Free talk by historian David Charlwood on the 1956 Suez Crisis and its legacies, in partnership with Veterans Voices UK.
David Charlwood is at the National Army Museum on Friday 11 December, talking through the Suez Crisis of 1956 and the legacies it left behind. It's a midday session, running from 12.00pm to 1.00pm, so it fits into a lunch hour rather than taking up your whole evening.
If you're not up on the history, the crisis was a political and military mess that ended up bringing down a prime minister and marking the end of an empire. It started in July 1956, when Egyptian leader Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalised the Franco-British Suez Canal Company to fund the Aswan Dam. Britain responded by preparing an invasion force, joined by two French divisions from Algeria. The operations were successful at first, but political and financial pressure forced a British withdrawal. Britain and France agreed to a ceasefire on 6-7 November 1956, and the UN granted the canal to Egypt, which reopened it in April 1957. The failure led to the resignation of Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden.
Charlwood is a historian who's written for the BBC and Channel 4, and he's authored Suez Crisis 1956: End of Empire and the Reshaping of the Middle East, which is the book he'll be drawing on here. He'll be revisiting those events and the legacies that still linger. The talk is presented in partnership with Veterans Voices UK, an organisation that captures and preserves the stories of British military veterans through conversation, shared experiences, events and community projects.
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It's free, though you do need to book ahead. That puts it at 12.00pm to 1.00pm on Friday 11 December at the National Army Museum in London.
