33 Egypt, Europe, And The Suez Canal

33 Egypt, Europe, And The Suez Canal

[Music]
if you or I were asked to name just two
of Egypt’s most iic sites there’s a good
chance that both would be works of
engineering even if separated by about 4
and a half thousand
years the first likely would be the
great pyramid at
Giza built around 2500 BC not only is
the Great Pyramid the oldest of the
seven wonders of the ancient world but
it’s also the only one that’s still
standing and what would your second
choice be the massive Rock Cut temples
of Abu simbel on Lake nassa the Great
Sphinx the Temple of carak
perhaps for me the second great feat of
engineering is none of these but rather
the sewers
Canal like the pyramids it was first
conceived in ancient Egypt but this
Transportation Marvel had to wait until
the late 19th century until it was
finally
built in an era full of grand building
projects the opening ceremony of the
sewers canal in
1869 was among the most eagerly awaited
parties of the
century the Egyptian ruler Ismael Pasha
who reported to the ottoman Sultan in
Constantinople joined royalty and other
distinguished guests from across Europe
and
Beyond but such invitations were much
harder to come by in the Middle East
itself in the speech he gave to Mark the
occasion Ishmael the Egyptian kadif or
Viceroy made the following boast
henceforth Egypt is part of Europe not
Africa an ambitious modernizing and
forward-looking if spendthrift ruler
Ishmael the Magnificent remarks make
perfectly clear how he saw his country
or at least where he saw Egypt’s future
the kad’s proud boast about Egypt now
being part of Europe was far more
prophetic than he could have imagined
just not in the way he
envisaged while there’s no question in
my mind that the opening of the seers
canal was a turning point in the history
of the Middle East one can still ask
why and the answer has many parts the
story of the sewers Canal is about a
dream that combines engineering trade
politics power and ultimately debt and
downfall first we’ll look at the idea of
uniting the Mediterranean and Red Seas
an aspiration with an ancient pedigree
but that needed the drive of a modern
Visionary Ferdinand delesseps to make it
become a
reality then we’ll turn to the
construction of the canal itself which
was a building project on a scale unlike
anything Egypt had seen since perhaps
the days of the Pharaohs and the
pyramids it was a remarkable engineering
achievement that had Untold benefits for
global
trade but ultimately the construction
and opening of the sews Canal is a story
of foreign debt that would cost Egypt
its independence and all that
entailed hadif Ismail was right the
opening of the sews Canal did make Egypt
part of Europe part of the British
Empire to be precise and that altered
the balance of power across the entire
middle e
as we begin we should note that canals
were not only an idea in ancient Egypt
they were a
reality a number of earlier canals were
built along parts of the route of
today’s sewers
Canal as attested to by Aristotle
Herodotus and others there were a number
of east west canals linking the River
Nile to the Red Sea during ancient times
as well as at least one major North
South Canal
after Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt in
1798 members of the scientific team that
accompanied him uncovered traces of one
of these ancient canals this discovery
coupled with Napoleon’s Limitless Drive
started him thinking about digging a
canal more or less where the sewers
Canal is
today unfortunately for Napoleon’s
Ambitions one of the surveyors
responsible for an initial survey made a
serious
miscalculation his report concluded
erroneously that the Red Sea was 33 ft
higher than the
Mediterranean had this been accurate
locks would have had to have been added
to the canal making the project
prohibitively expensive as a result no
further action was taken during the
Napoleonic
era in truth the difference in height
between the two C’s is much less
it’s about 4T as another surveyor
reported to the British government in
1830 however in spite of concluding that
no locks were needed the British
government refused to discuss any Canal
building project as an alternative it
built a railway from Alexandria to Cairo
and another line from Cairo to Port
Suz the British perhaps in part
regretting their lack of vision never
let up in their complaints and
objections from the moment when the
Great French engineer Ferdinand theups
won the concession in 1854 to create a
company to build the sewers Canal until
