Its Suez time again – November, 61 years ago- – the collapse of prestige – oddly the greatest loss was to the country that was dragged into it at the last minute and headed by a drugged up PM who never consulted his Cabinet, lied to his Parliament and concealed the plan from his closest allies – from whom he sought later assistance when it turned bad. There was also a Luxor connection – and not what you would think.
The denouement was a near universal vote in the UN for the French, UK and Israel to get out, a run on the pound and the disgrace of the PM and his resignation. Unbelievable stuff up.
Key elements:
Anthony Eden as PM had unhappy memories of the appeasement he had conducted with dictators whilst British foreign secretary in the late 1930s. He may have been very sensitive to accusations that he was at it again with Nasser after Nasser kicked the UK army out in June 1956. Even though he took a hard line on Egypt he greatly enraged Churchill who wanted an extreme line to be taken. During the crisis Churchill received most if not all secret communications and visited Eden in secret and in private at Chequers to insist on extreme action – invasion. At this point Churchill’s brain functions and addictions were far from certain.
Eden had chronic health problems. A series of disastrous gall bladder operations and heavy reliance on amphetamines (and possibly morphine) intensified Eden’s “pathological feelings” about the Egyptian leader and elated his mood at the time of Suez. For example reputable authors have published that Eden allegedly rang his Secretary of State on an open line late at night at the Savoy Hotel and said that “I want Nasser murdered, don’t you understand?”. He was not unused to drugs and erratic behavior because he had covered for Churchill in that man’s last year or so as PM when the latter was dysfunctional on various pills and liquids.
The plan was developed in secret by the French and Israeli’s and the UK recruited in secret after the former two had settled it. The whole plan, or any aspect of it, was neither seen nor approved by Cabinet and both Eden and his foreign secretary, Selwyn Lloyd, lied to parliament and denied any action was under preparation. The British ambassador in Cairo at the time, Sir Humphrey Trevelyan said that his embassy had received no prior warning of the invasion – so even expert advisors were locked out. At no stage had France or the UK sought UN authorization for their invasion or any other UN actions to deal with Nasser.
Washington (the UK's closest ally) was never told about it beforehand and was hostile and very public when it happened. Both President Eisenhower and his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles, had repeatedly warned Eden against armed intervention in Egypt, partly to minimize Cold War animosities, partly to avoid embarrassment to Eisenhower’s current bid for re-election to the White House, and partly because both president and secretary of state were known to the UK to be anti-imperialist.
When 'implemented' it was disingenuously presented to the world as an UK effort to save Egypt. Seemingly Israel invaded Suez on its own initiative and then, apparently unrelated, the French and the UK landed to keep the parties separated – seemingly to ‘assist’ Egypt, but in fact to provide a pretext to get these armies back into Egypt and in control of the canal. Any idiot soon saw it was a planned ‘set-up’ when the French and UK attacked Egypt whilst they did nothing to stop the Israeli invasion they claimed as their objective. Some in the UK media thought it a victory delivered to Nasser. Here is a London cartoon with Eden’s head on a platter and Nasser in bed:
The bombing of civilian areas was severe and widely publicized, here is Port Said on 12 November:
Britain’s instantaneous punishment from Washington was to stop a much-needed major loan from the International Monetary Fund to defend the pound unless British and French forces immediately withdrew from Egypt. France did not suffer international humiliation to the same degree as Britain, but the invasion hastened the collapse of the Fourth Republic and the ascendancy of Charles de Gaulle in the new Fifth Republic. Israel barely suffered a diplomatic scratch.
Nasser used the invasion as a pretext to expel, with only their suitcases, thousands of French, Brits. and Jews from Egypt in ‘punishment’ and seize their local assets. He also provided money and guns to the rebels in Algeria to help them defeat the French.
Australia played a (not untypical and) pathetic supporting role to Britain throughout the dispute, driven largely by its fervently Anglophilic prime minister – who did not have the support of his own Foreign Minister or his diplomats on the issue. At no stage (?) was Australia told of the secret collusion.
