The Suez Canal: A not so Evergreen trading route

Well, they’ve done it. On 29 March, after six days of continuous pulling by tugboats and dredging by, well dredgers, the Ever Given was refloated and moved off the bank of the Suez Canal. The Evergreen owned vessel isn’t quite in the clear just yet though. At the time of writing, it is stationary again, this time halfway through the Suez Canal in the Great Bitter Lake. From the safety of this artificial lake (and far from the Great Bitter’s banks) it’s being given the onceover by safety inspectors to determine whether it needs to be sent for repairs or if it’s in good enough condition to journey onwards to its destination in Rotterdam. Whilst the ‘Suez Max’ vessel (the classification given to the largest ships which fall within the size constraints on ships sailing through the canal) and its 20,000 containers, which includes a 32ft t-rex and a pterodactyl both destined for a Cambridge Crazy Golf centre, remain stranded, the Suez Canal is now passable for other boats. However, the blockage caused a backlog of 400 ships; a backlog that has taken an extra 3½ days to clear. When you also factor in the many many ships that decided to re-route around the southern tip of Africa, it is pretty clear to see how damaging this single mishap, caused by a power outage and 30 knot gusts of wind, has been to global shipping. The true cost of the inadvertent six-day embargo on trade through the canal is yet to be calculated, but early estimates suggest the delays came at a cost of $400 million an hour. On a normal day in the Suez Canal, 93 ships pass through carrying roughly $9.6 billion worth of goods moving through the waterway every day. In all, 12% of total global trade moves through the canal. So why is it so popular?

The short answer is it’s a shortcut. Before construction was completed in 1869, the only way for goods of any meaningful size to be transported between Asia and Europe was around the coast of South Africa. The journey from Britain to India before the birth of the canal was roughly 10,000 miles. Removing the African detour, the journey is around 3,000 miles shorter. It also removed the need to sail on the Atlantic Ocean. This was particularly beneficial in the 19th century, as ships back then were much less robust, and the use of steam power was only just becoming an industrial norm. Nowadays of course, with the introduction of air travel and the development of maritime engineering being such that beasts like the Ever Given can be created, the canal is less crucial. Nevertheless, as has been evidenced so plainly in recent days, it remains an extremely important cog in the wheels of global trade. So, whilst the industrial and maritime world lose their heads over the chaos, and the meme culture continues to bask in it, there is one man who should be watching over this brief but colossal collapse of order through the canal’s passages with a wry smile on his face. He can rest, safe in the knowledge that it’s now public knowledge that the smooth flow of global trade is very much dependent on the continued success of his life’s greatest achievement.

On 25 April 1859, Ferdinand De Lesseps walked to a spot in the Egyptian desert, shoved his shovel into the sand and, in the name of the Emperor of France (Napoleon III), the Viceroy of Egypt, (Said Pasha – a close friend of De Lesseps) and the Suez Canal Company, declared construction of the Suez Canal underway. Soon after, work began close to what would become known as Port Said, found on the edge of the Mediterranean. De Lesseps had been a French diplomat before a disagreement with the French government in 1849 led to his early retirement. When his friend Said Pasha became Viceroy of Egypt, De Lesseps moved to Egypt. Soon after De Lesseps’ dream of constructing the Suez Canal was given the go ahead, but to do so he needed the approval of the French, Egyptians, Ottomans (as Egypt was still nominally a part of the Ottoman Empire), and the British – whose government coughed up no money for the project but whose approval was crucial for the functionality of the canal partly because of their colonial interests in Asia. Now the arduous attempts to get the canal financed began. The French and Egyptian governments put up plenty of cash, but it was also financed by plenty of wealthy investors in what became one of the earliest examples of a shareholding project. Most of these shareholders were French, but there were plenty of examples of other Europeans getting in on the action.

