The Suez Crisis, or the Second Arab–Israeli war, also called the tripartite aggression in the Arab world and Sinai War in Israel, was an invasion of Egypt in late 1956 by Israel, followed by the United Kingdom and France. The aims were to regain Western control of the Suez Canal and to remove Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, who had just nationalised the canal. Historians conclude the crisis’signified the end of Great Britain’s role as one of the world’s major powers. The Suez canal was closed from October 1956 until March 1957.
About Suez Crisis in brief
The Suez Crisis, or the Second Arab–Israeli war, also called the tripartite aggression in the Arab world and Sinai War in Israel, was an invasion of Egypt in late 1956 by Israel, followed by the United Kingdom and France. The aims were to regain Western control of the Suez Canal and to remove Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, who had just nationalised the canal. After the fighting had started, political pressure from the United States, the Soviet Union and the United Nations led to a withdrawal by the three invaders. It later became clear that Israel, France and Britain had conspired to plan out the invasion. Historians conclude the crisis’signified the end of Great Britain’s role as one of the world’s major powers’ The Suez canal was closed from October 1956 until March 1957. The canal was opened in 1869, after ten years of work financed by the French and Egyptian governments. In 1875, as a result of debt and financial crisis, Egypt was forced to sell its shares in the canal operating company to the British government of Benjamin Disraeli. They were willing buyers and obtained a 44 percent share in the Canal’s operations for less than £4 million; this maintained the majority shareholdings of the mostly French private investors. The Canal continued to be strategically important after the Second World War as the conduit for the shipment of oil. By 1955, the canal was gaining a new role as the highway of the oil empire, but at the same moment, the empire of India was being liquidated. The episode humiliated the United UK and France and strengthened Nasser.
The three allies had attained a number of their military objectives, but the Canal was useless. Israel fulfilled some of its objectives, such as attaining freedom of navigation through the Straits of Tiran, which Egypt had blocked to Israeli shipping since 1950. Despite this, the strategic importance of the canal and its control were proven during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, after Japan and Britain entered into a separate bilateral agreement. The British denied the Russian fleet use of the Canal and forced it to steam around Africa, giving the Japanese forces time to consolidate their position in East Asia. During the First World War, Britain and France closed the canal to non-Allied shipping when the Ottoman Empire tried to storm the canal for the rest of the war. In February 1915, British troops stormed the Ottoman Canal to protect the British-led forces. The Ottoman Empire agreed to permit international shipping to pass freely through the canal, in time of war and peace, in 1904, the same year as the Entente cordiale between Britain and French. In 1915, the British committed 100,000 troops to the defence of Egypt for the remainder of the War. The U.S. and the USSR may have been emboldened to invade Hungary. The United Nations created the UNEF Peacekeepers to police the Egyptian–Israeli border, British prime minister Anthony Eden resigned, and Canadian external affairs minister Lester Pearson won the Nobel Peace Prize.
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This page is based on the article Suez Crisis published in Wikipedia (as of Dec. 09, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
