Every empire in the history of our world has a moment or event which we popularly envision
to be the beginning of their final downfall, even if they survive for a long time after
it. Today we will cover one of these turning point moments in history for both the British
and French Empires, which declined in the wake of World War II. In the aftermath, the
global balance of power permanently shifted, and events that happened in 1956 finally showed
how much. Welcome to our video on the Suez Crisis of 1956. If you are interested in the
history of this era, don’t forget to check out our second channel – The Cold War – the
link is in the top right corner.
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Ever since its completion in 1869, the Suez Canal was considered strategically crucial
to the British Empire, who relied on it to link their home islands with India. To keep
control of the canal, Britain took control of Egypt in 1882, and the country remained
dominated by foreign will in various forms until after World War II. With the weakening
of British influence over their colonies and the breakaway of India, the importance of
the Suez Canal increased because of its status as an oil artery, as Britain shipped the majority
of its oil through it. A military coup in July 1952 deposed the Egyptian
monarchy and brought the Revolutionary Command Council to power, and in 1954 Gamal Abdel
Nasser secured power as the President. The pan-Arab nationalism favoured by this faction
was suspicious to both Britain’s new Prime Minister Antony Eden, who saw Nasser as a
threat to his nation’s oil interests, and Israel, whose government believed a weak,
divided Arab world would be less of a threat to its existence. A number of diplomatic maneuvers
on both sides and re-intensification of the Israeli-Arab conflict began to ramp up the
crisis to a fever pitch. In this atmosphere, Arab ‘fedayeen’, or
partisans, launched raids into Israeli territory from Gaza, Egypt, Jordan and Syria. IDF commandos
responded in kind, while the Egyptian navy blockaded the Straits of Tiran and prevented
Israel’s access to the Red Sea. Seeking high-quality Soviet equipment, Nasser conducted
an arms deal with the Communist satellite Czechoslovakia, but in the Cold War climate
this led the United States to retract funding from Egypt’s Aswan dam project. It was this
final straw that led Nasser to nationalise the Suez Canal in July 1956, convincing Britain
and France that the Egyptian leader had to go.
After extensive military planning, the allies decided to enact a revised Operation Musketeer,
which General Charles Keighley outlined as such: Stage one was for Britain and France
to gain air superiority, and then a ten-day ‘aero-psychological’ campaign to overthrow
Nasser would begin through strikes on transportation and communication infrastructure, along with
economic centres. The third part of the plan was an Anglo-French airborne and naval assault
aimed at occupying the canal zone. Initially not connected to these allied preparations,
Israel had already been preparing to invade Sinai for months, and this was made easier
when Nasser began to concentrate his forces near the Nile Delta and Suez Canal, where
his intelligence told him the allies offensives would arrive. IDF Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan
drew up Operation Kadesh to exploit the situation, and assigned four army groups to accomplish
its objectives. A northern line of advance, attacking towards al-Arish, would be taken
by three brigades - two infantry and one armoured, under Brigadier General Haim Lascov. Along
the central axis - stretching across Sinai from Ketziot to al-Ismailiyah - was Colonel
Yenudah Wallach’s slightly larger detachment, comprising 2 infantry and 2 armoured brigades,
while the lightly defended southern zone from the Mitla Pass to Suez was assigned only the
202nd Paratrooper Regiment. The fourth element near Aqaba was assaulted by only one reserve
infantry brigade. By October 29th 1956 the IDF troops had taken
their places at staging points in the Negev region, and it was at 3PM the same day that
Operation Kadesh began with an aerial assault by IAF Mustangs on Egypt’s Sinai communication
network. As this was happening, the 9th Infantry Brigade in the far south captured the staging
point of Ras an-Naqb without any casualties by midnight on October 30th, bypassing Egyptian
positions and attacking from unexpected angles. Slightly further north, Ariel Sharon’s 202nd
Parachutist Brigade began its militarily negligible but politically crucial drop deep into Sinai4
an hour after Kadesh began. It was a raid which would trigger the so-called ‘Sevres
Protocol’, giving Britain and France the excuse, they needed to enter the war, nominally
to expel both Egypt and Israel from the canal zone. This force advanced towards a heavily-garrisoned
Themed and struck at dawn, when the sun was blinding Egypt’s defenders. Israeli armour
quickly overwhelmed opponents at the gap and then took the area.
