Geopolitics · 02

The week Britain found out it wasn't a superpower

In 1956 Britain took the Suez Canal by force and gave it back within days. Nobody had beaten them militarily.

Egypt nationalised the Suez Canal in July 1956. For London this was not a distant colonial irritation. The canal was the route to the Gulf, to India, to Singapore, and above all to oil. Roughly two thirds of Western Europe's oil came through it.

So Britain, France and Israel arrived at a private arrangement. Israel would attack Egypt across Sinai. Britain and France would then intervene as apparent peacekeepers, separating the combatants, and in the process retake the canal zone. The three governments agreed it in secret and denied for years that any such understanding existed.

The military part worked

Israel attacked at the end of October. British and French forces followed. Within days they held the canal zone. Egypt sank ships to block the waterway, but the military objective had been achieved almost exactly as planned.

Then it collapsed. Not on the battlefield.

What actually stopped them

The United States was furious, and not primarily on Egypt's behalf. Washington had not been told. The operation cut across American policy in the region, it handed the Soviet Union a propaganda gift while Soviet tanks were rolling into Hungary, and it had been launched days before a US presidential election.

The response was financial rather than military.

Sterling came under heavy pressure as the crisis unfolded. Britain needed to defend the pound, which meant drawing on its reserves and, when those proved insufficient, seeking support through the International Monetary Fund. The United States made clear that support would not be forthcoming while British troops remained in Egypt.

Britain accepted a ceasefire in early November and withdrew. The troops who had just taken the canal turned around and went home. France, unable to continue alone, followed.

Why it mattered so much

Britain still had the fleet, the bases and the troops. What it no longer had was the financial independence to use them against Washington's wishes. That gap between appearing powerful and being powerful had existed since 1945. Suez is simply where it became impossible to ignore.

Anthony Eden resigned within weeks. British policy afterwards rested on staying aligned with the United States, and no government since has attempted a major military operation in the teeth of American opposition.

In France the conclusion drawn was the opposite one: that depending on Washington was itself the danger. That reading fed directly into the French nuclear programme and, in time, into a more independent line in Europe.