Suez Crisis
The Suez Crisis, also known as the second Arab–Israeli war, the Tripartite Aggression in the Arab world and the Sinai War in Israel, was a British–French–Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956. Israel invaded on 29 October, with the primary objective of re-opening the Straits of Tiran and the Gulf of Aqaba as the recent tightening of the eight-year-long Egyptian blockade further prevented Israeli passage. After issuing a joint ultimatum for a ceasefire, the United Kingdom and France joined the Israelis on 31 October, seeking to depose Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser and regain control of the Suez Canal, which Nasser had nationalised earlier in the year.
Shortly after the invasion began, the three countries came under heavy political pressure from both the United States and the Soviet Union, as well as from the United Nations, eventually prompting their withdrawal from Egypt.
The crisis demonstrated that the United Kingdom and France could no longer pursue their independent foreign policy without consent from the United States. Israel's four-month-long occupation of the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula enabled it to attain freedom of navigation through the Straits of Tiran, but the Suez Canal was closed from October 1956 to March 1957.
The crisis strengthened Nasser's standing and led to international humiliation for the British—with historians arguing that it signified the end of its role as a superpower—as well as the French amid the Cold War. As a result of the conflict, the UN established an emergency force to police and patrol the Egypt–Israel border. For his diplomatic efforts in resolving the conflict through UN initiatives, Canadian external affairs minister Lester B. Pearson received a Nobel Peace Prize.
Analysts have argued that the crisis may have emboldened the USSR, prompting the Soviet invasion of Hungary.
Background
The Suez Canal before 1945
The Suez Canal opened in 1869, financed by the French and Egyptian governments. The canal was operated by the Suez Company, an Egyptian-chartered company; the area surrounding the canal remained sovereign Egyptian territory.The canal was strategically important, as it provided the shortest ocean link between the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean.
In 1875, as a result of debt and financial crisis, Egypt was forced to sell its shares in the operating company to the British government. They obtained a 44% share in the company for £4 million. With the 1882 invasion and occupation of Egypt, the UK took de facto control of the country as well as the canal, its finances and operations.
The 1888 Convention of Constantinople declared the canal a neutral zone under British protection. In ratifying it, the Ottoman Empire agreed to permit international shipping to pass freely through the canal, in time of war and peace.
Despite this convention, Britain closed the canal on several occasions. During the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05, the British denied the Russian Baltic Fleet use of the canal after the Dogger Bank incident and forced it to sail around Africa, giving the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces time to consolidate their position. During the First World War, Britain and France closed the canal to non-Allied shipping.
1945-1952
In the aftermath of the Second World War, Britain's military complex at Suez was one of the largest military installations in the world. The Suez base was an important part of Britain's strategic position in the Middle East; however, it became a source of growing tension in Anglo-Egyptian relations.The canal continued to be strategically important after the Second World War for oil shipment. Western Europe then imported two million barrels per day from the Middle East, 1,200,000 by tanker through the canal, and another 800,000 via pipeline from the Persian Gulf and Kirkuk to the Mediterranean. These pipeline routes were prone to instability, which led British leaders to prefer to use the sea route through the canal.
Egypt's domestic politics were experiencing a radical change. Unrest began to manifest in the growth of radical political groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and an increasingly hostile attitude towards Britain and its presence. Added to this anti-British fervour was the role Britain had played in the creation of Israel.
In October 1951, the Egyptian government unilaterally abrogated the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936, the terms of which granted Britain a lease on the Suez base for 20 more years. Britain refused to withdraw from Suez, relying upon its treaty rights, as well as the presence of the Suez garrison. This resulted in an escalation in violent hostility towards Britain and its troops in Egypt.
