The Isthmus of Suez Question

The junction of the Mediterranean and the Red Seas, by a navigable canal, is an undertaking the utility of which has attracted the attention of all the great men who have reigned in, or conquered, Egypt: Sesostris, Alexander the Great, Julius Cæsar, the Arab Conqueror Amrou, Napoleon I. and Mehemet Ali.

A canal, communicating with the Nile, was in existence in ancient times; first, for a period of 100 years, down to about the middle of the ninth century before the Hegira; secondly, for a period of 445 years, from the reign of the first successors of Alexander the Great, down to about the fourth century before the Hegira; thirdly and lastly, for a period of 130 years after the Arabian conquest.

Napoleon, upon his arrival in Egypt, immediately organized a commission of engineers to ascertain whether it would be possible to re-establish that ancient channel of navigation: the question was resolved in the affirmative, and when the learned M. Lepère delivered to him the report of the commission, on the eve of his return to France, he said: “It is an important affair, it is not now in my power to accomplish it, but the Turkish Government will perhaps one day owe its preservation and its glory to the execution of this project.”

The moment has now arrived to realize Napoleon’s prediction. The work of cutting through the Isthmus of Suez is certainly destined, more than any other, to contribute to the preservation of the Ottoman Empire, and to demonstrate to those who have been wont to proclaim its decay and ruin, that it still has a productive existence, and that it is capable of adding a brilliant page to the history of the world’s civilization.

Why have the governments and the peoples of the West combined to uphold the Sultan in the possession of Constantinople, and why has he who has thought fit to menace that position met with the armed opposition of Europe? Because the passage from the Mediterranean into the Black Sea is of so much importance, that whatever European Power might become master of it would domineer over all the rest, and destroy that balance which the whole world is interested in preserving.

Do but establish at another point of the Ottoman Empire a similar, and a yet more important position; do but make Egypt the highway of the commercial world by cutting through the Isthmus of Suez; and thereby you will create in the East another immoveable seat of power; for, as far as the new passage is concerned, the great powers of Europe, from fear of seeing it one day seized upon by one amongst them, will regard the necessity of guaranteeing its neutrality, as a question of vital importance.


M. Lepère fifty years ago required 10,000 workmen, four years’ labour, and from 30 to 40,000,000 francs for the construction of the Suez Canal, but upon a plan which would now be insufficient for the demands of commerce and navigation; and his idea was the possibility of a direct cutting through the Isthmus towards the Mediterranean.

Prior to the year 1840, some skilful English Engineers, who were employed in levelling operations in the Isthmus, had the honour of first ascertaining that no difference existed between the levels of low water in the Mediterranean and in the Gulf of Arabia.