ABSTRACT
This chapter explains Suez Canal from its construction in 1869 occupied an essential position in the British imperial system, linking the Mediterranean with the Red Sea. Washington urged the Churchill government to conclude a new Anglo-Egyptian Treaty in October 1954 which looked forward to British military evacuation from the Canal Zone by June 1956. In 1956 the Anglo-French military expedition to overthrow Egyptian President Nasser, and denationalise the Suez Canal, was stopped dead in its tracks by American pressure. Western hopes for improved Egyptian-Israeli relations had been crippled in February 1955 when Israeli troops attacked an Egyptian military camp in Gaza. In September 1955, Nasser completed an arms deal with Czechoslovakia satellite and increasingly projected Egypt as an alternative leader to Britain and the United States in the Arab world. The aftermath of Suez is central to Louis and Robinson's Anglo-American interpretation of decolonisation: British imperial policy and American Cold War policy symbolically collided at Suez in 1956.
