Printed papers on the political situation and military policy in Egypt [‎13v] (26/176)

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The majority of the Commission were bent on the internationalisation rather
than the neutralisation of the Canal. This we resolutely opposed, with the result
that nothing definite was accomplished, and it was not until 1888 that the convention
which now holds the field was concluded, subject to the important proviso on which
we insisted that it should not come into force so long as the British occupation of
Egypt lasted.
This was the position till 1904, when, as a result of the Anglo-French Agreement,
we agreed to put the 1888 convention into force, with the exception of those portions
of Article 8 providing for the creation of a local international board to watch over
the execution of the convention.
There are certain omissions in that instrument which are at present of special
interest. In the first place, no mention occurs of any territorial “ zone " in which
no right of war, no act of hostility, nor any act having for its object to obstruct the
“ free navigation of the Canal shall be committed," the phrase used being “ the Canal
“ and its ports of access ” (articles 4, 5 and 7). In the second place, although the
diplomatic agents in Egypt of the signatory Powers are enjoined (article 8) to
“ demand the suppression of any work or the dispersion of any assemblage on either
“ bank of the Canal, the object or effect of which might be to interfere with the liberty
“ and the entire security of the navigation,” from the fact that “ the suppression or
“ the dispersion ” were, by articles 9 and 10, left to the Khedive and the Sultan of
Turkey, it is unlikely that the signatories contemplated that the bodies to be
suppressed or dispersed would consist of the troops of one of the parties to the
convention.
The convention having become operative in 1904, its working may be considered
under three periods, viz., 1904 to 1914, the war and from the armistice to the present
time.
The first period calls for little comment, for neither Egyptian nor British
troops were stationed anywhere near the Canal, and the terms of the convention were
strictly observed during the Turco-Italian and Balkan wars.
With the outbreak of the European war in August 1914, German and Austrian
merchant-ships attempted to use the Canal as a port of refuge, and whilst there they
committed acts of hostility by using their wireless to report the movements of Allied
vessels.
The local authorities, under instructions from His Majesty's Government,
detained the ships and removed their wireless sets, thereby provoking a 'pro farina
protest from the Canal Company, who, however, on learning the reasons which had
led to this action, expressed themselves as entirely satisfied that the Egyptian
Government had in reality been acting in virtue of the Convention of 1888.
Subsequently the enemy ships were turned out of the Egyptian territorial waters,
after which they were formally captured by a British cruiser. This episode left the
Canal Company unmoved.
Later in the same year the Board of the Company recorded the formal decision
that, in view of the threatened Turkish invasion of Egypt, they held it to be their
duty to afford the British Army of Occupation every facility for the use of the plant
and material of the company in order to assist in the defence of the Canal.
During the first Turkish attack in 1915 French warships stationed in the Canal
assisted the British troops in the defence, whilst aerial observation of enemy
movements was assumed by French seaplanes.
In the last stages of" the war Port Said was the base for small French force
which took part, under Lord AUenby’s orders, in the operations in Palestine and
Syria, and some months after the armistice a considerable number of French troops
were still encamped in the outskirts of that town within a few hundred yards of the
Canal.
The serious disturbances which occurred in Egypt in the early part of 1919
followed closely on the suspension of active military operations, and in May of that
year the Suez Canal Company’s workpeople went on strike, with the result that the
Canal and commercial services could only be maintained with British Naval and
Military assistance.
In October 1920 a similar situation threatened to arise, and the Canal Company
gladly welcomed a suggestion that they should be enabled to assure the transit service
by means of British sailors, but they made the proviso that those of their employees
who were willing to work should be protected from molestation. The Canal Company
warned His Majesty’s Government through Sir Ian Malcolm that if a strike broke
out it would almost certainly spread to their European personnel, and that an