The nationalisation of the canal company, announced in a speech at Alexandria on 26 July 1956 (1956)
Nasser used the codeword "de Lesseps" as the signal for troops to seize the company's offices.
History · The 20th century
The Suez Crisis
July – November 1956
The collusion of Britain, France and Israel against Egypt, and the end of Britain as a first-rank power
The crisis that followed Gamal Abdel Nasser's nationalisation of the Suez Canal Company on 26 July 1956, announced after the United States and Britain withdrew funding for the Aswan High Dam. Britain and France, joint shareholders in the company, secretly agreed with Israel at Sèvres in October that Israel would attack across Sinai, giving the two European powers a pretext to intervene and separate the combatants. Israel attacked on 29 October and Anglo-French forces landed at Port Said on 5 and 6 November. American financial pressure on sterling and United Nations condemnation forced a ceasefire within a day and a humiliating withdrawal. Anthony Eden resigned in January 1957.
How to spot them
- ▸A canal company nationalised in a speech at Alexandria in July 1956
- ▸A secret protocol signed at a villa outside Paris in October
- ▸Landings at Port Said and an airborne drop at Gamil on 5 November
- ▸A run on sterling and an American president refusing to help until there is a ceasefire
- ▸A prime minister who resigns in January 1957 and is succeeded by his chancellor
What happened
The secret protocol signed at a villa outside Paris on 24 October 1956 (1956)
The Protocol of Sèvres, recording the collusion of Britain, France and Israel.
The Anglo-French landings at Port Said on 5 and 6 November, codenamed Operation Musketeer (1956)
Paratroops seized Gamil airfield before the seaborne assault; the ceasefire came within a day.
The withdrawal of Anglo-American funding for the Aswan High Dam in July 1956 (1956)
John Foster Dulles's decision provoked the nationalisation that followed within a week.
The first armed peacekeeping force sent by the United Nations, proposed by Lester Pearson (1956)
UNEF; Pearson received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957 and later became Canadian prime minister.
A British prime minister's resignation on grounds of health in January 1957, and his chancellor's succession (1957)
Anthony Eden resigned and Harold Macmillan replaced him.
Quick-fire facts
- •The canal, engineered under Ferdinand de Lesseps, opened in 1869; Disraeli bought the Khedive's shares for Britain in 1875
- •British troops had left the canal zone under the Anglo-Egyptian agreement of 1954
- •Anthony Eden compared Nasser to Mussolini and pressed for force; Hugh Gaitskell led Labour opposition to the invasion
- •The minister of state at the Foreign Office, Anthony Nutting, resigned over the collusion, as did Edward Boyle
- •President Eisenhower, facing re-election, refused support for sterling at the IMF until a ceasefire was agreed
- •The operation coincided with the Soviet suppression of the Hungarian uprising in November 1956
- •The canal was blocked by scuttled ships and did not reopen until April 1957
- •Britain admitted the Sèvres collusion only long after the event; Eden denied it to the Commons
- •The crisis is widely seen as a turning point in the decline of British and French influence in the Middle East
Drill it — 9 cards
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Sources
- Keith Kyle — Suez: Britain's End of Empire in the Middle East
- Alistair Horne — Macmillan: 1894–1956