Ferdinand de Lesseps
Ferdinand Marie, Viscount de Lesseps, sometimes Spanishized as Fernando de Lesseps (Versailles, France, November 19, 1805-La Chênaie, Indre, France, 7 December 1894), was a French career diplomat and businessman.
Its most important role was to carry out two ambitious civil engineering works during the second half of the XIX century: the Canal de Suez and the Panama Canal. He completed the first in 1869 and received many merits and honors for it, but the suspension of the second in 1889 provoked revulsion from his country and led to one of the biggest financial scandals in France at the turn of the century XIX.
However, this character is one of the many visionaries and progressives of the time who advocated the intercommunication of all peoples, through the opening of roads and canals, which would shorten distances and bring all regions of the world closer to the industrial advancement.
Genealogical roots
Ferdinand's background was that of a wealthy and well-to-do family, which also had a rich history. His father was Mathieu de Lesseps, a career diplomat, and his mother was Catherine de Grévignée. His father's ancestry dated back to the 14th century . Originally from Scotland, the Lesseps had settled in the French Basque Country (specifically in the city of Bayonne), when that region was occupied by the English. One of his great-grandparents was mayor of the city and at the same time secretary of Mariana de Neoburgo, widow of King Carlos II of Spain, in his exile in Bayonne. In the mid-18th century century, some members of his paternal family decided to pursue a diplomatic career. Ferdinand's uncle, Barthélemy de Lesseps, participated in Count Jean-François de La Pérouse's expedition across the Pacific Ocean at the end of the 18th century; in the second year of the expedition La Pérouse sent Bathélemy as a messenger to France to inform King Louis XV of the voyage, before the crew disappeared in 1788. He was later made a nobleman by King Louis XVI.
Regarding his father (Barthélemy's younger brother), he was a diplomat who held consular posts in various countries such as Spain, Morocco and Libya. Between 1803 and 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte granted him the title of count and appointed him general commissioner of Egypt; soon after Mathieu saw ruler's virtues in Mehmet Ali, who would become the founder of the modern Egyptian state, and supported him when he was a pasha. When Ali became hereditary ruler of Egypt in 1805, French support for the country was confirmed. It was this special bond between the two governments that ensured Ferdinand's fate in Egypt half a century later.
His mother, Catherine de Grévignée, was a Spaniard of Walloon origin: daughter of Baron Henri de Grévignée (or Grivegnée de Housse), a Liege resident established in Malaga as a merchant, and Antonia Gallegos Delgado, from Malaga.
His aunt Francisca de Grévignée, his mother's sister, had married an associate of his father's in Malaga: the Scotsman living in Spain William Kirkpatrick, and as a result of this marriage Ferdinand had María Manuela Kirkpatrick, Countess of Montijo for her marriage to Cipriano Portocarrero. Around 1849, during the Second French Republic, Ferdinand was in charge of introducing his cousin the countess and a young daughter of hers to the upper echelons of Paris: Eugenia de Montijo, who would become empress in 1853 when she married Napoleon III.
Early Years
Very little is known of his childhood. For a few years he lived in Italy, when his father was doing consular work in that country. Later he studied at the Enrique IV College in Paris; between the ages of 18 and 20, he enlisted in the French army.
At the age of twenty, in 1825, and at the request of his uncle Barthélemy, France's charge d'affaires, he began in diplomacy. For two years he became embassy deputy and vice consul in Lisbon with his uncle. Shortly after, in 1828, he assisted his father as vice-consul, business manager in Tunis, who entrusted him with various missions for Marshal Bertrand Clausel, general of the Algerian occupation army.
In 1832 he was sent to Egypt and appointed vice-consul of France in Alexandria; already at this time Egypt had become a modernized country thanks to the government of Ali, with the construction of important works carried out by Europeans (especially by the French, who had a dominant position). In this city, he studied the proposal of a Suez Canal that could interconnect the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea and thus facilitate global shipping. In 1835 he was promoted to general consul in Alexandria, and this position would hold until 1837; In this period Mehmet Ali entrusted his youngest son (Mehmet Said) to his education, a long-lasting friendship arose between the two, a friendship that would lead him to forge his destiny with Mehmet in Egypt.
