British Policy in Aden and the Protectorates 1955-67
eBook - ePub

British Policy in Aden and the Protectorates 1955-67

Spencer Mawby

Share book
  1. 224 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

British Policy in Aden and the Protectorates 1955-67

Spencer Mawby

Book details
Book preview
Table of contents
Citations

About This Book

This is the first detailed account of the confrontation between Britain and President Nasser of Egypt over the Colony of Aden and the surrounding protected states, prior to British withdrawal in 1967. Paying particular attention to the conflicting goals of Arab nationalism and British imperialism, it is argued that Britain's motivation for this campaign was not solely material but was partly derived from a determination to contain Nasser's influence and to guarantee a continuation of Britain's role in influencing the politics of the Arabian peninsula.

Mawby argues that a significant problem for the British was the decision to undertake a new imperial adventure in Aden at a time when British economic and military power was on the wane, whilst support for the nationalist struggles in the Middle East and the United Nations was increasing. He goes on to suggest that British policy and the conduct of military campaigns facilitated the emergence of a radical brand of Arab politics in southwest Arabia.

By demonstrating the manner in which the rise and fall of British imperialism was telescoped into a short period in the late 1950s and early 1960s, this volume provides an important insight into the unique and unacknowledged place of Aden in the history of British decolonization.

Frequently asked questions

How do I cancel my subscription?
Simply head over to the account section in settings and click on ā€œCancel Subscriptionā€ - itā€™s as simple as that. After you cancel, your membership will stay active for the remainder of the time youā€™ve paid for. Learn more here.
Can/how do I download books?
At the moment all of our mobile-responsive ePub books are available to download via the app. Most of our PDFs are also available to download and we're working on making the final remaining ones downloadable now. Learn more here.
What is the difference between the pricing plans?
Both plans give you full access to the library and all of Perlegoā€™s features. The only differences are the price and subscription period: With the annual plan youā€™ll save around 30% compared to 12 months on the monthly plan.
What is Perlego?
We are an online textbook subscription service, where you can get access to an entire online library for less than the price of a single book per month. With over 1 million books across 1000+ topics, weā€™ve got you covered! Learn more here.
Do you support text-to-speech?
Look out for the read-aloud symbol on your next book to see if you can listen to it. The read-aloud tool reads text aloud for you, highlighting the text as it is being read. You can pause it, speed it up and slow it down. Learn more here.
Is British Policy in Aden and the Protectorates 1955-67 an online PDF/ePUB?
Yes, you can access British Policy in Aden and the Protectorates 1955-67 by Spencer Mawby in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & World History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Publisher
Routledge
Year
2006
ISBN
9781135771690
Topic
History
Edition
1

