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125-560: The event was originally conceived in 1957 in response to the fuel shortages from the Suez Crisis . This meant that traditional car rallying was less viable due to fuel shortages and so concentrating a competition in the City of London would reduce distances covered. In the early 1990s the ring of steel was introduced to the City of London . This added a degree of complexity to navigation of

250-674: A Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) coup, Nasser and his Society of Free Officers were in contact with CIA operatives beforehand Nasser maintained links with potential allies, from the Egyptian Communist Party to the Muslim Brotherhood on the right. Nasser's friendship with CIA officers in Cairo led Washington to overestimate its influence in Egypt. That Nasser was close to CIA officers led them to view Nasser as

375-729: A Nobel Peace Prize . Analysts have argued that the crisis may have emboldened the USSR, prompting the Soviet invasion of Hungary . The Suez Canal was opened in 1869, after ten years of work financed by the French and Egyptian governments. The canal was operated by the Suez Company , an Egyptian-chartered company; the area surrounding the canal remained sovereign Egyptian territory and the only land-bridge between Africa and Asia. The canal instantly became strategically important, as it provided

500-524: A 1955 meeting that "Nasser was a young man without much political experience, but if we give him the benefit of the doubt, we might be able to exert a beneficial influence on him, both for the sake of the Communist movement, and ... the Egyptian people". Traditionally, most of the equipment in the Egyptian military had come from Britain, but Nasser's desire to break British influence in Egypt meant that he

625-575: A CIA "asset". In turn, the British who were aware of Nasser's CIA ties resented this relationship, which they viewed as an American attempt to push them out of Egypt. The reason for Nasser's courting of the CIA before the coup was his hope the Americans would act as a restraining influence on the British, should Britain decide on intervention to put an end to the revolution (until Egypt renounced it in 1951,

750-926: A Middle Eastern arms race. Eisenhower very much valued the Tripartite Declaration as a way of keeping peace in the Near East. In 1950, in order to limit the extent that the Arabs and the Israelis could engage in an arms race , the three nations which dominated the arms trade in the non-Communist world, namely the United States, the United Kingdom and France, had signed the Tripartite Declaration, where they had committed themselves to limiting how much arms they could sell in

875-509: A diversified investment firm. In 1959, it established a banking subsidiary, the Banque de la Compagnie Financière de Suez , renamed Banque de Suez et de l'Union des mines in 1966 following Suez's combination with financier Jack Francès  [ fr ] 's conglomerate, Union des mines La Hénin . That bank merged in 1975 with the Banque de l'Indochine to form Banque Indosuez , which

1000-433: A large expenses-paid festivity took place including: a riding exhibition, a rifle competition, tight-rope walking, an Armenian with a dancing bear, an Italian with a hurdy-gurdy, Arab sword dancing, glassblowing, flame eating, snake charming, juggling, dancing darvishes, belly dancers, Koran recitations, Arabic poetry recitations, prostitution, food, and drink. On 19 November, the flotilla proceeded south to Suez. In summary,

1125-495: A machine to dredge ports in Russia. Railroad tracks were laid along the canal route to accommodate some of the machines, whereas others were mounted on barges . The varying soil type necessitated more than a dozen different types of excavation machinery. Nearly 300 of these machines were used in this 5 year dredging period. Their subcontractor excavation price was determined on a price-per-unit basis – francs per cubic meter – which

1250-478: A point was lost for every minute the team was late at the end of the five hours. A reduced scale map based on the 1:10 000 scale Ordnance Survey Landplan map of the City was provided, along with a sheet of the sixty clues. Each clue was an eight digit Ordnance Survey grid reference (which defines a 10 m by 10 m area to search) and a quotation of some text or number that can be found at the location, with some parts missing, which need to be found and written down as

1375-454: A price of 500 francs each would be publicly offered beginning 5 November 1858. In the notification, Lesseps estimated an annual revenue of 30 million francs based on freight fees, and a construction period lasting 6 years. In preparation for the offering, shares were sent to brokerage houses across Europe and in the United States. At the close of offering on 30 November 1858, about half of the shares (around 200,000) belonged to French citizens with

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1500-946: A report "Britain and the Suez Canal" revealing government perception of the Suez area. It reiterated the strategic necessity of the canal to the UK, including the need to meet military obligations under the Manila Pact in the Far East and the Baghdad Pact in Iraq, Iran, or Pakistan. The report noted the canal had been used in wartime to transport materiel and personnel from and to the UK's close allies in Australia and New Zealand, and might be vital for such purposes in future. The report cites

1625-754: A result of the incident, Nasser began allowing raids into Israel by the Palestinian militants. Egypt established fedayeen bases not just in Gaza but also in Jordan and Lebanon, from which incursions could be launched with a greater amount of plausible deniability on the part of Nasser's Egypt. The raids triggered a series of Israeli reprisal operations , which ultimately contributed to the Suez Crisis. Starting in 1949 owing to shared nuclear research, France and Israel started to move towards an alliance. Following

1750-444: A right to defend the canal and stationed troops there for that purpose into the 1930s. The company's profits rose greatly during the 1920s and 1930s. In 1938, Benito Mussolini demanded that Italy have a sphere of influence in the Suez Canal, specifically demanding that an Italian representative be placed on the company's board of directors . Italy opposed the French monopoly over the Suez Canal because under French domination of

1875-1001: A separate bilateral agreement. Following the Japanese attack on the Russian Pacific Fleet at Port Arthur , the Russians sent reinforcements from their fleet in the Baltic Sea . The British denied the Russian Baltic Fleet use of the canal after the Dogger Bank incident and forced it to steam around the Cape of Good Hope in Africa, giving the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces time to consolidate their position. The importance of

2000-514: A statutory reserve of 430 million francs, a special reserve of 7 billion francs, a contingency fund of 1.72 billion francs, and a pension fund of 7.81 billion francs. After Jacques Georges-Picot's arrival to the company in the 1940s, the board started to hire investment advisors, and by the late 1940s, the company had investments in Air France , Air Liquide , colonial sugar refineries, coal mining companies, railroad companies, electric companies,

