Palmerston enjoyed the quiet opulence of a mid-Victorian gentleman, but the London of 1855 was a teeming, messy, filthy place of more than two and a half million people and growing rapidly. The pristine central districts were juxtaposed with new neighborhoods built to accommodate the immigrants from the countryside who worked the factories or who serviced the increasingly complicated economy. Transportation was chaotic. The main streets were insufficiently wide and often jammed as people made their way on foot, on animals, in carriages, or in a new form of mass transit called the horse-bus. Smelly pubs swimming in cheap ale coexisted with sedate salons offering a servant for every guest.
High culture was shaped by the ideas of men such as John Stuart Mill, who called for a liberal, limited government that served the needs of the many and protected the rights of the few; it was flavored by the Romanticism of critics like John Ruskin, who extolled the virtues of nature and the moral responsibilities of art; and it bore the stamp of Queen Victoria and her consort, Prince Albert, who represented a detached monarchy atop a well-ordered society.
Yet, however well ordered in theory, it was anything but in reality. London was equally shaped by its merchants and clerks and workers who tried to carve out their own niches and profit from the industry and commerce that converged in the city. They devoured the serialized novels of Charles Dickens in the weekly magazines that proliferated along with the growing population and rising literacy rates. Reveling in Dickensian tales of young boys making their way through the labyrinthine obstacles that the city presented, these groups were more likely to poke fun at the pretensions of the aristocracy and demand a greater say in the affairs of the country than they were to genuflect to traditional notions of the landed gentry and rule by the few. Palmerston enjoyed their support when he defended British honor abroad, but he was ever more out of step with the industrial city and the industrializing country whose government he led.
Many of these tensions and changes are more apparent today than they were at the time, but Lesseps was certainly aware that Palmerston was both a powerful man and an anachronism. Though he hoped to change the prime minister’s mind, he was more confident that, once the virtues of the canal were explained to the British people, they would embrace it, and the government would then follow suit. It was not that simple. Eventually, a significant portion of Britain did support the construction of the canal, but never with the unbridled enthusiasm of the French. In Britain, the canal was from the outset indelibly perceived as a French waterway, rather than a universal venture for the benefit of all. Lesseps preached the canal’s merits, but he never fully appreciated the depth and breadth of British concerns that it was all a sinister French plot.
The first encounter between Palmerston and Lesseps was nothing less than civil. Voices were not raised; harsh words were not exchanged. But the lines were drawn nonetheless. According to Lesseps’s account of the meeting, Palmerston was blunt about his reservations. “I do not hesitate to tell you what my apprehensions are,” the prime minister said. Palmerston didn’t think that the canal was technically viable, and even if the engineering challenges could somehow be overcome, he felt that the opening of a new route to the East would undermine England’s position as the dominant power in world trade. The Suez Canal would be available to all countries, and could therefore decrease the importance of English merchants. He also questioned the motives of the French. Relations between the two countries might currently be warm, but there was no guarantee that they would be in the future, and if hostilities erupted, a Suez Canal incorporated in Paris would be a distinct advantage for France.
As Lesseps listened, he realized that there was nothing he could say to sway Palmerston that morning. But he asked the prime minister to consider the advantages that a canal would offer Great Britain. It would shorten the route to India and the East by thousands of miles, and even if, by some unforeseen chance, England and France found themselves at war, the British navy would still enjoy immense advantages from the canal, which the French would be hard-pressed to circumscribe. As for the engineering challenges, Lesseps assured Palmerston that they were not insurmountable and that an international commission of engineers would shortly be dispatched in order to prove once and for all that the canal and the jetties planned for Port Said were feasible.1
Over the next four years, until the formation of the Suez Canal Company in the fall of 1858, Lesseps met with Palmerston several more times. The two continued to spar over the canal, but the arguments never departed dramatically from the battle lines laid down at this first encounter. Palmerston became increasingly shrill in his attacks—not when confronted with Lesseps in person, but in his statements during parliamentary debates and in various other forums, public and private. Lesseps gradually concluded that the aging lord had lost touch with common sense, and that his opposition to the canal was based not on reason but on paranoia. In essence, their attitudes did not evolve from that morning in the spring of 1855. Lesseps believed that the canal would benefit the world and ultimately do no damage to British security; Palmerston was convinced that the opposite was true.
If anything, the viscount had pulled his punches during their first discussion. A week later, Lord Cowley, the British ambassador in Paris, expressed his own view of what the position of Her Majesty’s Government should be. Writing to the foreign minister, Cowley said that the French for years had sought to undercut the British railway in Egypt and supplant British influence by digging a French canal. Lesseps’s arguments were pure fantasy, and asking for British support was absurd. “It would be,” he concluded, “a suicidal act on the part of England to assent to the construction of this canal.”2
That was the sentiment of the British diplomatic corps and of Palmerston. But for political reasons, British officials refrained from stating their stance so baldly. Doing so might jeopardize peaceful relations with France, and the English were as perplexed as the Ottomans about Lesseps’s relationship with Emperor Napoleon. Would a rebuff of Lesseps be the same as rebuffing the ruler of France? That was not clear, and in the absence of conclusive proof that Lesseps was not an agent of Napoleon’s will, it was prudent not to risk an international crisis. The British government, therefore, much like the Ottomans, adopted a policy of passive resistance. Palmerston and his ministers always raised questions and expressed reservations. But, aside from occasional intemperate outbursts by Palmerston as the years went on, they stopped short of unequivocal opposition.
