Suez

Abstract

At the beginning of 1952 the already bad Anglo-Egyptian relations deteriorated further. The British military commander declared his intention to disarm and expel the Egyptian military police located in Ismailia. This led to fighting in which three Britons and forty Egyptians were killed. On 26 January great riots occurred in Cairo, where large numbers of business premises were destroyed. Churchill later told the Cabinet that there were 70 000 troops in the Canal Zone,¹ and so the British could hold the military situation; but nobody could hold the political situation in Egypt. A succession of brief governments followed, but on 23 July radical political changes were inaugurated by a group of younger officers, headed by General Mohammad Neguib, who seized key points in Cairo. This was hardly a ‘military coup’ in the ordinary sense of the term, for those officers were by no means part of the traditional Egyptian military ‘establishment’. Three days later King Farouk was forced to abdicate, and his infant son was proclaimed King Fuad II. A year later the country was formally constituted a Republic.