The Protocol of Sèvres,1956: Anatomy of a War Plot
Avi Shlaim
International Affairs, 73:3 (1997), 509-530.
Reprinted in David Tal, ed., The 1956 War: Collusion and Rivalry in the Middle East (London: Frank Cass, 2001), 119-43.
The tripartite aggression against
Egypt in 1956 involved an extraordinary reversal of Britain’s
position in the Middle East. The French were the matchmakers in
bringing Britain and Israel into a military pact whose principal aim
was the overthrow of Gamal Abdel Nasser. The war plot against
Egypt was hatched towards the end of October 1956 in a secret meeting
in Sèvres, near Paris. The discussions lasted three days and
culminated in the signature of the Protocol of Sèvres.
British, French and Israeli sources are used here to reconstruct the
sequence of events that produced the most famous war plot in modern
history.
Secrecy and the sources on Sèvres
On 24 October 1956, in a private villa in Sèvres on the
outskirts of Paris, representatives of the British, French, and Israeli
governments, at the end of a three-day meeting which was concealed
behind a thick veil of secrecy, signed a most curious document which
later came to be known as the Protocol of Sèvres. The
document set out in precise detail the plan of the three governments to
attack Egypt. The plan, in a nutshell, was that Israel would
attack the Egyptian army near the Suez Canal, and that this attack
would serve as the pretext for an Anglo-French military
intervention. Written in French and typed in three copies, this
Protocole
was signed by Patrick Dean, an Assistant Under-Secretary at the Foreign
Office for Britain, by foreign minister Christian Pineau for France,
and by prime minister David Ben-Gurion for Israel. To the end of
his days Sir Anthony Eden, the driving force on the British side on the
road to war, denied that there had been any collusion with Israel or
even foreknowledge that Israel would attack Egypt. The Protocol
of Sèvres tells a different story. The British copy was in
fact destroyed on Eden’s orders, the French copy was lost, and
the Israeli copy was kept under lock and key in the Ben-Gurion Archives
in Sede-Boker. In 1996 permission was given to photocopy the
protocol for a BBC documentary shown on the fortieth anniversary of the
Suez War.[1] With the release of the protocol, the tripartite
meeting at Sèvres became not only the most famous but also the
best-documented war plot in modern history.
Rumours and accusations of collusion started flying around as soon as
the Suez War broke out but no hard evidence was produced at the time,
let alone a smoking gun. Over the years, however, a great deal of
information has come to light about the meeting at Sèvres at
which the war plot was hatched. A number of participants have
written about the meeting in their memoirs. Sir Anthony Nutting
was not a participant at this particular meeting, but he was the first
insider to publish the story of the collusion.[2] Christian
Pineau spilled the beans on the twentieth anniversary of Suez, and even
gave an annotated version of the Protocol of Sèvres.[3]
Moshe Dayan gave a much more accurate and more detailed acount of this
meeting in his autobiography.[4] Selwyn Lloyd wrote a whole book
on Suez which includes a vivid description of his embarrassment at the
encounter with the Israelis at Sèvres.[5] Abel Thomas
wrote an account which is not always accurate on the details and wholly
unconvincing in its central claim that France got involved in the Suez
affair out of concern for the security of Israel.[6] Shimon
Peres was the principal source for a book on Suez published in Hebrew
in 1965.[7] More recently, Peres shed interesting new light in
his memoirs on the background of the conference of Sèvres, and
particularly on his own private discussions with the French.[8]
Ben-Gurion’s diary is governed by Israel’s thirty-year-rule
and the main entries on Suez have been translated and published in
English.[9]
But the principal, most prolific, and most reliable chronicler of the
proceedings of the Sèvres conference is Colonel Mordechai
Bar-On, chief of bureau of the IDF chief of staff, who served as the
secretary of the Israeli delegation and took copious notes
throughout. In 1957, at Dayan’s request, Bar-On, who had a
degree in History, wrote a detailed account of the events that led to
the Suez War with access to all the official documents, and in 1991
this study was published as a book.[10] Bar-On also published a
book, which started life as a doctoral thesis, and numerous articles on
various aspects of Suez.[11] Sir Donald Logan, who attended the
Sèvres conference as Lloyd’s private secretary, was
allowed to see a copy of the Protocol of Sèvres in the Israeli
Embassy in London before its release and he in turn guided Keith Kyle
in publishing an English translation of the protocol as an appendix to
his book on Suez.[12] Logan also wrote a personal account of the
meetings at Sèvres.[13] With the benefit of all these
first-hand sources, it is now possible to reconstruct the discussions
and decisions that immediately preceded the tripartite attack on Egypt
in late October 1956.
Invitation to a Conspiracy
The French were the matchmakers in the Anglo-French-Israeli military
pact whose undeclared aim was the overthrow of Egyptian President Gamal
Abdel Nasser. Ever since his nationalization of the Suez Canal
Company on 26 July 1956, the French and the British had been making
plans for military action against Egypt if negotiations failed to
achieve their aims. By early October it looked as if these plans
may have to be abandoned because no suitable excuse could be found to
justify the attack. The French, whose relations with the Israeli
defence establishment were increasingly intimate, came up with the idea
of using an attack by Israel as a pretext for Anglo-French
intervention. On 14 October, General Maurice Challe, the deputy
chief of staff of the French armed forces, accompanied by Albert
Gazier, the acting foreign minister, visited the British prime minister
in his country home at Chequers. At this meeting the French
General presented a plan of action which quickly became known as
‘the Challe scenario’: Israel would be invited to
attack the Egyptian army in Sinai and pose a threat to the Suez Canal
and this would provide Britain and France with the pretext to activate
their military plans and occupy the Suez Canal Zone, ostensibly in
order to separate the combatants and protect the canal.
Eden liked the idea. According to Anthony Nutting, the minster of
state for foreign affairs who was present at the meeting,
‘he could scarcely contain his glee.’ The question
whether Israeli aggression might not require Britain and France to come
to Egypt’s aid under the terms of the Tripartite Declaration of
May 1950 was disposed of when Gazier reminded Eden that the Egyptians
themselves had recently said that this declaration did not apply to
Egypt. Nutting records Eden as saying excitedly: ‘So that lets us
off the hook. We have no obligation, it seems, to stop the
Israelis attacking the Egyptians.’[14] The only aspect of
the Challe scenario that Eden did not like was the idea of Britain
inviting Israel to move against Egypt. He preferred Israel to
move of her own accord; he did not want Britain to be implicated in
anything that might be construed as collusion in an alliance with
Israel against an Arab country. In short, he hoped for an
immaculate intervention.
