James rae during suez crisis 1956

Suez Canal Nationalized

The Suez Canal was built in Egypt under the supervision of French diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps and was run jointly by a British-French organization. The man-made waterway—which opened in 1869 after ten years of construction—separates most of Egypt from the Sinai Peninsula.

At 120 miles long, the Suez Canal connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Indian Ocean by way of the Red Sea, allowing goods to be shipped between Europe and Asia more directly.

Suez Crisis - Wikipedia

Its value to international trade made it a nearly instant source of conflict among Egypt’s neighbors—and Cold War superpowers vying for dominance.

The catalyst for the joint Israeli-British-French attack on Egypt was the nationalization of the Suez Canal by Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser in July 1956. The situation had been brewing for some time.

Two years earlier, in the wake of World War II, the Egyptian military had begun pressuring the British to end their colonial-era military presence (which had been Suez Crisis | Definition, Summary, Location, History, Dates ..., carousel HEVYW