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ARGUING ABOUT INTERVENTION: A COMPARISON OF BRITISH AND FRENCH RHETORIC SURROUNDING THE 1882 AND 1956 INVASIONS OF EGYPT*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 October 2015

MARTIN THOMAS  and
RICHARD TOYE
MARTIN THOMAS*
Affiliation:
University of Exeter
RICHARD TOYE*
Affiliation:
University of Exeter
*
Department of History, Amory Building, University of Exeter, ex4 4rj[email protected]; [email protected]
Department of History, Amory Building, University of Exeter, ex4 4rj[email protected]; [email protected]
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Abstract

This article compares the rhetorical justifications surrounding two landmark instances of Western imperialism. In 1882, the British occupied Egypt, ousting indigenous proto-nationalist forces that supposedly threatened British and other foreign interests. The consequences of this intervention were still being worked out in 1956 when, in the wake of the Cairo regime's nationalization of the Suez Canal, the British again invaded. France participated on this occasion, with serious but differing political consequences for both. We suggest that comparing how the British and French argued about these issues, and also examining how the rhetoric of the later crisis contrasted with the earlier one, offers useful insights into the two nations' respective imperial cultures. Specifically, we suggest that the latter-day imperialists Anthony Eden and Guy Mollet couched their actions in internationalist rhetoric reminiscent both of the Gladstone government's justifications for intervention in 1882 and of French official explanations for their takeover in Tunisia a year earlier. Each claimed their actions were taken both to uphold better standards of governance and to restore regional order, itself a highly loaded concept. The language of imperial domination was eschewed; but the ends of empire were served by the use of this rhetoric of ‘liberal order’.

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Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 58 , Issue 4 , December 2015 , pp. 1081 - 1113
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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Footnotes

*

Research for this article was supported by The Leverhulme Trust. The authors would like to thank the journal's editors and anonymous reviewers for their comments on earlier drafts.

References

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28 House of Lords Debates (HL Deb) 15 May 1882, vol. 269, cols. 647–50.

29 HL Deb 15 May 1882, vol. 269, cols. 651–2.

30 House of Commons Debates (HC Deb) 26 May 1882, vol. 269, cols. 1711–14, 1721–3.

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44 Galbraith and al-Sayyid-Marsot, ‘The British occupation’, p. 473. See also Hopkins, ‘The Victorians’, p. 374.

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51 Jennifer Pitts has argued that during the nineteenth century ‘The vision of international law as an order of purely European origins to be imposed gradually on the rest of the world eclipsed more pluralistic understandings of possible global legalities’: ‘Legal universalisms in the eighteenth century’, American Historical Review, 117 (2012), pp. 92–121CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Gladstone's understanding of international law appears to have fallen within that pattern.

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53 HC Deb 25 July 1882, vol. 272, cols. 1710–25.

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57 For some trenchant criticisms of the government's claims that the conflict was not a war, see ‘The trouble in Egypt’, The Herald of Peace, 1 Sept. 1882, copy in Gladstone Papers, British Library, Add. MS 56450, fos. 51–2.

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59 ‘Official oratory at the Mansion House’, Saturday Review, 12 Aug. 1882.

60 Jonathan Parry, The politics of patriotism: English Liberalism, national identity and Europe, 1830–1886 (Cambridge, 2006), p. 393.

61 The same rhetorical ploys depicting military incursion as politically urgent and ethically imperative were used to justify creeping French imperial control in Vietnam: Ministère de la Marine et des Colonies, ‘Note sur les affaires du Tonkin’, no date, Apr. 1880; ‘Note sur l'exécution des traits de 1874 conclus avec l'Annam’, May 1880, 77PAAP4, MAE.

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65 John Chipman, French power in Africa (Oxford, 1989), p. 50.

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69 Journal de Genève, 11 July 1882, recording conversation between de Freycinet and Lord Lyons.

70 Président de la Chambre Syndicale des négociants-commissionnaires, 16 Jan. 1883, letter to M. le Président du Conseil; réponse de Jules Ferry, 7 Dec. 1883, Egypte/Commission d'Alexandrie, 1882–3, 23ADP8, MAE.

