West. Britain’s and America’s withdrawal was for-
mally announced by Dulles on 19 July 1956.
That Congress would vote the necessary money
to part-finance Nasser’s dam with the World Bank
was by now inconceivable. But the abrupt manner
of the announcement unnecessarily and probably
unintentionally increased the snub to Nasser, who
could not meekly accept such a setback. His next
move should not have come as such a surprise.
On 26 July, in a dramatic speech in Alexandria,
Nasser declared that Egypt had nationalised the
Suez Canal Company, thus ending Western
control twelve years ahead of the expiry date of
the Suez concession. Overnight he became the
hero of the Arab world. He was not acting unlaw-
fully, however, as he offered to compensate the
Company’s shareholders. Nasser had turned the
tables on Britain and the US. At first this was
not appreciated. With what was still a common
Western arrogance, it was widely believed that the
Egyptians would not be able to manage the Canal
once the European pilots and technicians were
withdrawn. It came as a shock therefore when the
Egyptians, with help from Eastern communist
friends, demonstrated that ships would continue
to pass through the Canal without difficulty.
For Eden, Nasser’s behaviour, little more than a
month after the last British troops had left the
Canal in compliance with the 1954 Treaty, was
a personal humiliation that exposed him to a
renewed attack from the Conservative right.
Moreover, with two-thirds of Western Europe’s
oil passing through the Canal, Eden believed that
Nasser’s control of it would give him a strangle-
hold on the economies of Britain and Western
Europe, or as Eden graphically put it, the
Egyptian dictator ‘would have his hands on our
windpipe’. If Nasser was allowed to get away with
it, Eden concluded, there would be no stopping
him from trampling over other British interests.
Personal anguish, an exaggeration of the threat to
Britain, and ill health all combined to drive Eden
forward (albeit with Cabinet support) into an ill-
considered international adventure.
The decision in London to prepare a military
option had been taken by the British Cabinet on
27 July, a day after Nasser’s speech nationalising
the Suez Canal. There was agreement that, if all
else failed, Egypt would be attacked and forced to
accept an international agreement ensuring free
passage of the Suez Canal not merely until the
Suez Canal Company’s concession ran out in
November 1968, but in perpetuity. The Egyp-
tians, it was assumed, were not capable of manag-
ing and running the Canal by themselves or of
assuring that international agreements would be
observed. The Cabinet accordingly instructed the
British chiefs of staff to prepare a war plan. As yet,
no real thought was given to coordinating military
and diplomatic moves with France. That came
later in mid-August. As for Israel, Eden insisted
that it be kept out of the conflict so that Britain’s
Arab friends would not be antagonised. An inner
Cabinet committee of six, including the chan-
cellor of the exchequer Harold Macmillan, was
set up to manage the crisis. The US at this stage
in late July was kept in touch. Eden cabled to
President Eisenhower that Britain could not
afford to let Nasser win. There was, he stressed, a
need for a firm stand by all maritime countries
because, if Nasser were not stopped, ‘our influ-
ence throughout the Middle East will, we are con-
vinced, be finally destroyed’. In the last resort
Britain would use force, and he added, ‘I have this
morning instructed our Chiefs of Staff to prepare
a military plan accordingly.’ He asked for an
American representative to come to London to
help coordinate policy. While Eden expected to be
working with the Americans, the French, who
were even more determined to topple Nasser than
the British, offered to place their forces under a
British commander. Not only was the nationalisa-
tion of the predominantly French-owned Suez
Canal Company an affront to France’s inter-
national standing, but Nasser as the champion and
hero of the Arab world was undermining the
French hold over Algeria. Nasser’s open support
for the Front de Libération Nationale with propa-
ganda and arms was rated so serious in its effect
that it could swing the balance against France in
the Algerian struggle. The French worked hard to
forge a military alliance with Britain, but feared
that Eden might in the end continue to work with
Dulles and adopt the American policy of seeking a
negotiated settlement.