The Panama Canal 1915

In theory, the Panama Canal was such a simple idea. The Isthmus of Panama was just a thin strip of land separating two mighty oceans. If you dug a canal across it, you’d save yourself the long, hazardous journey around the Cape, or the even worse one through the North West Passage.

The idea had been talked about for literally hundreds of years when the French-built Suez Canal opened in 1869. Encouraged by its success, the French set up a company to dig a Panama Canal in 1878. It obtained a licence to build and operate the canal from the Columbian Government (Panama was a District of Columbia at that time) And with the celebrated Ferdinand de Lesseps at its head, it soon attracted millions of pounds in public funding.

But then the problems started.

There were disagreements about the basic engineering; De Lesseps favoured a sea-level canal, like Suez, despite the fact he would have to cut through a chain of mountains at least 360 feet high. Others backed a ‘locks and lake’ construction, where a chain