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The
Suez Canal, as it is called today, links the
Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea by a waterway. It is
perhaps one of the oldest enterprises of the world, ever
considered by man. The Pharaohs of the ancient times had
recognized the advantages of such waterway passing
through Egypt. They believed the linking of the two seas
would ensure a safe, speedy and economical means of
transport for the vessels sailing through it. This
waterway would also be of great commercial importance to
Egypt.
Geographically,
Egypt formed the natural gateway between the East and
the West. The wealth and the produce of nations passed
through her intercontinental trade routes. Since ancient
times, merchants of the world had passed through Egypt
selling their wares and exchanging goods from far-flung
countries of the world. Traders from Europe constantly
traveled to Egypt by sea. The possessor of Egypt also
ruled the mart of the world. It was therefore natural
that the empires of the world from the earliest times
sought the conquest of Egypt through land and by sea for
its strategic location and unique commercial position in
the world.
To the east of
Egypt was a narrow neck of land-the Isthmus of
Suez-joining Africa with Asia. It was also noticed that
the waters of the Red Sea flowed close to the
Mediterranean Sea. Not so far to the West was the River
Nile, running in a parallel course to the sea with one
of its channels crossing the edge of the Isthmus. As a
result, the acute minds of the world 4000 years ago
thought about the possibility of providing the Nile with
an additional artificial mouth, linking it to the Red
Sea connected to the Mediterranean through its delta
channel.
The earliest
Egyptian canal builders were mainly concerned in
expanding the highly profitable trade carried through
the land routes, providing the merchants with a passage
through shipping vessels to carry their trade to the
great interior cities along the Nile River, enriching
the country with gold, ivory and spices brought from the
Arabian Gulf and the East African coast.
The details of
the construction of the first navigable canal, linking
the Nile with the Red Sea have been lost in antiquity.
Tradition records that it was Sesostris, a Pharaoh of
the Twelfth Dynasty, who first set his hand to the work.
During the next thousand years, the canal was available
for commerce and it was known then as the Canal of the
Pharaohs. Political upheavals in Egypt caused the
maintenance of the canal to be abandoned in the
beginning of the 7th century BC.
Later, the
famous Pharaoh Necho (612 BC) took upon the task of
cutting the canal employing 120,000 slaves on the labor.
But he was persuaded to dump the project midway by his
court astrologers, who warned that he was preparing the
way for an invader from foreign lands to occupy Egypt.
It is believed that this prophecy came true after Darius
(521 BC) conquered Egypt after the death of Cambyses II.
He restored and enlarged the canal. A record of his
achievement discovered recently states: “I ordered
the canal to be dug up from the River called Pirava (the
Nile), which follows in Egypt to the sea that comes out
of Persia (The Red Sea).” Subsequently Darius for
reasons unknown destroyed the last part of the canal,
which was later restored by his successor Xerxes.
Under the
Ptolemaic Dynasty the Canal of the Pharaohs was enlarged
ending in a place called Arsinoe, near the modern Suez
Port. Ptolemy Philadelphius (286 BC) proposed cutting a
canal directly through the Isthmus, joining the two seas
together. He was made to abandon his project for it was
believed that the level of the Red Sea was higher than
that of the Mediterranean, and this in turn would cause
the flooding of the entire country if the canal was
built-a belief that persisted until the beginning of the
nineteenth century. If it had not been for this error in
calculating the level of the two seas, a canal would
have come into being two thousand years ago!
During the Roman
occupation of Egypt, the Canal of the Pharaohs was
renamed as the River of Trajan. The Emperor Trajan who
ruled Egypt from 98 CE to 117 CE devoted much of his
attention in construction and improvement of harbors. He
got the old canal cleaned and gave it a better water
supply by uniting it with the main stream of Nile near
Cairo. As it was constructed then, the canal took the
shape of an arc and remained navigable until some time
in the 3rd century CE. By the time Emperor
Constantine (285 CE) took over the reign of the Roman
Empire, the canal had been again put out of commission.