After completing his consular work in Egypt, he married Agathe Delamalle that same year, with whom he would have five children. Delamalle was the daughter of a prosecutor at the Angers court, and would die in 1853. Lesseps continued his diplomatic work in various European cities: in 1839 he carried out consular work in Rotterdam; and later he moved to Spain, specifically to the cities of Malaga (1841) and Barcelona (1842-1848) and finally Madrid 1848-1849), already as ambassador.
Shortly after working in Barcelona, there were riots in the city as a result of forced recruitment and a tax increase. By order of the regent, General Baldomero Espartero, Barcelona was bombarded from the castle of Montjuïc. Lesseps organized an assistance service for the large French colony, but when he realized the large number of victims he extended it to anyone in need. He met with General Antonio Van Halen, Captain General of Catalonia, and got him to stop the bombing, release many of the detainees, and reduce the fine that was going to be imposed on the city. For all these reasons, years later (1895) Barcelona dedicated one of its largest and most emblematic squares to Ferdinand de Lesseps.
In 1849, he would participate as a negotiator for France in Rome during the revolutions of the Italian states of 1848, because France maintained political and territorial influences in various states and had sent its army to deal with the recently established Second Republic Roman. However, he was used as a scapegoat by the French government to justify his failure in Italy, and this led to the end of his career as a diplomat.
Construction of the Suez Canal
Inspiration
After his diplomatic failure in Rome, he returned to France and became an agricultural producer. With the financial support of her mother-in-law, she bought a large property with a house in the Indre department, in the town of La Chênaie. The estate previously belonged to Agnès Sorel, mistress of King Charles VII of France during the XV, and was in need of considerable restoration, to which he devoted all his energies.
In his moments of rest at the residence, Lesseps reread the old documents from his time as a diplomat in Alexandria. Among these were some studies made by J. M. Le Père on the Isthmus of Suez in 1799 at the request of Napoleon Bonaparte who was very interested in such strategic communication and the investigations carried out by Louis Maurice Adolphe Linant de Bellefonds, who was chief engineer of the public works in Egypt and for his labors he was awarded the title of bey in 1837. In 1847 Linant de Bellefonds presented a technical project which he called "Canal of the two seas". The idea of joining the two seas was not new: historically, Egypt had an ancient channel (the Pharaohs channel) that linked the Nile delta with the Red Sea since Pharaonic times, but which in the VIII was closed and abandoned. Lesseps was passionate about this project and was sympathetic to the utopian socialist ideas of Henri de Saint-Simon and the Saint-Simonist group of Barthélemy Prosper Enfantin, who had founded a center for technical studies that would specialize in promoting the construction of a canal that would unite both seas, due to the obvious advantages it would bring for trade.
In 1852 he wrote a memoir on the canal project, and translated it into Arabic for Pasha Abbas I, Mehmet Ali's successor, without obtaining a response from the ruler. However, in 1854 Abbas I died and Mehmet Pasha became Said, Ferdinand's best friend; this news encouraged him to send him a congratulatory letter on his enthronement as Egyptian ruler. In the reply letter, he received from Said an invitation to travel to Egypt; which generated a radical change in the future of his life. He arrived in Alexandria on November 7, 1854, and conferred with Said about the Suez canal project. It was evident that the project was mature in technical terms, but much was lacking in terms of political and financial support. Not many days passed and on November 30 Said signed the concession document that bound both parties. Composed of twelve articles and expressed in a very friendly tone, in the act Said granted "his friend Ferdinand de Lesseps the exclusive power to establish and direct a universal company to open the isthmus of Suez and the exploitation of a canal between the two seas". Additionally, the engineers Linant de Bellefonds and the hydraulic engineer Mougel Bey would be in charge of the construction; they would make a channel at level (that is, without locks) between both seas.
