African Coloniaism w/ earlier Suez Canal

Short answer to OP: no. Long answer: nooooooooooooooooooo.

Suez Canal as a single, major shipping route is not possible before modern malaria treatment, steam power, etc.

A series of hand-dug (because that's the only other way it's going to get done) canals (i.e. Canal of the Pharaohs) is doable, but requires the gumption to get it done, plus total controlling interest by invested powers (Venice, a surviving ERE in control of Egypt, etc.) to get it done. There simply isn't the wherewithal to match the motivation, or vice versa, depending on the given time period and balance of powers. Otherwise it probably would have happened OTL, which it didn't until mid-19th-century.

False. Its doable.
 
The Ottomans have no incentive to build a canal, really. Stuff from the East can travel by camel back, or whatever, and if that costs the Ferengi twice as much, well, who cares what they think.

The 'West' would be interested in a canal specifically because the Ottomans control the obvious land routes.

OTOH, the problems with keeping a ship canal dredged, defending the territory from any of several competing powers who want to seize it, and the difficulty of getting sailing ships up and down the Red Sea (let alone through a canal), together with the rather small amount of shipping involved, would make such a canal completely uneconomical.

Heck, OTL's canal with modern tech, steam ships, and much greater Asian trade, had a terrible time meeting its interest expenses. Much earlier, and it would only make sense as a military power projection device.


SO....
The Ottomans build a much bigger presence in the Indian Ocean (how? why?), and build a canal so they can send reinforcements from the Indian Ocean fleet to the Med, and vice versa. Of course, this scenario runs into the additional problem that ships appropriate for one ocean aren't so great for the other.

But IF it's the Ottomans that do it, because of increased involvement in the Indian Ocean, you might see them vassalize (say) the Ethiopians, and take control of Zanzibar and the East coast of Africa (the Swahili port cities).

That would make it far more difficult for Europeans to colonize there.
 
The Ottomans have no incentive to build a canal, really. Stuff from the East can travel by camel back, or whatever, and if that costs the Ferengi twice as much, well, who cares what they think.

The 'West' would be interested in a canal specifically because the Ottomans control the obvious land routes.

OTOH, the problems with keeping a ship canal dredged, defending the territory from any of several competing powers who want to seize it, and the difficulty of getting sailing ships up and down the Red Sea (let alone through a canal), together with the rather small amount of shipping involved, would make such a canal completely uneconomical.

Heck, OTL's canal with modern tech, steam ships, and much greater Asian trade, had a terrible time meeting its interest expenses. Much earlier, and it would only make sense as a military power projection device.


SO....
The Ottomans build a much bigger presence in the Indian Ocean (how? why?), and build a canal so they can send reinforcements from the Indian Ocean fleet to the Med, and vice versa. Of course, this scenario runs into the additional problem that ships appropriate for one ocean aren't so great for the other.

But IF it's the Ottomans that do it, because of increased involvement in the Indian Ocean, you might see them vassalize (say) the Ethiopians, and take control of Zanzibar and the East coast of Africa (the Swahili port cities).

That would make it far more difficult for Europeans to colonize there.
Minor thing but the Ottoman Empire had relation with the Sultanate of Atjeh if I recall correctly.
 
People are assuming that the Europeans (and particularly the British) will want the canal that bad - IOTL, the British only got a fetish for holding the canal after they were forced into Egypt by their first, second and third preferences for resolving the crisis falling through. (At the time, the British wanted the Ottomans to intervene, the French to intervene, or to arrange some sort of multinational intervention including at least France - the UK intervening alone was seen as expensive and burdensome and given how the UK already had everything she desired in Egypt through indirect economic imperialism, the government of the time had a point.)

For Venice, Egypt was already a key trade route for spices from the Indian Ocean making it into the Med - they'd tried several times to gain control over that route, both by attempting conquest (unsuccessfully) and by signing favorable trade deals with the Ottomans (very successfully). Genoa likewise was trying to do the same things (less successfully than the Venetians). I don't see how the existence of an Ottoman canal would give either city state more impetus (or more resources) to conquer Egypt. Nor do I see any reason why a canal would encourage the two city states to work together more than they did.

Further, I don't think people are appreciating just how powerful the Ottomans were compared to Europe before the reverses of the late 18th through the 19th Century. They certainly weren't invincible, but they did have a large population, a relatively tolerant and innovative society, an advantage in accessing strategic resources (the forests of the Balkans allowed the Ottomans to build ships and indeed whole fleets with a scale and endurance that Europeans powers around the Mediterranean could not match) and a large and fairly difficult to invade territory. So while it is quite possible for the Ottomans to lose any canal they might build in Egypt, I think it is highly unlikely for any likely coalition of European states to hold the canal for more than a generation or so. At least before 1800.