2125-491: A strong friend of Israel, urged an alliance with that nation against Egypt. Prior to 1955, Nasser had pursued efforts to reach peace with Israel and had worked to prevent cross-border Palestinian attacks. In February 1955, Unit 101 , an Israeli unit under Ariel Sharon , conducted a raid on the Egyptian Army headquarters in Gaza in retaliation for a Palestinian fedayeen attack that killed an Israeli civilian. As

2250-509: A typical year, the winning score was in the mid-fifties, though in 2019 it was as low as 41 and in 2018 a clean sheet of 60 was achieved for the first and only time. Ties were separated by team size (smallest wins) and then by relative scores for the difficult and medium clues respectively. The City has a small resident population, most of whom live in the Barbican, which has strictly separated pedestrian and vehicle circulation. The hunt avoided

2375-477: A £4 million loan from Lionel de Rothschild to purchase the 177,000 shares from Ismail on behalf of the British government. This offer was slightly greater than the French offer, and Ismail physically delivered his share certificates to the British consulate. By December 1875 Britain became the largest shareholder of the Suez Canal Company, owning 44 percent of the shares. However, the remaining 56% of

2500-524: Is largely due to the policy of the West in building up and flattering him". In a May 1956 gathering of French veterans, Louis Mangin spoke in place of the unavailable Minister of Defence and gave a violently anti-Nasser speech, which compared the Egyptian leader to Hitler. He accused Nasser of plotting to rule the entire Middle East and of seeking to annex Algeria, whose "people live in community with France". Mangin urged France to stand up to Nasser, and being

2625-531: The Cape of Good Hope , half would pass through the canal. After some complaints, a figure of 10 francs per ton and 10 francs per passenger was announced. Politically during this period, company workers experienced a cholera outbreak in 1865 that caused the deaths of several hundred Europeans, including Voisin's wife, and more than 1,500 Arabs and Egyptians. The Ottoman Sultan approved of the French reconciliation framework in 1866. By 1866 there were about 8,000 Europeans and 10,000 Arab and Egyptians that had settled in

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2750-778: The Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula enabled it to attain freedom of navigation through the Straits of Tiran, but the Suez Canal was closed from October 1956 to March 1957 . U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower had issued a strong warning to the British if they were to invade Egypt; he threatened serious damage to the British financial system by selling the American government's bonds of pound sterling . Before their defeat, Egyptian troops blocked all ship traffic by sinking 40 ships in

2875-610: The Joint Chiefs of Staff declared at a planning session about what to do in the event of a Soviet invasion of the Near East: "Where will the staff come from? It will take a lot of stuff to do a job there". As a consequence, American diplomats favoured the creation of a NATO-type organisation in the Near East to provide the necessary military power to deter the Soviets from invading. The Eisenhower administration, even more than

3000-601: The Ottoman Empire agreed to permit international shipping to pass freely through the canal, in time of war and peace. The Convention came into force in 1904, the same year as the Entente Cordiale between Britain and France. Despite this convention, the strategic importance of the canal and its control were proven during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05, after Japan and Britain entered into

3125-466: The Société Générale de Belgique in 1988, and changed name again to Compagnie de Suez in 1990. In 1997, it merged with water utility and construction conglomerate Lyonnaise des eaux  [ fr ] to form Suez-Lyonnaise des eaux . The merged entity renamed itself as Suez in 2001 and underwent several subsequent mergers, spin-offs, and restructurings that led to the creation of

3250-683: The Sublime Porte to make his case to the Grand Vizier of the Sultan , Ali Pasha . The Ottoman Empire, although neutral to the idea, were greatly under the influence of the British at that time . Since Britain – through the policy of Lord Palmerston – was largely opposed to the canal project, and its citizens owned a potentially competing project in form of a railroad from Alexandria to Cairo , not to mention various merchant warehouses along

3375-651: The Suez Canal , which Nasser had earlier nationalised by transferring administrative control from the foreign-owned Suez Canal Company to Egypt's new government-owned Suez Canal Authority . Shortly after the invasion began, the three countries came under heavy political pressure from both the United States and the Soviet Union , as well as from the United Nations , eventually prompting their withdrawal from Egypt. Israel's four-month-long occupation of

3500-427: The Tripartite Declaration , and supply even more weapons to Israel. During the same visit, Peres informed the French that Israel had decided upon war with Egypt in 1956. Peres claimed that Nasser was a genocidal maniac intent upon not only destroying Israel, but also exterminating its people, and as such, Israel wanted a war before Egypt received even more Soviet weapons, and there was still a possibility of victory for

3625-510: The 1856 concession as a binding contract, ended the use of corvée labor, placed the land grants back into the hands of the Egyptian government, but called for remuneration of 84 million francs to the Suez Canal Company for violation of the labor and land agreements. Ismail received a loan from the Oppenheim brothers for nearly 100 million francs. Meanwhile, the progress of the canal construction proceeded slowly from 1863–1864. By February 1864,

3750-588: The 1936 Anglo-Egyptian treaty allowed Britain the right of intervention against foreign and domestic threats). In turn, many American officials, such as Ambassador Jefferson Caffery , saw the British military presence in Egypt as anachronistic, and viewed the Revolutionary Command Council (as Nasser called his government) in a favourable light. Caffery was consistently positive about Nasser in his reports to Washington, right up until his departure from Cairo in 1955. The regime of King Farouk

3875-599: The 1950s, the Middle East was dominated by four interlinked conflicts: Britain's desire to mend Anglo-Egyptian relations in the wake of the coup saw the country strive for rapprochement throughout 1953-54. Part of this process was the agreement, in 1953, to terminate British rule in Sudan by 1956, in return for Cairo's abandoning its claim to suzerainty over the Nile Valley. In October 1954, Britain and Egypt concluded