1
Introduction

British imperialism and Arab nationalism



The aims of this study are to describe the process of imperial expansion and retreat undertaken by the British in southwest Arabia1 between 1955 and 1967, provide an explanation for why British policy developed in the manner that it did and place the episode in the context of the clash between Arab nationalism and British imperialism in the Middle East. These tasks are closely related to one another and also impose limits upon the scope of the project. Anybody familiar with the modern history of Yemen is aware of how complex the politics of southwest Arabia were for much of the twentieth century. By focusing primarily on the impact of the British in the region it is possible to gain insight into an interesting example of late European imperialism and its effect on the politics of a particular society. Yemen is one of the most fascinating countries in the Arab world and by tracing the relationship between southwest Arabia as a region on the periphery of the British Empire and policy-makers in the metropolis it is hoped that some key developments in the countryā€™s history can be clarified and a contribution made to the study of British decolonization. Broader cultural and social developments are given less prominence: significant research has already been conducted into these subjects and they are fruitful fields for further study.2
The methods employed during the course of this analysis place it squarely within the field occupied by traditional studies of diplomatic and colonial history based on governmental archives. As far as there is divergence or innovation it is in a greater emphasis upon the ideological underpinnings both of British policy and of the nationalist groups than is common in much writing on decolonization. The recent trend towards writing imperial history from the perspective of the periphery has been a salutary development but one which can only be pursued in an attenuated form here. Arab nationalist texts and pamphlet literature in translation have been utilised but the great majority of the raw primary material from which the narrative and analysis have been constructed come from British governmental archives and the records of the Aden Secretariat. Both of these sources remain, at the time of writing, somewhat under-utilised.3 In conceptual terms there is also some divergence from current practice. Historians of twentieth century British foreign and colonial policy frequently fall back on an unsatisfying and narrow notion of national interest to explain developments. The concept is employed so liberally and with such little concern for its content that it explains everything and nothing. An attempt is made here to assess the motivations of the protagonists in a little more detail: in the case of the British, the value placed on a continuing and expansive world role is emphasised and in the case of the nationalist groups the emphasis on freedom and autonomy is noted. Differing British and Arab ideas about the future of southwest Arabia are occasionally juxtaposed in the main body of the text. However, the primary goal of the study is to provide an accurate account of Britainā€™s role in the region based closely on the documentary record.
The history of Yemeni politics may appear tortuous but the basic story of the last 12 years of British rule are straightforward. In the middle of the twentieth century the British embarked on a series of new undertakings in Aden and the Protectorates designed to consolidate their influence. Taken as a whole they constitute what has been termed the forward policy. It was designed as a prophylactic to prevent changing local circumstances and the associated rise of anti-colonial nationalism from undermining the foundations of western influence in the Middle East. Although the British clung on in Aden until 1967, the attempt to prolong British imperialism had unintended consequences, most notably the radicalisation of politics in Aden and the Protectorates. The various expedients employed to contain the rise of nationalist sentiment failed and the old order which the British hoped to preserve crumbled to be replaced by the socialist programme of the National Liberation Front (NLF). After 1967 the new leaders of the Peopleā€™s Republic of South Yemen (PRSY) rejected Cairoā€™s brand of Arab nationalism; the extension of British rule for a sufficient length of time to witness the decline of Nasserā€™s influence provided some consolation for policy-makers in Whitehall.
