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ought to the surface currents that had been troubling the British psyche since the
1930s, currents that erupted into a wave of criticism against Britain’s institutions not
excluding the monarchy. At the end of July 1956 Elizabeth was at Goodwood Races
when a proclamation was brought to her in the Duke of Richmond’s box authorizing the
calling up of army reserves. At a hastily summoned Privy Council meeting on the
following day, 2 August, at Arundel Castle, home of her host, the Duke of Norfolk, she
signed the document, the first public step towards a war with Egypt three months later.
On 13 June 1956 the last British troops had left the Suez Canal area, which they had
garrisoned for over seventy years. Ten days later Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser became
President of Egypt and just over one month later, on 26 July, following the withdrawal
of American and British finance for the Aswan Dam, he nationalized the Anglo-Frenchowned
Suez Canal Company. Initial reaction in both Britain and France was furious.
Eden, who had an inbuilt dislike of dictators in general, and of Nasser in particular, set
the tone by declaring that ‘Nasser had his thumb on Britain’s windpipe’, and both Britain
and France drew up secret plans for an attack on Egypt, culminating in a tripartite
agreement known as the Sèvres Treaty signed by Britain, France and Israel on 24
October. This secret agreement finalized a conspiracy between the three countries by
which Israel would attack Egypt on 29 October. Britain and France would demand a
ceasefire and temporary occupation of the Canal by their forces on the 30th, and in the
event of either warring party refusing the ceasefire the allied forces would invade Egypt
on the 31st. Duly on 29 October the Israelis attacked, on the 30th Britain and France
issued their ultimatum, and Eden made a statement in the House of Commons revealing
his plans. At a meeting of the United Nations Security Council in New York later that
day, Britain and France enraged the United States and the Soviet Union by vetoing a US
resolution calling on the Israelis to withdraw. The British then bombed Egyptian
airfields, destroying the Egyptian air force; it was a successful military operation at
great political cost.
In the House of Commons the fact that Britain had bombed a country with which it
was not actually at war raised the political temperature to heights equalling those of
May 1940 preceding the fall of Chamberlain. People were outraged by this and troubled
by the open breach between Britain and the United States at the United Nations. The
Commonwealth countries, which, like the United States, had not been granted the
courtesy of prior consultation, were, in the words of Eden’s biographer, in a state of
‘anger, confusion and dismay’. Arab public opinion was naturally solidly behind Nasser,
creating problems for Arab regimes friendly to Britain such as the Iraqi royal family.
Eden’s majority among the British who thought Nasser should be taught a lesson melted
away in the face of the bungling of military planners who had not taken into account
the time it would take to get the main force from their Cyprus bases to the Egyptian
mainland. While they were still en route, the Israelis and the Egyptians agreed to a
ceasefire, thus destroying the point of the expedition. A Gallup poll taken in November
showed a majority in Britain were against the Suez action. By the time the British
paratroops and the Anglo-French seaborne forces had landed on 5 and 6 November, a