When the invasion occurred Australia and New Zealand were the only two countries to vote with the three belligerent states against the General Assembly resolution (997) calling for an immediate ceasefire. The Canadians and South Africans were sensible and wouldn’t have a bar of the whole mess and didn’t back the UK in the UN.
Nasser kicked out France, the UK, Australia and NZ.
The flow-on effects of the Suez adventure consolidated United States leadership of Western interests in the Middle East. It distracted world attention from the Soviet Union invasion of Hungary following the revolution there in November 1956. Nasser’s triumph inspired the spread of his Arab nationalism across North Africa and the Middle East and stimulated his provision of arms and money to the terrorists fighting the French in Algeria. The fact that Cairo had been bombed (at least Huckstep Barracks, West Cairo Airport, al Maza Airport (about a k. or so south of Heliopolis) and Cairo Radio – the Luxor Airport was also bombed on 2 November, and Alex. was bombed) and the Egypt army had performed ‘less than well’ was easily censored in Egypt.
Preparations for the independence of Britain’s African and Southeast Asian colonies were well under way by the time of Suez, and the government of Harold Macmillan, which followed Eden’s resignation, self-consciously avoided the rhetoric and posturings of empire – possibly to the detriment of UK interests. Britain’s deployment of her power since 1956 has been characterized by some as ‘essays in exorcising the demons of Suez’.
http://www.internationalaffairs.org.au/ ... of-empire/
One assumes the Queen approved the deployment of her army, navy and air force. Whether she asked if her cabinet had approved this or noticed her PM high on mind-altering drugs is not clear. Maybe she instantly signs everything put in front of her, never asks any questions and just accepts her PM’s lie to their people. You wonder what her Private Secretary knew or how she views her ‘constitutional role’.
How a PM could go to war without Cabinet discussion and approval and without telling his allies is beyond me. There was never a public inquiry on what had happened and why and therefore whether other Ministers, like Defense, knew and kept it quiet from Cabinet colleagues.
Political judgment on community sentiment was poor and the demonstrations against the government were the largest since the Sir Oswald Mosely’s Fascist ones in the 1930’s:
A full list of journalists, BBC governors and media magnates who agreed to suppress the truth has never been published but probably includes Lords Beaverbrook and Northcliffe. The Mail and Express behaved no better then than now. The BBC was told what to do by Eden in no uncertain terms. Its Director General later described the pressure from the PM as ‘severe’ and ‘stronger than any which had threatened its editorial independence’. The BBC history of itself states that it resisted but the truth is probably less rosy.
Because failure should always be rewarded – Selwyn Lloyd stayed on as Foreign Minister, later promoted to Chancellor and a life peerage whilst drunkenly soliciting young men in The Mall in his lonely, soaked old age. One of his attempted pick-ups went on to become Tony Blair’s father-in-law. Eden was rewarded with an hereditary earldom and a viscountancy, continued in his published memoirs to deny any collusion with Israel and France, spoke out invariably against US policy, stayed on as a university chancellor until 1973 and was promoted to Privy Councilor to advise the queen in 1961. Whether he got off the drugs to subsequently advise the queen is not known. He eventually admitted collusion with France and Israel - but only in interviews not to be made public during his lifetime whilst his ‘positive’ memoirs denied everything but made him a rich man. Lucky him. Sir Humphrey Trevelyan kept his mouth shut about being locked out and having opposed invasion (but told an Australian Professor the truth), received a peerage and was given an Imperial military mess in 1963 to sort out - getting the UK out of Aden.