The Egyptian Revolution
In January 1952, British forces attempted to disarm a troublesome auxiliary police force barracks in Ismailia, resulting in the deaths of 41 Egyptians. This led to anti-Western riots in Cairo resulting in damage to property and the deaths of foreigners. This proved to be a catalyst for the removal of the Egyptian monarchy. On 23 July 1952 a military coup by the Egyptian nationalist 'Free Officers Movement'—led by Muhammad Neguib and Gamal Abdul Nasser—overthrew King Farouk. After a brief regency under the nominal reign of the infant Fuad II, the monarchy was abolished and the Republic of Egypt established in his stead.After the 1952 Egyptian Revolution
Egypt and the United States
American policy was torn between a desire to maintain good relations with NATO allies such as Britain and France who were major colonial powers, and to align Third World nationalists such as Nasser, who resented British and French influence, with the Free World camp.The Eisenhower administration saw the Near East as a gap into which Soviet influence could be projected, and which accordingly required an American-supported NATO-type organisation. The CIA offered Nasser a $3 million bribe if he would join the proposed Middle East Defense Organization; Nasser took the money, but refused to join. Nasser wanted an Egyptian-dominated Arab League to be the principal defence organisation in the Near East, which might be informally associated with the United States.
Dulles told Eisenhower in May 1953 that the Arab states believed that the United States would back Israel in aggressive expansion, and that the prestige of Western democracy in the Middle East was very low. The immediate consequence was a new policy of "even-handedness" where the United States very publicly sided with the Arab states in disputes with Israel and Britain in 1953–55.
Most of all, Nasser wanted the United States to supply arms on a generous scale to Egypt. Nasser's anti-Zionism rendered it difficult for the Eisenhower administration to get the approval of Congress necessary to sell weapons to Egypt.
Egypt and Britain
Britain's desire to mend Anglo-Egyptian relations in the wake of the coup saw the country strive for rapprochement throughout 1953-54. In October 1954, Britain and Egypt concluded the Anglo-Egyptian Agreement on the phased evacuation of British Armed Forces troops from the Suez base. Great Britain would withdraw all troops within 20 months, maintain the base, and retain a right to return for seven years. The Suez Company would revert to the Egyptian government in 1968.The Baghdad Pact
Egyptian foreign policy under Nasser saw the entire Middle East as Egypt's rightful sphere of influence, and opposed all Western security initiatives in the Near East. Nasser believed that neither his regime nor Egypt's independence would be safe until Egypt had established itself as head of the Arab world. There was a feud between Nasser and the prime minister of Iraq, Nuri al-Said, for Arab leadership. The creation of the Baghdad Pact, a Middle Eastern anti-Communist alliance of Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Iraq and the UK, in 1955 seemed to confirm Nasser's fears Britain was attempting to draw the Eastern Arab World into a bloc centred upon Iraq and sympathetic to Britain.The conclusion of the Baghdad Pact occurred almost simultaneously with a dramatic Israeli reprisal operation on the Gaza Strip on 28 February 1955 in retaliation for Palestinian fedayeen raids into Israel.
The close occurrence of the two events was mistakenly interpreted by Nasser as part of coordinated Western effort to push him into joining the Baghdad Pact. The signing of the Baghdad Pact and the Gaza raid marked the beginning of the end of Nasser's good relations with the Americans.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 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.
Egypt and the Communist World
Nasser had first broached the subject of buying weapons from the Soviet Union in 1954, as a way of pressuring the Americans into selling him the arms he desired. Instead of siding with either superpower, Nasser tried to have them compete in attempts to buy his friendship. During secret talks with the Soviets in 1955, Nasser's demands for weapons were more than amply satisfied. The news in September 1955 of the Egyptian purchase of a huge quantity of Soviet arms via Czechoslovakia was seen by the West as a major increase in Soviet influence in the Near East. In Britain, the increase of Soviet influence in the Near East was seen as an ominous development that threatened to put an end to British influence in the region.Egypt and Israel
Prior to 1955, Nasser had pursued efforts to reach peace with Israel and had worked to prevent cross-border Palestinian attacks. After the February 1955 Israeli raid on the Egyptian Army headquarters in Gaza in retaliation for a Palestinian fedayeen attack that killed an Israeli civilian, Nasser began allowing raids into Israel by the Palestinian militants. Egypt established fedayeen bases not just in Gaza but also in Jordan and Lebanon. The raids triggered a series of Israeli reprisal operations.Israel wanted to occupy and annex both the Gaza Strip and the Sinai and exercise control over the Gulf of Aqaba.
The Israelis were concerned by Egypt's procurement of large amounts of Soviet weaponry. The influx of this advanced weaponry altered an already shaky balance of power. Israel believed it had only a narrow window of opportunity to hit Egypt's army. Additionally, Israel believed Egypt had formed a secret alliance with Jordan and Syria.