Because he believed that the evolution of Western Europe demonstrated that a free labor force was a necessary prerequisite for economic growth, he was certain that Egypt could not advance economically as long as it was held back by the corvée. The abolition of the corvée would yield both material and moral benefits. As Nubar wrote in later years, “Material progress leads directly to moral progress.” Given his love-hate relationship with Europe, his combustible mix of avarice and pride, his intelligence and grace, Nubar was a dangerous adversary, and as of 1863, he sought to ruin Lesseps and destroy the Suez Canal Company.5
The canal was still in the early stages of its construction, and many technical issues remained unresolved. As of New Year’s Day 1863, there had been little doubt that it would be finished, eventually. Then Said died, and Ismail and Nubar upset the delicate balance that Lesseps had achieved after years of effort. As it turned out, they were the final obstacles, but they presented as formidable a threat as any that Lesseps had faced. In the middle of 1863, he was scrambling to adjust. They had caught him off guard, and Lesseps and the company, so unassailable a few months earlier, were now on the defensive. In late August 1863, as summer was coming to an end, Nubar, recently made Nubar Pasha, heir to centuries of Ottoman power and Armenian pride, left for Paris to confront an arrogant Frenchman and his company.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
FERDINAND FIGHTS BACK
FERDINAND DE LESSEPS had come too far to allow a pair of late arrivals to endanger his life’s passion. He did not believe that either Ismail or Nubar cared one whit for the fellahin. He did not think that Abdul Aziz or his ministers cared one way or the other whether the canal was built. To his mind, the renewed flurry of opposition had one source: Great Britain. Now, however, he was in a stronger position than he had been the last time the British attacked. He was the head of a large company that was enmeshed in French society. The canal had become part of public life, and its fate was tethered to French honor.
At least that was what Lesseps intended to argue. Rather than debate the morality of the corvée (an argument he knew he would lose), he tried to alter the terms of the dispute. Ismail, Nubar, and the Porte contended that the issue was forced labor and the alienation of sovereign land. Lesseps countered that the problem was the British government and the hypocritical opportunism of Ottoman ministers and their allies in Egypt and Europe. Though he did not criticize either Ismail or Abdul Aziz, he showed no restraint in attacking Nubar Pasha by name. Just as he had undermined Enfantin years earlier, Lesseps went after Nubar, and Nubar went after him.
In Paris, Lesseps addressed a meeting of the company’s shareholders. The current dispute, he declared, was not a product of French intrigues. “It is English policy, which aspires to seize Egypt. In order to achieve this goal, Egypt must not be calm, content, and powerful, or able to defend herself. Egypt must be weak, troubled, impoverished, and disarmed…. More than ever, the creation of the Suez Canal should interest those governments who favor the neutrality of Egypt, its independence from all exclusive influences, and the maintenance of its autonomy.” Egypt was the ultimate sovereign of the canal, and it would be neutral and fair to all nations. Only in England, he continued, was there any opposition, and only Lord Palmerston dismissed the universal benefits that the canal would offer. Instead of shedding false tears for the fellahin, Lesseps continued, Palmerston and Parliament should tend to injustices in their own country. As he wrote to his brother at the end of August, “The heritage of the Suez Company is not to be shared…. We have labored and sown, and we ourselves will reap the harvest.”1
While Lesseps prepared his counterattack, Nubar worked with the sultan’s ministers at the Porte. In late summer, the grand vizier, Fuad Pasha, issued a formal letter to Ismail. He stated that the Ottoman government favored an end to the corvée and the revocation of the concession of the lands bordering the Sweet Water Canal. While acknowledging that the company should be financially compensated for these amendments, Fuad announced that if, after six months, no agreement had been reached, work on the canal was to cease.
