Husbands & Lovers

Content warning: This section of the guide discusses racism.

Historians regard the Suez Crisis in 1956 as “one of the most significant episodes in post-1945 British history. Its outcome highlighted Britain’s declining status and confirmed it as a ‘second tier’ world power” (“Why Was the Suez Canal So Important?” Imperial War Museums). The Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936 allowed Britain to retain a military presence in Egypt until 1956. Access to the Suez Canal was of great importance because it connected Britain to the Middle East, the country’s main source of oil; it was a vital trade route with the Far East, and it provided a quick path for replenishing supplies required by British-Indian troops. However, Egyptian nationalists resented the British presence. By 1951, the year in which the Ainsworths move to Cairo in Husbands and Lovers, tension between the British and Egyptians grew significantly, prompting Egyptian attacks on British personnel. Lucien describes how this situation developed, saying that the Suez was “never really Egypt’s canal [….]. The French came up with the idea, the money came from elsewhere. Then the British bought up our share when Egypt went bankrupt from all these modernization projects [….]. Egypt for the Europeans” (94-95).