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.Eden was then widely regarded4 See TNA, FO 371/108450 JE1193/111, minute by Bromley, 14 April 1954.5 David Carlton s Anthony Eden, first published in 1981, is influential in this regard.The Churchill quote is from p.136 of the 1986 London paperback edition.6 Evelyn Shuckburgh, Descent to Suez: Diaries 1951 55 (London, 1986), p.75. 38 Reassessing Suez 1956as his heir apparent to the premiership.The tension this created, not least becauseChurchill clung on to power longer than anyone expected, proved to be not onlyimmense, but also debilitating.The Insurgency BeginsBritain s relations with Egypt entered a far more dangerous era on 15 October 1951,the date when the Egyptian parliament abrogated the defence treaty of 1936.Althoughit was coupled with familiar demands for an immediate evacuation of all Britishforces from the Canal Zone, it soon became clear that the long-standing nationalistchallenge to the occupation had developed a completely new manifestation.Fromthis point on, guerrilla units inspired by fedayeen activities in the Palestine War of1948 began mounting concerted attacks on Britain s Suez garrison.These irregularunits called themselves liberation battalions and saw their battle as the LiberationStruggle, a name which almost certainly helped inspire Churchill s own Battle of theCanal Zone.In any case, the era of street demonstrations and other staged spectaclesin the nationalist struggle was over: an armed fight was now on, even if it was stilltoo asymmetrical to comprise a frontal assault between rival armies.Less than a fortnight later, on 25 October 1951, the Conservatives won a generalelection in Britain with a Commons majority of 17.The legacy of the outgoingAttlee government, which the incoming Churchill administration with Eden asForeign Secretary adhered to, was to establish a policy aimed at toppling Egypt sWafd government.7 To this end, intermittent oil sanctions including white oils usedfor cooking were applied against the population in the Nile Delta as a means ofcausing economic disruption and political pressure.8 In addition, MI6 (which had alarge presence at the British embassy in Cairo) secretly contacted Egypt s oppositionparties and King Farouk s palace in order to try to establish the likely price of analternative government.9Meanwhile, the Wafd, on the day after the abrogation law was passed, initiated itsown tried and tested response in the national struggle it staged a riot.(The familiarpractice was to bribe rabble-rousers, while at the same time covertly involving thesecurity forces.) The location was Ismailia, the administrative centre of the SuezCanal Company, as well as the headquarters for British troops in Egypt.But whereasin the past such demonstrations had symbolized and contained nationalist resistance,by October 1951 this theatre of public disorder was no longer enough.Instead, duringthe months that followed, the towns in the Canal Zone, with their sizeable Egyptianpopulations, became home to liberation battalions which took their orders not fromthe Wafd (although the government vainly attempted to regulate their activities),but from the Muslim Brotherhood and other extremist organizations.The guerrilla7 TNA, FO 371/90146 JE1951/428, minute by Bowker, 27 October 1951; TNA, PREM11/92 111 12, Foreign Office to Stevenson, 2 November 1951.8 TNA, FO 141/1440 1041/2/201/51G, COS to Robertson, 2 November 1951.9 TNA, FO 141/1440 1041/2/253/51G, minute by Creswell, 6 November 1951; TNA,FO 141/1451 10121/22/51G, minute by Creswell, 20 November 1951, and author s interviewwith Frank Brenchley, Oxford, 1997. Eden, Churchill and the Battle of the Canal Zone 39tactics deployed included daily sabotage and sniping attacks, and were supplementedwith increasing frequency by the gruesome killing of British servicemen.Theirmutilated bodies were often dumped in the Sweet Water Canal which ran throughthe base area.The British forces responded in an increasingly proactive way.Passiveguard duties were bolstered by highly mobile foot patrols aimed at intercepting thefedayeen before they reached their targets.By mid-January 1952 (three months intothe crisis), 30 British servicemen had been killed and 69 wounded.Reliable figuresfor the Egyptian side are not known.10Meanwhile, Churchill s first response to the Canal Zone struggle was to proveuncharacteristically moderate.Do not do anything that was either sharp or sudden ,he advised Eden on 28 October 1951, two days after taking office.11 This early cautionwas probably a fleeting legacy of the election campaign, on the last day of which theDaily Mirror had devoted its entire front page to the question, Whose finger do youwant on the trigger? In any case, by early December it was long forgotten [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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.Eden was then widely regarded4 See TNA, FO 371/108450 JE1193/111, minute by Bromley, 14 April 1954.5 David Carlton s Anthony Eden, first published in 1981, is influential in this regard.The Churchill quote is from p.136 of the 1986 London paperback edition.6 Evelyn Shuckburgh, Descent to Suez: Diaries 1951 55 (London, 1986), p.75. 