Granted wide authority by Ismail, supported by the Porte, and egged on by the British, Nubar relocated to Paris. Once there, he acquired another ally. In prior years, Paris had been a cold place for the enemies of the canal, but in tandem with Haussmann’s continuing reinvention of the city, the political terrain changed as well. Though the emperor still had supreme power, he relaxed his hold on the political system. His health had started a slow deterioration, and after six years of uncontested autocracy, he finally agreed to allow elections for the Legislative Corps. Though he had assumed power promising Bonapartism and democracy, there had been quite a bit of the former and none of the latter. But his heart was never comfortable with severe repression; murmurs grew into rumblings, and it seemed prudent to allow for some loosening of the reins. Besides, Napoleon III did actually believe in democracy, in theory if not in practice. The elections that spring, however, were a serious blow to his pride. While the official party won a bare majority, the opposition Republicans fared extremely well. Unwilling to nullify the results, Napoleon reached out to the most prominent Republican leader, Émile Ollivier.
Challenges without were echoed by turmoil within. Napoleon’s court had been dominated by the same few individuals for more than a decade. Over time, factions had developed, and though many grew rich with the booming economy, animosities hardened into cancerous hatreds. Napoleon’s courtiers came to detest one another, and that had ramifications for the Suez Canal. Napoleon’s cousin Prince Jérôme Napoleon was the company’s official patron. But it also had a powerful enemy: Charles-Auguste, the Duc de Morny, bastard child of Hortense de Beauharnais and Talleyrand, and Louis-Napoleon’s half-brother.
Morny had been pivotal to the emperor’s success in 1848, and he was president of the Legislative Corps. The legislature served only as a rubber stamp until 1863, and Morny stood at the center of the graft nexus. He became one of the wealthiest men in France, after the emperor himself. He also was a leading member of the Parisian demimonde. The birth of photography had been quickly followed by the birth of modern pornography, and Morny was an early patron of this new, and risqué, business. He spent lavishly on illicit photos, and delighted in displaying them at his equally lavish parties. Like many of Napoleon’s more powerful ministers, and like Napoleon himself, Morny did not distinguish between high and low culture. His desire to acquire covered a wide spectrum.
Hardly friends and barely acquainted, Morny and Ollivier became allies with Nubar in the campaign to wrest the Canal Company from Ferdinand de Lesseps. Neither man had strong convictions about the canal. Morny recognized that the canal would be built and that someone was going to get rich. He saw no reason why it should not be him. Ollivier seized on an opportunity to extend his political influence. To Nubar’s credit, he was able to cultivate an alliance with both men and use them as they used him.
In the fall of 1863, both Lesseps and Nubar were in Paris, and they did everything short of fighting an actual duel. As Lesseps had done with Said’s money in the 1850s, Nubar used Ismail’s treasury to fund a propaganda campaign in the French press. The journalistic culture of the day did not know from objectivity, and each paper and journal was explicitly aligned with a particular faction. The assault took Lesseps and the company off guard. They had grown accustomed to kindly treatment by the French press, and the onslaught of articles questioning the probity of the company and its founders was a jarring shift. One paper, La Semaine financière, was especially virulent, and it singled out Lesseps personally. A typical article began, “M. de Lesseps, from blind faith, has hidden from the stockholders the necessity of obtaining the consent of the Porte,” and it went on to insinuate that the company had defrauded its shareholders.
Infuriated that his honesty was being questioned, Lesseps struck back: he sued the paper for libel and rallied his supporters. The incessant negative press was having an effect. Stockholders were becoming uneasy, and the pr
ice of canal shares started to drop. That was exactly what Nubar, Morny, and Ismail had hoped. The lower the shares went, the more pressure Lesseps would face. If shareholders lost confidence in Lesseps, Morny and Ismail would have an opening. Ismail was already the single largest investor, and if Morny could persuade others to vote against Lesseps, they might be able to remove him.