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4000-475: The 1955 Bandung Conference and was impressed by him. Zhou recommended that Khrushchev treat Nasser as a potential ally. Zhou described Nasser to Khrushchev as a young nationalist who, though no Communist, could if used correctly do much damage to Western interests in the Middle East. Marshal Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia , who also came to know Nasser at the Bandung Conference told Khrushchev in

4125-477: The 1955 deal. Nasser had let it be known, in 1954–55, that he was considering buying weapons from the Soviet Union, and thus coming under Soviet influence, as a way of pressuring the Americans into selling him the arms he desired. Khrushchev, who very much wanted to win the Soviet Union influence in the Middle East, was more than ready to arm Egypt if the Americans proved unwilling. During secret talks with

4250-639: The African forest and agriculture Society, and the Lyonnaise de Madagascar. King Farouk of the Muhammad Ali line was overthrown in a military coup in 1952 and Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser eventually emerged as the leader of Egypt. By the mid-1950s, canal traffic reached 122 million tons annually, over half of which was oil shipments. In response to the World Bank denying a loan to build a dam across

4375-483: The African sea route, Lesseps made several trips to Britain between 1854 and 1858 to persuade Palmerston and the British public. Lesseps also had to fight back against Robert Stephenson 's and even Enfantin's expert opinions on the feasibility of the canal. Lesseps formed an organization of international engineers (the International Commission for the piercing of the isthmus of Suez ) to again study

4500-499: The Americans supported Egypt, though trying hard to limit the extent of the damage this might cause to Anglo-American relations. In the same report of May 1953 to President Dwight D. Eisenhower calling for "even-handedness", Dulles stated that the Egyptians were not interested in joining the proposed MEDO; that the Arabs were more interested in their disputes with the British, French, Israelis and each other than in standing against

4625-505: The Anglo-Egyptian Agreement on the phased evacuation of British Armed Forces troops from the Suez base, the terms of which agreed to withdrawal of all troops within 20 months, maintenance of the base to be continued, and for Britain to hold the right to return for seven years. The Suez Company was not due to revert to the Egyptian government until 1968 under the terms of the treaty. Britain's close relationship with

4750-632: The Arab–Israeli dispute. It was a source of constant puzzlement to American officials in the 1950s, that Arab states and Israelis had more interest in fighting each other, than uniting against the Soviet Union. After his visit to the Middle East in May 1953 to drum up support for MEDO, the Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles found to his astonishment that the Arab states were "more fearful of Zionism than of

4875-619: The Baghdad Pact occurred almost simultaneously with a dramatic Israeli reprisal operation on the Gaza Strip on 28 February 1955 in retaliation for Palestinian fedayeen raids into Israel , during which the Israeli Unit 101 commanded by Ariel Sharon did damage to Egyptian Army forces. The close occurrence of the two events was mistakenly interpreted by Nasser as part of coordinated Western effort to push him into joining

5000-493: The Baghdad Pact. The signing of the Baghdad Pact and the Gaza raid marked the beginning of the end of Nasser's good relations with the Americans. In particular, Nasser saw Iraq's participation in the Baghdad Pact as a Western attempt to promote his archenemy Nuri al-Said as an alternative leader of the Arab world. Instead of siding with either superpower, Nasser took the role of the spoiler, and tried to play them off, to have them compete in attempts to buy his friendship. Under

5125-674: The Barbican and the hospitals to avoid disturbing residents. The event's finishing point was normally Finsbury Circus . There is a continuing sister event called the Londinium Pedo, which is a three-hour event taking place on foot in September or October. Like the Miglia Quadrato, it is run by the United Hospitals and University of London Motoring Club (UHULMC). In 2001, the event was cancelled in recognition of

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5250-568: The Communists". The policy of the United States was colored by uncertainty as to whom to befriend. American policy was torn between a desire to maintain good relations with NATO allies such as Britain and France who were major colonial powers, and to align Third World nationalists with the Free World camp. Though it would be false to describe the coup deposing King Farouk in July 1952 as

5375-578: The FLN. Mollet came to perceive Nasser as a major threat. During a visit to London in March 1956, Mollet told Eden his country was faced with an Islamic threat to the very soul of France supported by the Soviet Union. Mollet stated: "All this is in the works of Nasser, just as Hitler's policy was written down in Mein Kampf . Nasser has the ambition to recreate the conquests of Islam . But his present position

5500-442: The French amid the Cold War (which established the U.S. and the USSR as the world's superpowers). As a result of the conflict, the UN established an emergency force to police and patrol the Egypt–Israel border , while British prime minister Anthony Eden resigned from his position. For his diplomatic efforts in resolving the conflict through UN initiatives, Canadian external affairs minister Lester B. Pearson received

5625-416: The Jewish state. Throughout 1955 and 1956, Nasser pursued a number of policies that would frustrate British aims throughout the Middle East, and result in increasing hostility between Britain and Egypt. Nasser saw Iraq's inclusion in the Baghdad Pact as indicating that the United States and Britain had sided with his much hated archenemy Nuri al-Said 's efforts to be the leader of the Arab world, and much of

5750-481: The Maritime Canal of Suez), sometimes colloquially referred to in French as Le Suez ("The Suez"), was a company formed by Ferdinand de Lesseps in 1858 to operate the Egyptian granted concession of the Suez Canal , which the company built between 1859 and 1869. Initially, French investors held half of the Company's stock , with Egypt's ruler Sa'id Pasha holding most of the balance. In 1875, financial distress forced Sa'id's successor Isma'il Pasha to sell

5875-505: The Middle East, 1,200,000 by tanker through the canal, and another 800,000 via pipeline from the Persian Gulf ( Trans-Arabian Pipeline ) and Kirkuk ( Kirkuk-Baniyas pipeline ) to the Mediterranean, where tankers received it. The US imported another 300,000 barrels daily from the Middle East. Though pipelines linked the oil fields of the Kingdom of Iraq and the Persian Gulf states to the Mediterranean, these routes were prone to suffer from instability, which led British leaders to prefer to use

