Suez Canal Crisis 1956

MarchDub · 24-05-2012 1:18pm #1

I was a kid back in 1956 when the Suez canal crisis caused a huge international uproar. It was within recent memory of the end of WWII and the triumphalism that accompanied that so the failure to 'take' the canal was a real turnaround.

The event caused divisions within Britain and in Ireland I remember the attitude was that the British - and the French - had finally come up against the reality of end of Empire.

The origins of the crisis occurred when the President of Egypt Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser, announced the Egyptian nationalisation of the Suez Canal and its operating Suez Canal Company.

It's a fascinating event with much behind the scenes skulduggery concerning Britain, France and Israel in a secret plot to invade Egypt. The secret plan was Israel was to invade with the British and French then going in to 'separate' the warring nations of Israel and Egypt. English language documents concerning this plan were later destroyed by the British PM Anthony Eden.

The issue of the use of force - a long established way by Europeans to resolve issues with 'colonial' nations - was paramount to the ensuing public discussion everywhere.

Here is a brief synopsis of the events -

The 1956 Suez Crisis is one of the most important and controversial events in British history since the Second World War. Not only did Suez result in deep political and public division in Britain, it also caused international uproar. It has come to be regarded as the end of Britain's role as one of the world powers and as the beginning of the end for the British Empire. In future British foreign policy would be conducted in concurrence with American diplomatic support.

http://www.bodley.ox.ac.uk/dept/scwmss/projects/suez/suez.html

getzls · 24-05-2012 6:52pm

The Yanks put pressure on Britain to give up any thought of force.

Judgement Day · 24-05-2012 7:31pm

getzls wrote: »

The Yanks put pressure on Britain to give up any thought of force.

Sorry? Britain, France and Israel invaded, so there was a little more than the thought of force involved. Anyway, the Empire was already on the wane well before Suez and Britain got their own back on the dastardly, back stabbing Yanks by passing on the baton of World Policeman to them.

jonniebgood1 · 24-05-2012 10:16pm

Good topic choice. I've enjoyed reading up on it.

The American President Dwight Eisenhower was against the use of force as he felt that there were other avenues that could be explored and that vilence should be the last resort. After Anthony Eden wrote of his intention to look at military action Eisenhower wrote in a letter dated 1st August 1956

For my part, I cannot over-emphasize the strength of my conviction that some such method must be attempted before action such as you contemplate should be undertaken. If unfortunately the situation can finally be resolved only by drastic means, there should be no grounds for belief anywhere that corrective measures were undertaken merely to protect national or individual investors, or the legal rights of a sovereign nation were ruthlessly flouted. A conference, at the very least, should have a great education effort throughout the world. Public opinion here, and I am convinced, in most of the world, would be outraged should there be a failure to make such efforts. Moreover, initial military successes might be easy, but the eventual price might become far too heavy.

I suppose America may have had interests in the middle east area. Or even thought that Egypts claim to the canal may have been valid?

P. Breathnach · 25-05-2012 12:28am

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

... Or even thought that Egypts claim to the canal may have been valid?

What a strange suggestion: that the foreign policy of a major power be based on an impartial sense of justice.

I might be persuaded that Eisenhower's opposition to the attack on Egypt was based on a genuine reluctance to approve the use of armed force: he had seen enough in Europe just over ten years before.

getzls · 25-05-2012 12:38am

Judgement Day wrote: »

Sorry? Britain, France and Israel invaded, so there was a little more than the thought of force involved. Anyway, the Empire was already on the wane well before Suez and Britain got their own back on the dastardly, back stabbing Yanks by passing on the baton of World Policeman to them.

Britain was already there.

who the fug · 25-05-2012 8:17am

It was complete an utter stupidly; the lease ran out in 1969 so any benefits would have been marginal.

donaghs · 25-05-2012 10:43am

The US had been trying to charm Nasser into the anti-Communist camp. And of course wanting to keep good relations with other Arab states and oil producers. The Anglo-French invasion didn't help. The US didn't have close relations with Israel at the time.

It was also an unhelpful distraction from the Soviet invasion of Hungary.

MarchDub · 25-05-2012 1:22pm

It was essentially the end of Anthony Eden's premiership and has overshadowed his legacy ever since. In the lead up to the event Eden - who had a reputation of being anti-appeasement towards Hitler in the late 1930s [but the extent of this has later been disputed] - was regarded by some as being in a strong position when he likened Nasser to another Hitler or Mussolini and therefore Nasser had to be removed.

The debacle left Israel in a more vulnerable position in the middle east and heightened tensions between Israel and Egypt. The state of Israel was less than 10 years old in 1956 and historians and commentators point to this invasion as pivotal to the Six-Day Middle East war of 1967 when tensions erupted into outright war.

But Suez is regarded as being a significant moment for the former European imperial powers also who ,though the reality was that their Empires were already crumbling, had to face the reality of their own diplomatic and military limits in a changed world.

Snickers Man · 25-05-2012 2:16pm

From our own parochial point of view, 1956 was the first year in which Ireland attended the United Nations as a member state. Because countries sit alphabetically in the General Assembly, the Irish delegates found themselves sandwiched between those of Israel and Iraq, and were warmly welcomed by both, who were each doubtless more pleased at having an unfriendly neighbour replaced than they were to have the Irish move in next door.

