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POINTS OF SIMILARITY AND DIVERGENCE IN THE
1882 AND 1956 BRITISH INTERVENTIONS IN EGYPT

presented by

LINDSAY FREDERICK BRAUN

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POINTS OF SIMILARITY AND DIVERGENCE IN
THE 1882 AND 1956 BRITISH INTERVENTIONS IN EGYPT

By

Lindsay Frederick Braun

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
In partial fulfillment of the requirements
For the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of History

1997

ABSTRACT

POINTS OF SMILARITY AND DIVERGENCE IN
THE 1882 AND 1956 BRITISH INTERVENTIONS IN EGYPT

By

Lindsay Frederick Braun

In 1882 and again in 1956, British military forces invaded Egyptian territory. The first
invasion inaugurated the British protectorate over the country, while the second affirmed
the end of Britain’s role as power broker in the region and, perhaps, the end of Britain as
an imperial power. While contemporary events are often studied with respect to one or
the other of these intervention incidents, they are rarely considered together, as a “repeat
engagement” between two political entities. This study posits that while the perceptions
and mental schemas of the historical actors, primarily the British, determined whether
intervention would occur, it was the quality of Egyptian political unity that determined

success or failure.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This thesis is the result of over two years of often tedious reading and absorption,
so the number of people who have provided support to me in this venture are many.
However, my greatest debt in working out the ideas here, and in maintaining the
confidence that this project would one day be completed, is to my thesis director,
Professor Gordon Stewart, whose untiring support and confidence in my ability has been
critical to keeping up resolve that sometimes flagged. Professor Harold Marcus was also
instrumental in ensuring the coherence of my writing and keeping me on my toes as I
produced this final draft. The third member of my committee, Professor Richard
Laurence, availed me of his time and many observations on the text I would have
otherwise missed. I also owe a debt of confidence to my colleagues at The Historian,
where I served as an editorial assistant for two of my three years in the program, Professor
Linda Cooke Johnson and the indefatigable Carol Cole; they kept me in good humor
during some very stressful times in my life.

Outside the Department, I owe immense gratitude to two mentors at my
undergraduate alma mater, Eastern Michigan University. Professor Roger Long has
remained my friend and confidant (and even my advocate!) during my Master’s work, and
provided a second sounding board for my ideas on Egypt’s place in the Empire. Professor

Richard Gofi~ has likewise provided wise counsel and a compassionate ear. Of course, I

iii

cannot forget my small yet supportive family, who suffered me my occasional moments of
verbose enlightenment about some minor detail in this thesis, and always expressed a faith
in me that was incredible. Without all of them, this project would have been far more

difficult or perhaps impossible.

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE .............................................................................................. 1
INTRODUCTION .................................................................................... 3
CHAPTER 1
THE URABI REVOLT AND THE EGYPTIAN REVOLUTION, 1882 ..................... 7
CHAPTER 2
CRISIS, COLLUSION, AND WAR, 1956 ....................................................... 21
CHAPTER 3
PERSONALITIES AND INTERACTIONS .................................................... 45
CHAPTER 4
EGYPT AS KEYSTONE: EGYPTIAN S IN THE CRISES ................................. 56
CHAPTER 5
VERTICAL TRENDS AND POINTS OF DIVERGENCE ................................... 65
CONCLUSIONS .................................................................................... 7 1
BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................................................... 75

PREFACE

This paper is a two-case study in empire and intervention. Its subjects, the 1882
and 1956 crises in Egypt, touch upon many contemporary issues in the historiography of
empire. It was the possibility of juxtaposing two similar episodes, so widely separated in
time, that attracted my attention, in the hopes that I might be able to locate a pattern,
some set of rules, that influenced the outcomes. Egypt is not unique in having two
outwardly similar episodes in its past, but I found it interesting that authors rarely looked
upon these together as more than passing milestones in the grand sweep of history, and set
out to look at them as a conceptual pair. This study is the result of that effort.

This investigation is divided into three major components. The first, the 1882
narrative, establishes the baseline, as an example of a “successful” (fiom the British
standpoint, of course) intervention. The second is the 1956 narrative, counterpoised to
1882 as an example of intervention’s failure (or, alternately, Egypt’s success). The third
section is the analysis, where we can take stock of the individuals and events that shaped
each of the crises, and determine the reasons why intervention was possible in both
instances, why it succeeded in 1882, yet failed in 1956. I have chosen to precede these
sections with a brief introduction, to better place this study in the larger historiography of

empire. Once the case is complete, readers may take away their own ideas about success

and failure in Empire as well as those I have tried to express here, and perhaps be inspired

to write their own analysis of intervention incidents.

A brief note on Arabic names: I have chosen, for convenience’s sake, to use
certain transliterations over others in this study. For example, the name of the 1881-82
Nationalist leader is transliterated in Juan R I Cole’s Colonialism and Revolution in the
Middle East and Alexander Scholch’s Egypt for the Egyptians as “°Urabi”, but I have
simply used “Urabi”, despite the phonetic accuracy of addressing the first letter. Unless in
a direct quotation, I have avoided completely the older forms “Arabi,” “Arabi,” and
“Orabi.” Quandaries involving Tewfik/Tawfiq, Nasser/Nasr, Heikal/Heykal, and Abd el-
Hamid/Abdulhamid have been handled in a like manner. The responsibility for any

inconsistency or error is entirely mine.

INTRODUCTION

The historian’s craft sometimes calls on its practitioners to make comparisons
between disparate places, times, people, and events. This method can confer greater
knowledge of an obscure subject, and making comparisons helps to chart trends and
determine the range of factors that mold any particular historical event. It is the latter
approach that concerns us here, in the comparison of two episodes of British intervention
in the affairs of Egypt, one in 1882 and the other in 1956. In 1882, a young Egyptian
colonel named Ahmad Urabi sought to change the existing order, and in the process drew
the ire of the existing hierarchy in Constantinople, London, Paris, and Cairo, creating an
unstable situation that W. E. Gladstone’s Liberal ministry in London was drawn into. In
1956, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal in reprisal for
Anglo-American efforts to bend him to their will in the Cold War, initiating a chain of
events that led to the decision of Anthony Eden’s government to collude with France and
Israel and retake the canal by force.

This study is an exploration of these two events in the history of British
imperialism. While both are well-known in the context of British or Egyptian history, they
have rarely been considered together, as a repeat engagement between Britain and Egypt.
For example, Peter Cain and A. G. Hopkins describe the 1882 invasion an act to protect

“Britain’s substantial economic interests” in the country from unpredictable Nationalist

forces, while the 1956 Suez war marked the end of upholding both sterling and empire, in
favor of the former.1 Panayiotis J. Vatikiotis, on the other hand, sees Urabi’s defeat as the
defining mark between two eras in Egyptian history, the change in suzerainty from Turkey
to Britain, and he sees the 1956 intervention in terms of Nasser’s prestige in Egypt and the
Arab world.2 The passages are connected only by the grander arc of history that passes
through them. The comparative approach itself has been used for studies of temporally
close events (e. g., Hungary and Suez in 1956, Suez and the Falklands war of 1982) but
rarely for two cases separated by more than twenty or thirty years.3 Similarly, an unwritten
condition of making such comparisons has hitherto been that international power relations
have remained basically, the same between the two events, something certainly not in
evidence between 1882 and 1956. The two interventions are presented here together as a
way of raising certain conceptual issues surrounding British imperialism and power in the
Near East, Afiica, and Asia.

First, this study seeks to delineate the mental schemas and conditions in which the
individual actors on both sides operated, and how these made intervention possible. Each
Briton or Egyptian displayed reasonings and preconceptions that led to particular

responses in each phase of each crisis, and determined both British actions and Egyptian

 

‘ P. J. Cain and A. G. Hopkins, British Imperialism vol. 1 (London: Longman, 1993):
364-69; 22289-90.

2 Panayiotis J. Vatikiotis, The History of Modern Egjpt 4th ed. (London: Weidenfeld and
Nicolson, 1991), 392-93; 405.

3 Daniel F. Calhoun, Hungary and Suez: An Exploration of Who Makes History (Lanham,
MD: University Press of America, 1991); Louise Richardson, When Allies Differ: Anglo-
American Relations during the Suez and Falklands Crises (New York: St. Martin’ s,
1996),

resistance. These schemas included not only the grand predilection of British and other
European leaders to make simplistic assessments of Near Eastern and Asian countries and
their populations, which Edward Said has termed Orientalism, but also the British mindset
regarding Britain’s place in the world and status as a great power, Nasser’s self-image as a
pan-Arab leader existing outside the world of East-West bloc politics, and the tension
between the British idea of Egypt and the Egyptian vision of self.4 Looking at schemas will
explain why one intervention was successful and the other not.

Success or failure was also determined by the dynamic interaction between Britain
and Egypt, by the operation of each within a larger international context, and by the
activities of individuals inside each country. The approach of this paper is to show how the
inability of Egypt’s divided nationalists to raise an effective protest, combined with the
inability of other nations to protest Britain’s invasion, allowed for British victory in 1882,
while the increased vulnerability and division of Britain and unity of Egypt helped Nasser
to repel the Anglo-French invasion of 1956. The world situation in 1956 further allowed
Nasser to organize an effective political defense against Anglo-French aggression, and the
ensuing isolation of Britain and France in the international community achieved what
Egypt’s military was unable to in 1882 and 1956. Such an approach brings out the extent
to which power is always relative in the international arena.

The main focus is, however, on the “zone of interaction” between Britain and

Egypt, and will only peripherally consider the French and, in 1956, the Israelis, Americans,

 

’ See Timothy Mitchell, Colonising ngt (New York: Cambridge, 1988). Mitchell
creates a vivid picture of Egypt as an exhibition, somehow surreal but dilapidated, in the
eyes of Europeans (22).

and Soviets. The primary reason for this, aside from brevity, is because the British and
Egyptians were most directly affected by the events of 1882 and 1956, in spite of the key
roles played by the US, USSR and Israel in encouraging and then terminating the 1956
Operations. These two moments are symbolic of the rise and fall of Britain’s informal
empire and must be studied in that context; as Edward Said has said, the incorporation of
Egypt into the European world, not just economically but culturally, “led ineluctably to the
invasion of 1882, and, just as ineluctably, to the eventual reclamation of the Suez Canal by

Gamal Abdel Nasser in July 1956.”5 However, it was not so certain at the time.

 

5 Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism (New York: Knopf, 1993 ), 126.

THE URABI REVOLT AND THE EGYPTIAN REVOLUTION, 1882

Following the Egyptian debt crisis of 1876 and the disastrous Ethiopian war of
1875-76, a financially ruined Egypt defaulted on its foreign loans, and the country’s
finances came under direct Anglo-French control (the Dual Control). When the ruler of
Egypt, the Khedive Ismail, proved uncooperative, European interests dictated his removal
in favor of his son Tawfiq. This engineered succession, carried out in 1879 through
pressure on Egypt’s Ottoman masters in Constantinople, found a ruler more tractable to
European control of the Egyptian foreign debt. However, the deposition of Ismail carried
with it the destruction of khedival authority and the erosion of the Egyptian status quo
through laws designed to lower the nation’s expenses to better service the foreign debt.‘5

Included with these actions were moves to decrease the size of the army, from
124,000 in 1874 to 83,000 in 1876 (at the end of the Ethiopian war), 57,000 in 1878, and
finally to aim for a 12,000-soldier Egyptian Army in the summer of 1879. The downsizing
prompted a crisis in the officer corps. Along with major cuts in officers’ pay that took it
below the cost of living, the reductions made it far more difficult for soldiers to rise in the
ranks. There was some rioting in 1879 arising fi'om the financial difficulties of unemployed
oflicers. However, it was in 1880, after Tawfiq and his minister of war, Osman Rifqi,

effectively eliminated advancement prospects for native Egyptians (fellahin) in the army

and cut pay that disaffected officers began seriously agitating for reform. Protest was
made easier by that very reduction of the state security apparatus they had served.7

The ofiicers’ predicament readily found sympathy with the intellectuals and
landholders of the country, both Turco-Circassian and Egyptian, who were unhappy about
the ever greater presence of Europeans in the Egyptian bureaucracy. The two
complementary groups found common cause in their enmity towards the European
privileged who, they maintained, bent the laws of the land in order to circumvent Egyptian
taxes and justice. As the Khedive’s authority weakened, and he increasingly relied upon
European backing to maintain his authority, the restless intelligentsia, religious leaders,
and officers became bolder about their grievances. All the ingredients were present to
create an explosive situation, one that only required the right incident to set it off.

Into this mix appeared Colonel Ahmad Urabi and his two cohorts, Colonels Abd al
Al Hilmi and Ali F ahmi. Urabi, in particular, had served in the Ethiopian war and was one
of the officers tried for the 1879 army riots; therefore, his life was directly touched by the
practices of the Khedival state.8 On 30 January 1881, the three colonels presented a
petition to the government asking for the removal of the Circassian Minister of War
Osman Rifqi in favor of a Nationalist Egyptian. Their petition touched a much older

problem than Egyptian fiscal troubles.

 

6 F. Robert Hunter, Egjpt Under the Khedives, 1805-18 79: From Household Government
to Modern Bureaucracy (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh, 1984), ch. 7 passim.

7 Juan R. 1. Cole, Colonialism and Revolution in the Middle East (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1993), 218-219.

8 Translator’s foreword to Ahmad Urabi, The Defense Statement of Ahmad “Urabi the
Egyptian trans. Trevor le Gassick (Cairo: American University Press, 1982), 9.

Urabi states that “[t]he practice in Egypt was to discriminate by race. And so all
the promotions, decorations, and awards went to those of the Circassian race.” With the
downsizing of the military, progress made by native Egyptians in the officers’ ranks was
nullified, because they were released from service before Circassians.9 The petition,
“requesting equal treatment for those in government service, the cessation of
discrimination by race and the enactment of just laws that would ensure every man his
rights,” was based on the belief that having a native Egyptian as Minster of War would
open the higher echelons to Egyptians. With this background, Urabi’s came to believe that
the presentation of the petition to the government prompted officials to plot the Colonels’
removal “by death in the usual Egyptian manner, that is, secretly.” ’0

At the beginning of February 1881, under pretense of wedding arrangements for
the Khedive’s sister, the three Colonels were summoned to the Kasr-el-Nil barracks in

Cairo where they were arrested and tried for insubordination. “ Such a move had been

forseen, and arrangements had been made for the colonels’ units to effect a rescue. '2 The

 

9 In his notes to the Defense Statement, le Gassick notes that in 1903, Urabi recalled to W.
S. Blunt, his English correspondent, that the petition was born the same night he and Abd
al Al Hilmi learned they were to be removed from their commands in the next round of
army reductions, giving a personal urgency to their actions.

'0 Ahmad Urabi, Defense Statement 18.

n P. J. Vatikiotis, The History of Modern Egypt, From Muhammad Ali to Mubarak 4th
ed. (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1991), 144; de Freycinet, Question d ’Egypte, 195,
Auckland Colvin, The Making of Modern Egypt (London: Secley & Co., 1906), 10.

