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Suez 24 Hours That Broke the British Empire S01E01 H 264
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00:23The 6th of November 1956.
00:28Elite British paratroopers have landed in Port Said.
00:34They're fighting to take back control of the Suez Canal from Egypt.
00:38The Suez Canal is the most important strategic asset in the world.
00:43Nobody knows it yet, but Britain is at a turning point.
00:47This is a big moment which is going to help define not just Britain, but the future shape of the
00:53world.
00:54In the next 24 hours, Britain's military intervention in Egypt will plunge the world into a crisis.
01:01They were absolutely terrified that what was happening here was World War III.
01:06And see Prime Minister Antony Eden humiliated on the world stage.
01:12This is without doubt the worst 24 hours of Antony Eden's life.
01:17Eden wanted to start a war. He just didn't want anyone to know about it.
01:22Told through the eyes of historians.
01:24Really quite tricky.
01:25And those at the heart of government.
01:27Gotcha.
01:27This is the inside story of the final day of the Suez Crisis.
01:31Team take one.
01:32Oh.
01:33Exactly as it happened.
01:36Hour by hour.
01:37Minute by minute.
01:3824 hours that changes Britain forever.
01:42The old order was gone.
01:44The age of empires was finished.
01:48It's a story that still resonates today.
01:50Redefining our global status.
01:53It's a seminal turning point.
01:55Nothing will ever be the same again.
01:58There's no going back from this.
01:59And casting a shadow over current political power struggles.
02:04The Suez Crisis is existential for Britain.
02:07Because it reveals that Britain is no longer a power able to exercise its influence around the world.
02:34It's just after midnight.
02:36The beginning of 24 hours that will redefine Britain's future.
02:41British troops have been fighting in Egypt for less than a day.
02:45When a message arrives at 10 Downing Street.
02:49British Prime Minister Antony Eden is hauled out of bed to read a message from Moscow.
02:57The letter was secretly drafted by Nikita Khrushchev, the most powerful man in the Soviet Union.
03:07Under the name of Nikolai Borganan, the Premier.
03:11Except it's not just a message.
03:13It's a threat.
03:19It's said that the Anglo-French aggression in Egypt was a restoration of colonial slavery and an act against the
03:26Arab people.
03:31Russia is threatening to use nuclear weapons against Britain.
03:39If you're in government and somebody's squaring up to you like this, it's terrifying.
03:43You're being bullied.
03:45But you're being bullied by somebody with a nuclear weapon.
03:47And the risk that you're taking when you're standing up to them is beyond imagining.
03:54So why are British troops fighting in Egypt?
04:05Anthony Eden says it's to stop a war between Israel and Egypt that threatens the Suez Canal.
04:13The Suez Canal was effectively a marvel of engineering.
04:19It's a 120-mile piece of infrastructure that connects the Mediterranean to the Red Sea and allows for shipping routes
04:30between Europe and Asia to flow freely.
04:35Rather than having to go around the Cape of Africa, they could just go straight through the Suez Canal and
04:41effectively half the time that it took to actually make that journey.
04:46It was built in 1869 by Ferdinand de Lesseps.
04:51It was absolutely essential to the British economy.
04:54And when oil became the global mainstay of power, the canal suddenly became even more important because that was the
05:03vein through which this black blood could flow.
05:08There was a kind of confusion around who owned the canal.
05:12The physical structure of the canal had been Egyptian since the beginning.
05:16And Britain owned 44% of the shares in the Suez Canal Company, which ran the canal.
05:24Britain did think that they owned the canal.
05:27I mean, to some extent, I think Britain thought that they owned Egypt.
05:30The canal is so important to the British economy that 80,000 troops are stationed in the canal zone to
05:37protect it.
05:39British troops were certainly not popular in Egypt.
05:41They were a symbol of colonial authority and power and an occupying force.
05:50Britain hadn't wanted to colonize Egypt, to formally turn it into a colony of the Empire or Dominion, because it
05:57just wanted really to secure the Suez Canal.
06:02There was a strong element of Orientalism in the way that the British viewed the Egyptians.
