Suez Crisis

The Suez Crisis of 1956 began when Egypt's president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, nationalised the Suez Canal Company, and led in late October and November to an invasion of Egypt by Israel, Britain and France. Under pressure from the United States, the Soviet Union and the United Nations, the invaders were forced to withdraw. The episode strengthened Nasser and exposed the limits of British and French power in the post-war world.

The Suez Canal, opened in 1869, was run by a company largely owned by British and French shareholders, and it carried much of western Europe's oil from the Gulf. British troops had guarded the canal zone for decades, but under a 1954 agreement the last of them left in June 1956. Nasser, who had come to power after the 1952 revolution, promoted Arab nationalism, backed the rebels fighting France in Algeria, and bought weapons from the Soviet bloc. In July 1956 the United States and Britain withdrew their offers to help finance a new high dam at Aswan. On 26 July, in a speech in Alexandria, Nasser announced that the canal company had been nationalised and that its revenue would pay for the dam.

The British prime minister, Anthony Eden, saw Nasser as a dangerous dictator, and France's government hoped that toppling him would weaken the Algerian rebellion. Months of diplomacy failed to resolve the dispute. In secret meetings at Sèvres, near Paris, on 22–24 October 1956, Britain, France and Israel agreed on a plan: Israel would attack Egypt in the Sinai, and Britain and France would then demand that both sides withdraw from the canal, giving them a pretext to occupy it. Israel had its own aims, including ending raids from Egyptian-held Gaza and Egypt's blockade of the Straits of Tiran.

Israel invaded Sinai on 29 October and advanced rapidly. On 30 October Britain and France issued their ultimatum, and when Egypt rejected it, their aircraft began bombing Egyptian airfields. Nasser had ships sunk in the canal, blocking it. On 5 and 6 November British and French paratroopers and seaborne forces landed at Port Said and Port Fuad and began to advance along the canal. Egyptian deaths are estimated at between about 1,650 and 3,000, including many civilians, while Israeli, British and French losses were in the low hundreds in total.

The United States, which had not been told of the plan and was facing a presidential election, was angered. President Eisenhower's administration pressed for a ceasefire at the United Nations and refused to help Britain as a run on the pound developed, while oil supplies were disrupted. The Soviet Union, at the same time crushing the Hungarian uprising, threatened Britain and France. Britain accepted a ceasefire from midnight on 6–7 November, and France followed. The UN General Assembly created its first large peacekeeping force, the UN Emergency Force, on the proposal of the Canadian diplomat Lester Pearson, who later received the Nobel Peace Prize. British and French troops left by late December 1956, and Israel withdrew from Sinai and Gaza in March 1957, after obtaining assurances on shipping through the Straits of Tiran. The canal reopened in the spring of 1957 under Egyptian control.

Eden resigned in January 1957. The crisis is often seen as marking the end of Britain's role as a world power acting independently of the United States, and it pushed France towards closer European integration. Nasser emerged as a hero of Arab nationalism, and Soviet influence in the Middle East grew. UN peacekeepers remained on the Egyptian–Israeli border until 1967, when their withdrawal preceded the Six-Day War.

Our 1960 map shows Egypt with the Suez Canal, linking the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, and the Sinai Peninsula on its border with Israel.