Also, any canal that is built will be dependent on the Nile river for its water supply (even the modern Suez canal needs water from the Nile to function). That means holding the canal and keeping it functional requires holding at least a portion of the Nile delta.

I suspect that the main impacts of the canal if it were built would be to strengthen Ottoman naval power - with a canal they can move fleets from the Indian Ocean to the Med/Black Sea. Given the distances involved, I don't think that in itself will be huge. The bigger impact will be that with a canal, the Ottomans can build ships in the Balkans or Anatolia and sail them to the Indian Ocean, making it far cheaper to build fleets in the area (OTL, they transported the naval supplies over land and built the ships on the Persian Gulf or the Red Sea).

As people have already pointed out, a big part of OTL's Suez canal's utility depends on ships having steam or diesel power. Without those, naval travel in the Red Sea depended on oars, which required a large amount of skilled labour.

I'm not sure if the canal would, in the end, have repaid its investment to the Ottomans. Certainly if it did prove worthwhile, it would be very marginal.

More interesting would be a Suez canal built in the 1800s, 1820s or 1840s. For example, with the earlier dates, we might see the canal built, fail financially then be left to decay. Would someone try to build the canal again if there had been a failed canal only a generation or two before? Or what about a canal that is built just as the very earliest naval steam engines are coming on line? Might steam tugs be designed to work in the canal and the Red Sea and thus lead to an acceleration of marine steam technology?

With regards to colonialism, I'm not sure there would be much difference from Suez itself. The big thing that drove colonialism in Africa was the British intervention in Egypt - that depends not so much on Suez as how the government of Egypt manages its debts.

fasquardon
 
Those assuming that Europeans would take the canal from a Muslim power(any Muslim power, not even considering the pre-industrial Muslim juggernaut known as the Ottomans being the ones to build it) is amazingly simpleminded.

Let's say that the Ottomans decide that dominating Indian Ocean trade is vital to their finances and that the Portuguese cannot be allowed to freely dominate. Queue one very expensive project to build the canal and move the Ottoman fleet freely from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean.

This changes several things:

1. The Ottomans are FAR more interested in Egypt and the Indian Ocean. To the point where I think the Ottomans will crush the Mamelukes in Egypt very early on and administer the area directly from Constantinople. That has some very interesting consequences for the wealth and economic prosperity of Egypt, especially if Alexandria is the de facto busiest port in the world as a result of this. Not to mention the social and political butterflies.

Other things I'd forsee would be the Ottomans putting in a strong effort into conquering all of Yemen and never leaving Muscat. Possibly adventures along coastal Persia and the Makran?

Ottoman support for the sultanates of East Africa, India, and the East Indies will likely be far more aggressive than it ever was IOTL, to the point where the Ottomans de jure or de facto ruling East Africa's coastal regions is near guaranteed. Furthermore, any European holdings that are actively considered hostile to Ottoman interests will be far more vulnerable to Ottoman attack; I don't see the Portuguese keeping Mozambique, or Goa for very long.

It's also likely to encourage Ottoman merchant adventures that could see them enacting their own European-like trading/conquering missions in the Indian Ocean. They certainly have the resources to do it if the will is there, and having readily available fleets will make that threshold for will that much lower. Granted, Ottoman ships of the Mediterranean will at first fare poorly, but the Ottomans will adapt. They've sunk far too much money into the Suez Canal to throw their hands up in the air....probably.

2. Assuming the Suez is freely accessible to other states so long as they pay the tolls, Venice is likely to be far more competitive economically for longer. To be frank, the best thing that could happen to the Venetians is formal vassalage under the Ottomans because that'd likely waive a lot of the tolls and let the Venetians function as the Ottoman merchant marine. In the long term, good for the Ottomans because the pursuit of profits drives innovation like no other. Other states that would have viewed Indian trade as geographically unsuited to them may also reconsider. Perhaps Austria, Hungary, or Naples depending on the political situation?

3. Ottoman interests in Europe may actually be weaker if the Suez is ultimately profitable. To the point where we could see a less aggressive Ottoman state that waives its ambitions in the Western Mediterranean and is content with Hungarian vassalage as a buffer?
 
This changes several things

Hmm. You make good points. The Ottomans blew alot of resources on trying to expand past their logistical reach in Europe and in trying to beat down the Persians - redirecting even a small portion of those resources could pay for the canal, and the investment would certainly be better than getting armies beat up around Vienna and in the Zagros mountains.

A large diversion of resources - particularly from the wars with Persia (which were far, far more ruinous than anything the West inflicted on the Empire until after 1870) - could really change things in the Indian Ocean.

Maybe some Ottoman sultan decides that the way to defeat Persia is to choke them off from the sea, and builds the canal to make building the large fleet needed cheap enough?

