- há 2 dias
The dramatic inside story of 6 November 1956, the final day of the Suez Crisis. A day that changed Britain forever. Exactly as it happened - hour by hour, minute by minute.
British troops land in Egypt. Prime Minister Eden claims that they're on a peace-keeping mission to protect the Suez Canal. But all is not as it seems. The next 24 hours change Britain forever.
British troops land in Egypt. Prime Minister Eden claims that they're on a peace-keeping mission to protect the Suez Canal. But all is not as it seems. The next 24 hours change Britain forever.
Categoria
📚
AprendizadoTranscrição
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 Anthony Eden humiliated on the world stage.
01:12This is without doubt the worst 24 hours of Anthony Eden's life.
01:17Eden wanted to start a war. He just didn't want anyone to know about it.
01:21Told 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.
01:31You can take one.
01:32Oh.
01:33Exactly as it happened.
01:35Hour 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.
01:47It's a story that still resonates today.
01:50Redefining our global status.
01:52It's a seminal turning point.
01:55Nothing will ever be the same again.
01:57There's no going back from this.
01:59And casting a shadow over current political power struggles.
02:03The 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 when a message arrives at 10 Downing Street.
02:49British Prime Minister Anthony 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.
03:06Under the name of Nikolai Bouganen, 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.
03:38If you're in government and somebody squaring up to you like this, it's terrifying.
03:43You're being bullied.
03:44But 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?
04:05Antony 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.
04:34Rather 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
05:02vein 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.
05:26I mean, to some extent, I think Britain thought that they owned Egypt.
05:29The 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,
05:56because it just 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.
06:12It was an utter offence to any self-regarding Egyptian.
06:18What is this country doing controlling an asset and creaming the profits off that asset,
06:26which is everything to do with 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 Marusa sails with the ex-king for Capri.
07:12What a change will mean to the rest of the world, we have yet to see.
07:19They got rid of the king, who is 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.
07:39He had come from an unpretentious, ordinary background, and risen up really by talent.
07:45And he was a very impressive man, who is 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.
08:18One 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.
08:51Somebody 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,
10:37it 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.
11:08At 3am, in Paris, the tension is mounting.
11:13The French Prime Minister Guy Mollet summoned the American ambassador, Douglas Dillon,
11:17and 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.
11:32They 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.
11:56And Dillon had to say, well, it's the middle of the night in Washington and Eisenhower's going to be asleep.
12:00So 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.
12:18And 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.
13:24British Prime Minister Anthony Eden is five and a half hours into the day that will define his career and
13:31Britain'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.
13:51The message is a terrifying one.
13:53That there's a possibility that Russians could intervene on the battlefield.
13:56There was real concern that the Soviet Union would get directly involved and that could well be in the form
14:04of 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 6.15, you have fighter jets strafing the beach, wiping out any remaining defences.
15:14Then, Royal Marine Commandos storm the beach in their amphibious vehicles.
15:40At 9.45 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.
15:52If 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 differently.
16:19I remember being invited by Ukraine before the invasion to their annual celebration of independence.
16:26And the Foreign Office advised me not to go because they thought I might provoke Putin.
16:30But in my understanding, that was not going to provoke Putin.
16:34He'd already invaded in 2014.
16:36So, some people are much more worried about upsetting somebody.
16:40And often the defence joke of the Foreign Office is, in trying to not upset anyone, the Foreign Office usually
16:45upsets everyone.
16:48The Foreign Office is, in the US, in the US.
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 could be
16:59destroyed around him.
17:00That'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.
17:14And at the same time, Guy Mollet, his ally, was really trying to persuade him not to stop and to
17:19go on.
17:20There was no way to hold out against the combined muscle of all of these forces.
17:25The crisis in Egypt didn't explode out of thin air.
17:29It was seeded two years earlier in Cold War power struggles.
17:47When Nasser becomes Egypt's leader in 1954, his mission is to drag his country into the 20th century.
17:56Egypt was pretty poor.
17:58I mean, he had two thirds of the population living in quite harsh rural conditions.
18:06Nasser thought his country had really fallen behind economically.
18:11And for Egypt to move forward, he knew it needed to modernize and industrialize.
