Crusader Canal

NapoleonXIV

Banned
WI the First Crusaders, buoyed by success went on to take more land and invaded Sinai. Then in 1125 Prince Godfrey the Engineer of Jerusalem, financed by the Venetians, builds the Suez canal?

Assuming this happens (and it's not really impossible, Suez is just digging, no mountains etc.) how does this affect things

(I know there was an ancient canal from the Red Sea to the Nile and it could have been reopened, but I want a Crusader state running it.)
 
The Suez Canal is a pretty *big* project. I can't see any state run along Outremer lines managing it. In fact, I can barely see any state of the time managing it. The Red Sea canal, despite its length, is a much less ambitious development. The main advantage of Suez, remember, is that the canal can be dug navigable for big ships. Nobody in the 12th century needs that.
 
I have it as a big long white elephant started by some crusader king who would also see it acting dual purpose as a moat.
He uses captured islamic soldiers for labour and doesn't complete it but does make quite a dent in the landscape for later completion.

The big problem with the idea is if Christendom owns the relevant area then the land route is just fine. There's no need to get goods shipped that fast so sending them a little way over land is no problem. It would really be mostly a prestige thing, more of a 'this is Africa and that is Arabia' divider then a practical Suez.
 

trajen777

Banned
The first canal was built well before this ----

That southern leg of the Lesseps canal actually followed a vastly older canal. Napoleon had been a latecomer to the canal idea. In 500 BC, the Persian conqueror of Egypt, Darius, had begun a canal along that same route. He meant his canal to swing west at the mid-point and link with the Nile near Cairo. But Darius's experts, like Napoleon's, decided the Red Sea was higher than the Mediterranean. They too thought a canal would result in disaster.
So Darius didn't finish his canal. But the Ptolemies who followed Darius did finish it. By 250 BC, a substantial canal linked the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. It was fifty yards wide and it served ocean-going vessels. Cleopatra probably rode that canal in her royal barge, a few years before the birth of Christ.
Here the plot thickens even further: For Darius had built on the route of an earlier canal, begun in 600 BC. And that canal followed the route of an even older canal that served shipping around 1500 BC. Temple carvings show the Queen of Egypt setting out for Africa on that canal. And, as Egyptian history blends into myth, 4000 or so years in the past, it tells of still other canals.
 

HueyLong

Banned
Using it as a defensive barrier is the more likely option I think. Not a full canal at first, but a long defensive wall, with some sections as moats.
 
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