The military head of the Chief of Staffs Committee, who may or may not have asked whether constitutional procedures were followed or whether it was just a few Ministers acting on selective advice, was Sir William Dickson. He was kept on and promoted. The head of MI6 at the time, Sir Richard White, stayed on till 1968 in a career that was undistinguished – except for its longevity and his close association with possible UK double agents. Oddly, MI6 provided secret briefings to the Queen during the Suez Crisis – not that any of them may have been very accurate. For example one MI6 Cairo based person who was responsible for secret cables and cyphering has published that, at the time of the crisis, she partied in Cairo nightclubs until 3.00am but presented for work at 7.00am. Contemporary experts now assert that MI6’s primary intelligence source from (allegedly) inside Nasser’s office and known for its wild accusations about Nasser’s plans was at best unreliable or possibly a self-created mirage. It is now also thought probable by experts that MI6 was out of control under Sir Richard and operated outside approved government policy.
London may have been little better because it seems that the movement of intelligence and plans via ‘unusual’ routes in London was “so chaotic and disjointed that it produced not one but several contradictory policies” in the opinion of one academic – but the devious routes were always at the PM’s direction. As things developed in this erratic way it seems that the ‘unsupportive’ Foreign Office was dealt out by the PM, and MI6 and the military ran the show. It seems probable that FO advice opposing the 'plan' was suppressed or not shown to Ministers. The center of this web was the elusive FO Sir Patrick Dean who diverted and blocked information, deceived his boss and his Minister, obeyed the PM and was subsequently promoted to the UN and then as UK ambassador to Washington. He always publically denied secret collusion yet he had secretly visited Sevres to sign up with the French and Israelis. A sign of the dissent by those locked out was an attempted ‘revolt’ by his middle level Foreign Office staff once the Anglo-French invasion happened.
Another key leader and winner in this maverick exercise was Bernard Fergusson who was later made Governor General of New Zealand, a university chancellor and a life peer. His specialty was propaganda war and assassination attempts on Nasser. Nothing he was responsible for was better than a failure but continued his military traditions of risky ideas, mad colleagues, poor organization and flop.
Macmillan’s role in the fiasco is unclear – about all that is clear is that no one could prove actual blood on his hands and the scapegoating of Eden’s made him PM - so I guess he was a big winner.
For those kicked out and their worldly goods taken (difficult to estimate but not less than 3,000 but probably not the 10’s of thousands Jewish sources state) it was not so lucky. In addition about 4,000 were killed, including a lot of Egyptian civilians and about 5,000 wounded (estimates for both sides, but difficult to verify). Unlucky them.
Here is a Jew being kicked out carrying all he was allowed to take:
Whether anyone was killed in the Luxor Royal Airforce bombing raid – I don’t know. British commercial interests in Egypt also suffered, as did UK influence in the region and with Third World countries. Relations with members of the Commonwealth, both black and white, were damaged to the UK’s detriment.
I imagine the UK taxpayer was also a looser for putting 45,000 men in the field. The French went on to pay a very high price for Imperialism in Algeria after war crimes and military defeat led to metropolitan political collapse, attempted coup d’état (possibly two), a million refugees into France and 0.3-1.0 million dead. They didn’t seem to learn a lot from either Egypt or from Vietnam. Its likely that Suez damaged their relations with their former ‘colonies’, Syria and Lebanon - to France’s disadvantage.
Its odd that the 2nd Iraq war includes similar themes of unreliable intelligence, out of control security agencies, flawed and rushed political decision making, suppressed dissent in the bureaucracy, pressure on the media, and poor military planning and execution – even though it was ‘all out in the open’ and we ‘won’. What is also odd is that its not the last time the Egypt Airforce was caught unprepared and destroyed on the ground. Some lessons are never learnt.
(Newcastle – before you jump to the 'standard response' please read it carefully. I think, unlike the dominant academic theories - that Imperialism is a mixed inheritance with the study of the good bits (regrettably) very unfashionable at the moment. I also think the ‘bad bits’ haven’t been fully told – or too often told by crazed leftists. No one alive is to blame but maybe current UK and French tourists in Egypt would be wiser if they knew there was a bit of 'history' to the current relationship. Given what happened Egyptians have been amazingly forgiving. Cynics would say that Suez supported the continuation of military leadership in Egypt. Some who think about the past might even conclude that western 'current stuff ups' in the Middle East are merely a new chapter in a long book.)
