The Suez Canal

It is recorded that Egypt was thefirst country to dig a canal across its land with a view to activate worldtrade.
The Suez Canal is considered to be the shortest link between the east and thewest due to its unique geographic location; it is an important internationalnavigation canal linking between the Mediterranean sea at Port said and the redsea at Suez. The idea of linking the Mediterranean sea with the red sea by acanal dates back to 40 centuries as it was pointed out through history startingby the pharaohs era passing by the Islamic era until it was dredged reachingits current condition today.

It is considered to be the firstartificial canal to be used in Travel and Trade. The Whole Idea of establishinga canal linking between the red sea and the Mediterranean dates back to theoldest times, as Egypt dredged the first artificial canal on the planet’ssurface. The pharaohs dredged a canal link in between river Nile and the redsea.

The inscriptions in the tomb of Wenithe Elder, who lived during the 6th Dynasty of the Old Kingdom (c. 2407-2260BC) tell us a lot about Egyptian canal building and the reasons for buildingthem - (for war ships and for transporting monument stone). Scholars are stilldebating, however, whether his waterways ran all the way from the Mediterraneanto the Red Sea.

The first canal was dug under thereign of Senausret III, Pharao of Egypt (1887-1849 BC) linking theMediterranean Sea in the north with the Red sea in the south via the river Nileand its branches.

The Canal often abandoned to siltingand was successfully reopened to navigation by Sity I (1310 BC),Necho II (610 BC), Persian King Darius (522BC), Polemy II (285 BC), Emperor Trajan (117 AD) and Amro Ibn Elass (640 AD),following the Islamic conquest.

Under Necho II , a canal was built between thePelusian branch of the Nile and the northern end of the Bitter Lakes (which lies betweenthe two seas) at a cost of, reportedly, 100,000 lives. However, over manyyears, the canal fell into disrepair, only to be extended, abandoned, andrebuilt again.

Necho was the first who attemptedthe channel leading to the Erythraian Sea (Red sea and Gulf of Suez which wasextended to near by Ismailia city), which Dareios the Persian afterwardscompleted: the length of this is a voyage of four days, and in breadth it wasso dug that two triremes could go side by side driven by oars; and the water isbrought into it from the Nile. The channel is conducted a little above the cityof Bubastis (near by Zagazig city) by Patumos the Arabian city (Near byIsmailia city), and runs into the Erythraian Sea: and it is dug first along thoseparts of the plain of Egypt which lie towards Arabia (Eastern desert), justabove which run the mountains which extend opposite Memphis (south of Cairo),where are the stone-quarries,--along the base of these mountains the channel isconducted from West to East for a great way; and after that it is directedtowards a break in the hills and tends from these mountains towards thenoon-day and the South Wind to the Arabian gulf (Gulf of Suez). Now in theplace where the journey is least and shortest from the Northern to the SouthernSea (which is also called Erythraian), that is from Mount Casion (east of PortSaid), which is the boundary between Egypt and Syria, the distance is exactly athousand furlongs (1 furlongs equals about 200 meter) to the Arabian gulf;but the channel is much longer, since it is more winding; and in the reign ofNecos there perished while digging it twelve myriads of the Egyptians. NowNecos ceased in the midst of his digging, because the utterance of an Oracleimpeded him, which was to the effect that he was working for the Barbarian: andthe Egyptians call all men Barbarians who do not agree with them in speech.

After having been neglected, it wasrebuilt by the Persian ruler, Darius I (522-486 BC), whose canal can still be seen along the WadiTumilat. According to Herodotus, his canal was wide enough that two triremescould pass each other with oars extended, and that it took four days tonavigate. He commemorated the completion of his canal with a series of granitestelae set up along the Nile bank.

This canal is said to have beenextended to the Red Sea by Ptolemy II Philadelphus (285-246 BC), abandoned during the early Roman rule, butrebuilt again by Trajan (98-117 AD). Over the next several centuries, it onceagain was abandoned and sometimes dredged by various rulers for various butlimited purposes.

Amro Ibn Elass rebuilt the canal afterthe Islamic takeover of Egypt linking the Nile to the Red Sea creating a newsupply line from Cairo . It was used for shipping grain to Arabia and to transportthe pilgrimages to the Holy Land. The canal was stopped up in 767 AD by theAbbasid caliph El-Mansur to cut off supplies to insurgents located in the Deltaand to starve out rebels in Medina.

In modern times the Suez Canal isactually the first canal directly linking the Mediterranean to the Red sea.

The first efforts to build a modern canal came from theEgypt expedition of Napoleon Bonaparte, who hoped the project would create adevastating trade problem for the English. Though this project was begun in1799 by Charles Le Pere, a miscalculation estimated that the levels between theMediterranean Sea and the Red Sea were too great (estimating that the Red Seawas some ten meters higher than that of the Mediterranean Sea) and work wasquickly suspended.

