Operation Musketeer: Duel for the Suez Canal

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The Tripartite Invasion, 1956

General Nasser takes control.

The Tripartite Invasion, or 1956 War, was perhaps the single most important event in the history of African independence. The fallout from this unsuccessful attempt by Britain, France, and Israel to maintain an influence over the Suez Canal created a climate in Africa which both encouraged and escalated the struggle for independence.
At the end of the Second World War, only four African countries could claim to be independent from colonial rule: Ethiopia (which had been under British administration following Italian occupation of 1935 - 41), Liberia, South Africa, and Egypt. However, the Suez Canal Zone in Egypt was still under occupation by British troops. As a result of the failed Tripartite Invasion, another six countries gained full independence by 1958, 16 more in 1960, and by the end of the 60's only seven continental African countries were still under colonial power.
The cause of the war has a certain irony. American Cotton Kings, whose ancestors benefited so much from the trans-Atlantic slave trade, were concerned over competition from Egyptian cotton farmers. They demanded that the USA stop funding improvements to the Aswan Dam which would increase Egyptian cotton output threefold. A domino effect resulted in Britain and the World Bank also withdrawing funding. Colonel Nasser, the Egyptian premier, requiring funds to finance the Aswan Dam project, reacted by nationalising the Suez Canal.
When Egypt achieved independence from Britain in 1922, it had certain limitations imposed on it. Specifically, the right for Britain to maintain garrisons and navel bases in the Suez Canal Zone. An Anglo-Egyptian agreement in 1936 replaced the 1922 unilateral declaration of independence (which had been imposed by Britain), setting a 20-year period for the removal of British forces.
Following the Second World War, Britain embarked on a policy of de-colonisation. In contrast to the experiences of India, Pakistan and Ceylon, it was decided that granting self-rule in Africa would have to be a long term process - a viewpoint supported by the United Nations. The majority of Egyptians were in favour of a much faster process. Britain had used Egypt as a base during the Second World War, interested mainly in defeating the German forces in the Libyan desert. It had little interest in the domestic politics of a country which was unfortunately riddled by governmental corruption. When the pro-British Wafd government fell in 1952, the previously secret Free Officers Movement, El-Dhobatt El-Ahrar, staged a military coup (23-26 July, 1952).
The Free Officers Movement was formed in 1939 by Second Lieutenant Gamal Abdul Nasser and eight like-minded officers (including Anwar al-Sadat, who would be president form 1970-81). Convinced that reform of the Egyptian army was necessary as a precursor to ejecting the British from Egypt, Nasser carefully recruited members to his underground organisation. While fighting for the Allies at El Alamein, he was able to make subversive contact with German and Italian agents. By the end of the war, Nasser had been successful in maintaining his cover and had reached the rank of major.
Although General Muhammad Naguib was the public face of the new administration, Nasser (now promoted from major to colonel) maintained control through the Revolutionary Command Committee. A earlier prime minister, Ali Mahir, was offered the premiership of the new administration, but resigned on 7 September, 1952. General Naguib became president, prime minister, minister of war and commander-in-chief of the army. By 1954 King Ahmad Farouk was deposed and General Naguib declared president of an Egyptian Republic. Nasser and Naguib had different ideas on how the country should be run, and Naguib was removed from office on two occasions.
On 26 October, 1954, the Muslim Brotherhood attempted to assassinate Colonel Nasser. The Muslim Brotherhood was dissolved on 29 October, following widespread public demonstrations - which included the burning of its headquarters by an enraged mob. General Naguib, who was implicated in the assassination attempt, was ousted by Colonel Nasser on 13 November and placed under house arrest. Nasser finally took control of the country on 17 November.