71 Pétition no. 1052, Chambre de Commerce de Saint Malo, [petition no. 1060] Chambre de commerce de Nîmes (Gard), [petition no. 1092] Chambre de commerce de Toulon (Var), [petition no. 1131] Chambre de commerce de Perpignan [Pyrénées orientales] ‘Supplient la Chambre de prendre les mesures nécessaires pour venir en aide le plus tôt possible à nos compatriotes d'Egypte victimes de la dernière guerre’/Dossier: violences contre les personnes; dommages matériels’, 23ADP8, MAE.

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80 Robert Tombs, The war against Paris, 1871 (Cambridge, 1981); Bertrand Taithe, Citizenship and wars: France in turmoil, 1870–1871 (London, 2001), especially chs. 7–9.

81 J. P. T. Bury, Gambetta and the making of the Third Republic (London, 1973), pp. 171–2; James J. Cooke, French new imperialism: the Third Republic and colonial expansion (London, 1973).

82 Perkins, ‘From uncertainty to opposition’, pp. 204–6.

83 An outstanding account of these processes in action is Herman Lebovics, The alliance of iron and wheat in the Third French Republic, 1860–1914: origins of the new conservatism (Baton Rouge, LA, 1988).

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87 ‘Note sur la politique allemande en Egypte depuis 1882 jusqu'au début du 3e Ministère de M. de Freycinet, n.d. 1886’, de Freycinet papers, Egypte 1882–6, 77PAAP1/DB, MAE.

88 Alphonse de Courcel, Directeur politique, to de Freycinet, 18 Aug. 1880, 77PAAP2, MAE.

89 Paris Military Attaché letter to Lord Lyons, 26 Apr. 1881, FO 27/2492, TNA.

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93 MA, PAAP417, Maurice Bompard papers, vol. i/dossier Tunisie, Paul de Rémusat ‘Rapport’, no. 271, Sénat séance, 27 May 1881.

94 Lewis, ‘Geographies’, p. 802. In 1900, as much as seven-eighths of Tunisia's white settler population had Italian, mainly Sicilian, roots: Choate, ‘Identity politics’, p. 101.

95 Ashley, S. A., ‘The failure of Gambetta's Grand Ministère’, French Historical Studies, 9 (1975), pp. 109–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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97 The political volatility of the conscription issue and the army's potential disloyalty to the early Third Republic is well examined by Jean-Charles Jauffet, ‘The army and the appel au soldat, 1874–89’, in Robert Tombs, ed., Nationhood and nationalism in France: from Boulangism to the Great War, 1889–1914 (London, 1991), pp. 238–47.

98 De Freycinet inaugural speech, 31 Jan. 1882, débats parlementaires, Journal Officiel, p. 69.

99 ‘Œuvre administrative de M. de Freycinet au Ministère des Affaires Etrangères en 1880–1882’, de Freycinet papers, Egypte 1882–6, 77PAAP1/DB, MAE.

100 Piquet, Caroline, ‘The Suez Company's concession in Egypt, 1854–1956: modern infrastructure and local economic development’, Enterprise and Society, 5 (2004), pp. 111–13, at p. 118Google Scholar.

101 Pasquet, ‘Comment la France a perdu l’Égypte’, pp. 39–40.

102 Cabinet Minutes, CM (56) 54th Conclusions, 27 July 1956, CAB 128/30, TNA.

103 Anthony Eden to Dwight D. Eisenhower, 27 July 1956, PREM 11/1098, TNA.

104 On the legal issues surrounding the use of force, see Lewis Johnman, ‘Playing the role of a Cassandra: Sir Gerald Fitzmaurice, senior legal adviser to the Foreign Office’, in Saul Kelly and Anthony Gorst, eds., Whitehall and the Suez Crisis (London, 2000), pp. 46–63.

105 HC Deb 30 July 1956, vol. 557, cols. 918–21; HC Deb 2 Aug. 1956, vol. 557, cols. 1602–9.

106 HC Deb 2 Aug. 1956, vol. 557, cols. 1636–40.

107 Tony Shaw, Eden, Suez and the mass media: propaganda and persuasion during the Suez Crisis (London, 2009), pp. 24–30. On press attitudes, see also Parmentier, Guillaume, ‘The British press in the Suez Crisis’, Historical Journal, 23 (1980), pp. 435–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Negrine, Ralph, ‘The press and the Suez Crisis: a myth reexamined’, Historical Journal, 25 (1982), pp. 975–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

108 Speech of Lord Windlesham: HL Deb 13 Sept. 1956, vol. 199, cols. 816–18.

109 ‘MP accuses Mr. Dulles of “betraying” premier’, Manchester Guardian, 6 Oct. 1956.

