What would have been the global economic, political, and social effects had Suez Canal built let say, 200 years earlier than in OTL?
AH: Suez Canal built 200 years earlier than in OTL
- Thread starter Joseph Solis in Australia
- Start date
Pirates are holding up the entire Atlantic Ocean, requiring a Mediterranean-Red Sea passage!?
I don't think there really IS a reason that it'd be built two centuries earlier.
ever heard of the Canal of the Pharaohs? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canal_of_the_Pharaohs
The fact it was built but fell into disrepair tells us that it wasn't as great a boon as one might expect. If it was important it would have been maintained. also worthy of note is that it did not connect the Mediterranean and the Red seas but the Nile to the Red sea. I doubt a canal following the modern route would be possible without the aid of modern machinery.
The fact it was built but fell into disrepair tells us that it wasn't as great a boon as one might expect. If it was important it would have been maintained. also worthy of note is that it did not connect the Mediterranean and the Red seas but the Nile to the Red sea. I doubt a canal following the modern route would be possible without the aid of modern machinery.
Ah, the ol' Nile River Canal. I was going to say that, but you beat me to it.
Why?
You're still dealing with sailing ships subject to the Red Sea's problems, you're still limited in what equipment you have to dig the damn thing.
What's the point?
Ancientone
Banned
FOR
Ptolemy Philadelphus' canal was closed in 770 A.D. by the Caliph al-Mansur in order to cut off trade to his enemies, not from lack of utility but because it was too useful to rebels.
The modern Suez canal would have been dug entirely by manual labour if it had not been for British involvement. 10,000 fellahin were employed as forced labour, but the British government, who opposed a "French" canal and had a competing railway line, made diplomatic protests about the use of "slave labour" and, undiplomatically, sent bedouin mercenaries into the work camps to foment worker strikes and riots and a bit of intimidation. Thus de Lesseps was forced to acquire purpose built steam shovels and dredgers that co-incidentally were built in Britain. One suspects that picks and shovels and wheelbarrows in 1659 were much the same as those in 1859.
A 1659 canal would not need to be as deep or as wide as a 19thC one.
If a lateen sail could handle the problems of the variable winds of the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, a European-rigged ship certainly could. In any case Greeks, Arabs, Romans and the 16th C Portugese traversed the waterway.
The biggest problem would be travelling the length of the canal where tacking was not an option (the reason why the bottom dropped out of general cargo sailing ships after 1870 in OTL), however galleys were still very much in use in the Med. and remained so until the 1720s alternatively sailing vessels were often towed by long boats in the doldrums or when dismasted.
Against
The Ottomans controlled Egypt and the coasts on both sides of the Red Sea. They would not have allowed free use of a canal to "Infidels". They chased the Portugese out of the Red Sea in 1512 and spent the best part of the next hundred years trying to subdue Europe. The very reason for the early European voyages seeking the "Indies" was to bypass the Turk.
The Egyptians regularly revolted against Ottoman rule, so providing the province with any source of income was never a priority.
If by some miracle the Sultan did allow such an enterprise then it may be considered that there were as many nasty pirates operating out of Aden and the Horn of Africa as there are today. With all those juicy cargo ships passing through, there would have been even more plus the Barbary Corsairs would be provided with even more opportunity.
Considering their proximity to the canal and trading background, perhaps the Venetians and Genoese would have been the main players in the East rather than the Dutch and the English (Venetian sailors were actually Croats).
There would be no point in building a fort at or settling the Cape, or seeking a haven on Ile Maurice--so the Strandloopers, the Hottentots and the Dodo survive and Southern Africa remains unsettled.
The Portugese enclaves in Angola and Mozambique wither away.
Australia remains undiscovered until the late 18th Century so convicts are sent to Canada instead, assuming that there is an American revolt--but then, if England does not become the premier trading nation in India, the EIC would not be undercutting the tea smugglers!
It was abandoned because the Nile River moved west and coastline changed, not because it wasn't useful.
As part of any kind of modernization of egypt the suez canal and cleaning up red sea piracy is paramount to making them a more successful nation.
And not rebuilt later, which is extermely telling.
One also suspects that picks and shovels and wheelbarrows would have been far less effective.
True, but it would still need to be fairly deep and wide to be useful.
And yet this is still a significantly greater problem than it is with steam.
eliphas8: How? The Suez Canal doesn't make the Red Sea a more viable trade route by any significant margin, and cleaning up pirates is a separate project.
No, it's not, not according to the title of the thread. The 8th-century Caliphate had direct overland access to the Silk Road, direct oversea access to eastern spices, and the Arabs were suited to crossing the Arabian desert.
And trade with the Christians was limited. Why would they rebuild the canal when they don't really need anything from the West?
Meanwhile, in the 1600s, the situation is completely different, with Westerners wanting Eastern goods and an easy way to get them.
And a canal had already been built with BCs era technology, and maintained until the 8th century AD...
Of course it would. It's a direct naval route. Having a direct naval route was so important back then that they went all the way around Africa to get to India.
And transporting certain goods by camel train in the Sinai desert is not exactly ideal in the 17th century.
Precisely. Why would it be worthwhile? It isn't. People proposing an earlier canal forget that the circumstances don't justify the costs.
A transshipment canal, not a substitute for the Suez canal we know today.
And Westerners can want Eastern goods all they like, they don't control the area this canal would be built.
Neither are the alternatives that a rebuilt transshipment canal poses.
The reason for the route around Africa wasn't the advantages of water vs. land&water but Egypt monopolizing trade with the East and a desire to get around that monopoly.
Because it turns Egypts mediteranian coast and red sea coast into what is effectively one united coast rather than two entirely separate coast. It unites two seperate trade regions and opens up the red sea coast to far more development.
Two "separate" trade regions that were linked quite sufficiently for Egypt to be rich from its connections to the East and its ability to be middle-man until the West busted that up (which was more a product of the West taking the places in question and rendering a middle man irrelevant than anyhting else).
That's in the 8th century, not the 17th.
A Suez Canal as we know it today would also be possible, and would be just as easy. The coastline and inland lakes were slightly more favorable then, and no locks are required (unlike the Canal of the Pharaohs... which was completed in the BCs).
The owners of the canal (probably the Ottomans) can also charge tolls, or the Christians can conquer Egypt. This is around the time when it would have become possible, with multiple Christian coalitions against the Ottomans and technology recently eclipsing theirs, if very difficult.
So that means a canal in the area is even more convenient.
The 8th through 19th didn't justify it. Which, much as people want to forget, obviously mattered to the people who would have to actually be ponying up the cash to (re)build a canal.
I don't know how easy it would be to dig, but it would be considerably less useful pre-steam.
As, once again, OTL shows and people seem determined to ignore because obviously no one in the 17th century understood anything about making money.
Or they can not build it and not lose Egypt. Like OTL.
No, it doesn't.
Seriously, why is there this assumption that it would reap vast rewards when the people who would actually be digging it didn't feel that it was worth it?
The big problem with the canal in the 1650's is that it does not benefit the Dutch or English who dominated the Indian Ocean and it's trade. Why would they allow the canal to siphon off trade from their routes and merchants?
Blockade it? Their fleets control the Indian Ocean.
Also: Are we assuming that the canal would be passable for ocean going ships or would they have to transfer to smaller ships for the canal and then back to sea-going ones in the Med?