The project
The company would have the name of Compagnie universelle du canal maritime de Suez (Universal Company of the Suez Maritime Canal) and Lesseps would be its first director; Other points dealt with in the act contemplated the construction of one or two ports on the canal, the Egyptian government would have the power to choose the director of the company and receive 15% of the net income, and the concession would have a duration of ninety and nine years from the opening of the canal. However, to fully ratify the act, the approval of the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Abd-ul-Mejid I, had to be obtained, since Egypt was a vassal nation of this empire. From this point on, the British Empire protested against the speed of the matter, so due to pressure from the British ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, the sultan did not give a definitive answer.
Lesseps had to make agreements and negotiations to somehow satisfy the British, who were also interested in gaining control of a more reliable sea route to their colonies in Asia, especially India. Thus, in 1858 it was possible to obtain the approval of both the Ottoman sultan and the Said pasha, and on November 5 the company was officially established, with its registered office in Alexandria and its administrative headquarters in Paris; Subsequently, the subscription for the official construction of the Suez Canal was opened. Finally, on April 25, 1859, he gave the first blow with his pick, and with this the construction work formally began.
With the unconditional support of Said Pasha, the Egyptian government supplied a consistent workforce of 20,000 men who made the work progress efficiently. For the first few months, however, the construction was threatened by pressure from the British and the Ottoman Turks. The situation worsened in October 1859, when Ferdinand had to go before Emperor Napoléon III to reduce the intervention of the French government, so as not to make enemies of the British; even at the cost of a slower pace of canal construction.
Without improving things, in January 1863 Said died, leaving a huge gap in the friendly support of the Egyptian government for both Ferdinand and the canal company. Now the new ruler, Ismail Pasha, despite the fact that he supported the construction of the canal, did not give the same guarantees as his predecessor. For internal reasons, they made the French emperor take the decision to abolish the compulsory work of Egyptian workers as of that year; and additionally, the company's land had to be returned to the Egyptian government (totaling about 150,000 acres, stipulated in the concession deed). By way of compensation, the company would receive 84 million francs and the legal acceptance of the original concession by the new government. All this was aimed at completely halting the works, a goal that the British were achieving by putting pressure on the Ottoman sultan. and the new Egyptian pasha.
Nonetheless, with the help of French engineers, steam engines, dredgers, and bulldozers were built to work on the works; with this technological push, there was no need to worry about recruiting a large amount of local labor that could only use picks and shovels. In addition, 15,000 workers from various places such as France, Italy, Dalmatia, Syria and Arabia were brought together, who would help resume the works in August 1866. With this help, the project could be accelerated and finally on October 30, 1869, the waters of both seas would join right at the Great Bitter Lake, halfway. De Lesseps sailed the 195 km of the channel between Port Said (in honor of his friend) to the city of Suez in 15 hours.
Opening
Finally completed at double the estimated cost, the work was inaugurated on November 17, 1869 with a spectacular program that consisted of parties and celebrations with the presence of guests from various parts of the world. The special guest of the event was Empress Eugenia of France, who was her distant relative; there were also the Emperor of Austria and the Prince of Wales among other members of the European monarchy. A dinner was held with these guests in the recently inaugurated city of Ismailia (in honor of Pasha Ismail) located in the middle of the route.
A naval parade was also held, led by the imperial yacht L'Aigle, presided over by Empress Eugenie and joined by an additional 6,000 guests. The channel company paid all the expenses of this ceremony. Additionally, a theater had been built especially for the presentation of the work Aida by Giuseppe Verdi at the request of Ismail, performed two years later in Cairo.
