1956 Suez Crisis

bulldogg

bulldogg

Milforum's Bouncer
The Suez Crisis, also known as the Suez War or 1956 War (and more rarely as the Suez-Sinai war, 1956 Arab-Israeli War, Suez Campaign, Kadesh Operation, Operation Musketeer, or Tripartite aggression) was a war fought on Egyptian territory in 1956. The conflict pitted Egypt against an alliance between the French Fourth Republic, the United Kingdom and Israel. The alliance between the two European nations and Israel was largely one of convenience; the European nations had economic and trading interests in the Suez Canal, while Israel wanted to open the canal for Israeli shipping. When the USSR threatened to intervene on behalf of Egypt, the United States feared a larger war, and forced the British and French to withdraw. The Crisis resulted in the resignation of the British Prime Minister, Anthony Eden, and marked the completion of the shift in the global balance of power from European powers to the US and Russia.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1956_Suez_War

International blunder, opportunism or Machiavelan scheming to shift the balance of power?

Sherman, you asked for the post.
 
On a topic about tank ID mark...
Mohmar Deathstrike wrote:
Israel has never been in any coalition as far as I know, except for that time where they allied with France and the UK in an attempt to conquer the Suez canal
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To which I responded:
Quote:
attempt to conquer the Suez canal.
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Free?
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And recieved the reply :
Let's not get biased here...Maybe it should be "attempt to take control of theSuez canal"?
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Well, the reeason I used the word free is very simple. Nasser, the Egyptian president at that time, nationalized the Canal, which was partly owned by the French and English. The Canal was to be given to the Egyptians soon anyway, as was agreed with the Egyptian gov when it was dug. Nasser made a provocaation and nationalised it for no good reason. He also blocked Israeli trade from what was considred an international shipping lane. Israel said before that as far as we are considred, any blockade or blocking against Israeli shipping is an act of war, and we refuce to be starved to death. I really to this day don't see any moral problem with that war, it was completely justified.
 
SHERMAN said:
Well, the reeason I used the word free is very simple. Nasser, the Egyptian president at that time, nationalized the Canal, which was partly owned by the French and English. The Canal was to be given to the Egyptians soon anyway, as was agreed with the Egyptian gov when it was dug. Nasser made a provocaation and nationalised it for no good reason. He also blocked Israeli trade from what was considred an international shipping lane. Israel said before that as far as we are considred, any blockade or blocking against Israeli shipping is an act of war, and we refuce to be starved to death. I really to this day don't see any moral problem with that war, it was completely justified.
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If a blockade is an act of war wouldn't the Cuban missile crisis have been an act of war by the United States? What did the Israeli government intend to do with the canal?
 
The Israeli govronment meant to force the Egyptians into allowing Israeli shipping to pass through the canal and tiran straights. It also meant to destroy the huge ammoit of weapons the Egyptians got from the soviets.
 
SHERMAN said:
The Israeli govronment meant to force the Egyptians into allowing Israeli shipping to pass through the canal and tiran straights. It also meant to destroy the huge ammoit of weapons the Egyptians got from the soviets.
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How is forcing them to allow Israeli vessels to pass equivalent to freeing as you said on the other thread? It was a canal built by Egyptian people (under British rule) and in control of the Egyptian government. Shouldn't the Egyptians therefore decide what to do with it?

PershingOfLSU said:
He stated it was an Israeli policy that a blockade is an act of war.

That doesn't make it a United States policy.
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So if a country adopts a policy that states that any citizen of another country who is poking their nose constitutes an act of war, that makes it alright?
 
How is forcing them to allow Israeli vessels to pass equivalent to freeing as you said on the other thread? It was a canal built by Egyptian people (under British rule) and in control of the Egyptian government. Shouldn't the Egyptians therefore decide what to do with it?
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The Suez canal was dug as an international shipping lane. It is illieagal to close it down to another country. Nasser new full well what Israel would do, since Israel had no choice. He also threatend and prevented Israeli shipping in the Red Sea. Nasser was the Saddam Hussain of his time, and I really dont know why you are so quick to rush to his defense. He provoked Israel in to war twice, and lost twice. His own arrogance was his worst enemy.
 
Sherman, that is a big blanket statement, arrogance is the usual downfall of all world leaders. It seems to be inherent to the job. A body could easily argue that the current quagmire, as presented in the media, is due to arrogance on the part of US leadership. Not understanding the full picture of what they were getting involved in. The same with Saddam, Nasser, Kennedy, DeGaulle...
 
