Before the coup
After finishing the war in 1948 Gamal Abdel Nasser returned to Egypt and met Anour Al Sadaat and Abdel Hakim Amer. Gamal Abdel Nasser realized that access to power would only come from Cairo so, he took advantage of the unrest in the Egyptian army and people. To achieve his goal, he created a secret organization, it was called "free officers."
Al Nasser was the leader of the organization. After Gamal tried to kill Minister Hussein Serri in King Farouk's government, king Farouq started investigating the secret organization but, there were some things that helped Al Nasser, which is Cairo fire and January events where some police officer were killed all that dispersed of them and led to discontent the Egyptians on the king and the government.
Ali Hlayel
So, Al Nasser sent his friend Abdel Hakim Amer to Mohammed Naguib to make him the interface of the organization because Mohammed Naguib had a high position in the Egyptian Army and a huge publicity among the Egyptians .
On 30/5/1952,Al Nasser received a message from the king that told him that the king detected the secret organization of free officers. So Al Nasser held an urgent meeting with the organization leaders to determine the date of the coup and it was on 23/7/1952.
At the same time Al Nasser sent Ali Sabri who later became the vice of Al Nasser to American Embassy to prevent Britain from interfering for the king, where the dominance of America started to increase after WWII in the region.
Ruling period until his death:
The coup was done after America's help. Where units of the army took control on Radio stations and police centers and all government buildings.
The next day on 24/7/1952, the revolution was declared a success. After that Egypt was ruled by the Revolutionary Command Council until 18/1/1953 where the establishment of the Republic was announced and the inauguration of Mohammed Najeeb the president by the revolutionary Command Council.
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Mohammed Naguib knew later that he was only an interface and most laws and decisions he was forced on them. So, he resigned on 22/2/1954 and there were mass demonstrations claiming to return Mohammed Najeeb and groups of army mutinied so the revolutionary Command Council was forced to return Najeeb after five days .
After Najeeb returned he made many decisions against the army. He established a new constitution and restored Parliament and cancelled the censorship of newspapers. After that Gamal Abdel Nasser started to weaken Najeeb and people rallied against him.
So, after one month on 28/3/1954 people rallied in strange demonstrations claimed "No freedom, No democracy" No to return Parliament " and in the same time several bombings were carried out to convince people that Mohammed Najeeb was wrong.
On 14/11/1954, the revolutionary command Council declared the exemption of Mohammed Najeeb from his position and put him under house arrest . Then Al Nasser became the actual ruler of Egypt through the revolutionary Command Council. He conducted a popular referendum to change the constitution to elect him president of Egypt.
Al Nasser took many bold decisions like Suez canal which gave him a huge publicity in addition to the media which made him the hero of Arab even though he lost all wars he fought. For example, the war in Yemen and the war of '67, Nasser lost the unity with Syria.
Al Nasser died on 28/9/1970 by sudden heart failure. His death was a big shock in the Arab World and one of the biggest funerals in history took place in Cairo, an estimated 5 to 7 million people attended his funeral.
Editors Pick:
Hayder al Smadi