That did not prevent their allies in the press and in Parliament from using unequivocal language, however. In preparation for his public-relations campaign in England, Lesseps published a widely distributed pamphlet called The Isthmus of Suez Question. The basic argument was the same that Lesseps had been making in Cairo and Constantinople. He praised the virtues of a neutral ship canal that would augment international trade by shortening the route to the East from the more than eleven thousand miles around the Cape of Good Hope to just over six thousand miles. He claimed that the canal could be constructed in slightly more than six years, at a cost of between six and seven million pounds. Though this was expensive, he pointed out that it was half the amount spent on the rail line between London and the northern English city of York. And he promised that the company would be run by “capitalists from all nations.”
Assessing the pamphlet, The Athenaeum questioned Lesseps at every juncture. The journal felt that the cost projections were too low, the time estimates for the canal’s completion were too optimistic, the technical difficulties too great, and the political issues too intractable. In the editors’ view, the Suez Canal could easily become “a dangerous interference with the existing conditions of intercourse between Europe and the East.” The Edinburgh Review echoed these concerns and wondered about the difficulties that the Red Sea might present to shipping. This was only the first of many salvos fired by the Review against the canal, and over the coming decade, it remained a harsh critic.3
Lesseps left England that summer with his rose
-tinted glasses intact. He was sanguine about Palmerston’s opposition, and he was so convinced of the virtues of the canal that he could not imagine that the majority of the British public would fail to be persuaded. He wrote to the Emperor Napoleon that the English government would carefully consider the merits and that he foresaw no long-term issues. That was, to put it mildly, a positive spin on a less-than-positive reception in London. But in this, as in much else, Ferdinand’s belief that what he wanted to happen would happen gave him the confidence to proceed, and, in this as in much else, he was ultimately vindicated.4
The next years consisted of a whirl of activity for the nascent company. The engineers Linant and Mougel oversaw a series of commissions and surveys dispatched by both partisans of the canal and opponents, and in each major European capital, advocates of the canal lobbied businessmen and politicians on its behalf.
During this period, however, not a single stone was removed from the isthmus; no final blueprints were drawn up; no financing was arranged. As late as the summer of 1858, in fact, the Suez Canal remained an idea, one that was known throughout the world, but still just an idea. It had its passionate devotees and its implacable enemies, and until the end of the 1850s, it seemed that the enemies had the advantage. In order for Lesseps and Said to succeed, the canal would have to be funded and then built. In order for its adversaries to prevail, the status quo would have to be maintained. That gave the opponents the edge. Keeping things the way they are is always the path of least resistance.
Lesseps himself was hardly sedentary, and he maintained a frenetic schedule. Every great engineering project requires years of planning before it begins. Then, as now, preparatory studies were needed, and the elaborate process of financing the venture had to be determined. The political issues continued to be intractable, even byzantine. Lesseps remained an active correspondent, and his letters and journal entries run to thousands of pages. The diplomatic traffic concerning the canal was heavy, and British, French, and Turkish officials devoted considerable time and effort to the Suez question. Yet, although these years helped transform the dream into an actual undertaking, they can seem static. The politics of the Suez Canal in these years largely consisted of what diplomat X said to diplomat Y and how Lesseps met yet again with banker Z or world leader Q and rehashed the arguments that he had first laid out within months of the original concession.
Between 1855 and 1858, Lesseps spent months in England, months in France, months in Egypt, and months in Constantinople. He passed considerable time in transit between these places, and he also traveled to Trieste and Vienna, Spain and the Netherlands, and even to the Sudan. For all the layers of intrigue, the issues were simple: Lesseps and his allies wanted to build a canal; the Ottomans wanted to avoid offending either the British or the French and to retain whatever tenuous control they had over Egypt; Said wanted a canal, but only if that didn’t entail alienating the English or the Ottomans; the British government was opposed; and the French supported the idea, but not at the expense of outright English hostility.
Recognizing these dynamics, Lesseps massaged his allies. In meetings with Said, he reassured the Egyptian leader that the difficulties being encountered would not impair Said’s authority or undermine his ambitions. In correspondence with Napoleon and Eugénie, he touted the advancement of the project and stroked the emperor’s vanity. In Constantinople, he stoked Ottoman resentment at being seen as a handmaiden of Europe and called on Turkish officials to make their own decisions without bowing to pressure from the British. In France, he played the part of the energetic entrepreneur serving the cause of civilization and tweaking the British lion in the process. And in his visits to England, he lobbied merchants and civic leaders whose fortunes were tied to British exports and to increased world trade.