6000-448: The Near East came from the Kremlin, and urged Nasser to set aside his differences with Britain to focus on countering the Soviet Union. In this spirit, Dulles suggested that Nasser negotiate a deal that would see Egypt assume sovereignty over the canal zone base, but then allow the British to have "technical control" in the same way Ford auto company provided parts and training to its Egyptian dealers. Nasser did not share Dulles's fear of

6125-499: The Near East was seen as an ominous development that threatened to put an end to British influence in the oil-rich region. Over the same period, the French Premier Guy Mollet was facing an increasingly serious rebellion in Algeria , where the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) rebels were being verbally supported by Egypt via transmissions of the Voice of the Arabs radio, financially supported with Suez Canal revenue and clandestinely owned Egyptian ships were shipping arms to

6250-508: The Near East, and also to ensuring that any arms sales to one side was matched by arms sales of equal quantity and quality to the other. Eisenhower viewed the Tripartite Declaration, which sharply restricted how many arms Egypt could buy in the West, as one of the key elements in keeping the peace between Israel and the Arabs, and believed that setting off an arms race would inevitably lead to a new war. The Egyptians made continuous attempts to purchase heavy arms from Czechoslovakia years before

6375-438: The Nile at Aswan, Nasser declared on 26 July 1956 that Egypt was nationalizing the canal. In response, Britain, France, and Israel attacked Egypt and destroyed large portions of Port Said. The canal was returned to Egypt after the United States disapproved of the action. For the following ten years, the canal was operated by Egypt who paid an amount to the Suez Canal Company for its use. In 1967, another war with Israel arose and

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6500-431: The Red Sea with the aid of blasting. After the use of corvée labor was approved in 1861, work proceeded south from Lake Manzala with, at its height, 60,000 fellahin hand digging the canal. Guards were used to watch over the fellahin, although a large number of guards were not required due to the remote location and nearby hostile Bedouins . At the same time, the freshwater canal was being dug easterly to Lake Timsah. At

6625-437: The Russian boots clumping down over the hot desert sands. The projected Middle East Defense Organization (MEDO) was to be centered on Egypt. A United States National Security Council directive of March 1953 called Egypt the "key" to the Near East and advised that Washington "should develop Egypt as a point of strength". A dilemma for American policy was that the two strongest powers in the Near East, Britain and France, were

6750-441: The Soviet Union and insisted vehemently he wanted to see the end of British influence in the Middle East. The CIA offered Nasser a $ 3 million bribe if he would join the proposed Middle East Defense Organization; Nasser took the money, but refused to join. Nasser made it clear to the Americans he wanted an Egyptian-dominated Arab League to be the principal defence organisation in the Near East, which might be informally associated with

6875-412: The Soviet Union has never occupied our territory ... but the British have been here for seventy years. How can I go to my people and tell them I am disregarding a killer with a pistol sixty miles from me at the Suez Canal to worry about somebody who is holding a knife a thousand miles away? Dulles informed Nasser of his belief that the Soviet Union was seeking world conquest, that the principal danger to

7000-421: The Soviets in 1955, Nasser's demands for weapons were more than amply satisfied as the Soviet Union had not signed the Tripartite Declaration. The news in September 1955 of the Egyptian purchase of a huge quantity of Soviet arms via Czechoslovakia was greeted with shock and rage in the West, where this was seen as a major increase in Soviet influence in the Near East. In Britain, the increase of Soviet influence in

7125-451: The Soviets; and that the "Northern Tier" states of Turkey, Iran and Pakistan were more useful as allies than Egypt. Accordingly, the best American policy towards Egypt was to work towards Arab–Israeli peace and the settlement of the Anglo-Egyptian dispute over the British Suez Canal base, as the best way of securing Egypt's ultimate adhesion to an American sponsored alliance centered on the "Northern Tier" states. The "Northern Tier" alliance

7250-399: The Spring of 1869 shortly after the initial lake filling ceremony but while the lake was still filling and toured the canal zone. The prince of Wales stayed in a chalet in Ismailia while in the region. The southern dam in the rocky Chalufa ridge would not connect the Red Sea with the Mediterranean Sea until it was broken on 15 August 1869. Prior to that, hand digging was used to remove soil in

7375-496: The Suez Company eventually sold to Crédit Agricole in 1996. Meanwhile, in 1972 the Suez Company acquired control of another bank, Crédit Industriel et Commercial , which it relinquished in the 1980s. Following its nationalization in 1982 and privatization in 1987, the Suez Company in 1988 successfully participated in a takeover battle for control of the Société Générale de Belgique , which significantly broadened its portfolio of activities. The opulent building at 1, rue d'Astorg

7500-435: The Suez base for 20 more years. Britain refused to withdraw from Suez, relying upon its treaty rights, as well as the presence of the Suez garrison. The price of such action was an escalation in violent hostility towards Britain and its troops in Egypt, which the Egyptian authorities did little to curb. In January 1952, British forces attempted to disarm a troublesome auxiliary police force barracks in Ismailia , resulting in

7625-407: The Truman administration, saw the Near East as a huge gap into which Soviet influence could be projected, and accordingly required an American-supported security system. American diplomat Raymond Hare later recalled: It's hard to put ourselves back in this period. There was really a definite fear of hostilities, of an active Russian occupation of the Middle East physically, and you practically hear

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7750-401: The United States. After he returned to Washington, Dulles advised Eisenhower that the Arab states believed "the United States will back the new state of Israel in aggressive expansion. Our basic political problem ... is to improve the Moslem states' attitudes towards Western democracies because our prestige in that area had been in constant decline ever since the war". The immediate consequence

