The strategic limitations of a Middle East client state by the mid-1950s: Britain, Libya and the Suez Crisis

Abstract

This article looks at how Libya – a British client state under the Anglo-Libyan treaty – refused to allow Britain the use of forces and bases in that country for operations against Egypt during the summer and autumn of 1956. The subsequent restrictions over the use of Libya was shown over the movement of the 10th Armoured Division for ‘training exercises’ on the Cyrenaican–Egyptian border during early August and later manifested in a written request that the bases would not be used in connection with the operations in Egypt. What emerges is that the decision of the British government to acquiesce to this Libyan demand on 1 November 1956 was taken against the prospect of a ‘second front’ being opened up in Libya in which urban fighting there would take place there alongside the main operation against Egypt.