welcome back everybody to AQA AEV history in this video what we're going to be doing is talking about the Suz Canal as part of our ongoing discussion about the development of imperialism during the British Empire so in looking at the specification we're still on the first point the talking and conversation about the expansion of the British Empire in Africa this relates to the creation of the sez canal and the relationship between Great Britain the British Empire and the the the the the administration that existed within within Egypt uh under the under the various opes of um of ishma Pasha for example this video is going to talk specifically about the creation of the sez Canal something that we noted and and made brief conversation about previously in the in the last lesson when we talked about the relationship between Great Britain and Egypt in this particular vein so we'll talk about its creation and it significance to the development of imperialism the spread of the G the Great British Empire across into Africa as well as the influence that um was had in relation to what it had as an impact on the relationship between Egypt and Great Britain so fundamentally the creation of the Suz Canal the construction of the so Canal took takes place under the opes of an individual who was French okay so between 1854 and 1856 we have a Frenchman by the name of Ferdinand deeps um who obtains a concession from Egypt to essentially establish a company with the intention to create and construct a canal for international shipping now our previous lesson made a very important point about the importance and the relevance of the Suez Canal given the fact that international shipping and relations with the rest of Asia could only really take place prior to the sez canal through the um transport of goods from and across all the way to the bottom of Africa in up through to the Indian Ocean and so having to go all the way around Africa in order to actually have international trade relations with the rest of Europe with the rest of Europe and Asia for example meant that of course that would significantly increase the cost of um of international shipping just take a look at the ways in which international shipping is being disrupted by by the houthi movement in Yemen at the time of recording this video the fact that in order to essentially try and protect themselves against piracy um commercial shipping is having to go uh much further which takes a lot longer and therefore increases the costs of those goods significantly so given this fact the idea of constructing a canal in Egypt which essentially bypasses the entirety of the of the continent of Africa and allows for international shipping to take place through the Suz conect now reduces the amount of time it takes to get to Asia and into the Indian Ocean significantly and so the Su company in 1858 was established the Su company had a mandate to essentially run and operate the canal for a total of 99 years and work would begin on the creation of the canal itself in 1859 and would be completed in 1869 um just 10 years later so it didn't take particularly that long to create a new Waterway between that of um Egypt and and what would eventually become um the state of Israel but was at the time part of the Ottoman Empire at first the British were hesitant to invest in any shares when it came to the um sez company um so the result of this was that the beginnings of the sez company and the beginning of the construction of the sez Canal was an almost entirely French Affair so between 1854 and 1856 then 1858 and then all the way up to 1869 we see for the most part there being a lot of French influence in the Suz Canal but not too much British influence things then become interesting in 1875 because one of the things that was also um that also happened was because of the fact that this was a concession from Egypt um the the uh the administration of the Egyptian state is Ismael pasia um was facing increasing debt and so because they had already invested in the soz company um owing to the fact that this was going through their country in 1875 they made a decision to sell their shares in the company to try and pay off debts and it was the British prime minister in 1875 by the name of Benjamin Israeli um who really jumped at the opportunity to purchase shares in the company he saw the the canal so um at the beginning of the discussion we see that his decision to in uh to purchase these shares quite a significant and Hefty price of obviously taxpayer money um it was um seen negatively by the British people but the reward for owning the shares was um too much to overlook because fundamentally having ownership in one of the most important and still to this day one of the most influential shipping lanes in all of on all of um planet Earth is of course a very heavily influential thing for you to be able to um to to have control over so despite the fact that it was still France who held large number of shares it was a French company that was established it was a French um a French individual who got the concession from Egypt in the first place all of these things meant that of course France had quite a significant influence still the British were nevertheless able to control trade routes in and around to India of course the Great British Empire owned India at the time which we'll get to in time in a future lesson this purchase of shares further increased British interests in Egypt as you can probably imagine and