For a time, confusion reigned, until appointment of Jules Dingler as the new Director General. An engineer of outstanding ability, reputation and experience, Dingler was unphased by the yellow fever threat, and, accompanied by his family, arrived in Colon on March 1, 1883, along with Charles de Lesseps.
Dingler concentrated on restoring order to the work and the organization; however, in doing so, he incurred no small amount of dislike. At this time a new system, the system of small contracts, was initiated and nearly thirty were granted. For these contracts, the Compagnie Universelle rented out the necessary equipment at low rates. It wasn’t particularly efficient, requiring a great deal of paperwork and involving numerous lawsuits in Colombian courts, but the work was getting done, making use of the available labor force.
Dry excavation work was progressing in Culebra Cut and was expected to be finished by May 1885. However, there was growing concern about bank stability and the danger of slides. At the Atlantic and Pacific entrances, dredges worked their way inland. Machinery came from many quarters — France, the United States and Belgium. Equipment was constantly being modified and used in experimental combinations, but mostly it was too light and too small. A growing accumulation of discarded, inoperative equipment along the canal line testified to earlier mistakes.
With some 10,000 men employed, work was going well in September of 1883. The maximum force employed by the French at any one time was reached in 1884, with more than 19,000. The labor supply came from the West Indies, chiefly Jamaica.
But just as things appeared to be going well, tragedy struck the Dingler family. His daughter, Louise, died of yellow fever in January 1884. A month later Dingler’s twenty-year-old son, Jules, died of the same disease. As if that weren’t enough, the daughter’s young fiance, who had come with the family from France, contracted the disease and died also.
Dingler persevered, keeping up the pace of the work. He went back with his wife to France on business in June. They returned to the Isthmus in October, bringing with them a young, capable and energetic engineer named Philippe Bunau-Varilla, a man destined to play a pivotal role in the history of Panama and of the Panama Canal. Bunau-Varilla was assigned as division engineer in the key work of Culebra and Pacific slope construction, involving both dry excavation and dredging. Work at Culebra at this time needed a shot in the arm.
Then, terrible as it seems, tragedy struck again. Dingler’s wife died of yellow fever, just about a year after her daughter and son. A devastated Dingler stayed on the job until June, when he returned to France, never to return to the Isthmus that had taken from him so many of his loved ones.
Maurice Hutin then served as Director General for one month until forced to return to France for health reasons. The new acting Director General was 26-year-old Bunau-Varilla. Worker morale improved under Bunau-Varilla, and excavation increased along the line. Still, there was woefully inadequate equipment and work organization. Decauville handcars were doing most of the work at Culebra, on the Pacific side. Each of five excavators working on the Atlantic side could remove 300 cubic meters each day, but lack of spoil trains defeated their work.
There continued to be not enough of the right type of equipment; it was still too small and too light. And, there was a large turnover of labor. The spoil disposal system was inefficiently organized and managed, dump areas were too close to the excavation and slid back onto the channel whenever the rains came. Drainage ditches built parallel to the Canal helped, but not a lot. The deeper the excavation, the worse the slides. Making the slopes less steep by carving them back was another method of alleviating the slides, but this added to the total amount of digging required. And, while the soil slid with ease into the channel, the sticky clay consistency adhered with tenacity to shovels and often had to be scraped off. French bucket-chain excavators got caught and stopped by stones and rock.
In a move toward greater efficiency, Bunau-Varilla went back to the old scheme of large contractors, but instead of just one, hired several. Hand labor was cut considerably.
One contractor had let so many subcontracts in the western hill at the saddle that it became known as Contractors Hill. As late as July 1885, only about one-tenth of the estimated total had been excavated. Ultimately, the unresolved problem of the slides would doom the sea level canal plan to failure.
All the while, the toll in human lives was mounting, peaking in 1885. Yellow fever, which used to come in two- or three-year cycles, was now constant. Malaria, of course, continued to take even more lives than yellow fever. Because the sick avoided the hospitals whenever possible because of its reputation for propagating disease, much of the death toll was never recorded.
A new Director General, Leon Boyer, arrived in January 1886, relieving Bunau-Varilla. Soon thereafter, Bunau-Varilla, himself, contracted yellow fever, but did not die. However, greatly weakened, he went back to France to recuperate.
Boyer communicated to his superiors his conviction that, within current time and cost limits, it would be impossible to construct a sea level canal. To soften the report, he recommended the design proposed by Bunau-Varilla of a temporary lake and lock canal that could later, after it was built and functioning, be gradually deepened to sea level.
But, by May, he too was gone, another victim of yellow fever. The job of provisional director went to his assistant, Nouailhac-Pioch, until another Director General, a man by the name of Jacquier, the sixth since 1883, was appointed in July 1886, a position he held until the crash of 1888.
