A Life in a Year – 9th January, Great Britain loses World Power Status

In 1956 there were some really important events around the world that were to have an influence on international relations over the next twenty years or so.

In the Middle East the Suez Canal was of very high military and commercial strategic importance and the United Kingdom had control of the canal under the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936 but on July 26th Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Egyptian President, announced the nationalisation of the Suez Canal Company, in which British banks and business had a large financial interest.

The British Prime Minister, Anthony Eden, was outraged and up for war to teach the Egyptians a lesson and Britain together with France, who were similarly upset, made threatening noises and began to prepare for an invasion with large forces deployed to Cyprus and Malta and the fleet dispatched to the Mediterranean Sea. On 30th October the allies sent a final ultimatum to Egypt and when it was ignored invaded on the following day. Someone should have told them that this was no longer the nineteenth century and they couldn’t go throwing their weight around in Africa like this any more.

Almost simultaneously with this event there was a crisis in Eastern Europe when a revolution in Hungary, behind the iron curtain, deposed the pro-Soviet government there. The new government formally declared its intention to withdraw from the Warsaw Pact and pledged to re-establish free elections. By the end of October this had seemed to be successful but on 4th November, a large Soviet force invaded Budapest and during a few days of resistance an estimated two thousand five hundred Hungarians died, and two hundred thousand more fled the country as refugees. Mass arrests and imprisonments followed and a new Soviet inclined government was installed and this action further strengthened Soviet control over Central Europe.

From a military perspective the operation to take the Suez Canal was highly successful but was a political disaster due to its unfortunate timing. The President of the United Stated Dweight Eisenhower was dealing with both crises, and faced the public relations embarrassment of opposing the Soviet Union’s military intervention in Hungary while at the same time ignoring the actions of its two principal European allies in Egypt. It was also rather unnerving that the Soviet Union threatened to intervene and launch nuclear attacks on London and Paris and fearful of a new global conflict Eisenhower forced a ceasefire and demanded that the invasion be called to a halt. Due to a combination of diplomatic and financial pressure Britain and France were obliged to withdraw their troops early in 1957. Anthony Eden promptly resigned on 9th January 1957.