’2 Interestingly, no mention of Khedival machinations appears in Colvin’s account, only
the straightforward statement “[the Colonels] were summoned to appear, for acts of
insubordination, before a court martial.” See Colvin, Making of Modern Egypt, 10.

10

military intercession on the Colonels’ behalf led to demonstrations that resulted in the
Khedive’s dismissal of Osman Rifqi from the government under military pressure.

The success of this effort encouraged the military to push for greater change, aided
the discontent felt by notables and intellectuals over the country’s financial situation. '3
Such concessions as the end of Circassian privilege in the officer ranks were granted, and
Urabi found himself in the position of a high-profile agitator. Concerned exclusively with
the Arrny’s well-being at this time, any real power Urabi wielded went toward maintaining
the gains already won. By September 1881, he encountered growing opposition within the
Khedival court.

During August 1881, Tawfiq appointed his reactionary Circassian brother-in-law,
Daoud Pasha Yakan, to the post of Minister of War. He replaced Mahmud Sami, who had
been installed following the military demonstration of February. Yakan was fimrly
opposed to the fellahin officers. The Colonels, faced with unanimous ministerial
opposition, redoubled efforts to regain their security:

The least they [Urabi et al.] might expect at his [Daoud Pasha Yakan’s]

hands would be dismissal from the service, and it was far more likely that

they would be arrested and tried for mutiny in connection with their doings

in February. It was part, too, of their program to obtain an increase of the

Army, and they added to it a demand of the Constitution, which seemed to

all the only permanent guarantee against arbitrary government. 1’

To present their demands before the Khedive, the officers planned a demonstration at the

Abdin barracks in Cairo for September 1881.

 

'3 This union of indigenous agents of change with the military movement is a major theme
of Cole’s Colonialism and Revolution and Scholch’s Egypt for the Egyptians.

1’ Wilfiid Scawen Blunt, The Secret History of the English Occupation of Egypt (New
York: Knopf, 1907), 1 12.

11

Whatever plans were already made would have become undone when Yakan
ordered the dispersal of military units to various points in the kingdom. The officers saw
this scattering of the army as another attempt to undermine their solidarity and eventually
remove them. Urabi urged unit commanders not to comply with this directive, and on 9
September the planned demonstration took place at Abdin. Urabi later recalled that the
troops “lefi their barracks and assembled at Abdin Square, their conduct extremely orderly
and well-mannered.”ls The feeling that prevailed was not insurrectionary, but one of
legitimate grievance with the government as reflected in the Urabist demand for the
replacement of all government ministers.

Fortunately the ministry, headed by Riaz Pasha, was not popular with influential
powers. Prime Minister Riaz was a conservative reactionary, opposed to constitutionalism

l. '6 He was interested in a self-govemed Egypt, but did not believe that

and foreign contro
the government should be run by Egyptians. '7 Riaz was thus at once unpalatable to the
Ottoman Sultan, Egyptian reformers, and the Anglo-French Dual Control alike.
Eventually, even Tawfiq wanted to be rid of Riaz, and likely thought of ‘using’ the Abdin

demonstration as an excuse to sack his troublesome minister. ‘8

 

'5 Urabi, Defense Statement, 23.
‘6 John Marlowe, Anglo-Egyptian Relations 1800-1956 (London: Frank Cass, 1965), 114.
‘7 Peter Mansfield, The British in Egjpt (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971), 15-16.

‘8 How much weight this carried in Tawfiq’s mind is a contentious matter. Urabi gives the
impression that the Khedive had thought through his alternatives, and was not seriously
upset over changing ministries. See Urabi, Defense Statement, 23; and Blunt, Secret
History, 114-117. On the other hand, the British Controller, Auckland Colvin, who
characterizes the resignation as “wrung from” the Khedive, and the British Consul at
Alexandria, Charles Cookson, who relates that Tawfiq had lefl the Ismalia Palace with an
intent to “overcome the insurgents.” See Auckland Colvin, The Making of Modern Egypt

12

Tawfiq indeed bowed to the army’s demands, although his language was defiant
and he would not negotiate directly with them. The khedive chose to have British officials
mediate with Urabi, which did nothing to dispel the image of Tawfiq as a puppet to
foreign interests. Urabi appeared determined not to upset the foreign powers directly; he
specifically put out notices of the demonstration, and the reasoning behind it, beforehand
to the representatives of European governments. ’9 The notices were, effectively, a call
from Urabi and his compatriots to Tawfiq alone, who in turn chose to hide behind the
Dual Control.

Thus, the troubles continued. As a condition of accepting the appointment as
Prime Minister, the constitutionalist Sharif Pasha demanded that the military cease
interference in political affairs. Between September 1881 and January 1882, the Dual
Control again gained command of Egyptian finances, keeping the European presence
conspicuous in the country. The Ottoman Sultan, alerted by the events of September, was
eager to find a way to exert greater control over the country.20 Finally, the military faction,
with Urabi as its spokesman, continued to agitate against the European influence that
prevented full realization of the September victory.

The ‘Urabists’ had hoped to see three demands met. The first, replacement of

government ministers, was easily won. The second, the convention of an Assembly, was

 

(London: Secley & Co, 1906), 10; and Cookson to Granville, 10 September 1881, in
British and Foreign State Papers vol. 73 (London: William Ridgway, 1889), 1131-36.

’9 Enclosure 2 by Urabi dated 9 September 1881, from Cookson to Granville 10
September 1881, in State Papers vol. 73, 1135-36; see also Urabi, Defense Statement, 23.

2° Vatikiotis, History of Modern Egypt, 146-7.

13

fulfilled when Tawfiq opened it on 26 December 1881.21 The third, however, concerned
the size of the army and pay scales, the original reasoning for army unrest in the first place.
An increase in the size of the army was also the most difficult to grant because of the Dual
Control’s insistence of debt service maintenance before all other budgetary matters.

On 19 December 1881, Urabi discussed finances with Auckland Colvin, the British
Controller, with Wilfiid Blunt, a British advocate of Urabi’s cause, as intermediary. The
khedive had promised an expansion of the army to 18,000 men, the maximum limit
allowed Egypt by decree of the Ottoman Sultan. Colvin insisted that the full expansion
could not be borne by Egyptian finances, so they finally agreed on an expansion to
15,000.22 Blunt wrote of these negotiations:

It was the time of year when the new Budget was being drafied, and the
Nationalist Minister of War, Mahmud Sami, had demanded £600,000 as
the amount of the year’s estimates for his department . . . [It] was
necessitated, Mahmud Sami said, by the Khedive’s promise of raising the
army to the full number of men allowed by the Firrnan, 18,000. The
Minister had explained his insistence on the plea that a refirsal would or
might cause a new military demonstration, the bug-bear of those days; and
I was asked to find out what sum the army would really be satisfied with
for their estimates. Colvin authorized me to go as far as £522,000, and to
tell Arabi and the officers that it was financially impossible to give

more . . . Arabi’s last words to me on this occasion were “men sabber
cflraffer,” “he who has patience, conquers.” I sent a note the same day to
Colvin informing him of the result, and I was also thanked by [Consul
Edward] Malet for having helped them both out of a considerable
difficulty.”

 

2' Ibid., 148.
22 Mansfield, British in Egypt, 27.

23 Blunt, Secret History, 135.

14

The incompleteness of the army’s September victory was therefore immediately
attributable to European control over the finances.

Europeans were not the only outside players in this drama, for Egypt already had
imperial masters. The Ottoman Sultan, Abdulhamid II, saw in the situation an opportunity
to gain greater control over semiautonomous Egypt. At the beginning of October 1881,
the sultan sent two emissaries to Egypt to assay the situation. This apparently minor action
provoked consternation from the Europeans, who did not welcome an additional cook at
the cauldron. British Prime Minister Gladstone wrote to his Foreign Secretary, Lord
Granville, that “I think we may join with France in opposing strongly, as you say, any
interference of the Turkish Emissary with administration, while he should be received with
personal respect?”

On the ground, the interest of the Sublime Porte threw plans of action into
disarray. Despite Ottoman legitimacy in ruling over Egypt, the British and French were
divided over the possibility of appealing for an Ottoman army to invade Egypt and
suppress the Urabists. The French had annexed the Ottoman province of Tunisia earlier in
1881, and were not eager to see an Ottoman army next door. Unable to justify an invasion

of Egypt by European arms, and unable to agree on appeals to the Ottomans, the Dual

Control had to be content to watch and wait.

 

2‘ Gladstone to Granville, 2 October 1881, in Agatha Rarnm, ed., The Political
Correspondence of Mr. Gladstone and Lord Granville 1876-1886 vol. 1 (London: Oxford
Press, 1962), 297. This passage is immediately preceded by the Gladstone’s assertion that
he “should have felt that we could take very strong ground against any intervention
whatever from the Sultan, had it not been for the precedent set by our predecessors who,
wrongly I suppose, called in his pretended power as Suzerain to depose late Khedive
[Ismail].” (Idem)

15

The wait was not long, for the British and French Governments were able to push
developments along with the Joint Note of 6 January 1882. The Note was a public
affirmation of European support for Tawfiq as the legitimate ruler in Egypt, indicating that
they were prepared to intervene to support him. The note upset the assembly and the
Urabists, who felt that it also provided the khedive with carte blanche to operate as he
pleased. Urabi, in particular, saw it as the “language of menace.”25

The timing of the unsolicited note was poor at best. Sharif and the two-week-old
Assembly were divided by the note, and the latter driven into league with the military
faction.26 The note dashed any hope of compromise with the Control on budgetary issues.
The note also brought down Sharit’s government; on 2 February, at the urging of the
Assembly, Minister of War Mahmud Sami acceded to the Prime Ministership. Urabi
became Minister of War, something he had “certainly never hoped for but there was a
complete consensus and unity on [Urabi’s] appointment to this ministry on the part of all
shades of opinion in the army and among the members of the Chamber of Deputies?”

During the spring of 1882, then, popular support was with the army and the

Assembly in their defiance of the khedive and the European governments. Sultan

Abdulhamid II was unwilling to cast his lot to either side, and continued to make overtures

 

2’ The text of the Joint Note was harsh, the intention of French Prime Minister Léon
Gambetta. Gladstone wished to tone down the language, and Granville to send a second
note to soften the first, but Gambetta refirsed to sanction it. Malet and Blunt attempted to
smooth over Urabi’s own dismay, without success. See State Papers, vol. 74, 367-68,
372; also Mansfield, British in Egypt, 30-34; Blunt, Secret History, 144.

26 Vatikiotis, History of Modern Eypt, 148.

27 Urabi, Defense Statement, 24.

16

to both Urabi and Tawfiq. With the situation so precarious, conspiracies real and imagined
appeared around every corner.

Action against ‘conspiracies’ was swift in an Egypt where the army could exercise
its prerogatives freely. Some fifty Turco-Circassian officers, including former Minister of
War Osman Rifqi, were accused in April 1882 of conspiring to murder Urabi and “all
other Egyptian-Arab officers of high rank.”28 The recent promotion of Urabi and five of
his fellow officers to the rank of Pasha (General) and many other officer advancements for
fellahin made the charges more believable.29 The Urabists certainly believed the
conspiracy charges, finding forty Circassian officers, including Rifqi, guilty. Afler a three-
week court-martial, the court condemned them to exile in the Sudan. This assertion of
power by the army provoked a showdown with the khedive, who refused to countersign

l.30 The result was a further deterioration of

the sentences at the urging of the British consu
stability in the country, and the dispatch of British and French warships to Alexandria in
mid-May stirred up further agitation. Added to this was another Anglo-French Joint Note,
delivered on 25 May, requesting that Urabi and several other prominent oflicers

voluntarily exile themselves, a demand flatly rejected.

 

2‘ Ibid., 25.

29 How these promotions came about is unclear. Urabi states that it was his tactful
organization that ensured the “deserving were promoted rather than reduced in rank.” He
attributes the conferring of Pasha titles to the khedive’s satisfaction with the army’s
conduct. Vatikiotis portrays it as Urabi “pushing through mass promotions of Egyptian
officers and up-grading their scales of pay.” Mansfield attributes the title of Pasha to the
double-dealing of the Porte, while le Gassick attributes the generalships to the khedive’s
recommendation to the Sultan on behalf of the Urabists. No dates are given. See Urabi,
Defense Statement, 25; Vatikiotis, History of Modern Egypt, 149; Mansfield, British in
ngt, 36; 1e Gassick, foreword to Urabi, Defense Statement, 12-13.

3° Mansfield, British in Egjpt, 37.

17

The heightened tension in Alexandria was, therefore, understandable. The situation
was explosive enough that a minor incident, a dispute between a Maltese (“an English

”31) and an Egyptian on 11 June 1882 grew into a riot that left hundreds dead. The

subject
riot was invariably portrayed either as one instigated by Urabist intrigue against
Europeans, else at least one that went unchecked by the army as guarantors of public
safety.

The June riot turned opinion in Europe against Urabi and his affiliates, now styled
the ‘Nationalist Party’. In London, despite the Under-Secretary for Foreign Afl’airs’
assurances that the Egyptian military had “according to all accounts we have received,
helped to put the riot down and restore order,” Parliament was dominated by fear that
Britain was being shown as impotent.32 Although Urabi was not responsible for the riot,
demands in Parliament for his removal or some action to suppress the rebellion were rife.

Along with these demands were questions and observations regarding the building
of earthworks around Alexandria. Although they presented little threat to the Anglo-
French fleet”, the British Admiral, Beauchamp Seymour, demanded that work on these
fortifications cease. Urabi made the wry observation that “[w]e were amazed how the

regular repair work on the forts could be considered a threat while the presence of

warships surrounding Egyptian ports was not considered threatening! But then we recall

 

3‘ Elbert E. F arrnan, Egjpt and its Betrayal (New York: Grafton, 1908), 303.
32 Hansard ’s Parliamentary Debates, 3d ser., vol. 270 (1882), col. 1130.

33 Not all of the ships were in the harbor. Some of them, including the British battleships
Superb and Inflexible, were among the newest and largest in the European navies, and
drew too much water to enter safely.

18

that ‘Right belongs to the strong! ”’3" Work was supposedly stopped on the fortifications,
but not to the satisfaction of Seymour, who threatened to shell Alexandria.

The French, unwilling to commit to action, ordered their squadron away. Ships of
other nations, including Greece and the United States, stood by as Admiral Seymour
bombarded the city on 11 July. The bombardment of Alexandria would later prove to be a
sore point in recalling the evolution of the crisis; there is evidence that Gladstone only
allowed Seymour to proceed when failing to do so would destroy his Liberal ministry,
already weakened by a soft response to recent unrest in Ireland.35 There is evidence too
that Seymour acted independently (“exceeting his orders”), and evidence that he acted
with specific clearance from Lord Granville.“5 In any case, following the bombardment, the
operation was solely a British one. European Power conferences, appeals to the Porte, and
negotiations with Urabi were for naught. Urabi went about building up his defenses
against an expected British invasion; British views included that of an Urabi pretending to
Napoleonic grandeur.37

In London, Gladstone was in favor of only those moves needed to protect the
Canal and British vessels, but the majority of the Cabinet was in favor of a full-scale
invasion to remove Urabi. Finally, Granville and eventually Gladstone himself approved of

an invasion, especially when the possibility of French cooperation dwindled and then

 

3" Urabi, Defense Statement, 32.