06:08They saw them as inferior, unruly, in need of civilization.
06:13It was an utter offense to any self-regarding Egyptian.
06:18What is this country doing controlling an asset and creaming the profits off that asset, which is everything to do
06:29with Egypt?
06:40But in 1952, Egypt is changing.
06:44From Cairo come these first authentic pictures of the bloodless coup by which the army took over control of Egypt.
06:50It was the end of the king's attempt to maintain power.
06:52In July 1952, a group of Egyptian army officers, the so-called free officers, mounted a military coup in which
07:03King Farouk was unceremoniously ditched.
07:07Meantime, from Alexandria, the royal yacht Maroussa sails with the ex-king for Capri.
07:13What a change will mean to the rest of the world, we have yet to see.
07:19They got rid of the king, who was widely regarded as a British puppet, and declared Egypt a republic.
07:30The architect of the revolution is 36-year-old colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser.
07:40He had come from an unpretentious, ordinary background, and risen up really by talent.
07:45And he was a very impressive man, who's often described as having film-style looks.
07:51He was very young to be a leader of a country, but he was an incredibly charismatic leader.
07:58He was regarded as a son of the land.
08:03And his leadership very much reflected that.
08:06It was, I'm an Egyptian like you, I'm ready to die for Egypt like you.
08:19One of Nasser's main priorities was to get British troops out of Egypt.
08:31He said, we don't dislike the British, we just don't like the presence of British troops in our country.
08:37If you remove those troops, a great friendship will exist between us.
08:43Eden, unlike a lot of others in the Tory party, recognizes somebody that is a new type of Egyptian leader.
08:52Somebody that wants to modernize and see his nation progress in the world.
08:56And Eden's instinct is to work with him.
09:00At long last, agreement has been reached.
09:02The main clause of the agreement states that all our troops will have left Egypt within 20 months.
09:07The pact has put Colonel Nasser in an even more powerful position.
09:11The final agreement to withdraw British troops from the Canal Zone was signed in 1954,
09:17and said that all British troops will be withdrawn by the 18th of June, 1956.
09:29It was a diplomatic triumph, and further evidence that Nasser really was the hero of Egyptians,
09:37who was going to expel foreign rule from Egypt once and for all.
09:45After the British troops withdraw, the British presence in Egypt is effectively just civilian,
09:51and so the Suez Canal is going to be run by a combination of British and Egyptian engineers, officials,
09:57but there's no longer any military presence.
10:00The Suez Canal is still vitally important to Britain's economy,
10:04so they put a clause into the Troop Withdrawal Agreement.
10:09This clause said that in the event of an attack by an outside power on Egypt,
10:16Britain could remilitarize the Suez Canal Zone.
10:20It could bring its troops back in.
10:30The clause made perfect sense at the time, but two years later, on the 6th of November, 1956,
10:38it has paved the way for a global crisis and a countdown to nuclear war.
10:49France, a co-owner of the Suez Canal Company, and Britain's ally in the fight to stop the war between
10:55Egypt and Israel,
10:57has also received threats from the Soviets.
11:09At 3am, in Paris, the tension is mounting.
11:13The French Prime Minister Guy Mollet summoned the American ambassador, Douglas Dillon,
11:18and he handed him these news sheets from TASS, the Soviet press agency,
11:21reiterating this threat of a potential nuclear attack on Britain and France.
11:29In some ways, it's more terrifying for the French. They don't possess their own nuclear deterrent.
11:33They are completely at the mercy of a potential attack from Russia.
11:39Mollet was really spooked by this.
11:41He was saying, what happens if there's a direct attack from the Soviet Union on France?
11:46Is Eisenhower going to defend us?
11:47And Dillon said, well, of course, the American president will respond to a direct attack on France.
11:52But Mollet was so unsure that he actually wanted him to call Washington and really confirm this.
11:57And Dillon had to say, well, it's the middle of the night in Washington.
11:59Eisenhower's going to be asleep, so I'm not going to do that.