18:17Central to Nasser's plan is building a dam across the Nile called the Aswan Dam.
18:24The Aswan Dam would control the flooding of the Nile.
18:28But perhaps more important was the hydroelectric potential of the Aswan Dam, which could go on to provide electricity to
18:38millions of Egyptians that hadn't previously had access to electricity.
18:43But it was a very, very ambitious project.
18:46It would cost about 1.3 billion US dollars at that time, which was an absolutely enormous sum.
18:52And although the Americans and British weren't especially keen on this project, what made them interested is that there was
18:59a suggestion that the Soviets might fund it.
19:01Now that would extend Soviet influence in the Middle East, potentially threaten the canal, threaten their oil supply, all of
19:07this kind of stuff.
19:08That was intolerable.
19:09So at that point, Britain and the US became more open to the idea of funding a dam.
19:17But before construction could begin, the financing runs into a major setback.
19:24On the 19th of July, Ahmed Hussain, the Egyptian ambassador, went to see John Foster Dulles, the Secretary of State.
19:31And this controversial subject of the dam came up.
19:34And Hussain said, don't say you're going to cut off funding to the dam because I have the Soviet offer
19:40to finance it right here.
19:42And Dulles said, well, since you have funding, you don't need ours anymore.
19:46So we're cutting it off right now.
19:50As far as Nasser was concerned, it was a humiliation.
19:55The US in particular, but the UK as well, had strung him along.
19:59And then they turn around at the last minute and say no.
20:02So he really saw it as an attempt to control Egypt and put it in its place.
20:12Nasser wasn't going to give up on his plans to fund the Aswan Dam.
20:16He would just find a different way to fund the project.
20:23The plan Nasser comes up with turns the financial setback into a bold political gesture.
20:30It's an expression of the kind of leader that he was.
20:34He was brave and he was a risk taker.
20:37And he was somebody who really cared about Egypt's future.
20:44But Nasser's actions will have far reaching and bloody consequences.
20:50Nasser makes a plan to strike at this beacon of imperialism in his country.
20:55The big symbol of British Empire.
20:58And that symbol is the canal.
21:28It's 10.30 a.m.
21:30on the 6th of November, 1956.
21:33As British and French troops advance on the Suez Canal,
21:37Anthony Eden and his cabinet discussed the 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,
21:51are looking at one another in deeply 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,
22:05the Cold War has that potentiality to go hot and to go nuclear hot.
22:12Any prime minister, including Anthony Eden,
22:15has to have a very confident, optimistic view of 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.
22:23My goodness, you 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
22:30who has the largest economy in the world,
22:32who has nuclear weapons,
22:33and the consequences for your own country
22:35could 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,
22:58Gamal Abdel Nasser.
23:03On the 26th of July, 1956,
23:07Nasser 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.
23:42But all is not as it seems.
23:44There were huge crowds.
23:58Mancheah Square was packed with about a quarter of a million people,
24:02an absolutely enormous crowd who turned out to hear him speak.
24:06And it was also broadcast on Voice of the Arabs, his radio station.
24:24Nasser begins his speech really highlighting the humiliation
24:28that Egypt has historically endured
24:30as a result of the British-Egyptian relationship.
24:40As he's giving his speech,
24:43Egyptian troops are stationed outside the Suez Canal Company.
24:54When Nasser is speaking to the Egyptian people,
24:57he's telling them to raise their heads
24:59and be proud that they are Egyptian.
25:04And then he started talking about Ferdinand de Lesseps,
25:10who had built the Suez Canal in the 19th century.
25:14And then he started repeating it,
25:16de Lesseps, de Lesseps, de Lesseps.
25:20And people weren't quite sure what was going on,
25:22but the reason is that was a signal.
25:24Ferdinand de Lesseps…
25:26Ferdinand de Lesseps!
25:27Ferdinand de Lesseps!
25:28Ferdinand de Lesseps!
25:33Ferdinand de Lesseps!
25:38Ferdinand de Lesseps!
25:40The Lesseps is a co-word.
25:43And for Egyptian troops,
25:45that's the moment to enter and take control.