For Eden the Chequers meeting was the turning point. The
‘Suez Group’ within the Conservative party had been
intensifying the pressure on him to get tough with Nasser. Selwyn
Lloyd, the foreign secretary, was at the United Nations in New York,
working towards a peaceful settlement of the dispute with Mahmoud
Fawzi, his Egyptian opposite number. Up to this point, Eden had
been thrashing around. He did not think that the United Nations
could produce a solution and he was not pleased with Lloyd’s
diplomatic efforts but no alternative policy was available. Now
the Frenchmen landed at Chequers like two angels from heaven and
offered an alternative. Eden seized this alternative with great
alacrity and made a sudden jump from the diplomatic track to the
military track. He called Lloyd in New York and ordered him to
drop everything and return home immediately.[15]
Lloyd arrived on 16 October in the middle of a meeting to which Eden
had invited several ministers to discuss the French proposal. The
meeting was held in the cabinet room at 10 Downing Street and Anthony
Nutting was also there. Nutting took Lloyd to an ante-chamber and
gave him a very brief report on the Chequers meeting. Lloyd did
not like the French proposal. He said to Nutting: ‘You were
quite right to reject it. We must have nothing to do with the
French plan.’ After the meeting a tug-of-war developed
between the two Anthony’s, with the hapless foreign secretary in
the middle. Eden won. He took Lloyd to lunch and
brain-washed him to go along with the French plan. Originally,
Eden had told Challe and Gazier that he would send Nutting to Paris
with a reply to their proposal. But given Nutting’s strong
opposition to this proposal, Eden decided to keep the matter in his own
hands and more or less ordered Lloyd to accompany him to a meeting in
Paris that very day. Lloyd was very reluctant to embark on this
venture but he felt that he had no real choice.[16]
On the evening of 16 October, Eden and Lloyd had the follow up to the
Chequers meeting at the Palais Matignon, the official residence of the
French prime minister, with Guy Mollet and his foreign minister,
Christian Pineau. No officials were present at this meeting. The
first matter to be discussed were the recent efforts to settle the
canal dispute by negotiation. Attention then turned to the
possibility that Israel would launch an attack against Egypt.
Pineau enquired about the British reaction to such an attack.
Eden replied that if Israel attacked Jordan, they were bound to go to
Jordan’s help but if Israel attacked Egypt, they would not regard
themselves as bound to intervene under the Tripartite
Declaration. Mollet then asked whether the United Kingdom would
intervene in the event of hostilities in the vicinity of the canal and
Eden said that he thought the answer to that question would be
‘yes’. On the following day, 17 October, Eden
confirmed in writing to Mollet the answers he had given to the two
questions at the meeting, again making a distinction between an Israeli
attack on Jordan and an attack on Egypt.[17] The French
wasted no time in conveying to the Israelis these indirect assurances
and in encouraging them to launch an independent attack near the canal
in accordance with the Challe scenario.[18]
Ben-Gurion was greatly excited by the prospect of a military
partnership with the great powers against Egypt but extremely
suspicious of the British in general and of Sir Anthony Eden in
particular. Only a week earlier, following an IDF attack on the
police station in Kalkilya, the British had reminded the Israelis of
their obligation to come to Jordan’s aid under the terms of the
Anglo-Jordanian Treaty of 1946. A private source warned
Ben-Gurion that the British were preparing to take military action
against Israel.[19] Although he knew that the plan to
attack Egypt originated with General Challe, he repeatedly referred to
it as ‘the English plan’. He had no faith in vague
and indirect British assurances and he feared that Britain may turn her
back on Israel or even turn against her. Moreover, he greatly
resented the suggestion that Israel should be used as a prostitute in
providing services for the great powers. What he deeply longed for a
was partnership between equals and an explicit co-ordination of
military plans, preferably at a face-to-face meeting with Eden.[20]
When news reached Ben-Gurion of the planned Anglo-French summit
meeting, he urgently cabled the Israeli defence ministry’s
representative in Paris: ‘In connection with the arrival of the
British representatives in Paris, you should contact the French
immediately and ask them whether the meeting can be made
tripartite. The Israeli representatives are ready to come
immediately, in utmost secrecy. Their rank will equal the ranks
of the British and French representatives.’[21]
The French understood that only a face-to-face meeting might allay
Ben-Gurion’s suspicions. The following day Guy Mollet
cabled Ben-Gurion to suggest that he come to Paris and, if the need
arises, a member of the British government would also be invited.
Ben-Gurion replied that the English proposal was out of the question
but that he was still willing to come if Mollet considered that his
visit would serve a useful purpose in spite of the disqualification of
the English idea. In his diary Ben-Gurion recorded: ‘It
seems to me that the English plot is to embroil us with Nasser, and in
the meantime bring about the conquest of Jordan by Iraq.’[22]
Whether the British would be represented at the talks in Paris
would not become clear until after Ben-Gurion’s arrival.
Ben-Gurion’s grand design
The senior members of the Israeli delegation to the talks in Paris were
David Ben-Gurion, who was defence minister as well as prime minister,
Moshe Dayan, the IDF chief of staff, and Shimon Peres, the
director-general of the ministry of defence. France was
represented by Guy Mollet, Christian Pineau, and Maurice
Bourgès-Maunoury, the minister of defence. Also present
were General Challe, Louis Mangin, Bourgès-Maunoury’s
friend and adviser, and Abel Thomas, the director-general of the
ministry of defence. Although it was essentially a political
meeting, with the politicians bearing the ultimate responsibility for
decision, it was the military men who had pressed for the meeting and
who provided most of the ideas that were finally agreed upon.[23]
Most of the Frenchmen had been active in the Resistance against Nazi
Germany during the Second World War. All of them saw Nasser as a
dangerous new dictator, not least because of his support for the
Algerian rebels, and all of them were united by the conviction that
military action was urgently required in order to seize the canal and
knock Nasser off his perch. The French military had three
priorities at that time: Algeria, Algeria, and Algeria. And they
proceeded on the assumption, for which there was no solid basis, that
if only Nasser could be toppled, the Algerian rebellion would
collapse. The French politicians were haunted by the spectre of
another Munich. The spacious villa, in Rue Emanuel Girot in the leafy
suburb of Sèvres, belonged to a family that had supported
General de Gaulle against the Vichy regime. It had been used by
Bourgès-Maunoury as a Resistance base during the war. The
collective determination of the Frenchmen that this time there must be
no appeasement was conveyed by Abel Thomas to the Israeli leader soon
after his arrival at the villa. ‘One day the Sèvres
conference will no doubt be publicized’, said Thomas.
‘It therefore depends on us whether it is remembered as the Yalta
conference or as the Munich conference of the Middle East.’[24]
The first session started at 4 p.m. on Monday, 22 October, in the
conservatory of the villa and it was intended to enable the leaders of
the two countries to get to know each other and to have a preliminary
discussion. Ben-Gurion opened the discussion by listing his
military, political and moral considerations against ‘the English
plan’. His main objection was that Israel would be branded as the
aggressor while Britain and France would pose as peace-makers but he
was also exceedingly apprehensive about exposing Israeli cities to
attack by the Egyptian Air Force. Instead he presented a
comprehensive plan, which he himself called ‘fantastic’,
for the reorganization of the Middle East. Jordan, he
observed, was not viable as an independent state and should
therefore be divided. Iraq would get the East Bank in return for
a promise to settle the Palestinian refugees there and to make peace
with Israel while the West Bank would be attached to Israel as a
semi-autonomous region. Lebanon suffered from having a large
Muslim population which was concentrated in the south. The
problem could be solved by Israel’s expansion up to the Litani
River, thereby helping to turn Lebanon into a more compact Christian
state. The Suez Canal area should be given an international
status while the Straits of Tiran in the Gulf of Aqaba should come
under Israeli control to ensure freedom of navigation. A prior
condition for realizing this plan was the elimination of Nasser and the
replacement of his regime with a pro-Western government which would
also be prepared to make peace with Israel.
Ben-Gurion argued that his plan would serve the interests of all the
Western powers as well as those of Israel by destroying Nasser and the
forces of Arab nationalism that he had unleashed. The Suez Canal
would revert to being an international waterway. Britain would
restore her hegemony in Iraq and Jordan and secure her access to the
oil of the Middle East. France would consolidate her influence in
the Middle East through Lebanon and Israel while her problems in
Algeria would come to an end with the fall of Nasser. Even
America might be persuaded to support the plan for it would promote
stable, pro-Western regimes and help to check Soviet advances in the
Middle East. Before rushing into a military campaign against
Egypt, Ben-Gurion urged that they take time to consider the wider
political possibilities. His plan might appear fantastic at first
sight, he remarked, but it was not beyond the realm of possibility
given time, British goodwill and good faith.
