Suez Crisis 1956: Nasser, the Canal and the End of Empire

The Suez Crisis of 1956 was a short war in which Israel, Britain and France invaded Egypt after President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal Company. Fought between 29 October and 7 November 1956, it was a military success for the invaders but a political disaster for London and Paris, who were forced to withdraw under pressure from the United States, the Soviet Union and the United Nations. In Egypt it is remembered as the Tripartite Aggression; in Britain it is widely seen as the moment the country ceased to act as an independent great power.

Background: the canal and the new Egypt

The Suez Canal, opened in 1869, linked the Mediterranean to the Red Sea and cut the sea route from Europe to Asia by thousands of kilometres. It was run by the Universal Suez Canal Company, a private firm based in Paris whose largest single shareholder, since Benjamin Disraeli’s purchase in 1875, was the British government. By the 1950s the canal carried a large share of the oil that Western Europe imported from the Persian Gulf, and Britain regarded it as a lifeline of its remaining empire.

Egypt had changed dramatically since the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, when the Free Officers overthrew King Farouk. Nasser emerged as the dominant figure and became president in 1956. Under an agreement signed in 1954, the last British troops left their huge Canal Zone base in June 1956. Nasser championed Arab nationalism, opposed the Western-backed Baghdad Pact, and in 1955 bought large quantities of Soviet-bloc weapons through Czechoslovakia.

The immediate trigger was money for the Aswan High Dam, Nasser’s flagship project to control the Nile and generate electricity. The United States and Britain had offered loans, alongside the World Bank, but on 19 July 1956 Secretary of State John Foster Dulles withdrew the American offer, irritated by Egypt’s arms deal and its recognition of Communist China. Britain followed.

Nationalisation and the secret plan

On 26 July 1956, in a speech in Alexandria, Nasser announced that Egypt was nationalising the Suez Canal Company and would use its revenues to build the dam. As he spoke, Egyptian officials took over the company’s offices along the canal. Shareholders were promised compensation at the market price, and ships continued to pass normally.

The British prime minister, Anthony Eden, reacted with fury. He had been shaped by the failure to stop Hitler in the 1930s and compared Nasser to the dictators of that era. The French government of Guy Mollet was equally hostile, partly because Nasser supported the rebels in the Algerian War of Independence. Both governments began planning military action, while two London conferences of canal users and a proposed users’ association failed to produce a settlement.

Israel had its own grievances. Egypt barred Israeli shipping from the canal and blockaded the Straits of Tiran, cutting off the port of Eilat, and Palestinian fedayeen raids from Egyptian-controlled Gaza drew harsh Israeli reprisals. Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and his chief of staff, Moshe Dayan, saw a chance to strike Egypt’s army before its new Soviet weapons were absorbed.

Between 22 and 24 October 1956, British, French and Israeli representatives met secretly in a villa at Sèvres, near Paris. They agreed what became known as the Protocol of Sèvres. Israel would attack Egypt in Sinai. Britain and France would then demand that both sides withdraw ten miles from the canal and, when Egypt refused, would intervene to “separate the combatants” and seize the waterway.

The plan gave Britain and France a pretext that looked like peacekeeping. In practice it was a coordinated invasion. Eden insisted on secrecy, and for decades British ministers denied that any collusion had taken place.

What happened: the war of October–November 1956

On 29 October 1956 Israeli paratroopers dropped near the Mitla Pass in western Sinai, opening Operation Kadesh. Israeli armoured and infantry columns then advanced across the peninsula. Within about a week they had taken almost all of Sinai, the Gaza Strip and Sharm el-Sheikh, which commanded the Straits of Tiran.

On 30 October Britain and France issued their ultimatum. Israel, which was not near the canal, accepted; Egypt refused. On 31 October British and French aircraft began bombing Egyptian airfields, destroying most of Egypt’s air force on the ground. Nasser responded by ordering ships to be sunk in the canal, blocking it for months, and by withdrawing much of his army from Sinai.

The Anglo-French landings, codenamed Operation Musketeer, came slowly because the invasion fleet had to sail from Malta. On 5 November British paratroopers landed at Gamil airfield west of Port Said and French paratroopers dropped near Port Fuad. On 6 November seaborne commandos and tanks came ashore, and Royal Marines landed by helicopter in one of the first helicopter-borne assaults in history. After hard street fighting the town fell, and forces began advancing south along the canal.