12:06That night from the 5th to the 6th of November, 1956, I don't think anyone in London or Paris got
12:11a whole lot of sleep.
12:13Guy Mollet was at his desk when a phone call came through from Anthony Eden in London.
12:19And Eden said he could only really keep the military operation going for maybe another 24 hours at most.
12:25Despite the threats from the Soviets, Guy Mollet urges Eden to continue their mission to protect the Suez Canal.
12:34Guy Mollet and the French wanted to carry on and get this done.
12:38It was very frustrating for Mollet to hear that Eden was losing his mettle.
12:49Anthony Eden's day has barely begun and already he's facing a brutal choice.
12:55Stop the mission and endanger the Suez Canal or press on and face catastrophe.
13:02This could have meant the beginning of a nuclear war.
13:26This could have meant the beginning of a nuclear war.
13:30And Britain's future.
13:33Anglo-French paratroopers are fighting to reach the Suez Canal.
13:40But at 5.30am, Eden receives intelligence that the Soviets are posing a far more immediate threat.
13:50The message is a terrifying one, that there's a possibility that Russians could intervene on the battlefield.
13:57There was real concern that the Soviet Union would get directly involved.
14:03And that could well be in the form of Soviet boots on the ground somewhere in the Middle East.
14:11The test for Eden, as for anyone standing up to a superpower, is how on earth do you put your
14:18morality, your national interests and then just practical calculations of what's possible together.
14:23And you have to remember that the number one thing that concerned him was, of course, the Third World War.
14:37Meanwhile, in Egypt, the military operation to secure the Suez Canal is intensifying.
14:45At 10 to 6, British gunships open fire on Port Said.
15:01At 6.15am, you have fighter jets strafing the beach, wiping out any remaining defences.
15:15Then, Royal Marine Commandos storm the beach in their amphibious vehicles.
15:40At 9.45am in the morning, on the 6th of November, 1956, Eden caused an emergency cabinet meeting.
15:48The atmosphere in the cabinet room must have been incredibly tense.
15:51You have a threat to the EU.
15:52If your country is threatened with nuclear attack from another country that you know has nuclear warheads, that's going to
15:59cause a level of panic.
16:03Some of them thought that threat was probably a bluff.
16:06But do you want to be the guy who didn't take it seriously if a British city gets wiped out?
16:13when you get extreme threats such as you see sometimes from putin different people respond
16:19differently i remember being invited by ukraine before the invasion to their annual celebration
16:26of independence and the foreign office advised me not to go because they thought i might
16:29provoke putin but in my understanding that was not going to provoke putin he'd already invaded
16:35in 2014 so some people are much more worried about upsetting somebody and and often the defense joke
16:41of the foreign office is in trying to not upset anyone the foreign office usually upsets everyone
16:48eden is carrying an enormous amount on his shoulders
16:53and the risk of the soviet union nuclear weapons and third world war means that the entire world
16:58could be destroyed around him that's not a very pretty place to be as prime minister
17:05eden was under an extraordinary amount of pressure here
17:10he was under pressure from the soviets threatening a possible nuclear attack and at the same time
17:16guy mole his ally was really trying to persuade him not to stop and to go on there was no
17:21way to hold
17:22out against the combined muscle of all of these forces the crisis in egypt didn't explode out of thin air
17:29it was seeded two years earlier in cold war power struggles
17:48when nasa becomes egypt's leader in 1954 his mission is to drag his country into the 20th century
17:56egypt was pretty poor i mean he had two-thirds of the population living in quite harsh rural conditions
18:07nasa thought his country had really fallen behind economically and for egypt to move forward
18:12he knew it needed to modernize and industrialize
18:17central to nasa's plan is building a dam across the nile called the aswan dam
18:24the aswan dam would control the flooding of the nile but perhaps more important was the hydroelectric
18:32potential of the aswan dam which could go on to provide electricity to millions of egyptians
18:39that hadn't previously had access to electricity
18:43but it was a very very ambitious project it would cost about 1.3 billion us dollars at that time