35 Thomas Pakenham, The Scramble for Africa: White Man '3 Conquest of the Dark
Continent, fiom 1876 to 1912 (New York: Avon, 1991), 133-34.

36 Robinson and Gallagher, Africa and the Victorians, 112; C. L. Seymour, “The
bombardment of Alexandria: A note,” English Historical Review 87 (1972) 790-94.

37 Punch, 15 July 1882, 21.

19

vanished with the collapse of de F reycinet’s government on 31 July over issues related to
the Egyptian crisis. The vote in Parliament, on 22 July, recorded a 93% vote in favor of
intervention.

Sir Garnet Wolseley led the British army to suppress the Urabists in August 1882.
Tawfiq had taken refirge in Alexandria after the bombardment, and the Sultan cast his lot
on the side of the khedive when a victory appeared unlikely for Urabi. Forced into a
corner and declared a rebel by the khedive, Urabi nevertheless managed to conscript large
numbers of fellahin soldiers and put up a spirited defense. Urabi also obtained a signed
religious dispensation (fatwa) declaring Tawfiq a traitor for delivering Egypt into the
hands of the infidel, and enticed religious leaders to declare a holy war (jihad) against the
British invaders.38

Urabi declined to block the Suez Canal, despite the strategic advisability of doing
so. The aging designer of the waterway, Ferdinand de Lesseps, had met with Urabi at
some point between the bombardment and the British invasion, and persuaded him that the
British would respect the neutrality of such an international waterway.39 Wolseley,
however, did not observe the neutrality of the canal, and quickly secured both ends on 20
August.40 The British army came up on Urabi’s flank and, after several running battles,
surprised the main body of his forces at Tel-el-Kebir on 13 September and quickly routed

them. Urabi himself surrendered to General Drury Lowe in Cairo on 14 September 1882.

 

38 Cole, Colonialism and Revolution, 241.

’9 Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, The Life of George Leveson Gower, Second Earl Granville
(London: Longrnans, Green, and Co., 1905), 269.

4° Mansfield, The British in Egypt, 48-49.

20

Urabi was imprisoned, and his fiiend Wilfiid Blunt hired the lawyer/joumalist A.
M. Broadley to defend him in British court. It was at this time that Urabi produced his
handwritten defense statement recently unearthed by Trevor 1e Gassick and reprinted in its
entirety. With this, Broadley was able successfully to organize a defense for his client that
could have been very embarrassing for the khedive, who simply wanted to execute Urabi
and his cohorts. As a result, Urabi agreed to plead guilty to insurrectionary crimes, and his
death sentence would be commuted to life exile in Ceylon (Sri Lanka).‘"

Throughout the crisis, Urabi presented the appearance of someone operating in the
best immediate interests of the army and the fellahin. His failing was not one of character,
but of understanding. Thrust into the middle of a tug-of-war he did not fully understand,
Urabi became the representative of a nebulous group called ‘Nationalists’. However,
Urabi did not advocate the overthrow of the khedive until Tawfiq fled to the protection of

British arms in Alexandria toward the end of July 1882.

 

“ See John s. Galbraith “The Trial of Arabi Pasha,” Journal ofImperial and
Commonwealth History 7 no. 3 (1978), 284-85.

CRISIS, COLLUSION, AND WAR, 1956

Just as an Egyptian colonel, four years after a disastrous military campaign waged
by his sovereign, challenged the titular head of state 1881-82, so Colonel Gamal Abdel
Nasser did in 1952. The Free Officers’ Movement, led nominally by General Mohammed
Naguib, siezed power from the corpulent King Farouk (himself a descendant of Tawfiq’s
line) on 23 July 1952. Just like Urabi, Nasser found an unexpected wave of pupular
support behind him; unlike Urabi, the Free Officers were not faced by the specter of
immediate European intervention. There was a British military presence, guaranteed by
treaty, in the Suez Canal Zone, so there was no basis for asserting that the Revolution
placed the Canal in danger. Likewise, Nasser appeared to be more agreeable to the British
Government than Farouk had been, for he was willing to rescind Egypt’s claim to the
Sudan in return for a binding agreement for British withdrawal fiom that country by 1956.
An agreement concluded in the fall of 1954 included a timetable for the removal of the
British military presence in Egypt, including the Canal Zone, before the end of 1956.
Perhaps prophetically, pressure from the United States was partially responsible for the
Anglo-Egyptian agreements’ conclusion.42 The end result was that Nasser was perceived

as a possible ally against a feared Soviet encroachment in the Near East.

 

’2 John Darwin, Britain and Decolonisation: The Retreat fiom Empire in the Post- War
World (London: Macmillan, 1988), 208-9.

21

22

Winston Churchill’s successor as Prime Minister in April 1955, Anthony Eden, had
a long and notable record of service to the British crown. As Foreign Minister, Eden had
resigned his post in 1938 to protest Neville Chamberlain’s conciliatory policies towards
Italy, and had strongly protested the agreement at Munich; he had also served as
Churchill’s wartime Secretary of State for War and, in Sir Winston’s second ministry
(1951-1955), had served as Foreign Minister and heir-apparent. Eden was, therefore, a
Briton sensitive to national pride and the world’s perception of British strength, moral and
military; he was a veteran of the First World War and had lost two brothers in that war
and a son in the second.43 This came through very clearly at Eden and Nasser’s only
meeting, in Cairo during February 195 5, while Eden was still Churchill’s foreign minister.
Eden put his Oxford education in Oriental languages to good use during the meeting,
greeting Nasser in Arabic and conversing for some time.44 Nasser, however, felt that
Eden’s visit was made to look “as if we were beggars and they were princes.”45 Eden, on
the other hand, remarked on Nasser’s apparent disregard for protocol: “As the flashlights

went off, he siezed my hand and held it.”46

 

‘3 Sidney Aster, Anthony Eden (New York: St. Martin’s, 1976), 4-5, 88.

4‘ Robert Rhodes James, Anthony Eden (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1986), 398.
Mohammed Heikal reports that Eden specifically referred to himself as an Orientalist, and

made much of his own ability to quote Arabic proverbs. See Mohammed Heikal, Cutting
the Lion ’5 Tail: Suez through Egptian Eyes (London: André Deutsch, 1986), 61-62.

’5 Heikal, Cutting the Lion ’s Tail, 65. See also David Carlton, Anthony Eden (London:
Penguin Books, 1981), 365.

‘6 Anthony Eden, Full Circle: The Memoirs of Anthony Eden (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1960), 245.

23

While Nasser and his stafi‘ felt that Eden might still be someone they could work
with, Eden came away with an impression that Nasser’s intransigence on certain defense
issues, in particular the UK-led Baghdad Pact, stemmed fiom “jealousy” and “a fi'ustrated
desire to lead the Arab world.”" Regardless of personal ambitions, Nasser had based his
refusal to join, or even to condone, the Pact on the grounds that it was not an intemally-
led coalition of Arab states. Eden’s filter converted Egyptian self-interest into the egotism
of one man, Gamal Abdel Nasser, who sought to play the role of Oriental despot across
the entire Arab world. Subsequent actions, such as the Egyptian radio campaign against
the British commander of Jordan’s army, General Sir John Glubb, and his subsequent
dismissal by King Hussein, led Eden to believe Nasser was personally behind activities
opposing the British.48 .

Nasser certainly was aware of Egypt’s potential leadership among the growing
number of independent Afiican and Asian nations. He felt that the major powers were still
attempting to retain control of these new polities through economic and diplomatic
leverage, and that this type of strong-arming included regional security organizations (like
the Baghdad Pact and the South-East Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO), a meeting of
which was Eden’s eventual destination at the time he visited Cairo in 1955) and military
“advisors.” Moreover, Nasser believed strongly in the potential of these newly emergent

nations to become a powerful force in world politics, a view shared by Marshal Tito of

 

‘7 F0 371/ 1 1905 1, cited in Richard Lamb, The Failure of the Eden Government (London:
Sidgwick and Jackson, 1987), 160.

’8 Eden, Full Circle, 388-89; Anthony Nutting, No End of a Lesson: The Story of Suez
(London: Constable, 1967), 29-32.

24

Yugoslavia and Prime Minister Nehru of India.49 This feeling goes a long way toward
explaining Nasser’s unwillingness to align Egypt with any major bloc; this unwillingness
was, however, to infuriate the governments of Great Britain and the United States, and
eventually would contribute to the chain reaction leading to the Canal’s seizure.

Nasser’s policies, then, were geared toward making Egypt the preeminent force in
the Arab world, and a leader in the movement of non-aligned nations. Nasser’s
government pursued an active neutrality, largely ignoring ideology and geopolitics and
focusing upon Egypt’s particular needs. Egyptian decisions to recognize Mao Zedong’s
Pe0ple’s Republic of China and to purchase armaments fi'om Czechoslovakia in late 1955
were thus not moves to curry favor with the Soviets nor were they intended to anger the
NATO powers, but they were taken as such by officials in the United States and Great
Britain.’0

Articulating American indignation at Egypt’s dealings with Communist powers,
US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles announced, on 19 July 1956, the withdrawal of
American financial support for one of Nasser’s most ambitious infrastructure
improvements: The Aswan High Dam. The dam, intended to end the poverty of the Nile

valley, was to be filnded jointly by loans from the United States and Great Britain.

 

‘9 Ali E. Hillal Dessouki, “Nasser and the Stnlggle for Independence,” in William R. Louis
and Roger Owen, eds., Suez 1956: The Crisis and its Consequences (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1989), 33-34.

5° It is worth noting that the Czech arms deal was made because Nasser’s stipulations of
training for Egyptians outside Egypt (to minimize the number of Warsaw Pact advisors),
simultaneous delivery of five years’ spare parts and ammunition with each weapons system
(to prevent a later cutofi‘ of supplies as political leverage for Moscow), and assistance in
the establishment of munitions factories inside Egypt, were conditions Western arms
dealers had been unwilling or unable to meet. See Erskine B. Childers, The Road to Suez
(London: MacGibbon and Kee, 1962), 137-38.

25

However, the British ambassador in Cairo had extremely short notice of this unilaterally
American policy decision--about one hour--while Eden’s government received no warning
at all.’ 1

Without US funding, Britain could not hope to underwrite the dam. Accordingly,
British investors explored alternatives, including the possibility of an Anglo-Franco-
Gerrnan financial consortium. Although the British Board of Trade had already drawn up a
plan to put this new financing into effect, Eden’s own dislike for Egypt’s actions resulted
in the squelching of the Board of Trade’s project--it was never even raised before the
Cabinet--and Britain’s withdrawal of aid on 20 July.52

Smarting from this seemingly punitive snub, Nasser responded with the 26 July
1956 nationalization of the Suez Canal, and announced that Canal revenues would
henceforth be used to finance the dam. Accordingly, Nasser appointed an Egyptian Suez
Canal Authority to administer the waterway, and prepared for the likely necessity of
replacing departing foreign canal workers (ship pilots, maintenance workers, and the
like).53 The possibility of Egyptian action against the Suez Canal (and, by association, the
Canal Company) had apparently not occurred to Eden, and his feelings toward Nasser

precluded any kind of indulgent attitude toward Egypt.“ In the 27 July speech announcing

 

5’ Robert Blake, The Decline of Power: 1915-1964 (London: Granada, 1985), 363-4.
’2 Richard Lamb, Failure of the Eden Government, 197.

’3 Vatikiotis, History of Modern Egypt, 392; Amin Hewedy, “Nasser and the Crisis of
1956” in Louis and Owen, eds., Suez 1956: The Crisis and its Consequences, 166. Nasser
also made use of Greek pilots, who, because of Greece’s dispute with Britain over Cyprus,
were unswayed by Anglo-French declarations; see Keith Kyle, Suez (London: Wiedenfeld
and Nicolson, 1991), 182.

5’ Carlton, Anthony Eden, 407.

26

the nationalization of the Suez Canal Company, Nasser underscored the legality of his
move by agreeing to pay the Canal’s bondholders their entitled compensation under the
terms of the Constantinople Treaty of 1888, and later by invoking earlier treaties and
Egypt’s willingness to abide by these.” Still, the blow to British prestige was enormous,
and Eden felt pressure to act lest the British public accuse him of appeasement.

However, the remedy to the situation was not to be found in an immediate military
operation against Nasser. For one, the British military was unready for any operation, as
related by the Chiefs of Staff to a displeased Eden in a report of 1 August 1956, although
steps were taken to begin mobilizing forces that might be necessary for an action against
Egypt.56 Likewise, a vidlent response to a perfectly legal nationalization would bring the
weight of world opinion crashing about Britain, regardless of the Western consensus that,
in the words of US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, “Nasser must be made to
disgorge what he is attempting to swallow.”57 The only way force could be justified was if

all peaceful options had been exhausted and Nasser continued to provoke Europe.

 

5’ Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Republic of Egypt. White Paper on the Nationalisation of
the Suez Maritime Canal Company (Cairo: Government Press, 1956), 4; 7ff.

’6 Lamb, Failure of the Eden Government, 199-200. These steps included the removal of
commando and airborne units from police duty on Cyprus, for retraining at Malta; the call-
up of 20,000 reservists; and the relief of 10 Armoured Division in Libya to allow its use in
Egypt. A plan was drawn up, called Musketeer, and modified for the operations. For the
greatest detail, see Kyle, Suez, 167-174 passim.

’7 Eden, Full Circle, 487. Dulles was also concerned about any settlement that would
invite comparisons to US control over the Panama Canal; see Russell Braddon, Suez:
Splitting of a Nation (London: St. James Place, 1973 ), 54. The legality of the move was
later debated, not in itself but by its sudden execution “which, of course, made the whole
act, also, internationally illegal.” See Joseph A. Obieta, The International Status of the
Suez Canal (The Hague: Martinus Nijhofi‘, 1960), 106.

27

Peaceful options did not exclude those that served British interests, or those that
might serve to fill time until a military option could be readied.’8 British rhetoric against
Egypt was couched in the terms of international concern, that an international body should
administer the Canal and not Egypt alone, although care was taken to ensure that this
body would not be the United Nations.’9 After some consultation between the United
States, Great Britain, and France, British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd, French Foreign
Minister Christian Pineau, and Dulles agreed on a conference in London, set for 16
August 1956, that would bring together 24 nations in an effort to find an international
solution to the Suez problem, orchestrated in such a way as to force Nasser to accept its
recommendations, or find himself isolated diplomatically.60 Perhaps, then, Egypt’s
declination of the invitation was somewhat heartening for the Prime Minister, although it

was predicated on Eden’s own anti-Nasser address of 8 August 1956 and composed with

 

’8 Kyle, Suez, 160.

’9 Iftaken to the United Nations, the Soviets might veto any action against the Canal, and
Britain’s stance might be futher compromised by the powerfill bloc of emergent nations
that might back Nasser, regardless of their interests vis-a-vis the Canal.