Each of these interlocutors also pursued a distinct policy in these years. First there was Said, whose ardor began to cool. Bruce, the British consul, continued to pressure the viceroy, and the constant drone of negativity had its effect. Though Said rarely confronted people directly, he made his discomfort apparent by becoming less accessible. Lesseps was no longer granted the same access, and his letters were not always promptly answered. As time passed, Said acted less like a friend and ally and more like an intransigent partner. Business deals are often the death of friendships, and if Lesseps mourned the deterioration of his personal rapport with Said, he gave no sign. For his part, Said was at times warm toward Ferdinand, and at other times distant and mistrustful. He had a rational fear that Suez carried hidden costs for his country and for his own prestige. And as the full dimensions of the undertaking became apparent, Said began to feel that Lesseps was using their friendship to manipulate Egypt and its ruler for his own purposes.
Said honored his commitments, however, and without his generous allowance to Lesseps, little of the needed preparatory work and public-relations campaign could have been funded. In the fall of 1855, Lesseps assembled an international commission of engineers to conduct an independent audit of the feasibility of the plan. Composed of some of the most prestigious men of Europe—including Negrelli of Austria, who had been part of the Study Group in 1847—the commission was instructed by Lesseps to cast a critical eye on the initial surveys of Linant and Mougel. He told them that, though the viceroy preferred the direct route, they were not to be bound by that preference but, instead, to come up with their own best conclusions as to what was practical and preferable.
That December, the commission tested the soil of the isthmus, assessed the problems of constructing the jetties at Port Said, and examined alternate routes. It became clear by early 1856 that the commission was going to issue a favorable report, though the British engineer was less persuaded than his colleagues. He argued for using the Nile to feed the canal rather than the salt water of the two seas; locks could then be installed at either end in order to keep the sea water and the fresh water separate. However, the engineer did not question the basic viability of a Suez Canal that went directly from the north to the south, and the final report of the commission declared, “The execution is easy; success is assured and the results will be immense for the commerce of the world.”5
These findings were soon disseminated to the general public, and the report became a public-relations weapon in the canal’s favor. In addition, on January 5, 1856, from his palace in Alexandria, Said issued a second act of concession, which supplanted the initial document of November 1854. This new concession once again permitted the formation of a company dedicated to the creation of a canal between the Gulf of Pelusium in the Mediterranean and the port of Suez on the Red Sea. But whereas the first concession had been vague about the route, the second left no doubt that the canal would be a straight line through the isthmus. Said also reaffirmed that a freshwater canal would be dug from the Nile through the Valley of Toumilat to the isthmus at Lake Timsah. And he instructed the company to build ports at both Timsah and Pelusium.
Other articles of the concession specified the generous exemptions that the company would enjoy: no import or export duties on any material relating to the construction; ten years of tax-free use of whatever land it brought under irrigation as part of the works; and the free right to any mines or quarries. Said authorized Lesseps to form a Universal Company of the Maritime Canal of Suez, and promised that the company would have “the hearty co-operation of the Egyptian government” and that all government officials would aid and assist the company in whatever way possible.
There were, however, two sticking points, both of which would later threaten the completion of the canal.
One, the concession stipulated that four-fifths of the workers would be Egyptians. It was understood that the only way Egyptian workers could be provided was through the corveé, which though not exactly slavery, was not free labor either. Several months later, Said issued a supplementary decree concerning “native workmen.” They were to be supplied by the Egyptian government and paid by the Canal Company. Men were to be paid between two and thr
ee piastres a day, while children under twelve were to be paid one piastre, but given full rations. The company was responsible for supplying drinking water, rations, tents, and transportation costs. Skilled workmen such as masons and carpenters were to receive whatever going rate the Egyptian government paid for such skilled services on other public-works projects. The corvée had been used for work on major Egyptian public-works projects for centuries, and Said’s decree seemed innocuous at the time. No one had objected before.
The other complication was an amendment concerning the Ottomans. Though the concession was sufficient for the organization of the company, Said made it clear to Lesseps that work could only begin if the sultan agreed. In a letter addressed to “My devoted friend, of high rank and birth, M. Ferdinand de Lesseps,” Said wrote, “As to the works relating to the boring of the Isthmus, the Company can execute them itself so soon as the authorization of the Sublime Porte has been accorded to me.” Said had stated his position clearly: the company could organize and prepare, but the canal could only be constructed if the Ottoman sovereign gave his sanction. That should have been the end of the debate, but Lesseps chose to interpret matters differently.
The second act of concession then allowed Lesseps to formalize the statutes of the Universal Company. The company was to be capitalized at two hundred million francs (which was the equivalent of eight million pounds), divided into four hundred thousand shares worth five hundred francs each. Share certificates were to be issued in multiple capitals, written in Turkish, German, English, French, and Italian. The society of shareholders would be administered by a council consisting of thirty-two members who would serve for eight years, and this council would govern the company. There would be a meeting each spring to which all people holding at least twenty-five shares would be invited. The corporate domicile of the company would be in Alexandria, while its administrative offices would be in Paris.6
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