Within hours, at midnight on 6–7 November, Britain and France accepted a ceasefire. Their troops had advanced only as far as El Cap, a short distance south of Port Said, leaving most of the canal in Egyptian hands.

International pressure: Washington, Moscow and the UN

The invasion had been launched without informing President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who was days away from re-election. He regarded it as a betrayal and feared that it would drive Arab and Asian countries towards Moscow. It also came at the worst moment: on 4 November Soviet tanks entered Budapest to crush the Hungarian Revolution, and Western condemnation of Moscow was undercut by events in Egypt.

On 2 November the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly for a ceasefire, with only Britain, France, Israel, Australia and New Zealand opposed. Canada’s foreign minister, Lester Pearson, proposed a UN Emergency Force (UNEF) to replace the invaders, the first large UN peacekeeping force; he later received the Nobel Peace Prize for it. On 5 November the Soviet premier, Nikolai Bulganin, sent notes threatening Britain and France with rocket attacks.

Economic pressure proved decisive. The closure of the canal and sabotage of a pipeline through Syria cut oil supplies, and the pound came under heavy speculative attack. The United States refused to support sterling or to release emergency oil until Britain agreed to withdraw. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Harold Macmillan, who had been a leading advocate of force, now warned that the reserves could not hold.

Key people

• Gamal Abdel Nasser – Egypt’s president, whose nationalisation of the canal triggered the crisis and whose survival made him the leading figure of Arab nationalism.
• Anthony Eden – British prime minister who led his country into the war, concealed the collusion and resigned soon afterwards.
• Guy Mollet – French socialist prime minister who saw toppling Nasser as a way to weaken the Algerian revolt.
• David Ben-Gurion and Moshe Dayan – Israel’s prime minister and chief of staff, who planned the Sinai campaign.
• Dwight D. Eisenhower and John Foster Dulles – the US president and secretary of state, whose opposition forced the withdrawal.

Consequences

British and French forces left Port Said by 22 December 1956, handing over to UNEF. Israel withdrew from Sinai and Gaza by March 1957, after receiving assurances about free passage through the Straits of Tiran; UN troops were stationed on the Egyptian side of the border. The canal was cleared under UN supervision and reopened in April 1957, under Egyptian management. Egypt later reached a compensation agreement with the company’s shareholders.

Eden, exhausted and ill, resigned on 9 January 1957 and was succeeded by Macmillan, who set about repairing relations with Washington. France drew the opposite lesson: that it could not rely on its allies. This fed its pursuit of an independent nuclear force and its preference for European integration, signed into the Treaty of Rome in March 1957.

In the Middle East, Nasser emerged as a hero to millions of Arabs. British influence declined sharply, and the United States announced the Eisenhower Doctrine in January 1957, offering aid to states threatened by communism. The Soviet Union gained prestige as a friend of Arab nationalism and later helped Egypt build the Aswan High Dam.

By the numbers

Legacy

Suez is often described as the end of Britain’s imperial role. It showed that the old European powers could not act against the wishes of the United States, and it accelerated decolonisation in Africa and Asia. For the United Nations it marked the birth of modern peacekeeping.

For Israel the campaign brought a decade of relative quiet on the Egyptian border and opened the Straits of Tiran, until Egypt’s demand for the removal of UN troops in 1967 helped bring on the Six-Day War. The truth about Sèvres emerged only gradually, through memoirs and archives, and the phrase “Suez moment” is still used in Britain for a humiliating loss of influence.

Timeline

• 1956, 19 July: The United States withdraws its offer to help finance the Aswan High Dam.
• 1956, 26 July: Nasser announces the nationalisation of the Suez Canal Company.
• 1956, 22–24 October: Britain, France and Israel agree the secret Protocol of Sèvres.
• 1956, 29 October: Israel invades Sinai, beginning with a parachute drop near the Mitla Pass.
• 1956, 31 October: British and French aircraft begin bombing Egyptian airfields.
• 1956, 2 November: The UN General Assembly calls for a ceasefire.
• 1956, 5–6 November: Anglo-French airborne and seaborne landings at Port Said and Port Fuad.
• 1956, 6–7 November: Britain and France accept a ceasefire at midnight.
• 1956, 22 December: The last British and French troops leave Port Said.
• 1957, 9 January: Anthony Eden resigns as British prime minister.

Why it matters

The Suez Crisis exposed the limits of British and French power in a world dominated by the United States and the Soviet Union. It turned Nasser into the symbol of Arab nationalism, created the first major UN peacekeeping force and hastened the end of European empires.