6° The conference based its legitimacy upon the earlier Suez Canal conference of 1888.
Invited were the eight signatories fiom that original agreement, including the Soviet Union
(as the successor to Russia); the eight countries whose citizens owned the most tonnage
using the Canal; and eight whose international trade indicated a special dependency on the
Canal. Political maneuvering was necessary to justify the exclusion of certain states and
the invitation of others. Two governments, Greece and Egypt, declined to participate;
Israel was not invited. As to the location of the Conference in London, this was the one
place Dulles wished it would not be held, but Eden insisted. Kyle, Suez, 162-3;

28

no doubt as to Egypt’s suspicion of Britain’s intention to control the direction of the
proceedings.61

Eden had further cause to be optimistic, owing to the landing of the Conference by
the House of Commons. Eden supported Britain’s commitment to internationalizing the
Canal with the statement that some “precautionary measures” had been taken to prepare
the military, should Nasser prove intractable. (Labour) Opposition leader Hugh Gaitskell
echoed this with even more fiery rhetoric, invoking the specter of Hitler in Nasser’s
speeches. Perhaps more importantly, Gaitskell played heavily upon the role of prestige in
standing up to the Egyptian leader, concluding that if Britain and her allies had simply
bowed before Egypt’s will, Nasser’s ambition would know no bounds--a repeat of the
disaster at Munich.62 To this end, the preparation of a military alternative met with
unanimous approval, even if the analogy did not.63

Likewise, military readiness was seen as a necessary component of protecting
British prestige and leadership in the Middle East, and reassuring nervous clients that the
power to force a settlement through arms was available. Nuri es-Said, Premier of Iraq,
relied on British support for his position and as such did not openly back Nasser. Other

clients behaved similarly; perhaps they realized what Evelyn Shuckburgh, recently released

 

6’ The entire text of Nasser’ s refilsal can be found in Heikal, Cutting the Lion’s Tail, 140-
42. The wording of Nasser’ s telegram plainly accuses Eden’s government of
discriminatory practices.

’2 For a discussion of how Hitler came to be invoked, see Aster, Anthony Eden, 147.

’3 Parliamentary Debates (Hansard), House of Commons, 5th ser., vol. 557 (1956), cols.
1602-1721, as evaluated in Kyle, Suez, 164-5. See also Braddon, Suez: Splitting of a
Nation, 56-57, for some discussion of the difficulties of the Hitler analogy.

29

(20 June 1956) from the Foreign Office as Under-Secretary for Middle Eastern Affairs,

noted:

Michael Rose [Ambassador to the Congo] tells us that the Government are

taking the Suez business very seriously, and he hints that military measures

against Egypt are being prepared. If so, it is good news. The time has come

when we must show strength, and Nasser should be overthrown. I only

hope we can do it. Michael says the other Arabs (Iraqis and even King

Saud) are not backing Nasser. But they will if he gets away with it.“
The difficulty apparent was, of course, how to keep Nasser fiom getting away with it. The
obvious solution was to wrest control fi'om Nasser under the guise of an international
consortium, however unlikely it was that Nasser would believe in its impartiality.

President Nasser, of course, did not believe in the Conference’s impartiality,
despite the inclusion of voices (including India’s) that were sure to be pro-Egyptian.
Dulles and Eisenhower had hoped to convince the Egyptians of the necessity of attending
by putting pressure on other powers, particularly the USSR, to “deliver” them, but the
Soviets made no effort to persuade Nasser.65 The only course of action open to Egypt, in
Nasser’s mind, was to protest the meeting--held without Egypt and in the capital of the
prime interested party, Great Britain--and this he pursued vigorously.66

When twenty-two of the twenty-four original invitees met in London on 16 August

1956, two proposals were put before the assembled delegates, one from India and one

 

6‘ Evelyn Shuckburgh, personal diary, 30 July 1956. Reprinted in Evelyn Shuckburgh,
Descent to Suez (London: W. W. Norton and Company, 1986), 360.

65 Kyle, Suez, 182.

‘6 Braddon, Suez: Splitting of a Nation, 62.

30

from the United States. Selwyn Lloyd had taken the chair, despite suggestions from Dulles
that someone less “committed” do so, and grumbling from the Soviets and Indians that
this allowed the British an undue amount of influence.67 India’s proposal, articulated by
Krishna Menon on 20 August, called for a revision of the 1888 agreement, with a
committee of user interests what would be adjoined to the Egyptian Canal Corporation,
and the transmission of the Corporation’s annual reports to the United Nations.68 The
American proposal, tabled by Dulles, was closer to the Anglo-French position; that a
Convention would be negotiated with Egypt, a Suez Canal Board established with a
permanent Egyptian seat, the Canal insulated from international politics, and profits to be
paid only to Egypt.69 The Soviets, however, clearly defended Egyptian sovereignty,
believing that Egypt could not “merely be one of the parties administering her own
property.” To this end, they proposed a Preparatory Commission to clear the ground for
an assembly of all user nations that would decide the future of the Canal.70 In the end,

Dulles’s proposal was approved, with only four of the attendees (India, Sri Lanka,

 

‘7 Keith Kyle believes that Lloyd’s adamance on retaining the chair was based upon his
having “a military timetable in mind;” see Kyle, Suez, 193; Heikal, Cutting the Lion ’s Tail,
147.

6’ Sarvepalli Gopal, “India, the Crisis, and the Non-Aligned Nations,” in Louis and Owen,
eds, Suez 1956: The Crisis and its Consequences, 179-80. Krishna Menon’s proposal
satisfied no one, the Egyptians believing it too accomodating to the West, and the British
and French believing it too favorable to Nasser.

’9 Kyle, Suez, 194-95. Dulles’s speech had the opposite effect of Krishna Menon’s; its
lucid delivery created in the British and French the assumption that the “real” American
position was identical to their own, as Dulles had made the statement that “Egyptian
sovereignty is and always has been qualified by the treaty of 1888 which makes of the
Canal an international-mot an Egyptian--waterway.”

7° Kyle, Suez, 195.

31

Indonesia, and the USSR) opposing the plan. What remained was to convey the
Conference’s conclusions to Nasser.

The mission, headed by Prime Minister Robert Menzies of Australia (despite
British hopes that Dulles would head it himself), consisted of delegates from five of the
eighteen consenting nations."l This small deputation arrived in 2 September and met with
Nasser on 3 September, despite fears that Nasser would rebuff them entirely. Nasser made
it clear, on the morning of 3 September, that he felt Menzies was dictating terms to be
either accepted or rejected under the threat of continuing Anglo-French military action.72
Mohammed Heikal, however, recalls that Nasser came to believe that Dulles was the foe

he was truly up against:

Nasser learned that after Monday’s evening session Menzies had been
driven round to the American embassy, and stayed there an hour. “He must
have been going to get his orders,” Nasser commented. This confirmed him
in the conviction that the resolution brought by the mission was inspired by
Dulles, that Eden would have to do what Dulles wanted, and that therefore
the real political duel was between Egypt and Dulles, with Dulles
determined to get the canal internationalised. “He wants to get by
diplomatic means,” Nasser said, “what Eden hasn’t been able to get by
military means.”73

Thus, Nasser appears to have perceived Eden’s inability to go ahead without the United

States’ assent fairly early on. On 5 September 1956, Eisenhower made a public statement

 

7‘ For British efforts to force the US into the Anglo-French camp by sending Dulles, see
Kyle, Suez, 197; the five nations in question were Australia, Ethiopia, Iran, Sweden, and
the United States.

72 Heikal, Cutting the Lion ’s Tail, 148-49.

7’ Heikal, Cutting the Lion ’s Tail, 150.

32

repudiating the use of force, which took a significant bite out of Menzies’ threatening
gesticulations.74 Without the clearance to negotiate with Nasser, and the solidarity of the
mission crumbling underneath him as the other delegates took exception to the threat of
force if the Conference’s recommendations were not accepted, the Menzies mission ended
on 6 September and Menzies himself returned to London for debriefing.

Nasser had handled Menzies carefully, so as not to give the impression that he
would concede Egypt’s sovereignty in any way. Menzies, characterized as the “elder
statesman of Empire,” had reacted belligerently and angrily to calm assertions of Egypt’s
interest and right in controlling the Canal before the members of the Mission, only to be
undercut by Eisenhower’s declaration and, subsequently, by the other delegates’
unwillingness to support his rhetoric. And if the Menzies Mission was intended to buy
Eden’s government time to prepare a military alternative, Nasser already had realized that
the delay between his action and any British reaction was beneficial as international
sentiment, even that in Britain, would increasingly side with Egypt.75

With Menzies firmly snubbed in Cairo and the London Conference’s
recommendations rejected by Nasser, the proper course of action was far from clear. The
European pilots had left Egypt on 15 September 1956 in violation of the Egyptian law that

nationalized the Canal Company, an event many European observers had assumed would

 

7’ Blake, The Decline of Power, 360.

7’ There is evidence that Eden took this possibility seriously, especially following the
failure of the Menzies mission, when he and Lloyd exerted tremendous pressure in the
propagandization of Britain; criticism was already being levelled at the government by this
time. See Childers, The Road to Suez, 213-14; Tony Shaw, Eden, Suez, and the Mass
Media: Propaganda and Persuasion During the Suez Crisis (London: Tauris, 1996), 62-
63.

33

close the Canal; this proved not to be the case.76 In the weeks following Menzies’ return,
the comparison of Nasser to Hitler was again made, this time in order to ensure that the

United States could see Nasser as Eden saw Nasser:

You suggest that this [the use of force] is where we diverge. If that is so I
think that the divergence springs from a difference in our assessment of
Nasser’s plans and intentions. May I set out our view of the position. In the
1930’s Hitler established his position by a series of carefully planned
movements. These began with the occupation of the Rheinland and were
followed by successive acts of aggression against Austria, Czechoslovakia,
Poland and the West. His actions were tolerated and excused by the
majority of the population of Western Europe. It was argued eithe rthat
Hitler had committed no act of aggression against anyone or that he was
entitled to do what he liked in his own territory or that it was impossible to
prove that he had any ulterior designs or that the covenant of the League of
Nations did not entitle us to use force and that it would be wiser to wait
until he did commit an act of aggression."

Eisenhower’s response to this assertion was that he did not differ as to Nasser’s
“intentions and purposes,” but that Eden overestimated Nasser’s importance and that a
victory could be achieved without injudicious use of force before all possible avenues of
peacefirl settlement had been exhausted.78

Eisenhower’s Secretary of State had an idea for implementing the London
Conference recommendations in spite of Nasser’s refusal, a users’ association that would

collect canal tolls and hold them pending a settlement--a way of striking at Nasser’s

bottom line without using force. To engineer this association, Eden orchestrated a second

 

7“ Kyle, Suez, 249-52; Eden, Full Circle, 522-23.

77 Childers, The Road to Suez, 213-14; Kyle, Suez, 224-25; Eden to Eisenhower, 6
September 1956, FRUS, 1955-57, XVI, 401.

7“ Eisenhower to Eden, FRUS, 1955-57, XVI, 435-37.

34

London Conference from 19-21 September, and invited the eighteen nations favorable to
the first international proposal. The association, called initially CASU (Co-operative
Association of Suez Canal Users) and later SCUA (Suez Canal Users’ Association), was
envisaged as a sort of Canal-Authority-in-exile, into which dues could be paid and through
which financial control of the Canal could be wrested from Nasser.79 However, Dulles
shattered any pretensions to control the organization may have entertained with the 13
September comment that “we do not intend to shoot our way through.”80 For the third
time in as many months, British efforts to regain control of the Canal, albeit by indirect
means, were rendered impotent by the inability to assure American backing for the
possible use of force. Nasser had no reason to accept SCUA if legality was on his side,
and superior force ruled out as a means of bending Egypt to accept international control.
Dulles hoped to use the United Nations as just such a tool. Earlier in the crisis, the
UN had not been invoked to keep true internationalization from occurring; but now, faced
with the failure of all international forums the British and French hoped to control, the two
powers rushed to the United Nations Security Council with a grievance.81 The debate,
which focused on the nature of the Canal’s nationalization, executed without notice or
negotiation, and an Anglo-French denial of hostile intent in their continued military
preparations, did not convince Mahmoud Fawzi, Egyptian Foreign Minister, that the

British and the French were not still working to impose their own order upon Egypt.

 

’9 Childers, The Road to Suez, 222-23; Kyle, Suez, 224-25.
80 Blake, The Decline of Power, 372-73.

8' Keith Kyle cites the reasons for taking it to the UN as a desire to pre-empt a Soviet case
against Britain and France for continued browbeating with international organizations and
the desire to stop appearing to their constituencies as indecisive. See Kyle, Suez, 257.

35

Selwyn Lloyd, in particular, was careful to remain in line with Christian Pineau, both in the
Security Council and in later, secret discussions between Lloyd, Pineau, Fawzi, and UN
Secretary-General Dag Hammerskjold.82

F awzi was fairly receptive, however, to the incorporation of a modified SCUA in a
final settlement of the Canal. However, his questions and Lloyd’s answers in the private
conversations were taken in various ways; the British Government’s Egypt committee saw
Fawzi’s apparent willingness to accept canal dues payment through SCUA for
Association-member ships as the granting of a sanction tool for the future, should Egypt
prove intractable. Pineau, apparently missing significant portions of the conversation
because of an imperfect grasp of English and the absence of an interpreter, was worried
that F awzi’s agreeable nature was drawing Lloyd away from France. Lloyd became
uncertain that Pineau desired a peaceful solution. F awzi noted that Pineau appeared to be
steering Lloyd away from a compromise. Hammerskjold feared for F awzi’s ability to
commit the Egyptian Government to anything agreed upon. 83

Any progress toward a compromise, however, was shattered with Pineau’s
reversion to demanding an acceptance of the original London Conference’s
recommendations. The Anglo-French resolution, published on 13 October, claims that the
“proposals of the Eighteen Powers [SCUA] correspond to the requirements set out above
[vis-a-vis insulating the Canal’s operation from politics] and are suitably designed to bring
about a settlement of the Suez Canal Question by peacefill means in conformity with

justice; . . . Notes that the Egyptian Government . . . has not yet formulated specifically

 

’2 Kyle, Suez, 281

83 Kyle, Suez, 282-86.

36

precise proposals to meet the requirements set out above,” and invited Egypt to discuss
proposals on the grounds, of course, that SCUA had legitimacy-~something Fawzi was
unwilling to concede.84 The resolution was put to the Security Council in two parts, the
first concerning the principles for a settlement, and the second about specifics (including
SCUA and the London Conference recommendations). In this situation, a Soviet veto of
the second part was assured, although the first was approved unanimously. The 9-2 vote
support of the second portion was seen as a moral approval of the Anglo-French position,
and of SCUA as envisioned by them. What remained was a way to bring about a favorable
settlement.

Mediation efforts were frustrated after the UN debates. Hammerskjold, for his
part, attempted to correspond with all three parties, with an end to having a conference in
Geneva at the end of October. The British and French demanded a complete and whole
Egyptian proposal based on the principles of settlement (the first part of the 13 October
resolution) and agreeable to the SCUA nations. Fawzi found this suggestion intolerable
and refirsed to predicate an Egyptian plan upon the existence of SCUA.