25:49Egyptian officers stormed the officers of the Suez Canal Company and drove the British out,
25:56took it for Egypt. When Nasser learns that his troops have successfully taken control of the
26:02Suez Canal Company, he tells the crowd in Manchea Square. He was able to announce,
26:08tonight I can tell you that this canal, this Egyptian canal, will be run from now on by us,
26:13by Egyptians. This was such an important nationalistic moment that there was a huge
26:26celebration, a massive party broke out. Fireworks were set off, people were celebrating, singing,
26:34chanting, crying. Egyptian 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, but it's happened, it's happened in their lifetimes,
26:58it's happened in this moment, and it's Nasser that's made it happen. From that moment,
27:06he becomes an international symbol of resistance to colonial rule.
27:20Meanwhile, in 10 Downing Street that evening, Anthony Eden was actually holding a rather fancy
27:25dinner party for King Faisal II of Iraq, with his old friend Nourie S Saeed, the Prime Minister of
27:30Iraq, there as well.
27:33I've had dinner in that room in Downing Street. It's a lovely, intimate room in which all the most famous
27:39people in the world have dined. And Eden is serving this dinner, formal dinner, and he suddenly hears that
27:47Nasser, who he knows and who he thought he'd developed a relationship with, has physically attacked with troops,
27:54the Suez Canal, and seized it. It's an incredible moment of humiliation, but he hears it with his
28:00friend Nourie S Saeed, the Iraqi Prime Minister. And Nourie S Saeed is an Arab, and Nourie S Saeed is
28:06advising
28:06Eden that the only thing that Nasser understands is strength and he needs to act. And of course,
28:12I relate to that too, because one of the ways we often went wrong in Iraq or Afghanistan is when
28:16an
28:17Iraqi or an Afghan friend told us to do something, we would tend to believe them, even if subsequently
28:23they turned out to be completely wrong.
28:29Eden sees it as complete theft. It's a personal outrage. It's a personal insult.
28:35He's the one who negotiated the 1954 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty. He's the one who agreed to pull British
28:41forces out. He's the one who said it was an act of faith in Egypt. And here's Nasser breaking that
28:46faith. The distressing thing for Eden is that Nasser's actions are entirely legal.
28:52Nasser didn't steal the Suez Canal Company. It was Egyptian land. He compensated the shareholders of
28:59the Suez Canal Company exactly as he should. On the one hand, we will think, okay, what Nasser did was
29:06perfectly reasonable. Everybody's nationalizing. He nationalizes. He's paid the shareholders.
29:12But it doesn't feel like that at all to Eden. It's not just a building he seized. He seized the
29:20jugular throat of Britain. This is the canal down which everything comes. It's the most important
29:28strategic asset in the world. It would be insane from Eden's point of view to just let a guy who's
29:34cozying up to the Soviet Union. He seized that asset. And for Britain, which still sees itself as
29:39a significant global power, not to stand up for its businesses, not to stand up for its strategic
29:44interests. The Suez Canal is a name familiar to everyone. Eden's attitude to Nasser changes overnight.
29:51He is determined to take back the Suez Canal. But convincing the British people to go to war
29:58isn't going to be easy. But this has created a very grave situation. On 8 August 1956, he broadcasts to
30:06the nation. Our quarrel is not with Egypt, still less with the Arab world. It is with Colonel Nasser.
30:13When he gained power in Egypt, we felt no hostility towards him. But he has shown that he's not a
30:20man who
30:21can be trusted to keep an agreement. But this, I must make play. We cannot agree that an act of
30:30plunder,
30:32which 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,
30:44and that, essentially, Nasser couldn't be trusted with operating this really important strategic
30:52waterway. This is imperial arrogance, plain and simple. Eden genuinely believed that they could
30:58manipulate 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 don't. My own personal opinion is that we've done the right thing.
31:09Well, 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
31:19successfully. Militarily, 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,
31:28you 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,
31:37is it all going to go wrong? Can we do it? He has literally only one risk to worry about,
31:45and that's the United States. And that's the one thing that he assumes when push comes to shove,
31:51isn't going to go wrong, because who is America going to choose in the end? Obviously,
31:54they're going to choose their allies, right?
32:01Dwight Eisenhower didn't trust Colonel Nasser, but Dwight Eisenhower didn't hate Colonel Nasser.