With the Arab
conquest of Egypt in the 7th century CE, the
Nile-Red Sea Canal entered the last phase of its
history. After taking permission of Caliph Umar, Amr ibn
al-Aas, the Governor of Egypt had the canal reopened in
the winter of 641-642 CE. The canal rendered useful
service to the people of Egypt until the end of the 8th
century under the name “Canal of the Commander of the
Faithful.” During his rule as Governor of Egypt, it
was proposed to Amr ibn al-Aas cutting a canal from Lake
Tismah in the middle of the Isthmus to the Mediterranean
Sea. But the project was dropped due to military
reasons. The canal was closed in 776 CE by Caliph Abu
Jafar al-Mansour to check the revolt against his empire
from the Holy Cities of Makkah and Madinah.
From this time
onwards, the commerce between Egypt and the rest of the
world steadily declined. Turkey had gained complete
mastery over the shipping in the Mediterranean Sea. The
traffic of European merchants sailing to Middle Eastern
countries in the Mediterranean had almost come to a
complete halt. During this period the Arab traders had
introduced spices to Europe. Realizing they controlled
commodities that were in great demand in Europe, the
Arab traders kept their sources of supply a secret and
made up fantastic tales about the dangers involved in
obtaining the spices.
In bits and
pieces, the Europeans learnt about the Land of India in
the East, famous for its riches and spices. A new route
from the sea had to be discovered in the face of the
Turkish barrier. The vast wealth of the Venetians
arising from acting as middlemen in the spice trade with
India had earned them the envy of all European nations.
Portuguese sailors, encouraged by Prince Henry, the
Navigator, had explored most of the west coast of Africa
in the early 15th century. Christopher
Columbus set sail from Spain in 1492 and headed west
hoping to hit the Indian coast where the precious
commodities could be found. Another famous voyager,
Vasco da Gama, traveled from Portugal and succeeded in
rounding the Cape of Good Hope and reached India in May
1498. He brought back a letter from Zamorin to the King
of Portugal that the ruler of Calicut was willing to
barter spices for gold, silver and scarlet cloth.
At last, the sea
route to India had been discovered, which gave the
Europeans a complete monopoly of the spice trade to
India and the countries of the Far East for the next
four hundred years. The people of Venice took hard the
loss of their spice trade to other European powers of
those times. As early as 1504, they had thought about a
plan of suggesting to the Sultan of Egypt the
possibility of cutting a canal through Egypt, joining
sea to sea.
At the end of
the 16th century, the then Turkish Pasha of
Egypt, Al-Hajj Ali suggested to the Sultan of Turkey the
reopening of the Nile-Red Sea Canal with access to the
Mediterranean, across the Isthmus, which would
facilitate the transport of materials across the
waterway by the Turkish fleet. The Sultan was greatly
fascinated by this project but was deterred in
sanctioning it owing to the difficulties in carrying it
out, and the heavy cost involved. By then the French had
taken a keen interest in getting a canal cut from Suez
to Cairo as it would lessen the cost of goods imported
from India through ships and weaken the hold of
Spaniards over the Mediterranean Sea.
However, the
political difficulties, apart from the practical ones,
in conquering Egypt appeared formidable. Leibinitz, a
German philosopher urged Louis XIV to seize Egypt and
secure for the nation of France the riches of eastern
traffic. Jacques Savary, a 17th century
French trader in his book “The Complete Merchant”
advised the French Government about the advantages that
would accrue to France by cutting a canal through the
Isthmus. He writes: “Britain would loose her position
as the mistress of the seas and her commerce through the
Cape of Good Hope destroyed leaving France in control of
the safest and speediest trade route to India and
Far-East.” The plan of constructing such a canal was
debated endlessly by the merchants of France.
In the meantime,
Turkey continued to control Egypt and was content in
letting the goods shipped from India to Suez to be
carried by camels to Cairo, then conveyed by canal to
Alexandria and finally transshipped to Europe. It was
also evident to the Government of France that the power
of Turkey over Egypt was weakening. For the moment,
France satisfied itself in negotiating passage rights
for her merchants with the Beys, who ruled Egypt at that
time.
