The Rise and Fall of the British Empire

by Lawrence, James

  Some years ago I was told by one who had been among the last British servicemen to leave the Canal Zone that as his boat drew away from the Port Said quayside, an Egyptian youth raised his robe and passed water onto the soldiers below. One looked up, and took a shot at him. Whether or not this story is true, it was in a way oddly symbolic of the past thirty or so years of Britain’s presence in Egypt.

  4

  Kick Their Backsides: The Suez War and Beyond

  The re-ordering of Britain’s relations with Egypt was another achievement for Sir Anthony Eden, the Foreign Secretary, adding to his reputation as a consummate diplomat. He had a strong faith in his own abilities and was highly ambitious, but seemed destined to serve as second-in-command to more forceful figures. He had been such to Chamberlain, who had insisted on conducting crucial negotiations in person, a habit which Churchill also adopted, much to Eden’s chagrin. He was the Prime Minister’s heir-apparent, but grew increasingly impatient as the old man soldiered on, ignoring two strokes. Eden did not hide his frustration, once describing his chief as ‘gaga’. He finally got the succession in April 1955 when Churchill resigned, and with it the chance to usher in a new and glittering era for Britain in the Middle East.

  Dulles and the clever men in the State Department may have written off Britain as a loser in the region, but Eden was certain that its prestige could be restored and enhanced. After all, Britain was still master of bases in Malta, Libya, Cyprus, Aden, the Persian Gulf and Iraq, whose Hashemite king, Faisal II, like his cousin Hussain of Jordan, was Britain’s friend. Building on these foundations, Eden believed that he could, with American cooperation, construct an anti-Soviet alliance as solid as NATO, which would strengthen Britain’s strategic position in the Middle East and serve as a barrier guarding its oilfields.

  Between March and October 1955, Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan had been induced to join the Baghdad Pact. Britain kept its Iraqi airfields, and promised to provide the muscle needed to throw back a conventional Russian offensive. It included the armoured brigade now dispersed across the Middle East, Commonwealth reinforcements, and a reserve of nuclear weapons which would redress any imbalance in numbers.1

  The Baghdad Pact was wormwood to Nasser, Egypt’s prime minister and from 1956 its president. He reviled the agreement as a thinly disguised attempt by Britain to reassert its old supremacy and split the Arab world. He responded with a campaign of virulent radio propaganda beamed across the Middle East and North Africa, addressed to the masses and designed to discredit Britain and its stooges. Nasser’s message was simple and compelling: Egypt was the spearhead of revolutionary nationalism and he, a modern Saladin, was ordained to unite all Arab peoples and destroy their enemies. For millions of Arabs who read or listened to his words he became an almost messianic figure, a liberator who would free them from a past in which they had been divided and subservient.

  Radio Cairo’s rant and the figure behind it awakened unpleasant memories. For Eden, Nasser was Mussolini reincarnate. Like the Italian, he was both a contemptible ‘cad’ and a megalomaniac, whose sole aim was to install himself as ‘a Caesar from the Gulf to the Atlantic’.2 Macmillan, like Eden an opponent of appeasement, concurred, and reckoned Nasser was ‘an Asiatic Mussolini’.3

  These intuitive comparisons offer an important clue as to Eden’s subsequent behaviour. He and those who shared his alarm convinced themselves that they were engaged in a trial of strength with an autocrat as fissile, unpredictable and ruthless as Mussolini. If Nasser was the man Eden took him to be, and the events of the late 1930s were about to repeat themselves, then temporising would be suicidal. To offer concessions to Nasser would encourage him to up the stakes, raise his stature in the eyes of the Arab world, and further depress Britain’s.

  At the end of 1955, Eden and his advisers believed they had identified the carrier of a virus which could infect the entire Middle East, but they had no remedy. Whatever this might turn out to be, it could not be applied without American approval and possibly assistance. This would only be forthcoming if Nasser aligned Egypt with Russia, by when it might be too late. MI6 agents in Cairo discovered that he was inclining more and more towards the Soviet Union, and this was confirmed by his decision in September to acquire arms from Czechoslovakia.4 Signs that Egypt and its partner, Syria, were beginning to edge towards the Soviet Union raised the possibility that they, and maybe other friendly Middle Eastern states, might soon be ‘lost’ to the West.