Napoleon was told that the Red Seawas 30 feet higher than the Mediterranean. Dig a canal, his surveyors said, andthe Red Sea will hemorrhage into the Mediterranean.

Napoleon's engineers alsoconsidered the idea of a canal running directly between the Red Sea and theMediterranean, but they miscalculated a difference of ten meters between thetwo sea levels and gave up the idea, and it would sweep away the Nile Delta.

Then, in 1833, a group of Frenchintellectuals known as the Saint-Simoniens arrived in Cairo and theybecame very interested in the Suez project despite such problems as thedifference in sea levels. Unfortunately, at that timeMohammed Ali had little interest in the project, and in 1835, theSaint-Simoniens were devastated by a plague epidemic. Most of the twenty or soengineers returned to France. They did leave behind several enthusiasts for thecanal, including Ferdinand de Lesseps (who was then the French vice-consul inAlexandria) and Linant de Bellefonds

In Paris, the Saint-Simonienscreated an association in 1846 to study the possibility of the Suez Canal onceagain. In 1847, Bourdaloue confirmed that there was no real difference in thelevels between the Mediterranean and Red Seas, and it was Linant de Bellefondsthat drew up the technical report. Unfortunately, there was considerableBritish opposition to the project, and Mohammed Ali, who was ill by this time,was less than enthusiastic.

In1854 the French diplomat and engineer Vicomte Ferdinand Marie de Lessepssucceededin enlisting the interest of the Egyptian viceroy Said Pasha in theproject.
In 1858 La Compagnie Universelle du Canal Maritime de Suez (Universal Companyof the Maritime Suez Canal) was formed with authority to cut a canal and tooperate it for 99 years, after which ownership would return to the Egyptiangovernment. The company was originally a private Egyptian concern, its stockowned chiefly by French and Egyptian interests. In 1875 the British governmentpurchased Egypt's shares.

The pilot study estimated that atotal of 2,613 million cubic feet of earth would have to be moved, including600 million on land, and another 2,013 million dredged from water. The totaloriginal cost estimate was 200 million francs.

When at first the company ran into financial problems, itwas Pasha Said who purchased 44 percent of the company to keep it in operation.However, the British and Turks were concerned with the venture and managed tohave work suspended for a short time, until the intervention of Napoleon III. Excavationof the canal actually began on April 25th, 1859, and between then and 1862, thefirst part of the canal was completed. However, after Ismail succeeded PashaSaid in 1863, the work was again suspended. After Ferdinand De Lesseps againappealed to Napoleon III, an international commission was formed in March of1864. The commission resolved the problems and within three years, the canalwas completed. On November 17, 1869 the barrage of the Suez plains reservoirwas breached and waters of the Mediterranean flowed into the Red Sea and thecanal was opened for international navigation.

Completion of the 160- kilometerlong waterway, however, took ten years of excruciating and poorly compensatedlabor by Egyptian workers, who were drafted at the rate of 20,000 every tenmonths from the ranks of the peasantry.

The completion of the Suez Canal wasa cause for considerable celebration. In Port Said , the extravaganza began with fireworks and a ball attendedby six thousand people. They included many heads of state, including theEmpress Eugenie, the Emperor of Austria, the Prince of Wales, the Prince ofPrussia and the Prince of the Netherlands. Two convoys of ships entered thecanal from its southern and northern points and met at Ismailia. Partiescontinued for weeks, and the celebration also marked the opening of Ismail'sold Opera House in Cairo , which is now gone.

Because of external debts, the British government purchasedthe shares owned by Egyptian interests, namely those of Said Pasha, in 1875,for some 400,000 pounds sterling. Yet France continued to have a majorityinterest. Under the terms of an international convention signed in 1888 (TheConvention of Constantinople), the canal was opened to vessels of all nationswithout discrimination, in peace and war. Nevertheless, Britain considered thecanal vital to the maintenance of its maritime power and colonial interests. Therefore,the provisions of the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty of 1936 allowed Britain to maintaina defensive force along the Suez Canal Zone. However, Egyptian nationalistsdemanded repeatedly that Britain evacuate the Suez Canal Zone, and in 1954 thetwo countries signed a seven-year agreement that superseded the 1936 treaty andprovided for the gradual withdrawal of all British troops from the zone.

The canal remained under the controlof two powers until Nasser nationalized it in 1956; it has since been operatedby the Suez Canal Authority .

The canal was closed to navigationtwice in the contemporary period. The first closure was brief, coming after thetripartite British-French-Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956, an invasionprimarily motivated by the nationalization of the waterway. The canal wasreopened in 1957. The second closure occurred after the June 1967 War withIsrael and lasted until 1975, when Egypt and Israel signed the seconddisengagement accord.

After July 1952 Revolution,president Gamal Abd El Naser publicized the canal in announcement in (26 July,1956) making the management of the canal a 100% Egyptian, which enraged themajor countries leading to the Triad assault on Egypt in (29 October, 1956)which caused to the closing of the canal and it was reopened in (march 1957).