On the other
hand, the British traders were more aware of the designs
of France, long before the British Government took
notice of it. George Baldwin of the British Levant
Company warned England: “France in possession of
Egypt would possess the master-key to all the trading
stations of the earth. Enlightened in navigation and
commerce, she might make it the emporium of the
world-transporting her force in any manner and at any
time; England would hold her possessions in India at the
mercy of France.” Colonel James Capper of the East
India Company in his book in 1785, warned England in
depending on a single trade route, which at some point
in time may be superseded by the discovery of a better
one.
So matters stood
at the beginning of the last decade of the 18th
century. War broke out between England and France in
1793. Four years later, Napoleon Bonaparte felt that in
order to destroy England, it was necessary for him to
possess Egypt. Soon, Napoleon landed his forces in
Alexandria and occupied Egypt, a move that took England
completely by surprise. He lost no time in undertaking
the task of cutting a canal through the Isthmus, which
was the primary object of his expedition.
For this
purpose, he hired the services of a number of engineers
and scientists. A survey was instituted and carried out,
headed by the famous engineer J.M Lepere. Lepere
estimated that it would cost France 1,500,000 pounds and
would occupy ten thousand workmen four years to do the
job. But, the fortunes of war soon turned against
Napoleon and the peace of Amiens in 1802 ended the
French territorial ambitions in Egypt. But France never
lost interest in Egypt or the Suez Canal Project.
By the beginning
of the 19th century, Muhammad Ali Pasha
managed to seize power in Egypt and proclaimed himself
Viceroy. He introduced sweeping administrative and
military reforms. Most of his efforts were directed in
improving Egypt’s infrastructure such as canals and
roadways. In 1819, a new canal known as the Mahmudiya
Canal (named after the Sultan of Turkey) was dug. It
linked Alexandria with Nile. Muhammad Ali Pasha died in
1849 without making his dream of constructing a canal,
joining the two seas a reality.
It was finally
left to the genius of Ferdinand de Lesseps, a former
attaché of the French Consul in Alexandria to bring
about the successful completion of the canal in the year
1869. Lesseps had earned for himself the reputation of a
humanist with a world outlook. His intentions behind
constructing the canal had nothing to do with the power
politics in his time. He desired to give the nations of
the world a speedy way of transit that would that would
unite the countries of the West with those of the East,
and enrich them in trade.
Born at
Versailles in 1805, Lesseps came from a family of
diplomats. Earlier his father had been posted as the
French Consul in Egypt and has assisted Muhammad Ali
Pasha in his rise to power. After holding various
diplomatic posts overseas, Lesseps returned for a second
time to Egypt. While waiting to land from his vessel at
Alexandria, he came across a copy of Lepere’s memorandum
on the proposed Suez Canal. His imagination was fired by
this grand concept, for he had never forgotten his
youthful vision of a cutting a canal through Egypt that
would link the two seas on either side of the Isthmus.
After landing in
Egypt, Lesseps struck a lasting friendship with Muhammad
Said Pasha, the youngest son of Muhammad Ali. Lesseps
devoted himself to the task of studying every aspect of
Lepere’s proposed project of the Suez Canal. Two years
later, Abbas Pasha who was the Viceroy of Egypt, died
and his friend Muhammad Said replaced him as the ruler
of Egypt. Lesseps was now ready with all the details and
the principal facts of the Suez Project. At the earliest
opportunity, he explained to Muhammad Said his vision of
constructing the Suez Canal without entering into
details, dwelling mainly on the main points written in a
memorandum, which he had carried with him.
Muhammad Said
was a man of considerable intelligence, and raised few
objections that were immediately explained to him by
Lesseps. In the end he was convinced. He said to the
Frenchman: “I accept your plan; we will concern
ourselves as to means of carrying it out. You may regard
the matter as settled, and place your trust in me”.
Lesseps had won the Concession from the Prince in a day,
which was drawn on broad lines in November 1854. By it,
Lesseps was authorized to form an international company
under his own direction, the “Compagnie Universelle
du Canal Maritime de Suez.” The Concession would be
in force for 99 years from the date of opening of the
Canal and had to be ratified by the Sultan of Turkey.