18:50which was
18:50an absolutely enormous sum and although the americans and british weren't especially keen on this
18:56project what made them interested is that there was a suggestion that the soviets might fund it
19:01now that would extend soviet influence in the middle east potentially threaten the canal threaten
19:06their oil supply all of this kind of stuff that was intolerable so at that point britain and the us
19:12became more open to the idea of funding a dam but before construction could begin the financing runs into
19:22a major setback on the 19th of july emid hussein the egyptian ambassador went to see john foster
19:30dallas the secretary of state and this controversial subject of the dam came up and hussein said
19:36don't say you're going to cut off funding to the dam because i have the soviet offer to finance it
19:41right here and dallas said well since you have funding you don't need ours anymore so we're cutting it off
19:47right now as far as nasa was concerned it was a humiliation the us in particular but the uk as
19:58well
19:58had strung him along and then they turn around at the last minute and say no so he really saw
20:03it as an
20:04attempt to control egypt and put it in its place
20:12nasa wasn't going to give up on his plans to fund the uswan dam he would just find a different
20:18way
20:18to fund the project
20:23the plan nasa comes up with turns the financial setback into a bold political gesture
20:31it's an expression of the kind of leader that he was he was brave and he was a risk taker
20:37and he was
20:38somebody who really cared about egypt's future but nasa's actions will have far-reaching and bloody
20:48consequences nasa makes a plan to strike at this beacon of imperialism in his country the big symbol
20:57of british empire and that symbol is the canal
21:05so
21:28It's 10.30 a.m. on the 6th of November 1956.
21:33As British and French troops advance on the Suez Canal, Antony Eden and his cabinet discussed
21:39the growing threat from the Soviets.
21:42By 1956, the Cold War is still pretty much in the freezer section.
21:48East and West, the Soviet bloc, the US-led Western bloc, are looking at one another in
21:53deeply suspicious, mistrustful terms.
21:56And of course, the Cold War contains within itself the seeds of a hot war.
22:01Whenever there is a local crisis somewhere in the developing world, the Cold War has
22:06that potentiality to go hot and to go nuclear hot.
22:12Any prime minister, including Antony Eden, has to have a very confident, optimistic view
22:17of their country.
22:18But they also have to be realistic.
22:20You can get a glimpse of this when you see people dealing with Donald Trump.
22:24My goodness.
22:25You want to be idealistic.
22:26You want to stand up for the right thing.
22:28But you're also aware that this is a man who has the largest economy in the world, who
22:32has nuclear weapons.
22:33And the consequences for your own country could be completely catastrophic.
22:39The Suez Crisis wasn't born in Downing Street.
22:52It began three months earlier with an act of defiance by Egypt's president, Gamal Abdel Nasser.
23:03On the 26th of July, 1956, Nasser is preparing to give a speech to his people.
23:10It's a speech that will go down as a pivotal moment in Egyptian history.
23:18But all is not as it seems.
23:39Nasser is driven to Alexandria.
23:42And he's greeted by huge crowds.
23:58Mancheah Square was packed with about a quarter of a million people, an absolutely enormous
24:04crowd who turned out to hear him speak.
24:07And it was also broadcast on Voice of the Arabs, his radio station.
24:24Nasser begins his speech really highlighting the humiliation that Egypt has historically endured
24:31as a result of the British-Egyptian relationship.
24:40As he's giving his speech, Egyptian troops are stationed outside the Suez Canal Company.
24:55When Nasser is speaking to the Egyptian people, he's telling them to raise their heads and
25:00be proud that they are Egyptian.
25:04And then he started talking about Ferdinand de Lesseps, who had built the Suez Canal in the
25:1219th century.
25:14And then he started repeating it, de Lesseps, de Lesseps, de Lesseps.
25:20And people weren't quite sure what was going on, but the reason is that was a signal.
25:24Ferdinand de Lesseps.
25:40The Lesseps is a co-word.
25:43And for Egyptian troops, that's the moment to enter and take control.
25:49Egyptian officers stormed the officers of the Suez Canal Company and drove the British
25:55out, took it for Egypt.
