1956 - The Suez Crisis #2.2: Suez, A Life

When Diplomacy Fails Podcast

Zack Twamley

19th Century, 20th Century, International Relations, Politics, Thirty Years' War, Korean War, 18th Century, First World War, Phd, 17th Century, European History, History, War

4.8 • 773 Ratings

🗓️ 7 March 2024

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A French investment opportunity, an ancient idea, and a British masterstroke - discover in this episode how the Suez Canal became so monumentally important for British imperial interests in the latter 19th century, and how this interest was then carried over into the 20th century. After years of defending and expanding their stock in Suez, it was highly unlikely that Britain was going to give up its position there without a fight. Yet, at the same time, decolonisation trends across the world were in full swing, and it was far from certain that Egypt could be held while certain movements were underway.

The most important of all these movements in decolonisation era Africa was found on 23rd July 1952, when a coup against King Farouk of Egypt, that docile and loyal British puppet, succeeded. A cadre of Egyptian military men now held control over the country, and they were determined to be anything but puppets to the British interest. One figure surged forward above all. His name was Gamal Abdel Nasser, and in this episode, we will be introduced to him, as we see what the British establishment was up against. Mindful of Britain’s interests in his country, and its unsavoury record there, Nasser was not about to give ground for nothing. Thousands of miles away, a government change waved goodbye to Winston Churchill, and ushered in his subordinate Anthony Eden. The stage was set for a conflict which was unlike any other yet seen in the British experience.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Come to the station, jump from the train, march at the door, pull down lovers' lane,
0:15.0	dead in the glen where the roses entwined, lay down your arms, lay down your arms, lay down your arms, and surrender to mine.
0:30.3	Hello and welcome, History Friends, Patrons All to 1956, episode 2.2.
0:36.7	Last time we began our second phase of 1956 by introducing the French crisis in Algeria,
0:42.9	which was reaching its peak as 1955 became 56.
0:47.2	Great and grave events were still to come in Algeria for the French,
0:51.1	but let's leave a pin in that theatre for the moment,
0:53.5	and take this episode
0:54.9	to examine the angle of the other significant player in the Suez Crisis, Britain.
1:00.7	Britain is a strange, complicated animal to understand in the 50s as we'll learn.
1:06.3	While she had relinquished her hold over India and other former colonies like Sudan, she retained other
1:12.3	colonies with a passionate tenacity. The legacy of white settlement in Kenya, for example,
1:18.7	warranted greater British investment in the region during the emergence of the Mau Mau insurgency
1:23.9	in the early 50s. Interestingly, this is where the parallels of French and British experiences ended,
1:30.3	because unlike the Algerian case, the British seemed to have settled the Kenyan troubles
1:35.4	by mid to late October 1956, just as it was becoming apparent that British attentions were being
1:41.6	spent heavily elsewhere.
1:44.1	It's important that we understand first what the Suez Canal meant to Britain,
1:48.5	and second, why the British felt compelled to launch military intervention in the region
1:53.0	in the early hours of the 6th of November.
1:55.9	This latter question contains too many layers to be adequately answered in a single episode,
2:01.8	but we can certainly set a great deal of background information here,
	...

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