Suez Crisis🌺 Flashcards
Causes…
Colonel Nasser, Egypt’s leader, had good relations with the USSR, and allies put him to heel in July 1956 by refusing to give their loan for Aswan Dam. He turned to the USSR for finance and to nationalise the Suez Canal, owned by an Anglo-French company, to make more money from passing ships.
Events…
This gave Allies an excuse to topple him. Britain and France saw a threat to their colonial influence, while Israel saw them as a threat to their new state, and wanted control of more territory, the Sinai Peninsula. On 16 October 1956, they created a plan for invading, with Israeli troops invading through the Sinai, leading to the British and French sending 80,000 under the 1954 Anglo-Egyptian Agreement. When Israel attacked on 29 Oct, they ordered both sides remove troops, and when Nasser refused, they bombed airfields on 31 Oct.
Results…
The US criticised this in the UN, with Eisenhower refusing to help their attempts to defend their disintegrating empires, being in the middle of his election. On 6 November, Eisenhower stopped fighting. The USA-USSR peacekeeping operation was suggested by Khrushchev under uN control and they threatened to send troops anyway. They had to align with the USSR and Arab nationalism.
On 5 November, Khrushchev warned nuclear missile attacks if the war wasn’t stopped. Financial pressure ended the fighting, but ceasefire the following day made it look as if Khrushchev was responsible.
