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Bahrain’s capital as protestors demanded Belgrave’s dismissal. 565 The most

accurate report of the event was published in The Times, suggesting that the event

commenced as a dispute between a vegetable-seller and municipal official, which

had escalated into a riot when a large crowd besieged the police who had intervened

at the scene. 566

Shuckburgh was assigned by Sir Norman Brook, the Cabinet Secretary, to

prepare minutes of discussion with the Prime Minister to be forwarded to Sir Gerald

Templer. It proposed that problems in Bahrain had arisen ‘from the general

awakening of the Arab world and the unsettling effect of Egyptian leadership’. The

minutes recorded that the use of British forces in Bahrain could prove to be

disastrous and used only ‘in a moment of extreme emergency’. It was also asserted

that the HEC movement in Bahrain had ‘never been directed against us [Britain]’.

Nonetheless fear persisted that agitation might turn anti-British and the continued

presence of Belgrave and his future was in the balance. The minutes went on to

record the view that, in order to maintain the overall continuation of Britain’s

presence in the Gulf region ‘the Egyptian drive for revolutionary leadership in the

Arab world as a whole’ must be countered. That realistic assessment of the

situation would later change with the Prime Minister’s personal reaction to further

developments. 567

The situation in Bahrain took a turn for the worse on 13 March as reports of

‘hooliganism’ in Manama were received and that official cars passing between

565 ‘Report from Oil Isle: 11 die in “Sack this Briton” riot’, Daily Mirror, 12 March 1956, 1.
566 ‘Three Killed in Bahrein Riot: Police Attacked by Mob’, The Times, 12 March 1956, 10.
567 TNA, FO 371/120571, Shuckburgh to Templer, 14 March 1956.

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