The British had been stunned when Nasser legally nationalized the Suez Canal on July 26, 1956. Invasion forces would then land long enough afterward to lend plausibility to the scenario. Then, on October 31–following a ‘decent interval’ for Egypt’s rejection of the ultimatum–Britain and France would launch airstrikes against the Egyptians. In response to that ‘threat’ to the strategically important Suez Canal, Britain and France would step in the next day to give the belligerents 12 hours to stop fighting, pull back from the strategic waterway and accept temporary occupation of ‘key positions on the Canal’ to ‘guarantee freedom of passage.’ That ultimatum, so obviously favorable to Israel, was designed to be rejected by Nasser.
Israel, still territorially insecure after 8 1/2 years of existence among hostile Arab neighbors and cut off from access to the Red Sea by a blockade, had agreed to launch a pre-emptive invasion of Egypt’s 24,000-square-mile Sinai Peninsula on October 29. Champagne glasses were raised to celebrate a tripartite pledge to pursue what one chronicler called ‘the shortest and possibly silliest war in history.’ The target was Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Egypt, which had become the symbol of Arab nationalism. He left England shortly after, to arrive at the villa that afternoon.īy the time the tense clandestine discussions–which also included French Premier Guy Mollet and British Prime Minister Anthony Eden–ended two days later in France and England, a secret accord had been reached. British Foreign Minister Selwyn Lloyd, a key member of the third group of plotters, called his office in London to say he was staying home with a cold. He soon was at the villa shaking hands with Israel’s 70-year-old Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, eye-patched Chief of Staff Moshe Dayan and Defense Ministry Director-General Shimon Peres. Later that Monday morning, French Foreign Minister Christian Pineau visited his office in Paris, then was chauffeured home to switch to his personal car. The first group of conspirators landed at a French airfield outside Paris and reached the wall-enclosed villa in an unmarked car during the wee hours of October 22, 1956. It was a classic setting for international intrigue, a tile-roofed villa secluded among fog-swirled trees, ivy clinging to building wings clustered around a stunted steeple-like tower. Suez Crisis: Operation Musketeer | HistoryNet Close
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