Essay: Suez Crisis (Part 2)
Dec. 2nd, 2009 06:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
winterbadgerEden was personally receptive to an attack on Egypt that would allow Britain to reoccupy the Canal, perhaps the entire country. He had immediately demanded such a plan from his defense chiefs on news of the nationalization, to be greeted with the unwelcome news that it was simply not possible, given the current state of the British military, to successfully attack and occupy the major cities of Egypt. Britain did not have the sealift or the combat power to defeat the Egyptian Army. However, with the Israelis doing the heavy lifting, Britain (and France, which wanted Nasir deposed because of his support for the nationalist forces waging a bloody insurgency against France in Algeria) would be able to seize the Canal itself. And their air forces could provide the aerial bombardment that Israel could not (both Britain and France had carriers in the region, and the UK had a significant long-range bomber force on Cyprus).
But Britain (or perhaps simply Eden, who was becoming more and more detached from reality through overwork, nervous strain, and an addictive dependence on Benzedrine) still had visions of regaining its stature in the Arab world, which it couldn’t so as an ally of Israel, especially an ally in an unprovoked war on an Arab state. The French stepped in with a plan: the Israelis would attack, then the UK and France would announce they were stepping in as peacekeepers (under the 1954 agreement that Eden had negotiated with Nasir), declare an exclusion zone around the canal (which would force the Egyptians either to abandon the canal to the allies or resist a peacekeeping operation by force), occupy it, and “protect” it from the Egyptians. This plan was eventually agreed on by all sides and ratified in a secret agreement, the Protocol of Sèvres. And on 29 October 1956, Israel launched its attack.
Of course, this excuse was as thin as onionskin, an implausible tissue that fooled no one for long. Egypt rejected the Anglo-French call for a ceasefire and withdrawal from the canal. Britain and France vetoed a US move in the UN Security Council for a ceasefire in place, as their troops had not yet arrived—sailing from Cyprus at the 5 mph speed of their antiquated landing craft, it took the intervention force a week to arrive. By that time the world had seen through their ruse. Britain’s economy took a tremendous hit, and Eden received an even worse shock. The US, which had known something was being planned but not what, insisted that the British and French withdraw at once. President Eisenhower felt he had been deeply embarrassed by being shut out of British planning; US diplomats had spent the time between the nationalization and the attack trying to find a diplomatic solution in good faith, only to find that Britain had never intended to honor its commitments in the negotiations. The US, opposing a Soviet invasion of Hungary on the pretense of “defending the Hungarian government from unrest”, could not sanction its allies invading a country under the pretext of “peacekeeping”. Secretary of State Dulles threatened British Chancellor of the Exchequer Macmillan with an immediate US sale of all British sterling holdings, the likely destruction of the pound as a world currency, if Britain did not accede to an immediate ceasefire and the insertion of actual peacekeepers by the UN.
Britain caved instantly without consulting France, leaving the latter with the choice of fighting alone or pulling out without having accomplished any of its goals. France withdrew and began reconsidering its military alliances; once again, Perfidious Alboin had betrayed France (or so the French saw it). If this was going to be the value of NATO membership, perhaps France would be better off on its own. Prime Minister Eden, physically and emotionally wrecked by the strain of the crisis, resigned the following January. The British Secret Intelligence Service, ordered in the aftermath of Suez to formulate a plan to assassinate Nasir as a last, vengeful gesture by Eden, first balked, then devised a plan that was sure to be detected by the Egyptian security services. The attempt failed and Nasir, reading between the lines, did not engage in a wholesale purge of British agent in Egypt. Israel, threatened by the Soviet Union and pressured by the United States, withdrew from Sinai. Israel could not control the canal or the Strait of Tiran, but they received US guarantees of their right to free transit. And with UN peacekeepers in Sinai, Egypt could not reestablish their support for the PLO’s guerrillas. Out of the three aggressors in Suez, the Israelis came closest to achieving their goals.
But Britain (or perhaps simply Eden, who was becoming more and more detached from reality through overwork, nervous strain, and an addictive dependence on Benzedrine) still had visions of regaining its stature in the Arab world, which it couldn’t so as an ally of Israel, especially an ally in an unprovoked war on an Arab state. The French stepped in with a plan: the Israelis would attack, then the UK and France would announce they were stepping in as peacekeepers (under the 1954 agreement that Eden had negotiated with Nasir), declare an exclusion zone around the canal (which would force the Egyptians either to abandon the canal to the allies or resist a peacekeeping operation by force), occupy it, and “protect” it from the Egyptians. This plan was eventually agreed on by all sides and ratified in a secret agreement, the Protocol of Sèvres. And on 29 October 1956, Israel launched its attack.