  During the winter of 1955–6, the government faced a mounting pile of reports which together suggested that Britain had lost the initiative in the Middle East, and was about to part with what remained of its influence. Jordan, hitherto a steadfast ally, appeared to be on the verge of succumbing to Nasser’s propaganda and subversion. On 1 March, King Hussain dismissed General Glubb, the commander of the Arab Legion, who had long been vilified by Radio Cairo as the power behind the throne and a cunning agent of British imperialism. A further blow followed a few days after, when the Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd was hooted and pelted by an anti-British mob during a visit to another supposedly friendly outpost, Bahrain.

  ‘We are in a mess,’ Eden admitted on 3 March, adding; ‘we are at our best in a mess.’ Panic and fury were also very much in evidence in the next few days. The chiefs-of-staff imagined that Jordan’s desertion was imminent, which would deprive Britain of an uncontested flight path to its Iraqi bases. Selwyn Lloyd’s misadventures in Bahrain angered Eden and his colleagues, who wanted to put some troops ashore ‘to show that we are alive and kicking’.5 The trouble was that there was as yet no one to kick. By the end of the month, rage had given way to resolution, or so it appeared from a remark made to a CIA agent by George Kennedy Young, the director of MI6. ‘Britain’, alleged Young, ‘is now prepared to fight its last battle … no matter what the cost, we will win.’6

  This prediction was and still is mysterious. Young may have been referring to Operation Straggle, an Anglo-American plot contrived to strip Nasser of an ally through the overthrow of President Shukri al-Quwatli of Syria, whose country would then be brought under the aegis of friendly Iraq.7 A conspiracy which involved local dissidents was uncovered in Damascus at the very end of October, but whether or not Britain was its instigator remains unclear since the relevant files remain closed. At the time, Egyptian Intelligence believed that the CIA had something afoot in Syria, and that a British brigade, then in Cyprus, was being held in readiness for use against Syria.8

  And yet Young’s words suggest that the British government had something more fearsome up its sleeve than a repetition in Damascus of the sort of coup that had unseated Mussadiq two years before. Young may have had in mind Operation Cordage, a response to MI6 reports of an impending Israeli attack on Britain’s ally, Jordan. ‘Cordage’ included the destruction of the Israeli air force, commando raids and a naval blockade, which would have added up to an awesome demonstration of might, as well as an earnest of Britain’s determination to take care of its friends in the Middle East.9

  A third and tantalising possibility was that cabinet was preparing to apply force majeure against Egypt in the near future. The mood of ministers at the beginning of March had been uncannily like that of Liberal MPs during the first phase of the 1882 Egyptian crisis when, in their indignation, they had wanted nothing more than to kill someone.10 Nasser was the obvious target, and, according to the former MI6 agent Peter Wright, schemes were in hand to have him killed.11 The CIA had been informed of this at the end of February, and Egyptian authorities believed that at least three British assassins and one German were sent to Cairo, but all lost their nerve.12 Details of another clandestine British operation were revealed early in September, after the arrest of a number of Egyptians who had been instructed to foment disorders in major cities.13 It was assumed by the Egyptian government that an outbreak of rioting might have been used by the British as an excuse for armed intervention as it had been in 1882.

  Together, these fragments of information sugges
t that from March 1956 the government was determined to engineer a showdown with Nasser. Just how this might have been achieved will remain obscure until all the official papers are released. What is known strongly suggests that British intelligence had been ordered to contrive a situation akin to that of 1882, when the Egyptian government had lost control and internal disorder was getting out of hand. Such circumstances were, of course, an excellent pretext for armed intervention and the installation of a puppet administration, which was what Eden wanted.

  However it was approached, the overthrow of Nasser was an extremely hazardous enterprise. But Eden was prepared to accept the risk, and there was some comfort in the fact that something along the same lines, although on a smaller scale, had been successful in Iran. That Nasser would have to be removed was beyond question if Britain was to preserve its prestige and friends in the Middle East. For Eden, and to some extent Macmillan, the contest became a personal vendetta and, to judge from the plans to assassinate Nasser, was pursued as such.