To begin with, the work was done entirely by human hands. Around 30,000 Egyptian peasants known as Fellahs worked on the construction of the canal each day. They lived close to the construction site on very little pay and faced strict punishment if they fell behind the ferocious pace demanded of them. Somewhere between halfway and two thirds into the ten-year construction period, De Lesseps and the other members of the Suez Canal Company board decided that the latest advancement in steam power technology, mechanical dredgers, were more effective workers than the poorly paid and terribly treated humans they were currently using. What’s more, they did not need to be fed or housed. So, towards the end of the canal’s construction, more and more dredgers were substituted in for Egyptian Fellahs.

After 10 years of blood, sweet and mechanical gears, the Suez Canal was completed. The original canal was 8 metres deep, 22 metres wide at the bottom and between 61 and 91 metres wide at the surface and 164 km long, starting at Port Said in the Mediterranean and flowing into the Red Sea past Port Taofik in the city of Suez. Today the canal is between 23 and 24 metres deep, between 205 and 225 metres wide and 193km long. The canal, despite the odd complication, was a feat of genuinely genius engineering for the 1860s and worthy of celebration. A notion not lost on the Egyptian Viceroy. Said Pasha spent the equivalent of tens of millions of dollars in today’s money from his own pocket for a three-day celebration to mark the opening of the canal. In attendance were the elite of Europe’s royalty and, by all accounts, it was one hell of a sesh. Small boats, essentially flotillas, were crafted to sail the dignitaries down a section of the canal with regular stops, all of which hosted its own lavish party. Further in land, Giuseppe Verdi, the great Italian composer, had been commissioned to write ‘Aida’ to be performed at the grand opening of the Cairo Opera House – the Opera House was not finished on time however, so Aida wouldn’t be performed on Egyptian soil until 1871. All of this pomp was financed by Pasha because he hoped the canal would propel Egypt into a position of equality with the nations whose royalty he had invited to the grand opening. Taking on so many loans as well as putting a significant sum of his and Egypt’s money on the line seemed to Pasha worth the risk. It was a risk that did not pay off.

Britain had been anxious about the canal’s construction. Not because of the concept of the canal per se; they were very much in favour of any canal that made travel to their colonies easier. What concerned them was that it was very much a French project. If France exercised control over it, then they could shut the Brits out. It was a very real concern, but nonetheless, British banks were used for loans that were to be spent on the canal. Within ten years of the canal opening, the financial debt the Viceroy of Egypt owed these British banks was so large that Britain took control of Egypt. Initially it was placed under complete colonial control, but that control was soon abated, and Britain loosened their grip on political authority. However, Britain maintained control over Egypt’s financial system, which gave them plenty of control over the business and capital travelling through the Suez Canal. This control lasted until just after World War Two.

Britain had been intensely anxious about not having a say over the canal’s affairs, but once it had rectified that issue, paranoia set in. Almost instantaneously the canal became a significant target for Britain’s enemies. The canal was pivotal if Britain were to reap all the financial rewards of their expanding colonial interests in Asia. This made it vulnerable. The way to combat this vulnerability, in the eyes of the British, was to colonise as much of the surrounding land as possible to lessen the number of areas that could be used to threaten British authority over the Suez Canal. It was this fear that was the primary trigger for what became known as the ‘Scramble for Africa’. In 1870, 10 percent of Africa had been colonised by European powers. By the outbreak out of the first world war in 1914, 90 percent was under European control. It was an event that sparked some of the worst displays of inhumanity in the long history of Europe’s colonial past, as the European powers carved up Africa amongst themselves as if it the African nations were nothing more than properties on a monopoly board.

In 1922, Egypt gained nominal independence from Britain, but it wasn’t until the Anglo-Egyptian Treaty was signed in 1936 that Egypt gained true autonomy once more. The 1936 agreement did allow British troops to remain in the Suez Canal zone to protect British interests concerning the canal. Although it had lost Egypt, the canal remained intensely important to Britain. In 1941, against the advice of his generals, Winston Churchill diverted tanks to protect the canal. With the Germans still hanging around the front door, and fully intending to one day barge it down, the generals believed the best course of action was to protect the British Isles with as much firepower as was available. Churchill saw the bigger picture though. Control of the canal was important for supplying and reinforcing the theatre in the Far East, which was vital for distracting the Japanese. Without the Suez Canal, Britain’s Empire would fall and as a consequence so too would Britain. The reliance on the Canal remained high even after the Second World War had been concluded. So, when the Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser declared the Suez Canal was to be nationalised in July 1956, the British, whilst not caught by complete surprise, were not best pleased.