Intermediate
With the completion of the Suez Canal, he was decorated in France for his services and considered a national hero, with a series of accolades as a promoter of progress. He received the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor in 1869 for his work at Suez. Until then he was kept away from politics, however in 1869 he decided to become a candidate for the Legislative Corps of Marseille at the request of the French imperial government, which took advantage of Lesseps' good reputation. However, he subsequently decided to retire in favor of Léon Gambetta. He also declined other candidacies offered to him for the Senate in 1876 and the House of Representatives in 1877.
In November 1871, he married again, this time to a 20-year-old French girl named Louise Helena Aubard de Bragade, with whom he had twelve children (six boys and six girls).
During this stage he was planning other projects such as creating in 1873 a railway linking Europe with Asia, specifically to the city of Bombay and with a branch to Beijing. He also supported François Élie Roudaire, who planned to turn the Sahara desert into an inland sea; but neither of these two projects was undertaken by Ferdinand.He also entered the French Academy of Sciences in 1873.
In 1876 he participated as president of the French national committee of the International African Association (Association Internationale Africaine, AIA), which was headed by King Leopold II of Belgium and whose objective was to explore the Congo region with the aim of colonizing it and plunder it. He sent the Italian-French explorer Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza, who toured and later claimed the French Congo, now the Republic of the Congo, for France.
Construction of the Panama Canal
Interoceanic Canal Congress
Builded by the success and fame he gained with the construction and inauguration of the Suez Canal, he envisioned another great project in keeping with his progressive ideas: the construction of an interoceanic canal linking the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Since the XVI century, various countries have been interested in building a waterway through Central America, and during the time when the project was consolidated, the United States and the United Kingdom were fighting over the idea, looking for multiple alternative routes to gain a commercial advantage. This resulted in two predefined routes: Nicaragua and Panama (which during that time was a Federal State of Colombia).
France, especially Lesseps, was reluctant to build the highway over Panama and decided then, through the Civil Society of the Interoceanic Canal, chaired by himself, to send the naval officer Lucien Napoleón Bonaparte Wyse in 1876 to the Isthmus of Panama to verify if the work was feasible. In 1877, a commission from the Paris Geography Society chaired by Armand Reclus made other technical evaluations for the project. Seeing the good conditions to build a canal in Panama, Wyse went to Bogotá to request the construction of the road and on May 18, 1878, the Salgar-Wyse contract was signed, in which Colombia authorized France to carry out said project, with a duration of 99 years.
On May 15, 1879, the International Congress of Interoceanic Canal Studies met in Paris, with the presence of 136 delegates from 23 countries, although more than half were French. This congress was chaired by Lesseps and would have as its objective to determine the best route and the best interoceanic project between the isthmus of Tehuantepec, in Mexico; to the Darién, in Panama.
At the congress several commissions were formed to analyze different aspects of the problem and present their conclusions and recommendations. The most important was the Technical Commission made up of Ferdinand de Lesseps himself, Gustave Eiffel (who built the Eiffel Tower), Thomas Selfridge and Pedro J. Sosa (only Panamanian representative), among others. There were hard sessions and multiple discussions about the different routes. The one that stood out the most was the proposal of Nicholas Joseph Adolphe Godin Lepinay, Baron de Brusley, who as a French engineer tried to convince De Lesseps to build the Panama Canal, damming the Chagres River, including the construction of locks and an artificial lake (something similar to the current canal), insisting that he could not repeat the same formula of the Suez Canal because the topography of both was very different. Due to the influence of De Lesseps in the commission, this idea was rejected outright, since according to him, the best way was to build a level canal.
On May 28, 1879, the commission concluded that the interoceanic highway should unite the Bay of Limón and the Bay of Panama, with a level canal; Said decision was ratified by the plenary session of Congress, with the abstention of the Americans; Since this model was Ferdinand's own will that he decided before the congress that said project would prevail, it is thus that, following his design as a national hero in France, he decided to take the direction of the new project:
I want to perform as in Suez a channel without locks by the Isthmus of Panama, true American Bosphorus, capable of satisfying all future transit increases.Ferdinand de Lesseps.