This also makes me wonder - has anyone ever done a TL that featured an Ottoman South Africa? I doubt they'd have the population surplus to be interested in settling the area, but it is fun to think about what a colonial Ottoman culture down there would look like...

fasquardon
 
This also makes me wonder - has anyone ever done a TL that featured an Ottoman South Africa? I doubt they'd have the population surplus to be interested in settling the area, but it is fun to think about what a colonial Ottoman culture down there would look like...
The Ottomans would need a motive to set up a colony so far from home. The Dutch had one, a food refuelling station for sailing ships to Indies. The British, gold and diamonds came later.

The Ottomans would find it easier and cheaper in treasure to seize Kenya and/or Zanzibar. No need to struggle with the Capre storms.
 
The Ottomans would need a motive to set up a colony so far from home. The Dutch had one, a food refuelling station for sailing ships to Indies. The British, gold and diamonds came later.

The Ottomans would find it easier and cheaper in treasure to seize Kenya and/or Zanzibar. No need to struggle with the Capre storms.

Maybe if an Ottoman Sultan is worried about European traders undercutting his merchants' profits, he could try and set up a colony at the Cape to try and interfere with the trade route to the Far East and force the Europeans to go through Ottoman middlemen.
 
The Ottomans would need a motive to set up a colony so far from home. The Dutch had one, a food refuelling station for sailing ships to Indies. The British, gold and diamonds came later.

The Ottomans would find it easier and cheaper in treasure to seize Kenya and/or Zanzibar. No need to struggle with the Capre storms.

My favorite proposal(and really the only one I see as viable) is that the Ottomans set up corsairs in the Cape, seeing it as the natural chokepoint for their Western European competitors. As a result, a local populace grows over time built up of Arabs, Turks, and East Africans that eventually turns into a standalone port to formal military fort to bustling port town resulting in the proclamation of the Eyalet of South Africa, a semi-autonomous Ottoman province whose sole purpose is ensuring that European merchant ships choose the much safer Suez route. Much like Algeria, it's autonomous to the point that it pays little tribute to the Sultan and functions more as a military outpost for the Ottomans; however, the local populace has grown and continues to grow due to ample terrain and the relative prosperity brought by Ottoman funding to ensure the strength of the port as well as the occasional looting of Western European shipping.
 
My favorite proposal(and really the only one I see as viable) is that the Ottomans set up corsairs in the Cape, seeing it as the natural chokepoint for their Western European competitors. As a result, a local populace grows over time built up of Arabs, Turks, and East Africans that eventually turns into a standalone port to formal military fort to bustling port town resulting in the proclamation of the Eyalet of South Africa, a semi-autonomous Ottoman province whose sole purpose is ensuring that European merchant ships choose the much safer Suez route. Much like Algeria, it's autonomous to the point that it pays little tribute to the Sultan and functions more as a military outpost for the Ottomans; however, the local populace has grown and continues to grow due to ample terrain and the relative prosperity brought by Ottoman funding to ensure the strength of the port as well as the occasional looting of Western European shipping.

Hmm. That sounds fairly plausible. And like a really fun setting for a story!

fasquardon
 
So, while reviewing my old contribution to the AH Weekly blog about a Roman Suez Canal, I was thinking about an interesting scenario that dovetails nicely with this:

Say Rome undertakes this project in its waning years (4th-5th centuries), but the West still falls more or less on schedule. How might Axum take advantage of the growth in Red Sea trade? Could we see the Ethiopian trading empire they built grow even more, to the point that, regardless of what happens with the Arabs vs. Romans, they are a dominant player in Indian littoral for a considerable time?
 
This changes several things:

1. The Ottomans are FAR more interested in Egypt and the Indian Ocean. To the point where I think the Ottomans will crush the Mamelukes in Egypt very early on and administer the area directly from Constantinople. That has some very interesting consequences for the wealth and economic prosperity of Egypt, especially if Alexandria is the de facto busiest port in the world as a result of this. Not to mention the social and political butterflies.

OTL, of course, saw Ottoman expeditions to Acjeh and assaults on Diu, with Ottoman efforts to regulate and seize the spice trade. I agree with you this happens much more in ATL.
 
Last edited:
If it happened before the 1480's, I think it's a virtual certainty that there'd have been no serious attempts at any African colonization south of Timbuktu or Ethiopia with perhaps an exploratory expedition just to see how FAR south and by what dimensions the African continent extended .. However, with a Suez canal in place, it's likely the European nations would have considered Africa itself nothing more than a source of slaves and ivory be traded at Timbuktu with maybe a mission outpost in the Cape of Good Hope area just to fulfill their Christian 'mandate' but with no serious attempts to explore beyond a small coastal area. Thus the bounty of riches from the region we'd know as South Africa reaching Europe would be delayed at least two centuries from the OTL outcome.
 
Top