The French leaders listened patiently to Ben-Gurion’s
presentation but they showed no disposition to be diverted from the
immediate task of launching a military campaign against Egypt with
British involvement. They told Ben-Gurion politely that his plan
was not fantastic but added that they had a unique opportunity to
strike at their common enemy and that any delay might be fatal.
They also considered that while Eden himself was determined to fight,
he faced growing opposition in the country and the Cabinet, with Selwyn
Lloyd showing a preference for a diplomatic solution. The
Americans usually trailed behind events, as their record in the two
world wars had shown, and they were therefore unlikely to support
military action to get rid of Nasser. Technical considerations,
such as the onset of winter, were also cited by the French in support
of immediate action. In the end Ben-Gurion was persuaded that
priority had to be given to the campaign against Egypt but he continued
to insist on full co-ordination of their military plans with those of
Britain.
The reluctant conspirator
Ben-Gurion hoped to meet Eden but the British prime minister did not
want to be seen to be allied to him in any way. The French had in
fact suggested to Eden that he himself should come to the meeting but
Eden decided to send Selwyn Lloyd instead, travelling incognito. Selwyn
Lloyd, accompanied by his private secretary, Donald Logan, arrived at
the villa and, after being briefed by the French, joined in the
discussions. As the French had feared, their allies did not take
to one another. Moshe Dayan gives a vivid description of the
encounter in his memoirs: ‘Britain’s foreign minister may
well have been a friendly man, pleasant, charming, amiable. If
so, he showed near-genius in concealing these virtues. His manner
could not have been more antagonistic. His whole demeanour
expressed distaste - for the place, the company and the
topic.’[25] To Selwyn Lloyd, however, ‘Ben-Gurion
himself seemed to be in a rather aggressive mood, indicating or
implying that the Israelis had no reason to believe in anything that a
British minister might say.’[26]
It was immediately apparent that Selwyn Lloyd was still hoping for
success in the negotiations and that he was reluctant to get involved
in any collusion with the Israelis. It was not difficult to guess
that he was only attending the meeting on his master’s
orders. Whereas the purpose of the meeting was to discuss
military action, Lloyd began by saying that, on the basis of his recent
discussions with Egyptian foreign minister Mahmoud Fawzi, he estimated
that a diplomatic solution to the dispute over the canal could be
reached within a week.[27] On the possibility of tripartite
military action, Lloyd explained that his government could not go
beyond the statement which Eden had made in the Palais Matignon on 16
October and subsequently confirmed in writing. In practical terms
this meant that Israel would have to initiate a full-scale war and
remain alone in the war for about 72 hours, while Britain and France
issued an ultimatum to Israel which implied that she was the
aggressor. It was, of course, precisely the role of the
aggressor that Ben-Gurion did not want to play. He bristled with
hostility at the very idea of Israel incurring all the opprobrium for
the attack on the common enemy while Britain posed as the peace-maker
and basked in self-righteousness. The only encouraging element in
what Lloyd had to say was the admission that his government wanted to
destroy Nasser’s regime. The one important drawback of a
compromise with Egypt, he remarked, was that Nasser would remain in
power. Lloyd defined the aim of any allied military operations as
‘the conquest of the Canal Zone and the destruction of
Nasser.’
When they got down to brass tacks, Ben-Gurion demanded an agreement
between Britain, France and Israel that all three should attack
Egypt. He also wanted an undertaking that the Royal Air Force
would eliminate the Egyptian Air Force before Israeli ground troops
moved forward because otherwise Israeli cities like Tel Aviv could be
wiped out. Lloyd understood Ben-Gurion’s anxiety but
declined to have any direct co-operation with Israel. In his
memoirs he claimed that throughout the meeting he tried to make it
clear that an Israeli-French-British agreement to attack Egypt was
impossible. All he agreed to was the French proposal that if
Israel attacked Egypt, Britain and France would intervene to protect
the canal.[28] As Ben-Gurion categorically rejected this
proposal, the discussion came to a dead end.
At this juncture Ben-Gurion presented a new proposal which lowered the
price demanded by Israel for providing the pretext for allied
intervention. The proposal came from General Dayan who had been
pressing very persistently for a ‘preventive war’ against
Egypt ever since the Czech arms deal was announced by Nasser in
September 1955. The proposal envisaged an Israeli retaliatory
raid near the canal, an Anglo-French ultimatum to Egypt to
evacuate its military forces from the Canal Zone, an appeal to Israel
not to approach the canal, and aerial bombardment of Egypt’s
airfields following the expected rejection of the ultimatum.
Lloyd responded by pointing out that only a real act of war on
Israel’s part would justify Britain’s intervention in
the dispute. On re-examining the time-table, however, Lloyd
concluded that the gap between the Israeli attack and the allied
intervention might be reduced to 36 or 24 hours but he emphasised that
he only had authority to conduct negotiations based on serving an
ultimatum to the two sides two days after D-Day. To bridge the
remaining gap, Bourgès-Maunoury offered to use the French air
force from bases in Israel and Cyprus to protect Israeli cities in the
first two days of fighting. Lloyd hastily ruled out the use of
Cyprus because that would provide proof of collusion, but he was less
categorical in rejecting the idea of stationing French aircraft
in Israel as a defensive precaution.
At no point did the French and the Israelis threaten to go it
alone. They knew that only the RAF had the heavy bombers, the
Canberras, near enough the theatre of operations and they needed the
RAF to launch an attack on Egypt’s airfields from its bases in
Cyprus. The main question at issue, at the end of the day, was
the time at which the RAF would intervene by an attack on the Egyptian
air force. The meeting concluded, as far as Lloyd was concerned,
with an undertaking to go back to London and ask the Cabinet whether
the RAF intervention could be advanced and bring back the answer the
following day.[29]
Fearing that Lloyd would present the Israeli conditions in a manner
calculated to bring about their rejection, Pineau decided to go to
London the following evening to speak to Eden directly. Ever the
pessimist, Ben-Gurion feared that Pineau’s trip would be in vain
because Lloyd would secure a decision which would go against the wishes
of the French and Israeli delegations.[30]
The second day at Sèvres
On the second day of the conference, Tuesday, 23 October, in the
absence of the British, the atmosphere was markedly more relaxed
and friendly and there was more time for informal discussions.
The French continued to search for the magic formula which would
satisfy all the parties concerned. In the late morning there was
a meeting of the military men in the house of Louis Mangin. General
Challe suggested that Israel might simulate an ‘Egyptian’
air raid on Beersheba and that this would serve as the trigger for
Franco-British intervention. Although Dayan saw no merit in this
proposal, Challe decided to present it to Ben-Gurion in the afternoon
at the meeting with the French ministers. When he heard this
proposal, Ben-Gurion’s face looked grim and he said sternly that
the one thing he could not do was to lie to the world. The
atmosphere in the room became very tense and the French General mumbled
an apology. To defuse the tension, Pineau revealed that, after
consultations with the President of the Republic, René Coty, it
was decided to offer Israel a formal guarantee to carry out whatever
was finally agreed between the three countries.
Bourgès-Maunoury followed up with the offer of a military
guarantee in the form of air squadrons to be stationed in Israeli bases
and naval forces to protect Israel’s coast. France, he
said, would continue to do her best for Israel whatever happened but
there would never be a better opportunity for joint action. Under
the impression of this dramatic statement, the two delegations
adjourned for private consultations.