25:59When Nasser learns that his troops have successfully taken control of the Suez Canal Company, he
26:04tells the crowd in Manchea Square.
26:06He was able to announce, tonight I can tell you that this canal, this Egyptian canal, will
26:12be run from now on by us, by Egyptians.
26:21This was such an important nationalistic moment that there was a huge celebration, a massive
26:27party broke out.
26:31Fireworks were set off, people were celebrating, singing, chanting, crying.
26:40Egyptian people wholeheartedly identified with their president.
26:50There's always been this promise that Egypt could control its own destiny, that one day,
26:55one day the canal might be Egyptian.
26:56But it's happened, it's happened within their lifetimes, it's happened in this moment, and
27:00it's Nasser that's made it happen.
27:05From that moment, he becomes an international symbol of resistance to colonial rule.
27:20Meanwhile, in 10 Downing Street that evening, Antony Eden was actually holding a rather fancy
27:25dinner party for King Faisal II of Iraq, with his old friend Nouri Es Saeed, the Prime Minister
27:30of Iraq, there as well.
27:34I've had dinner in that room in Downing Street.
27:36It's a lovely, intimate room, in which all the most famous people in the world have dined.
27:41And Eden is serving this dinner, formal dinner, and he suddenly hears that Nasser, who he knows
27:49and who he thought he'd developed a relationship with, has physically attacked with troops,
27:54the Suez Canal, and seized it.
27:56It's an incredible moment of humiliation, but he hears it with his friend Nouri Es Saeed,
28:01the Iraqi Prime Minister.
28:03And Nouri Es Saeed is an Arab, and Nouri Es Saeed is advising Eden that the only thing
28:08that Nasser understands is strength and he needs to act.
28:11And of course, I relate to that too, because one of the ways we often went wrong in Iraq and
28:15Afghanistan is when an Iraqi or an Afghan friend told us to do something, we would tend to
28:21believe them, even if subsequently they turned out to be completely wrong.
28:29Eden sees this as complete theft.
28:31It's a personal outrage.
28:33It's a personal insult.
28:35He's the one who negotiated the 1954 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty.
28:38He's the one who agreed to pull British forces out.
28:41He's the one who said it was an act of faith in Egypt.
28:43And here's Nasser breaking that faith.
28:47The distressing thing for Eden is that Nasser's actions are entirely legal.
28:52Nasser didn't steal the Suez Canal Company.
28:55It was Egyptian land.
28:57He compensated the shareholders of the Suez Canal Company exactly as he should.
29:03On the one hand, we will think, OK, what Nasser did was perfectly reasonable.
29:08Everett's nationalizing, he nationalizes, he's paid the shareholders.
29:12But it doesn't feel like that at all to Eden.
29:15It's not just a building he seized.
29:18He seized the jugular throat of Britain.
29:22This is the canal down which everything comes.
29:26It's the most important strategic asset in the world.
29:30It would be insane from Eden's point of view to just let a guy who's cozying up to the Soviet
29:35Union seize that asset.
29:37And for Britain, which still sees itself as a significant global power, not to stand up for its businesses, not
29:43to stand up for its strategic interests.
29:44The Suez Canal is a name familiar to everyone.
29:48Eden's attitude to Nasser changes overnight.
29:51He is determined to take back the Suez Canal.
29:55But convincing the British people to go to war isn't going to be easy.
29:59But this has created a very grave situation.
30:02On the 8th of August, 1956, he broadcasts to the nation.
30:06Our quarrel is not with Egypt.
30:09Still less with the Arab world.
30:11It is with Colonel Nasser.
30:14When he gained power in Egypt, we felt no hostility towards him.
30:18But he has shown that he's not a man who can be trusted to keep an agreement.
30:23But this, I must make play.
30:27We cannot agree that an act of plunder, which threatens the livelihood of many nations, shall be allowed to succeed.
30:40Eden argued that the seizure of the Suez Canal fundamentally threatened British interests.
30:45And that, essentially, Nasser couldn't be trusted with operating this really important strategic waterway.
30:52This is imperial arrogance, plain and simple.
