Imperial Diplomacy in the Era of Decolonization

This book provides a detailed examination of the role played by the Sudan Political Service in Anglo-Egyptian relations from the end of the Second World War, when Egypt formally demanded revision of the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936, through the conclusion of an Anglo-Egyptian Agreement on the Sudan in 1953 in the aftermath of the Egyptian Revolution, and up to Sudanese independence in January 1956, on the eve of the Suez Crisis. Drawing on official documents and private papers, this study challenges conventional interpretations of British policy toward the Sudan and Egypt in this period, and it concludes that both the British Labour Government and its Conservative successor were prepared to make major concessions to Egypt in the Sudan in exchange for an acceptable treaty of alliance that would guarantee British access to the strategic Suez Canal Zone. It was the Sudan Government, the colonial administration dominated by British expatriate administrators, that stymied all efforts to achieve Anglo-Egyptian agreement at the expense of the Service's own plans for a fully-independent Sudanese state. This book will be of interest to researchers of British colonialism and modern Middle Eastern and African history.