The news of the
Concession came as a bombshell when a public
announcement was made on the making of the Suez Canal.
France and Austria were naturally pleased, but England
expressed her misgivings through the British Consul
General in Egypt. Her Majesty’s Government regarded this
scheme with disfavor. Lesseps was quick to realize that
he had to contend with the full force of the British
opposition to his venture. He therefore, hastened to
Constantinople to secure the support of Sultan of Turkey
before the opposition took on a concrete form.
On reaching
Constantinople, Lesseps found to his dismay that all his
efforts in seeking the Sultans ratification for his
project were being thwarted by Lord Redcliffe, the
British Ambassador who was using his influence with the
Sultan and the Grand Vizier to withhold their assent. He
knew he had to take England into his confidence if he
wanted his project to be successful. Lesseps therefore,
decided to travel to London. Arriving in London in June
1855, he first called upon Lord Palmerston, the Prime
Minister of England to apprise him about the project.
The Prime Minister made it clear that he was opposed to
the venture, as it would harm British maritime and
commercial interests, and would give France an advantage
over the sea routes.
Lesseps decided
to talk directly to the British merchants and ship
owners having business with India of the enormous
financial advantages of his project. The British traders
were quick to realize the feasibility of his project.
Pleased at the receptive audience, Lesseps decided to
push ahead on his advantage by setting up an
international committee of the best engineering brains
in Europe to convince his opponents on the advantages of
the Suez Canal project. The committee submitted its
report in January 1856. The report stated; “Our
investigation has revealed to us that the execution of
the work on the Canal is easy and its success assured.”
Lesseps decided
to sell the shares of his company in the open market.
France purchased half of its shares, and some of it sold
to others in European countries. Armed with the initial
capital, Lesseps decided to push ahead with the digging
of the Canal without waiting for approval from Turkey.
Alarmed at this move, the British Government tried every
kind of intimidation to make him abandon his work. In
desperation, Lesseps appealed to Napoleon III, the
Emperor of France for help. The Emperor assured him all
financial assistance and protection.
Operations were
resumed, and by October 18th 1862, the waters
of the Mediterranean entered Lake Tismah, an achievement
that impressed even the British observers. The canal had
been cut through a waterless region of sandy waste and
it provided drinking water to thousands of workmen
engaged in the task of building the canal.
Unfortunately, the British continued to oppose the
project along with the Sultan of Turkey. On January 18th
1863, Lesseps’ friend and patron Muhammad Said died and
his successor Ismail ranged himself boldly on the side
of the enterprise. Faced with opposition, Lesseps again
appealed to the Emperor of France to arbitrate on the
behalf of the company. After complicated negotiations, a
deal was reached that was acceptable to all parties.
On March 16th
1866, the Sultan of Turkey gave his sanction to continue
work on the Suez Canal. Released from the crushing
weight of governmental opposition the construction of
the canal proceeded swiftly. Machinery and dredgers were
brought to replace the heavy labor loss. The excavations
continued southward from Lake Tismah and northward from
Suez until the waters of the Mediterranean and the Red
Sea were united in Bitter Lakes in the summer of 1869.
The Suez Canal that was built was about 104 miles long,
with minimum bottom width of 150 feet, and has a depth
of 33 ft.
The official opening of the Suez Canal took place on
November 17th 1869 attended by many royal
dignitaries and distinguished persons. Praise for its
achievement poured from different parts of the world.
The Suez Canal was now seen as universal in its
benefits. A procession of sixty-seven vessels, headed by
the Imperial yacht Aigle with Empress Eugene and
De Lesseps on board filed into the Canal at Port Said
and, after nights at anchor in Lake Tismah and the
Bitter Lakes, the Suez was reached in the morning of
November 20th. Thus, the great hopes, which
were entertained by De Lesseps, of this mighty
undertaking were realized. His patience, perseverance
and unwavering faith in this project had paid off. He
had successfully surmounted all difficulties and crises
that were thrown in his way. At last, the centuries old
dream of joining the two seas together had become a
reality. | 