Such was the work in 1886, that the area of heaviest excavation, the stretch between Matachin and Culebra, appeared to be one continuous project. The French organization on the Isthmus had, although top-heavy with management, improved, and equipment was plentiful. Housing was clean and adequate, although not screened against flies and mosquitoes.
In spite of improvements, a lack of progress at Culebra was beginning to concern Parisian officials. Charles de Lesseps proposed to Bunau-Varilla the organization of a company to take on the work at Culebra, which he did in July 1886. The company was called “Artigue, Sonderegger et Cie.” after the two engineers who were the company’s technical members. Bunau-Varilla decided to take over the actual field supervision of the work himself. As American engineers would do later, he moved into quarters at Culebra Cut so he could watch the progress of the work. About six months later, the French work at Culebra Cut had reached peak activity. Twenty-six French excavators were digging and carrying the spoil to the dump site; still the Panama Railroad had not been harnessed to the effort of hauling spoil.
It was becoming increasingly clear to nearly everyone except Ferdinand de Lesseps that, under the circumstances, a sea level canal was out of the question and that only a high level lock canal had any hope of succeeding at this point. Under pressure from all sides, he stubbornly stuck to his guns, but finally agreed to consider making a change. Even then he delayed the inevitable for another nine months with the study of alternate plans.
In October 1887, the Superior Advisory Committee, released its report. The eminent French engineers established the possibility of building a high-level lock canal through the Isthmus of Panama. The plan would allow vessel transits while, at the same time, permitting dredging of a channel to sea level sometime in the future. It was never intended to be a permanent solution. De Lesseps finally, reluctantly, agreed. Bunau-Varilla’s idea was to create a series of pools in which floating dredges could be placed; the pools would then be connected by a series of 10 locks. The highest level of such a canal would be 170 feet. Work on the lock canal started on January 15, 1888. Gustave Eiffel, builder of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, would construct the canal locks. The waterway would have a bottom width of 61 feet.
In Gaillard Cut, where the average level had been lowered only 3 feet in 1886, was lowered 10 feet in 1887 and 20 feet in 1888, ultimately bringing the level to 235 feet at the time work was stopped.
Under Artigue, Sonderegger et Cie., work was going very well indeed. Some areas of the canal were nearly complete, the Panama Railroad was being rerouted away from the Cut, the first lock was nearly ready to begin installation and preliminary work on a dam had been started.
But suddenly there was no more money. A public subscription asked for by de Lesseps had failed. Shareholders, at their last meeting in January 1889, decided to dissolve the Compagnie Universelle, placing it under legal receivership under the direction of Joseph Brunet. An ignominious end to such a great effort. Some aspects of the work struggled on for a few months, but by May 15, 1889, all activity on the Isthmus ceased. Liquidation was not completed until 1894.
In France, popular pressure on the government regarding what was called the “Panama Affair” led to prosecution of company officials, including Ferdinand and Charles de Lesseps, who were both indicted for fraud and maladministration. Advanced age and ill health excused the senior de Lesseps from appearing in court, but both were found guilty and given 5-year prison sentences. However, the penalty was never imposed, as the statute of limitations had run out.
Charles, in a second trial for corruption, was indicted and found guilty of bribery. Months he had already spent in jail during the trials were deducted from his one-year sentence. Then, becoming seriously ill, he served the remainder of his sentence in hospital.
By this time, Ferdinand de Lesseps’ mental state was mercifully such that he knew little of what was going on, and he remained sequestered at home within the family circle. He died at age 89 on December 7, 1894. Charles lived until 1923, long enough to see the Panama Canal completed, his father’s name restored to honor and his own reputation substantially cleared.
Many reasons can be stated for the French failure, but it seems clear that the principal reason was de Lesseps’ stubbornness in insisting on and sticking to the sea level plan. But others were at fault also for not opposing him, arguing with him and encouraging him to change his mind. His own charisma turned out to be his enemy. People believed in him beyond reason.
The devotion to duty of the French in the face of the odds faced on the Isthmus is truly extraordinary, even when we remember what a different world it was then and the life span expectations entertained by most people, even those in favorable circumstances.
With the original Wyse Concession to expire in 1893, Wyse set out again for Bogota, where, he negotiated a 10-year extension. The “new” Panama Canal Company, the Compagnie Nouvelle de Canal de Panama was organized effective October 20, 1894.
With insufficient working capital, only some $12,000,000, to proceed with any significant work, the Compagnie Nouvelle entertained the hope of attracting investors who would help them to complete an Isthmian canal as a French enterprise. Initially, they had no intention of selling their rights; they wanted to make a success of the operation and perhaps be able to repay the losses of the original shareholders.