110 The key exhibits are polls published in the News Chronicle on 10. Aug. and 11 Sept. 1956; these, and other valuable material, can be found in PREM 11/1123, TNA. Useful qualitative evidence, in the form of letters from members of the public, can be found in FO 371/118808–118829. See also Adamthwaite, Anthony, ‘Suez revisited’, International Affairs, 64 (1988), pp. 449–64, at pp. 455–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

111 Philip M. Williams, Hugh Gaitskell: a political biography (London, 1979), p. 422; R. Gerald Hughes, The postwar legacy of appeasement: British foreign policy since 1945 (London, 2014), pp. 45–6, 51–2.

112 HC Deb 2 Aug. 1956, vol. 557, cols. 1609–17. For the genesis of the speech, see Philip H. Williams, The diary of Hugh Gaitskell, 1945–1956 (London, 1983), pp. 563–70 (entry for 2–3 Aug. 1956).

113 HC Deb 2 Aug. 1956, vol. 557, cols. 1653–61.

114 Williams, Diary of Hugh Gaitskell, p. 565 (entry for 2–3 Aug. 1956).

115 ‘Mr. Bevan differs from Bevanites’, Times, 10 Aug. 1956.

116 Ibid.; Janet Morgan, ed., The backbench diaries of Richard Crossman, Book Club Associates (London, 1981), p. 508 (entry for 5 Sept. 1956).

117 ‘Dulles predicts ‘“moral force” will solve Suez Canal Crisis without use of troops’, News and Courier (Charleston, SC), 4 Aug. 1956; Andrew Preston, Sword of the spirit, shield of faith: religion in American war and diplomacy (New York, NY, 2012), chs. 21 and 23.

118 See, notably, the speech of Sir John Hall: HC Deb 2 Aug. 1956, vol. 557, cols. 1649–53.

119 See Cairo radio's quotation of an article by Anwar al-Sadat, 1 Aug. 1956, in ‘Summary of world broadcasts part IV’, 2 Aug. 1956.

120 Nasser's broadcast of 12 Aug. 1956, in ‘Summary of world broadcasts part IV’, 14 Aug. 1956.

121 ‘Record of a meeting held in the foreign secretary's room, Foreign Office, August 1, 1956’, FO 371/119090, TNA.

122 British Embassy, Paris, to Foreign Office, 3 Aug. 1956, FO 371/119095, TNA.

123 See, for example, ‘Britain's action in the Middle East to stop war – to keep peace’, Conservative Research Department, 5 Nov. 1956, CRD 2/34/29, Conservative Party Archive, CRD 2/34/29, Bodleian Library, Oxford; Gallup Poll published in the News Chronicle on 14 Nov. 1956, quoted in ‘Notes on the Middle East and Hungary’, Conservative Research Department, 15 Nov. 1956, Conservative Party Archive, CRD 2/34/29.

124 George H. Gallup, ed., The Gallup International Public Opinion Polls: Great Britain 1937–1975; vol. 11937–1964 (New York, NY, 1976), pp. 394–5, 398–9.

125 ‘Britain overseas’, broadcast 2 Oct. 1959, http://pebs.group.shef.ac.uk/britain-overseas (consulted 24 July 2014).

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130 Maurice Vaïsse, ‘France and the Suez Crisis’, in Wm Roger Louis and Roger Owen, eds., Suez 1956: the crisis and its consequences (Oxford, 1989), p. 134; Zach Levey, ‘French–Israeli relations, 1950–1956: the strategic dimension’, in Simon C. Smith, ed., Reassessing Suez 1956: new perspectives on the crisis and its aftermath (Aldershot, 2008), pp. 88, 95, 99.