30:56Eden genuinely believed that they could manipulate weaker nations and get them to do what they wanted without consequence.
31:03Do you think it's time we took strong action in the Middle East?
31:06I certainly do.
31:07My own personal opinion is that we've done the right thing.
31:10Well, I think it's time we made a show of force.
31:15The British Empire has been created by endlessly intervening in other people's countries very successfully.
31:21Militarily, it is absolutely the case that the Egyptian army is pretty useless.
31:24And if you move quickly enough, you can seize the Suez Canal, get your paratroopers on the ground.
31:29You know what you're doing, because you've just been fighting in the Second World War.
31:33So, he's not paralysed in the way that we would be today by the sense of, is it all going
31:39to go wrong?
31:40Can we do it?
31:41He has literally only one risk to worry about, and that's the United States.
31:47And that's the one thing that he assumes when push comes to shove isn't going to go wrong,
31:52because who is America going to choose in the end?
31:54Obviously, they're going to choose their allies, right?
32:01Dwight Eisenhower didn't trust Colonel Nassar, but Dwight Eisenhower didn't hate Colonel Nassar.
32:14Britain viewed America in the 1950s as a bit of a sugar daddy.
32:19America would always be there with bags of cash and would not expect much in return.
32:28America shouldn't tell Britain what to do.
32:32America should just keep on writing checks.
32:35It's possible to go on arguing who was the aggressor.
32:39Anthony Eden wants America to back his war,
32:44but Eisenhower is fighting an election,
32:48and American presidents don't get re-elected,
32:52because they sent American boys overseas to die in foreigners' wars.
33:01So, Dwight Eisenhower says no.
33:04We will not support you.
33:08Do not go to war in Egypt.
33:15It is completely flabbergasting for Eden.
33:19This matters to him intensely, emotionally, intellectually.
33:22This is his big project.
33:24This is his big moment, which is going to help define not just Britain's role,
33:30but the future shape of the world.
33:31The UK fought alone at the beginning of the Second World War,
33:35and then was joined by the US.
33:36And they fought as equal partners.
33:40And Britain came out of the Second World War,
33:44permanent member of the Security Council with France,
33:47feeling that they, along with the US and Russia,
33:50were a great global power.
33:53They had a special relationship with the US,
33:55but it was taken for granted that it was more like the relationship
33:58between Batman and Superman.
34:00They had slightly different powers,
34:02but they were sort of equals working together.
34:06Sue is suddenly reveals that isn't the deal at all.
34:08It's Batman and Robin.
34:11And from now onwards, suddenly it's revealed that you're not an independent actor.
34:16You're a sidekick.
34:18And you cannot do anything without the demands of the US.
34:26Without Eisenhower's backing, Eden cannot attack Egypt and take back the Suez Canal.
34:42But then, three months later, everything changes.
34:46After weeks of stalemate, the Suez crisis burst dramatically into the news again,
34:50for Israel has invaded Egypt.
34:52Britain and France have declared the canal in danger.
34:57The pretext for Israel invading Egypt was effectively skirmishes
35:02that had been taking place on the Egyptian-Israeli border.
35:07And the Israeli invasion was very much regarded as an act of war.
35:13The French Prime Minister Guy Mollet went to London for urgent talks about this with Anthony Eden.
35:19And on the 30th of October, at 4.15pm,
35:23Guy Mollet and Anthony Eden issued their ultimatum to Israel and Egypt.
35:27And what this ultimatum said is that both those countries had to stop fighting,
35:32they had to withdraw 10 miles from the canal,
35:35and they had to accept an Anglo-French force to occupy and secure the canal zone.
35:41And what's more, they had to do this within just 12 hours.
35:45Nazar reacted to the ultimatum exactly as you would expect him to react,
35:50which was to absolutely refuse it.
35:52He was not going to be told what to do by Britain and France in his own country.
35:58He will do what it takes to defend Egypt.
36:03Nazar's refusal gives Eden the excuse he needs to send British soldiers back into Egypt
36:09to protect the Suez Canal.
36:11But it is all a cynical pretext.
