The Yemeni Civil War: The Final British–Egyptian Imperial Battleground

Abstract

When the Yemeni Civil War broke out in September 1962, the British and the Egyptians supported opposing sides of this regional conflict whose outcome would determine the future of their respective Arabian empires. Hostilities in Yemen were not grounded in the superpower competition of the Cold War, but rather were a culmination of an imperial rivalry that began with the 1839 British capture of the port city of Aden to confront the advancing imperial army of Mohamed Ali. By the end of 1967, their colonial rivalry came to a close with their resounding mutual defeats

Notes

1. British Library: India Office Records: Aden: Records of the British Administrations in Aden 1837–1967, R/20/E/1, 22 June 1837.

2. British Library, R/20/E/1, 6 July 1837.

3. British Library, R/20/E/1, 2–3 Aug. 1837.

4. British Library, R/20/E/1, 23 Sept. 1837.

5. The National Archives (TNA), Foreign Office 373/78, 99, Campbell to Palmerston, 1 Feb. 1839.

6. British Library, R/20/E/1, 26 March 1838.

7. Ibid.

8. Ibid.

9. British Library, R/20/E/1, 16 Oct. 1837.

10. TNA, FO 78/373, 101, 28 Feb. 1839.

11. British Library, R/20/E/3, 27 March 1838.

12. British Library, R/20/E/3, 12 May 1838.

13. K. Pieragostoni, Britain, Aden, and South Arabia: Abandoning Empire (New York: Macmillan, 1991), p.21. He agrees that the occupation of Aden was a check to Ali's expansion in Syria and the Arabian Peninsula. He adds that the geographic location of Aden added a level of importance in protecting the route to India.

14. E. Kedourie, ‘Egypt, the Arab State and the Suez Expedition, 1956’, in K.M. Wilson (ed.), Imperialism and Nationalism in the Middle East: The Anglo-Egyptian Experience 1882–1982 (London: Mansell Publishing Limited, 1983), pp.123–4. Two of Mohamed Ali's descendants made efforts to continue Ali's legacy. Khedive Abbas Hilmi (1892–1914) tried to wrest control of the Caliphate from the Ottoman Empire. King Fu’ad (1917–36) tried to refocus the Islamic world around Cairo after Mustafa Kemal Ataturk abolished the Ottoman Caliphate in 1924. Neither attempt succeeded, but both were evidence of the continuation of Ali's imperial ideal.

15. Macmillan Papers, Oxford Bodleian Library, MS Macmillan.dep.C.431, 23 Nov. 1955. Julian Amery would later serve as minister of aviation from 1962 to 1964 and was fundamental in orchestrating mercenary operations in Yemen.

16. X. Fielding, One Man in His Time: The Life of Lieutenant-Colonel NLD (‘Billy’) McLean, DSP (London: Macmillan, 1990), p.103.

17. C. Jones, Britain and the Yemen Civil War 1962–1965 (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2004), p.18.

18. Pieragostoni, Britain, Aden, and South Arabia, p.5. His argument is somewhat overstated in that he does not substantiate the significance of Aden for British global strategy other than the historical coincidence that the war with Nasser took place during the final years of the British Empire.

19. Imperial War Museum, Neil McLean Files, Box A.

20. T.T. Petersen, The Decline of Anglo-American Middle East 1961–1969: A Willing Retreat (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2006), p.40. The Tory Party came to rely heavily on the use of military force in the Middle East, as is evidenced by the 1956 Suez War. It was not until the Labour victory in October 1964 that British foreign policy acknowledged that Arab Nationalism could not be defeated through military victories alone.

21. Jones, Britain and the Yemen Civil War 1962–1965, p.33.

22. Fielding, One Man in His Time, p.136. Al-Badr confided this to McLean.

23. Jonathan Walker argues that the Yemeni Civil War cannot be separated from the anti-British insurgency in South Arabia. Nasser's sponsorship of the revolution in North and South Yemen was a testament to his plans of uniting the two halves of Yemen and incorporating the country as a member of the UAR. J. Walker, Aden Insurgency: The Savage War in South Arabia, 1962–67 (Staplehurst: Spellmount, 2005).

24. Imperial War Museum, Neil McLean Files, Box 6. This version was based on Imam Al Badr's testimony and was confirmed by other royalists as well.

25. Imperial War Museum, Neil McLean Files, Box 4.

26. TNA, CO 1015/2150, 4, 6 Jan. 1961, C. Johnston (Aden) to FO.

27. TNA, CO 1015/2150, 561, 2 Feb. 1962.

28. TNA, CO 1015/2150, 534, 2 Feb. 1962, C. Johnston (Aden) to FO.

29. TNA, CO 1015/2150, 559A, 8 Feb. 1962, C. Johnston (Aden) to FO.

30. Jones, Britain and the Yemen Civil War 1962–1965, p.27.

31. Saudi Radio Mecca, 14 Feb. 1967 (taken from the O’Brien communiqué in Imperial War Museum, Neil McLean Files. Box A). McLean would later quote additional circumstantial evidence that the Egyptians had departed for Yemen before the Revolution began. Among others, he notes that Egyptian heavy artillery and armoury arrived only one day after Sallal shelled the palace (IWM, Neil McLean Files, Box 39).