In October 1956, Britain were invited to join talks that had been ongoing for some time between France and Israel (created in 1948 in the aftermath of WW2). The conclusion of these talks, that were attended by British Prime Minister Anthony Eden, French Prime Minister Guy Mollet and Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, were that Israel would attack Egypt, providing the excuse for the British and French to invade Suez and restore their influence over the canal. The Israeli attack came on 29 October 1956 and the Egyptian forces mobilised. The following day Britain and France issued an ultimatum to both Israel and Egypt. The Israeli’s ignored this ultimatum as was planned. Inexplicably though, the Egyptian’s heeded this ultimatum and withdrew its troops. The excuse for an Anglo-French incursion on Egyptian soil had not materialised. So, they turned to Plan B. Invade anyway. On 5 November, 3 months and 10 days after the canal was nationalised, British and French troops launched their assault on Suez. The first day could not have gone much better for the Anglo-French alliance. Much of the Egyptian Air Force had been grounded or destroyed. The Anglo-French ground force had taken El Cap, the last major obstacle before Port Said which would give them control of the canal. Before they could make the final charge towards Port Said, UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld called for an immediate ceasefire. The British and French adhered to it. A UN peacekeeping force was then sent to supervise the ceasefire and restore some sense of normality in the region. The Suez assault had become a crisis.

American President Eisenhower was furious. Had the attack not been halted by the UN Secretary General, the Soviets may have come to the aid of the Egyptians, thus introducing the Russians to the continent of Africa as their friends, and with it a favourable opinion of Communism. The British and French withdrew, their diplomatic reputation damaged worldwide, and significantly straining their relationships with the USA. Eden was forced to resign in January 1957 following the total humiliation. Mollet lasted a little longer but was forced out in June 1957 after the increased taxation imposed on French citizens to pay for the war in Algeria proved to be the straw that broke the Gallic Rooster’s back. The Suez Canal was now functioning again, and Egypt’s authority over it had been cemented.

It was precisely because they had control over the canal, that they were able to bring trade through it to a standstill in 1967. The Six-Day war was fought between Israel and alliance of Arab nations spearheaded by Egypt. It lasted for as long as the name suggests, beginning on the 5 June 1967 with a ceasefire being called on 10 June. Another conflicted erupted involving Israel and Egypt, this time in the form of the Yom Kippur war, 1973. This conflict was slightly longer, beginning on 6 October 1973 and ending on 25 October. Throughout this period of Arab-Israeli Conflict, the Canal became impassable. At various points, ships had been deliberately sunk in the canal to prevent Israeli ships coming up the canal and attacking an exposed Egypt. Global shipping returned to the old-world order during that time and reacquainted itself with the Cape of Good Hope. In 1975, as a gesture of good will and peace, the Egyptian President Anwar el-Sadat reopened the Suez Canal, thus ending an 8-year closure that was sparked by the Six-Day War.

Trade returned to the canal immediately, but it was not until the rise of China as an exporting powerhouse that the Suez Canal really returned to pre–Suez Crisis levels of business. The canal has a turbulent past, but the immediate threat to its ability to raise money for the Egyptian authority today is the canal itself. Since the 20th century, the canal has lagged about ten years behind the development of shipping containers and maritime advancements. Whilst the canal is currently undergoing expansion, 72 km of the canal remains only passable by one lane of traffic (unsurprisingly this is where the Ever Given found itself in trouble). The work is being done though, and whilst the canal remains a work in progress, the shortcut it provides ensures it remains extremely important to both global trade and the aesthetics of Cambridge’s Crazy Golf scene.

Sources:

Podcast: Dan Snow’s History Hit – The Suez Canal (with Zachary Karabel & Kate Jamieson)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-56559904

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-56596022

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Suez-Canal

https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/suez-crisis

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern   /suez_01.shtml#

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/de_lesseps_ferdinand.shtml