ONLY a man with Napoleon’s vision would have seen the potential of linking the Mediterranean with the Red Sea by digging a canal.

During his campaign in Egypt (1798-1801), Napoleon saw a commercial advantage in shortening the trade route to India. A miscalculation by his engineers caused him to abandon the project. Sixty years later, in 1869, his compatriot — engineer Ferdinand de Lesseps — fulfilled Napoleon’s aim by completing that modern marvel: the Suez Canal.

Napoleon once lamented: “If it had not been for the English, I should have been emperor of the East.” Ironically, a century later, the British and the French were co-owners of the Suez Canal. When, in 1956, Egyptian President Gamal Nasser nationalised the Suez Canal, Israel, Britain and France launched a combined military invasion. Israel occupied the Sinai peninsula. Britain and France strafed Egypt and planted boots in the Canal Zone. The US and the USSR condemned the invasion and threatened sanctions. Britain and France, humiliated, had to withdraw.

British prime minister Anthony Eden contended that his action had been “to strengthen the United Nations”. He was demolished by Aneurin Bevan’s retort: “Every burglar… could argue........

© Dawn