Suez Crisis: 1956-1963

Suez Crisis: 1956-1963

Origins Of The Suez Crisis

The origins of the Suez crisis of 1956 lie partly in a mythology, current in the West in the 1950s, of Neville Chamberlain's policy for the appeasement of Europe and in the perhaps dangerous and inaccurate idea that history can repeat itself - that historical analogy should determine political policy. Anthony EDEN records in his memoirs that as prime minister, he viewed the events of the 1950s through the spectacles of the 1930s (Heikal, 1989).

Not only did Gamal Abdul Nasser's nationalization of the Suez Canal threaten Britain's national economy, which depended on supplies of oil from the Middle East, but Eden saw the Egyptian leader as another Mussolini. Eden felt that this time, the “dictator” should not be appeased but should be stopped before he went any further. President Dwight Eisenhower of the United States wanted to play for time and instructed his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, accordingly: he could hardly run for re-election as a proponent of peace if Washington's two main allies were fighting what Americans might perceive as an old-style colonial war. London and Washington concluded that Moscow had opened up another front in the cold war by agreeing to supply the Egyptians with arms. Where they differed was in their diagnosis of how to deal with the Arabs over this (Hahn, 2004).

The Suez Canal, crossing the isthmus that joins Africa and Asia, was formally opened in 1870. The canal at once assumed a strategic significance. In 1854 the Frenchman Ferdinand de Lesseps was given an act of concession by the Egyptian government to construct the canal. In 1856 a further concession was given to the Suez Canal Company to operate it. Construction of the canal began in 1859; it was completed in 1869. Shortly before his death in 1865, the British statesman Lord Palmerston warned that Britain should not try to control the canal or, he argued, it would become embroiled in 100 years of problems. His advice was to be ignored. The composer Giuseppe Verdi was commissioned to compose an opera to mark the opening of the canal, and composed Aïda, with a suitable Egyptian theme for the occasion. The concession to the Suez Canal Company was to run for 100 years. Initially only France purchased shares in the company (Bills, et.al, 1989).

The canal, 105 miles in length, cuts across the Suez isthmus to connect the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. It provides the shortest sea route between Europe and the Indian Ocean, the Far East and the Western Pacific. The canal does not follow the shortest land route but uses several lakes, especially the Great and Little Bitter Lakes. The Suez isthmus and the Sinai Peninsula form the sole land link between Africa and Asia (Eden, 1960)

The early debate on the Suez crisis focused on Britain's “collusion” with the French and Israelis to attack Egypt. Eden, in his memoirs, showed that even before the outbreak of the Suez crisis Britain was ...