38 Reassessing Suez 1956as his heir apparent to the premiership.The tension this created, not least becauseChurchill clung on to power longer than anyone expected, proved to be not onlyimmense, but also debilitating.The Insurgency BeginsBritain s relations with Egypt entered a far more dangerous era on 15 October 1951,the date when the Egyptian parliament abrogated the defence treaty of 1936.Althoughit was coupled with familiar demands for an immediate evacuation of all Britishforces from the Canal Zone, it soon became clear that the long-standing nationalistchallenge to the occupation had developed a completely new manifestation.Fromthis point on, guerrilla units inspired by fedayeen activities in the Palestine War of1948 began mounting concerted attacks on Britain s Suez garrison.These irregularunits called themselves liberation battalions and saw their battle as the LiberationStruggle, a name which almost certainly helped inspire Churchill s own Battle of theCanal Zone.In any case, the era of street demonstrations and other staged spectaclesin the nationalist struggle was over: an armed fight was now on, even if it was stilltoo asymmetrical to comprise a frontal assault between rival armies.Less than a fortnight later, on 25 October 1951, the Conservatives won a generalelection in Britain with a Commons majority of 17.The legacy of the outgoingAttlee government, which the incoming Churchill administration with Eden asForeign Secretary adhered to, was to establish a policy aimed at toppling Egypt sWafd government.7 To this end, intermittent oil sanctions including white oils usedfor cooking were applied against the population in the Nile Delta as a means ofcausing economic disruption and political pressure.8 In addition, MI6 (which had alarge presence at the British embassy in Cairo) secretly contacted Egypt s oppositionparties and King Farouk s palace in order to try to establish the likely price of analternative government.9Meanwhile, the Wafd, on the day after the abrogation law was passed, initiated itsown tried and tested response in the national struggle it staged a riot.(The familiarpractice was to bribe rabble-rousers, while at the same time covertly involving thesecurity forces.) The location was Ismailia, the administrative centre of the SuezCanal Company, as well as the headquarters for British troops in Egypt.But whereasin the past such demonstrations had symbolized and contained nationalist resistance,by October 1951 this theatre of public disorder was no longer enough.Instead, duringthe months that followed, the towns in the Canal Zone, with their sizeable Egyptianpopulations, became home to liberation battalions which took their orders not fromthe Wafd (although the government vainly attempted to regulate their activities),but from the Muslim Brotherhood and other extremist organizations.The guerrilla7 TNA, FO 371/90146 JE1951/428, minute by Bowker, 27 October 1951; TNA, PREM11/92 111 12, Foreign Office to Stevenson, 2 November 1951.8 TNA, FO 141/1440 1041/2/201/51G, COS to Robertson, 2 November 1951.9 TNA, FO 141/1440 1041/2/253/51G, minute by Creswell, 6 November 1951; TNA,FO 141/1451 10121/22/51G, minute by Creswell, 20 November 1951, and author s interviewwith Frank Brenchley, Oxford, 1997. Eden, Churchill and the Battle of the Canal Zone 39tactics deployed included daily sabotage and sniping attacks, and were supplementedwith increasing frequency by the gruesome killing of British servicemen.Theirmutilated bodies were often dumped in the Sweet Water Canal which ran throughthe base area.The British forces responded in an increasingly proactive way.Passiveguard duties were bolstered by highly mobile foot patrols aimed at intercepting thefedayeen before they reached their targets.By mid-January 1952 (three months intothe crisis), 30 British servicemen had been killed and 69 wounded.Reliable figuresfor the Egyptian side are not known.10Meanwhile, Churchill s first response to the Canal Zone struggle was to proveuncharacteristically moderate.Do not do anything that was either sharp or sudden ,he advised Eden on 28 October 1951, two days after taking office.11 This early cautionwas probably a fleeting legacy of the election campaign, on the last day of which theDaily Mirror had devoted its entire front page to the question, Whose finger do youwant on the trigger? In any case, by early December it was long forgotten [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]