7875-447: The West. Khrushchev had realised that by treating non-communists as being the same thing as being anti-communist, Moscow had needlessly alienated many potential friends over the years in the Third World. Under the banner of anti-imperialism, Khrushchev made it clear that the Soviet Union would provide arms to any left-wing government in the Third World as a way of undercutting Western influence. Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai met Nasser at

8000-413: The amount of material and oil that passes through the canal to the UK, and the economic consequences of the canal being put out of commission, concluding: The possibility of the Canal being closed to troopships makes the question of the control and regime of the Canal as important to Britain today as it ever was. In the aftermath of the Second World War , Britain's military strength was spread throughout

8125-426: The answer. The hunt ran from midnight to 5am the following Sunday. With sixty clues to solve in five hours, there was an average of five minutes per clue, in which time the location must be plotted on the map, driven to, and the relevant text from the clue found. The clues could be visited in any order. There were 20 easy, 20 medium and 20 difficult clues. Engraved plaques were awarded to the highest scoring teams. In

8250-498: The arms sales. Nasser's first choice for buying weapons was the United States. However his frequent anti-Zionist speeches and sponsorship of the Palestinian fedayeen , who made frequent raids into Israel, rendered it difficult for the Eisenhower administration to get the approval of Congress necessary to sell weapons to Egypt. American public opinion was deeply hostile towards selling arms to Egypt that might be used against Israel. Moreover, Eisenhower feared doing so could trigger

8375-446: The canal a neutral zone under British protection. The agreement went into effect in 1904 , the same year as the Entente cordiale between Britain and France. The British assigned more than 100,000 troops to the canal during the first world war. The canal was used to help stage T.E. Lawrence and Faisal's Arab revolt during the war against the Ottomans. Egypt was declared an independent country in 1922, however, Britain still asserted

8500-526: The canal abruptly lost its traditional rationale. ... [British] control over the canal could no longer be preserved on grounds that it was critical to the defence either of India or of an empire that was being liquidated. And yet, at exactly the same moment, the canal was gaining a new role—as the highway not of empire, but of oil. ... By 1955, petroleum accounted for half of the canal's traffic, and, in turn, two thirds of Europe's oil passed through it". Western Europe then imported two million barrels per day from

8625-474: The canal as a strategic intersection was again apparent during the First World War, when Britain and France closed the canal to non- Allied shipping. The attempt by the German-led Ottoman Fourth Army to storm the canal in 1915 led the British to commit 100,000 troops to the defence of Egypt for the rest of the war. The canal continued to be strategically important after the Second World War for oil shipment. Petroleum historian Daniel Yergin wrote: "In 1948,

8750-502: The canal region. By 1867 and 1868 the total population in the canal region would grow to 26,000 and 34,000, respectively. As the diversity and number of settlers in the canal region rose, Ismail directed Nubar to begin his decade-long journey of revising the judicial system from a system of capitulations to a system of mixed tribunals. The company made an appeal at the 1867 Universal Exposition of Art and Industry to attempt to sell an additional 100 million francs (£4 million) worth of debt in

8875-428: The canal route in late 1855, and its results were released to the general public. In January 1856, Said granted a second concession to Lesseps' company which replaced the first concession. This concession defined the canal as a direct route, but also stipulated a freshwater canal from the Nile to Lake Timsah. Again, mining and land rights were included along with generous tax exemptions. A majority ( 4 ⁄ 5 ths) of

9000-547: The canal was made impassable with scuttled ships. The canal would not reopen until 1975 after the Camp David Accord . Traffic through the canal began to fall in the early 1980s after petroleum pipelines eroded ship traffic business. After the company became defunct in the late 1990s, the canal was generating $ 2 billion a year in revenue for Egypt. Following the Suez crisis, the Suez Company reinvented itself as

9125-543: The canal. Borel and Lavalley, like many of the engineers working on the project, were École Polytechnique alumni. These machines were powered by steam from coal in an era before the mass production of machines and machine tools. The men had prior railroad experience and Lavalley, in particular, had customised locomotives , designed lighthouses on the Black Sea, created a tunnel boring machine in Lithuania, and created

9250-476: The canal. It later became clear that Israel, the UK, and France had conspired to invade Egypt. These three achieved a number of their military objectives, although the canal was useless. The crisis strengthened Nasser's standing and led to international humiliation for the British ;– with historians arguing that it signified the end of its role as a world superpower  – as well as

9375-422: The chambers of commerce of Lyon and Venice. Following the granting of the first concession in 1854, Lesseps was in near constant travel to assemble diplomatic approvals perceived as necessary to build the canal from other foreign governments involved. Although the first concession was granted by Egypt, at the time Egypt was an administrative subdivision of the Ottoman Empire , and so Lesseps traveled frequently to

9500-503: The company all Italian merchant traffic to its colony of Italian East Africa was forced to pay tolls upon entering the canal. Britain secured the canal against the Germans and their Afrika Korps during the second world war. Immediately following the end of the second World War, company profits rose greatly due to petroleum shipments and the company reserved much of this income. By 1952, the company held four different reserves accounts:

9625-471: The company as being officially formed on 15 December 1858. Prior to the existence of the Suez Canal, Port Said and Lake Timsah had few residents, the Great Bitter Lake was a dry basin, and drinking water was difficult to find. In addition to infrastructure challenges, Said would not allow the use of massive corvée labour until 1861, when Napoleon III publicly backed the canal project. In

9750-424: The company for £4 million (equivalent to £476 million in 2023). This maintained the majority shareholdings of the mostly-French private investors. With the 1882 invasion and occupation of Egypt , the UK took de facto control of the country as well as the canal, its finances and operations. The 1888 Convention of Constantinople declared the canal a neutral zone under British protection. In ratifying it,

9875-404: The company's power. Ismail would soon issue a clarification that corvée labor could still be used for public works essential for the common good (though not on the Suez Canal project). The British also commented on the use of forced labor by the company. Ismail issued declarations upholding much of the previous concessions, with exceptions including the labor issue. Aziz favored the end of the use of

