| October 18 |  |
Editor says, what if the Hungarian Uprising crossed over into the Suez Crises? Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the November 2012 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.
| Share this Article on: |  Facebook |  Twitter |
In 1956, on this day British Prime Minister Anthony Eden was informed that Hungarian Premier Imre Nagy had secretly request refuge at Harmincad utca 6, the address of the British Embassy in Budapest.
Conjoined Crisis Part 1
Imre Nagy requests refugeAs the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the People's Republic of Hungary, he was locked in a power struggle with the Kremlin, and it appeared that his determined opposition to Soviet-imposed policies had ended in failure. He might have expected a sympathetic hearing from the British Government, but there was a major problem that he knew absolutely nothing about. That was that the British Government had secretly signed an agreement with France and Israeli to imminently seize the Suez Canal, and if necessary, eject the troublesome Egyptian President Abdul Gamel Nasser from power.
Therefore, Eden was suddently presented with both a threat, and also an opportunity. Should he assist Nagy, then of course he would be openly accused of the basest of hypocrisy, because his own regime-changing imperial belligerence would appeare so similiar to the Soviets. Because a non-response was itself inconceivable, members of the secret service were pressing him to make the most of this situation by opening negotiations with the Soviets, essentially to betray Nagy in exchange for non-interference in Egpyt. This deal was sweetened as a spheres of influence paradigm, Middle East vs Central Europe and initially, Eden seemed quite opened to such a suggestion.
An article from the Conjoined Crisis thread.
Entry posted by
Jackie Speel
© Jackie Speel, 2012-.Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Conjoined Crisis Source: Wikipedia Labels: Imre Nagy, Egypt, Suez, Hungary, Israel. Editor says, in reality the two crises were not directly connected and the time sequences have been adjusted to suite the story line. By Ed, Jackie Speel & Scott Palter
~ Eden could not openly have accepted such a sphere of influence deal without a rupture with the US which the UK could not at that time have afforded. See how the actual Suez crisis played out. More likely the British would have tried to dump their gift on the US Embassy in Budapest.
~ I've met a number of people involved in the Sinai Campaign of 1956, and I can assure you that the Israelis had no interest in the Suez Canal. They were entirely absorbed by the "fedayeen" attacks from Gaza which had killed a thousand Israelis since Naguib and Nasser came to power. The alliance with Britain and France was merely of convenience.
~ By this time the British were a spent force, and my learned colleague, Mr. Palter, has the right of it---the British would have sent Nagy to the US Embassy.
~ Israel wanted to clean out Gaza and preempt Nassar before he learned how to use his Soviet arms. French wanted to squash Nassar's support for the Algerian rebels. Eden was doing a mental shadow play with the ghosts of Munich and with proving UK was still one of the Big Three of 1945. Suez itself was an excuse. Canal was useless in the face of armed Egyptian opposition.
~ Precisely.
© Today in Alternate History, 2013-. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