Start of the work
On July 5, Lesseps purchases the rights to the Salgar-Wyse Contract and on July 8 the statutes of the Universal Company of the Panama Interoceanic Canal (Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interocéanique de Panama) are deposited. Shortly after he began the search for financing for the company: he had planned to place 400 million francs in France, subscribed in the form of shares that were to be paid on very favorable terms, but he was only able to collect 300 million; despite this, he continued with the project.
To demonstrate the reliability of the project to the French and to oppose the criticism that the work would not be finished due to the unhealthy climate, humidity and diseases, a committee of technicians and businessmen was formed, led by the Lesseps himself. His wife and three of his children set sail from Saint Nazaire bound for Panama on December 8, 1879. After stopping in Barranquilla on December 28, they finally arrived in Panama on December 30, 1879, symbolically initiating the construction of the canal. The first shovelful would be carried out by Ferdinande, one of his daughters, at the mouth of the Rio Grande, at the entrance to the Pacific side; however, due to the delays of the guests, she had to improvise the act on the boat that was going to take them to the river, and with a pick Ferdinande hit a champagne box with earth, symbolizing the start of the works. Eager to do a more formal act, he took advantage of the inauguration of the site where the most important excavation would be made, which would be a cut through the continental mountain range in the town of Culebra (current Culebra Cut). On January 10, the top of a mountain in the Cordillera would be blasted, which would be electrically detonated by his daughter Ferdinande, throwing earth and rocks into the air.
He then returned to France; Because he was a diplomat and not an engineer, he entrusted his son Charles with supervision in Panama, while Ferdinand himself was in charge of getting more contacts to finance his work. These contacts were achieved only with her ingenuity and his faith that the project would turn out well; ignoring technical and logistical details, trusting that he was going to have the right people and machinery for the work. At the same time, a Technical Commission carried out some explorations on the project route to prepare the specifications and plans for the final route; however, it was also aimed at fully convincing investors that what Ferdinand was saying was true. However, the final report of February 14, 1880 was made in a hasty manner and without scientific and professional standards, and it said that there would be no problems in the excavation of the continental ridge, that a level channel could be made and that it would take eight years to finish the work.
This is how the support facilities could be built and the machinery brought from 1881. He went to the same contractor who built the Suez Canal and also acquired the Panama Railroad in August 1881, which was going to be used as a important element in the construction of the canal, and which cost the company about US$ 25,000,000, and which represented a third part of the company's resources (however, the railway was never used). Added to this, as of that year, cases of yellow fever and malaria appeared, which reduced the workforce and even affected the French managers who carried out the project. Since the disease and its causes were not known at that time, they were attributed to kidney ailments or common fever that originated from toxic fumes from the earth. All this without knowing that the hospitals that the French built were the main sources of diseases, since mosquitoes reproduced in the water used so that insects did not enter the hospital.
Another big problem was that the original contractor whom Lesseps relied on canceled his contract in a letter dated December 31, 1882. This led to chaos on the job that was only going to be resolved in March 1883, when it was changed the organization of the project: the company assigned a general manager as superintendent and had to use the system of small contractors. For this reason, small machinery was used that was discarded frequently, thus generating an increase in the workforce, reaching the figure of 19,000 workers in 1884, mainly brought from the Antilles. However, in 1885 the disease situation worsened, leaving even the General Directors affected by yellow fever and malaria directly or indirectly (between 1883 and 1888 there were six general directors); and a new problem arose: landslides in the excavations. At this date only 10% of the Culebra Cut had been removed, and already many thought that the idea of a level channel as Ferdinand proposed was outdated.