10000-408: The company's shares remained under the ownership of French shareholders. In 1876, Ismail again faced government debt payment issues and was forced to join an international commission which would govern Egypt's finances known as Dual Control . As a condition of joining the commission, the khedive's right to 15 percent of the commissions from Suez Canal traffic was sold. The buyer was a French bank and

10125-535: The continued presence of Britain at Suez for a further two years, led to domestic unrest including an assassination attempt against him in October 1954. The tenuous nature of Nasser's rule caused him to believe that neither his regime nor Egypt's independence would be safe until Egypt had established itself as head of the Arab world. This would manifest in the challenging of British Middle Eastern interests throughout 1955. The US, while attempting to erect an alliance in

10250-412: The corvée and the return of land from the company to Egypt. The problem was referred during 1864 to the arbitration of Napoleon III . Ismail authorised Boghos Nubar Nubarian to negotiate on behalf of Egypt, and Nubar in turn allied with Emile Ollivier and Morny against Lesseps and the company. It wasn't until July 1864 that Napoleon III released a ruling for the framework for resolution which accepted

10375-536: The corvée had finished the access canal from Lake Timsah to the Red Sea. After Napoleon III's decree in Summer of 1864, the use of corvée labor was restricted. The use of large mechanical dredging machines began to excavate the main canal. In December 1863, Voisin hired Paul Borel and Alexandre Lavalley 's company, Borel, Lavalley, and Company, to design, build, and operate the dredging and excavation machines to finish

10500-609: The cost of the canal) to continue building other infrastructure in Egypt. By 1875, the Egyptian treasury was £100 million in debt, and no lender would issue Ismail money to pay for the December debt instalment of several million pounds. Société Générale was interested in his shares of the Suez Canal Company in exchange for paying off the debt instalment, however, the British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli responded quickly and with permission from parliament and Queen Victoria received

10625-413: The country's shares to the government of the United Kingdom . The Suez Company operated the canal until Egypt's new president Gamal Abdel Nasser revoked its concession in 1956 and transferred canal operation to the state-owned Suez Canal Authority , precipitating the Suez Crisis . Following the loss of the canal concession, the Suez Company received financial compensation from the Egyptian government,

10750-578: The deaths of 41 Egyptians. This led to anti-Western riots in Cairo resulting in damage to property and the deaths of foreigners, including 11 British citizens. This proved to be a catalyst for the removal of the Egyptian monarchy . On 23 July 1952 a military coup by the Egyptian nationalist ' Free Officers Movement '—led by Muhammad Neguib and future Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser —overthrew King Farouk and established an Egyptian republic. In

10875-601: The end of 1862, the access canal connecting Lake Timsah to the Mediterranean Sea was complete. François Philippe Voisin became chief engineer in January 1861 and Hardon's contract expired at the end of 1862. Compared with the later mechanised excavation, a low amount of material was excavated during this phase of construction. The British began to loudly decry the use of corvée labor in 1862. Said died in mid-January 1863, and in late-January, just before Ismail began

11000-475: The energy company Engie and the water and waste-management utility also named Suez . The original concession assembled by Lesseps and granted by Said in 1854 included the following stipulations: 10 percent of the annual profits were reserved for the founders, 15 percent of the annual profits were reserved for the Government of Egypt, and 75 percent of the annual profits were reserved for shareholders. There

11125-400: The event, as it resulted in a limited number of entry and exit points for areas bordering Liverpool Street Station . In 2024, having run the last event pre-COVID, in 2019, the organizers announced the event would not resume. Teams of up to six people drove around the city for five hours trying to find the answers to sixty clues. A point was scored for each clue answer correctly recorded, and

11250-552: The final payment of which was made in 1962, and used this resource to reinvent itself as a major investment and holding company in France. In 1958 it renamed itself the Compagnie financière de Suez ("Suez Financial Company"), and in 1967 changed its name again to Compagnie financière de Suez et de l'Union parisienne , a change that was reversed in 1972. It was nationalized in 1982, then privatized in 1987. It acquired control of

11375-579: The form of bonds – maturing in 50 years – to finish the project. Remaining unsold bonds were sold in lotteries approved by the French government. Two dams prevented the filling of the Great Bitter Lake and thus the completion of the canal, one to the north and one to the south. Rocky terrain was cleared on the Serapeum ridge to the north of the lake for a lake filling ceremony witnessed by Ismail in early 1869. The prince of Wales visited in

11500-501: The form of a Middle East Defense Organization to keep the Soviet Union out of the Near East, tried to woo Nasser into this alliance. The central problem for American policy was that this region was perceived as strategically important due to its oil, but the United States, weighed down by defence commitments in Europe and the Far East, lacked sufficient troops to resist a Soviet invasion of the Middle East. In 1952, General Omar Bradley of

11625-471: The growth of radical political groups, such as the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt , and an increasingly hostile attitude towards Britain and its presence. Added to this anti-British fervour was the role Britain had played in the creation of Israel . In October 1951, the Egyptian government unilaterally abrogated the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936 , the terms of which granted Britain a lease on

11750-492: The jetties for Port Said were also constructed by the Dussaud brothers. They created two jetty structures, one at 1.5 miles in length, and the other at 2 miles in length, by dumping 20-ton concrete blocks in the Mediterranean Sea. The blocks were produced in an assembly line with mechanical elevators to pour in cement, lime, and water. After curing for two months in wooden frames, they were lifted on to barges that dropped them into

11875-465: The meantime from 1859 to 1861, the company's Chief Engineer Eugène Mougel and its new superintendent Alphonse Hardon, planned for and built fresh water distilleries along the route, hauled in additional fresh water from the Nile, built housing for workers, gathered stone for the jetty , assembled some aging dredging equipment from the Nile, and looked for workers. Company town establishments arose along