The apparent impasse favorably inclined Eden’s opinion toward a F ranco-Israeli
plan to justify an invasion of the Canal Zone, first revealed to the Prime Minister on 14

October 1956.85 Eden had, from the beginning, considered ways of eliminating Nasser

 

8‘ “Draft Resolution submitted by Great Britain and France to the Security Council, 13
October 1956,” reprinted in D. C. Watt, ed., Documents on the Suez Crisis (London:
Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1957), 76; Heikal, Cutting the Lion ’3 Tail, 169;
Kyle, Suez, 288-89.

8’ W. Scott Lucas, “Redefining the Suez ‘Collusion’,” Middle Eastern Studies 26 no. 1
(1990), 88. The question of using Israel had been raised as early as 2 August, as a possible
method of enticing Egyptian armor away from British forces that might invade from Libya,
by Macmillan, and again in late September when the French were in contact with the

37

altogether, for he was certain that Nasser constituted a danger to the whole Middle East,
as a sort of Arab imperialist; stopping him with the first seizure, the Suez Canal, would
result in his toppling.86 With so much time having passed between the nationalization and
postulated military action, however, a “detonator” was needed for an Anglo-French
invasion of the Canal Zone, something Israel could provide.

The idea, brought up in conversations at Sévres between 19 and 22 October 1956,
was for Israel to invade the Sinai Peninsula as a reprisal for unspecified terrorist acts, at
which point the British and French would go through diplomatic motions and end up
occupying the Canal Zone. Invading Egypt proper had been discarded--without limiting
the offensive to the canal, justifying the invasion as a separation of the combatants would
be impossible. To the end of salving Israeli fears about leaving Israel open to attack, the
French government provided millions of dollars in war material, and likewise agreed to
immobilize the Egyptian air force with airstrikes in the opening hours of their intercession.
The French pushed for ever-shorter timetables, both to mollify public opinion and to
placate Israeli fears about Egyptian reprisals.87

The French and Israelis were quite prepared for the plan; they only needed the

British to go along with it. This was more difficult, as there was some suspicion that high-

 

Israelis, although Eden opted out at that point; see Kyle, Suez, 174; W. Scott Lucas,
Britain and Suez: The Lion ’s Last Roar (Manchester: Manchester University Press,
1996), 66-67.

86 Eden discusses extensively the Hitlerite pretensions of Nasser, and his equation of the
two, in his memoirs. Eden, Full Circle, 289; 480-81.

’7 Extensive discussions at Sévres about the “aggressor” role in the operation usually
hinge on British unwillingness to accept anything but the most honorable mantle. See
Kyle, Suez, 317-20.

38

ranking members of Eden’s cabinet, especially Lloyd, were looking for compromises and
were not receptive to the use of force, for fear that the danger to British citizens and
assets would be even greater than that stemming from a Nasser victory.88 The worry about
world Opinion became less when political unrest in Hungary and the presidential election in
the United States promised to mask Anglo-Franco-Israeli actions fiom the disapproving
eye of the Soviet Union and possible negative reactions from the United States.89

Eden could agree to all of this, provided there was a “real act of war” that
provided a clear threat to the canal and that the Anglo-French invasion appeared clearly
altruistic, in the interests of separating the combatants.90 The landings could be justified in
their rapidity (36 hours after the Israeli attack) because they were part of the “same plan
that had been intended to deal with Nasser’s seizure of the Canal” and as such it “fitted
equally well with our new objective.”91 The Israelis were to begin in the evening of 29
October, and the British and French would deliver ultimatums to Israel and Egypt the
following morning, destroying Egypt’s air force on the ground early in the morning of 31

October, after Nasser’s certain rejection of the ultimatum’s terms, and following this with

 

’8 Kyle, Suez, 317; Selwyn Lloyd, Suez 1956: A Personal Account (London: Johnathan
Cape, 1978), 260.

89 Later events in Jordan provided further fuel for Eden’s desire to be rid of Nasser; on 22
October, the incoming Prime Minister, Suleiman Nabulsi, made open movements towards
Egypt and Syria and denounced foreign and imperial influence. Kyle, Suez, 324

9° Mordechai Bar-On, “David Ben-Gurion and the Sévres Collusion,” in Louis and Owen,
eds, Suez 1956: The Crisis and its Consequences, 156.

9' This was Eden’s justification in his memoirs; he denied the collusion entirely. Eden, Full
Circle, 584.

39

landings in the Canal Zone.92 The agreement on these points was embodied in the Protocol
of Sévres, signed on 24 October. The three governments were now linked in the course of
intervention and collusion.

The justification for Israel’s mobilization and attack on 29 October 1956 turned
out to be a new Egyptian-Syrian—Jordanian military alliance, arising fi'om a pro-Nasserist
victory in the Jordanian elections held earlier in October. The Protocol of Sévres
deactivated a standing Anglo-Jordanian military agreement, so the new alliance was not a
considerable threat--but it provided some semblance of cause for the pre-emptive Israeli
action.93 Nasser could believe Israel was acting alone at first, finding no reason that Israel
would align itself with those colonial powers responsible for backing up the largely-Arab
Baghdad Pact.”

The Israelis advanced quickly, and without air support--so quickly that the
Egyptians were at a loss to determine Israel’s objectives. Nasser had expected that any
firll-scale war would involve an early strike against Egypt’s airfields (as Israel would carry
out with devastating efficiency in 1967) and move with all possible haste to secure the
western bank of the Canal. However, the Israelis were forbidden by the Protocol of Sévres
from taking such action. They awaited the Anglo-French end of the equation, and Israeli

hesitation added to the possibility of collusion in the eyes of Eden’s opponents.

 

92 Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion objected to the term “ultimatum.” in the actual
document, the word used is “appeal.” The “appeal’s” terms applied almost exclusively to
Egypt, and was designed to be unacceptable to Nasser’s government by forcing him to
allow occupation troops in the Canal Zone. See Kyle, Suez, 329, and Watt, ed.,
Documents, 86.

93 Kyle, Suez, 347.

9" Hewedy, “Nasser and the Crisis of 1956,” 169.

40

The ultimatums, delivered on 30 October, set tempers flaring around the world. It
appeared as though the only condition the Israelis had to fulfill was to stop fighting and
withdraw ten miles from the Canal Zone; the Egyptians were given punishing demands.
The United Nations met to discuss the situation in Suez, with Britain and France vetoing
any resolution for a cease-fire. In the House of Commons, Opposition Leader Hugh
Gaitskell denounced the ultimatums angrily, and accused Eden’s government of
abandoning the traditional principles governing British foreign policy since the Second
World War and failing to consult the Commonwealth members. All the while, Gaitskell
said, Britain was acting against the interests of peace by obstructing the United Nations,
and pursuing policies smacking of collusion.95

When, on 31 October, the British and French began bombing military targets in the
vicinity of Suez, matters passed to the United Nations. The British and French, as
permanent members of the Security Council, vetoed resolutions for an immediate cease-
fire, and invoking the “uniting for peace” resolution, the matter was taken up in the
General Assembly. Resolutions passed on 4 November establishing a United Nations force
and imposing a ban on moving any firrther forces into the Suez region fell on British,
French and Israeli disapproval. Commonwealth and Arab allies alike abandoned Britain,
and only Australia and New Zealand toed the British line. In spite of these signs and the
movement of the US Sixth Fleet into the eastern Mediterranean, Britain and France went
ahead with landings in defiance of United Nations resolutions.

Against the advice of his military leaders, Nasser believed the British and French

would land at Port Said, and organized a psychological defense accordingly. The aim was

 

9’ Kyle, Suez, 377; Braddon, Suez: Splitting of a Nation, 92.

41

to resist and buy time while underlining the cost for what was being touted as an Anglo-
French “police action.” When paratroops descended upon Port Said in the morning of 5
November, they encountered a spirited Egyptian defense. Landings by marines the
following day encountered only light resistance; however, Nasser had succeeded in sinking
ships in the Canal, thus denying the British and French any chance of repeating General
Wolseley’s feat of 1882 and seizing the entire canal in one fell swoop. With this, Nasser
was able to convert his forces’ rout into a “strategic retreat” before the imperial powers.
With the prospect for quick victory gone, Eden faced growing discontent in Britain and
abroad, most notably in_ his own party; Hugh Gaitskell certainly did not help matters by
encouraging a Conservative revolt against the Prime Minister in a BBC radio address on 4
November.96

American and Soviet disapproval of Anglo-French activities was critically
important. The Soviets had stepped-up their repression in Hungary, and were quieter on
the issue of Suez once they had been shown to disregard UN rulings against their
Hungarian policy. Eden complained to Eisenhower that “no voice” was being raised in the
UN to support intervention in Hungary “at the very moment we are being pilloried as
aggressors.”97 However, the Soviets still hinted at military support for Egypt and the Arab

countries, and this was a serious consideration, despite suggestions that it was merely a

 

9‘ Gaitskell broadcast on behalf of the Opposition, 4 November 1956, printed in Philip M.
Williams, ed., The Diaries of Hugh Gaitskell 1945-1956 (London: Jonathan Cape, 1983),
619-22

97 Eden to Eisenhower, 5 November 1956, FRUS, 1955-57, XVI, 984-86.

42

ruse to keep attention away from Hungary.98 The United States could not condone, or
even passively accept, aggression in Suez when it was denouncing a similar episode in
Eastern Europe.99 The successfirl raising of a UN force to oversee a cease-fire, oil
embargoes from the United Nations, and the ever-present specter of Soviet intervention
balanced against the continuation of hostilities. 10° When Harold Macmillan reported that
Britain’s financial reserves were depleting rapidly and monetary aid fi'om the United States
was not forthcoming, in fact ruled out because of a US threat to veto an international loan
through the United Nations, the decision was made to cease-fire on 7 November 1956.
The French followed suit, unable to continue in isolation.

While hostilities had ceased, the issue of dislodging the British and French military
presence was a difficult one. UNEF troops had been pouring into the Canal Zone since the
middle of November. However, Lloyd told Hammerskjold that the British and French
troops were the only force strong enough to give Nasser pause, that the UNEF would
need to be larger to take its place.101 Even the arrival of a force of acceptable size would

not force the occupying powers to leave, as Britain and France still hoped to use the

 

9' Bohlen to Dulles, 5 November 1956, FRUS, 1955-57, XVI, 995-96. For the official US
opinion that Soviet intervention was unlikely, see Report by the Joint Middle East
Planning Committee to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 3 November 1956, FRUS, 1955-57, XVI,
968-72.

99 See Lucas, Britain and Suez, 97; W. Scott Lucas, Divided We Stand: Britain, the US,
and the Suez Crisis (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1991), 276, 281-82; and
Memorandum of Discussion at the 303d Meeting of the National Security Council, 8
November 1956, FRUS, 1955-57, XVI, 1070-1086 esp. 1081-85.

10° Kyle, Suez, 465. On Soviet intervention, the British view was more uncertain than the
American; see Allied Forces Headquarters, Cyprus, to Air Ministry, London, 6 November
1956, printed in Lucas, Britain and Suez, 107.

'0’ Kyle, Suez, 494.

43

territory they controlled as a bargaining chip. This was undermined by entirely non-
military factors.

Eisenhower, with his re-election in hand, took the reins of subsequent events.
Britain was in dire need of monetary relief, as the pound was close to collapse;
Eisenhower had only to make American support for a loan from the International
Monetary Fund contingent on the withdrawal of the troops to convince the British and
French to quit Suez. Macmillan, once among the most vehement proponents of military
intervention, was now converted to doving in his efforts to get fiscal relief for Britain. ’02
Facing disaster at home, the Anglo-French expedition was withdrawn unconditionally by
the end of December.

Subsequent efforts to exercise leverage, in the clearing of the canal, in negotiating
for a settlement on how to administer the canal, and in effecting a British boycott of the
waterway were fi'ustrated by an Egypt using the expedition’s failure as a pretense for
further clearing European influence fiom its institutions. Nasser nationalized credit
institutions, banks, and insurance companies on a massive scale in presidential decrees of
15 January 1957, and abrogated existing agreements with Britain on strategic matters and
basing rights. '03 For Egypt, then, the result of the Suez crisis was unprecedented
popularity and a position of recognized leadership for Nasser in the Arab world.

For Britain, the result was an end to its role as the pre—eminent power in the

Middle East. Into the vacuum stepped the United States, in opposition to Soviet interests

 

102 Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism: Crisis and Deconstruction, 1914-1990, 289-
90.

’03 Kirk J. Beattie, Egypt During the Nasser Years: Ideology, Politics, and Civil Society
(Boulder, CO: Westview, 1994), 116.

44

in the region. Eisenhower publicly declared on 5 January 195 7, in what became known as
the Eisenhower Doctrine, that the United States would serve as guarantor of the Arab
states’ freedom from Soviet designs. "’4 Those nations, such as Iraq and Jordan, previously
under the British aegis began to move into the American camp as British subsidies and
entanglements were retracted. And just as Britain’s star was in eclipse, so was Eden’s.
Under advice from doctors, and still under fire from the Suez debacle, he resigned as
Prime Minister on 9 January 1957. He was succeeded not by his personal favorite, Lord
Privy Seal and Leader of Commons R. A. Butler, but by his Chancellor of the Exchequer,

Harold Macmillan. '05

 

10" Kyle, Suez, 526-28. Eisenhower’s declaration made no mention of the Arab-Israeli
conflict, and no commitment to limiting it.

"’5 Macmillan is not believed to have had an active role in Eden’s fall, the possibility that
he hastened it along is raised in Lewis J ohnman, “Defending the Pound: The Economics of
the Suez Crisis, 1956,” in Anthony Gorst, Lewis Johnman, and W. Scott Lucas, eds,
Post-war Britain, 1945-64: Themes and Perspectives (London: Pinter, 1989), 171-179;
and Nigel Ashton, “Macmillan and the Middle East,” in Richard Aldous and Sabine Lee,
eds, Harold Macmillan and Britain ’s World Role (London: Macmillan, 1996), 37.

PERSONALITIES AND INTERACTIONS

In a comparison of two similar events in world history, an investigator must first
take stock of the historical actors. The first necessity is an exploration of the places where
responsibility for decision-making supposedly lay, and this is best done individual by
individual, office by office. The people in the crises of 1882 and 1956 were, of course,
different, as were their interactions with one another--but the necessity is in understanding
how different people in similar offices could have voted for intervention, and how the
response of different Egyptians in nominally similar positions might have affected British
resolve in the 1956 crisis where it could not have in 1882. The European personalities,
including Americans, were important to show how intervention could have happened in
both instances.

The first subjects of this analysis are the most prominent, the two Prime Ministers
of Britain, William Ewart Gladstone and Anthony Eden. The two men were patently
different in too many ways to be recounted here, except those that shed light on their
handling of the crises. Gladstone’s ministry in 1882 was not his first, nor his last; Eden’s
was both his first and his last, and lasted barely more than a year. Similarly significant,
Gladstone was a Liberal and Eden a Conservative, afiiliations that had powerfirl effects on
the respective rhetorics surrounding intervention. Finally, their psychologies were vastly

different, and their personal commitment to each crisis varied in strength.

