IGCSE History

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• Introduction to IGCSE
• The Road to Affluence: USA 1917 - 1941 (A9)
  • 1917 - 1929
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• International Relations 1919-1939 (A8)
  • Collective Security
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  • Appeasement
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    • Appeasement in action
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  • 1949 - 1976
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• South-East Asia 1945 - 1900 (A15)
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    • The struggle for control of Malaya
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• Conflict and Crisis is the Middle East 1946 - 1996 (A16)
  • Unit overview
  • 1946 - 1967
    • The creation of Israel
    • The impact of the war of 1948 - 1949
    • The Suez Crisis
    • Superpower involvement in the Middle East
    • The Six Day War
  • 1967 - 1996
    • International terrorism
    • The war of Yom Kippur
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• The First World War (B4)
  • The Schlieffen Plan
  • Deadlock on the Western Front
  • Gallipoli
  • The Somme and Passchendaele
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• The USA 1917-1929 (B7)
  • The Roaring Twenties
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• China under Mao Zedong 1949 - 1959 (B10)
  • The creation of the Communist State
  • Land Reform
  • Communist society
  • The First Five Year Pan
  • The 100 Flowers
  • The Great Leap Forward
• The Changing Nature of Warfare (C3)
  • Unit overview
  • Warfare at the beginning of the 20th Century
  • Land warfare
  • Sea and aerial warfare
  • Atomic and nuclear weapons
  • Warfare at the end of the 20th Century
• Links

The Suez crisis

There is a podcast on this topic here http://dhahranbritish.com/Podcasts/podcast.xml

In Egypt in July 1952, there was a revolution. Almost immediately the new leader of Egypt emerged as Colonel Gamal Abdul Nasser. He wanted to force the British to leave the bases that they still held in Egypt and unite the Arab nations in one single movement with Egypt at its head. Nasser appealed to the USA for aid, but was refused because of the influence of the Jewish lobby in Washington. Nasser then refused to join the western organised Baghdad Pact, which had been set up in February 1955 and instead agreed to buy arms from Czechoslovakia in September 1955.

In an effort to win back Nasser’s support, the US government offered $50,000,000 for the Aswan Dam project. This was an attempt to control the flood waters of the River Nile. But when Nasser also asked for help from the Soviet Union, the US government withdrew the offer in July 1956. The Americans did not want to start competition between the superpowers in the Middle East.

In June 1956 the British evacuated their remaining bases in Egypt. Nasser now had a free hand to act and he immediately nationalised the Suez Canal and announced that he would use the funds that were raised from ships passing through it to build the Aswan Dam.
Reactions in Britain and France to Nasser’s actions were very extreme. The British government regarded Nasser's actions as a direct threat to the Commonwealth, which, it believed, depended upon the Canal for trade links. Britain was also dependent upon Middle Eastern oil and the Suez Canal was the main route for oil to reach Britain

The British and French did not want a peaceful solution and in early October the French sent Israel 75 of their latest fighter aircraft. The British and French governments believed that Nasser was unpopular in Egypt and that an attack would lead to a popular uprising by the Egyptian people.

The Israeli commander, Moshe Dayan, wanted to take advantage of the situation to launch an attack on Egypt. The Israelis asked the British government how it would react to an Israeli attack. The British were in favour. On 29 October the Israeli army attacked Egypt through Sinai without warning. On 30 October the British and French governments demanded that Egypt withdraw its forces from the Suez Canal, or they would intervene within twelve hours. Nasser refused. On 1 November British and French planes began to bomb the Egyptian airforce, destroying most of Nasser’s planes on the ground.

Fighting between Egypt and Israel had virtually ceased on 5 November, when the British and French dropped paratroops at Port Said. Britain and France claimed that they were intervening to restore order to the region. On 6 November 200 British and French warships bombarded Port Said and then landed a further 22,000 troops many by helicopter. Port Said was taken and then the invaders took control of the canal. But not before Nasser had ordered it to be blocked by sunken ships.

There was overwhelming condemnation of the invasion. The USA had put a resolution to the Security Council of the United Nations calling for Israel to withdraw its forces on 2 November. Britain and France vetoed the resolution and then put pressure on the Israelis to continue, so that they could appear to be acting as peacekeepers. The General Assembly voted 64-5 for a cease-fire on the same day. The Soviet Union threatened to send troops to support Egypt and hinted that it might use Soviet missiles against France and Britain. US forces were put on stand by and President Eisenhower told the British government that it must withdraw.

On 7 November Britain and France announced a cease-fire and the withdrawal of their troops from Egypt. This took place over a six-week period. The Israelis withdrew six months later and a UN peacekeeping force was put in place for ten years. 26 British and French soldiers were killed in the operation. The Egyptians lost about 3,000 men.

Israel was the only country to benefit. A UN peacekeeping force took up station in Sinai in March 1957 and Israel was guaranteed the use of the Gulf of Aqaba. The port of Eilat, which had been blockaded by the Egyptians before the war, was now reopened.

Superpower involvement in the Middle East

Links