Suez Crisis :: Papers

Suez Crisis Anthony Eden was Prime Minister at the time of the Suez Crisis in 1956. His political career began in 1923 and by 1926 he had become a parliamentary private secretary at the Foreign Office. He was very involved with the League of Nations, believing in their principles and at the age of 38, became Foreign Secretary. At this time international affairs were seen as being aggressive and Anthony Eden was forced to resign from Neville Chamberlain's Government over his policy of appeasement. He joined the Government during World War Two and became Secretary of State for war under Churchill. After the war times were very difficult with the Cold War at its peak and trouble in the Middle East. Colonel Nasser became dictator of Egypt in 1954 after leading a successful revolution against King Farouk. British troops left Egypt for the first time since 1882, and as soon as they had gone, Nasser declared the Suez Canal to be the property of the Egyptian Government. The Suez Canal was a vital shipping route for oil being brought to Britain. Eden wrongly saw Colonel Nasser as the next Hitler and was determined to make a stand against him. "Nasser has a finger on our wind pipe", he remarked. Nasser was going to be taught a lesson. Nasser was seen as a nationalist who was determined to rid Egypt of foreign influence and make Egypt the Arab world's leading state. He had tried to buy arms from the West but eventually had to buy them from Czechoslovakia and western powers were concerned that Nasser was leading Egypt towards communism. His seizure of the Suez Canal was justified in his mind by the refusal of Britain and US to finance his ambitious project to build the Aswan Dam across the Nile. In Source A, Eden says Nasser is "not a man who can be trusted", and also "we all know this is how dictators behave and we all remember the cost of giving in to Hitler". This shows that Eden cannot help