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Tracing the Limby festival to the 1950s, when it changed significantly, this chapter discusses the impact of the Suez War on local historical experiences; the relationship between indigenous and foreign or diaspora communities; British occupation; and resistance, combat, underground nationalist movements, and political propaganda. The 1956 War was a turning point in the history of Port Said and the festival. It transformed Port Said into a Nasserian symbol of national resistance against imperialism. That said, Port Said has a history of political resistance, centered around Canal workers and trade unionism, that has placed the city at odds with the interests of the state.

This chapter is a history of Port Said told through the popular street festival known as the Limby Burning. It studies the imaginary roots of the Limby festival and what this historical imaginary conveys about lived experiences along the Suez Canal. It discusses Egyptian memories of General Allenby, the evolution of the effigy burning, vernacular politics, war and resistance, and the distinctiveness of local historical experiences on the Canal. It shows the distinctiveness of local historical utterances shaped by a long series of military and social conflicts.

During a high-profile visit by Soviet head of state Nikolay Podgorny in June 1967, a desperate Egyptian President Nasser offered to formally join the Warsaw Pact in exchange for direct Soviet support of Egypt’s shattered forces. Moscow balked at such a formal commitment but took advantage of Nasser’s offer of free use of Egyptian air and naval bases. A military delegation led by Chief of Staff Matvey Zakharov took advantage of renewed hostilities in early July to establish presence of Soviet naval units and marines to stabilize the defense of the Suez Canal against further Israeli advance. The Soviet Navy’s Mediterranean squadron, which had been massively reinforced and activated in the run-up to the June war, was now officially created as a permanent formation opposite the US Sixth Fleet.

This chapter discusses an incomplete Egyptian ballad on the 1956 war. It discusses Abu Dra's ballad which described the Battle of Port-Said. His ballad took the form of mawwāl ̣saīdī. The metre is basically the classical basīṭ, that is, mustafilun fāilun twice in each hemistich and with the fāilun foot often reduced to falun, but only at the end of a line. In folk compositions, the classical hemistich functions as an independent line, and the shortening of fāilun is allowed wherever it occurs.

Lieutenant-General Petr Lashchenko, the ranking member of Zakharov’s delegation, remained in Egypt as the chief Soviet military adviser and “commander of the Soviet Forces Group.” While constructing the Egyptian defense line along the Suez Canal and overseeing rehabilitation of Egyptian units to Soviet standards, he negotiated the upgrade of Soviet “experts” to “advisers” with quasi-command authority. Resistance within the Egyptian military ended with the arrest and reported suicide of Abdel Hakim Amer, the commander-in-chief in the June war. On the day the agreement was signed, with hundreds of Soviet advisers arriving in Egypt, the Soviets were involved in the sinking off Port Said of the Israeli destroyer Eilat – the first sinking of a warship by missile. Soviet air advisers established a de facto air base at Cairo-West and began flying sorties opposite Israeli planes, for now undetected.