45

46

Gladstone himself had a long-standing interest that afi‘ected the amount of time he
could devote to Egyptian matters in 1882, that of Ireland. Gladstone had a commitment to
settling unrest in Ireland in his first ministry by showing Irish leaders that London’s
Parliament could represent Irish interests and that any kind Of home rule (separate Irish
parliament) was unnecessary, through the passage Of liberal laws that would remove the
teeth of separatist Fenianism. When that failed, Gladstone spent much of his second
Government’s term Of oflice (1880-1885) looking for a middle road that would grant the
Irish faction in Parliament the home rule desired while maintaining its union with
Britain.106 This task, made more difficult by the inability to separate Fenian separatism
from home rule meant to defeat it, meant that Gladstone had only limited time to acquaint
himself with issues of unfamiliar places like Egypt; he had ministers and consuls to handle
those problems. 107

That Gladstone relied upon these other voices, and was uninvolved with the day-
by-day evolution of Egyptian policy, may help explain why the Liberal prime minister was
eventually converted to intervention. The Prime Minister was also converted very late in
the day, seeking any means short of direct military intervention as late as 9 July, as related

in his own diaries and his correspondence with Foreign Minister Granville. "’8 Gladstone

 

l°“H. c. G. Matthew, Gladstone 1875-1898 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995),
184-85.

’07 See Alexander SchOlch, “The ‘Men on the Spot’ and the British Occupation of Egypt
in 1882,” Historical Journal 19 no. 3 (1976), 781.

108 See Ramm, ed., Political Correspondence, 1:387-90; H. C. G. Matthews, ed., The
Gladstone Diaries, vol 10 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 294-95, which shows
the beginning of conversion in a 10 July 1882 note to Radical MP John Bright musing that
a bombardment of Alexandria might “firrther the peace.”

47

was averse to outright aggression, even when British ofiicials in London, Alexandria and
Cairo suggested that Urabi was a definite threat to the security of British interests and the
Canal. "’9 Only when the situation had deteriorated to the point where Urabi was
considered intractable, after the Alexandria bombardment, did Gladstone resign himself to
intervention.

Gladstone would thus accede to his ministers’ recommendations only when the
evidence of chaos was overwhelming. Despite the multiplicity of arguments on who was
truly responsible for bringing Britain into the Egyptian imbroglio, it is clear that Gladstone
was not. The observation has been made that “the stereotypes . . . of Gladstone’s general
ideas, e.g., self-determination dictating favour to the alleged national movement, of
Gladstone’s legalism indicating support for Turkey and her intervention as the legal ruler,
and of his characteristic means of action by the European Concert. . . . proved useless in
the [Egyptian] situation,” and that it was Urabi and the Nationalist Party who were most
expendable.110 While this Observation helps to reconcile the events of 1881-82 with

Gladstone’s principles, it implies that he was given balanced information and made an

 

’09 Gladstone discounted any possibility that the Canal was in danger before the
bombardment; see John S. Galbraith and Afaf Lufti al-Sayyid-Marsot, “The British
Occupation of Egypt: Another View,” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 9
(1978), 472-73. He also discounted the idea of Urabi blocking the canal afterwards, but
not the possibility of reprisals against British ships “which he might suppose to touch
England alone.” See Gladstone to Granville, 16 July 1882, fiom Ramm, ed., Political
Correspondence, 1:397.

"0 Agatha Ramm, “Granville,” in Keith M. Wilson, ed., British Foreign Secretaries and
Foreign Policy fiom Crimean War to First World War (London: Croom Helm, 1987), 96.

48

expert’s decision to discard the Nationalists. In reality, his expertise on foreign affairs was
limited and Ireland, considered a domestic issue, had primacy.lll

Anthony Eden, on the other hand, had built much of his career in the Foreign
Office. Beginning as Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in 1931 and ending as
Neville Chamberlain’s Foreign Minister in 1938, and again serving as Secretary of State
for War and Foreign Minister for Churchill during his two tenures of oflice, Eden was
well-qualified to handle Britain’s negotiations with other governments himself. Likewise,
Eden’s semi-mythical status, which aided his popularity in post-war Britain, stemmed from
that experience added to his 20 February 1938 resignation as Foreign Minister in protest
of Chamberlain’s appeasement of Mussolini and later denunciation of the infamous
agreement at Munich. ”2 Thus, Eden’s reputation was built upon being a perceptive
navigator for Britain’s foreign policy. Evelyn Shuckburgh, Eden’s private secretary during
his second Foreign Ministry, made the astute observation that “the disaster of Suez in
1956 . . . prevents us seeing clearly Eden’s achievements as Foreign Secretary.”"3

But it is possible that this familiarity with foreign affairs lent to his determination to
exert supremacy over them, even when Britain’s position in the world did not allow for

this. He clearly took Nasser’s actions personally, and set it as his own goal that Nasser had

to be removed, regardless of the consequences to Egypt. 1” While animosity alone could

 

'” Galbraith and al-Sayyid-Marsot, “The British Occupation of Egypt,” 478-79.
”2 Shaw, Eden, Suez, and the Mass Media, 25.
"3 Shuckburgh, Descent to Suez, 15.

1" Nutting, No End of a Lesson, 34-5; Keith Kyle, “Britain and the Crisis, 1955-1956,” in
Louis and Owen, eds, Suez 1956: The Crisis and its Consequences, 109; Calhoun,
Hungary and Suez, 84-5; Carlton, Anthony Eden, 405-6.

49

not have justified action, it certainly changed the calculations and allowed for action to be
justified more easily to parties uncertain about intervention. This animosity could have led
to British involvement with the Sévres pact, inexplicable because Eden seemed to know
that collusion with Israel would destroy Britain’s efi’orts to mend fences with Nasser, if
not the entire British position in the Middle East.115

In any case, it is certain that personal animosity lent itself to and fed off the
repeated and well-documented equation of Nasser and Hitler. Eden, who held a degree in
Oriental languages from Christ Church, Oxford, felt himselfan “orientalist” and this may
also have added to his conviction that he could read Nasser. “6 The belief that Nasser held
imperial ambitions, his apparent willingness to work with such unsavory characters as the
Soviets, and the conversion of Nasser’s own Philosophy of the Revolution into a new
Mein Kampf all appeared to bend to the characterization of Nasser as a ruthless autocrat
and of Eden as the Conservative Prime Minister with a second chance to put things right.
Under such pressure, Eden may have been unable, rather than unwilling, to accept
Nasser’s nationalization of the Suez Canal--his own personal prestige and that of his
country was at stake. Thus Eden became one of the the foremost warrnongers in
Government, with the largest stake, public and private, in the humiliation and destruction
of Nasser.

With this dichotomy in the involvement and role of the two Prime Ministers, it is

perhaps ironic how similar their Foreign Ministers, George Leveson Gower (Lord

 

"5 Jacques Georges-Picot, The Real Suez Crisis: The End of a Great Nineteenth Century
Work trans. W. G. Rogers (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978), 183-84.

"6 Carlton, Anthony Eden, 13.

50

Granville) in 1882 and Selwyn Lloyd in 1956, were in outlook. Granville was an aged,
even shadowy figure, with much the same passivity as Gladstone, and far more interested
in diplomacy with the Concert of Europe over what form occupation might take than
negotiating with ragtag Egyptian nationalists. Lloyd was more heavily invested in Eden’s
Egypt policy but did not share his master’s hawkish outlook even after plans had reached
an advanced stage, and Eden’s own persuasive skills played a part in swaying his Foreign
Minister. “7 The two men’s own motivations and effects upon the crises are hard to divine.
Granville spent most of the 1881-82 period exchanging letters with various heads
of state, from Constantinople and Paris to Berlin, trying to set up some kind of
international conference between the European Powers for the settling of questions related

”8 This conference, which met on 25 June 1882 in Constantinople, was of no

to Egypt.
import, for it failed to settle any questions in a manner that affected the process of events
in Egypt.119 Granville acted as an intermediary, and showed very little of his own initiative
in the Egyptian matter, carrying out Gladstone’s directives as efficiently as possible.
Lloyd similarly facilitated international conferences and worked towards common
ground; he believed the Egyptians were reasonable and acted on that assumption until

Eden informed him of changed plans. This may be, in part, because Lloyd had only held

the Foreign Ministry since December 1955 and thus would have felt junior in experience

 

"7 D. R. Thorpe, Selwyn Lloyd (London: Johnathan Cape, 1989), 231-32.
“8 Fitzmaurice, Granville, 2:261-63.

"9 Ramm, “Granville,” 96.

51

to Eden, especially with regards to Egypt. 12° Lloyd had been shuffled from the junior post
of Foreign Secretary to the senior position, and in retrospect did express certain
misgivings about rising to such a senior Cabinet position so quickly.121 The conciliatory
mood of understandingevidenced in Lloyd’s visits to Cairo and personal discussions about
Egypt vanished in hindsight, moving to conform with Eden’s vision of Nasser as a second
Hitler. ‘22

Perhaps it is most accurate to describe the activities of the Foreign Ministers as
inconsequential to the outcome of the crises. While Lloyd and Granville were responsible
and capable Foreign Ministers, they either could not or did not exert any control over
Egyptian policy, and certainly exerted none over their respective Prime Ministers. While
the reasons for their inaction may differ, the fact does not. However, in both crises, hawks
descended upon Government and pushed for intervention both in 1882 and 1956.

In 1882, the wannongering is generally placed on the two men who headed
Britain’s operations in Egypt under the auspices of the Dual Control, Edward Malet and
Auckland Colvin. There is a general acceptance that the one initially thought that Urabi
was a threat, convinced the other, and then both convinced the Foreign Office that

intervention was necessary.123 As Malet’s dispatches appear most frequently in oflicial

 

”0 The Anglo-Egyptian Friendship Treaty of 1936 was drafted by Eden, who was on
amicable terms with the dynasty of the deposed King Farouk.

‘2‘ Lloyd, Suez 1956, 33.
‘22 Lloyd, Suez 1956, 33-35.

123 The order is in doubt; for opposing views, see SchOlch, “The ‘Men on the Spot’,” 773-
785; and Galbraith and al-Sayyid-Marsot, “The British Occupation of Egypt,” 471-488.
All three authors agree that it was Malet and Colvin who tainted British opinion towards
intervention. '

52

documentation, it is likely that his conversion to an anti-Urabi stance was the most
important. With pessimism in place in the Foreign Office, events such as the massacre at
Alexandria and the town’s destruction by fire following Admiral Seymour’s bombardment
would be filtered through a lens of Urabist culpability. 124

In 1956, Eden was the prime mover, but was aided by Harold Macmillan, his
Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the leading hawk in the Cabinet. Significantly,
Macmillan had headed the Foreign Office before the “shuffle” that brought Selwyn Lloyd
to the post, and thus had a good deal of rapport with and understanding of Eden, but was

‘25 Macmillan’s own role is hard to divine, but it appears his was a

also quite independent.
win/win situation. He could stay on the inside, playing to Eden’s desire to act, and if
British action proved decisive, he could reap the political benefits. On the other hand, if
Eden’s course proved disastrous, Eden alone could take the blame--and Lloyd, his foreign

126

secretary, by association . As Chancellor of the Exchequer, Macnrillan’s primary
responsibility was the value of sterling, which fell as the mobilized reserves consumed

valuable funds--something he would invoke to push Eden along, hopefirlly with the end of

 

124 See M. E. Chamberlain, “The Alexandria Massacre of 11 June 1882 and the British
Occupation of Egypt,” Middle Eastern Studies 13 (1977), 14-39. Chamberlain places the
likely blame for the riot upon Tawfiq, precisely because he knew a riot would immediately
discredit Urabi. .

12’ Alistair Horne, Harold Macmillan vol 1 (London: Penguin Books, 1991), 404.

'26 Macmillan had thinly-veiled contempt for Lloyd, whom he proceeded to discredit as a
voice of reason after the Sévres pact was concluded. See Horne, Macmillan vol 1, 441-
42. Later, upon becoming Prime Minister, Macmillan would need to keep Lloyd as foreign
minister to preserve confidence in his government. See Lamb, Failure of the Eden
Government, 292-93.

53

destroying Nasser. 127 Macmillan was careful to warn, however, that a military operation
would cause a run on sterling, and that it was preferable only to “perishing by degrees,” in
Eden’s words. '28

The French ministers, de Freycinet, Gambetta, Mollet, and Pineau, were important
not because of any specific policy of their own. Rather, they have been accused of
dragging Britain into Egypt and leaving them to resolve the matter (1882) or enticing
Eden into the unholy alliance at Sévres (1956). Ministry changes in France during the
1882 crisis created a maddeningly vacillating situation for Gladstone to accommodate, and
Léon Gambetta’s inflammatory Joint Note of January 1882 was irreversible once
delivered, if he wished to keep his ministry. ’29 Similarly, once Eden had publicly launched
personal attacks on Nasser, the alternative to destroying Nasser was to lose credibility
himself, and this must have enhanced his reception of the Franco-Israeli plan for

intervention. French assistance was necessary to maintain the veneer of unselfish

peacekeeping, and if it could save a ministry, so much the better. 13°

 

127 Home, Macmillan 12427-28.
12: Lamb, Failure of the Eden Government, 205.

129 It was Gambetta’s commitment to act in Egypt, in part, that cost him his ministry at the
end of January 1882, and de F reycinet’s lack of support from his legislature on the use of
force in Egypt that cost him his after the Alexandria bombardment. Gambetta was likewise
against any powers but Britain and France imposing themselves on Egypt, a sentiment
echoed by Granville despite his organization of the Constantinople Conference later in
1882. See Granville to Dufl‘erin, 26 January 1882, and Granville to Lyons, 30 January
1882, from State Papers vol. 74 (1882-1883), 372-74; 377-79.

13° In both narratives, France appears as the voice of provocation and Britain the voice of
restraint. In 1956, the French would launch recrirninations against Eden for calling a halt;
see Nutting, No End of a Lesson, 145; Andre Beaufre, The Suez Expedition, 1956 trans.
Richard Barry (London: Faber and Faber, 1969), 120-22.

54

This role as peacekeeper was important enough that actions, and inactions, were
constrained by the need to maintain this image. The dispatch of the naval squadrons to
Alexandria in 1882 was recognized as unable to secure the safety of European subjects in
the wake of the Alexandria riots, and in 1956 the loading of transports for the landings at
Port Said was delayed until after the expiry of the formal ultimatum to Israel and Egypt at
the end of October. ’3 ’ Such moves were necessary to ensure the support of constituencies
and hostile MPs at home, and preserve coalitions necessary to follow a continuous and
consistent Egypt policy. The alternative would be paralysis and uncertainty of the kind that
plagued the French in 1882.

