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Puppet against the Puppet master
After the Second World War, King Farouk was in a troubling situation. he was not sure if the British trusted him after the Abdeen Palace incident, wherein they almost forced his abdication. His people widely condemned him for his collection of wealth, corrupt government and the continued British military presence. Unemployment was growing as well and demands for reforms immediate reforms led to the workers' riots. The invasion of Israel provided a successful unifying tool for Farouk, however, as the people were very eager to fight Israel. After the war was won, these problems resurfaced, leading to a brief riot at Kafr El Dawwar in 1952 protesting the British occupation of the Suez Canal. Security forces responded by firing rubber bullets and tear gas, killing three people at a milling plant and injuring dozens more.
Believing Egypt to be a strong nation after its past success against Israel, and seeking to gain the support of Arab nationalists in Egypt, Farouk announced that "Egypt was strong enough to stand on its own two feet" and made claims to the Suez Canal. Britain, fearing that Egypt would become too strong if it held the Canal, did not agree to give it up, so Farouk ordered that the Canal would be seized by the Egyptian government. Eager to reclaim what they saw as rightfully theirs, on December 25 1952, 70,000 Egyptian soldiers, assisted by local residents, stormed the Suez, quickly overwhelming the 10,000 British soldiers, who surrendered within three weeks.
Winston Churchill refused to acknowledge the demise of the British colonial empire, as he claimed, "I will not preside over a dismemberment of what centuries of British men have found valiantly and died for. We will never allow British land to be invaded." On July 17 1953, Churchill annexed the southern half of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan to British Uganda, and began organizing forces on Cyprus in preparation for a naval landing. The air offensive began on the 19th, crippling the Royal Egyptian Air Force. In response, the Egyptians sank obstructions into the Suez Canal, preventing travel, and mobilized their army. The British went on the offensive, landing at Port Said, and quickly reaching Ismailia. This involved tens of thousands of civilian casualties as the locals vehemently opposed the British soldiers, oftentimes children as young as 5, armed only with knives, would run up to British soldiers to try to stab them.
Then, a demand for surrender was placed on King Farouk. Knowing that if he gave up now, his own army would depose him, he instead ordered a fight to the last man. British airborne forces began to arrive in Cairo on the 31st, and the British Army landed in Alexandria. The intention to continue the war by invading Cairo lead to outrage as the British people did not see reason in deposing Farouk just because of a Canal, and the world saw the intention to depose the Egyptian government as an colonialist war caused by a severe overreaction to a minor provocation. While threats from the Soviet Union were nothing out of the ordinary, the American threats were seen more seriously. President Eisenhower played the role of mediator, while demanding that Britain cease its war against the Egyptian Kingdom, he also agreed that Farouk should not be rewarded for taking military action against an American ally. Thus, the Suez War of 1952-1953 ended with mixed results, as Egypt was confirmed to be an independent nation on the world stage, but it still lacked the Suez Canal.
Farouk was attacked by the Egyptians instantly for placing Egypt into a war it could not have possibly won. Although the Arab nationalist revolutionaries were ultimately defeated, the cost of these wars was so much that Egypt never recovered its status as a regional power. Withdrawing from international affairs, the Kingdom relied more on repression than on political tactics for the remainder of its rule.
