Suez: Britain's End of Empire in the Middle East

by Keith Kyle, William Roger Louis

This title includes a new Foreword by WM. Roger Louis. On 26 July 1956, the British Empire received a blow from which it would never recover. On this day, Egypt's President Gamal Abdul Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal Company, one of the gems of Britain's imperial portfolio. It was to be a fateful day for Britain as a world power. Britain, France and Israel subsequently colluded in attacking Egypt, ostensibly - in the case of Britain and France - to protect the Suez Canal but in reality in an attempt to depose Nasser. The US opposition to this scheme forced an ignominious withdrawal, leaving Nasser triumphant and marking a decisive end to Britain's imperial era. In this, the seminal work on the Suez Crisis, Keith Kyle draws on a wealth of documentary evidence to tell this fascinating political, military and diplomatic story. Including new introductory material, this revised edition of a classic work will be essential reading for anyone interested in the history of the twentieth century, military history and the end of empire.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Middle East, Egypt, Politics, British Literature

712 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 1991

About the author

Keith Kyle was a British writer, broadcaster and historian.

Reviews

[Christopher Saunders · Rating 5 out of 5]

Keith Kyle's Suez: Britain's End of Empire in the Middle East will likely stand for decades as the definitive account of the mad imperial folly of November 1956, when Britain, France and Israel teamed up to reclaim the Suez Canal from Gamal Abdul Nasser's Egypt, shattering their empires and political systems in the process. Kyle's book contains an overwhelming abundance of detail: it seems like no source, primary or secondary, remains uncited, and admittedly it occasionally makes for dry reading. It's well worth plugging through the book's rougher patches, however, because no other single-volume account analyzes the Crisis from so many perspectives.

Whereas most English-language accounts, naturally enough, focus on either Britain or America's role in the Crisis, Kyle painstakingly reconstructs the thought processes, actions and consequences of everyone involved. Kyle's image of Anthony Eden, obsessively plotting to "knock Nasser off his perch" in a fit of imperial pique and chasing fascist phantasms, is familiar enough, yet there are nuanced shades to Kyle's overall portrait of Britain's non-united response. Eden's cabinet, members of Parliament, the press and the people vacillated between seeing Nasser as a "latter-day Hitler" who needed punished, a threat to the British Empire's oil sources and remaining strongholds in the Middle East, and finding Eden's handling of the crisis bizarrely impulsive yet devious at once. Britons might have been sold on a righteous crusade against a frightful imperialist, but many found a squabble over pride and shipping rights harder to stomach. Even many hawks found themselves disgusted by Eden's launching an invasion that scored early success, only to stop it at the last moment.

Kyle also sketches Nasser, whose visions of a secular, modernized Egypt clashed with ideas of western hegemony, and whose messianic dreams of a pan-Arab state became fodder for comparisons to fascism. And France's Guy Mollet, a vacillating socialist convinced (despite little or no evidence) that Nasser backed the FLN in Algeria and nourishing a relationship with Israel, who in turn viewed fedayeen border raids from Egypt and Jordan an intolerable threat. Thus these three powers cooked up a bizarre, improbable conspiracy: Israel would attack Egypt, Britain and France would retake the Canal while posing as peacekeepers. This bit of legerdemain is so hamfisted it's impossible to see how anyone involved thought it would work; certainly the British and French should have anticipated that the United Nations wouldn't go along with it.

I would be remiss if I didn't identify reservations with Kyle's analyses. His comments on the Arab-Israeli conflict occasionally betray a sympathy for the former over the latter, though rarely to a crippling degree. He repeatedly hints that Eden's erratic behavior was not merely caused by a chronic illness, drug use and stress, but an inherited mental condition; there's not enough factual basis for this implication to land. His weakest, least convincing arguments involve Eisenhower and the United States, taking their anti-imperialist rhetoric at face value. Other readers may wonder whether Ike and John Foster Dulles feared the conflict escalating into war with the Soviets more than unreliable allies, or planned to supplant British hegemony in the Middle East with American dominance (as in fact happened, almost immediately afterwards).

Despite these minor shortcomings, Kyle sells not only the dizzying, convoluted events of the Crisis itself, but its toxic fallout. America implemented the Eisenhower Doctrine, assuring their lasting presence in the Middle East with all the consequences that has entailed. France's government was further destabilized, triggering De Gaulle's return to power, the death of French Algeria and an Anglo-French relationship strained to the breaking point. Nasser remained in power, emboldened despite his military setbacks to continue antagonizing Israel and the West, launching another launch another, far more disastrous war against Israel ten years later.

As for England: Eden resigned a few months afterwards, being replaced by Harold MacMillan, far more attuned to the new reality of the "special relationship" with the United States. Britain's client states in the Middle East rejected their rulers (Iraq, Yemen) or turned to America instead (Jordan). And the British learned that the gunboat tactics which earned them Egypt in the first place, appropriate and unchallenged in 1882, were a dead letter in 1956. So another Empire perished, replaced by another stronger, craftier and better attuned to the rhetoric of postwar power struggles.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 4 out of 5]

[I nearly lost my review because of GR glitches so this review was saved, but not finished, this is the complete review]

This is a difficult book to review because it is in many respects, 'magisterial', and I must be honest that I've read chunks of it but not by any means all of its near 600 pages of text (there are another 200 of notes and bibliography). But it was originally written back in the 1980s and like any history book it emerges from its time. That does not mean it should not be read, or is inaccurate or biased - I could not recommend another single volume on Suez for an interested reader - but I would say that anyone under the age of, probably, fifty and certainly anyone in their twenties/thirties would do better to read:

'The World After the War: America Confronts the British Superpower, 1945–1957' by Derek Leebaert

'A Line in the Sand: Britain, France and the Struggle that Shaped the Middle East' by James Barr

'Fight or flight: Britain, France, and their Roads from Empire' by Martin Thomas

'Blood and Sand: Suez, Hungary, and Eisenhower's Campaign for Peace' by Alex von Tunzelmann

If the final book raises any eyebrows it is because Keith Kyle's book looks not simply at the 'Suez Crisis' but a whole host events concurrent with it and it is particularly in relation to them that books age is most apparent.