As the contest intensified, it became inevitable that the emperor would get involved. Nothing of great consequence occurred in France without Napoleon’s having some say, and the canal would be no exception. By the fall, the rival factions had begun to jockey for the emperor’s support, and this time Lesseps was not the prohibitive favorite. Though Eugénie gave him access, that paled in comparison with the access enjoyed by Morny. Lesseps was not the only one aware of that, and he needed to placate the members of the company’s Administrative Council. With characteristic bravado, he reminded them how far they had come: “We were protected by the French government during a period when we were very weak; now that we are strong we will be even better protected. We must be without fear; as for myself, I have none.”2
At the year’s end, Nubar and Lesseps were no closer to a resolution. Nubar considered Lesseps “noisy and cumbersome,” and scoffed that it was impossible to negotiate with a man who acted as if “whoever was not fully for him was against him.” Lesseps, in turn, was offended by the press campaign orchestrated by Nubar and outraged at what he saw as the Armenian’s hypocrisy. In October, informed that no further conversations could occur until the company’s board deliberated for several more weeks, Nubar chided Lesseps, “Fifteen days is of little or no importance for those of us who live peacefully in Paris, but it is a long time for the fellahin…. I ask you, do not delay; this is not a matter of diplomacy, but, rather, an issue of humanity.” Though it was a personal letter, Lesseps made its contents known to his partisans, and he wrote an angry reply. “I have dealt with such issues every day of my life,” he answered, “more than you have in yours.” He also resented the attempt at manipulation. “Do not try to use such appeals when we are talking face to face,” he said. “When we talk, leave aside those clever phrases that you use for the public….”
By January 1864, it was evident that only the emperor could end the stalemate. The forces on both sides of the dispute were each too entrenched. Other than Napoleon, Morny was the most powerful man in France. The Canal Company, for its part, had Prince Napoleon as a patron, the empress as a guiding angel, tens of thousands of investors, and substantial public support, which, in the face of English opposition, had transformed the canal into a matter of national pride. Nubar understood the situation as well as anyone. Soon after his arrival in Paris, a man stopped him in the street. “You come to make war against de Lesseps and prevent the canal from being built,” the man said. “Ah well, no! I am not rich. I have five shares, and if it were necessary, I’d put the rest of my money into this enterprise.”3
Though no one could predict the results of a war of attrition, neither side had an interest in seeing the contest drag on indefinitely. There was no hope of compromise, largely because this was less a dispute over labor and lands than a battle for control. Recognizing that Ismail, Morny, and Nubar wanted him gone, Lesseps saw no reason to concede on the issues per se. Seeking to dispossess Lesseps and his partisans of the canal, Ismail, Morny, and Nubar were not interested in serious negotiations. Having reached an impasse, both sides turned to the emperor.
Within the space of a few weeks, each faction formally requested the emperor to arbitrate. In order to buttress his case, Morny commissioned a study from Ollivier. By allying with the popular Ollivier, Morny could argue to the emperor that the French people were beginning to doubt Lesseps and the company. Ollivier submitted a report in early January 1864, raising serious questions about the company’s claims. He charged that Lesseps had consistently failed to distinguish between politics and commerce, and that he had unfortunately convinced people of influence in France that the commercial desires of the company were as important as the political issues surrounding the canal. Having carefully read the concessions, Ollivier concluded that the land grants were not essential and should revert to the sovereign control of Egypt in return for a modest indemnity; that, contrary to Lesseps’s argument, the work was contingent on the approval of the Porte; and that the viceroy had the legal right to terminate the corvée.4
For his part, Lesseps wrote a personal appeal to the emperor to adjudicate. “Sire,” he began, “The Suez Canal Company peacefully pursues its operations…. The results to date are due to the protection of Your Majesty, who in 1860, when the Company was beginning operations, saw to it that they were not brought to a standstill by an irregular order from the Ottoman Porte. The Company has no cause for anxiety, because being bound by agreement with the Egyptian Government, the Egyptian Government is equally bound towards the Company…. [But] under the pretext of a persistent refusal by the Porte to ratify the Concession, a recent letter from the Grand Vizier seeks to place the viceroy in a position to demand from the Company the surrender of some of its rights, without compensation of any kind…. In the same way that in 1860 Your Majesty countermanded orders which had been officially given with the object of bringing these works to nothing, the undersigned dare to hope that again on this occasion… the Emperor’s will shall not permit the accomplishment of intentions hostile to the company; and that he deign to protect the French shareholders in the Suez Canal as much as the interests of the Egyptian government itself.”5
But dulcet words were not enough. Lesseps knew that his adversaries were using their extensive connections to influence Napoleon. Though the emperor and his wife did not entertain quite as much as they had in the past, they still held dinners and balls, and gossip and innuendo were important weapons in the battle for the emperor’s favor. Morny was a high official and a blood relation, but Lesseps still had Eugénie. Through her, he was able to arrange a private audience with the emperor at Fontainebleau, which was an exclusive compound of parks and streams trolled by an opulent imperial barge. Invited to an informal luncheon, Lesseps would have only briefly touched on the canal. He knew better than to force an issue, and the access alone, even if much of the time was spent in light, airy, and meaningless conversation, was invaluable. But he would certainly have stated, as eloquently as he could, his belief in the canal. In the end, the emperor would make his decision based not on arcane points of law or even on international politics, but on the basis of a personal affinity for the same ideals Lesseps professed.