12000-707: The motivation for Nasser's turn to an active anti-Western policy starting in 1955 was due to his displeasure with the Baghdad Pact. For Nasser, attendance at such events as the Bandung conference in April 1955 served as both the means of striking a posture as a global leader, and of playing hard to get in his talks with the Americans, especially his demand that the United States sell him vast quantities of arms. Suez Company (1858%E2%80%931997) The Suez Company or Suez Canal Company , full initial name Compagnie universelle du canal maritime de Suez (Universal Company of

12125-419: The nations whose influence many local nationalists most resented. From 1953 onwards, American diplomacy had attempted unsuccessfully to persuade the powers involved in the Near East, local and imperial, to set aside their differences and unite against the Soviets. The Americans took the view that, just as fear of the Soviet Union had helped to end the historic Franco-German enmity , so could anti-Communism end

12250-609: The need to reduce population movement due to an outbreak of foot and mouth disease . The 2012 event was cancelled due to the difficulty of travel in London resulting from preparations for the 2012 Olympic Games. In 2020, the event was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic . It did not resume, with organizers writing to participants in February 2024 announcing the winding up of the event. They cited on-the-night logistical difficulties as

12375-416: The new leadership of Nikita Khrushchev , the Soviet Union was making a major effort to win influence in the so-called Third World . As part of the diplomatic offensive, Khrushchev had abandoned Moscow's traditional line of treating all non-communists as enemies and adopted a tactic of befriending so-called "non-aligned" nations, which often were led by leaders who were non-Communists, but were hostile towards

12500-569: The next largest block owned by citizens of the Ottoman Empire (Said bought around 60,000). None of the shares reserved for Britain, Russia, Austria, or the United States were bought. Said purchased the remaining unbought shares (for a total of 177,000 shares) in order to ensure that the company reached its necessary capitalization amount (to become a legal entity as defined in the 1856 concession). The average number of shares bought by French investors amounted to nine shares each. Lesseps declared

12625-726: The outbreak of the Algerian War in late 1954, France began to ship more and more arms to Israel. In November 1954, the Director-General of Israel's Ministry of Defense Shimon Peres visited Paris, where he was received by the French Defense Minister Marie-Pierre Kœnig , who told him that France would sell Israel any weapons it wanted to buy. By early 1955, France was shipping large amounts of weapons to Israel. In April 1956, following another visit to Paris by Peres, France agreed to totally disregard

12750-516: The price was 22 million francs. In 1879, Ismail was deposed by the Ottoman Sultan and replaced with Tawfiq . Tawfiq was challenged for leadership during a nationalist uprising in 1880 by Colonel Ahmad Urabi . In response to an anti-European riot in 1882 , Britain landed an army, seized the canal, and developed a protectorate over Egypt, placing Lord Cromer as the head governing authority. The 1888 Convention of Constantinople declared

12875-722: The primary reason noting the accumulated effect of, amongst other things, ULEZ (resulting in a surcharge for some older vehicles), parking and traffic restrictions construction works and increased nightlife activity competing for space. Suez Crisis The Suez Crisis also known as the Second Arab–Israeli War , the Tripartite Aggression in the Arab world and as the Sinai War in Israel ,

13000-541: The process of establishing himself as the new viceroy of Egypt by Ottoman Sultan Abdul Aziz , Ismail declared that he was establishing reforms in the ways of the creation of a civil service list and the abolishment of corvée labor . Ismail's motives had to do with his own personal projects (cotton farms, whose export from Egypt had been increasing since the beginning of the American Civil War , and other cash crops and public works) within Egypt and with limiting

13125-533: The region, including the vast military complex at Suez with a garrison of 80,000, making it one of the largest military installations in the world. The Suez base was an important part of Britain's strategic position in the Middle East; however, it became a source of growing tension in Anglo-Egyptian relations . Egypt's domestic politics were experiencing a radical change, prompted by economic instability, inflation, and unemployment. Unrest began to manifest in

13250-484: The remaining 10 miles between Suez and the southern dam. The average final width of the canal was 200 feet – 300 feet at the top with a depth of at least 26 feet. The company and Ismail set aside 1 million francs for the inauguration of the canal on 17 November 1869. One thousand guests were invited for a tour upon opening. The empress Eugénie and Ismail were a major attraction. The multinational flotilla of about 60 ships proceeded south from Port Said to Ismailia, where

13375-408: The route. In 1860, the company employed 210 Europeans and 544 Egyptians along 11 stations of the route. Employees were provided scrip to buy provisions. Plans were made for an access canal from the Nile to Lake Timsah to provide fresh water. Once the necessary infrastructure was established, the plan was to build an 8 metre-wide access canal from Port Said to Lake Timsah and later from Lake Timsah to

13500-578: The sea route through the canal. The rise of super-tankers for shipping Middle East oil to Europe, which were too big to use the canal, meant British policymakers greatly overestimated the importance of the canal. By 2000, only 8% of the imported oil in Britain arrived via the Suez Canal with the rest coming via the Cape route. In August 1956 the Royal Institute of International Affairs published

13625-440: The sea. 30,000 blocks were used in the jetties. In 1867, the company began to develop its fee structure in preparation for opening. During this same year the company had already started to charge fees for transport of goods across the northern almost-completed portion to the separate southern access canal, garnering millions of francs in annual revenue. The company estimated that of the 10 million tons of annual goods shipped around

13750-529: The shortest ocean link between the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean . The canal eased commerce for trading nations and particularly helped European colonial powers to gain and govern their colonies. In 1875, as a result of debt and financial crisis, Egypt was forced to sell its shares in the operating company to the British government. They were willing buyers and obtained a 44% share in

13875-401: The total construction cost of the canal, according to Lesseps' autobiographical account, was £11,627,000. This cost was more than covered by the initial equity capitalization of £8 million (1858), a legal decision awarding about £4 million (1864 and 1866), and a bond issuance of £4 million (1867). Approximately 500 ships carrying around 400,000 tons made passage through the canal in 1870, which