given the fact that we are seeing a general swing to the east anyway with the general interests um in Africa as the result of a lack of colonial ambition across the Americas the in the newly relatively newly independent states of the of the US and then of course the closing down of economic relations with the US during the Civil War it meant that of course everybody starts turning to Asia but then more specifically they start turning to Africa as a place for colonization so with the increase with the increase in um in in shares and with the increase in interests in um the sez Canal we then start to see the the development of British control in Egypt in 1879 um Ismael Pasha the the deao controller of Egypt was deposed by the ottoman sultan um this was for a number of reasons one of the reasons was of course being the result of economic mismanagement we know already from um what I've said on the previous slide or pre a few slides ago that fundamentally in 186 in 1875 sorry should I say is palia was in debt and so the only reason why Benjamin Disraeli was able to acquire shares in the Suz company at that point and in that time was because of pasha's um economic mismanagement and so given the fact that he had no choice but to sell some of his shares in the Suez company to try and balance out the debt that was um owed his son tuig um became the new kaiv Under the financial support of both the French and the British so was a was a an installed leader because of this financial support um mainly from the British but also influencing slightly from the French it meant that he was effectively a puppet for that of um Great Britain and to an lesser extent to to the French given the fact that he was able to get a lot of support both financially and in terms of his installation as new leader it fundamentally meant that the British had a quite large influence over and quite a significant amount of control in Egypt this was of course for economic reasons control over Egypt meant control over the Suz Canal the Suz Canal was starting to show its returns in terms of the amount of um the amount of efficiency The increased efficiency that um the the the new international shipping lanes were able to um to to allow but it would also mean that in being able to control the Suz Canal you could charge other people for to use it and make money that way as well so one of the things that we see um in terms of British control in Egypt is that you see an imposition of Taxation on Egyptian food and goods as well as a reduction of the Egyptian Army by 2/3 essentially the aim here is to neuter the Egyptian Army and to neuter the state of Egypt so that it can be the de facto controlling uh be de facto controlled fundamentally by the British and so as a result of which they could have significant if not all the control over um the the the sez Canal the result of this though however results as you would probably imagine in quite a lot of resentment towards the British Empire but also an increase in unemployment owing to the reduction in the military as well as the um higher taxes that are imposed on Egyptian food and goods um which then leads to political velopments the political developments such as an increase in nationalism and Egyptian nationalism which eventually would come back to bite Great Britain and would fundamentally um see the the growth um of the the the nationalist movements in the 1950s with the with the Suez Crisis and the imposition of um individuals such as nasia and all of these individuals that we will get to in the future but with all this nationalism we eventually see a rebellion in the 1800s the a rebellion group under the control of Colonel Arabi Pasha um the Rebellion would ultimately be successful in the sense that what it did was force um tuig to appoint a pro-nationalist anti-european member to the government the aim here was of course um or or the aim here was showing at least that the that Britain was losing its control over the uh over the state of Egypt in its ability to actually be able to influence the Egyptian state if you a pro-nationalist anti-european member uh of government then of course that is going to be heavily critical of the Great British Empire in June 1882 we see further political tensions grow which led to a number of Europeans being killed as a result of violence on the streets of Alexandria where ultimately 50 Europeans died in in a Revolt um which was that ultimately went violent this along with a number of other revolts prompted uh the British prime minister at the time in the 1880s William Gladstone to intervene with British Naval forces so rather than simply just deciding to withdraw from the uh withdraw from Egypt and and loosen its control over the Egyptian state of course the Suz Canal would have so much influence over um uh would have too much influence and be so um important to the British at this point into British interests then instead they opted to send Naval forces to try and quell rebellions against um Egypt Arabi pasia responded by declaring war and even though there were some initial successors they were ultimately defeated by the British commander saret Walley um and so um Saget Walley was able to fully um secure the Suz canal and then to ultimately retake Cairo tuig was reinstalled as a public leader and so even if the British had sort of de facto control before since the uh revolt and the declaration of war by Arabi Pasha um the British then had complete control over Egypt um post the 1880s