32. TNA, FO 371/149229, BM 1901/8, 10 Feb. 1960, UK (Yemen) to FO. (Since his father's murder in 1948, Imam Ahmad has continued the relative isolation championed by Imam Yahya. Diplomatic relations with the Soviets and a subsequent meeting between Ahmad and Yerofeev were therefore of great significance. In reaction, by June 1960, China, US, Yugoslovia, W. Germany, and Ethiopia opened diplomatic missions in Yemen as well.)

33. TNA, FO 371/156939, BM 1016/2, Feb. 1961, ‘Soviet Bloc Activities in Yemen’. There is no evidence of communist propaganda in Yemen, leading one to conclude that the arms shipments are for a long-term objective. Preference was shown for the communists as is evidenced by the fact that the Russians were allowed to build meteorological stations, whereas the Americans were rejected on religious grounds.

34. P.T. Hart, Saudi Arabia and the United States: Birth of a Security Partnership (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998).

35. Petersen, The Decline of the Anglo-American Middle East 1961–1969, p.38.

36. Canadian National Archives, RG 24 – Vol.21494, 26 Aug. 1963.

37. Oxford Bodleian Library, Papers of Michael Crouch, File 102, 29 May 1964.

38. TNA, Prime Minister's Office files 11/4928, 14 Oct. 1963.

39. Imperial War Museum, Neil McLean Files, Box 20.

40. Jones, Britain and the Yemen Civil War 1962–1965. Jones notes that the intelligence from the Aden Group was ignored by the British government, particularly in 1965 when Nasser was weakest. This led to the premature withdrawal announcement by the Labour government.

41. Bodleian Library, Papers of Kennedy Trevaskis, MSS.Brit. Emp. S 367, 6/1, 31 March 1964. This statement was made in relation to sending support to royalists through Federation territory.

42. Bodleian Library, Papers of Kennedy Trevaskis, MSS.Brit. Emp. S 367, 6/1, 14 Oct. 1963.

43. Bodleian Library, Papers of Harold Ingrams, Box 12 File 3, 26 Oct. 1964. There was no shortage of speech transcripts and radio broadcasts that called for a violent end to the British occupation of Aden.

44. Bodleian Library, Papers of Kennedy Trevaskis, MSS.Brit. Emp. S 367, 6/1, 31 Oct. 1962. In 1839, Captain Haines wrote that the tribes surrounding the port of Aden were looking to the British to protect them from the rapid expansion of Mohamed Ali's empire.

45. Bodleian Library, Papers of Kennedy Trevaskis, MSS.Brit. Emp. S 367, 6/1, 20 April 1964. This particular minister was a native Yemeni serving on the Adeni council.

46. The Times, 29 Sept. 1965. Pieragostini quotes this article as well in an effort to justify the British 1966 decision to withdrawal from Aden.

47. British Petroleum Archives, 9910, Middle East General – Aden, 16 June 1966, A.H. Dutton. Soviet involvement, however, later called this conclusion into question.

48. British Petroleum Archives, 9910, Middle East General – Aden, 16 Aug. 1965, A.H. Dutton.

49. British Petroleum Archives, 28693, 15 April 1966, A.H. Dutton.

50. British Petroleum Archives, 9910, Middle East General – Aden, 28 June 1966, D.F. Mitchell.

51. TNA, PREM 11/4679, 56, 8 April 1964.

52. D. Hart-Davis, The War that Never Was: The True Story of the Men Who Fought Britain's Most Secret Battle (London: Century, 2011), p.275.

53. E. O’Ballance, The War in Yemen (London: Faber and Faber, 1971), p.112.

54. TNA, FCO 8/763, 16 Jan. 1967, FO. (Given the inherent interests of Saudi Arabia, the accuracy of the investigation is suspect.)

55. Hart-Davis, The War that Never Was, p.344. Johnson found this particularly ironic as the Egyptian government was broke, while the Saudi royal family was continuously awash in cash from oil revenues.

56. British Petroleum Archives, 28693, 4 Oct. 1966, Carruthers.

57. Hart-Davis, The War that Never Was, p.251. Duff Hart Davis based much of his assessment on Tony Boyle's records.

58. British Petroleum Archives, 28693, 6 May 1966, A.H. Dutton.

59. TNA, FO 371 174636. BM1041/130, 12 May 1964, Conversation between Canadian Ambassador Robert Ford and Heilkal.

60. ‘The Secret Ingredient of the Sauce’, Israeli Air Force Magazine, 4 April 2008.

61. Imperial War Museum, Neil McLean Files, Box 9.

62. Imperial War Museum, Neil McLean Files, Box 3, May 1967. According to McLean, Nasser's blockade of the Gulf of Aqaba in May 1967 was part of the Russian-orchestrated plan of turning the Red Sea into an Egyptian ‘Mare Nostrum’ after the British withdrawal from Aden. The parallels between the legitimate fears that Mohamed Ali and Nasser's efforts to dominate the Red Sea are further testament to the similarities between the two eras.

63. J. Ferris, Nasser's Gamble: How Intervention in Yemen Caused the Six-Day War and the Decline of Egyptian Power (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013), p.268.