Ben-Gurion was inclined to show flexibility. One of his motives
in coming to Paris was to consolidate the alliance with France.
Dayan now came up with a revised proposal: an IDF paratroop drop on the
strategic Mitla Pass, deep in Sinai and about thirty miles from the
Suez Canal, and the westward thrust of a mechanized brigade which would
together constitute ‘a real act of war’ and thus provide
the pretext for intervention by Britain and France 36 hours
later. Ben-Gurion instructed Dayan to present this scheme as an
informal idea that Pineau could take with him to London.
To underline the informal nature of the proposal, Ben-Gurion left it to
Dayan and Peres to meet alone with Pineau. But this was simply a
tactical ploy. Ben-Gurion was only too well aware that if Pineau
were to go to London empty-handed, the whole conference would end in
failure. Pineau, who by now knew how the Israeli delegation
worked, was delighted to learn of the unofficial shift in
Israel’s position and he took down in writing a series of eight
points made by Dayan which constituted Israel’s minimum
conditions. Particularly noteworthy is the last point for it was
included at Ben-Gurion’s specific request and it defined
Israel’s territorial aims which were only tenuously related to
the Suez Canal crisis:
Israel declares its intention to keep her forces for the purpose of
permanent annexation of the entire area east of the El Arish-Abu
Ageila, Nakhl-Sharm el-Sheikh, in order to maintain for the long term
the freedom of navigation in the Straits of Eilat and in order to free
herself from the scourge of the infiltrators and from the danger posed
by the Egyptian army bases in Sinai. Britain and France are
required to support or at least to commit themselves not to show
opposition to these plans. This is what Israel demands as her
share in the fruits of victory.
After Pineau’s departure, many of the other members of the French
and Israeli delegations gathered in the large sitting-room and chatted
about various subjects in a relaxed and convivial atmosphere. Guy
Mollet talked about France’s difficulties in North Africa.
Ben-Gurion gave a lecture on the history of the Sinai peninsula, on the
oil deposits that had been discovered there, and on the problems of
atomic energy.
Pineau arrived in London in the evening and went to dinner with Selwyn
Lloyd after which they were joined by Eden for discussions that lasted
a couple of hours. Once again no officials were present and there
is no official record of the meeting.[31] Nutting relates that,
from talking to Lloyd the following day, he got the impression that
Eden’s enthusiasm for the French plan waxed stronger than ever
and that he assured Pineau that Israel need have no fear of being left
in the lurch and, if she led the way with an attack in Sinai, Britain
would lend her fullest support.[32] Lloyd, on the other
hand, gives no details of the meeting but merely states that it was
decided that it was worthwhile having another meeting at Sèvres
and since he himself could not go, it was agreed to send Patrick Dean,
an Assistant Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, and that Donald
Logan should go with him. Lloyd feared that Pineau might make
more of their talk than was warranted so he wrote him a letter that
evening for his officials to deliver by hand. In the letter he
said that he wished to make it clear that they had not asked Israel to
take any action. They had merely stated what would be the British
reaction if certain things happened.[33]
The third day at Sèvres
Very early next morning, 24 October, Dean was summoned to 10 Downing
Street and given a fifteen minute briefing by the prime minister before
breakfast. Eden impressed on Dean his anxiety that Nasser
intended to inflict great damage on British interests in the Middle
East. Eden also told Dean, without going into details, that the
French and the Israelis shared his opinion and that it might be
necessary for the three countries to take action if the canal itself
was threatened as a result of hostilities between Israel and
Egypt. Dean’s brief was to make it absolutely clear to the
other parties that there would be no British military action unless the
Israelis had advanced beyond their frontiers and a threat to the canal
had definitely emerged. If the other parties did not accept this
position, Britain would not participate in any contingency military
plan. Eden stressed that it was very important to keep the visit
secret because it involved possible military operations and he told
Dean that a private military aeroplane would take him to Paris and fly
him back to report the same evening.[34]
October 24 was the third and last day of the conference. Ben-Gurion
finally made up his mind to commit the IDF to the battle. In his
diary he summarized the main considerations that led to this fateful
decision. He thought that the operation had to be undertaken if
Israel’s skies could be effectively defended in the day or two
that would elapse until the French and the British started bombing
Egypt’s airfields. The aim of destroying Nasser had
pervaded the entire conference and it was uppermost in
Ben-Gurion’s mind. ‘This is a unique
opportunity’, he wrote, ‘that two not so small powers will
try to topple Nasser, and we shall not stand alone against him while he
becomes stronger and conquers all the Arab countries.... and maybe the
whole situation in the Middle East will change according to my
plan.’[35]
In the late morning Ben-Gurion summoned his young lieutenants to the
villa in Sèvres where he had been staying. They found him
in the garden, enjoying the sunshine and the autumn colours on
the trees. He did not announce his decision but from the
expression on his face they could tell, to their great relief and
satisfaction, that ‘the old man’ had made up his
mind. He began by asking Dayan to go over the main moves in the
operational plan he had proposed. This was best done with the
help of a map but as they had no paper, Peres tore open a packet of
cigarettes and Dayan drew the outline of the Sinai peninsula on it,
showing in bold arrows the proposed lines of advance. Dayan was
rather glad that he did not have a proper map at the time because on
the smooth cigarette packet, with no sign of mountain, sand dunes, or
wadi, the plan looked deceptively easy to carry out. Ben-Gurion
then pulled out a sheet of paper on which he had jotted down a long
list of questions, some of them military, some political, and some
simply unanswerable. All the questions, however, were of the
‘how’, ‘what’, and ‘when’ variety
and this confirmed the impression that a positive decision on joining
the campaign had already been reached.[36]
At 3 p.m. Pineau returned from London and they were immediately called
to the conference room. Pineau reported that he had found
Eden’s approach much warmer than that of Lloyd and that once he
had conveyed Israel’s agreement to a time-table that met
Britain’s needs, Eden was inclined to accept most of
Israel’s remaining conditions. Pineau claimed that Eden had
agreed to a six-point plan which was based on Dayan’s latest
proposal. The first point of the plan was that Israel would
decide how precisely to initiate hostilities in Sinai but the
governments of France and Britain recommended action connected with the
Suez Canal. Second, Israel had to carry out an operation that
would look like a real act of war so that the French and British
governments could argue that the canal was in danger. Third, the
air forces of France and Britain would go into action not more than 36
hours after Israel launched her attack. Fourth, on the day after
D-Day, the French and British governments would send two somewhat
differently worded messages, to be called an appeal rather than an
ultimatum in order to preserve Israel’s good name. Fifth,
to reinforce the air defence of Israeli cities in the period between
the opening of hostilities and the allied intervention, France
undertook to station fighter bombers in Israel but these planes were to
be given Israeli Air Force marking to conceal their true
identity. Finally, D-Day was to be Monday, 29 October 1956, at
1900 Israeli time.
This six-point plan represented a rough draft of the final
agreement. The Israelis were satisfied with Pineau’s
achievements. At 4.30 p.m. the British representatives, Patrick
Dean and Donald Logan, arrived. The bilateral talks became
trilateral and they assumed a more official air. The French and
the Israelis spoke from Pineau’s six points of which Dean and
Logan were ignorant. Ben-Gurion, however, raised two new
points. First, he demanded that the agreement should explicitly
commit Britain to refrain from activating the Anglo-Jordanian Treaty if
either Jordan or Iraq attacked Israel in return for an Israeli pledge
not to attack Jordan. Second, he wanted the British and French
governments to note Israel’s territorial demands, even if they
could not officially support them. ‘France and Britain have
a vital interest in the Suez Canal’, he said forcefully.