36:16The whole thing was so underhand and deceitful and outrageous.
36:24Nazar himself could barely believe that it could have happened.
36:44As 11am on the 6th of November, Eden had to go to Parliament because it was the state opening of
36:49Parliament,
36:49a fairly major event in the British parliamentary calendar.
36:56So the Queen was there, arriving in the state coach.
36:59And she, of course, and the Lords had to read out the Queen's speech,
37:03which had been written for her by the government of the day.
37:06My government has been gravely concerned of the outbreak of hostilities between Israel and Egypt.
37:13They resolved in conjunction with the French government to make a quick and decisive intervention
37:19to protect the lives of our nationals and to safeguard the Suez Canal by separating the combatants and restoring peace.
37:29But what she delivers is a pack of lies.
37:33Her government are openly misleading the British people and Parliament about the real truth of what's happening at Suez.
37:40The British people and the British people and the British people and the British people and the British people.
37:55Two weeks earlier, on the 22nd of October, at a villa in a quiet suburb of Paris called Sèvres,
38:04a group of politicians met in secret.
38:09It was a private villa owned by a friend of a government minister.
38:13So this is a very discreet location, and this was worthy of a James Bond sequence.
38:19Among the men gathered in Sèvres are French Premier Guy Mollet and Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion.
38:30At around 4pm, Eden's representative, British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd arrives.
38:38These three countries had assembled their representatives in secret to plan a secret war.
38:45All of them wanted to get rid of Gamal Abdel Nasser.
38:50This is a moment where Eden, but also France and Israel have convinced themselves that this man, Nasser, is an
38:58existential threat.
38:59We hear that a lot.
39:00Israel calls Iran an existential threat.
39:02Hezbollah is an existential threat.
39:04And the problem in politics is you can never really prove whether somebody is or isn't.
39:09You're guessing about the future.
39:13But, of course, once you create these systems, you can create a very elaborate and convincing story
39:19for why this particular man, Nasser, is leading a pro-Soviet, anti-Western nationalist movement
39:26that will completely destroy the position of the West.
39:29And Eden thinks Nasser is the most dangerous thing that he's seen since Hitler.
39:35They all had to really work through the details of this plan in Sevre.
39:40And they were all taking a huge risk because this was being planned in secret.
39:44So this was less of a straightforward planning mission and more of a conspiracy.
39:53The Israelis wanted a cast iron pledge that the UK would come in and destroy Egypt's air force.
40:01If they had the pledge, they would invade Egypt.
40:05The British view is they wanted the invasion of Egypt to happen first, then they would intervene.
40:11Because the British didn't want to be regarded, when history came to tell the story of Suez, as instigators.
40:19They wanted to be seen as responders.
40:23What the French outline is a plan for Israel to attack Egypt,
40:28which would then give a cause for war for Britain and France.
40:32They could point back to that 1954 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty to that clause
40:36that said that Britain could go back and take control if the Suez Canal was ever under threat.
40:41The French are very clever. They pitch it as an idea that's come from the Israelis.
40:46When the French pitch it to the Israelis, they pitch it to them as an idea that's come from Britain.
40:51Israeli Prime Minister David Bangoran records in his diary how it was a British idea that they invade Egypt.
40:59After two days, the men forge a secret plot, the pretext for a war to topple Nasser
41:05and return control of the Suez Canal to Britain.
41:10The plan they came up with was so extraordinary and so foolhardy that actually afterwards lots of people would find
41:18it very difficult to believe it was true.
41:22The plan is, Israel will invade Egypt on the false pretext that Egypt had attacked them first.
41:30Then Britain and France will demand that both sides cease fire and withdraw 10 miles from the Suez Canal.
41:36The conspirators are gambling that Nasser will refuse the ultimatum while Israeli troops are still inside Egypt's borders.
41:44This would then give Britain and France the excuse they need to launch an attack from their military bases in
41:49Cyprus.
41:50They would invade Egypt, topple Nasser and take back control of the Suez Canal, all under the guise of a
41:58peacekeeping mission.