The Crisis
By 1886, director general Leon Boyer criticized that with the time remaining and with the few funds available it would be impossible to draw the canal to level, and proposed that a temporary lake and lock channel be made that could be deepened, but the stubbornness of De Lesseps himself prevented this idea from being taken into account. Even so, the few advances in the Culebra Cut were making the French worry, who until then believed that the project was progressing without problems; Thus, a second company had to be organized, Artigue, Sonderegger et Cie., which was under the tutelage of Philippe Bunau-Varilla, founded on the recommendation of Charles and which would carry out a project that would focus only on that area. Additionally, the system of small contractors was reformed, transforming it into a system of six large contractors. In view of the problems that the project was having, Ferdinand decided to travel again to Panama on February 17, 1886, to carry out a visual inspection and to inspire confidence in workers; this was to be his last trip to the isthmus.
In January 1887, he was still stubborn with his level canal, but the pressure from politicians, businessmen, and the French citizenry in general, forced him to reconsider his idea and take other alternatives. It was evident that what he learned in Suez was not going to be applicable in Panama for many reasons: the climate in Suez was dry, but in Panama it was humid and rainy; diseases had little impact in Suez, but in Panama they were decisively influencing the failure of the project; the terrain of the Suez Canal was flat and sandy, its maximum height was 15 meters, while Panama was rocky and mountainous, with a maximum height of 95 meters at Culebra Cut. In October 1887, an advisory committee issued a report supporting the construction of a canal with locks and with possible future dredging for a level canal, this plan recalled the words of Baron de Lepinay at the 1879 Congress and was reluctantly accepted by Ferdinand, who in turn assigned Gustave Eiffel to execute the work. This phase of the construction of a canal with locks would begin on January 15, 1888.
During this year the construction was improving, some areas were finished and the construction of the first of the ten locks was going to start, when the money abruptly ran out. The faith he possessed was no longer enough and he had to maintain a press unquestionably in his favor at all costs, even bribing journalists and parliamentarians of the time with large sums, to calm the spirits of the French and not reveal the statistics of dead and sick on the job. There were other problems, such as duplicative contracts for the same excavation job; the corruption; labor negligence on the part of contractors with employees; and the large salaries and excessive expenses in the luxuries of the high leaders; along with the acquisition of derisory equipment such as 100 snow diggers modified to collect ashes —when it has never snowed in Panama—
Due to the high expenditures and unnecessary expenses, in August 1885 it was announced in the French press that "the most terrible financial disaster of the 19th century would be seen unless a total reorganization of the company was carried out". By August 1885, the company's economic situation reflected a continuous drop in the price of its shares and in May 1886, it was planned to project a lottery with the company's bonds. In April 1888 the drawing would be carried out with the approval of the French Chamber of Deputies, but not before having bribed several members. However, this was not enough to stop the crisis. In January 1889, the shareholders decided to dissolve the Compagnie Universelle du Canal Interocéanique de Panama, sending it to a judicial receivership under the direction of Joseph Brunet, of the Civil Court of the Seine. On February 4, 1889, the company would be liquidated, leaving more than 85,000 subscribers in ruins. However, the canal project would continue to advance even without funds until May 15, 1889.
The Panama scandal
Due to the very serious patrimonial damage caused by the bankruptcy of the company, the worst financial crisis of the French Third Republic originated, which caused not only the loss of the savings of many French people, but also the total disappointment about the Image of Ferdinand, showing his disgraceful role in the Panama Canal project. Thus, in 1891 a lawsuit for fraud and breach of trust was filed against Ferdinand and the rest of the members of the company, known in France as "The Panama Scandal".
The accusations against them had the following causes:
- Bad administration of the work.
- Corruption within the company and bribes to journalists, politicians, etc.
- Diseases and high mortality.
- Excessive and unnecessary expenses.
- The tenacity and obstination of Lesseps itself in not changing the scheme of the project, which only reconsidered a few months before bankruptcy.
Due to his advanced age, he did not have to appear publicly. In 1892, Édouard Drumont, an anti-Semitic journalist, took advantage of the scandal and denounced several Jewish businessmen involved in the project; This case of anti-Semitism is one of the causes that would later lead to the Dreyfus case in 1894. Various characters were accused, such as the chemist Alfred Joseph Naquet; also 104 French legislators were involved in corruption cases.
