1956 - The Suez Crisis #2.3: Egyptian Conniption

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

🗓️ 12 March 2024

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

1956 Episode 2.3 examines British views of Suez and Nasser's new Egyptian regime.

As the British government underwent a change and waved goodbye to great old men like Churchill, it was clear at the same time that this new government had no intention of changing its imperial tune. Egypt was a place to be held onto, not relinquished; Nasser was a figure to be loathed, rather than cooperated with; British prestige, as much as her long-standing strategic and security interests, depended on holding the Canal. That neither Churchill nor his successor in Anthony Eden proved capable of holding Nasser back speaks volumes about the awakening in Egyptian national consciousness which was beginning in the 1950s.

As the men at the top of the coup finished their own struggles and Colonel Nasser surged ahead, it became apparent that Egypt was in something of an ideal position. It had its problems of course, and its legacies of poverty and inequality for days, but it was in an ideal strategic position at the same time. Poised as the link between Africa and the Middle East, Egypt was the crossroads between different worlds. It was also, potentially, a crossroads in the Cold War, but for the moment, Nasser knew that his bread was buttered on its Western side.

Before conflict and crisis had their day, negotiation and diplomacy were allowed to flourish in this Anglo-Egyptian relationship. An agreement for policing the Suez Canal and for mobilising it during wartime was signed with the Cairo government. To insulate these deals, a Northern Tier system of alliances with other Middle Eastern states like Jordan, Iran and Iraq was signed. It seemed, at least on some level, that Britain was giving peace a chance. Yet, the more than the Foreign Secretary, and then the PM saw of Nasser’s Egypt, the less he liked. It was impossible to deal with an Egypt that did not seem to know its place, but with every meeting came a painful reminder that all was not as it had once been. The Egyptian puppets were gone, and it was uncomfortably clear that these new Egyptian men pulled their own strings.

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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
0:21.6	Lay down your arms
0:23.6	Lay down your arms and surrender to mine
0:28.6	Hello and welcome history friends Patrons All to 1956
0:33.6	Episode 2.3
0:35.6	We're going to keep motoring on ahead with this story as we trace the events which led to the Suez crisis.
0:42.6	If Budapest was our main event in the first part of this series, Suez is where we're going here.
0:48.5	And last time we saw the British side of things and how the Anglo-Egyptian-French relationship was anything but cordial.
0:56.0	The Suez Canal, as we saw, was still a critically important base for British interests.
1:01.0	Despite the passage of two world wars and the removal of the Indian jewel in the crown,
1:06.0	for the sake of British security, it seemed impossible to relinquish the Suez Canal to the native Egyptian
1:11.4	government. This was a difficult stance to take, because as we also saw last time, Egypt was
1:17.2	undergoing some revolutionary change, seen in the Free Officers Revolution on the 23rd of July
1:23.3	1952, when several high-ranking Egyptian army officers overthrew King Farooke's tired regime
1:30.0	and set out to represent Egypt on a new platform, independent, equal, and free from
1:36.0	foreign domination or intrigue. To achieve these ends, of course, it was critical for
1:41.3	Colonel Nasser, the leading light of the movement, to meet the British
1:45.1	head-on and to remove them through whatever means proved necessary from their entrenched position
1:50.3	in Suez. The two powers, in other words, were destined to buttheads, and in the midst of these
1:56.1	incompatible policies were the interests of the Americans, the French, and the dangers posed by the Soviets.
2:03.7	It was a complex, tangled web of intrigue that was being spun in London and in Cairo,
	...

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