Histoire du canal de Panamá

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L’histoire du canal de Panamá remonte aux premiers explorateurs européens en Amérique puisque la mince bande de terre de l'isthme de Panamá offrait une occasion unique de créer un passage maritime entre l'océan Pacifique et l'océan Atlantique. Les premiers colons de l'Amérique centrale l'ont vite reconnu et des plans de canaux ont été produits à plusieurs reprises par la suite.

Vers la fin du XIX^e siècle, les avancées technologiques et les pressions commerciales étaient telles que la construction d'un canal devient une proposition viable. Une première tentative de la France échoue mais permet de faire une première percée. Celle-ci est utilisée par la suite par les États-Unis, donnant l'actuel canal de Panamá en 1914. En même temps, la nation du Panamá est créée par division avec la Colombie.

Actuellement, le canal est toujours en opération, dégage des bénéfices et représente une composante vitale du transport maritime mondial.

Sommaire 1 Avant le canal 1.1 Premières routes 1.2 L'ère espagnole 1.3 L'expédition écossaise 1.4 Le chemin de fer 2 Le projet français 2.1 Conception 2.2 Construction Begins 2.3 New French Canal Company 2.4 The French Achievement 3 Nicaragua 4 The United States and the canal 4.1 Colombia in the 19th century 4.2 Roosevelt and Panama independence 4.3 The takeover 4.4 Making sense of the task 4.5 Setting the course 4.6 Dealing with disease 4.7 Living conditions 4.8 Construction in earnest 4.9 The Gaillard Cut 4.10 The dams 4.11 The locks 4.12 Opening 4.13 Taking stock of the project 5 The Madden Dam 6 The Third Locks Scheme 7 Handover of the Canal 7.1 Troubled US–Panama relations 7.2 Negotiations toward a handover 7.3 Military takeover of Panama 7.4 The handover 8 Sources 8.1 Référence générale 8.2 Notes 9 Bibliographie

[modifier] Avant le canal

La localisation stratégique de l'isthme de Panamá et la courte distance séparant les océans ont conduit à plusieurs tentatives à travers les sicèles de créer une route à travers l'isthme. Si la plupart des premiers projets concernaient une route terrestre reliant les ports, un canal a été envisagé très tôt.

[modifier] Premières routes

L'isthme de Panamá est déjà utilisé par les Amérindiens avant l'invasion européenne du XV^e siècle. Les premiers explorateurs européens découvrent des routes vieilles de plusieurs siècles à travers l'isthme utilisées par des civilisations pré-colombiennes et les peuples Waunana et Ngobe.

L'auteur Gavin Menzies suggère^[1] dans son hypothèse 1421 controversée que des commerçants chinois ont maintenu une présence commerciale pré-colombienne au Panamá et contruit un petit canal , en notant que le grand canal de Chine remonte au Ve siècle avant J.C. Cette théorie n'a toutefois pas reçu un grand soutien.

[modifier] L'ère espagnole

En 1514, Vasco Núñez de Balboa, le premier explorateur européen à voir le Pacifique est, construit une route utilisée pour transporter ses navires de Santa María la Antigua del Darién sur la côte Atlantique du Panamá à la baie San Miguel (Pacifique). Cette route faisait 50 à 65 km de long mais a été vite abandonnée.

En novembre 1515, le capitaine Antonio Tello de Guzmán découvre un chemin traversant l'isthme depuis le golfe de Panamá jusqu'à Portobelo, près du site de la ville abandonnée de Nombre de Dios. Ce chemin était utilisé par les natifs pendant des siècles et était praticable. Il est amélioré et pavé par les Espagnols et devient El Camino Real. La route est alors utilisée pour transporter l'or jusqu'à Portobelo pour l'amener en Espagne et devient la première route majeure de l'isthme^[2].

En 1524, Charles Quint suggère qu'en creusant la terre quelque part au Panamá, les voyages vers l'Équateur et le Pérou seraient plus courts et permettraient aux navires d'éviter le cap Horn et ses périls, notamment pour le transport d'or. Un premier plan est produit en 1529 mais la situation politique en Europe et le niveau technologique de l'époque rendent cela impossible.

La route de Portobelo au Pacifique connait ses premiers problèmes et en 1533 Gaspar de Espinosa recommande au roi de construire une nouvelle route. Son plan est de contruire une route depuis la ville de Panamá, qui est alors le terminus Pacifique du EL Camino Real, à la ville de Cruces, sur les rives de la rivière Chagres et à 30 km de Panamá. Une fois sur la rivière Chagres, les bateaux transportent leur cargaison jusque dans la mer des Caraïbes. La route est construite et est appelée El Camino de Cruces ou sentier Las Cruces. À l'embouchure de la rivière Chagres, la petite ville de Chagres est fortifiée et la fortresse de San Lorenzo est construite sur un promontoire surplombant la région. De Chagres, les trésors et autres cargaisons sont transportés jusqu'à l'entrepôt du roi à Portobelo.