‘The Straits of Tiran are the State of Israel’s Suez
Canal.... We intend to capture the Straits of Tiran and we
intend to stay there and thus ensure freedom of navigation to
Eilat.’
Dean confined himself to the narrow brief Eden had given him: make
plain to the Israelis and the French that British forces would not move
unless the Israelis had advanced beyond their frontiers against Egypt
and presented a clear threat to the canal. The British officials
then asked a number of questions about Israel’s operational
plans, evidently inspired by the fear that the Israeli operation would
not amount to a real act of war and that, consequently, Britain would
not have a credible casus belli for military intervention. Will
Israel issue a formal declaration of war? Ben-Gurion replied that
Egypt’s repeated violations of the armistice agreement made a
declaration of war superfluous. Dayan retorted more bluntly:
‘We will not declare - we will simply strike!’ He
declined to give any details about their operational plans beyond
demonstrating on the same cigarette packet that there would be
significant military activity at the Mitla Pass. Being a wise
man, he did not give away military secrets easily but he did assure the
British representatives that Israel would stand by her commitments on
time, place, and size of forces, and provide an adequate pretext.
Ben-Gurion took the initiative in suggesting to the French that a
protocol be drawn up to summarize the decisions that had been reached
and that this document should be signed by the three parties and be
binding on them.[37] The fact that the idea for drawing up
a formal document came form Ben-Gurion is worth underlining because it
is glossed over in the first-hand Israeli accounts of the
meeting, presumably with the intention of minimizing his part in the
collusion. A drafting committee, consisting of French and Israeli
officials, was set to work in the neighbouring kitchen. It was heavy
going and an attempt to compose a preamble had to be abandoned.
The protocol was drafted in French, the language of the hosts and the
language of international diplomacy. As soon as they had finished, a
secretary was rushed into the kitchen and she typed the draft in a
great hurry on a portable typewriter, in three copies. By 7 p.m.
the document was ready.
The British representatives were taken aback when they were presented
with a copy of the protocol and asked to sign it. The protocol
simply summarized the actions and reactions of the three states as they
had been discussed during the week. But this was the first
indication they had that anybody intended to make a record of the
conversation. When confronted with the text, Dean and Logan had a
word together because there had been no earlier mention of committing
anything to paper. Logan said that the document seemed accurate
and that is might be useful to take back to the prime minister to show
that they had got the Israelis to agree to a significant military move
against the canal. As a good civil servant, he believed that
there was some merit in having an agreed record of what was a rather
elaborate scenario. To refuse to sign a summary to which they
could take no exception would have only increased suspicion of their
intentions in an exploit to which the prime minister was wedded.
Dean agreed. He initialled each page and signed the document at
the end. He made it clear that he was signing ad referendum,
subject to the approval of his government.[38] Pineau signed the
document for France and Ben-Gurion signed it for Israel. Although
the document had to be ratified by all three governments, Ben-Gurion
made no effort to conceal his excitement. He studied his copy of
the document, folded it carefully, and thrust it deep into the pocket
of his waistcoat.
While the drafting was in progress, two other private
conversations took place in another part of the villa. Ben-Gurion
had a conversation with his French opposite number at which no one else
was present. In his diary Ben-Gurion recorded the next day:
‘I told him about the discovery of oil in southern and western
Sinai, and that it would be good to tear this peninsula from Egypt
because it did not belong to her, rather it was the English who stole
it from the Turks when they believed that Egypt was in their
pocket. I suggested laying down a pipeline from Sinai to Haifa to
refine the oil and Mollet showed interest in this
suggestion.’[39] In the absence of any other record of
this conversation, one is left with the impression that the French
prime minister played the part of the polite host to the very end even
when his Israeli guest was making plans to share the territorial spoils
of war. The conversation also exposes Ben-Gurion for what he
really was - a born land-grabber.
An even more intriguing conversation took place at the end of this
one. It concerned French assistance to Israel in developing
nuclear technology. Details of this second conversation only
emerged in 1995 when Shimon Peres published his memoirs. The
relevant passage reads as follows:
Before the final signing, I asked
Ben-Gurion for a brief adjournment, during which I met Mollet and
Bourgés-Maunoury alone. It was here that I finalized with
these two leaders an agreement for the building of a nuclear reactor at
Dimona, in southern Israel... and the supply of natural uranium to fuel
it. I put forward a series of detailed proposals and, after
discussion, they accepted them.[40]
The development of nuclear power was a subject dear to Ben
Gurion’s heart. He saw in it a technological challenge
which would help to transform Israel into an advanced industrial
state. The negotiations with the French were about a small
nuclear reactor for civilian purposes. Nothing was said at this
stage about possible military applications of this nuclear
technology. But that was Ben-Gurion’s ultimate aim: to
produce nuclear weapons. He believed that nuclear weapons would
strengthen Israel immeasurably, secure her survival and eliminate any
danger of another holocaust.
Shimon Peres was the moving force behind the Israeli attempt to get
French help in building a nuclear reactor. Pineau opposed this
request, Bourgès-Maunoury strongly supported it, and Mollet was
undecided. On 21 September 1956, a month before Sèvres,
Peres reached an agreement with the French on the supply of a small
nuclear reactor. He used the occasion of Sèvres to try to commit
France at the political level. Against this background, the
broaching of the nuclear issue by Peres at Sèvres could not have
come as a complete surprise. A year later, in September 1957,
when Bourgès-Maunoury was prime minister, France delivered
to Israel a nuclear reactor which was twice the capacity previously
promised.[41]
Israel did not join in the Franco-British war plot in order to get a
French nuclear reactor. The sensitive question of nuclear power
was only raised towards the end of the conference and after the basic
decision to go to war had been taken. Nevertheless, the nuclear
deal concluded at the private meeting at Sèvres is interesting
for at least three reasons. In the first place, it shows that the
French were determined to go to war at almost any price and for their
own reasons, not, as Abel Thomas later claimed, in order to save
Israel. Secondly, it reveals the full extent of the incentives
that the French were prepared to give Israel in order to induce her to
play the part assigned to her in the war plot against Egypt.
Thirdly, it confirms the impression that Israel did not face any
serious threat of Egyptian attack at that time but colluded with the
European powers to attack Egypt for other reasons. Taken
together, the two private conversations at Sèvres thus drive a
coach and horses through the official version which says that Israel
only went to war because if faced an imminent danger of attack from
Egypt.
For Ben-Gurion the high-level French political commitment to assist
Israel in the nuclear field was one of the greatest achievements of the
gathering at Sèvres. It would be wrong to suggest that
participation in the war against Egypt was the price he paid for this
assistance because by this stage he had decided to go to war for his
own reasons. The reactor was an added bonus. His overall
aim at this time was to consolidate the alliance with France. He
already had an intimate political partnership with France, French
military hardware, and French air cover in the coming war. The
nuclear reactor reinforced the value of the alliance with France in his
eyes.[42]
The Protocol of Sèvres
An English translation of the Protocol of Sèvres is reproduced
in the Appendix.[43] The original protocol shows some
signs of having been prepared in a hurry: there are some minor typing
errors and the layout is erratic. There is no preamble as in most
international treaties because there was no time to compose one.
Instead of a preamble, the first line simply says: ‘The results
of the conversations which took place at Sèvres from 22 to 24
October 1956 between the representatives of the governments of the
United Kingdom, the State of Israel and France are the
following.’ There are seven articles.