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132 Christopher Brady argues that the Cabinet Egypt Committee did not represent any constitutional abuse of cabinet government but did tend towards ‘tunnel vision’ about Nasser, see his ‘The cabinet system’, pp. 87–9. For a harsher view of committee procedure and, especially, of Macmillan's adventurism within it, see Dooley, Howard J., ‘Great Britain's “last battle” in the Middle East: notes on cabinet planning during the Suez Crisis of 1956’, International History Review, 11(1989), pp. 486–501CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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134 Sabine Jansen, ed., Les grands discours parlementaires de la Quatrième République de Pierre Mendès France à Charles de Gaulle (Paris, 2006), p. 219.

135 Mireille Conia highlights the depth of local reaction to the dispatch of national servicemen to Algeria in the context of one provincial département, Haute-Marne. See her ‘La Haute-Marne: berceau des actions de solidarité envers les soldats’, in Raphaëlle Branche and Sylvie Thénault, eds., La France en guerre: experiences métropolitaines de la guerre d'indépendance algérienne (Paris, 2008), pp. 58–69.

136 Martin Thomas, ‘Order before reform: the spread of French military operations in Algeria, 1954–1958’, in David Killingray and David Omissi, eds., Guardians of empire (Manchester, 1999), pp. 198–200, 207–9.

137 Guy Mollet, ‘La France sans l'Algérie, ce ne serait plus la France’, 2ème séance du 9 Mars 1956, in Jansen, ed., Les grands discours, pp. 220–2.

138 Preface and ‘Séance du 10 Février 1956’, in Jansen, ed., Les grands discours, pp. 205–9.

139 Evans, Algeria, pp. 148–51.

140 Mollet, ‘La France sans l'Algérie’, pp. 222–4.

141 Jacques Fauvet, ‘L'affaire de Suez offre une nouvelle occasion de conflit entre les communistes et M. Guy Mollet’, Le Monde, 6 Aug. 1956.

142 Keith Kyle, Suez: Britain's end of empire in the Middle East (new edn, London, 2011), p. 115; also cited in Hughes, Postwar legacy of appeasement, p. 49.

143 The complexities and contradictions of former resisters overseeing the repression of anti-colonial resistance in Algeria have been explored by, among others, Martin Evans, The memory of resistance: French opposition to the Algerian War (1954–1962) (Oxford, 1992); and Bertrand Hamelin, ‘Les Résistants et la guerre d'Algérie (1954–1962): quelques jalons problématiques’, in Branche et Thénault, eds., La France en guerre, pp. 138–42.

144 Abel Thomas, Comment Israël fut sauvé: les secrets de l'expédition de Suez (Paris, 1978), pp. 25–6; also cited in Vaïsse, ‘France and the Suez Crisis’, p. 132.

145 Levey, ‘French–Israeli relations’, p. 102.

146 Vaïsse, ‘France and the Suez Crisis’, p. 134.

147 Levey, ‘French–Israeli relations’, pp. 87–9, 103–6.

148 ‘M. Mendès-France: Français et Anglais sont intervenus trop tard’, Le Monde, 20 Nov. 1956.

149 ‘M André Philip reproche au gouvernement sa politique au Moyen-Orient et en Algérie’, Le Monde, 22 Nov. 1956.

150 Ibid.

151 Maurice Vaïsse, ‘Post-Suez France’, in Louis and Owen, eds., Suez 1956, p. 337.

152 Philip published this fierce critique of his former party as Le Socialisme trahi (Socialism betrayed) in 1958. The moral crisis in the French Socialist party triggered by Algeria, and exacerbated by Suez, is nicely described by Benjamin Stora, La gangrène et l'oubli: la mémoire de la guerre d'Algérie (Paris, 1991), pp. 74–9.

153 Masson, Philippe, ‘Origines et bilan d'une défaite’, Revue historique des armées, 4 (1986), p. 58Google Scholar.

154 Vaïsse, ‘Post-Suez France’, pp. 336–7.

155 See Christian Pineau, 1956/Suez (Paris, 1976), pp. 25–9, 37–41, 139–47, 189–91.

156 Uday Singh Mehta, Liberalism and empire: a study in nineteenth-century political thought and practice (Chicago, IL, 1999).

157 For a helpful discussion, see Bell, Duncan, ‘What is Liberalism?’, Political Theory 42 (2014), pp. 682–715CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

158 Palti, Elías José, ‘The “theoretical revolution” in intellectual history: from the history of political ideas to the history of political languages’, History and Theory, 53 (2014), pp. 387–405CrossRefGoogle Scholar.