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The Suez Canal as an International Waterway

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 April 2017

Halford L. Hoskins
Halford L. Hoskins*
Affiliation:
Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy
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Extract

The Suez Canal, opened for general use on November 17, 1869, more than justified the gloomy predictions of its opponents that it would become “un second Bosphore.” Abbreviating by hundreds or thousands of miles the transit distance between important parts of the globe, it wrought a kind of revolution in maritime activities and particularly in strategical concepts of peace and war. Its consummation brought to an end more than a score of years of controversy marked by the efforts of the British Government to quash a project certain to destroy the monopoly of sea access to East Africa and the Middle and Far East via the Cape of Good Hope. Until 1869 the protection of British interests in the East had required only the maintenance of naval supremacy among the European States and a close surveillance of the Eastern Mediterranean with Malta and Constantinople as points of vantage. The cutting through of the Isthmus of Suez instantly destroyed previous schemes of British strategy by giving an almost infinite extension to the shores of the Mediterranean. With a similar projection of the problems of the Mediterranean, fundamental changes in planning and procedure, both by Great Britain and by other European States having maritime interests, were unavoidable.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Journal of International Law , Volume 37 , Issue 3 , July 1943 , pp. 373 - 385
Copyright
Copyright © by the American Society of International Law 1943

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References

1 Cf. F. de Lesseps, Inquiry into the Opinions of the Commercial Classes of Great Britain on the Suez Ship Canal (London, 1857), p. 128; Quarterly Review, Vol. 102, pp. 354–362.

2 Hoskins, H. L., “British Policy in Africa, 1873–1877,” The Geographical Review, XXXII, 140–149 Google Scholar.

3 Among the many historians of the Suez Canal, the following are authoritative and probably are most useful in connection with the present study: Pierre Crabités, The Spoliation of Suez (London, 1940); C. W. Hallberg, The Suez Canal (New York, 1931); H. L. Hoskins, British Routes to India (New York, 1928); T. J. Lawrence, The Suez in International Law (London, 1884); J. Charles-Roux, L’Isthme et le Canal de Suez, 2 vols. (Paris, 1901); Lt.-Col. Sir A. T. Wilson, The Suez Canal (London, 1933); together with appropriate portions of Georges Douin, Histoire du Règne du Khèdive Ismaïl (3 vols, in 4 published: 5 vols, projected: Rome, 1933–1938); and M. Sabry, L’Empire Egyptièn sous Ismaïl et l’Ingèrence Anglo-Française (Paris, 1933).

4 The company’s statutes are given in Wilson, op. cit., Appendix 3, pp. 179–191.

5 Convention entre le Vice-Roi d’Egypte et la Compagnie Universelle du Canal Maritime de Suez, signè au Caire, le 22 fèvrier, 1866; quoted in part in Wilson, op. cit., pp. 191–193.

6 Paul Fauchille, Traitè de droit international public (Paris, 1925), I, Pt. 2, p. 297.

7 London Times, Nov. 26 and Dec. 2, 1875; Parliamentary Paper, Egypt No. 1 (1876) (Cd. 1391).

8 FO 78/3189. The agreement was drawn up on Aug. 4, 1877.

9 E. Hertslet, Map of Europe by Treaty (4 vols., London, 1875–91), IV, 2615–2617; Hoskins, op. cit., p. 475.

10 FO 78/2851, Sir J. Pauncefote to Mr. Vivian, May 3, 1878; FO 195/1194, Vivian to Admiral Lord John Hay, May 14,1878.

11 Sir James Headlem-Morley, Studies in Diplomatic History (London, 1930), p. 77.

12 Die Grosse Politik der Europäischen Kabinette (40 vols., Berlin, 1922–27), IV, 42.

13 Hallberg, op. cit., p. 285.

14 Headlem-Morley, op. cit., p. 77.

15 Parliamentary Paper, Egypt No. 16 (1885) and Egypt No. 19 (1885).

16 Ibid., No. 1 (1888); British and Foreign State Papers, Vol. 79, pp. 18–22.

17 Contrasting views as to the neutralization of the Canal are to be found in T. J. Lawrence, The Principles of International Law (Boston, 1895), p. 490; T. E. Holland, Studies in International Law (Oxford, 1898), pp. 270–293; L. Oppenheim, International Law (London, 1927), II, 148, 166; C. H. Stockton, Outlines of International Law (New York, 1914), pp. 137–139; and elsewhere.

18 Parliamentary Paper, Egypt, No. 1 (1888), C. 5255, p. 36; cf. G. P. Gooch, History of Modern Europe, 1878–1919 (New York, 1923), p. 93.

19 This Journal, Vol. III (1909), p. 899; Sir James Headlem-Morley, op. cit., p. 79.

20 G. P. Gooch and H. Temperley, British Documents on the Origins of the War, 1898–1914 (11 vols.) (London, 1926–38), II, 326, 331–334; this Journal, Vol. IV (1910), p. 349.

21 Bulletin of International News, XIII, 68; Gooch and Temperley, op. cit, III, 18–19.

22 Foreign Relations of the United States (1898), p. 982; Fauchille, op. cit, I, Pt. 2, p. 336.

23 See Naval War College, International Law Topics (1930), pp. 119–120.

24 A. S. Hershey, International Law and Diplomacy of the Russo-Japanese War (New York, 1906), p. 189; Fauchille, op. cit., I, Pt. 2, p. 336.