Despite subsequently suffering aerial attack by some Egyptian aircraft, Sharon then managed
to take Nakla by breaking Egyptian morale with artillery barrages. A masterful tactician
but a dreadful strategist, Sharon then disregarded the overall aims of his mission and entered
the Heitan defile on bad intelligence, attacking a well-defended gorge and a feature known
as the ‘saucer’. After a day of heavy combat which cost 38 Israeli lives, night
favoured the IDF commandos and they secured the area. The real fighting however, was in
the centre and north, where Colonel Josef Harpaz’s 4th Infantry Brigade moved to storm
al-Qusaymah at night. Moving through difficult terrain, and using a pincer maneuver to encircle
the city, they collapsed the Egyptian forces, and the city was captured just after 3am.
Israel was now free to march towards the indefensible city of Abu Uwayluh - a vital transportation
hub with nearby roads leading out into the entirety of Sinai, which if captured could
lead to the fall of the entire peninsula. What was defensible were the series of ridges
east of the city - Ruafa, Umm Shihan and Umm Qataf - known collectively as the ‘hedgehog’.
For three days, 3,000 entrenched Egyptian defenders held off around 12,000 Israelis,
beating off attack after attack. Eventually the IDF managed to encircle the hedgehog with
the 7th Armoured Division after al-Qusaymah fell, but resistance still proved difficult
to crack. Along the northern Rafah salient, Colonel
Benjamin Givli’s 1st Infantry and Colonel Haim Barvel’s 27th Armoured Brigades were
faced by Brigadier General Jafaar al-Abd and his reinforced 5th Infantry Brigade, along
with a reserve at Rafah itself. It was a formidable defensive zone, with dunes protecting the
south while 18 small hills in the north and centre provided high ground and ambush positions
from which Egyptian troops, dug in with bunkers, barbed wire, fences and mines protecting them,
could attack. Moshe Dayan planned to use three similarly powerful spearheads in order to
get through this position, with each instructed not to spend time reducing enemy positions,
and to instead concentrate on making a breakthrough somewhere, before converging at a place called
the ‘Crossroads’, 3 miles west of the salient.
While fighting in the remainder of the Sinai continued, Dayan waited to launch his three-pronged
assault in the north until the Egyptians were distracted by other military considerations.
At 8PM on October 31st - thirteen hours after Egypt had rejected the allies’ ultimatum
to withdraw from the canal zone - ordinance dropped from RAF Canberra bombers started
hammering airfields and bases - eight in the canal zone and four in the Nile Delta5 - at
night. With the bombardment of Egypt underway, Dayan’s
northern attack began without much success due to still-intact enemy defences. However,
after infantry cleared several hills with rockets, the 27rd Armoured Brigade’s Super
Shermans and AMX-13s managed to smash through the northern flank after a costly 3 hour fight.
Before the pincers around Rafah could close, Egyptian commander Al-Abd complied with Nasser’s
second directive to withdraw, pulling what remained of the Egyptian 5th Infantry out
of danger and leaving the Israeli success incomplete. As the infantry mopped up, flying
columns of the 27th pushed quickly west towards al-Arish. After being stalled for a few hours
at the narrow Jeradi Pass, Bar Lev’s troops managed to break through, but Egyptian artillery
fire forced them to halt at twilight on the 1st of November.
By this time, Nasser’s armies were withdrawing wholesale from the Sinai Peninsula. Those
pulling back from Rafah were joined by units from the ‘hedgehog’, whose defenders had
to flee through the desert and fell victim to the environment in their retreat. Israeli
success in the north severed Gaza from Egypt, and Moshe Dayan, who considered the strip
to be a ‘bridgehead’ for Egyptian assaults on his state, commanded the 11th Infantry
and 37th Armoured to first secure Gaza City, and then Khan Yunus. After a 58 hour campaign,
Gaza was conquered. Far to the south, Israel’s main priority
in Operation Kadesh was to reopen the Straits of Tiran by securing dominance on the Gulf
of Aqaba coast and capturing Sharm el Sheikh. Since the beginning of the operation, the
9th Infantry Brigade had been ordered to remain at Ras al-Naqab, as Moshe Dayan feared Egyptian
air attacks would obliterate them in the open. Sharon’s 202nd pivoted south along the Gulf
of Suez to open a second front, while the 9th Infantry advanced in tandem. After retreating
all the way to Sharm el-Sheikh, Egyptian commander Zaki was hit by ground forces behind a withering
screen of airstrikes and surrendered at 9:30am on November 5th. Operation Kadesh had finished,
but Musketeer had barely even begun.
