Suez Crisis

Not to be confused with the Raid on the Suez Canal or 2021 Suez Canal obstruction.
Suez Crisis
Part of the Cold War and the Arab–Israeli conflict

Damaged Egyptian military vehicles in the Sinai Peninsula
Date29 October – 7 November 1956 (1956-10-29 – 1956-11-07)
(1 week and 2 days)
Location
Egypt (from the Gaza Strip to the Suez Canal)
Result See: § Aftermath
Territorial
changes		 Israeli occupation of the Sinai Peninsula (and the Gaza Strip) until March 1957
Belligerents
 Israel
 United Kingdom
 France		  Egypt
Commanders and leaders
Strength
 175,000
 45,000
 34,000		  90,000[1]
Casualties and losses
Israel:
  • 172 killed[2]
  • 817 wounded
  • 1 captured
United Kingdom:
  • 22 killed
  • 96 wounded
France:
  • 10 killed
  • 33 wounded
  • 215+ aircraft destroyed
  • 125 tanks destroyed
1,000 civilians killed[3]

The Suez Crisis[a] also known as the Second Arab–Israeli War,[8][9][10] the Tripartite Aggression[b] in the Arab world[11] and as the Sinai War[c] in Israel,[d] was a British–French–Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956. Israel invaded on 29 October, having done so with the primary objective of re-opening the Straits of Tiran and the Gulf of Aqaba as the recent tightening of the eight-year-long Egyptian blockade further prevented Israeli passage.[12] After issuing a joint ultimatum for a ceasefire, the United Kingdom and France joined the Israelis on 5 November, seeking to depose Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser and regain control of the Suez Canal, which Nasser had earlier nationalised by transferring administrative control from the foreign-owned Suez Canal Company to Egypt's new government-owned Suez Canal Authority.[e] Shortly after the invasion began, the three countries came under heavy political pressure from both the United States and the Soviet Union, as well as from the United Nations, eventually prompting their withdrawal from Egypt. Israel's four-month-long occupation of the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula enabled it to attain freedom of navigation through the Straits of Tiran, but the Suez Canal was closed from October 1956 to March 1957.[14][15]

U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower had issued a strong warning to the British if they were to invade Egypt; he threatened serious damage to the British financial system by selling the American government's bonds of pound sterling. Before their defeat, Egyptian troops blocked all ship traffic by sinking 40 ships in the canal. It later became clear that Israel, the UK, and France had conspired to invade Egypt. These three achieved a number of their military objectives, although the canal was useless.

The crisis strengthened Nasser's standing and led to international humiliation for the British – with historians arguing that it signified the end of its role as a world superpower – as well as the French amid the Cold War (which established the U.S. and the USSR as the world's superpowers).[16][17][18][19][20][21][22] As a result of the conflict, the UN established an emergency force to police and patrol the Egypt–Israel border, while British prime minister Anthony Eden resigned from his position. For his diplomatic efforts in resolving the conflict through UN initiatives, Canadian external affairs minister Lester B. Pearson received a Nobel Peace Prize. Analysts have argued that the crisis may have emboldened the USSR, prompting the Soviet invasion of Hungary.[23][24]

  1. ^ A Military History of Modern Egypt: From the Ottoman Conquest to the Ramadan War. 2006. p. 251.McGregor 2006, p. 251
  2. ^ "Casualties of Mideast Wars". Los Angeles Times. Associated Press. 8 March 1991. p. A7. Retrieved 17 March 2023.
  3. ^ a b Varble 2003, p. 90
  4. ^ Zuljan, Ralph. "Armed Conflict Year Index". OnWar.com. Archived from the original on 10 May 2023. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
  5. ^ Schiff 1974, p. 70.
  6. ^ Schiff 1974.
  7. ^ "Invasion of Egypt!". Israel – The Suez War of 1956: U.S. newsreel footage. Event occurs at 0:30–0:40. Archived from the original on 28 October 2021.
  8. ^ Ross, Stewart (2004). Causes and Consequences of the Arab–Israeli Conflict. Evans Brothers. pp. 76ff. ISBN 978-0-2375-2585-9.
  9. ^ Isacoff, Jonathan B. (2006). Writing the Arab–Israeli Conflict: Pragmatism and Historical Inquiry. Lexington Books. pp. 79ff. ISBN 978-0-7391-1273-1.
  10. ^ Caplan, Neil (1983). Futile Diplomacy: Operation Alpha and the Failure of Anglo-American Coercive Diplomacy in the Arab–Israeli Conflict, 1954–1956. Psychology Press. pp. 15. ISBN 978-0-7146-4757-9.
  11. ^ Egypt Today staff (3 November 2019). "In 63rd ann. of Tripartite Aggression, members of popular resistance tell heroic stories". Egypt Today. Retrieved 25 March 2021.
  12. ^ Mayer, Michael S. (2010). The Eisenhower Years. Infobase Publishing. p. 44. ISBN 978-0-8160-5387-2.
  13. ^ Copeland, Miles (1989). The Game Player: Confessions of the CIA's original political operative. Aurum Press. pp. 170–171, 201.
  14. ^ Pierre, Major Jean-Marc (15 August 2014). 1956 Suez Crisis And The United Nations. Tannenberg Publishing. ISBN 978-1-7828-9608-1. Still in 1950 Egypt blocked the Straits of Tiran barring Israel from the waterway ( Longgood 1958, xii-xiii).
  15. ^ Golani, Motti (1995). "The Historical Place of the Czech-Egyptian Arms Deal, Fall 1955". Middle Eastern Studies. 31 (4): 803–827. doi:10.1080/00263209508701081. ISSN 0026-3206. JSTOR 4283762. 3. The blockade of the Straits of Eilat (Tiran) had actually been in effect since 1948, but was significantly aggravated on 12 September 1955, when Egypt announced that it was being tightened and extended to the aerial sphere as well. (p. 805)
  16. ^ Abernathy, David (2000). The Dynamics of Global Dominance: European Overseas Empires, 1415–1980. Yale University Press. p. CXXXIX. ISBN 978-0-3000-9314-8.
  17. ^ Owen, Roger (2001). Krieger, Joel (ed.). Suez Crisis. The Oxford Companion to the Politics of the World (2nd ed.). Oxford University Press.[page needed]
  18. ^ "An affair to remember". The Economist. 27 June 2006. Retrieved 3 September 2014.
  19. ^ Ellis, Sylvia (2009). Historical Dictionary of Anglo-American Relations. Scarecrow Press. p. 212. ISBN 978-0-8108-6297-5.
  20. ^ Peden, G. C. (December 2012), "Suez and Britain's Decline as a World Power", The Historical Journal, 55 (4): 1073–1096, doi:10.1017/S0018246X12000246, ISSN 0018-246X
  21. ^ Mullen, Matt; Onion, Amanda; Sullivan, Missy; Zapata, Christian (14 September 2022). "Suez Crisis". History Channel. Retrieved 15 June 2023.
  22. ^ Smith, Simon C., ed. (2016). Reassessing Suez 1956: New perspectives on the crisis and its aftermath. Routledge. pp. 216–218. ISBN 978-0-7546-6170-2.
  23. ^ Mastny, Vojtech (March 2002). "NATO in the Beholder's Eye: Soviet Perceptions and Policies, 1949–56" (PDF). Cold War International History Project. Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Archived (PDF) from the original on 27 November 2023. Retrieved 30 April 2018.
  24. ^ Christopher, Adam (2010). The 1956 Hungarian Revolution: Hungarian and Canadian Perspectives. University of Ottawa Press. p. 37. ISBN 978-0-7766-0705-4.


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