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have Israel invade the Sinai Peninsula then the British and French would invade the

Suez Canal on the pretext of separating the combatants after an ultimatum was

issued and refused (as they expected it would be) by the Egyptian side. The plan

was signed on 24 October and came to be known as the Protocol of Sévres. 813

According to Wilbur Crane Eveland of the CIA, the Agency notified Egypt’s

Ambassador to the US that a possible Anglo-French attack was forthcoming. 814

As the Protocol was in its final stages Hungarians rose in revolt against their

Soviet masters and demanded the return of Imre Nagy with neutralist inclinations to

the position of Prime Minister. The rebels succeeded in restoring Nagy to power.

The Soviets responded by marching their troops into the heart of Budapest on 24

October and fierce fighting ensued between the rebels and Soviets aided by the pro-

Soviet Hungarian State Protection Authority. 815 Although the Soviets initially

withdrew, the Suez War provided them with the perfect distraction that enabled

them to launch a new attack to quell the Hungarian revolution on 4 November. The

attack on Egypt would overshadow the Hungarian people’s struggle for freedom

from the Soviet-Communist grip. 816

A strike in Bahrain was called upon on 28 October in solidarity with a group

of North African nationalists. The strike took place between 6.00 am to 6.00 pm, 817

813 K.B. Yesilbursa, The Baghdad Pact: Anglo-American Defence Policies in the Middle East, 1950-1959
(London: 2013), 165; Farnie, East and West of Suez, 725-28; The Eden-Eisenhower Correspondence,
1955-1957, Boyle, ‘The Suez Crisis and Eden’s Resignation’, 149-53 (151); S. Aster, British Prime
Ministers: Anthony Eden (London: 1976), 157; Childres, The Road to Suez, 257-58; and Nutting, No
End of a Lesson, 91-93.
814 Eveland, Ropes of Sand, 226.
815 ‘Insurrection in Budapest’, The Times, 25 October 1956, 10.
816 For information see V. Sebestyen, Twelve Days: Revolution 1956 (London: 2007).
817 TNA, FO 371/120549, D. Blelloch’s Bahrain Monthly Intelligence Summary: October, 1956, 17
November 1956.

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