Negotiations for British withdrawal began in February of 1953, but it was not until July 1954 that agreement was reached. On 19 October, 1954, a treaty ceding the Suez Canal to Egypt was signed which required all British troops to be removed by June 1956. There was still one proviso: the British would be allowed to return to Egypt if they, or any nearby Arab state, were attacked. This condition was imposed as result of Cold War pressures and the British fear of Soviet expansion in the region.
During 1955 General Nasser made several overtures to communist China and USSR, trading cotton for military aid (an estimated $200 million of arms). However, he maintained a public stance that he wanted to follow a non-aligned policy, favouring neither the West or the Soviets. In reaction to increased purchase of arms, especially from Czechoslovakia, both the US and UK stopped their own arms sales to Egypt. Meanwhile, France was angered by Egypt's aid to the growing Algerian national movement (which was fighting for independence). When the US announced its intention to cut funding of the Aswan Dam project, it specifically referred to Egypt's close ties to the USSR.
On the fourth anniversary of the Egyptian Revolution, 26 July 1956, Colonel Nasser announced his intention to nationalise the Suez Canal. Political escalation, including the deportation of two British envoys for spying, resulted in a stalemate. Nasser promised to compensate the Suez Canal shareholders, but refused to accept international control of the canal. Whilst the US, Britain, and France protested to the UN, the USSR sent ship-pilots to aid Egypt. By September, Egypt was in full control of the canal and war was looming.
For the British and French, the Suez Canal represented a vital lifeline to oil supplies. The British premier Anthony Eden considered an immediate attack on Egypt, but was informed by parliament that the country was not prepared for such a military engagement. Eden secretly worked with France and Israel to plan a combined attack against Egypt, concealing his co-operation from both his cabinet and political allies (including the US).
According to the plan, Israel would attack across the Sinai Desert towards the canal. Britain and France would issue an ultimatum demanding that Egyptian and Israeli troops immediately withdraw - a demand to which General Nasser could not possibly agree. This would give them an excuse to invade and wrest control of the Suez Canal from Egypt.
On 29 October Israel invaded the Sinai Peninsula. The first sign that this was not a simple act of aggression by Israel came when the planned ultimatum was delivered to Egypt before Israeli troops had actually reached the canal. French and British forces began an invasion on 5 November, with an initial airborne attack to remove Egyptian air power. Despite fierce resistance by the Egyptians, Port Said and Port Faud soon fell.
Unfortunately for the three allies, there was widespread condemnation of the invasion. Britain and France were threatened with military reprisals by the USSR, and the US, worried by a potential escalation in the Cold War and an increased involvement by the Soviet Union in Middle East and African affairs, applied heavy political pressure (almost leading to the collapse of the British pound).
On 7 November, the UN Assembly voted 65 to 1 that the invading countries should quit Egyptian territory. A UN Emergency Force (UNEF) was created, with the first troops arriving from Italy on 21 November. By the end of December British and French forces were completely removed, and Israel had returned all territory except for the Gaza Strip.
Nasser responded to the invasion by nationalising all British and French assets in Egypt, and baring Israeli ships from the canal. The UNEF remained along the Egyptian-Israeli border and along the Sinai coast until 1967. Their removal contributed to the outbreak of the next Arab-Israeli war, commonly known as the Six-Day War. Britain and Egypt did not restore diplomatic relations until 1969.

General Nasser was proclaimed a hero throughout the Arab world, and his success against the forces of European imperialism inspired the rest of Africa in its struggle for independence.

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Operation Musketeer: Duel for the Suez Canal

When Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, Britain, France and Israel conspired to seize it by force. The result was a fleeting military victory--and a lasting political disaster.

By Wilfred P. Deac for Military History Magazine.

It was a classic setting for international intrigue, a tile-roofed villa secluded among fog-swirled trees, ivy clinging to building wings clustered around a stunted steeple-like tower. The first group of conspirators landed at a French airfield outside Paris and reached the wall-enclosed villa in an unmarked car during the wee hours of October 22, 1956. Later that Monday morning, French Foreign Minister Christian Pineau visited his office in Paris, then was chauffeured home to switch to his personal car. He soon was at the villa shaking hands with Israel's 70-year-old Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, eye-patched Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan and Defense Ministry Director-General Shimon Peres. British Foreign Minister Selwyn Lloyd, a key member of the third group of plotters, called his office in London to say he was staying home with a cold. He left England shortly after, to arrive at the villa that afternoon.

By the time the tense clandestine discussions--which also included French Premier Guy Mollet and British Prime Minister Anthony Eden--ended two days later in France and England, a secret accord had been reached. Champagne glasses were raised to celebrate a tripartite pledge to pursue what one chronicler called "the shortest and possibly silliest war in history." The target was Gamal Abdel Nasser's Egypt, which had become the symbol of Arab nationalism.

Israel, still territorially insecure after 8 1/2 years of existence among hostile Arab neighbors and cut off from access to the Red Sea by a blockade, had agreed to launch a pre-emptive invasion of Egypt's 24,000-square-mile Sinai Peninsula on October 29. In response to that "threat" to the strategically important Suez Canal, Britain and France would step in the next day to give the belligerents 12 hours to stop fighting, pull back from the strategic waterway and accept temporary occupation of "key positions on the Canal" to "guarantee freedom of passage." That ultimatum, so obviously favorable to Israel, was designed to be rejected by Nasser. Then, on October 31--following a "decent interval" for Egypt's rejection of the ultimatum--Britain and France would launch airstrikes against the Egyptians. Invasion forces would then land long enough afterward to lend plausibility to the scenario.

The British had been stunned when Nasser legally nationalized the Suez Canal on July 26, 1956. The takeover gave Egypt oversight of the principal oil flow between Middle Eastern wells and Western Europe, as well as Britain's easy access to its interests east and south of Suez. Outwardly the paragon of unruffled British dignity, handsome Anthony Eden actually was nervous and short-tempered, refusing to accept his country's declining world role. The prime minister also was suffering the chronic aftereffects of less-than-successful bile duct operations, and was taking amphetamines and other drugs that probably affected his judgment. France, which had initiated the secret meetings with Israel in June 1956, was motivated by the belief that Nasser was behind the nationalist-inspired war that was then agitating Algeria, her North African possession. One thing the three conspirator nations had in common was the conviction that Nasser, who was upsetting the Mideast balance of power by accepting Soviet military and economic assistance, had to go.