Conor Cruise O'Brien, then an Irish diplomat, attended all General Assembly sessions between 1956 and 1961 and is quite humorous on Ireland's contribution to the debates on Suez.

He points out that by autumn of 1956 "Britain and France had agreed..to withdraw their forces....Israel now came under almost universal pressure to withdraw". Joining in this pressure, the British delegate Commander Noble "told the Assembly that Britain 'could not condone' Israel's attack on Egypt."

O'Brien continued: "Irish people, for historical reasons, have a rather low threshold of tolerance for manifestations of British official hypocrisy. (We can live very comfortably with our own peculiar forms of hypocrisy, but that is another matter entirely) So I took some pleasure in drafting our delegation's statement which opened with the words 'Far be it from our delegation to be any less censorious, about an attack on Egypt, than the distinguished delegate of the United Kingdom judges it appropriate to be.'

That statement went down rather well with our [Israeli]neighbours and in general a good working relationship, and in some cases a joking relationship, built up between the delegations of Ireland and Israel in those years."

MarchDub · 25-05-2012 2:56pm

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

The American President Dwight Eisenhower was against the use of force as he felt that there were other avenues that could be explored and that vilence should be the last resort. After Anthony Eden wrote of his intention to look at military action Eisenhower wrote in a letter dated 1st August 1956

P. Breathnach wrote: »

I might be persuaded that Eisenhower's opposition to the attack on Egypt was based on a genuine reluctance to approve the use of armed force: he had seen enough in Europe just over ten years before.

Eisenhower's recent biographer, Jean Edward Smith, makes exactly the same point - that he had seen enough of combat and the brutality of WWII to turn against armed force as a primary solution to conflict.

Eisenhower believed that the United States should not go to war unless national security was at stake. “There is no alternative to peace” he famously said. He dismissed the necessity of conflict beneath the nuclear threshold and refused to engage American troops in brushfire wars for political abstractions. After Ike made peace in Korea, not a single American died in combat for the next eight years. ..

When Britain, France and Israel invaded Egypt to seize the Suez Canal in 1956, Eisenhower forced them to withdraw, toppling Anthony Eden’s government in London, undercutting the Fourth Republic in France, and threatening financial sanctions against Israel. That repudiation of what Ike called “old fashioned gunboat diplomacy” not only kept the peace but enhanced American prestige throughout the world.

Zebra3 · 26-05-2012 11:46am

One of the most interesting things about the so-called Suez Crisis is the fact that two western states and Israel attack an Arab country and it's deemed a "crisis" instead of a war.

:rolleyes:

thecommietommy · 26-05-2012 11:53am

who the fug wrote: »

It was complete an utter stupidly; the lease ran out in 1969 so any benefits would have been marginal.

Good point, maybe part of the thought process by the Brits and French was that it would also be a handy premptive big stick to wave at the Egyptians before negotiations would start in 1969 ??

MarchDub · 26-05-2012 3:36pm

Zebra3 wrote: »

One of the most interesting things about the so-called Suez Crisis is the fact that two western states and Israel attack an Arab country and it's deemed a "crisis" instead of a war.

:rolleyes:

That's an interesting point, I agree, and not to be ignored - but it never actually developed into a full blown war, remember 'war' meant WWII to that generation. And on that note at the time there was concern expressed that the European powers "were at it again' and WWIII was just about to start.

The possibility of Soviet help for Egypt was a discussed case...so it was observed as a 'crisis' that could have led the world once again, into a world war.

Incidentally, I remember some of the talk in Ireland at the time was that it was proof that we were wise to never become involved in perennial European imperial concerns, as WWII was then described. A point of view that gets lost in time.

Snickers Man · 27-05-2012 5:02pm

Zebra3 wrote: »

One of the most interesting things about the so-called Suez Crisis is the fact that two western states and Israel attack an Arab country and it's deemed a "crisis" instead of a war.

:rolleyes:

It might also have had something to do with the fact that in Britain, at any rate, the war had far from universal support. The Labour Party bitterly attacked the decision to invade and its then leader Gaitskell went so far as to make an address on TV demanding an immediate withdrawal of British forces and the resignation of the Prime Minister Eden.

Nye Bevan made a famously hilarious speech in Trafalgar Square in which he said that if Eden was sincere in his statements on Suez, he was "too stupid to be Prime Minister."

Contrast that with the Second World War when the Labour Party was actually more hawkish about the war on Hitler and frequently chided the Tories, especially in Chamberlain's time, about their lack of aggression.

jonniebgood1 · 27-05-2012 5:13pm

Snickers Man wrote: »

It might also have had something to do with the fact that in Britain, at any rate, the war had far from universal support. The Labour Party bitterly attacked the decision to invade and its then leader Gaitskell went so far as to make an address on TV demanding an immediate withdrawal of British forces and the resignation of the Prime Minister Eden.

Nye Bevan made a famously hilarious speech in Trafalgar Square in which he said that if Eden was sincere in his statements on Suez, he was "too stupid to be Prime Minister."

Contrast that with the Second World War when the Labour Party was actually more hawkish about the war on Hitler and frequently chided the Tories, especially in Chamberlain's time, about their lack of aggression.

Could a realisation of the economics involved in war have been part of this? Rationing continued after WWII for quite a while and the British national debt had ballooned necessitaing American help http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/4757181.stm.

Suez Canal Crisis 1956

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