The structure in which these events are examined is chronological. Chapter 2 outlines the history of neglect of southwest Arabia following Hainesā€™s conquest of Aden in 1839 and discusses the changes which began to occur to this policy in the first half of the twentieth century. It also charts the emergence of the Yemeni Imamate as Britainā€™s principal rival for influence in the region. The following chapter describes the apogee of the forward policy in the late 1950s and places events in southwest Arabia in the context of Britainā€™s confrontation with Nasser. Chapter 4 analyses the years between 1959 and 1962 as the watershed period in which nationalist doctrines flooded into the region following their slow seepage into Adenese political discourse during the 1950s. It is suggested that British attempts to consolidate their authority served to accelerate rather than retard this process. The fifth chapter is concerned with the impact of the nationalist revolution in Yemen which led to a proxy war with the Egyptians and explains the rationale behind the eventual decision to offer Aden and the Protectorates independence in the summer of 1964. The election of a Labour government in Britain a few months after this offer had a significant impact on events in southwest Arabia and the sixth chapter examines the extent to which policy changed during Wilsonā€™s first 18 months in office. It is suggested that, while the Labour government altered its tactics in order to appease the nationalists, they still hoped to contain Nasser and secure long-term British influence and prestige. The final chapter of the narrative discusses the impact of Labourā€™s controversial decision not to offer the new independent state a defence guarantee and the constant frustrations that accompanied their efforts to create a friendly successor government. The concluding chapter seeks to elaborate upon some of the key questions which arise from these events.
Underpinning the analysis is the notion that British policy-makers were motivated not by a simple calculation of material interests but by a desire to maintain their prestige and influence in the Middle East and a belief that the retention of a role in southwest Arabia was important to achieve this. The British resorted to a wide range of measures to bolster their position including aerial attacks on dissidents in the Protectorates and the effective manipulation of the electoral process in Aden. Given this evidence of British determination to cling on, a strong countervailing force was required to secure their removal: this force was Arab nationalism. The conflict with the nationalists in Aden became increasingly bitter during the decade after 1955 and it was the violence which they encountered on the streets of Aden and in the Protectorates as well as the thinning ranks of collaborators which finally shook British policy-makers out of the belief that they were likely to stay in Aden for decades to come. Although the region was one of the last to experience the full force of Arab nationalism, Nasserā€™s advocacy of panArabism had a profound impact. From the late 1950s the alliance between the British and the old elites of Aden and the Protectorates was ruptured as first the South Arabian League (SAL) and then the National Liberation Front began to challenge the basis of both British imperialism and the traditional forms of government within southwest Arabia. The clash between the British desire to retain a presence in the Middle East and the increasing disenchantment of the peoples of southwest Arabia with Britainā€™s role in the region led to the transfer of the conflict between Nasser and the British government from the banks of the Suez Canal to the streets of Aden. In the aftermath of the 1962 Yemeni revolution there was effectively a proxy war in southwest Arabia between Egypt, represented by the Republican government in the north, and Britain, represented by the South Arabian federation, in the south. The success of the nationalists in acquiring Egyptian support and then challenging the imperial presence was the key to securing Britainā€™s final exit in 1967. It is one of the principal contentions of what follows that it was these changes in the periphery, rather than a loss of will or the draining away of material capability in the metropolis, which best accounts for the British withdrawal from what might be regarded as their last outpost in the Middle East.

