Nasser - From Pan-Arab Dream to National Disaster | Doc > .
Egypt Grabs Suez (1956) > .
Egyptian President
Gamal Abdel Nasser had
nationalised the Suez Canal on 26 July, 1956. He had been careful to pay compensation to shareholders of the Suez Canal Company after the nationalisation, but both Britain and France were concerned about the potential economic and political problems that might ensue if Egypt chose to limit their access to the canal. They were particularly worried about access to oil from the Persian Gulf. Meanwhile, Israel was angry that Egypt had closed the canal to their shipping and blockaded the Gulf of Aqaba.
Months of tense negotiations failed to reassure Britain and France who secretly began preparing a military response to take back control of the canal in alliance with Israel. An agreement between the three allies was concluded at
Sèvres in France on
24 October. The Protocol of Sèvres called for a
full-scale Israeli assault on Egyptian Sinai on
29 October, which would be followed the next day with calls from Britain and France for the two sides to withdraw from the Canal Zone. Their troops would then move in to the area and place it under Anglo-French control.
The Israeli invasion took place on 29 October as agreed, and Nasser rejected the demands to withdraw his troops from the canal. In response
British and French forces invaded the Egyptian city of Port Said on the night of 5-6 November.
The invasion was met with international condemnation that pressured British Prime Minister Anthony Eden into calling a ceasefire just a day later.
The
Suez Crisis, or the
Second Arab–Israeli war, also called the
tripartite aggression in the Arab world and
Sinai War in Israel, was an
invasion of Egypt in late 1956 by Israel, followed by the United Kingdom and France. The aims were to
regain Western control of the Suez Canal and to
remove Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, who had just nationalised the canal. After the fighting had started,
political pressure from the United States, the Soviet Union and the United Nations led to a
withdrawal by the three invaders. The episode humiliated the United Kingdom and France and strengthened Nasser.
On
29 October, Israel invaded the Egyptian Sinai.
Britain and France issued a
joint ultimatum to cease fire, which was
ignored. On
5 November, Britain and France landed
paratroopers along the Suez Canal. The
Egyptian forces were defeated, but they did
block the canal to all shipping. It later became clear that Israel, France and Britain had conspired to plan out the invasion.
The three allies had attained a number of their military objectives, but the canal was useless.
Heavy political pressure from the
United States and the
USSR led to a withdrawal.
U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower had strongly warned Britain not to invade; he
threatened serious damage to the British financial system by selling the US government's pound sterling bonds. Historians conclude the crisis "signified the
end of Great Britain's role as one of the world's major powers". The
Suez Canal was
closed from October 1956 until March 1957.
Israel fulfilled some of its objectives, such as
attaining freedom of navigation through the Straits of Tiran,
which Egypt had blocked to Israeli shipping since 1950.
As a result of the conflict, the United Nations created the
UNEF Peacekeepers to police the Egyptian–Israeli border,
British prime minister Anthony Eden resigned,
Canadian external affairs minister Lester Pearson won the Nobel Peace Prize, and the
USSR may have been emboldened to invade Hungary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suez_Crisis .
Operation Musketeer (
Opération Mousquetaire) was the
Anglo-French plan for the invasion of the Suez canal zone to capture the
Suez Canal during the
Suez Crisis in 1956. ...
Israel, which
invaded the Sinai peninsula, had the
additional objectives of opening the Straits of Tiran and halting fedayeen incursions into Israel. The Anglo-French military operation was originally planned for early September, but the
necessity of coordination with Israel delayed it until
early November. However, on
10 September British and French politicians and Chiefs of the General Staff agreed to adopt General Charles Keightley's alterations to the military plans with the
intention of reducing Egyptian civilian casualties. The new plan, renamed
Musketeer Revise, provided the
basis of the actual Suez operation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Musketeer_(1956) .