42:01The plan they came up with went under the name of the Protocol of Sevres.
42:05It was a complete piece of deceit from start to finish.
42:08It required Israel to kind of masquerade as this lone aggressor when in fact it was being backed by Britain
42:16and France.
42:20This is dirty international politics at its worst.
42:26Along the way, a lot of innocent people, and they'll be primarily Egyptians, are going to die.
42:33Eden creates this incredibly complicated secret scheme.
42:38And what that tells you is that this is still a moment in world history where international law matters and
42:44where the UN matters.
42:44And where you feel you have to at least pretend that you're following proper legal procedures.
42:50It's not like today where Donald Trump says, I'll have Greenland, and makes literally no legal or moral arguments for
42:56doing it.
42:57Eden thinks that he needs to keep at least a fig leaf, that what he's doing is separating Israel and
43:04Egypt, and that will make it easier with international opinion.
43:08After Selwyn Lloyd had left Sevres, the two British negotiators could hear a typewriter going.
43:14They didn't really know what was going on.
43:16And then the French came out with this document in French that they wanted them to sign.
43:22And they said, this is the Protocol of Sevres. It kind of sets down our whole plan.
43:25And that was quite scary as a moment, because they hadn't been told there would be anything for them to
43:30sign, and it was supposed to be very secret.
43:31So they were thinking, well, should we sign this?
43:35But also they hadn't been told not to sign anything.
43:40So in the end, they signed it, but they said this was pending approval from the British government.
43:59When the British negotiators arrived back in London with their signed copy of the Protocol of Sevres to show it
44:05to Eden, he lost his temper.
44:08Eden tears his hair out. He cannot believe that this is being committed to paper.
44:16This was supposed to be a secret war, and they'd signed this document that was like a smoking gun, saying
44:22exactly what was going on.
44:24Eden wanted to start a war. He just didn't want anyone to know about it.
44:30He immediately ordered that the document be destroyed, and he sent the negotiators straight back on a plane to France
44:37to tell the French and Israelis that they had to destroy their copy too.
44:40Well, they weren't going to do that.
44:43This is Eden's worst nightmare.
44:47He's a man who throughout his life has been principled, diplomatic.
44:51And the one time that he decides to go against all of that because of his own personal hatred, there's
44:59evidence, there's written evidence that might one day come to light.
45:15At around 3pm on the 6th of November, as British and French troops push closer to the Suez Canal, Anthony
45:22Eden telephones French Prime Minister Guy Mollet.
45:26Eden was under tremendous pressure. He was under pressure from the Soviets, who were threatening a possible nuclear attack.
45:34And Mollet kind of pleaded with him and just said, could we do another two to three days, just occupy
45:38more of the canal, just try and take it, try and finish this operation.
45:42And Eden said, no, I can't, I don't think we can hold on. And Mollet said, try to.
45:51As the sun sets on the 6th of November, the Served Protocol is no longer just a secret pact.
45:57It's a war unfolding in real time.
46:00And Anthony Eden knows it could all come crashing down.
46:04The truth is circling, and Britain's darkest hours are still ahead.
46:12Later that night, the French Defence Department receives intelligence from a reliable source that six Russian submarines have been spotted
46:20approaching Egypt.
46:22Is World War Three about to break out?
46:39It's just a mystery for all the Russians.
46:39In this case, when we first left the AGены in the Navy, we got a bigotry to get the device
46:41in the case of a decent operation.
46:41Ts� Uno or something called the Marine Corps, or something called the ASEC to killagi, for the Soviet Union and
46:42war.
46:42It's a difficult task for all the people you want to attack, but you'll never get up to this area.
46:43It's a huge difference on the fact that we get around.
46:45It's a huge difference, but it's not a perfect deal.
46:45It's a huge difference.
46:46It's a huge difference in the Mikal itself.
46:47The actor has added a huge difference between the orders of the Earth.
46:48It's a total increase in the capacity of all the Earth that may be captured in the sense of the
46:48Earth.
46:48The game has been surrounded by Earth.
46:54Transcription by CastingWords
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