The trio did not expect the United States, which had clashed politically with Nasser over his recognition of Communist China and acceptance of Soviet Bloc arms, to pose a major problem. Furthermore, 66-year-old President Dwight D. Eisenhower had his hands full with an election campaign sure to be influenced by the strong Jewish vote. The plotter nations ignored the fact that as much as Eisenhower wanted Nasser out, he was dead set against the use of direct force. The Soviet Union, meanwhile, was busy putting out fires in its satellite states. Poland had ousted its Soviet defense minister on October 19 and installed its own choice in the premiership. By October 24, Soviet tanks were in Budapest, trying to suppress a Hungarian uprising.

As the three conspiring nations formulated their plot at Sèvres, they also set in motion military preparations. The Anglo-French buildup was a tortoise compared to Israel's hare, which would be able to mobilize 100,000 troops almost overnight and even make a feint eastward toward Jordan. Although Britain had 750,000 men under arms, many were committed to operations in the Far East, Africa and Cyprus. Shipping and aircraft needed for a major operation were in short supply. On August 2, an emergency mobilization proclamation for 25,000 men had been rushed to Queen Elizabeth II at the Goodwood races; wags insisted she signed her approval "on the rump of a horse." The French, somewhat more battle-ready after their Indochina war, nevertheless would have to borrow troops from their Algerian force. The nearest post suitable for gathering an invasion force was Valetta, on British-controlled Malta, nearly 1,000 miles northwest of the projected landing beaches.

At first dubbed Hamilcar, the operation was soon renamed Musketeer, presumably in honor of Alexandre Dumas' three musketeers. Although the three-country scenario was essentially a French brainchild, Britain, as the major contributor to the invasion, assumed command of the Anglo-French portion of the military operation. General Sir Charles Keightley was named Musketeer commander, with heavyset French Vice Adm. Pierre Barjot as his deputy. The landing force chief was British General Sir Hugh Stockwell, seconded by French Maj. Gen. André Beaufre, a testy veteran of Indochina and Algeria. Air Marshal Dennis Barnett and Admiral Robin Durnford-Slater were placed in charge of the air and naval units, respectively.

The bipartite air-sea-ground force consisted of approximately 45,000 Britons and 34,000 Frenchmen; 200 British and 30 French warships, including seven aircraft carriers; more than 70 merchant vessels ("It is tragic having to requisition liners at the height of the tourist season," wrote one British official); hundreds of landing craft; and 12,000 British and 9,000 French vehicles. Counting base and support units as far away as the British Isles, more than 100,000 uniformed Anglo-French personnel were committed to the operation. Musketeer called for landing at Alexandria, in the Nile River delta, and advancing to the capital of Cairo, while Israel took care of Egypt's right flank. In keeping with the ambivalence that clouded the entire operation, the landing site was shifted eastward--to Port Said, the target originally selected during earlier planning. Musketeer now became Musketeer Revise. In the meantime, responding to the military buildup, Nasser moved half of his Sinai forces west of the canal, although he was still unwilling to believe an invasion would ever occur.

Murphy's Law was a constant companion to the scattergun imprecision of the operation. There were postponements, endless meetings, detail changes, logistical and other problems, and both internal and external dissension. For example, it took weeks, using a commercial moving company, to cart 93 tanks to their English Channel embarkation port. There, the materiel most urgently needed upon landing was inconveniently stowed at the bottom of transport holds. An episode during the Franco-Israeli plotting stage before the Sèvres accord graphically illustrated the convoluted conspiracy's shortcomings. In a watch-this-hand-so-you-don't-see-what-the-other's-doing act, Ben-Gurion triggered a large armored foray into neighboring Jordan, the base for many Arab raids into Israel. Jordan invoked its defense treaty with Britain against a full-scale Israeli invasion. The too-clever deception ploy nearly precipitated an implausible, unwelcome war that could have seen Britain fighting against Israel in the east and with Israel in the west. In any case, the Protocol of Sèvres marked the point of no return. Invasion orders flashed to the military chiefs.

Israel went into action at between 2:15 and 2:35 p.m. on October 29, 1956. Two pairs of piston-engine North American F-51 Mustang fighters raced westward over the parched wasteland of the triangular Sinai Peninsula. Swooping to a dozen feet over the desert, the American-built planes used propellers and wingtips to sever overhead telephone lines linking the 30,000 men of the Egyptian 3rd Infantry and Palestinian 8th divisions and their subordinate units. It was the modest beginning of Kadesh, Israel's operation to threaten the Suez Canal, open the Gulf of Aqaba to its shipping into the Red Sea and destroy Egyptian military capabilities in the Sinai.

Next two parts (http://africanhistory.about.com/library/prm/blsuezcanal2.htm)

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There are a few pictures of this affair on my web site if click on link below.
what made me laugh about all this was the Americans where firmly on Nasser's side, yet when there was a demonstration in Panama asking for their Canal to be returned, the American Marines where sent out on the street with orders to break up the demonstration by what ever force was necessary, which they did by opening fire killing a number of demonstrators. American government said they did this because they had built the canal and it was important for their National security.