In substance the protocol corresponds closely to the draft used by
Pineau for his discussion with Eden on the previous day, with one
amendment and two additions. The amendment concerns the
‘appeals’ to the Egyptian and Israeli governments (article
2), the additions concern Israel’s territorial aims (article 4)
and Jordan (article 5). The first article simply states that
Israel will launch a large scale attack in the evening of 29 October
with the aim of reaching the Canal Zone the following day. This
wording was designed to underline, as Selwyn Lloyd had insisted in his
letter of 23 October to Pineau, that the British and French governments
had not invited or incited the Israeli government to attack Egypt but
only intimated what their reaction would be to such an attack.
Article 2 describes the Anglo-French appeals to the belligerents to
stop fighting and to withdraw their forces to a distance of ten miles
from the canal. Egypt alone is asked to accept the temporary
occupation of key positions on the canal by the Anglo-French
forces. This demand was inserted in order to ensure that Egypt
could not possibly accept the appeal. The last ‘Temporary
Occuption’ of Egypt by Britain had lasted seventy four years,
from 1852 until June 1956. If the appeals were not accepted
within 12 hours, Anglo-French forces would intervene to enforce
compliance but Israel would not be required to comply in the event of
an Egyptian refusal. This article reflects a compromise between
the British desire to maintain an appearance of even-handedness towards
Egypt and Israel and Israel’s refusal to be placed on exactly the
same footing as Egypt.
Article 3 says that if Egypt failed to comply, the Anglo-French attack
on the Egyptian forces would be launched in the early hours in the
morning on 31 October. This article differs from the previous one
in that no military actions against Israel is envisaged. As
signatory to the agreement, Israel could not agree to be subject to its
sanctions. Article 4 notes the intention of the Israeli
government to occupy the western shore of the Gulf of Aqaba and the
islands of Tiran and Sanafir in order to ensure freedom of
navigation. The British and French governments did not undertake
to support this plan but nor did they express any opposition to
it.
In article 5 Israel promises not to attack Jordan during the period
of hostilities against Egypt and Britain promises not to help
Jordan if she attacks Israel. The purpose of this provision was
to minimize the risk of a military clash between Israel and Britain on
the Jordanian front. It did not directly concern France, except
as a signatory to the Tripartite Declaration, but it underlined the
complexity of Britain’s relationships in the Middle East.
For both Britain and Israel Jordan was a rather sensitive issue and a
major source of mutual distrust. Article 5 embodied
Britain’s agreement to Israel’s request that in the event
of a Jordanian attack on Israel, the Anglo-Jordanian Treaty would not
come into force. In effect, it meant that Britain and Israel were
guilty of collusion against Jordan as well as against
Egypt.
Article 6 requires all three governments to keep the provisions of the
accord strictly secret. Finally, article 7 says that the
provisions of the protocol will enter into force as soon as they have
been confirmed by the three governments.
Once the protocol had been signed, champagne was produced but there was
little sparkle in the atmosphere and no comradely backslapping.
The first to leave the Rue Emanuel Girot were the British. They
left, writes Dayan, ‘mumbling as they went words of politeness
tinged with humour and not quite comprehensible.’[44]
After the departure of the British, another bottle of champagne was
produced and drank
en famille,
with much sparkle in the atmosphere. Peres whispered something in
Ben-Gurion’s ear and the latter nodded in approval. Peres
then asked Mollet loudly whether they could also celebrate the nuclear
deal and Mollet said ‘yes’. So they all drank a toast
to the nuclear reactor about which some of the more junior members of
the two delegations heard for the first time.[45]
The secret meeting at Sèvres had a farcical sequel. Dean
reported to Eden at 10 Downing Street late on Wednesday night. When
Eden learnt that the war plot had been recorded in a formal document,
he was clearly surprised and very put out. He made it clear to
Dean that he had not expected anything would be written down, but he
did not suggest that Dean and Logan ought to have known that this was
his intention. At no time did Eden say or imply that Dean and
Logan had acted improperly or exceeded their authority but he was
seriously worried about the possible consequences.[46]
So worried was Eden, that he ordered Dean and Logan to return to Paris
the next day to persuade the other parties to destroy the
protocol. Pineau was not sympathetic but said he would consult
his colleagues, adding that Ben-Gurion was already airborne with his
copy. The British pair were shown into one of the grand reception
rooms in the Quai D’Orsay. At lunchtime they tried to get
out but the door was locked. Since the entire Quai D’Orsay
had been kept in the dark about the meeting at Sèvres, their
presence there would have been acutely embarrassing if
discovered. The unfortunate envoys were kept under lock and key
until 4 p.m. when Pineau returned to inform them that Ben-Gurion would
not accede to their request, nor would the French government. Dean and
Logan returned to 10 Downing Street to report the failure of their
mission. Eden then ordered all the copies of the protocol and the
English translation made in the Foreign Office to be rounded up and
delivered to No. 10 for destruction. He knew, however, that two
smoking guns remained.[47] In the event neither gun was
discovered until much later. But within days, rumours of the
meeting at Sèvres were circulating in Paris. The
discipline of the Resistance had not held.
Eden’s reluctance to leave additional traces of the collusion
accounts for the peculiar manner in which he ratified the Protocol of
Sèvres. Ben-Gurion was under the impression that each
government would send two letters, one to each partner, ratifying the
protocol. But he was far from confident that a British letter
would arrive. Ben-Gurion’s suspicion was justified: he
received no letter from Eden. Eden only wrote to Mollet to ratify
the agreement reached at the tripartite meeting. The most
charitable explanation of Eden’s behaviour is that he followed
the usual diplomatic practice of addressing ratification to the
depository power, in this case France. On 25 October Ben-Gurion
received a batch of letters from Paris. The first letter
confirmed the pledge of an air umbrella and a naval belt. The
pledge came in the form of an ‘Annex to the Protocol of
Sèvres’ and it was signed by Maurice
Bourgès-Maunoury. In English it would read:
The French government undertakes to
station on the territory of Israel to ensure the air defence of Israeli
territory during the period from 29 to 31 October a reinforced squadron
of Mystères IV A, and a squadron of fighter bombers. In
addition two ships of the Marine Nationale will during the same period
put into Israeli ports.[48]
This document discharged France’s promise of a guarantee of
military support to Israel during the war against Egypt. Pineau
observed in his memoirs that this annex, unlike the protocol, at least
it had the merits of honesty and clarity.[49]
The second letter was from Guy Mollet, confirming the agreement
of the French government to ‘the results of the conversations of
Sèvres and the terms of the final protocol to which they gave
rise.’[50] Mollet also enclosed, for Ben-Gurion’s
personal information, a copy of a letter he had just received from the
British prime minister. The letter said that ‘Her
Majesty’s Government have been informed of the course of the
conversations held at Sèvres on October 23-24 and confirm that
in the situation there envisaged they will take the action
described.’[51] Ben-Gurion immediately noticed that the
letter did not refer specifically to the protocol. In his diary
he wrote: ‘This letter is typical of the British Foreign Office
for it can be interpreted in various ways, while the French state
clearly to what they have committed themselves, as was discussed with
them without adding or subtracting.’[52] The Foreign
Office had not even seen the letter which was written in No. 10, signed
by Eden, and probably drafted by him. In any case, Ben-Gurion
wrote to Mollet on 26 October to thank him for the two letters and to
confirm the agreement of the government of Israel to the results of the
conversations held at Sèvres and to the terms of the
protocol.[53]
Conclusions
The documentary evidence does not leave any room for doubt that at
Sèvres, during the three days in late October 1956, an elaborate
war plot was hatched against Egypt by the representatives of France,
Britain and Israel. The Protocol of Sèvres is the most
conclusive piece of evidence for it lays out in precise detail and with
a precise time-table how the joint war against Egypt was intended to
proceed and shows foreknowledge of each other’s intentions.
