / www. britains-smallwars. com/ suez/
suez-index. html) at Britains-smallwars.com - accounts
by British servicemen that were present
·
July 26th speech by Gamal Abdel
Nasser (http:/ / www. ena. lu/
speech_gamal_abdel_nasser_26_july_1956-020000559. html)
(english translation, original text in Arabic (http:/ /
nasser. bibalex. org/
Speeches/ browser. aspx?SID=495)) Media links
·
Newsreel film , British Prime Minister’s
broadcast (http:/ / www. britishpathe. com/ record. php?id=61875) at Britishpathe.com
The following links are not functioning as of 6 December
2009. They are retained here for reference.
·
“The Suez canal
and the nationalization by Colonel Nasser” (http:/ / mp4. ina. fr/ ogp/
contenu_video.
php?id_notice=AFE85006880& random=3614851046) French
news from the National Audiovisual Institute, 1
August 1956 Fr.
(views of Nasser EG, Pineau FR, Lloyd UK, Murphy US, Downing street,
comment on international tension)
·
“The new pilots engaged for the Suez canal” (http:/ / mp4. ina. fr/ ogp/ contenu_video.
php?id_notice=AFE85006971& random=6950306567) French
news from the National Audiovisual Institute, 3 October 1956 French
(views of Port
Said, the canal and Ferdinand de Lesseps’ statue few weeks
before the Suez Crisis, incl. a
significant comment on Nasser)
·
“French paratroopers in Cyprus” (http:/
/ mp4. ina. fr/ ogp/ contenu_video. php?id_notice=CAF96065803&
random=4978278098) French news from the National
Audiovisual Institute, 6 November 1956 French
(details on the French-British settings and material,
views of Amiral Barjot, General Keightley, camp and scenes
in Cyprus)
·
“Dropping over Port Said” (http:/ / mp4. ina. fr/ ogp/
contenu_video. php?id_notice=CAF96065804&
random=879001678) French news from the National
Audiovisual Institute, 6 November 1956 French
(views of British paratroopers dropping over Port Said, comment on
respective mission for the French and British
Suez
Crisis 19
during Operation Amilcar)
·
“Suez:
French-British landing in Port Fouad & Port Said” (http:/ / mp4. ina. fr/
ogp/ contenu_video.
php?id_notice=CAF89022891& random=7036585892) French
news from the National Audiovisual Institute, 9 November 1956 mute
(views of French-British in Cyprus,
landing in Port Fouad, landing Port
Said, Gal Massu, Gal Bauffre, convoy)
·
“The French in Port Said” (http:/ / mp4. ina. fr/ ogp/
contenu_video. php?id_notice=I00015973&
random=5080040484) French news from the National
Audiovisual Institute, 9 November 1956 mute
(views of prisoners and captured material, Gal Massu, para
commandos, Egyptian cops surrender, Gal Beauffre,
landing craft on the canal)
·
“Dropping of Anglo-French over the canal zone
(http:/ / mp4. ina. fr/ ogp/ contenu_video.
php?id_notice=AFE85007049& random=9555771826)” French
news from the National Audiovisual Institute, 14 November 1956 French
(views of 2 Nordatlas, paratroopers, dropping of para and
material circa Port Said,
comment on no bombing to
secure the population)
·
“Canal obstructed by sunken ships” (http:/ /
mp4. ina. fr/ ogp/ contenu_video. php?id_notice=AFE85007052&
random=4486718388) French news from the National
Audiovisual Institute, 14 November 1956 French
(views of troops in Port
Said, Ferdinand de Lesseps’ statue, comment on the 21
ships sunken by the “dictator”)
Article Sources and Contributors
Suez
Crisis Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=444856475
Contributors: 5 albert square, AdamRetchless, Addd wiki, Adityan, Ag sailor,
Agamemnus, Ahoerstemeier, Ahpook,
Airborne84, Akhil 0950, Al tally, Alansohn,
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Dangit99, Daniel5127, Danimoth, DannyCyclone, Danrules2, Darry2385, Dash,
Dave8904, Davecrosby uk,
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Everyking, Ewawer, Factomancer, Fastboy, Fatla00, FayssalF, Ffaker,
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Gaius Cornelius, Gary King, Gatoclass, Gbinal, Ggbroad, Gilliam, Global studies
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HJ32, Hadal, Haim Am, HantersSpade, Harley
peters, Helldjinn, Hemi 426 yay, Herostratus, Hetar,
HeteroZellous, HexaChord, History Today Magazine, Hmains, Hmbr, Huckamike,
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1253 ,.... anonymous edits
Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors
File:1956-07-30 Suez Canal Seized.ogv Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:1956-07-30_Suez_Canal_Seized.ogv
License: Public Domain Contributors: Universal Studios
Image:1956 Suez
war - conquest of Sinai.jpg Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:1956_Suez_war_-_conquest_of_Sinai.jpg
License: Public Domain Contributors: Francis
Schonken, JMCC1, Lipothymia, Mmccalpin, QWerk, Snek01,
Talmoryair, Thuresson, Timeshifter
File:Tzniha-mitle.jpg Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Tzniha-mitle.jpg
License: Public Domain Contributors: Uri Dan
Image:Tanks Destroyed Sinai.jpg Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Tanks_Destroyed_Sinai.jpg
License: Public Domain Contributors: United States Army Heritage and
Education Center
File:Ibrahim al-Awwal1956.jpg Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Ibrahim_al-Awwal1956.jpg
License: Public Domain Contributors: Uploader: User Golf Bravo
File:Suez Sea Venom.jpg Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Suez_Sea_Venom.jpg
License: Public Domain Contributors: Royal Navy official photographer
Image:Suez
101956 2eRPC portsaid.png Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Suez_101956_2eRPC_portsaid.png
License: unknown Contributors: Project FMF, Shame On You
File:Tiran Guns IMG 0937.JPG Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Tiran_Guns_IMG_0937.JPG
License: Public Domain Contributors: deror_avi
File:Dayan 9th Brigade 1956.jpg Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=File:Dayan_9th_Brigade_1956.jpg
License: Public Domain Contributors: Original uploader was Golf Bravo at he.wikipedia
License
________________________________________________________________________________
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Unported http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
All copyrighted sources are quoted and used for comment and education in accord with the nonprofit provisions of: Title 17 U.S.C., Section 107 for Fair Use.
