EGYPT: Britain: Get Out

“The impression has got about the world,” said Winston Churchill recently, “that we have only to be threatened to clear out of any place.” One man who is clearly under this impression is Egypt’s El Nahas Pasha. In a go-minute speech before Egypt’s noisy Parliament last week, he demanded: 1) evacuation of all British forces (some 35,000 troops, and fighter planes) from the strategic Suez Canal zone; 2) a constitutional amendment incorporating the Sudan into a new Nile kingdom of “Egypt and Sudan” (the Sudanese had not been consulted, but Nahas Pasha promised them a separate parliament, provided that Egypt could veto its laws and keep control of finance, military affairs and foreign policy); 3) a new title for King Farouk: “King of Egypt and Sudan.” Parliament enthusiastically vowed to stay in session until these demands were written into law.

Diverting Attention. In the streets of Cairo, excited students (thoughtfully given a holiday for the occasion) celebrated Nahas Pasha’s new policy by smashing windows and ransacking foreign stores.

Hero of the hour was plump and platitudinous Mohammed Salah el Din, 49, Foreign Minister in Nahas Pasha’s Wafd cabinet. Smiling Salah el Din is a dedicated nationalist with an extraordinarily sensitive skin (he breaks out in spots when exposed to Egypt’s hot sunshine, never ventures outside without a protecting umbrella and gloves). His single-minded policy since his appointment last year: use every means—if necessary, threaten appeals to Russia—to get rid of those British and grab the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. To him, the Suez is dust in the enemy’s eye; since Egypt depends for its life on the waters of the Nile, his real object is the river’s headwaters in the Sudan.

At first, ailing Nahas Pasha—who probably would like to see the British stay in Suez as a defensive screen against the hated Israelis—resisted his Foreign Minister’s plans. But, being under attack for his government’s corrupt mismanagement of Egyptian finances, he was content—as Egyptian politicians always have been—to divert attention from his own sins by denouncing Britain’s.

Digging In. Britain’s stiff reaction to Egypt’s demands did not frighten the Egyptians. They talked of plans to deprive British forces of water, food, electricity and the use of Egyptian roads, harbors and telephone lines.

Britain ordered her tough, desert-hardened Suez garrison to stand fast, and alerted reinforcements in Cyprus. The R.A.F. laid plans to airlift supplies to Suez in case of emergency. Would fighting break out in Egypt? Not unless “somebody else” starts it, said British Foreign Secretary Herbert Morrison.