Of course, this excuse was as thin as onionskin, an implausible tissue that fooled no one for long. Egypt rejected the Anglo-French call for a ceasefire and withdrawal from the canal. Britain and France vetoed a US move in the UN Security Council for a ceasefire in place, as their troops had not yet arrived—sailing from Cyprus at the 5 mph speed of their antiquated landing craft, it took the intervention force a week to arrive. By that time the world had seen through their ruse. Britain’s economy took a tremendous hit, and Eden received an even worse shock. The US, which had known something was being planned but not what, insisted that the British and French withdraw at once. President Eisenhower felt he had been deeply embarrassed by being shut out of British planning; US diplomats had spent the time between the nationalization and the attack trying to find a diplomatic solution in good faith, only to find that Britain had never intended to honor its commitments in the negotiations. The US, opposing a Soviet invasion of Hungary on the pretense of “defending the Hungarian government from unrest”, could not sanction its allies invading a country under the pretext of “peacekeeping”. Secretary of State Dulles threatened British Chancellor of the Exchequer Macmillan with an immediate US sale of all British sterling holdings, the likely destruction of the pound as a world currency, if Britain did not accede to an immediate ceasefire and the insertion of actual peacekeepers by the UN.
Britain caved instantly without consulting France, leaving the latter with the choice of fighting alone or pulling out without having accomplished any of its goals. France withdrew and began reconsidering its military alliances; once again, Perfidious Alboin had betrayed France (or so the French saw it). If this was going to be the value of NATO membership, perhaps France would be better off on its own. Prime Minister Eden, physically and emotionally wrecked by the strain of the crisis, resigned the following January. The British Secret Intelligence Service, ordered in the aftermath of Suez to formulate a plan to assassinate Nasir as a last, vengeful gesture by Eden, first balked, then devised a plan that was sure to be detected by the Egyptian security services. The attempt failed and Nasir, reading between the lines, did not engage in a wholesale purge of British agent in Egypt. Israel, threatened by the Soviet Union and pressured by the United States, withdrew from Sinai. Israel could not control the canal or the Strait of Tiran, but they received US guarantees of their right to free transit. And with UN peacekeepers in Sinai, Egypt could not reestablish their support for the PLO’s guerrillas. Out of the three aggressors in Suez, the Israelis came closest to achieving their goals.
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no subject
Date: 2009-12-03 02:24 am (UTC)Teddy Roosevelt would have been proud.
I assume Winston Churchill didn't think much of this fiasco. Is there any record of his public opinion?
no subject
Date: 2009-12-03 04:12 pm (UTC)Eden kept in touch with him throughout the planning and told him a great deal of what was being planned.* Churchill was supportive in July, then in August drove to Chequers and gave Eden a paper criticising the plans and suggesting a direct attack on Cairo instead of the Canal (a plan that directly contravened both the advice of the military chiefs, who said such an attack was impossible, and the whole "neutral peacekeeper" deception). In October, Churchill had a stroke at his home in the south of France and was disabled for a week or two, returning to the UK on the day of the Israeli attack.
Several days later, he published a letter supporting the Anglo-French intervention, a letter that he and Eden both hoped would gain American support for the action (clearly it didn't). The old man was deeply disappointed by America's failure to support the action (he said to one friend "This would never have happened if Eisenhower were alive.")
But he didn't spare Eden either when the latter caved under US (and Cabinet) pressure. When asked if he would have undertaken the operation, he is said to have replied "I would never have dared, and if I had dared, I would never have dared stop." Which, to my ear, is one of the more eloquent back-stabs in political rhetoric: not only are you a fool for doing what I have privately and publicly supported you in doing, but you are also a coward for not seeing it through to the end.
*There's some question in my mind as to how honest Eden was being with Churchill. For example, Churchill was under the impression that armour would be landed as part of the British force. As far as I can see, there was never any plan to bring in armoured units (the British forces used were para and RM commandos), nor any way to have gotten them there. Does this mean that Eden told Churchill things that weren't true, presumably to placate his former boss? Or was Eden (deep in the grip amphetamines and barbiturates) hallucinating?
no subject
Date: 2009-12-03 06:45 pm (UTC)As for Eden, he may well have told Churchill half-truths, but I'm disappointed that Churchill didn't see through them. He pretty clearly didn't have the incisive understanding of things that he'd had ~10 years earlier.
no subject
Date: 2009-12-03 11:35 pm (UTC)And, yes, Churchill had definitely lost his grasp of matters. He was bitter about the fact that Libya and Jordan were not supporting Britain despite having been the recipients of British subsidies for years. He put it down to "the solidarity of Islam" which really shows how little he understood the area.
Of course, having read a little about his acuity during the 1921 Cairo conference (and on other occasions), I sometimes wonder if he was really as brilliant as he has been made out to be by his very favourable press, or whether he simply had a knack for being both cantankerous and witty, and people just remember when he was right and forget when he was wrong.