Although I award the book four stars - I must admit that I found most annoying the 'tone' the author while finding the actions of Eden and others during Suez duplicitous doesn't seem to find it odd that Britain should interfere in other countries in pursuant of its own 'aims' and 'needs'. Keith Kyle was a journalist during Suez and like many older English men, even liberal ones, he is a product of the imperial mindset. He doesn't really grasp, or certainly doesn't appear to grasp that Suez was not wrong because Eden lied to parliament or the USA etc. - it was wrong and horrendous because Britain had no business interfering in the affairs of Egypt or anywhere else. Eden and everyone else involved in France and Isareal should have been tried as criminals for waging aggressive war - just like the Nazis at Nuremberg. Britain had no business in Egypt then she had in my home country of Ireland. The complete arrogant stupidity and moral bankruptcy the Suez affair revealed at the heart of British politics was staggering - that so little was learnt from it is shocking. Swap the names Eden and Putin and Egypt and Ukraine and the reality behind the whole bloody affair - 26 British and French troops killed against a probably body count of 3,000 for the Egyptians - any apologies, or compensation? No.

[Francisco · Rating 4 out of 5]

An authoritative and exhaustive account of the Suez crisis. Great effort is expended in detailing the particularities of diplomacy, with a strong focus on British politics and decision-making. Insight is also given to French, American, Egyptian and Israeli internal policy making processes and diplomacy. However, perhaps a bit more of an Egyptian perspective would be appreciated. All in all an excellent one-volume read for anyone wishing to understand the single most important post-war event of the realization that Britain was no longer a world power.

[Eric Grounds · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very detailed but rather readable. A valuable reference for anyone writing about the 1950s

[D.A. Holdsworth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Warning: this book is detailed!

If you're looking for the full fat, blow-by-blow account of the Suez crisis - the long run-up, the thing itself and the aftermath - then get this book. But if you're looking for a sweeping narrative, where the detail has been pre-digested, then avoid this book like it's got a radiation warning on the cover 🫨 (You're honestly better off going to the wiki page on Suez (which is pretty awesome actually).)

Keith Kyle is the historian's historian. That's how the book won some serious plaudits from some serious people. Kyle was around at the time of the crisis, he's spoken to the people involved, he's burrowed into the archives, and he hung around long enough to scoop up the declassified information too. The proper historians (i.e. not me) love him for that and quite right too. I'm well aware that that the big sweeping histories that I prefer depend on these detailed, comprehensive accounts.

Because, boy, is this book comprehensive.

As I waded through the long, tortured sentences and the somnific paragraphs (each one 15 lines long - what's that all about?), there was one image that kept coming back to me. I was in a river, the water up to my chin, and the facts were coming downstream at me like flotsam and jetsam - logs and refuse bouncing and barrelling past me in one endless, undifferentiated stream. The absolute worst of it was this: a seriously significant moment might pass unnoticed and I only realised its importance, say, 20 pages later. But by then it was too late. The log had bounced away downstream and I had no chance of finding it again in the river of words and facts. I was left wondering what the Hell I was doing there - committing all this time to a book and still not getting a clear handle on the main narrative, the key causes and effects.

Hey-ho, that probably says more about me (and my attention span) than about this book. I'll give myself a modest three stars ;)

[Greg Shantz · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very dry and English.

[شريف لطفي · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent read

[Safaa Nasser · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite objecting to some parts of it, I think it is a very good book to read to get an objective relay of the various perspective of that historical period. Recommended.

[Keith Schnell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Keith Kyle's Suez is a comprehensive and detailed examination of the entire Suez crisis that may only be eclipsed as additional documentation is declassified, giving future historians information that he did not have access to. Even given such eventual disclosures, and barring some insane revalation, this will remain a fundimental text on the subject. Kyle focuses heavily on the diplomatic and political maneuvering that led up to the most acute phase of the crisis, and for the most part shows a thorough understanding of the key players' motives and decision-making processes. He tends to give Dwight Eisenhower little credit, however, and seems reluctant to delve into the effect of Anthony Eden's health and drug use on his actions, perhaps considering such matters to be speculation and so beneath a serious historian.

Readers should be aware that this is not a page-turner, nor a personality-driven popular history or introduction to the subject. Suez is dense. It took me over a year to finish reading. But, unless you're literally writing a doctoral thesis, this is probably the only book you'll ever need to read to understand the subject.

[Raymond Thomas · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really engaging and vivid depiction of exactly was going on in the British government during the build up to, and during, the Suez Crisis. The book offers unique insight into the machinations of the Eden government and the secrecy with which they handled preparations to overthrow Nasser. Also illuminates much of the dealings between the American and British governments with regard to the UN resolutions on the crisis and afterward.

[Ahmed Assem · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just amazing.