Part 4, Chapter 24 Summary

In 1859, the French-owned Suez Canal Company won a concession from Egypt to dig a narrow 100-mile long waterway between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. Completed in 1869, it cut travel time between England and India in half. When Egypt ran out of funds in 1875, England bought 44% ownership, backed by the Rothschilds. Permanent British troops were stationed in the Canal Zone. When India gained independence in 1947, the rationale for British presence in Egypt ended, but the rising importance of oil in Europe demanded that the Canal continue to be defended, along with Tapline and the IPC pipeline. In 1952, a military coup toppled King Farouk, and Gamal Abedel Nasser emerged as Egypt's dictator. Nasser was a master of rhetoric, using radio to mobilize Arab nationalism and stir up the whole Third World. His immediate task was to eliminate the "Israeli wedge." Like Mossadegh...