Editing Suez Canal (section)

===Construction by the Suez Canal Company===

====Preparations (1854–1858)====
[[File:SuezCanalKantara.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|left|Suez Canal, 1869]]
In 1854 and 1856, [[Ferdinand de Lesseps]] obtained a concession from [[Sa'id of Egypt|Sa'id Pasha]], the [[Khedive]] of [[Khedivate of Egypt|Egypt and Sudan]], to create a company to construct a canal open to ships of all nations. The company was to operate the canal for 99 years from its opening. De Lesseps had used his friendly relationship with Sa'id, which he had developed while he was a French diplomat in the 1830s. As stipulated in the concessions, de Lesseps convened the [[International Commission for the piercing of the isthmus of Suez]] (''Commission Internationale pour le percement de l'isthme de Suez'') consisting of 13 experts from seven countries, among them [[John Robinson McClean]], later President of the [[Institution of Civil Engineers]] in London, and again Negrelli, to examine the plans developed by [[Louis Maurice Adolphe Linant de Bellefonds|Linant de Bellefonds]], and to advise on the feasibility of and the best route for the canal. After surveys and analyses in Egypt and discussions in Paris on various aspects of the canal, where many of Negrelli's ideas prevailed, the commission produced a unanimous report in December 1856 containing a detailed description of the canal complete with plans and profiles.<ref>[https://archive.org/details/percementdelist00lessgoog/page/n401 <!-- pg=377 --> ''Percement de l'isthme de Suez. Rapport et Projet de la Commission Internationale''. Documents Publiés par M. Ferdinand de Lesseps.] Troisième série. Paris aux bureaux de l'Isthme de Suez, Journal de l'Union des deux Mers, et chez Henri Plon, Éditeur, 1856. On Google Books (french)</ref> The Suez Canal Company (''[[Compagnie universelle du canal maritime de Suez]]'') came into being on 15 December 1858.
[[File:Открытие Суэцкого канала, 1869.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Opening of the Suez Canal, 1869]]
The British government had opposed the project from the outset to its completion. The British, who controlled both the [[Cape route]] and the Overland route to India and the Far East, favored the ''status quo'', given that a canal might disrupt their commercial and maritime supremacy. [[Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston|Lord Palmerston]], the project's most unwavering foe, confessed in the mid-1850s the real motive behind his opposition: that Britain's commercial and maritime relations would be overthrown by the opening of a new route, open to all nations, and thus deprive his country of its present exclusive advantages.<ref>Lord Kinross, ''Between Two Seas. The Creation of the Suez Canal'', William Morrow & Company, Inc., New York, 1969, p. 87.{{ISBN?}}</ref> As one of the diplomatic moves against the project when it nevertheless went ahead, it disapproved of the use of "forced labour" for construction of the canal. Involuntary labour on the project ceased, and the viceroy condemned the corvée, halting the project.<ref>Oster (2006)</ref>

International opinion was initially skeptical, and shares of the Suez Canal Company did not sell well overseas. Britain, [[Austrian Empire|Austria]], and [[Russian Empire|Russia]] did not buy a significant number of shares. With assistance from the [[Qatawi family|Cattaui banking family]], and their relationship with [[James Mayer de Rothschild|James de Rothschild]] of the [[Rothschild banking family of France|French House of Rothschild]] bonds and shares were successfully promoted in France and other parts of Europe.<ref>There is differing information on the exact amounts</ref> All French shares were quickly sold in France. A contemporary British skeptic claimed "One thing is sure... our local merchant community doesn't pay practical attention at all to this grand work, and it is legitimate to doubt that the canal's receipts... could ever be sufficient to recover its maintenance fee. It will never become a large ship's accessible way in any case."<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.arte.tv/fr/connaissance-decouverte/aventure-humaine/Cette_20semaine/1291022.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110819201458/http://www.arte.tv/fr/connaissance-decouverte/aventure-humaine/Cette_20semaine/1291022.html|url-status=dead|title=(reported by German historian Uwe A. Oster)|archive-date=19 August 2011}}</ref>

====Construction (1859–1869)====
Work started on the shore of the future [[Port Said]] on 25 April 1859.

[[File:Suez Canal drawing 1881.jpg|thumb|upright=1.1|1881 drawing of the Suez Canal]]

The excavation took some 10 years, with [[forced labour]] ([[corvée]]) being employed until 1864 to dig out the canal.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Tools of Empire : Technology and European Imperialism in the Nineteenth Century|last=Headrick|first=Daniel R.|date=1981|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=0-19-502831-7|pages=151–153|oclc=905456588}}</ref> Some sources estimate that over 30,000 people were working on the canal at any given period, that more than 1.5 million people from various countries were employed,{{sfn|Wilson|1939}}<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.arte.tv/fr/connaissance-decouverte/aventure-humaine/Cette_20semaine/1291022.html |title=Le canal de Suez – ARTE |publisher=Arte.tv |date=13 August 2006 |access-date=24 August 2011 |url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110819201458/http://www.arte.tv/fr/connaissance-decouverte/aventure-humaine/Cette_20semaine/1291022.html |archive-date=19 August 2011 }}</ref> and that tens of thousands of labourers died, many of them from [[cholera]] and similar epidemics.

Estimates of the number of deaths vary widely with [[Gamal Abdel Nasser]] citing 120,000 deaths upon nationalisation of the canal in a 26 July 1956 speech and the company's chief medical officer reporting no higher than 2.49 deaths per thousand in 1866.<ref name=":0"/> Doubling these estimates with a generous assumption of 50,000 working staff per year over 11 years would put a conservative estimate at fewer than 3,000 deaths. More closely relying on the limited reported data of the time, the number would be fewer than 1,000.<ref name=":0"/>