Uncertainty did exist for Eden in 1956, but unlike the internal problems of Third
Republic France, it was traceable to his trans-Atlantic colleagues in Washington. Eden
desperately sought the condonation of the United States for the British use of force, and
expected to find it because Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and President
Eisenhower both agreed with Eden’s assessment of Nasser. However, Dulles continually
tore down Anglo-French efforts to find a suitable international solution, including his own
brainchild, SCUA, by eliminating the prospect of using force to impose it; in reality, Dulles
was buying time. 132 By the middle of September, there appeared to be no issues that could
serve as a casus belli, and Eisenhower could keep matters on hold until after the Election.

Much about American and British conduct is attributable to the 1956 presidential

election. British policy-makers presumed that election politics would keep the United

 

131 Hansard ’s Parliamentary Debates, 3d ser., vol. 270 (1882), col. 1220; Aster, Anthony
Eden, 157.

‘32 Calhoun, Hungary and Suez, 180, 83-85.

55

States unconcerned, and the apparent cozying of Nasser to the Soviets would ensure tacit
American approval of any military expedition. Dulles talked both sides of the equation,
peace and force at once, leading the French to muse that Dulles’s real aim was to establish
American hegemony in former European colonial areas. ’33 Regardless, Eden and Lloyd
read Dulles’s words as a willingness to turn a blind eye to the use of force to impose a
favorable settlement at Suez, while Dulles was in fact playing a double game and keeping
Eisenhower’s options Open. Surely, in an election year, freedom of action was vitally
important, but it sent mixed messages to London and allowed for an aggressive foreign
policy. Once Eisenhower’s re-election was assured, he could press against Israel, France,
and Britain over Suez without worrying about political repercussions, to keep American
even-handedness in stark contrast to Soviet conduct over Hungary.

The decision to act militarily, then, follows a pattern. It began with the sudden
upsetting of an established order (Urabi’s movement in 1882 and Nasser’s nationalization
of the Suez Canal in 1956), which led certain parties to believe Britain’s vital interests
were in jeopardy. From there, those invested in reversing the situation became increasingly
vocal about the need to do so, convincing those around them. In 1882, that persuasion
came from below, fiom the periphery, and played on the financial fears of those in
London; in 1956, Eden’s personal reputation and Britain’s relative decline among the
world’s powers demanded a reaction to Nasser’s act. In the end, military intervention was
possible in both 1882 and 1956 because there appeared to be no other way for Britain to
preserve national prestige, keep confidence in the sitting ministry, and restore a state of

affairs favorable to European interests. What differed was the success of that intervention.

 

‘33 Calhoun, Hungary and Suez, 188.

EGYPT AS KEYSTONE: EGYPTIAN S IN THE CRISES

Some of the salesmanship involved placing Egypt in a regional context. It is in this
context that British actions are best explained, by comparing Urabi and Nasser. In both
instances, there are mentions of Egypt’s unique geographical position, and the Egyptian’s
(be it Urabi’s or Nasser’s) ability to destroy British influence through certain activities or
even the mere perception that Britain was “soft” on a rebellious colonial population. Thus,
there is tension between the Egyptian actors as they were, and the Egyptian actors as
perceived by Britain.

Ahmad Urabi was an officer with rather narrow grievances against the Khedival
state. He did not intend to be a ‘Nationalist’, beyond firrthering the standing of his own
social group, the Egyptian fellahin, in the army. As the crisis developed, Urabi was thrust
ever deeper into a wider political morass than he had intended to confront. Historian P J
Vatikiotis writes that “Orabi [was] . . . a simple soldier with ambitions beyond his
capabilities, found himself at the head of a military conspiracy against a weak Khedive,
misjudged the forces at play, [and] indulged in brinkmanship when confronting superior

”I34

powers and lost. However, Urabi’s ambitions were debatable, and the question of

whether he intended a revolution is still unresolved.

 

13" Vatikiotis, History of Modern Egypt, 155.

56

57

Whether Urabi’s actions represented insurrection or revolution was debated at the
time and since. The general movement, as Juan R. 1. Cole and Alexander Scholch have
both shown, was not a simple insurrection, though on whether it was a revolution, they
difi’er. ’35 Scholch provides an excellent statement concerning the hazards of attributing
such terms to complex movements: “A direct transference of terms which denote specific
European political ideas and institutions is misleading . . . The task is made more difficult
by the fact that the term revolution generally is connected with the notion of success.”136
Scholch’s statement might logically be taken further to disqualify even European
‘revolutions’ fi'om such analysis, but at least European institutions were generally
comparable to one another.

Supporters of Urabi invariably called the uprising a revolution; Wilfrid Blunt and
Elbert F arman (the United States’ consul in Egypt in 1882) both refer to Urabist activity

as such. Auckland Colvin, the British Controller in 1882, wrote in his 1906 book The

Making of Modern Egypt:

 

'35 See SchOlch, Egypt for the Egyptians, 306-315 passim; Cole, Colonialism and
Revolution, 285-89.

136

Scholch, Egypt for the Egyptians, 5-6.

58

It may be argued that though the military leaders might fail, they would fail
in the cause of liberty, and that in so great a cause men are justified in
making, and in expecting their countrymen to make, all sacrifices. On two
conditions they are justified; the first, that there is a reasonable possibility
that the sacrifice asked for will not be in vain; and secondly, that those who
make the call are inspired by true patriotism. Was this the case with the
Egyptian military leaders? Where was the reasonable, or even the wildest
possibility of success? What were the motives and claims put in the
foreground in their first and only manifesto? Were they a plea for liberty?
Did they embody a recital of the rights and wrongs of the people? Not at
all; the grievance alleged was the preference given by the Khedive to the
Turkish and Circassian Officers. Claims were urged for exemption from
measures of economy elsewhere contemplated; for more pay, and for
higher position . . . no one, in 1882, whose eyes were not obscured, could
for a moment believe that Mahmud Sémi and his troop were Washingtons
or Hampdens, or that the hour of Egyptian emancipation had struckm

Gladstone expressed the opinion that Urabi and his movement were nothing more
than military adventurers, and that the large landowners who were involved in Egyptian
constitutionalism were equally self-serving.138 In all fairness, truly altruistic revolutions
were rare; Britain’s own Glorious Revolution of 1688 has been shown to contain a strong
aristocratic power motivation. ‘39

There were likewise fears that Urabi was taking advantage of British weakness,

and that his success would set a dangerous precedent for the rest of the Empire. In debates

over the subject in Commons, Simon Ashmead-Bartlett proclaimed that Urabi knew of

 

’37 Colvin, Making of Modern Egypt, 13-15. Interestingly, Colvin sumsumes the whole of
Egyptian history before 1882 into a mere 18 pages, hinting that its entire contribution to
‘modernity’ was in bringing Britain to Egypt.

138David Steele, “Britain and Egypt 1882-1914: The Containment of Islamic Nationalism”
in Keith M. Wilson, ed., Imperialism and Nationalism in the Middle East (London:
Mansell, 1983), 4.

139 See Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism, 1:30, 53.

59

British weakness in Ireland, the Transvaal, and other recent “hot spots,” and was taking
that opportunity to mock the British Government. ”0 Granville took a similar tack with
Queen Victoria; in justifying the need to pacify Egypt; “Egypt is vital to us, and Lord
Granville has said to me that we must take it. . . . We must not at this moment appear to
be checked and weakened by Ireland?“l Similarly, all sides bandied about ideas of Urabi’s
collusion with outside powers in an effort to secure greater regional power; Tawfiq, for
one, pleaded to the Sultan that Urabi was in league with the British to create an “Arabian
Empire,” to play on Ottoman fears of internal weakness. ”2 The British, on the other hand,
were considerably more interested in the canal, but Gladstone had considered the problem
in 1877 and thought it not serious then. Egypt’s importance as a strategic position was
limited and British military strategy did not depend on it, preferring the less easily

compromised Cape route until 1890. "3

The Suez Canal endangered was therefore more a
jingoistic slogan and an ex post facto reason for intervention than any real cause. 1“
Racial perceptions played a part in this search for wider ambition as well. Urabi, as

an ‘Oriental’, had sinister and mystical qualities During the period of Urabi’s

imprisonment, his defender A. M. Broadley referred to him as “an Egyptian, a well-read,

 

”° Hansard, vol. 270 (1882), col. 1143.

1‘" George Earle Buckle, ed., The Letters of Queen Victoria vol 3 (London: John Murray,
1928), 301.

”2 Urabi made a similar plea to the Sultan in his appeal for support, stating that the
Khedive sought to make Egypt into a British client state, and to set himself up as its first
Governor. See Mansfield, British in Egypt, 27-28; Urabi, Defense Statement, 33.

"3 Cain et al., British Imperialism: Innovation and Expansion, 1688-1914 (New York:
Longman, 1993), 368.

144 SchOlch, “The ‘Men on the Spot’,” 773-78.

60

able, and gifted Egyptian, it is true, but still an Egyptian and nothing more. Orientals have
always more or less believed in visions since the days of Saul and David.””5 Such
essentializations of the Arab character, explored notably by Edward Said’s Orientalism,
led some to believe such a simple fellahin officer was fit only for direction. ”6 For
example, Colvin saw the hand of the Ottoman Sultan all too obvious behind Urabi’s
actions, while the sultan thought that the British might be behind them, perhaps because
his own policy was geared toward using Urabi and Tawfiq to weaken each other and pave
the way for a reassertion of Ottoman power in Egypt. "7 Edward Malet, in conversations
with Abdulhamid H, took away the impression that ex-Khedive Ismail or his brother,
Prince Halim, might be directing Urabi, and the Turkish Commissioner to Egypt in early
1882, Dervish Pasha, thought Urabi was playing into the hands of the British, intentionally

or accidentally. ”8 Major B. W. Polson Newman gave Urabi more agency, but still

 

145 A. M. Broadley, How We Defended Arcibi and His Friends: A Story of Egypt and the
Egyptians (London: Chapman and Hall, 1884), 201.

”6 Said’s discussion of Lord Cromer’s view of immoral Oriental “subject races” is
particularly appropriate to this. See Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Random
House, 1978), 36-39.

“7 Colvin, Making of Modern Egypt, 12; Selim Derengil, “The Ottoman Response to the
Egyptian Crisis of 1881-82” in Middle Eastern Studies vol. 24., no. 1 (1988), 19; Alan
Palmer, The Decline and Fall of the Ottoman Empire (New York: M. Evans and CO.,
1993), 167.

"8 Selim Derengil, “The ‘Residual Imperial Mentality’ and the ‘Urabi Pasa Uprising in
Egypt: Ottoman Reactions to Arab Nationalism” in Studies on T urkish-Arab Relations
Annual 1986 (Istanbul: Foundation for Studies on Turkish-Arab Relations, 1986), 34.

61

postulated that the events of 1882 were designed to bring in the British presence. ”9 Even
Egyptian reformers thought Urabi’s actions might have been directed fiom London. ”0
Urabi was not a pawn of greater powers, but neither was he the real revolutionary
force in Egypt. Urabi did not wield the supreme power sometimes attributed him, in spite
of martial law, even after the bombardment of Alexandria. 151 The real reforming
moderates remained in the country after 1882, and were still involved with government
after the British invasion; the first post-invasion government was formed with the
constitutionalist Sharif Pasha at its head. Many reforms, particularly the granting of a
constitution to Egypt, were denied before 1882 because the Sultan feared having to grant
all the Ottoman dominions such measures if he granted them to Egypt--another example of
Egypt as precedent and keystone. 152 Many years later, Sir Evelyn Baring, Lord Cromer,
claimed such concessions as a benefit of British rule; British sources of the period reflect

the erroneous belief that British magnaninrity alone was responsible for these. 1’3

 

”9 E. W. Polson Newman, Great Britain in Egypt (London: Cassell, 1928), 19, 115. Cited
fiom Zaheer Masood Quraishi, Liberal nationalism in Egypt: Rise and Fall of the Wafd
Party (Delhi: Jamal Press, 1967), 11.

15° Thomas Mayer, The Changing Past: Egyptian Historiography of the Urabi Revolt,
1882-1983 (Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press, 1988), 8.

15 1 Scholch, Egjpt for the Egyptians, 273-80, 292-303; Cf. Cole, Colonialism and
Revolution, 240-41.

’52 Selim Derengil, “Ottoman Response,” 5.

”3 The tome British Africa, a conglomeration of lecture-based articles from 1895-1898,
includes a chapter by the Secretary of the Bank of Egypt, Arthur Nichols, entitled “What
England has Done for Egypt”. Interestingly, United States Consul F arman’s anti-
Occupation memoir of the period includes a counterchapter entitled “What Egypt has
Done for England”. See Arthur Nichols, “What England has Done for Egypt” in William
Sheowring, ed., British Afiica (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trt'lbner and CO., 1906),
306-325; Farman, Betrayal of Egypt, 193-212.

62

The Ottomans and the British clearly misunderstood Urabi just as surely as he did
in return. The Ottomans, particularly, feared what they thought Urabi represented and the
precedent he might set for insurrection in other Ottoman donrinions, a major reason for
the Sultan’s eventual turn to support Tawfiq and the British. 154 This precise fear that a
dynamic Arab movement, aimed at removing all outside suzerainty and influence, might
spread would similarly inform opponents of Nasser in 1956.

Anthony Eden’s continual sighting of Nasser’s shadowy hand behind upheaval in
Jordan, Syria, and even Algeria owed much to this belief. Radio Cairo’s constant stream
of vitriol against the colonial powers, cementing Egypt’s position as an anti-colonial

1’ 5 However, rather than viewing this as a case of a

power, certainly did not case his mind.
country moving toward non-alignment, something Nasser believed in, British, French, and
American observers looked for the sinister motive, the “military adventurer” aspect that
existed in Urabi--even to the point of repeatedly referring to him as “Colonel Nasser”
instead of “President Nasser.” In the bipolar world of the Cold War, Manichean thinking
(East versus West) seemed logical, and after repeated rebuffs of the Baghdad Pact and any
regional security organization involving a major Western power, fiiendly actions towards
the Soviets took on an added element of warning.

Nasser was not only unwilling to bend before colonial powers; he was politically

unable to do so. His power was based upon a dedication to rid Egypt of colonial influence,

and making fresh Egyptian ties to the British and French was therefore out of the question.

 

154 Derengil, “Ottoman Response,” 17-18.

1” Beattie, Egypt During the Nasser Years, 113.

63

”6 Western powers took this, combined with Nasser’s expressed ideas on Arab unity, in
the most alarming manner, attributing all sorts of imperial and Communist ambitions to
him, not for a moment considering that his gratitude to the Soviets for helping firnd the
Aswan Dam in the wake of Egypt’s success in 1956 and the sale of weapons via
Czechoslovakia would be no greater than it had been to British, French, or American
interests. ”7 To be fair, the Soviets never considered this possibility either.

The most important portrayal of Egypt as a keystone in the 1956 crisis echoes
worries about British impotence in 1882. British clients, notably Jordan and Iraq, relied
upon Britain for the maintenance of their positions; Iraq’s Nuri el-Said in particular was
concerned about Nasser, for Iraq was Egypt’s main rival for the banner of Arab unity.
Mohammed Heikal made the observation that Nasser’s successfirl nationalization of the
Canal would have dire consequences for British-backed regimes in the Middle East, and
that they had known this even while being laudatory of Nasser. ”8 The mention in

Shuckburgh’s diary about Nasser asserting dominance over the Middle East if allowed to

 

”6 Hugh J. Schonfield, The Suez Canal in Peace and War (Coral Gables, FL: University
of Miami Press, 1969) 142-43; Beattie, Egypt During the Nasser Years, 112-13;), 43. See
also Heikal, Cutting the Lion ’s Tail, 52-59, for discussion of Nasser’s articulation of this
imperative to other Arab leaders.