  Politically, Eden had been on shaky ground since the beginning of the year, when sections of his party and the Daily Telegraph had been demanding what was called ‘firm government’. Complaints on this score may in part explain the outburst of anger during March, and the subsequent urge to ‘do something’ about Nasser. He was also a scapegoat for the unavenged humiliations suffered in Iran and Egypt over the past six years. In a sense the loss of what was to a large extent Britain’s unofficial empire in the Middle East seems to have rankled more than the departure from India. At least Britain had parted company from India with dignity and a sense of achievement, whereas the abandonment of old spheres of influence in Iran and Egypt had been retreats in the face of insults and brickbats. National pride had been bruised; Britain’s ability to dominate the Middle East had traditionally been a measure of its standing in the world. Now it was being hustled out, humbled, and forced to comply with the wishes of the United States, which seemed poised to usurp its old position.

  It is impossible to read through the newspapers for the first half of 1956 without sensing that Britain felt itself at bay, and at the mercy of anyone, anywhere, with a grievance against it. Headlines announced the random murders of servicemen and sometimes their wives by EOKA (Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Aghoniston: ‘National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters’), who wanted Enosis, union with Greece. There were also reports of riots in Aden in May, when a junior minister was mobbed by crowds calling for independence. And there was always Nasser, denouncing Britain and intriguing against it. Britain appeared powerless and on the run, something which was galling and inexplicable to generations who had grown up in a world in which no one had defied Britain with impunity, certainly not Egypt. Those who lived through this period may judge for themselves, but a great deal of what was said and written during and after the Suez crisis gives a strong impression that Britain was suffering from the delayed shock of imperial disengagement and its concomitant, relative impotence in world affairs.

  As before the First World War, when there had been similar qualms about the country’s future as a first-rate power, Britain’s authority in the world was imagined to be inseparable from the national moral tone. This seemed to be taking a turn for the worse during the early 1950s. Horror comics, juke boxes, jive, rock and roll and teddy boys all appeared as milestones along a downhill track which led to the total corruption of the young, and with it the final stage of national decline.14 All these seductive innovations came from the United States, the power which was supplanting Britain in the world, and this no doubt added a note of stridency to the clamour of various editors, Conservative MPs, churchmen, magistrates and judges who saw themselves as keepers of Britain’s old values. Discussing the matter with friends, including Mrs Robert Makins, the wife of a diplomat and ‘Evelyn Home’ (the Woman’s Own agony aunt), Evelyn Shuckburgh concluded that Britain had become ‘bloodless and effete’.15

  Nasser thought likewise, and during the first half of 1956 he set Egypt on a collision course with Britain. It would end with a trial of strength between the two countries, which, Nasser believed, would result in a new balance of power in the Middle East favourable to Egypt. First, he undertook an extended tour of non-aligned states in Asia to establish his credentials as a leader of the anti-imperialist, neutral block. He also showed that he was his own man by recognising Communist China and receiving Russian emissaries in Cairo.

  Inside Egypt, his attentions were occupied by the projected Aswan high dam and the future of the Suez Canal Company, in which foreign investors still had a 49 per cent holding. On the surface, the question of which powers would underwrite the building of the dam and the nationalisation of the Canal have always appeared connected. On 19 July, Dulles bluntly informed Egypt that no American loan would be forthcoming for the dam, and as a tit-for-tat Nasser took over the Canal seven days later. In fact he had been contemplating sequestering the Canal company and its assets for some time. From the start he had known that such a gesture would be a gamble, but he estimated that the odds were in his favour. America would be distracted by the campaign for the presidential election at the beginning of November, France had its hands tied by the Algerian war, and only Britain might take action.

  Egyptian intelligence was therefore instructed to assess Britain’s readiness. Using sources inside EOKA and Maltese trade unionists, Nasser discovered that no immediate response was possible, and that at least eight weeks were needed for Britain to mobilise for an invasion of Egypt.16 Everything would therefore depend on Eden’s grit, and Nasser, on the strength of a single meeting two years before, took him to be a man who would mask interior weakness by public bravado. He would plump for a war. Even so, the chances of a fight would progressively diminish as time went by; Nasser calculated that they were 90 per cent before 10 August and would then plummet to 20 per cent by the second half of October.17 Israel was not included in his reckonings.

