Editing Suez Crisis (section)

=== Convention of Constantinople ===
The 1888 [[Convention of Constantinople]] declared the canal a neutral zone under British protection.<ref name="SIS: Suez Canal">{{Cite web |title=Suez Canal |url=http://www.sis.gov.eg/En/Land&people/50th/031700000000000002.htm |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070220163200/http://www.sis.gov.eg/En/Land%26people/50th/031700000000000002.htm |archive-date=20 February 2007 |access-date=18 March 2007 |publisher=Egyptian State Information Service}}</ref> In ratifying it, the [[Ottoman Empire]] agreed to permit international shipping to pass freely through the canal, in time of war and peace.<ref name="Sachar">{{Harvnb|Sachar|1996}}{{Page needed|date=December 2014}}<!-- since the page is missing, why not use a newer edition? --></ref> The Convention came into force in 1904, the same year as the ''[[Entente Cordiale]]'' between Britain and France.

Despite this convention, the strategic importance of the canal and its control were proven during the [[Russo-Japanese War]] of 1904–05, after Japan and Britain entered into a separate bilateral agreement. Following the Japanese attack on the [[Pacific Fleet (Russia)|Russian Pacific Fleet]] at [[Lüshunkou|Port Arthur]], the Russians sent reinforcements from their fleet in the [[Baltic Sea]]. The British denied the [[Baltic Fleet|Russian Baltic Fleet]] use of the canal after the [[Dogger Bank incident]] and forced it to steam around the [[Cape of Good Hope]] in Africa, giving the [[Imperial Japanese Armed Forces]] time to consolidate their position.

The importance of the canal as a strategic intersection was again apparent during the First World War, when Britain and France closed the canal to non-[[Allies of World War I|Allied]] shipping. The attempt by the German-led [[Fourth Army (Ottoman Empire)|Ottoman Fourth Army]] to [[Raid on the Suez Canal|storm the canal]] in 1915 led the British to commit 100,000 troops to the defence of Egypt for the rest of the war.<ref>{{Harvnb|Varble|2003|p=11}}</ref>

==== Oil shipments ====
The canal continued to be strategically important after the Second World War for oil shipment.<ref name="Varble, Derek, p. 12">{{Harvnb|Varble|2003|p=12}}</ref> Petroleum historian [[Daniel Yergin]] wrote: "In 1948, the canal abruptly lost its traditional rationale. ... [British] control over the canal could no longer be preserved on grounds that it was critical to the defence either of India or of an empire that was being liquidated. And yet, at exactly the same moment, the canal was gaining a new role—as the highway not of empire, but of oil. ... By 1955, petroleum accounted for half of the canal's traffic, and, in turn, two thirds of Europe's oil passed through it".<ref>{{Harvnb|Yergin|1991|p=480}}</ref>

Western Europe then imported two million barrels per day from the Middle East, 1,200,000 by tanker through the canal, and another 800,000 via pipeline from the Persian Gulf ([[Trans-Arabian Pipeline]]) and Kirkuk ([[Kirkuk-Baniyas pipeline]]) to the Mediterranean<!-- which was also cut -->, where tankers received it. The US imported another 300,000 barrels daily from the Middle East.<ref>[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,824597,00.html State of Business: Middle-East Echoes] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110805063536/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,824597,00.html |date=5 August 2011}}, ''Time'', 12 November 1956</ref> Though pipelines linked the oil fields of the [[Kingdom of Iraq]] and the [[Arab states of the Persian Gulf|Persian Gulf states]] to the Mediterranean, these routes were prone to suffer from instability, which led British leaders to prefer to use the sea route through the canal.<ref name="Varble, Derek, p. 12"/> The rise of [[Oil tanker|super-tankers]] for shipping Middle East oil to Europe, which were too big to use the canal, meant British policymakers greatly overestimated the importance of the canal.<ref name="Varble, Derek, p. 12"/> By 2000, only 8% of the imported oil in Britain arrived via the Suez Canal with the rest coming via the Cape route.<ref name="Varble, Derek, p. 12"/>

In August 1956 the [[Royal Institute of International Affairs]] published a report "Britain and the Suez Canal" revealing government perception of the Suez area. It reiterated the strategic necessity of the canal to the UK, including the need to meet military obligations under the [[Manila Pact]] in the Far East and the [[Baghdad Pact]] in Iraq, Iran, or Pakistan. The report noted the canal had been used in wartime to transport materiel and personnel from and to the UK's close allies in Australia and New Zealand, and might be vital for such purposes in future. The report cites the amount of material and oil that passes through the canal to the UK, and the economic consequences of the canal being put out of commission, concluding:
{{Blockquote|The possibility of the Canal being closed to troopships makes the question of the control and regime of the Canal as important to Britain today as it ever was.<ref>{{Cite book |first=Donald |last=Watt |title=Britain and the Suez Canal |publisher=Royal Institute of International Affairs |date=1956 |page=8}}</ref>}}