Protecting the Jugular Vein of Empire: The Suez Canal in British Defence Strategy, 1919–1941

Abstract

With the opening of the 100 mile long Suez Canal, connecting the Mediterranean and Red Sea, in November 1869 a new and vital British interest was created. Fifty years after its inauguration, Anthony Eden would describe the canal as 'the swing-door of the British Empire which has got to keep continually revolving if our communications are to be what they should'.l By then five-sevenths of the red map lay beyond Suez. From the start British shipping consistently topped the table of canal users. In 1882, when Britain occupied Egypt to protect Suez, 83 per cent of canal users were British registered vessels and in the succeeding decades before the Second World War the figure was rarely to fall below 50 per cent.2 This British dominance reflected the economic importance of empire trade via Suez with India, the Malay States and Burma. Between Bombay and Liverpool the use of Suez halved shipping time. This advantage over the Cape of Good Hope route was less marked but still pronounced for the Far East. In 1922 Hong Kong, which catered for the largest merchant shipping tonnage of any empire port, exported £22 million worth of goods to Britain while exports in the other direction were also considerable. That same year, the mineral-rich Malay States provided 70 per cent of Britain's rubber and over half her tin requirements. By 1937 Malaya was exporting $100,222,267 of raw materials and merchandise to Britain.3 Generally, Britain sent finished industrial goods and received raw materials. Oil from Iran and Iraq, seen as a means to lessen dependence on America, Britain's main supplier, increased in importance, though not until 1948 did it become the dominant product carried through Suez. After the Import Duties Act of 1932 provided free entry to over 80 per cent of imports from the empire, trade with Australia and New Zealand was stimulated. Some of this traffic came via the Suez route, though the Suez Canal Company's (sec) excessive dues and the threat posed by successive wars in Abyssinia and Spain made the Cape route more favoured