In the original dustsheet. Black cloth binding with gilt title on the spine.

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In January 1952 Cairo burned in a wave of insurgency against the British as the Suez crisis took hold. Three months earlier, however, the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936 had been abrogated, leading to the withdrawal of all British military personnel from the city to the Canal Zone base at Suez. Colonel Robert Hornby was already committed as the press spokesman for the British Army and chose to stay in Cairo. Without diplomatic immunity and vulnerable to arrest, Hornby endeavoured to respond to the demands of the international press and squash the outrageous claims of propagandist Egyptian newspapers. He set up a secret, and highly illegal, line of communication to the garrison switchboard at Ismalia to allow journalists to subvert the censorship imposed on correspondence sent via cable and wireless, their only means of reporting to their newspapers. Hornby’s non-diplomatic status led to his attempted arrest by Egyptian police, but he escaped with his family to Cyprus. He soon returned to Egypt with a Foreign Office diplomatic passport and valid Egyptian entry visa as an assistant military attaché at the British Embassy in Cairo. During his time in Egypt he witnessed the abdication of King Farouk and the rise and fall of General Neguib. Hornby’s close contact with the press, his friendship with Anwar Sadat, future prime minister of Egypt, and his links with both army and embassy combine to give a unique and fascinating account of the period, set against the inevitable strains of living in a volatile country with a wife and children.

The Suez Crisis, or the Second Arab–Israeli war, also called the Tripartite Aggression in the Arab world and the Sinai War in Israel, was an invasion of Egypt in late 1956 by Israel, followed by the United Kingdom and France. The aims were to regain control of the Suez Canal for the Western powers and to remove Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser, who had just nationalised the foreign-owned Suez Canal Company, which administered the canal. After the fighting had started, political pressure from the United States, the Soviet Union and the United Nations led to a withdrawal by the three invaders. The episode humiliated the United Kingdom and France and strengthened Nasser.

On 26 July 1956, Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal Company, which prior to that was owned primarily by British and French shareholders. On 29 October, Israel invaded the Egyptian Sinai. Britain and France issued a joint ultimatum to cease fire, which was ignored. On 5 November, Britain and France landed paratroopers along the Suez Canal. Before the Egyptian forces were defeated, they had blocked the canal to all shipping by sinking 40 ships in the canal. It later became clear that Israel, France and Britain had conspired to plan out the invasion. The three allies had attained a number of their military objectives, but the canal was useless. Heavy political pressure from the United States and the USSR led to a withdrawal. U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower had strongly warned Britain not to invade; he threatened serious damage to the British financial system by selling the US government’s pound sterling bonds. Historians conclude the crisis “signified the end of Great Britain’s role as one of the world’s major powers”.

The Suez Canal was closed from October 1956 until March 1957. Israel fulfilled some of its objectives, such as attaining freedom of navigation through the Straits of Tiran, which Egypt had blocked to Israeli shipping since 1950.

As a result of the conflict, the United Nations created the UNEF Peacekeepers to police the Egyptian–Israeli border, British prime minister Anthony Eden resigned, Canadian external affairs minister Lester Pearson won the Nobel Peace Prize, and the USSR may have been emboldened to invade Hungary.