Prelude to Suez

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 endeavored to respond to the demands of the international press and squash the 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 army and embassy combine to give a unique account of the period, set against the inevitable strains of living in a volatile country with a wife and children.

Robert Hornby served with the 2nd Division in India and Burma for three years during the Second World War. In 1949 he joined the Public Relations Directorate at the War Office. Thereafter he was successively P.R.O. for the East Africa Command, Military Spokesman at the Embassy in Cairo, Assistant Director of Public Relations at the War Office and Chief of the Press Branch at S.H.A.P.E. Paris. In 1957 he was promoted to Colonel and became Director of Public Relations, Far East Land Forces. Three years later he retired to become Chief Information Officer to the Church Assembly and Public Relations Adviser to the Archbishop of Canterbury. He was mentioned in Despatches in 1944 and awarded the O.B.E. in 1951.