On February 9, 1893, the Paris Court of Appeal sentenced both Ferdinand and his son Charles, Gustave Eiffel, and Charles Baïhaut (former French Minister of Public Works) to five years in prison and 3,000 francs penalty fee. However, due to Ferdinand's age, the prison sentence was not applied to him. On June 15 of the same year, the Court of Cassation annulled the decision of the Court of Appeal and released Ferdinand and Charles.
Death and legacy
After the trial he faced, little was heard from him. In the last months of his life, his mental state was precarious and he was not aware of what was happening abroad. He was locked up in his house in La Chesnaye together with his family, and had to endure seeing his son Charles in a second trial in March 1893, in which the Criminal Court sentenced him to one year in prison, although he was released. at six months.
Despite everything, France was still interested in continuing the work. In 1893, the Salgar-Wyse contract was extended for 10 more years and on October 20, 1894, the Compagnie Nouvelle du Canal Interoceanique would be founded, which would be in the hands of Philippe Bunau-Varilla and whose objective was to reactivate the works of the Panama Canal. and recover lost funds.
Shortly thereafter, on December 7, 1894, he would die at the age of 89, in his family residence and was given a funeral with honors. The legacy that he left behind him were his two most important works, essential in his time and still today for international trade.
Regarding the Suez Canal, on November 25, 1875, the United Kingdom would buy the shares of the Egyptians, whom they controlled with the external debt. In this way the British would become shareholders of 44% of the Company and would later take full control of the canal in 1882, despite the fact that Ferdinand would remain president of the Company until his death. Through the Constantinople Convention, between 1888 and 1936, the canal would be a neutral zone and again the British would resume control of the canal until 1956, when Egypt took control and nationalized the Company, turning it into the Suez Canal Authority. During that same year the canal would suffer the ravages of the Suez War and between 1967 and 1975 it would be closed due to the Yom Kippur War. Since 1975 the canal has been open for the passage of ships. The Company's conglomerate, still held by the French, underwent a series of mergers with various companies and would become the multinational SUEZ in 1997.
On the other hand, with the Panama Canal project, the Compagnie Nouvelle du Canal Interoceanique tried as far as possible to continue the works with a reduced capital of US$ 12,000,000; but the great skepticism on the part of French investors, added to the absence of aid from the French government and a citizenry that had lost faith in the project, would make it impossible to complete it under these conditions. Work resumed on December 9, 1894, two days after the death of Ferdinand de Lesseps. The initial workforce only consisted of 700 workers. Between 1896 and 1898, a technical commission evaluated a detailed project with eight locks. However, in 1898 the company did not receive enough funds and had lost half of its capital, and the subsequent War of the Thousand Days that would plague Panama between 1899 and 1902 would again paralyze the works, which would make the company take the decision to sell their shares to the United States.
Thus, with the subsequent separation of Panama from Colombia on November 3, 1903, the Hay-Bunau Varilla Treaty of the same year, and the sale of the Compagnie Nouvelle du Canal Interoceanique for US$40,000,000 to the United States in February 1904, including the endorsement of the Panama Railroad, the French would take over the works from the Americans, who would finish the project on August 15, 1914. Despite the fact that the French project was a failure As a whole, it could be considered a success in several partial aspects: they left machinery that could be recycled; good medical facilities; some important excavations, with more than 30 million cubic meters of earth that were removed (yes, at the cost of between 20 and 22 thousand dead workers); and above all, a series of mistakes and lessons that were very well used by the Americans.
| Predecessor: (there was no) | President of the Compagnie universelle du canal maritime de Suez 1855-1894 | Successor: Jules Guichard |
| Predecessor: Henri Martin | French Academy Silla 38 1884-1894 | Successor: Anatole France |