“It triggered the biggest rift in Anglo-American relations in modern times and nearly set off a nuclear war.”
By David Charlwood
AT DAWN ON Nov. 6, 1956, Peter Mayo prepared to go into battle. He camouflaged his webbing, dulled the shiny 42 Royal Marines Commando badge on his beret and taped the magazines for his submachine gun end-to-end so he could reload faster.
“I wish I were happier about the cause we are to fight for,” the 21-year-old recorded in his diary the night before. “Where does it all lead?”
Mayo was one member of a combined British and French invasion force about to land 22,000 troops in Egypt to fight in a war that the United Nations had just declared illegal.
November 1956 was the height of the Suez Crisis, a political confrontation that led to hostilities between Egypt on one side and Britain, France and Israel on the other. It triggered the biggest rift in Anglo-American relations in modern times and nearly set off a nuclear war.
It all began on July 26, 1956 when Egypt’s new president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, nationalized the Suez Canal, which until then had been owned and run by Britain and France.
British Prime Minister Anthony Eden viewed the seizure as an act of theft, as well as a threat to Middle Eastern oil supplies. That very night he held an emergency cabinet meeting until 4 a.m. to plan a response.
“My colleagues and I are convinced that we must be ready… to use force to bring Nasser to his senses,” Eden cabled the White House.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower did not share Eden’s enthusiasm. The former general and Supreme Allied Commander for Europe worried that existing Cold War tensions only made the crisis more dangerous. And although Egypt was in neither Washington’s nor Moscow’s strategic orbit, in a conflict with Great Britain, the Soviets might intervene on Cairo’s behalf. For his part, Nasser played both sides off against each other; he had purchased Eastern-Bloc weapons in 1955, but was also seeking Western funding to build a dam across the Nile at Aswan.
As Eden made the case for action, politicians in Paris were also beating the war drum. The French foreign minister compared the canal nationalization to Hitler’s 1936 seizure of the Rhineland and in a televised address, Eden himself equated Nasser with Benito Mussolini.
Even still, Britain and France weren’t militarily prepared for war. Neither had sufficient paratroops ready to mount an airborne assault and it was feared that air strikes alone would not achieve the larger goal of bringing down Nasser’s regime. Military action would require a months-long build-up of amphibious forces in the region. In the meantime, the British and French agreed to American-led efforts to negotiate a peaceful resolution.
Between the middle of August and the end of September of 1956, two international conferences were convened to resolve the crisis. Both failed. Egypt refused to accept any proposal that did not give the country full control of the canal. Still, U.S. officials remained determined to head off a war. What’s more, November 1956 was an election year and Eisenhower did not want to go to the polls as fighting raged in the Middle East.
In early October, the dispute went to the floor of the United Nations. To Eden and his counterparts in Paris, a UN resolution to uphold the international waterway would provide legitimacy for military action. Recognizing this, the Soviet delegation lobbied against providing the British and French with diplomatic cover.
Rather than wait for the UN, the French devised a secret strategy to force a war. Under the plan, the Israelis – who were already concerned about the threat from Egypt – would attack through the Sinai Peninsula. Britain and France would then respond as ‘peacekeepers’ by launching air strikes against Egypt and landing troops to seize the canal. Eden agreed to the plan and at a secret meeting outside Paris on Oct. 24, British, French and Israeli officials signed the Sèvres Protocol.
Five days later, Israel unleashed its forces. After Egypt refused an ultimatum to suspend hostilities, Britain and France began a bombing campaign. The speed of the Allied response made it instantly clear to the White House that the Israeli offensive was a ruse. Eisenhower exploded.
The American president gave a speech disavowing the British and French action. In New York, the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to condemn the assault on Egypt and called for the withdrawal of foreign troops. Meanwhile, Egypt scuttled ships in the canal, completely blocking it to shipping. The crisis worsened when Moscow issued warnings to London, Paris and Jerusalem threatening nuclear war.
When the amphibious forces finally landed at Port Said on Nov. 6 – Royal Marine Peter Mayo among them – anti-war demonstrators gathered in London’s Trafalgar Square to protest the invasion. Meanwhile, a number of Eden’s own cabinet members prepared to withdraw their support for the prime minister. Nov. 6 was also election day in the U.S., although Eisenhower was more focused on the crisis in the Middle East.
With pressure from Washington mounting, world oil prices spiking, and an economic crisis brewing as foreign investors withdrew assets from the British and French economies, London and Paris were forced to back down.
Eden agreed to a ceasefire in a midnight telephone call with Eisenhower. When the prime minister wished him well at the polls, the American president replied, “I don’t give a damn how the election goes. I guess it will be alright.”
The Suez Crisis was a disaster for the Allies, particularly Great Britain. The once-mighty imperial power had been humiliated by a developing country and many of its own soldiers felt they had been let down by their government, which had sent them to fight a war only to then throw in the towel.
Although the Egyptian military was bloodied – losing 1,600 men and large amounts of military hardware – Nasser emerged from the crisis stronger than ever, with the French newspaper Le Monde declaring, “The prestige of Colonel Nasser in the Arab countries has never been greater.” The Soviets went on to fund Nasser’s Nile dam.
By the end of the month, UN troops arrived to replace the withdrawing British and French.
“The [Egyptian] crowd was cheering the Norwegians and at the same time shaking their fists at the British troops,” Peter Mayo of the Royal Marines recalled.
Two months later, Eden resigned as prime minister. The Suez Canal did not reopen until 1957. The crisis was the death knell of the British Empire and the first, but not the last time the citizens of the United Kingdom were deceived into going to war.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: David Charlwood is the author of Suez Crisis 1956: End of Empire and the Reshaping of the Middle East. It’s published by Pen & Sword. Visit him online at www.davidcharlwood.com. Follow him on Twitter @dcharlwood.
1 thought on “The Suez Crisis – The West’s First Illegal War in the Middle East”