14000-506: The two Hashemite kingdoms of Iraq and Jordan were of particular concern to Nasser. In particular, Iraq's increasingly amicable relations with Britain were a threat to Nasser's desire to see Egypt as head of the Arab world. The creation of the Baghdad Pact in 1955 seemed to confirm Nasser's fears Britain was attempting to draw the Eastern Arab World into a bloc centred upon Iraq, and sympathetic to Britain. Nasser's response

14125-634: The workers for the company were required to be supplied from Egypt and the skilled workers were required to be paid commensurate with skilled workers on other Egyptian public works projects. An amendment stipulated that work could only commence with the approval of the Ottoman Sultan. The board of directors of the concessionaire company would have 32 members, each serving for eight years. The operations office would be headquartered in Alexandria, while administrative offices would be located in Paris. This company

14250-659: Was a British–French–Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956. Israel invaded on 29 October, having done so with the primary objective of re-opening the Straits of Tiran and the Gulf of Aqaba as the recent tightening of the eight-year-long Egyptian blockade further prevented Israeli passage . After issuing a joint ultimatum for a ceasefire, the United Kingdom and France joined the Israelis on 5 November, seeking to depose Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser and regain control of

14375-409: Was a determination to see the entire Middle East as Egypt's rightful sphere of influence, and a tendency on the part of Nasser to fortify his pan-Arabist and nationalist credibility by seeking to oppose all Western security initiatives in the Near East. Despite the establishment of such an agreement with the British, Nasser's position remained tenuous. The loss of Egypt's claim to Sudan, coupled with

14500-558: Was a new policy of "even-handedness" where the United States very publicly sided with the Arab states in disputes with Israel in 1953–54. Moreover, Dulles did not share any sentimental regard for the Anglo-American " special relationship ", which led the Americans to lean towards the Egyptian side in the Anglo-Egyptian disputes. During the difficult negotiations over the British evacuation of the Suez Canal base in 1954–55,

14625-629: Was a series of challenges to British influence in the region that would culminate in the Suez Crisis. In regard to the Arab leadership, particularly venomous was the feud between Nasser and the Prime Minister of Iraq, Nuri al-Said , for Arab leadership, with the Cairo-based Voice of the Arabs radio station regularly calling for the overthrow of the government in Baghdad. The most important factors that drove Egyptian foreign policy

14750-410: Was achieved in early 1955 with the creation of the Baghdad Pact comprising Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Iraq and the UK. The presence of the last two states was due to the British desire to continue to maintain influence in the Middle East, and Nuri Said's wish to associate his country with the West, as the best way of counterbalancing the aggressive Egyptian claims to regional predominance. The conclusion of

14875-411: Was built for the Suez canal Company in 1911-1913 on a design by architect Henri Paul Nénot . The Suez Company was long known colloquially as the "old lady of the rue d'Astorg" ( French : la vieille dame de la rue d'Astorg ) with reference to its headquarters address. Following the Suez Company's merger with Lyonnaise des eaux, it was sold to the real estate arm of General Electric and renovated in

15000-457: Was desperate to find a new source of weapons to replace Britain. Nasser had first broached the subject of buying weapons from the Soviet Union in 1954. Most of all, Nasser wanted the United States to supply arms on a generous scale to Egypt. Nasser refused to promise that any U.S. arms he might buy would not be used against Israel, and rejected out of hand the American demand for a Military Assistance Advisory Group to be sent to Egypt as part of

15125-492: Was further varied depending upon the soil type they excavated. Ultimately, Borel, Lavalley and company removed 75% of the 74 million cubic meters excavated from the main canal. And most of that work was done between 1867 and 1869. Another French contractor, Alphonse Couvreux , who is credited with the first documented use of a bucket chain excavator on land, employed seven of his excavators to dig about 8 million cubic yards of material from 1863 to 1868. During this same period,

15250-470: Was much less than the 5 million tons projected in 1867. Of that tonnage, three-quarters came from Britain. In 1871, more tonnage made the passage, but it was still less than 1 million tons. The ship tonnage for 1872, 1873, and 1874 was 1,439,000, 2,085,000, and 2,424,000, respectively. Toll revenue from the first five years (1870–1874) are as follows: £206,373, £359,747, £656,305, £915,853, and £994,375. In 1873, Ismail borrowed £30 million (more than double

15375-933: Was no stipulation dictating whether the route of the canal would be direct or indirect (from the Nile). The company was given the right to free quarries and import equipment tax-free. In that original concession, founding members of the Company were to receive 10 percent of the canal's profits. These members included François Barthélemy Arlès-Dufour , Louis Maurice Adolphe Linant de Bellefonds , Richard Cobden , Barthélemy Prosper Enfantin , Benoît Fould , Lesseps and several members of his family, Eugène Mougel , Ruyssenaers (Dutch Consul General in Egypt), M. Sabatier (French Consul General), Sa'id of Egypt and multiple members of his family, Paulin Talabot and his brother Edmond, and members of

15500-753: Was to be called the Universal Company of the Maritime Canal of Suez. In late Spring of 1858, the French Academy of Sciences released a public report approving of the engineering plans for the canal. The report noted that in the previous two decades, Europeans had spent 12 billion francs building railroads, and that at a cost of 200 million francs (or £8 million), the canal was affordable. Lesseps pushed ahead without formal British or Ottoman approval. In October 1858, Lesseps notified international press and company agents that 400,000 shares at

15625-632: Was viewed in Washington as weak, corrupt, unstable, and anti-American, so the Free Officers' July coup was welcomed. Nasser's contacts with the CIA were not necessary to prevent British intervention against the coup as Anglo-Egyptian relations had deteriorated so badly in 1951–52 that the British viewed any Egyptian government not headed by King Farouk as an improvement. In May 1953, during a meeting with Secretary Dulles, who asked Egypt to join an anti-Soviet alliance, Nasser responded by saying that

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