  Eden was sitting at dinner in Downing Street with King Faisal II of Iraq and his prime minister, Nuri es-Said, a steadfast friend of Britain, when news of the canal’s nationalisation was first received. Nuri urged a tough line with Nasser, telling Eden, ‘You must hit him hard and you must hit him now.’ Eden retired to spend the rest of the evening on the arithmetic of war, which he thought was two or three weeks away.18

  The Prime Minister and the inner knot of six ministers who advised him on Egypt had two ambitious objectives. Nasser had to be tumbled from power and a government set up in Egypt that would acknowledge British paramountcy in the rest of the Middle East.

  The Canal would be placed under international control to forestall any future threat to Britain’s and Europe’s oil supplies. At a stroke, British prestige would be restored and the Baghdad Pact preserved. The overriding question was, what sort of stroke would be needed?

  Two plans of action were adopted. On one hand, Britain rallied international support for a diplomatic offensive which might force Nasser to disgorge the canal. On the other, it prepared for war, summoning up reservists on 2 August. They were needed to implement Operation Musketeer, which emerged in its final form by mid-September. Anglo-French forces would deliver an aerial bombardment of Egyptian strategic targets (including Radio Cairo), undertake a landing at Port Said, and seize the Canal. Having defeated Egypt and presumably overthrown Nasser, three or four divisions would garrison the country until a suitable government could be found. The cabinet expected that there might be a brief interim period in which British administrators would assist in the governance of Egypt.

  Such a far-reaching and, given the climate of British and world opinion in 1956, daring reassertion of unofficial empire needed substantial backing at home and abroad. From the start, Britain had the wholehearted support of France, whose animus towards Nasser stemmed from his help to the Algerian nationalists. The Commonwealth was equivocal: India, Pakistan and Canada came down firmly against any use of force, South Africa was neutral, Australia and New Zealand were hesitantly loyal, and only the fragi
le Central African Federation (Nyasaland and Southern and Northern Rhodesia) said it would stick by Britain come what may. Both New Zealand and Australia urged caution and warned Britain not to act precipitately or without American approval. It was Chanak and the Munich crisis all over again.

  Inside Britain, opinion was split. Eden, Macmillan and Alec Douglas-Home were the most hawkish ministers, beyond whom was an outer circle of waverers including R.A Butler (an instinctive temporiser who had been willing to do a deal with Hitler as late as the summer of 1940), Edward Heath and Iain Macleod. What worried these men, and for that matter the Labour leader Hugh Gaitskell and many members of his party, was the government’s procrastination. To judge by the tenor of the Commons debates during the early days of the crisis, Eden might have got away with a swift retaliatory grabbing back of the Canal. But it was beyond the capacity of the army, navy and air force to mount such a surgical operation. The result was a policy which thrust in two opposite directions; Britain and France were openly and ponderously preparing for war at the same time as actively encouraging an international settlement by negotiation. Lord Killearn, who as Sir Miles Lampson had had first-hand experience of delivering a bolt from the blue against the Egyptians, saw the delay as fatal. ‘To allow ourselves to be drawn into a welter of committees and conferences’, he wrote, ‘was to permit the aggressor to get away with his crime.’19

  There were, of course, plenty of old warhorses who sniffed blood and believed that the time had at last arrived for a few hard thumps delivered in the old manner. Brigadier M. F. Farquharson-Roberts, addressing an old soldiers’ reunion in Derby, was fed up with the government’s pussyfooting. ‘Politicians don’t know Orientals like we do,’ he thundered, ‘they don’t know that the only way to deal with them is to kick their backsides.’20 The splendid fox-hunting Labour MP Reginald Paget angrily asked, ‘How much and for how long have we given to Egypt and got kicked in the teeth for it?’21 Inaction was an advertisement of British powerlessness. ‘If Nasser gets away with it,’ claimed Macmillan, ‘we are done for.’22 The Egyptian dictator was no more than ‘a weak bombastic troublemaker’, who could and should be squashed, argued Captain Charles Waterhouse, a trenchant spokesman for the Blimpish faction inside the Conservatives.23 Denis Healey derided them as ‘dinosaurs’ and ‘teddy boys’, but the New Statesmen described them more elegantly in a profile of Waterhouse: ‘His period is Daily Mail 1920, the time when Imperial Britain could give short, sharp orders to the foreigner abroad and the working classes at home.’24