#suez

Britain and the Suez Canal: 75 Years of Colonialism & Crisis

The Suez Canal in Egypt, which links the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, was taken over by the British in 1882 and was only reluctantly released 75 years later. The seizure in the 19th century caused an international furore every bit as damaging to Britain's reputation as the more famous Suez Crisis of the mid-20th century. Successive British governments regarded the canal as a vital strategic link between the home country and the British Empire, particularly India. Held on through two world wars, the British were eventually obliged to withdraw when Egypt was taken over by the nationalist leader Gamal Abdel Nasser and by the rejection of the Anglo-French-Israeli military intervention in 1956 by both the United States and the United Nations.

Crossing the Isthmus

The purpose of an artificial waterway to join the Mediterranean to the Red Sea, an idea that was first entertained in antiquity, was that ships could reduce their sailing time between Europe and Asia by avoiding the long route around the Cape of Good Hope in Southern Africa. This shortcut would save around 3,000 sea miles of travel from, for example, London to Bombay (now Mumbai). In addition, a canal here would allow East African states to more easily send goods to Europe and vice versa.

From the 1840s, an overland route for travellers and trade goods was organised across the isthmus of Suez. This was first developed by the British officer Lieutenant Waghorn. People and goods took a ship to Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast, disembarked and crossed down to Suez using river boats and animal transport like camels, and then boarded another ship on the Red Sea coast to continue their voyage. This was a rather cumbersome arrangement and not suitable for heavier cargo, but it did save four weeks of travel compared to the Cape route. The land crossing was improved somewhat in the 1850s by the construction of a railway from Alexandria to Cairo by no less a figure than George Stephenson (1781-1848), who had built the world's first passenger-carrying steam train. Obviously, a waterway that permitted the same ship to perform both legs of the journey and carry cargo of any kind would be a tremendous advantage.

The Suez Canal was built by a private French company, the Compagnie Universelle du Canal Maritime de Suez, from 1859, cutting through the isthmus of Suez. The Egyptian government leased the land for 99 years and took around 45% of the canal company's shares. Curiously, the British were against the project since they were paranoid that a rival power could seize control of the canal and block British use, or even use the canal to attack British colonial possessions elsewhere. They were also very doubtful that such a canal could even be built. The project was envisaged and then supervised by the rather more imaginative and technically skilled French engineer Ferdinand de Lesseps (1805-1894) using Egyptian labour. Fortunately, the largely flat and sandy terrain was not too difficult to excavate, and no locks were needed. The canal, around 100 miles (160 km) in length, was completed in 1869 and opened in a lavish ceremony on 17 November.

The Suez Canal was a great success, helped along by the coincidental invention of steamships, which were capable of carrying far more cargo than sailing vessels and which did not struggle in the difficult sailing conditions of the Red Sea. As sailing ships still made up 90% of the British merchant fleet, then the world's largest, the Cape of Good Hope route still thrived despite the canal. As time went on, though, and steam steadily replaced sail, the canal's traffic would grow significantly. In its first full year of service, the canal gave passage to around 436,000 tons of shipping; a decade later, this had rocketed to over 5 million tons. In 1910, over 16 million tons of shipping passed through the canal. The importance of the canal to both Britain and France was reflected in the permanent presence of their advisors within the Egyptian government.

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Monument to the Defense of the Suez Canal in Ismailia, Egypt

Coincidence?