157 Woodward, Nasser, 45-46; Beattie, Egypt During the Nasser Years, 115-16. Several
polemical books on the danger of Soviet encroachment, and the possible course for Egypt,
appeared in the decade after the crisis. Two examples of note are Guy Wint and Peter
Calvocoressi, Middle East Crisis (London: Penguin, 195 7), which includes the statement
that the Soviets “might be acquiring effective control of the Egyptian government and
army” in a satellite manner (86); and Ivor Powell, Disillusion by the Nile (London:
Solstice, 1967), which asserts that “there is now every indication that the Russians are
pressing for the total sovietization of Egypt the greatest likelihood at the present hour
Is that Egypt is fated to become the first Iron Curtain country in Africa” (64).

”8 Heikal, Cutting the Lion’s Tail, 130.

64

“get away with it” reflects this further, and it has been recognized that the act cemented
his leadership position among both the non-aligned nations and the Arab world.‘59 Eden
confided his fears about Nasser’s effect on Muslim powers fiiendly to Britain directly to
Eisenhower on 5 August 1956: “If Nasser keeps his loot, how long can such loyalty
last?”160 However, Nasser had believed the true struggle to be not with Britain, but the
United States; with the Middle East turned into an area of Cold War focus, the United
States, without the odium of a colonial past, moved into the position emptied by Great

Britain just as Britain had moved into that position in 1882, supplanting the Ottomans.

 

"9 Woodward, Nasser, 46;

16° See Eden to Eisenhower, 5 August 1956, in Foreign Relations of the United States
(hereafter FRUS), 1955-57, XVI, pp. 146-47.

VERTICAL TRENDS AND POINTS OF DIVERGENCE

Vertical trends, or trends over time, play an important role in determining why
intervention failed in 1956 while it succeeded in 1882. Aside from discussions of
motivation of each crisis, be they based on capital, prestige, or simple hatred, the basic fact
remains that the world of 1956 was radically different from that of 1882. Britain did not
hold the position of pre-eminent power in the world; rather, Britain and France were
considered second-rate Powers. Likewise, material culture was different, and interaction
between national populations greater.

Technology and human migration had allowed the dispersal of Arab people and
culture throughout the British Commonwealth, and kept those people in touch with their
homelands. For example, in the case of the Yemenis and Arab nationalism in the 19505,
Fred Halliday has noted that

The radio was very important as a means of arousing nationalist feeling

throughout the Arab world in the 19503, and this was true, too, of the

Yemeni community in Britain, who would listen to Cairo’s Voice of the

Arabs and its reports of events in both parts of Yemen. 16'

Surely, other expatriate populations in Britain must have heard these broadcasts and
sympathized with them; likewise, native Britons could now hear the Egyptian side of the

conflict as their 1882 ancestors could not, and more quickly as well. One-sided reporting

65

66

of the kind that helped pin the Alexandria riots of 11 June 1882 on Urabi162 was no longer
possible, nor could the voice of a few local officials (like Malet and Colvin) govern the
way Egypt was perceived at the metropole.

This technology and growing intemationalism, among its innumerable other side
effects, led also to give Egyptians official voices abroad. Radio Cairo, Egyptian missions
in other nations, the existence of other nationalist groups who could be contacted (most
notably the non-aligned nations), and the United Nations all ensured a very different
chorus in 1956 than in 1882. The isolation ofNasser’s Egypt was not possible, and action
would need to be justified to many nations, not just those of Europe.

The march of technology affected Britain in another way. The two World Wars,
with their engines of mass destruction, weighed greatly on Britain’s finances and allowed
other nations, particularly the United States and the soviet Union, to jump ahead in
economic and military clout. And, if that were not enough, the incredible rejuvenation of
defeated powers like Japan and Germany threatened to eclipse Britain entirely. Thus, while
Britain was not in absolute decline, the British economy had simply failed to grow at the
rate of its competitors’. ’63

Eden sorely overestimated Britain’s ability to afford gunboat diplomacy in the

19508, as well as the relative power his country possessed. The observation that Britain

 

1‘1 Fred Halliday, Arabs in Exile (London: Tauris, 1992), 87.
'62 Cole, Colonialism and Revolution, 281.

’63 See Cain and Hopkins, British Imperialism vol. 2, and David Reynolds, Britannia
Overruled (London: Longman, 1991). The sterling crisis can best be reconciled by
realizing that the cost of mounting military expeditions had also increased far faster than
Britain’s economy.

67

never defied the United. States on a major issue after Suez is important, because it was that
failure that underscored the need for American approval, tacit or real, of British action. ’64
However, while the combined discontent of the United States and the Soviet Union was
instrumental in the withdrawal of British and French forces from the Canal Zone,
explaining away Eden’s failure as attributable to American disapproval loses the role
Egyptian agency played in 1956, and could not in 1882.

For example, without Soviet sales of weapons to Nasser, and his formal
recognition of Mao’s China, American firnding for Aswan may not have been pulled, and
the canal may not have been nationalized. The Suez Canal Company’s concession was due
to end in 1968, so Egypt would have gained control of the waterway anyhow--the
nationalization was, therefore, a political move. Nasser’s action, Eden’s response, and the
ensuing crisis owed their existence to the superpower rivalry. The fact that Nasser was
able to act decisively, and nationalize the Suez Canal, was in itself of monumental
importance, and it reflects the single difference between 1882 and 1956 that made
successfirl British intervention impossible: Nasser’s unchallenged position as head of the
Egyptian state.

In 1882, the loyalties of the country were divided: Abdulhamid, Tawfiq, and Urabi
all sought to represent the real interests of Egypt. As such, it was possible for Europeans
to play all of them off against one another, and take advantage of their internecine
struggles to level charges of anarchy and chaos that would require a peacekeeping force.
Abdulhamid certainly sought this, although he hoped the force would be Ottoman and not

British or French. Tawfiq, who owed his position to the meddling Of European powers in

 

16‘ Reynolds, Britannia Overruled, 205.

68

Egyptian politics, wanted a restoration of his arbitrary power, and Urabi and the
Nationalists sought redress for the army and social change for improvement of the
Egyptian fellahin.

Urabi and the Nationalists, while supporting a popular agenda, did not have the
political prowess to direct the movement. ’65 As they gained popularity, the Khedive lost
allegiance, and despite his repeated vows of allegiance to the Sultan and Khedive, Urabi
became the nationalist hero of the people. In such a confused mix, nobody was in control,
and after the Alexandria bombardment, Egypt effectively had two governments. “’6 With
such a fluid situation, it is perhaps little wonder that Urabi’s policy consisted mostly of
defensive preparations. With no voices overseas save those of Wilfiid Blunt, Frederic
Harrison, and a scant few others, Urabi could not hope to mobilize world opinion against
the one-sided treatment his movement had received in the British press. ’67

Nasser, on the other hand, was both politically astute and well-consolidated. He
had no need to consider allegiance to outside powers; there were none, and Nasser’s
stated policy was against entanglements. Likewise, he had spent four years in the halls of
power, consolidating his position, and as such had dealt with any contender for the reins

of the Egyptian state. Even had Eden, Dulles, and Mollet been able to rid themselves of

Nasser, no acceptable substitute existed that would not be even more intractable to

 

"’5 Eliezer Be’eri, Army Oflicers in Arab Politics and Society (Pall Mall: Praeger, 1970),
3 13.

1“ Vatikiotis, History of Modern Egypt, 154.

’67 The difficulties in mobilizing any kind of public opinion against intervention were
overwhelming. See M. E. Chamberlain, “British Public Opinion and the Invasion of Egypt,
1882,” Trivium 16 (1981), 5-28.

69

Western interests. With full control of the Egyptian government, and surrounded by
capable advisors, Nasser could nationalize the Suez canal and defend his action legally.
Any use of force on the part of the former colonial powers was sure to push other
governments into Egypt’s comeruincluding, hopefully, the United States. This is precisely
what happened.

The value of history was not lost upon Nasser, as he used it both for propaganda
purposes and in the formulation of his strategy. '68 In his tract The Philosophy of the
Revolution he specifically states that the Free Ofiicers’ movement succeeded where Urabi
had failed, and that the Egyptians were now the masters of their own fates.169 Many
members of the 1952 coup saw similarities between themselves and Urabi, and did not fail
to romanticize this in articles and books published shortly after the seizure of power. 17°
Perhaps most important was Nasser’s divination of lessons from Urabi’s experiences when
the British did intervene-in particular, Urabi’s failure to block the Suez Canal and arm the
people for popular resistance. m

Nasser understood the importance of dividing his antagonists; even before taking
power in 1952, the Free Ofiicers’ movement had made certain of US approval before

acting, and moved to calm the British government as soon as Farouk was off the throne. ”2

 

'68 Woodward, Nasser, 13.

'69 Gamal Abdel Nasser, The Philosophy of the Revolution (Buffalo, NY: Econornica,
1959), 26

17° Mayer, The Changing Past, 28-32.
171 Mayer, The Changing Past, 35.

172 Panayiotis J. Vatikiotis, Nasser and his Generation (New York: St. Martin’s, 1978),
108; Schonfield, The Suez Canal in Peace and War, 136.

70

Such an appreciation of the international order was crucial for Nasser’s success in 1956.
As Dulles and Eden stalled, Nasser could be more and more confident of eventual victory.
Urabi, on the other hand, had never even met Granville, Dilke, or Gladstone, and had no
conception of the power struggles involved in the liberalization of Egypt and the reform of
Khedival rule. His position at the time of British intervention is a closer analogue to the
1952 position of the Free Officers’ coup that deposed Farouk, but Urabi’s movement
developed more slowly and did not move against Tawfiq until it became impossible to
reconcile their aims with his, allowing more time for intervention to happen.

Egypt’s success at Suez in 1956 was, in actuality, its success since 1952--of
eliminating a sovereign with strong ties to Britain and consolidating a leadership position
in the country. The Free Officers seemed willing enough to work with Britain, a nation
unready and unwilling to consider invading Egypt while engaged in the Korean War and
recovering from the devastation of the Second World War. Once this had succeeded,
Nasser needed only a pretext to nationalize the Canal, as he had considered the
consequences of such a move well before 26 July 1956.173 Nasser had read the political

situation in the Middle East with more accuracy than had Eden.

 

173 Woodward, Nasser, 49.

CONCLUSIONS

This comparison of the two interventions does raise questions that fall outside the
scope of this study, namely why Britain did not intervene in 1952, when Farouk was
deposed, or how the myriad of Egyptian efforts at asserting a national identity between
Urabi’s failure and his own success may have affected Nasser’s understanding of the
colonial powers and the actions he took in 1956. However, the evidence examined in this
study points towards the conclusion that Nasser outmaneuvered Eden because he had both
the ability and the opportunity to do so owing to his access to the international stage and
his position as the undisputed leader of Egypt.

In 1882, Britain existed as the pre-eminent power in the world, far outpacing
France, Germany, or the United States but keenly aware of those polities’ expansion.
British imperial ideology stipulated that responsible government in colonial and other
dependent regions required European tutelage, and nowhere did this seem more necessary
than in a financially ruined and politically restless Egypt. Egypt in 1882 was a province of
the Ottoman Empire, ruled by a hierarchy that included few Egyptians--from the sultan to
the Khedive, and even into the officers’ ranks of the military and the civilian bureaucracy,
Ottoman Turks and Circassians held sway. Without access to the international stage,
Urabi found himself painted by British operatives and the khedive as a mutinous oflicer, a

would-be Oriental despot whose ambitions were nothing less than the complete

71

72

destruction of Britain’s Near Eastern empire. The idea that Urabi could be a manifestation
of a genuine Egyptian nationalist movement dissipated further when events in Egypt were
perceived under the assumption that Urabi was nothing more than a military adventurer.
Eventually, Urabi and his cohorts were isolated politically and, finally, destroyed militarily.
Over the next 74 years, Britain’s colonial empire waxed and waned, while its
power relative to other nations’ declined. Two world wars took their toll, along with
innumerable crises and the growing discontent of the colonized. The United States and the
Soviet Union overtook Britain as the world’s major powers, militarily and economically.
Post-war Britain was relegated to the status of a regional player in European power
politics, albeit one still clinging to the vestiges of empire in Africa, the Near East, and
Asia. The image of empire as beneficial to the development of colonial peoples gave way
to the image of empire as the symbol of western exploitation, and as liberal ideas like
democracy and self-determination gained adherents, and an educated native elite
developed, the old colonial empires were shaken and finally torn asunder by the colonized
peoples themselves. Britain’s military and economic power concommitantly declined in
comparison to other nations’, and Britain was less able to afford remaining when the
prevailing intellectual climate was unfavorable to colonialism. Conversely, Egypt’s relative
power rose in the same period. By 1956, Egypt had been recognized as a sovereign state
in itself for 37 years, and since 1946 had been considered as an equal among nations in the
United Nations Organization; Nasser had four years between the 1952 Free Officers’ coup
and the Suez debacle to secure his position. The clout of Egypt relative to that of Britain

and France was thus far greater than it had ever been.

73

When Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, Anthony Eden felt
compelled to draw a line against the further deterioration of Britain’s power. In Eden’s
mind, Nasser’s role in the 19505 was similar to Hitler’s or Mussolini’s in the 1930s Eden
believed that the lesson of appeasement’s failure before the Second World War was that
aggression must be resisted in its earliest stages, and was determined to destroy Nasser,
counting on American aid in doing so. Eden first attempted to wrest the Canal from Egypt
by isolating Nasser’s government politically, and when that failed, militarily. However,
Nasser was able to take the instance of Anglo-French aggression against Egypt and use it
to isolate Eden from forces the British prime minister had assumed were supporting him--
the Commonwealth nations and the United States, in particular--and to build support for
his own cause among Arab nations and the budding non-aligned movement. The results
were that American outrage, manifested in the simple veto of a loan, threatened to destroy
Britain’s economic power, the Commonwealth by and large withdrew its support from
Eden, and threats of Soviet intervention to support Egypt militarily were taken seriously in
London. There was little choice but to withdraw.

From the evidence presented, the role of Egypt’s political landscape in determining
Egypt’s success or failure in ejecting a foreign intervention is hard to overlook. In 1882,
with their allegiances divided and communications imperfect, Egyptians could not
successfully oppose intervention. In 1956, Nasser was able to speak with the voice of
Egypt-mot of the fellahin, or of the Army, but of the Egyptian nation, one with equal rank
to Great Britain or France in the eyes of the United Nations. This difference made
intervention less possible for Eden to justify to observers in Britain and the United States.

In the final analysis, then, the story of 1882 and 1956 must be counted as much a story of

74

Egyptian success as it was British failure, and an Object lesson in the value of political

unity.

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