Sailing from France on December 9, 1894, the first group arrived in Panama to again pick up on excavation in Culebra Cut. There, every shovelful of dirt would count, no matter what type of Canal was ultimately decided upon, lock or sea level. By 1897, the work force would have expanded from an initial 700 to more than 4,000.
The Comit? Technique, a high level technical committee, was formed by the Compagnie Nouvelle to review the studies and work — that already finished and that still ongoing — and come up with the best plan for completing the canal. The committee arrived on the Isthmus in February 1896 and went immediately, quietly and efficiently about their work of devising the best possible canal plan, which they presented on November 16, 1898.
Many aspects of the plan were similar in principle to the canal that was finally built by the Americans in 1914. It was a lock canal with two high level lakes to lift ships up and over the Continental Divide. Double locks would be 738 feet long and about 30 feet deep; one chamber of each pair would be 82 feet wide, the other 59. There would be eight sets of locks, two at Bohio Soldado and two at Obispo on the Atlantic side; one at Paraiso, two at Pedro Miguel, and one at Miraflores on the Pacific. Artificial lakes would be formed by damming the Chagres River at Bohio and Alhajuela, providing both flood control and electric power.
If directors of the Compagnie Nouvelle still entertained the idea that the canal could somehow be completed, they were soon faced with the reality of the situation; during and following the bitter scandal of the old company, the public had lost all faith in the project. There would be, therefore, no funds forthcoming from a bond issue, and none was tried, nor did the French government have any support for the project.
With half its original capital gone by 1898, the company had few choices — abandon the project or sell it. Company directors decided to proffer a deal to the most likely taker, the United States of America. It was no secret that the United States was interested in an Isthmian canal. With the technical commission report and a tentative rights transfer proposal in hand, company officials headed for the United States, where they were received by President William McKinley on December 2, 1989. The deal was five years in the making, but was eventually signed.
Some say that a large part of the eventual success on the part of the United States in building a canal at Panama came from avoiding the mistakes of the French. The lessons learned from the French experience were certainly helpful, but the American success was considerably more than that.
AMERICAN CANAL CONSTRUCTION
Panama was enveloped in its own “miasmal mist” of failure following the French Canal adventure. The second Walker Commission, the U.S. Isthmian Canal Commission of 1899-1902, ordered by President McKinley, favored a Nicaragua route, as did both popular and official U.S. support. Panama seemed clothed in defeat, while Nicaragua was regarded as a clean slate for an all-American canal project.
Following President McKinley’s assassination, Theodore Roosevelt became president. For him, there was no romance about the project, none of this nonsense about following a dream. The canal was practical, vital and indispensable to the U.S. destiny as a global power with supremacy over both its coastal oceans. Roosevelt was a proponent of a doctrine proposed by U.S. naval officer and scholar Thayer Mahan, who explained his theory in the 1890 book “Influence of Sea Power upon History.” The theory was that supremacy at sea was an integral part of commercial and military prowess. For Roosevelt, this made a U.S.-controlled canal an absolute necessity.
A timely incident clearly demonstrated this truth to Roosevelt and the world. A naval base had been established in Cuba as a result of the Spanish-American War. The battleship Maine, which was stationed there, was blown up on February 15, 1898, with 260 lives lost. At the time, another battleship, the Oregon had been stationed in San Francisco. To save the day, the Oregon was ordered to proceed at once to the Atlantic, a 12,000-mile course around the Horn. Sixty-seven days later, but fortunately, still in time, the vessel arrived off Florida to join in the Battle of Santiago Bay. The experience clearly showed the military significance of an Isthmian canal.
As mentioned before, popular sentiment and the second Walker Commission were in favor of a Canal in Nicaragua, and the actions along those lines were being hastened through the U.S. House. At about this same time, the Compagnie Nouvelle held a stockholders meeting in Paris, and, fearing to get left out in the cold with their proposed deal with the Americans, ascribed a new value to their Panama assets of $40,000,000. This just happened to be the value put upon them by the Americans. Admiral Walker was quoted saying, “It put things on a very different footing.” The House, however, passed the Hepburn Bill favoring Nicaragua – two votes short of unanimous.
Through this, the White House had maintained silence; however, following the House vote, Roosevelt summoned the members of the Walker Commission for a closed-door meeting. There he let it be known that he wanted the French offer accepted and that the Commission was to provide a supplementary report unanimously favoring the Panama route. The Commission prepared the supplementary report reversing its original decision and coming out unanimously for Panama.
President Roosevelt submitted the supplementary report to Congress in January 1902. Wisconsin Senator John Coit Spooner introduced an amendment to the Hepburn Bill authorizing the president to acquire the French company’s assets and concessions for a maximum price of $40,000,000. The bill stated that if arrangements could not be agreed upon between the United States and Colombia within “a reasonable time,” the President would be authorized to seek an agreement for the alternate route through Nicaragua.