it opened 15 years
later and why were British objections so
vifer one might think that with global
Naval superiority and an Empire on which
the Sun never set a canal would
principally benefit the
British well the problem wasn’t a
British failure to grasp that the sewers
Canal would benefit its
interests but rather Great Britain
recognized the canal would benefit other
Count’s interests as
well explicit in the original concession
Egypt granted to doesb was that any
Canal would be open to ships from All
Nations thus the construction of a
Waterway through the heart of the Arid
Middle East connecting Egypt to all the
world was an advance that would also
Advantage Britain’s Rivals France and
Russia while the sewers Canal was
indirectly at least a challenge to
ottoman power in the Middle East it was
the ottoman’s conquest of Constantinople
in
1453 that made Europeans set off to find
alternative trade routes to India and
Beyond after first circumnavigating
Africa
the Europeans found the sewers Canal to
be a much better option as it virtually
halved the sailing distance between
India and
Britain so who was Ferdinand delps and
how did he manage to secure the rights
to dig a canal that would change the
course of Egyptian Middle Eastern and
world
history born in versailes in 1805 delps
was a diplomat in his first career in
this role he spent much of the 1830s
based in Egypt and we can point to two
incidents during this period that would
alter the course of his life the first
seemingly inconsequential event took
place even before he set foot in
Egypt as the ship he sailed on
approached Alexandria passengers and
crew had to spend a period in quarantine
during which time he read an account of
Napoleon’s military Adventures in Egypt
in this book the newly arrived French
consul in Cairo first learned about the
possibility of a canal an idea that
struck him powerfully and remained in
his
mind the second detail was delessup
subsequent friendship with the Egyptian
leader at the time the great Muhammad
Ali who was Keen to see his country
modernize with help from the
French and his friendship with Muhammad
Ali’s fourth son
11 years old when delesseps arrived in
Cairo the Egyptian vizier’s fourth son
was not a favorite of his fathers in
part because the boy struggled with his
weight publicly rebuked and ridiculed he
was put on starvation diets and forced
into harsh exercise regimens that
brought the unfortunate boy to tears
theups took pity giving the boy plates
of pasta and other treats in secret
in time a sequence of accidental and
premature deaths in the Muhammad Ali
line saw this son become khif of Egypt
that’s right his name was s
Pasha later when delps came looking for
permission to build the canal s Pasha a
frankophone was on the throne he hadn’t
forgotten the kindness delps had shown
him nor the spaghetti treats he shared
with
him although side paser ruled for only 9
years dying in 1863 at the age of 40
he’s perhaps best remembered today for
having given his name to Port SED the
sewers Canal’s Northern
Terminus that and running up an enormous
national debt which debt his nephew and
Heir inherited before adding to it in an
equally propagate
fashion now let’s consider some of the
numbers behind IND the building of the
canal the first question in any building
project is surely how much I don’t
suppose anyone will be surprised to hear
that the sewers Canal cost more to build
than the original estimate twice as much
as it turned
out the next question to ask is who’s
paying well with respect to the sewers
Canal it was shareholders shareholders
of the universal Suez ship canal company
which delps formed in 1850 58 four years
after obtaining a 99-year concession to
build and operate a
canal Egypt in the form of s Pasha held
22% of the shares of the universal
sewers ship canal company while the
remainder were made available to
investors in spite of the word Universal
in the company’s name it was French
investors at first almost exclusively
who put their money into the project
widely derided in the British press and
Parliament the mega building project
didn’t attract British and other
non-french investment and interest until
years
later groundbreaking took place at Port
s on the 25th of April
1859 and work was completed exactly a
decade later but at what
cost a total of 1 and a half million
people worked on the project project
over the 10 years it took to build the
canal during the first four years the
manual toil was performed by forced
