1956 - The Suez Crisis #2.8: Deception As Policy

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

🗓️ 28 March 2024

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

1956 Episode 2.8 examines the increasingly secretive plotting which took place behind the scenes in early autumn 1956.

While Eden worked feverishly to make the conflict he desired come together, the countless variables continued to haunt him. We see here a glimpse of a common theme which will occupy us later on – the use of legal arguments to support the Anglo-French operation, on the grounds that Nasser had infringed upon British ‘rights’ and that Britain was thus entitled to compensation. In this episode we also are introduced to one of banes of Eden’s life, the leader of the Labour Party Hugh Gaitskell, who insisted that intervention in Egypt was wrong, and who began to suspect that something unsavoury was afoot despite what Eden told him.

Gaitskell was not the only one. Further abroad, the American desire to have a conference of Suez Canal users was met with private indignation from the British and French, whose governments would uphold to the end that Washington did not understand what was needed to deal with a man like Nasser. Increasingly, comparisons with Nasser to Hitler, and the idea that Britain must not ‘appease’ such figures yet again, did the rounds. Eden was determined to have his interventionist cake and eat it, and he instructed his Foreign Office deputies to look into the Charter of the United Nations as well. With so many different avenues to justification, Eden was certain that at least one of them had to provide a path to conflict. As we’ll see, he was ultimately to be disappointed.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Come to the station, jump from the train, march at the door pulled down lovers lane.
0:15.7	Dead in the glen where the roses entwined.
0:20.1	Lay down your arms. Lay down your arms.
0:22.3	Play down your arms.
0:24.4	Lay down your arms and surrender to mine.
0:30.2	Hello and welcome History Friends, Patrons All to 1956, episode 2.8.
0:36.8	Last time we learned a great deal about the scheming and military planning, with all its faults, in the Anglo-French case.
0:43.8	We also saw how the British and French were content to get the United States on side, but they were prepared to go it alone if necessary.
0:52.3	John Foster does, oblivious at this early stage to the fact that the armed intervention
0:57.3	against Nassar's Egypt had already been approved by the 17th of August, was content instead
1:03.3	to urge an international conference to take place, just the day before on the 16th of August.
1:10.1	In this episode, we'll see what came of these efforts
1:12.5	to diffuse the situation, and will also examine the debate in Britain and by historians regarding
1:18.8	Britain's legal rights in the Suez matter. Since the Suez Canal Company was a business registered
1:24.5	in Egypt, was Nassar breaking any international law by nationalizing it?
1:29.5	The fact that Britain and France were on shaky legal ground didn't help matters,
1:34.2	and they were forced to underline other key aspects of the incident instead.
1:38.2	As August and September war on, we'll see an Anglo-French establishment drawn closer and closer together as D-Day approached.
1:46.5	Let's investigate then, as I take you to 1956.
1:55.7	The cabinet agreed that we should be on weak ground in basing our resistance on the narrow
2:00.4	argument that
2:01.3	Colonel Nasser had acted illegally. The Suez Canal Company was registered as an Egyptian company
	...

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