British imperialism and the forward policy

It is not difficult to construct a plausible economic rationale for Britainā€™s decision to cling on to Aden Colony while other parts of the empire slipped towards independence. During the 1950s oil production in Arabia increased to meet the energy demands of Britain and western Europe. The expansion of the world economy during that decade would have been impossible without access to cheap fuel from the Middle East. Furthermore, the British sterling area greatly benefited from the export earnings generated by British Petroleum and Shell investments in the oil-producing states. Policy-makers in Whitehall and Aden believed that radical nationalism was a latent menace to these economic interests. This thesis was corroborated when the Iranian government nationalised its oil industry in 1951 and it appeared conclusively proven when the post-revolutionary government in Iraq issued threats to annex Kuwait a decade later. In this latter case the British responded by deploying troops from the base in Aden to the Gulf.4 Kuwait could not be defended in situ because the rulers of the Gulf states, unlike their peers in the Aden Protectorates, were loath to admit their dependence on Britain.5 Thus, although southwest Arabia lacked natural resources of its own, it came to be seen as the key to the defence of British oil interests. The status of Aden as a British Colony, the perception of the town as a sleepy backwater insulated from wider trends and the co-operation of the rulers of the Protectorates appeared to guarantee the base a long-term place in British strategic planning. As the British Chiefs of Staff noted just prior to the outbreak of the Suez crisis:ā€˜The need to deploy forces in the Colony of Aden and the Aden Protectorates will continue for as long as we can foresee.ā€™6
The geographical position of southwest Arabia made a continued role there a convenient solution to the absence of facilities in the Gulf and the British base in Aden became a significant asset for this reason. In social and political terms its distance from the sources of nationalist fervour made it appear as an ideal outpost from which to defend the oil wells of the Middle East and in 1960 the Headquarters of British Forces in the Middle East was transferred to Aden. The continuing British presence may therefore be accounted for by the imperative importance of Persian Gulf oil to the British economy and the belief that the military facilities necessary to contain the latent nationalist threat to Europeā€™s fuel supplies could be found in Aden. There is plentiful evidence in favour of an economic interpretation of British motives.7 On 16 March 1956 Anthony Eden wrote to Minister of Defence, Walter Monckton, to record his concerns about the situation in the Persian Gulf. He stated forthrightly: ā€˜We cannot allow the oil to be endangered.ā€™8 From the late 1950s a number of Conservative ministers, including Harold Watkinson, Duncan Sandys and Julian Amery, expended much energy considering which portions of Aden could be amputated to form a sovereign base area in which the British would retain access to military facilities in perpetuity.9 One Aden High Commissioner, Kennedy Trevaskis, recalled that during a trip back to London he discovered that the Minister of Defence, Duncan Sandys, spent ā€˜hours poring over maps, saying ā€œcould we have a sovereign base here and thereā€ and corridors linking them.ā€™10
There was, however, more to British policy than oil and bases. The ideological drive is rather less tangible but still significant and is evident in the view taken of the threat from Arab nationalism. Across much of the empire the British believed they would be able to work with the new post-colonial elites under the auspices of the Commonwealth. However, two factors worked against this kind of compromise arrangement with Arab nationalism. The first was that after the loss of India, the Middle East was seen as the last and crucial bastion of British power overseas and the second was the emphasis placed by Arab nationalists on the need to free themselves entirely of imperial influence. In the former case, the importance of the Middle East commitment to what might be called Britainā€™s vision of world order was demonstrated when Bevin and his advisers howled down Attleeā€™s pragmatic advocacy of withdrawal to sub-Saharan Africa after 1945.11 It was perfectly feasible to argue, as Attlee did, that it was not in Britainā€™s national interest to maintain a presence in the region and to rely, like other powers, upon commercial pressure to maintain the supply of cheap fuel. The great difference in the British position was the feeling that this was an area that was tied up with Britainā€™s broader ambitions to retain an influence on global affairs.
The Conservative governments which conducted British colonial policy for 13 years after Attleeā€™s electoral defeat in 1951 regarded the Middle East as essential to the retention of Britainā€™s global role which was, in turn, a prerequisite to the maintenance of British prestige. There were, however, different schools of thought about the best method of achieving this. A number of prominent figures in the Conservative party argued that Britain should pursue a firm policy to retain what Britain held and eschew withdrawal or ā€˜scuttleā€™. In the early 1950s the Suez group applied these arguments to the negotiations over the sprawling Egyptian base and after 1956 they reiterated it in debates over the defence facilities in Aden. Lord Salisbury, Duncan Sandys and Julian Amery represented these views within government. Others, most notably, Macmillanā€™s Colonial Secretary between 1959 and 1961, Iain Macleod, were opposed to this line and insisted that the continuation of the world role actually required the co-operation of local nationalists which necessitated concessions from Britain. In the case of Aden those within government arguing for the acceleration of independence to appease local opinion had the support of the men on the spot who were adamant that Britain could retain influence after independence through the establishment of surrogates in positions of influence.
Although disagreements over colonial policy within the party were frequently heated, in the Middle East at least it was always possible to achieve consensus among Conservatives that Nasserā€™s ambitions were as dangerous as those of Hitler and Mussolini a generation earlier. A prominent historian of Anglo-Egyptian relations has noted: ā€˜most British officials and statesmen, from fairly lowly levels in Whitehall to the Prime Minister, shared the idea of Nasser as a latter-day dictator of 1930s vintage.ā€™12 Distaste for Nasser was also common within the Labour party but their election in 1964 altered the terms of the debate about colonial policy. Bevinā€™s influence was still evident from the determination of the Wilson governments to pursue a world role and, although a faction within the party did wish to circumscribe this, they had little influence with the Prime Minister. However, by this stage advocates of formal empire had been marginalised by the disappearance of most of Britainā€™s overseas possessions during the previous five years. The key issue was how much influence Britain could retain within the limits imposed by financial restraints and the rise of nationalism. Wilson and his ministers were initially optimistic that they could cling on to the defence facilities in Aden. They believed that British influence and the interests of local nationalism could be reconciled. A series of failed initiatives rapidly disillusioned them and years of debate about the precise nature of Britainā€™s future role in the region gave way to the practical discussion of how Britain could secure a safe withdrawal.
The view from Aden was rather different from that in Whitehall. The authorities there were committed to a forward policy. Some regarded this as a buttress to uphold continuing British rule, while others saw it as necessary to the achievement...

Table of contents