The central aim of the plot was the overthrow of Gamal Abdel
Nasser. This aim is not explicitly stated in the protocol but it
emerges clearly and unambiguously from all the records of the
discussions surrounding it. Yet each of the three partners had a
very different perspective on this war plot, and it was not at all
clear how even the agreed aim was to be achieved.
The French were the most straight-forward, unwavering and unabashed
advocates of military force. As far as they were concerned,
Colonel Nasser supported the Algerian rebels and that, along with his
nationalization of the Suez Canal Company, was enough to justify
a war to overthrow him. For their part, the French did not need
any further pretext for taking military action. It was the
British, unwilling to incur Arab hostility by appearing as ally of
Israel, who needed a pretext and Israel was able and willing to
provide it but only at a price. Israel also required the
elimination of Nasser’s air force, for which task Britain alone
had the heavy bomber bases sufficiently near at hand. Thus,
willy-nilly, the French became the matchmakers between the stand-offish
Brits and the suspicious Israelis. It was the French who issued
the invitation to the conspiracy and it was they who wooed, cajoled,
and applied subtle pressure on their partners to participate in what
was bound to be a risky joint venture. And it was only the French
who could have brought about this improbable
ménage à trois.
On the British side, Anthony Eden bore the ultimate responsibility and
received most of the opprobrium for the collusion with France and
Israel. Eden was desperate for a pretext to go to war in order to
get rid of Nasser and the alliance with Israel was the price he
reluctantly paid to procure such a pretext. The elaborate plot
embodied in the protocol was so transparent that it is still difficult
to understand how Eden could have believed that it would not be seen as
such. What is clear is that having got embroiled in the war plot,
Eden became desperate to hide the traces. His attempt to round up
and destroy all the copies of the Protocol of Sèvres has to be
seen in this light. He wanted to expunge the war plot, in which
Britain had been a reluctant but a full and formal participant, from
the historical record. What he embarked on was a massive attempt
to deceive. This attempt ended in miserable failure, like all the
expedients that Eden resorted to in his vendetta against the Egyptian
leader whom he perceived, for no good reason, as another Hitler.
On the Israeli side the most senior figure was David Ben-Gurion and all
the important decisions connected with the war plot were made by him.
The idea of a secret, high-level tripartite meeting came from
him. The Suez Canal was not his prime concern and ideally he
would not have wished the attack to take place then, or there, or in
that way. He badly wanted to join the great powers club and he
found that subscribing to the Suez campaign at the end of October
was the only way of doing it. Although he was pompous and prolix about
the moral issues involved, his abrupt change of position regarding
Israel’s participation in the campaign against Nasser was
dictated exclusively by practical considerations. Initially, he
opposed the Challe scenario because it did not treat Israel as an equal
member of the club but he ended up by joining the club essentially on
the basis of this scenario. Three days of bargaining at
Sèvres improved the conditions offered to Israel but her role in
enacting the Challe scenario remained fundamentally unchanged. At
the end of the day, Israel was not going to be an equal partner but, to
use Ben-Gurion’s own term, a prostitute performing services for
the two senior members of the Suez campaign club.
Having settled for this unglorious role, Ben-Gurion took the lead in
proposing that a record of the decisions be drawn up and signed by the
representatives of the three countries concerned. The Protocol of
Sèvres was the result. For him the protocol was not
something to be ashamed of but a major achievement. It
represented a military pact with two great powers against a common
enemy, albeit a secret and awkward pact. Britain’s
persistent cold-shouldering of Israel was disappointing and
disconcerting. But Ben-Gurion felt that the protocol at
least gave him a guarantee against betrayal by Perfidious Albion.
The three partners in the war plot against Nasser thus differed
markedly in their attitude to the Protocol of Sèvres. The
French were largely indifferent to the protocol but they agreed to it
in order to get Israel on board in their bid to topple Nasser.
Eden was shocked and dismayed when he discovered that the war plot had
been committed to paper but hard as he tried, he could not destroy the
incriminating evidence. Ben-Gurion was the only leader who was
proud of the protocol which was really his brain-child. His
mistrust of Britain verged on paranoia and he saw the protocol as a
means of keeping Britain to the decisions that had been reached at
Sèvres. In the final analysis, the Protocol of
Sèvres was thus a monument to French opportunism, Eden’s
duplicity, and Ben-Gurion’s paranoia.
APPENDIX: PROTOCOL
The results of the conversations which took place at Sèvres from
22-24 October 1956 between the representatives of the Governments of
the United Kingdom, the State of Israel and of France are the following:
- The Israeli forces launch in the evening of 29 October 1956 a
large scale attack on the Egyptian forces with the aim of reaching the
Canal Zone the following day.
- On being apprised of these events, the British and French
Governments during the day of 30 October 1956 respectively and
simultaneously make two appeals to the Egyptian Government and the
Israeli Government on the following lines:
A. To the Egyptian Government
a) halt all acts of war.
b) withdraw all its troops ten miles
from the Canal.
c) accept temporary occupation of key
positions on the Canal by the Anglo-French forces to guarantee
freedom of
passage through the Canal by vessels of all nations until a final
settlement.
B. To the Israeli Government
a) halt all acts of war.
b) withdraw all its troops ten miles to the east of the
Canal.
In addition, the Israeli Government will be notified that the French
and British Governments have demanded of the Egyptian Government to
accept temporary occupation of key positions along the Canal by
Anglo-French forces.
It is agreed that if one of the Governments refused, or did not give
its consent, within twelve hours the Anglo-French forces would
intervene with the means necessary to ensure that their demands are
accepted.
C. The representatives of the three
Governments agree that the Israeli Government will not be required to
meet the
conditions in the appeal
addressed to it, in the event that the Egyptian Government does not
accept those in the
appeal addressed to it for their part.
3. In the event that the Egyptian
Government should fail to agree within the stipulated time to the
conditions of the appeal
addressed to it, the
Anglo-French forces will launch military operations against the
Egyptian forces in the early hours of
the morning of 31 October.
4. The Israeli Government will
send forces to occupy the western shore of the Gulf of Aqaba and the
group of islands
Tirane and
Sanafir to ensure freedom of navigation in the Gulf of Aqaba.
5. Israel undertakes not to attack Jordan during the period of operations against Egypt.
But in the
event that during the same period Jordan should attack Israel, the
British
Government undertakes not to come to the aid of Jordan.
6. The arrangements of the present protocol must remain strictly secret.
7. They will enter into force
after the agreement of the three Governments.
(signed)
DAVID BEN-GURION PATRICK DEAN CHRISTIAN PINEAU
Notes:
[1] ‘The Suez Crisis - BBC
Version’ was shown on BBC 1 on 22 Oct. 1996. Jeremy Bennett was the producer, Keith Kyle
and I were the historical consultants.
Shimon Peres who was foreign minister at the time gave us permission to
photocopy the Protocol of Sèvres after protracted negotiations and only after
we produced letters from the British and French governments saying that they
had no objection to our request. The Protocol is now available at the
Ben-Gurion Archives in Sede-Boker and in the Israel State Archives in Jerusalem. S. Ilan
Troen, ‘The Protocol of Sèvres: British/French/Israeli collusion against Egypt,
1956’, Israel Studies, 1:2, Fall
1996, pp. 122-39, reproduces the original French text of the protocol, a
translation into English, the annex to the protocol, and the letters of ratification.