labor mainly Egyptian peasants pressed
into service by the
kadif there were never fewer than 30,000
men employed on the
project but the death toll stood as high
as a 100,000 by the time the canal was
completed Britain Keen to score
political points and delay progress of
the canal
objected to the use of compulsory
labor this prompted delps to write to
the British government reminding them
that they’d not been too bothered about
using forced labor when they’
constructed the Egyptian Railway just a
few years
earlier concerned about European public
opinion Theif nevertheless brought to an
end this ready resource which was
another reason why the costs Rose as
deeply as they did halfway along the
canal the entirely new town of ismia was
built to house sewers Canal company
workers founded by delps the new city
housed company officials as well as the
foreign engineers and local laborers
that built the
canal ismia takes its name from s
pasha’s nephew and successor Ishmael
though it was built in elegant French as
opposed to Egyptian
Style meanwhile s’s son and air
presumptive died in an accident drowning
when in a railway Carriage that fell
into the Nile as it was being fed
across without an heir s’s death meant
that Ismael became the fifth of the
Muhammad Ali Dynasty to rule
Egypt like his Uncle s Pasha Ismael was
a great supporter of the sewers Canal
project and like his grandfather
Muhammad Ali the dynastic founder Ismael
was a keen modern ER who developed
favorable views of modern European
culture and Engineering while a student
in
Paris the Canal’s Dimensions have
increased over time including again very
recently but in the beginning it was 102
M long since then it has grown to a
length of 120 Mi a depth of 79 ft and
the width of almost 700 ft
across yet the most important figure is
as true today as it was on the opening
day in
1869 and that’s the fact that the sewers
Canal cut almost in half the sea Voyage
from India to Britain slicing no less
than 4 and a half th000 miles from a
single
trip for the official opening on the
17th of November
1869 Ismael made sure to spare no
expense royalty arist ocracy government
officials cultural icons and the biggest
celebrities of the day were all invited
to Egypt for three weeks of festivities
all of which were paid directly by the
kadif
Ismail the guest list included the
Austrian Emperor the king of Hungary and
princes from Prussia Holland and Beyond
reflecting the kives avowed desire to
impress and develop closer ties with
France the guest of honor was
undoubtedly the white of Napoleon II the
empress
Eugene and if there’s any doubt as to
her status the fact that Ishmael built a
palace on the Nile for her stay should
clarify
matters today that Palace is still
receiving foreign guests to Cairo as it
was bought and converted into a hotel by
the marot chain and it sits on the
island in the middle of the Nile in
Cairo Ismael also commissioned the
construction of an 850 seat Opera House
in Cairo to celebrate the Canal’s
opening it actually opened 2 weeks
beforehand with assembled dignitaries
treated to ver
Rialto Rialto wasn’t the first choice
for the evenings
entertainment following the theme of no
expense spared ishmail had persuaded
verie with a fee of 150,000 Franks about
$900,000 us today to write an Opera with
an Egyptian theme to celebrate the new
opera house and the sews
Canal
unfortunately the sets and costumes got
stuck in Paris due to another of
Europe’s numerous 19th century Wars and
the performance was delayed for 2 years
until Christmas Eve
1871 that Opera was of course
AA the construction of the canal was
obviously the major cuse of Egypt’s
growing debt though Hospitality on this
scale certainly didn’t help the
country’s increasingly precarious
Financial
footing Ismael stepped into a diplomatic
Minefield however when he decided not to
invite a single Muslim head of state
rather he said he wanted to invite the
Moroccan Sultan the Sha of Persia and
the Tunisian ruler among other Muslim
sovereigns but he claimed not to have
enough space
he later tried to excuse himself when he
wrote with the best intentions on Earth
and opening all my residences I could
not have more than 80 palaces ready for
the sovereigns and princes who would
like to honor me with their
presence it’s now time to consider the
consequences of the sewers Canal which
are really what make this a turning
point in the history of the Middle
East perhaps the first thing to mention
is that within a couple of years of its
open opening Britain had not only