SHERMAN said:
The Suez canal was dug as an international shipping lane. It is illieagal to close it down to another country. Nasser new full well what Israel would do, since Israel had no choice. He also threatend and prevented Israeli shipping in the Red Sea. Nasser was the Saddam Hussain of his time, and I really dont know why you are so quick to rush to his defense. He provoked Israel in to war twice, and lost twice. His own arrogance was his worst enemy.
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Comparing him to Saddam might be a bit harsh, IMO. He was an undemocratic dictator, but was he as totalitarian as Hussein?

How did Egypt lose that conflict? I thought France, Israel and the UK were forced to withdraw from Egypt due to US & USSR pressure.
 
But the entire Egyptian armored force was crushed, and the very real threat of war with Egypt was prosponed for more than a decade. Also, the straights of tiran were opened to Israeli shipping.
 
SHERMAN said:
But the entire Egyptian armored force was crushed, and the very real threat of war with Egypt was prosponed for more than a decade. Also, the straights of tiran were opened to Israeli shipping.
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Yeah Egypt have done nothing but to loose..
 
This war came about over the ownership of the Canal, Now under international law can a country just take over what ever they like. During this time the people of Panama thought that it would be nice if they could do the same thing. What happened in Panama, the American Marines were turned out who then opened fire on the Panamanians, with America saying we built and paid for it and we are going to keep it. Yes I know that things have changed now in Panama, but Britain had had put a great deal of cash into the Suez canal and did not want to see it stolen. If any one is interested I have some pictures of the invasion of Suez in 56 in what was called Operation Musketeer
 
bulldogg said:
International blunder, opportunism or Machiavelan scheming to shift the balance of power?
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It was really an Anglo/Franco attempt to set up an economic powerbase in the Mideast to exploit the oil reserves . The Eisenhower administration used the Russian threat as an excuse to end this adventure . The important event to watch was Israel's involvement this came 2 years after the Lavon affair in which Israel attacked US industrial targets in Egypt in an attempt to pin the blame on Eygpt .
 
Brian Foley.....Could explain how we were trying to set up a power base to get at the oil in the Middle East, for if you check back for that time all the big oil fields in Iraq and Kuwait were run by BP who had discovered them in first place.
 
LeEnfield said:
Brian Foley.....Could explain how we were trying to set up a power base to get at the oil in the Middle East, for if you check back for that time all the big oil fields in Iraq and Kuwait were run by BP who had discovered them in first place.
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Recall the British had control of Kuwait and large concerns in Iran and France also considerable interests in the mideast . By occupying the Suez canal zone this was to secure a secure route to tranship Anglo/franco oil to Europe . The US controlled most of the distribution of the mideasts oil supply to Europe , this was a very lucrative business . After that date America controlled distribution of virtually the entire mideast supply .
 
The Eisenhower administration used the Russian threat as an excuse to end this adventure .
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Hum I believe the Russian threat was real, and no one wanted to see the Soviets nuking the UK and France. The french government was very angry, and I believe it is one of the best reason for France to develop its own nuke weapons. Concerning the UK, I don't know how its gov had reacted. Any ideas about this ?
 
During this time Russia was busy re-invading Poland or Czechoslovakia, but were making a lot of noise about Suez. It must be remembered that Russians had poured a lot a lot of money and arms into Egypt and did not want to lose it. The Russians had paid for most of the work on the Aswan dam and that project needed even more money. During the invasion we found the place was packed with all sorts of Russian Military Equipment. The Egyptians had gone around Port Said throwing out of the back of lorries crates of AK 47s and piles of ammunition, all this ammunition was coloured coded at the tip of the bullets so that you could easily tell just what the round was designed to do. You had armoured piercing, explosive, tracer, and a combination of of these different types of bullets.
It did not take us long before we had ditched our old .303 rifles and became the first unit in the British army to be fully equipped with AK 47's.
These AK 47s had all been made in Czechoslovakia and these rifles all had spring loaded bayonets which leapt out at a touch of a button, mind you the metal the bayonet was made out of was crap, but on straight lunge it would do it's job. When we returned to Cyprus the rotters took away all our AK 47's which we had became rather attched too.
 
[img]http://i23.photobucket.com/alb.../img] One of the many captured Russian tanks
 
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