Description

This excellent, resplendently colourful, large-format work is perhaps the most impressive map ever made of the Suez Canal, which would be completed in 1869.  It was issued by the Compagnie universelle du Canal Maritime de Suez, the enterprise responsible for constructing the mega-project, as a powerful promotional piece celebrating one of history’s greatest technical achievements.  In addition to being visually appealing, it is also highly accurate, predicated upon official plans compiled by the project’s managing director, the esteemed civil engineer François-Philippe Voisin.

The main map embraces the western half of the verdant Nile Delta, from Cairo up to Damietta; the Suez Isthmus separating the Mediterranean from the Red Sea; plus, the western extremities of the Sinai Peninsula.  The Suez Canal is represented by a red line, and is shown to run south from Port Said, on the Mediterranean, down past Ismailia, through the Great Bitter Lake and then connecting to the Red Sea at the port of Suez.  Distances along the canal are marked in kms at various intervals.  The mapping is highly accurate, predicated upon the latest trigonometric surveys, depicting all cities and major towns and the myriad deltaic channels of the Nile, while the desert mountains beyond are expressed through gradients of smoky shading.

Importantly, the map delineates trunk roads and the railway system (marking distances in kms at various intervals), including the Cairo-Suez Railway, completed in 1858 by the legendary British engineer Robert Stephenson.  This line proved vital to the construction of the canal.  Also, of note is the line of the Cairo-Suez Canal, a shallow, sweet water channel that ran from the Nile to Ismailia and then down to the port of Suez.  While this canal was useful for small barge traffic, its primary purpose was to carry fresh water for the use of the canal workers and for making concrete (the Suez region was short of fresh water).  Interestingly, the map also labels the numerous archaeological remnants of the canals constructed in Ancient times that traversed the Suez Isthmus, providing connections to the to Nile Valley.

The perspective of the main map is based upon Louis Maurice Adolphe Linant de Bellefonds’ manuscript map, “Carte de l’Isthme de Suez, pour servir à l’intelligence du mémoire sur les communications à établir par l’isthme de Suez entre la Méditerranée et la mer Rouge” (1844, printed Paris, 1855), that was widely admired by Ferdinand de Lesseps, the driver of the canal project.  However, the present map is far more detailed and decorative and features many updates beyond both the manuscript and printed versions of Linant de Bellefonds’s work.

Notably, the present composition includes several fascinating insets.  On the left-hand side are three vignettes.  The first depicts the Nile end of the Cairo-Suez Canal while the two diagrams below are profiles depicting the depth of the Suez Canal.  The inset on the opposite side of the map feature 6 cross-profiles of the Suez Canal taken from various key locations, exhibiting the depths of the channel.  In the lower part of the map are three insets detailing the new cities and their extensive port infrastructure that had been constructed as part of the canal project, being Port Said, the canal’s Mediterranean terminus; Ismailia, the midpoint along the route and home to the Compagnie’s headquarters; and city of Suez, where the canal meets the Red Sea.

Finally, and most intriguingly, the large register that occupies the bottom of the composition showcases a sophisticated geological profile of the canal, detailing 11 different types of strata, each in their own bright hand colour.  The process of building the canal allowed geologists to execute the first comprehensive, scientific assessment of the region.

The map was an official publication of the Compagnie universelle du Canal Maritime de Suez, likely intended as both a gift for leading investors and political dignitaries, as well as a promotional piece for the canal (albeit an expensive one reserved for the affluent curious). Well designed, technically informative, yet beautifully coloured and decorative, the map would have been considered a ‘triumphal’ memento celebrating the successful progress and completion of what was the world’s most consequential infrastructure project – an achievement worthy of the great sacrifice in blood and treasure.

The Compagnie contracted the design and printing of the map to the leading Paris cartographic firm of Eugène Andriveau-Goujon (1832 – 1897), who engaged the master lithographer Erhard Schièble (1821 – 1880) to bring the map to stone, with the printing done by the Imprimerie Lemercier (Paris).

The present first issue of the map was published in 1866, before the canal was completed, but when its final details had been determined and its successful completion assured.  The second issue, dated 1869, was published the year that the canal was completed and opened for operation.  The 1866 and 1869 editions are practically identical and both were issued in only small print runs.

Significantly, during World War I, the present map was still so highly regarded for its clear and accurate rendering of the Suez Canal and the surrounding territory, that the German military issued its own ‘pirate edition’ of the map.  During the Sinai and Palestine Campaign, the German and Ottoman armies, from their bases in Palestine, sought to seize the Suez Canal, which would sever Britain’s link to India, as well as imperilling Cairo.  Following a credible, yet unsuccessful, strike towards the canal in 1915, the German-Ottoman armies regrouped, planning another assault.  The special cartographic office of the Imperial German Army, the Stellvertretender Generalstab der Armee – Kartographische Abteilung [Deputy General Staff of the Army – Cartographic Department], issued an edition of the present map faithful to the original, at the beginning of 1917.  Undoubtably, copies would have been of great interest to both German and Ottoman field commanders, as well as officials in Berlin and Istanbul.  However, just as the copies of the Berlin edition were being unfolded, the British imperial forces mounted a ferocious offensive against the Ottoman-German lines in the Sinai.  By the end of February 1917, the theatre of conflict had moved eastwards into Palestine.  This pretty much guaranteed that the Suez Canal was safe from further Ottoman-German attacks, as the Central Powers remained on the defensive in the Middle East for the duration of the war.

All editions of the map are today very rare, as they were issued in only a very limited production.  We can trace only 2 institutional examples of the present 1866 first edition, held by the Library of Congress and the Harvard University Library.  The 1869 edition, and 1917 German pirated issue, are similarly uncommon.  We are aware of only a few instances of any editions of the map as appearing on the market over the last 25 years.

References: Library of Congress: G8302.S9 1866 .C6; Harvard (1866 ed.): G8302.S9 1866 .C3.  Cf. [re: 1869 ed.:] David Rumsey Map Collection (Stanford University): 13106.002