25 Fauchille, op. cit., I, Pt. 2, p. 337. Cf. Arts. 4 and 7 of the Convention of 1888, and decrees of February, 1904.

26 R.L. Buell, “The Suez Canal and League Sanctions,” Geneva Special Studies, VI (1935), p. 6.

27 Fauchille, op. cit., I, Pt. 2, pp. 337–338; the circular is quoted in International Law Topics (1917), pp. 221–222.

28 M. C. de Freycinet, La Question d’Egypte (Paris, 1904), p. 327.

29 Fauchille, op. cit., I, Pt. 2, p. 338.

30 British and Colonial Prize Cases (London, 1916), I, 102, iii. The Gutenfels arrived at Port Said Aug. 5, 1914, and was given until sunset on Aug. 14 to refuel and depart. The vessel chose to remain. On Oct. 13 she was boarded by an Egyptian crew and sailed into the Mediterranean beyond territorial waters, where she was seized by a British vessel as a prize of war. The owners demanded restitution on the ground that Port Said was a neutral port, guaranteed by the Suez Canal Convention.

31 British and Foreign State Papers, Vol. 112, p. 79. The treaties terminating the war with the other Central Powers are incorporated in this volume.

32 Parliamentary Paper, 1922, Cmd. 1592, “Correspondence Respecting Affairs in Egypt” [in continuation of “Egypt No. 4, (1921).”]; Royal Institute of International Affairs, Information Department Papers, No. 19, “Great Britain and Egypt, 1914–1936” (New York, 1936), pp. 11–12.

33 Parliamentary Paper, Egypt No. 2. (1922), Cmd. 1617, “Despatch to His Majesty’s Representatives Abroad respecting the Status of Egypt.”

34 Cf. R. L. Buell, op. cit., p. 8; Headlem-Morley, op. cit., pp. 97–101.

35 Quoted in A. J. Toynbee, Survey of International Affairs, 1925 (London, 1927), Vol. 1, p. 212.

36 Parliamentary Paper, United States No. 1 (1928), Cmd. 3109,” Correspondence with the United States Ambassador respecting the United States Proposal for the renunciation of War,” May 19, 1928, p. 25. The reservation was repeated in “Further Correspondence . . . , “ note of July 18, 1928: United States No. 2 (1928), Cmd. 3153, p. 10. Cf. Hunter Miller, The Peace Pact of Paris (New York, 1928), p. 69.

37 Anglo-Egyptian relations during these years are well treated in Lord Lloyd’s Egypt since Cromer, 2 vols. (London, 1933).

38 Parliamentary Paper, Egypt No. 1 (1930), Cmd. 3575, “Papers regarding the recent negotiations for an Anglo-Egyptian settlement.” Cf. also Royal Institute of International Affairs, Information Department Papers, No. 19, op. cit., pp. 22–37, and Elizabeth P. McCallum, “Egypt: a Decade of Political Development,” Foreign Policy Association Information Service, VI (Jan. 7,1931). While the present study is concerned particularly with those reservations of 1922 which related to the Suez Canal, it may appropriately be noted in passing that the Sudan question, the fourth of the reserved points, was not unrelated to the security of the Canal. Through the Sudan flowed Nile water which was vital not only to the normal life and activity of the inhabited portions of Egypt, but also the operation of the Canal itself, which depends on the continuous flow of the Fresh Water Canal, itself a branch of the Nile.

39 League of Nations, Official Journal, Vol. 16 (1935),pp. 1225, 1226.

40 For more extended summaries and analyses of the legal questions involved, see R. L. Buell, op. cit., pp. 11–14; Amedeo Giannini, “Il regime giuridica del Canale di Suez,” Oriente Moderno, Vol. 15 (1935), pp. 297–307; Raymond Guibal, Peut-on fermer le Canal de Suez? (Paris, 1938), 2ème partie; Landecker, Werner, “Suez Kanal und italienisch-abessinischer Konflikt,” Revue de Droit International, 1935, pp. 204–220 Google Scholar.

41 Not a few Britons were persuaded that the arrangement of 1888 was incompatible with the League Covenant and hence could not be regarded any longer as constituting an obligation to which the British Government must adhere. On June 7,1935, two members of the House of Commons, Messrs. Atlee and Mander, arguing on this basis, maintained that Great Britain should close the Canal in the application of sanctions under Art. 16 of the Covenant. Royal Institute of International Affairs, Bulletin of International News, Vol. 12, p. 67 ff. The Law Times for July 27, 1935, advanced a similar point of view. Cf. editorial in the New York Times, Aug. 11, 1935.

42 Royal Institute of International Affairs, Bulletin of International News, Vol. 12, ‘‘The International Status of the Suez Canal,” pp. 70–72.

43 Art. 152 and 282 of the Treaty of Versailles (1919) and Art. 89 of the Treaty of Lausanne (1923) specifically recognize the continuation in force of the Suez Canal Convention.

44 Cf. the article, “Il Canale di Suez e l’Etiopia,” in Affari Esteri, June 15, 1935.

45 Hoskins, H. L., “The Suez Canal in Time of War,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 14 (1935–1936), p. 101 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

46 Parliamentary Paper, Treaty Series No. 6 (1937), Cmd. 5360, “Treaty of Alliance between His Majesty in respect of the United Kingdom, and His Majesty the King of Egypt.”

47 Parliamentary Paper, Treaty Series No. 6 (1937), Cmd. 5360, “Treaty of Alliance between His Majesty in respect of the United Kingdom, and His Majesty the King of Egypt,” p. 5.

48 Parliamentary Paper, Treaty Series No. 31 (1938), Cmd. 5726:1, “Agreement between the United Kingdom and Italy,” p. 24; New York Times, April 17,1938.

49 Parliamentary Paper, Treaty Series No. 31 (1938), Cmd. 5726: II, pp. 37, 38.