British humiliated at Suez after Nasser nationalizes the canal

Category
Government
Place
Middle East
Date
1956
Reference
Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"The frailty of Britain’s international and economic position was partially disguised in the early post-1945 period by the even greater weakness of other states, the prudent withdrawals from India and Palestine, the short-term surge in exports, and the maintenance of empire in the Middle East and Africa. The humiliation at Suez in 1956 therefore came as a greater shock, since it revealed not only the weakness of sterling but also the blunt fact that Britain could not operate militarily in the Third World in the face of American disapproval. . . . Measured against the much faster progress being made elsewhere, however, the country appeared to be suffering from what the Germans unkindly termed “the English disease”—a combination of militant trade unionism, poor management, “stop-go” policies by government, and negative cultural attitudes toward hard work and entrepreneurship. The new prosperity brought a massive surge in imports of better-designed European products and of cheaper Asian wares, in turn leading to balance-of-payments difficulties, sterling crises, and devaluations which helped to fuel inflation and thus higher wage demands." [Kennedy: Great Powers, p. 424]

This event is linked to the following periods

PeriodMiner
Begin
End
Category
House of Windsor
1910
2020
British Isles