WI: Anglo - French Victory in the Suez Crisis

One of the reasons why world opinion turned away from full support of Britain and France was because despite previous opinion Egypt managed to keep the canal going from late July to late October pretty much as normal. There was an idea that Egypt would fuck it up and if BFI had struck in August then the idea that Egypt could do it wouldn't have taken hold and undermined the B-F position. Most people don't give a shit about who owns and runs the canal, as long as it works well enough.

This is a fascinating topic, I'm learning a lot about the wider aspects of the Crisis like oil flows and tanker development in the 50s.

This might interest you.
 
His portrayal of dulles is similar to what is in jfks skybolt report; competing departments within the administration vying for presidential approval.

I don't really get the reference to the sterling area with regards to post war oil purchase. Is it that Britain can buy oil from the likes of the trucial states and Iraq without costly currency exchange and fluctuations?
 
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His portrayal of dulles is similar to what is in jfks skybolt report; competing departments within the administration vying for presidential approval.

I don't really get the reference to the sterling area with regards to post war oil purchase. Is it that Britain can buy oil from the likes of the trucial states and Iraq without costly currency exchange and fluctuations?

Britain could buy oil from Middle Eastern countries in the Sterling bloc using Sterling whereas if Britain bought oil from the Western hemisphere it would have to use dollars and this would cut into the dollar reserves. A minnimum of 2000 million dollars was needed to maintain the sterling bloc and so as dollar reserves were never too far above this mark, it was necessary to do everything possible to cut dollar expenses. Up to 1967, the Sterling bloc was seen as something that had to be maintained at all costs because it was largely what Britain's great power status was predicated upon.
 
I see the sterling area is handy for Britain, but does it only aspply to countries within it like Iraq and the Trucial States with regard to oil or does it have wider applications? What did France do in this situation? Was there a run on the Franc, was there a Franc bloc that France could use to buy oil in defiance of the US?
 
I see the sterling area is handy for Britain, but does it only aspply to countries within it like Iraq and the Trucial States with regard to oil or does it have wider applications? What did France do in this situation? Was there a run on the Franc, was there a Franc bloc that France could use to buy oil in defiance of the US?

The Sterling bloc was made up of Britain, the dominions besides Canada and the colonies as well as newly decolonized states.

There was a much smaller franc bloc made up of France's colonies but AFAIK, none of those were oil producing. France, like Britain procured most of its oil from the Middle East through the canal.

Financially, speaking, France was in a far better position than Britain as it had taken out an IMF loan in October of '56. I can't remember the exact date but I believe it was the 17th. So America's financial blackmail had much more of an effect on Britain than on France as France was more financially secure. Macmilllan had considered an IMF drawing before the invasion but it was felt that taking another loan would weaken investor confidence and cause them to shed their pound holdings. Ironic isn't it?
 
Page 279-781 cover the Anlgo - French - IMF relationship during the crisis succingtly. It, however, ignores the fact that America blocked a British loan until all troops were withdrawn.
 

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Also once Britain agreed to a ceasefire it was game over for France as well. Musketeer was a British led operation and relied quite signficantly on Cyprus and Malta to an extent as well.
 
So what would you call the Malayan and Aden Emergencies, The Indonesian confrontation?

Malaya was a minority (the Chinese) population attempting to overthrow the local government (the Sultans, remember Malaya is a Federation of Sultans at this time) backed by the British to set up their own communist state.. thus not a colonial war, but a war fought to defend local elites and a larger majority population from a smaller elite leading a minority population.

Aden.... a mess then, a mess now. Yemen is a collection of tribes and city states and traditionally the city state (Aden) has not been on good terms with some of the tribes... going back to the pre Christian era. Hardly a simple colonial war.

Indonesia was trying to steal Malaysian Borneo and Brunei. For no other reason because it thought it could. Nothing colonial about that. Of the three it is the most clear cut situation of the British defending an ally

None of these are similar to Egypt at all. Nasser it should be noted had so much popular support that when he lost the War in 1967 he was able to outright lie and not be called on it, and when he died ... well look up how Egypt reacted when he died.

So what are the Anglo-French going to do? Assuming as I said that the military operation went letter perfect (it didn't, they never do), that still leaves the Anglo-British having to permanently garrison the Suez, while at the same time fighting wars in Algeria (France) and variety of police actions (British) while in theory supporting NATO while facing the condemnation not only of the Soviet Bloc, but just about every other nation in the world that wasn't involved, and for what? To guard the Suez that wasn't under outside threat until Musketeer was launched?

Keep in mind that Hungary was a full scale crisis at the very same time, and Krushchev actually is threatening to use the missiles he doesn't really seem to have but which the US, British and French assumed he did as nuclear blackmail

The entire operation was a stupid blunder. For all those reasons and more. Even if Eisenhower had fully supported the operation it would have been a bad idea, because the diplomatic consequences were grave and the propaganda mileage that the Soviets were getting, while they were still slaughtering Hungarians mind you, more than offset any prestige that the Anglo-French would get from fighting what was obviously a colonial war against Egypt to take their property back.

The world changed in World War II... the direct rule of colonial empires was over... India proved that, Indochina proved that, and Suez merely added an underline to the point. As far as CIA backed coups are concerned (I would argue Iran was far more important by the way) note that the United States did not then decide to directly run the place. Indirect colonial rule has the virtue of at least being subtle. Really though, comparing American (and British too) backed coups in the Third World to massive direct invasion of a sovereign independent state is a bit of a stretch don't you think?

By the way, my father was an Aviation Electronics Petty Officer aboard the Coral Sea, fixing the radar systems on AD1 Skyraiders at the time. He remembers the Suez very well. He told me port visits for the rest of the cruise were not terribly fun. He remembers the tension as the 6th Fleet steamed through the Allied fleet. Everyone was hoping no one would screw up
 
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