stopped grumbling but was one of the
Canal’s biggest
users by the early
1870s 35,000 British troops passed back
and forth through the canal every
year not only did this man-made passage
greatly reduce the journey to and from
India the jewel in the crown of the
British Empire but as we’ve arrived at
the age of the steamship Journey times
were reduced even further the following
numbers are useful in illustrating the
scale of the Canal’s
impact in
1854 the Year dups got the concession to
build the sewers Canal the Lloyd’s
Register of shipping recorded 10,000
ships of which just
187 were
Steamers by the
1890s some 5,000 ships were passing
through the canal every year 70% of
these were British and every one of them
was a
steamship I’m going to allow here for a
quick geographical digression to the
United States but one that’s very much
in keeping with the spirit of the
1860s in May
1869 6 months before the opening of the
sewers Canal the first transcontinental
Railway opened for business connecting
San Francisco and the West Coast to the
country’s existing East Coast Railway
Network these were headyy days indeed
not only for Empires engineering and
trade but also for new vistas of
adventurous
travel then in 1873 inspired by the
opening of both the sewers canal and the
Transcontinental Railway Jules Vern
wrote the delightfully entertaining
Adventure novel Around the World in 80
Days it hasn’t gone unnoticed by critics
musing on the respective strength of the
British and French Empires at the time
that this great French author gave the
world an English hero philus fog with a
French
manservant another Egyptian tinged theme
emerges a few years later in October
1886 with the dedication of the Statue
of Liberty by President Grover Cleveland
in New York Harbor
designed by the French sculptor
Frederick August bartoldi to represent
progress in the form of Egyptian
Womanhood that most American of American
icons was meant to stand at the entrance
to the sewers
Canal alas for bold’s vision funding
couldn’t be found so Egypt’s loss was
America’s gain and a wonderful sight to
generations of immigrants and tourists
in the United States
back to the world of politics and more
importantly
debt by
1875 Egypt’s financial crisis had come
to a head facing bankruptcy hadif
Ishmael sold what he could to raise
money in a
hurry one asset that could readily be
converted to cash was Egypt’s shares in
the sewers
Canal British prime minister Benjamin
Disraeli quickly saw the importance of
Britain increasing its stake in the
canal and so he agreed to pay4 million
Sterling for the shares about 90 million
today or $140 million
us French investors including the
government and individuals remained the
largest block at that time but overnight
Britain had gotten its hands on 44% of
the Canal’s
ownership israeli’s main political
opponent the four time Prime Minister
William Gladstone accused Disraeli of
having undermined Parliament by failing
to consult it about buying the shares he
also groused that the British government
had secured financing from French
Bankers the
Rothchilds if this caused ripples in
Britain the sale of Egypt’s shares in
the sewers Canal produced a tidal wave
in
Egypt Egypt sale of its Universal Suez
ship canal company shares wasn’t enough
to clear State debts and so after
investigations by a series of
commissions in Britain and France the
hapless Ismael was forced to accept
joint anglo-french control over Egypt’s
finances and
government one of the questions the angl
French Commissioners were trying to
settle was who should be considered
responsible for Egypt’s massive
debt as is
like his Uncle s Pasha before him ran
the country as his personal Thom they
didn’t have to look too
far Ismael had a dream to see his empire
spread Beyond Egypt and the Sudan to
cover the entire Nile
region and so he engaged in a costly war
against
Ethiopia apart from failing to take
Ethiopia this overseas Adventure further
wrecked the Egyptian
economy
after another inquiry in
1878 this one by Lord bearing later the
Earl of
chroma isma was forced to hand over his
personal Estates to the nation I.E angl
French control and to accept a reduced
and humiliating status of a
constitutional
Monarch alas when khif Ismail said at
the opening ceremony of the sewers Canal
that his country was now part of Europe
the boast had become true in so far as
the Egyptian economy was in the hands of
France and Britain and matters got even
worse many Egyptians were upset by
ismael’s incompetent handling of the
economy and the W status of their