West from the land theatre in Sinai, the allies were intensifying their bombardment campaign
in hopes of destroying the Egyptian air force, in order to gain aerial supremacy before a
land invasion began. As the sun appeared over the horizon on the morning of November 1st,
carrier-based Seahawks, Sea Venoms, and Corsairs joined Cyprus-based F-87F Thunderstreaks in
strafing and bombing Egyptian planes which had not already been evacuated elsewhere.
By the end of the day, 200 of Nasser’s aircraft had been destroyed.
With aerial supremacy secured, the allies wanted to destroy enemy morale by attacking
refineries and petroleum installations, but worries about retribution against British
oil interests in Iraq made this a non-starter. Instead, a watered-down ‘aero-psychological’
campaign began with the bombing of Radio Cairo’s headquarters and the destruction of its transmitter,
while elsewhere aircrew balked at having to drop propaganda leaflets over Egyptian cities.
When push came to shove, limitations and fear of civilian casualties rendered these morale
attacks a useless sideshow compared to larger military concerns.
At the same time, preparations for phase III began, with multi-purpose fighters switching
to tactical and operational targets, such as armour and trucks capable of reinforcing
the canal zone, infrastructure on which they could travel, and vehicle concentrations in
the area. With the coast fully clear, boots were now
ready to set foot on Egyptian soil in the form of Anglo-French parachutists, who were
given the objective of securing valuable points in the canal zone before UN talks, resuming
on the 5th, could call a halt to operations. After taking off from Nicosia at 4:15AM on
that day, the 3rd Parachute Battalion Group began their airdrop over a designated area
5 miles west of Port Said. Within an hour of landing they had captured Gamil, before
beginning their advance on Port Said itself. 10 miles southeast, minimal Egyptian resistance
allowed focused French parachutists to easily seize Raswa, which contained crucial waterworks
for the port. Allied air superiority allowed French commanders to circle about the battlefield
in an airborne command post, allowing effective integration of air support. Subsequent offensives
also managed to eliminate all Egyptian resistance in Port Fuad by late afternoon on the 5th
of November. At about the same time, the commander of Port
Said - Brigadier Salaheddin Moguy, requested negotiations after repelling an attack by
parachutists. But after around four hours - at about 9:30PM - he rejected all terms,
by which time the allied armada was offshore and ready to initiate landings. Before dawn
on the 6th, attack aircraft strafed Port Said and allied destroyers shelled it, forcing
Egyptian soldiers to abandon their defensive positions and flee inland.
When 7AM came, men of 40 and 42 commando made landfall and began to immediately use blitzkrieg
tactics to thrust straight for strategic objectives inland. After gaining this beachhead, the
amphibious assault troops were continuously reinforced, for the first time in history
by helicopters operating from carriers Ocean and Theseus. Egyptian resistance was fierce,
but the disembarkation of Centurion tanks gradually rooted them out of bases in such
buildings as the Customs House and Navy House. While resistance in Port Said still slowed
down operations, a column a paratroopers reinforced by Centurion tanks began a swift advance inland
advance towards Al-Qantarah; they had been informed of the upcoming ceasefire and wanted
to get as far as they could. However, the darkness of night, a cratered road, and confusion
between various mixed units executing the unplanned operation, prevented much progress.
Instead, by 2AM on the 7th they were entrenching in darkness near al-Cap, a canal station four
miles north of al-Qantarah. Once the Egyptian forces in the city realised
that the British were so close, they set up their own blocking positions half a mile away
from the enemy’s front line. For five days after, the British troops suffered small-arms
fire and the threat of a full-scale attack during the ceasefire.
On the 5th of November the United Nations Emergency Force, or UNEF, was created in order
to provide a neutral peacekeeping unit to replace the occupying forces. Danish, Norwegian
and Colombian troops would replace the entrenched Anglo-French throughout the ceasefire. The
war was effectively over - US and Soviet pressure had forced an Anglo-French withdrawal from
Egypt, and an Israeli retreat from the Sinai Peninsula.
We are planning to cover more modern conflicts both on Kings and Generals and our second
channel The Cold War – the link to which you can find in the description or in the
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This is the Kings and Generals channel, and we will catch you on the next one.