November 17th 1869 Suez Canal inaugurated It is said that the first canal in the area was built linking the Nile River delta and the Red Sea in the 13th Century B.C.E. During the 1,000 years following its construction, the original canal was ignored and its use lastly stopped in the 8th Century. In 1854 Ferdinand de Lesseps, a French former diplomat, persuaded the Viceroy of Egypt, Mohamed Said, to permit the construction of a shipping canal through the 100 miles of desert between Africa and Asia. Britain, which had regarded Frances increased influence in this region with suspicion, declined the offer of shares and even organized a boycott resulting in a shortage of investors. Egypt therefore acquired 44% of the shares. Construction began on 25 April 1859 and the canal was opened on November 17th 1869 complete with a statue of de Lesseps dominating the harbor. Said, who died in 1867, was succeeded by his nephew Ismail. In the first year of the canals existence, some three-quarters of the vessels using it were British. By the mid 1870s, Ismail, who had set out to modernize Egypt, had incurred massive debts. British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli bought Egypts shareholding for £4 million. The Suez Canal provided Britain with a shorter sea route to its empire and, as the 20th century dawned and oil grew in importance, it provided a short sea route to the oilfields of the Persian Gulf. Britain was therefore committed to protect the canal. During the two World Wars, the Suez Canal came under attack. Soon after the outbreak of World War One, Britain declared Egypt a protectorate and British and Indian forces were sent to protect the canal. Turkey, which had entered the war as Germany’s ally in 1914, sent troops to seize the canal in February 1915. This attack was beaten back and by 1916 British defensive lines had been driven deep into the Sinai desert to prevent any further attempt. The defeat of Turkey in 1918 resulted in much of the Ottoman (Turkish) empire being divided between Britain and France, leaving Britain in control of the oilfields of what is now Iraq. The Anglo-Egyptian Treaty signed in London in 1936 proclaimed Egypt to be an independent sovereign state, but allowed for British troops to continue to be stationed in the Suez Canal zone to protect Britain’s financial and strategic interest in the canal until 1956 Soon after the outbreak of World War Two, Italy, Germany’s ally, sent forces to invade Egypt from Libya. A British and Commonwealth counter-offensive in December 1940 drove the Italians out of Egypt, but in March 1941 the Italians, reinforced by the German Afrika Korps, attacked again and pushed the Allied forces back. The fighting ebbed and flowed along the North African coast until the summer of 1942, when the Axis forces seemed poised to break through to the Suez Canal and beyond. Their new offensive, launched on 1 July, lasted most of the month, but the Allied lines held. In August, Lieutenant General Bernard Montgomery was appointed commander of the British Eighth Army. On 23 October 1942, he launched a major offensive from El Alamein which forced the German-Italian Panzer Army into retreat. Subsequent Anglo-American landings in Morocco and Algeria on 8 November cut off the Axis forces in Tunisia, and on 13 May 1943 they surrendered. The canal was safe once more. The Suez Crisis of 1956 has its roots in the post-war upsurge of nationalism in Egypt. In 1954, Colonel Gamel Abdul Nasser, new leader of Egypt had three goals: to make Egypt independent by ending British occupation; to build up Egyptian forces for a successful attack on Israel; to improve Egypt’s economy by constructing a high dam at Aswan to irrigate the Nile valley. See more in the following video: https://youtube/watch?v=ETOUALw2EIs
Posted on: Mon, 17 Nov 2014 17:02:33 +0000
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