country in the hands of France and
Britain the result was a serious Revolt
starting in
1879 led by the disaffected Egyptian
army colonel orabi Pasha and what was
the result of arabi’s Revolt to save his
country military intervention by Britain
and the removal from power of Ismael who
was replaced by his more plant
son Egypt would go on to be fully
occupied and ruled by Britain until the
1950s I’d like to stand back for a
minute now and think again about the
major themes surrounding the opening of
the sewers
canal it’s undeniably a feat of great
engineering it’s also a political story
involving the shared and sometimes
conflicting interests of both Britain
and France the great European powers of
the day as well as of Egypt the Ottoman
Empire and the shifting balance of power
in the Middle
East but the heart of this story is
economics and more precisely a tale of
debt it would be many many years before
the Egyptian economy realized the
financial promise that theps had
envisioned for the
canal until then if anyone were a winner
it was the British
Empire the 20th century history of the
sewers Canal represents yet another
fascinating story which perhaps we will
share more fully another
day however it was the announcement by
the postor War II Egyptian president
Kamal Abdul Nasser in
1956 that he was going to nationalize
the sewers Canal that led to yet another
British Invasion this time accompanied
by French and Israeli
forces the politics of Arab nationalism
aside what really prompted NASA to act
so forcefully was Egypt’s need for
money by the middle of the 20th century
SE Canal revenues were really adding up
and exactly as had been the case in
1858 when deip persuaded his old friend
khif Pasha to Grant him the concession
to build a canal so too in
1956 did Egypt’s First Independent
postcolonial ruler see the canal as an
economic Lifeline that could bolster his
Reign the ultimate withdrawal of Britain
and France from Egypt in 1956 at the
behest of the United States and the
Soviet Union was a colossally
embarrassing moment
reinforcing their dwindling power in the
Middle East but it was the making of
President NASA who became a hero
throughout much if not most of the Arab
world in
1962 the Egyptian government finally
paid off its debt for the Canal’s
construction to the universal Suez ship
canal
company that company still exists today
although after a series of mergers it’s
now called GD F
Suz while the sez Canal Authority a
wholly state-owned Egyptian entity now
operates the
canal in 2014 however the Egyptian
government embarked on a grand building
project to widen parts of the sewers
canal and add a new 45m Lane to run
parallel with a stretch of the existing
Canal this $4 billion investment was
intended to double the Canal’s shipping
capacity and provide a big boost to the
economy one unintended consequence of
the sewers Canal however was the inward
migration of non-indigenous marine life
into the
Mediterranean scientists reckon that
about 350 non-indigenous species have
established themselves in the
Mediterranean since
1869 because the Red Sea has higher high
levels of salinity and thus fewer
nutrients it’s home to Stronger more
aggressive marine life as a result
creatures moving North have a distinct
advantage over their Mediterranean
Rivals it’s a question of the survival
of or dominance by the fittest far fewer
Mediterranean species have been
established in the Red Sea had the new
arrivals simply added to Mediterranean
fish dos there’d probably be less to
worry about alas more than a few of the
invasive Red Sea species are poisonous
venomous and otherwise detrimental to
human activity and to The Wider
Mediterranean
ecosystem the toxic silver cheeked
puffer fish and The Nomad jellyfish are
just two species of concern the former
for the toxic chemicals they produce and
the latter for their sheer
number once limited to tropical waters
Nomad jellyfish are now a regular site
in the Eastern
Mediterranean swarms of them mass in
tendril clumps tens of miles wide so
large that they can interrupt commercial
fishing for days on end as well as
forcing beaches to
close in a part of the world that relies
heavily on fishing and tourism this has
been very
Troublesome it’s unlikely that
environmental impacts were uppermost on
the mind of the man by behind the canal
nevertheless scientists today remember
his name as well as if not better than
the rest of
us they’ve dubbed movement of
non-indigenous species through the
sewers Canal as the lespian
migration