The Suez Crisis 1956
Book Notes #40
This will be a broad review of several books on the Suez Canal Crisis in 1956. The first book I read on the subject was an Osprey book, The Suez Crisis 1956, by Derek Varble. What is there to say? It’s an Osprey book like all the other Osprey books, so it has a lot of color maps and details of the military campaign. It can’t help but satisfy the reader. This book is probably worth reading first, as it mainly about the military campaign itself, from planning to completion, and fills in the missing details in the other books in regard to the specific events over those few days.
The second book I read on the subject was Suez Crisis 1956 by David Charlwood. This book focuses more on the geopolitical aspects of the war, with more words dedicated to Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles, and provides ample quotations from many of the essential persons involved in the conflict. As a pair, I consider both of these essential reading for a fairly comprehensive view of the conflict. At only around a hundred pages each and filled with many pictures, one can easily blitz both of them and come away with a perfectly serviceable understanding of the conflict.
In combination of these two books, a basic outline of the Suez Crisis is as follows:
After the revolutionary Egyptian President Nasser nationalized the Suez Company with the intent to buy out international shares in the company, the English wanted Nasser gone. They did not trust any agreement with the Egyptians at this point. The French, the second party interested in the canal and responsible for managing its original construction, brought the British and Israelis together in an alliance against Egypt. They were interested in protecting Algeria and were concerned about Nasser shipping weapons to the Algerians in their ongoing war for independence from France. The British had to be persuaded by the French into cooperating with the Israeilis; from the beginning the British were less committed to the war, and in the end pulled out first. It is clear the the French were the primary actor in arranging the alliance, and although the British were perfectly willing to cooperate, their insufficient foresight and cold feet contributed to the operation being a tactical success but strategic defeat.
The French weremore proactive in planning the conflict, but British planners were undergoing their own plans for military intervention even before talks with the French and Israelis. Ultimately, the plans that were executed were the plans known as Kadesh and Revise. In pursuing this military action, the French and Israelis extracted a British signature on the Sèvres Protocols, the document binding the three partners to this secret cooperative invasion of Egypt. British Prime Minister Eden was aghast that Patrick Dean had signed the Sèvres Protocols on behalf of the British government, and ordered him to have the other copies destroyed after Eden burned the British copy, but of course Dean was refused by the French. For the British, secrecy was paramount in not alerting the Americans to their intent to pursue the operation, while on the other hand pretending with the Americans to still seek a diplomatic solution.
The operation itself included a number of high-risk tactical maneuvers, including the first-ever helicopter drop into an active fire zone, and an extremely low-altitude paradrop by the French. Although the British and French achieved great tactical success, at the operational level, they were not at all in agreement, and the numerous revisions to the plan demonstrate this. General Hugh Stockwell was commander of the Anglo-French Task Force and favored sticking to established plans to reduce risk, while his French deputy General André Beaufre was an opportunist who was for discarding any plan that obstructed the exploitation of new circumstances when they arose.
While closer cooperation with fewer friendly fire incidents among the three parties with a more unified operational plan could have resulted in a more decisive military victory, it seems unlikely that the war had any chance to succeed at the strategic level. The Americans and United Nations were able to stop the war with economic and political pressure in less than ten days. It seems unlikely that the British and French could have maintained control of the Suez under U.N. pressure while dealing with the resultant insurgency in Egypt under their occupation, although some parties close to the events disagree.
In consequence of the war, the three powers Great Britain, France, and Israel took different paths following the war.
According the the Osprey book:
“While Macmillan decided to reinvigorate ties with the United States after the Suez Crisis, France came to a different decision, concluding that neither Britain nor the United States was a genuine ally. After all, Britain wavered during the war’s climactic moments and the United States obstructed French efforts to occupy the Canal Zone and overthrow Nasser. France therefore parted from its NATO colleagues, pursuing an independent path that included the development of its own nuclear force.
Charles De Gaulle led this shift in French policy. After a long period in the political wilderness, Revise and its resulting political and military strife within France propelled him into a leadership role. Despite confidence and belief in his own destiny, De Gaulle failed to stem an anti-colonial tide of which the Suez Crisis was just one manifestation. During the Cold War, French colonies in Africa and elsewhere gained independence in drove. Algeria, which prompted French interest in toppling Nasser, left the French fold five years after the Suez crisis.
Israel learned from the Suez crisis similar lessons to those of France. For instance, Israeli leaders decided that the capacity for independent action was paramount for survival. Depending on other states for direct military assistance – such as destroying Egyptian bombers – was too risky, because those states might renege on their commitments. The Suez War also reinforced Israeli tendencies towards striking first. By keeping Egyptian forces off-balance and confused, this approach worked in Kadesh, and Israel applied these lessons 11 years later during the Six-Day War.”
Something extremely interesting mentioned in the Charlwood book is that French President Mollet agreed to build a heavy-water nuclear reactor in Israel and supply the uranium. This would enable the Israelis to develop nuclear weapons. The facility is today named the “Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center.” The French or Mollet himself had a particular interest in Israel’s survival that is not entirely explained in what I’ve read on Suez.
The French were also criticized by Eden when he discovered that some French aircraft were painted with a Star of David during the short conflict, as they provided close air support in the Sinai. Eden is quoted as messaging to Mollet:
“Actions of this sort, which cannot possibly remain secret, are extremely embarrassing … Nothing could do more to harm our role as peacemakers than to be identified in this way with one of the parties.”
Indeed, because of possible action against the Israelis due to a treaty with Jordan, the British military men themselves didn’t really know which country they were sailing to attack as the task force transited from Malta across the Mediterranean. The British required strategic secrecy whereas the French seemed to only required it as an operational tool to initiate hostilities smoothly. Even within the British government, only Eden and a few others were fully informed on what was really going on.
The American President learned of the Israeli attack opening hostilities at 7:00 P.M. on October 29th, a few hours after Kadesh began. Eisenhower exclaimed to Dulles:
“Foster, you tell ‘em, Goddamnit, that we’re going to apply sanctions, we’re going to the United Nations, we’re going to do everything that there is to so we can stop this thing … nothing justifies double crossing us.”
Eisenhower was even more furious when the British and French issued their twelve-hour ultimatum, or else they would enter to separate the belligerents. His anger is explained by the fact that, for months, the Americans, and especially John Foster Dulles, had been working on international agreements that would establish international access to the canal, while the Egyptians would get the financial benefits of sovereignty over the canal that they desired. Although the post-crisis narrative was that the Americans had betrayed the British and French as allies, and I have seen people echo this sentiment to this day, the British were the architects of their own undoing. One can hardly claim that the Americans “betrayed” the British when the British were acting surreptitiously in contradiction to the objective that they knew the Americans were pursuing. The British and French may have underestimated the degree to which the Americans would proactively undermine their war, however, and the harsh measures that strangled the British Pound Sterling certainly helped create this perspective.