The Protocol of Sèvres, 1956: Anatomy of a war plot

International Affairs

Volumn 73, Issue 3, 1997, Pages 509-530

  Shlaim, Avi ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0040360933     PISSN: 00205850     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/2624270     Document Type: Article

References (64)

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. Selwyn Ilan Troen, 'The Protocol of Sèvres: British/French/Israeli collusion against Egypt, 1956', Israel Studies 1: 2, Fall 1996, pp. 122-39, reproduced 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, 1967).
3. Christian Pineau, Suez 1956 (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1976).
4. Moshe Dayan, Story of my life (London: Weidenfeld & 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 & 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 Gales of Gaza: Israel's road to Suez and back, 1955-1957 (New York: St Martin's Press, 1994).
12. Keith Kyle, Suez (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1991), Appendix A, pp. 565-7.
13. Donald Logan, 'Suez: meetings at Sèvres, 22-25 October 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: Pion, 1969), pp. 136-40.
15. 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: Pion, 1969), pp. 136-40.
16. Interview with Sir Anthony Nutting, London, 12 Mar. 1997.
17. Ibid.
18. 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.
19. 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.
20. 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.
21. Interview with Shimon Peres, Tel Aviv, 20 Aug. 1982.
22. Interview with Colonel Mordechai Bar-On, Ditchley Park, 8 Dec. 1996.
23. 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, 1989), pp. 140-51.
24. Ben-Gurion's diary, 17 Oct. 1956.
25. Motti Golani, 'The Sinai Campaign, 1956: military and political aspects' (Hebrew) (PhD. 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.
26. 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.
27. Dayan, Story of my life, p. 180.
28. Lloyd, Suez 1956, p. 183.
29. 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 perspectiv e (London: Shorouk International, n.d.), ch. 5.
30. 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 perspectiv e (London: Shorouk International, n.d.), ch. 5.
31. Lloyd, Suez 1956, pp. 181-5.
32. Interview with Sir Donald Logan, Suez Oral History Project, Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King's College London.
33. Ben-Gurion's diary, 22 Oct. 1956.
34. 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 deals only 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.
35. Nutting, No end of a lesson, p. 104.
36. Lloyd, Suez 1956, p. 186.
37. Memorandum by Sir Patrick Dean, 1986. I am grateful to Sir Donald Logan for giving me a copy of this memorandum.
38. Ben-Gurion's diary, 24 Oct. 1956. Emphasis in original.
39. Dayan, Story of my life, pp. 189-91.
40. Ben-Gurion's diary, 25 Oct. 1556.
41. Lloyd, Suez 1956, p. 188; Logan, 'Meetings at Sèvres'; and Dean, 'Memorandum'.
42. Lloyd, Suez 1956, p. 188; Logan, 'Meetings at Sèvres'; and Dean, 'Memorandum'.
43. Lloyd, Suez 1956, p. 188; Logan, 'Meetings at Sèvres'; and Dean, 'Memorandum'.
44. Ben-Gurion's diary, 25 Oct. 1956.
45. Peres, Battling for peace, p. 130.
46. Yossi Melman, 'A royal present', Ha'aretz, 11 Oct. 1992.
47. Interview with Colonel Mordechai Bar-On.
48. The English translation appears in Kyle, Suez, pp. 565-7. I am grateful to Keith Kyle for giving me permission to reproduce this translation.
49. Dayan, Story of my life, p. 193.
50. Interview with Colonel Mordechai Bar-On.
51. Interview with Sir Donald Logan, Ditchley Park, 8 Dec. 1996; and comments by
52. Donald Logan on Richard Lamb, The Failure of the Eden Government, box 30, the Selwyn Lloyd Papers, Churchill College, Cambridge.
53. Kyle, Suez, A. 331; Robert Rhodes James, Anthony Eden (London: Weidenfeld & 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.
54. Kyle, Suez, A. 331; Robert Rhodes James, Anthony Eden (London: Weidenfeld & 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.
55. Kyle, Suez, A. 331; Robert Rhodes James, Anthony Eden (London: Weidenfeld & 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.
56. Kyle, Suez, A. 331; Robert Rhodes James, Anthony Eden (London: Weidenfeld & 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.
57. '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.
58. '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.
59. '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.
60. Pineau, Suez 1956, p. 153.
61. Mollet to Ben-Gurion, 25 Oct. 1956, the Ben-Gurion Archives.
62. Eden to Mollet, 25 Oct. 1956, the Ben-Gurion Archives.
63. Ben-Gurion's diary, 26 Oct. 1956.
64. Ben-Gurion to Mollet, 26 Oct. 1956, the Ben-Gurion Archives.