Through all of these months, Lesseps never framed the canal as an engineering project. Instead, he described it as an expression of all that was good and just in civilization. “The Suez Canal,” Lesseps said in one speech, “is not the property of a few men; it is not the property of one nation. It belongs to the human race, and it owes its birth to the aspirations of humanity, aspirations that are irresistible because they fulfill the needs of all and consecrate our epoch…. Steam power, railroads, electricity have shortened distances; the Occident, constrained by limits that were too constricting, suffocated by the marvels of its own industry, sought a grander outlet. It felt that it had to find it outside of wars and revolutions…. This is the wind of the century that blows our sails and leads us to port…. We have on our side right and truth…. How, with these with us, can we not triumph over the obstacles strewn on the road of all who strive, obstacles measured with justice by Providence in proportion to their utility and the greatness of the goal?”6
The emperor was a man who thought he was walking in the footsteps of greatness. He wanted his reign to mark the beginning of a golden age in human history. The fight between Lesseps and his adversaries was couched in the legalisms of concessions, land grants, and who said what to whom. Nubar and Morny and Ollivier wrote long memos justifying their positions. Lesseps did as well, but he did something they did not. He wove a romantic vision, and that was far more attractive to Napoleon than legalistic arguments pro or con. Just a
s Lesseps had enraptured Said to support the canal in the first place, he was able to win over the emperor. This was not sheer manipulation. Lesseps believed that the canal was an embodiment of progress. He felt that he was an instrument of Providence, and that the canal was almost inexpressibly important. Napoleon, who felt the same way about his regime, responded to Lesseps as a kindred spirit.
That did not mean that the two men became friends. Lesseps in early 1864 did not know what the emperor would decide, nor did Napoleon himself. The emperor asked his ministers to assemble data on the concessions and assess the arguments for and against the company. But, given Napoleon’s character, he probably did not dwell on the details of the competing claims. He had not thought much about details when he made a failed coup attempt in 1840, or when he rose to power in a series of twists and turns between 1848 and 1851. He focused instead on fate, and on his role in fulfilling it. Asked to decide between the competing claims of the Suez Canal disputants, he would choose the one that best served France and civilization, in that order.
Meanwhile, the company’s libel case against Nubar was dismissed, and the propaganda war continued. Nubar, in letters to his wife, claimed to be shocked by how shamefully he was being treated by the partisans of the canal. “My God! My God!” he wrote her. “Such calumny is a terrible thing, and men are so stupid and wicked.” He in turn honed his argument for the emperor and provided Morny with ammunition.
Nubar continued to denounce the unjust use of forced labor. He calculated that, with 20,000 laborers coming, 20,000 going, and 20,000 working in the isthmus each month, there were 720,000 laborers working on the canal each year out of a total Egyptian population of less than 4 million. He claimed, correctly, that this was an extraordinary commitment. He also claimed that the resulting labor shortage meant that Egyptian agriculture was losing 36 million francs a year, and this during an international cotton boom from which Egypt could have derived even more benefit were it not for the deleterious effects of the corvée. These fellahin were paid, at most, 75 piastres. Once they had made the journey by train, by steamboat on the Nile, and then by foot across the desert, the cost to the Egyptian government was even greater. It took eight to ten days for some fellahin to get to the isthmus, and Nubar said that transportation expenses were paid for by Ismail. The fellahin themselves had to bring their own bread, or they had to purchase biscuits, salted fish, and tobacco from the company at company stores. After twenty-five days of work, they had to make the return trip. In the end, Nubar concluded, both the state and the individual fellah lost money.
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