32:13Britain 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. America should just keep on writing checks.
32:36It'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, and 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, we will not support you. Do not go to war in Egypt.
33:14It is completely flabbergasting for Eden. This matters to him intensely, emotionally,
33:22intellectually. This is his big project. This is his big moment, which is going to help define
33:28not just Britain's role, but the future shape of the world. The UK fought alone at the beginning of
33:34the Second World War and then was joined by the US, and they fought as equal partners.
33:40And Britain came out of the Second World War, permanent member of the Security Council with
33:45France, feeling that they, along with the US and Russia, were a great global power.
33:52They had a special relationship with the US, but it was taken for granted that it was more like the
33:57relationship between Batman and Superman. They had slightly different powers, but they were sort of
34:03equals working together. Sue is suddenly reveals that isn't the deal at all. It's Batman and Robin.
34:10And from now onwards, suddenly it's revealed that you're not an independent actor. You're a sidekick.
34:17And 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.
34:41But then, three months later, everything changes. After weeks of stalemate,
34:47the Suez crisis burst dramatically into the news again, for Israel has invaded Egypt.
34:52Britain and France have declared the canal in danger.
34:57The pretext for Israel invading Egypt was effectively skirmishes that had been taking
35:03place on the Egyptian-Israeli border. And 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, Guy Mollet and Anthony Eden issued their ultimatum to Israel
35:26and Egypt. And what this ultimatum said is that both those countries had to stop fighting. They had to
35:33withdraw 10 miles from the canal. And they had to accept an Anglo-French force to occupy and secure
35:39the canal zone. And what's more, they had to do this within just 12 hours.
35:45Nasser reacted to the ultimatum exactly as you would expect him to react, which was to absolutely
35:51refuse it. He 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.
36:03Nasser's refusal gives Eden the excuse he needs to send British soldiers back into Egypt.
36:09to protect the Suez Canal. But it is all a cynical pretext.
36:16The whole thing was so underhand and deceitful and outrageous.
36:23Nasser himself could barely believe that it could have happened.
36:44At 11am on the 6th of November, Eden had to go to Parliament because it was the state opening of
36:49Parliament, a fairly major event in the British parliamentary calendar.
36:56So the Queen was there arriving in the state coach. And she, of course, and the Lords had to read
37:01out the Queen's speech, which 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 to protect the lives of
37:21our nationals and to safeguard the Suez Canal by separating the combatants and restoring peace.
37:29But what she delivers is a pack of lies. Her government are openly misleading the British people and Parliament about
37:38the real truth of what's happening at Suez.
37:55Two weeks earlier, on the 22nd of October, at a villa in a quiet suburb of Paris called Sèvres, a
38:04group of politicians met in secret.
38:09It was a private villa owned by a friend of a government minister. So this is a very discreet location.
38:14And 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.
38:29At around 4pm, Eden's representative, British Foreign Secretary Selwyn Lloyd arrives.
38:37These three countries had assembled their representatives in secret to plan a secret war.
38:44All 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
38:57existential threat.
38:59We hear that a lot. Israel calls Iran an existential threat. Hezbollah is an existential threat.
39:03And the problem in politics is you can never really prove whether somebody is or isn't. You're guessing about the
39:11future.
39:13But of course, once you create these systems, you can create a very elaborate and convincing story for why this
39:20particular man Nasser is leading a pro-Soviet, anti-Western nationalist movement that will completely destroy the position of the
39:29West.
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 Sèvres.
39:39And 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.
40:04The 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, which would then give a cause for war
40:30for Britain and France.
40:32They could point back to that 1954 Anglo-Egyptian Treaty to that clause that said that Britain could go back
40:38and 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 and return control
41:07of 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. It was a complete piece
42:06of 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
42:43where the UN matters.
42:44And where you feel you have to at least pretend that you're following proper legal procedures.
42:49It'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.
43:21And 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
43:29sign, 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.
43:39So 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
44:36to 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
44:58evidence, 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?
46:27Have you ever seen loads of swimsuits?
46:30Have a nice scene.
46:30I'm, your friend.
46:48Have a nice scene.
46:48This is his first scene.
46:48Hi, Vyla.
46:57Transcription by CastingWords
Comentários