[2] Anthony Nutting, No end of a lesson: the story of Suez (London: Constable, 1957).
[3] Christian Pineau, Suez 1956
(Paris: Robert Laffont, 1976).
[4] Moshe Dayan, Story of my life (London: Weidenfeld and
Nicolson, 1976).
[5] Selwyn Lloyd, Suez 1956: a personal account (London: Jonathan Cape, 1978).
[6] Abel Thomas, Comment Israël fut
sauvé: les secrets de l’expédition de Suez (Paris: Albin Michel,
1978).
[7] Yosef Evron, Beyom sagrir: Su’etz me’ahorei hakla’im
(In Stormy Days: Suez Behind the Scenes)
(Tel Aviv: Ot Paz, 1965).
[8] Shimon Peres, Battling for peace: memoirs (London:
Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1995).
[9] ‘Ben-Gurion’s Diary - the
Suez-Sinai Campaign’, edited and introduced by Selwyn Ilan Troen in Selwyn Ilan
Troen and Moshe Shemesh, eds., The
Suez-Sinai Campaign: retrospective and reappraisal (London: Frank Cass,
1990), pp. 289-332.
[10] Mordechai Bar-On, Etgar ve-tigra (Challenge and Quarrel)
(Sede-Boker: The Ben-Gurion Research Center, 1991).
[11] Mordechai Bar-On, The Gates of Gaza: Israel’s road to Suez and back, 1955-1957 (New York: St
Martin’s Press, 1994).
[12] Keith Kyle, Suez (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1991), Appendix A, pp. 565-7.
[13] Donald Logan, ‘Suez: Meetings at
Sèvres, 22-25 Oct. 1956’. I am grateful
to Sir Donald Logan for giving me a copy. An edited version of this account was
published as ‘Collusion at Suez’, Financial
Times, 2 Jan. 1986.
[14] Nutting, No end of a lesson, pp. 90-95. General
Challe’s account of the Chequers meeting to the French chief of staff is
reported in Paul Ély, Mémoires: Suez... le 13 Mai (Paris: Plon, 1969), pp. 136-40.
[15] Interview with Sir Anthony
Nutting, London, 12
Mar. 1997.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Selwyn Lloyd wrote a six-page top secret minute of this meeting for
his personal file. Minute by Selwyn
Lloyd, 18
Oct. 1956, FO 800/725, Public Record Office
(PRO), London.
[18] Ben-Gurion’s diary, 17 and
18 Oct. 1956, the Ben-Gurion Archives, Sede-Boker; and Mordechai Bar-On, ‘In
the Web of Lies: Anthony Eden and the Collusion with France and Israel in the
Autumn of 1956’ (Hebrew), Iyunim Bitkumat
Israel, vol. 2, 1992, pp. 169-96.
[19] Interview with Shimon Peres,
Tel Aviv, 20
Aug. 1982.
[20] Interview with Colonel
Mordechai Bar-On, Ditchley Park, 8
Dec. 1996.
[21] Quoted in Mordechai Bar-On
‘David Ben-Gurion and the Sèvres Collusion’, in Wm. Roger Louis and Roger Owen,
eds., Suez 1956: the crisis and its consequences (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989),
pp. 149-51.
[22] Ben-Gurion’s diary, 17 Oct. 1956.
[23] Motti Golani, ‘The Sinai
Campaign, 1956: Military and Political Aspects’ (Hebrew) (Ph.D. thesis, University of Haifa, 1992), p.
235. This thesis gives the most
comprehensive account available of the military aspect of the talks at Sèvres,
based on exhaustive research in the IDF Archive.
[24] Bar-On, Etgar ve-tigra, p. 251. In
the following account of the discussions at Sèvres, I have drawn very heavily
and with gratitude on Bar-On’s account in pp. 250-79 of his book. All the quotations are from this source
unless otherwise stated.
[25] Dayan, Story of my life, p. 180.
[26] Lloyd, Suez 1956, p. 183.
[27] On the talks between Selwyn
Lloyd and Mahmoud Fawzi in New York see Lloyd, Suez 1956, pp. 153-63; and Mahmoud Fawzi, Suez 1956: an Egyptian perspective (London: Shorouk International,
n.d.), chapter 5.
[28] Lloyd, Suez 1956, pp. 181-5.
[29] Interview with Sir Donald
Logan, Suez Oral History Project, Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King’s College, London.
[30] Ben-Gurion’s diary, 22 Oct. 1956.
[31] Selwyn Lloyd did write a
minute of this meeting and asked his private secretary to put it with his other
top secret minutes. But the minute only
deals with the talks at the United Nations on the canal dispute; it does not
make even an oblique reference to the talks at Sèvres. Minute by Selwyn Lloyd, 24 Oct. 1956, FO 800/725, PRO.
[32] Nutting, No end of a lesson, p. 104.
[33] Lloyd, Suez 1956, p. 186.
[34] Memorandum by Sir Patrick
Dean, 1986. I am grateful to Sir Donald
Logan for giving me a copy of this memorandum.
[35] Ben-Gurion’s diary, 24 Oct. 1956. Emphasis on the original.
[36] Dayan, Story of my life, pp. 189-91.
[37] Ben-Gurion’s diary, 25 Oct. 1956.
[38] Lloyd, Suez 1956, p. 188; Logan, ‘Meetings at Sèvres’; and Dean, ‘Memorandum’.
[39] Ben-Gurion’s diary, 25 Oct. 1956.
[40] Peres, Battling for peace, p. 130.
[41] Yossi Melman, ‘A royal
present’, Ha’aretz, 11 Oct. 1992.
[42] Interview with Colonel
Mordechai Bar-On.
[43] The English translation
appears in Kyle, Suez, pp. 565-7. I am grateful to
Keith Kyle for giving me permission to reproduce this translation.
[44] Dayan, Story of my life, p. 193.
[45] Interview with Colonel Mordechai Bar-On
[46] Interview with Sir Donald
Logan, Ditchley Park, 8
Dec. 1996; and Comments by Donald Logan on Richard Lamb, The Failure
of the Eden Government, box 30, the Selwyn Lloyd Papers, Churchill College, Cambridge.
[47] Kyle, Suez, A 331; Robert Rhodes James, Anthony Eden (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1986), pp. 530-2;
Interview with Donald Logan, Suez Oral History Project, Liddell Hart Centre for
Military Archives, King’s College, London; and Sir Donald Logan, ‘Collusion at
Suez’, Financial Times, 8 Jan. 1986.
[48] ‘Annexe au Protocole de
Sèvres’, 24
Oct. 1956, the Ben-Gurion Archives. The French text is also given in Pineau, Suez 1956, pp. 153-4. Ben-Gurion
writes that in addition to the two squadrons of Mystères, the French promised
‘volunteers’ to fly some of Israel’s Mystères: Ben-Gurion’s diary, 25 Oct.
1956.
[49] Pineau, Suez 1956, p. 153.
[50] Mollet to Ben-Gurion, 25 Oct. 1956, the Ben-Gurion Archives.
[51] Eden to Mollet, 25 Oct. 1956, the Ben-Gurion Archives.
[52] Ben-Gurion’s diary, 26 Oct. 1956.
[53] Ben-Gurion to
Mollet, 26 Oct. 1956, the Ben-Gurion Archives.
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