Suez Canal
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The Suez Canal ( transliteration: Qanāt al-Suways), is a large man-made canal in Egypt, west of the Sinai Peninsula. It is 163 km (101 miles) long and 300 m (984 ft) wide at its narrowest point, and runs between Port Said (Būr Sa'īd) on the Mediterranean Sea, and Suez (al-Suways) on the Red Sea.
The canal allows two-way water transportation between Europe and Asia without circumnavigation of Africa. Before its opening in 1869, goods were sometimes offloaded from ships and carried over land between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea.
The canal comprises seven parts, north and south of the Great Bitter Lake, linking the Mediterranean Sea to the Gulf of Suez on the Red Sea.
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[edit] History
[edit] 2nd millennium BC
Perhaps as early as the 12th Dynasty, Pharaoh Senusret III (1878 BC–1839 BC) may have had a west-east river dug through the Wadi Tumilat, joining the River Nile with the Red Sea (which in ancient times reached north to the Bitter Lakes.[1][2] This allowed direct naval trade with Punt, and, indirectly, linked the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.
The reliefs of the Punt expedition under Hatshepsut depict sea-going vessels carrying the expeditionary force returning from Punt. This has given rise to the theory that, at the time, a navigable link existed between the Red Sea and the Nile.[3]
Evidence indicates its existence by the 13th century BC during the time of Ramesses II.[4][5][6][7][8]
[edit] Repair by Necho, Darius I, and Ptolemy
The waterway fell into disrepair, and according to the Histories of the Greek historian Herodotus,[9] about 600 BC, Necho II undertook re-excavation but did not complete it. Herodotus was told that 120,000 men perished in this undertaking.[10] With Necho's death, work was discontinued.[11]
The canal was finally completed by Darius I of Persia, who conquered Egypt. According to Herodotus, the completed canal was wide enough that two triremes could pass each other with oars extended, and required four days to traverse. Darius commemorated his achievement with a number of granite stelae that he set up on the Nile bank, including one near Kabret, 130 miles (209 km) from Pie. The Darius Inscriptions read:
| “ | Saith King Darius: I am a Persian. Setting out from Persia, I conquered Egypt. I ordered this canal dug from the river called the Nile that flows in Egypt, to the sea that begins in Persia. When the canal had been dug as I ordered, ships went from Egypt through this canal to Persia, even as I intended.[12] | ” |
The canal left the Nile at Bubastis. An inscription on a pillar at the canal's Red Sea end at Pithom records that in 270/69 it was again reopened, by Ptolemy II Philadelphus.[13] Over the next 1000 years it was successively modified, destroyed and rebuilt, until finally it was put out of commission in the eighth century by the Abbasid Caliph al-Mansur.
[edit] Napoleon considers repair
At the end of the 18th century while in Egypt, Napoleon Bonaparte contemplated the construction of a canal to join the Mediterranean and Red Seas. But his project was abandoned after the preliminary survey erroneously concluded that the Red Sea was 10 metres higher than the Mediterranean, making a giant locks-based canal much too expensive and very long to construct. The Napoleonic survey commission's error came from fragmented readings mostly done during wartime, which resulted in imprecise calculations.[citation needed]
[edit] Re-construction by Suez Canal Company
In 1854 and 1856 Ferdinand de Lesseps obtained a concession from Said Pasha, the viceroy of Egypt, to create a company to construct a maritime canal open to ships of all nations, according to plans created by Austrian engineer Alois Negrelli. The company was to operate the canal by leasing the relevant land, for 99 years from its opening, for navigation. De Lesseps had used his friendly relationship with Said, which he had developed while he was a French diplomat during the 1830s. The Suez Canal Company (Compagnie Universelle du Canal Maritime de Suez) came into being on 15 December 1858.
The excavation took nearly 11 years using forced labour of Egyptian workers. Some sources estimate that over 30,000 people were forced to work on the canal. [1]
The British recognised the canal as an important trade route and perceived the French project as a direct menace to their geopolitical and financial interests. The British Empire was the major global naval force and its power had increased during the American Civil War years 1861-65. So the British government officially condemned the forced work and sent armed bedouins to start a revolt among workers. Involuntary labour on the project ceased, the viceroy soon condemned the slavery, and the project stopped.[14]
Angered by the British opportunism, de Lesseps sent a letter to the British government remarking on the British lack of remorse only a few years earlier when Egyptian forced workers died in similar conditions while building the British railroad in Egypt.
At first, international opinion was skeptical and the Suez Canal Company shares did not sell well overseas. Britain, the United States, Austria and Russia did not buy any shares. All French shares were quickly sold in France. A contemporary British skeptic claimed:
| “ | "One thing is sure... our local merchant community doesn't pay practical attention at all to this grand work, and it is legitimate to doubt that the canal's receipts... could ever be sufficient to recover its maintenance fee. It will never become a large ships accessible way in any case." (reported by German historian Uwe A. Oster) | ” |
The canal finally opened to shipping on 17 November 1869. Although numerous technical, political (due to the British rivalry), and financial problems had been overcome, the final cost was more than double the original estimate.[15]
The canal had an immediate and dramatic effect on world trade. Combined with the American transcontinental railroad completed six months earlier, it allowed the entire world to be circled in record time. It played an important role in increasing European penetration and colonization of Africa.[citation needed] External debts forced Said Pasha's successor, Isma'il Pasha, to sell his country's share in the canal for £4,000,000 to the <a href="/wiki/United_Kingdom" title="U