La route durera plusieurs années et sera même utilisée dans les années 1840 par les chercheurs d'or se dirigeant vers la ruée vers l'or de Californie.

[modifier] L'expédition écossaise

Le projet Darién est une autre tentative d'établir une route entre les océans. En juillet 1698, cinq navires quittent Leith en Écosse dans le but d'établir une colonie à Darién et de construire une route pour le commerce vers la Chine et le Japon. Les colons arrivent en novembre à Darién et se l'approprient comme colonie de Calédonie. Mais l'expédition est mal préparée pour les conditions hostiles, souffre des maladies locales et d'une mauvaise organisation. Les colons abandonnent finalement New Edinburgh en laissant quatre cent tombes derrière eux.

Hélas, une autre expédition de soutien a déjà quitté l'Écosse et arrive à la colonie en novembre 1699, rencontre les mêmes problèmes en plus d'une attaque et d'un blocus des Espagnols. Le 12 avril 1700, la Calédonie est abandonnée pour la dernière fois^[3].

[modifier] Le chemin de fer

Au XIX^e siècle, il devient évident que le chemin Las Cruces ne suffit plus : il faut un moyen plus rapide et et moins coûteux de transport à travers l'isthme. Étant donné la difficulté de construction d'un canal, un chemin de fer semble une être une solution idéale.

Les études commencent dès 1827 ; plusieurs projets sont proposés et des capitaux sont recherchés. Vers le milieu du siècle, d'autres facteurs sont encourageants : l'annexion de la Californie par les États-Unis en 1848 et les mouvements toujours plus nombreux de colons vers la côte ouest accroissent la demande pour une route rapide entre les océans ; la ruée vers l'or de Californie prolonge de mouvement.

Le chemin de fer du Panamá est alors contruit à travers l'isthme de 1850 à 1855 ; il fait 75 km de long de Colón sur la côte Atlantique jusqu'à Panamá sur le Pacifique. Le projet représente un chef d'œuvre d'ingénierie de son temps, réalisé dans des conditions difficiles : on estime que plus de 12 000 personnes sont mortes dans sa construction, la plupart du choléra et du paludisme.

Jusqu'à l'ouverture du canal, le chemin de fer a transporté le plus gros volume de fret par unité de longueur que n'importe quelle autre voie ferrée dans le monde. L'existence du chemin de fer a été un facteur clé dans la sélection de Panamá comme lieu du canal.

[modifier] Le projet français

L'idée de construire un canal à travers l'Amérique centrale est suggérée à nouveau par un scientifique allemand, Alexander von Humboldt, ce qui mène à un regain d'intérêt au début du XIXe siècle. EN 1819, le gouvernment espagnol autorise la construction d'un canal et la création d'une compagnie pour le construire.

Le projet ne fait que flotter dans l'air pendant un certain temps mais de nombreuses études sont conduites entre 1850 et 1875, aboutissant à la conclusion que les deux routes les plus favorables sont à travers Panamá (alors partie de la Colombie) et le Nicaragua ; une route à travers l'isthme de Tehuantepec au Mexique est une troisième option.

[modifier] Conception

After the successful completion of the Suez Canal in 1869, the French were inspired to tackle the apparently similar project to connect the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, and were confident that this could be carried out with little difficulty.

Between 1876 and 1878 a route across the isthmus of Panama was explored by General Istvan Türr and his brother-in-law Lieutenant Lucien Napoléon-Bonaparte Wyse, assisted by Béla Gerster (later chief engineer of the Corinth Canal).^[4] In 1876 Türr purchased from Colombia a concession to build a canal, and in 1879 he sold this on to La Societé International du Canal Interocéanique.^[5] This international company was led by Ferdinand de Lesseps, who had been in charge of the construction of the Suez Canal; his enthusiastic leadership, coupled with his reputation as the man who had brought the Suez project to a successful conclusion, persuaded speculators and ordinary citizens to invest in the scheme, ultimately to the tune of almost $400 million.

The building of the Panama Canal presented several challenges without precedent in the construction of the Suez canal. The mountainous spine of Central America comes to a low point at Panama, but still rises to a height of 110 metres (360 ft) above sea level at the lowest crossing point. A less obvious barrier was presented by the rivers crossing the canal, particularly the Chagres River, which flows very strongly in the rainy season. This water could not simply be dumped into the canal, as it would have presented an extreme hazard to shipping. To reduce the scale of the excavation required and at the same time solve the problem of managing the torrential Chagres river, Adolphe Godin de Lepinay proposed the damming of the Chagres and the Rio Grande and the creation of two lakes, which would facilitate the construction of a lock-based canal across the isthmus.

However, de Lesseps ignored de Lepinay's proposal and opted instead for a sea-level canal. From the beginning, the project was plagued by over-confidence and a lack of engineering expertise. In May 1879 an international engineering congress was convened in Paris, with Ferdinand De Lesseps at its head; of the 136 delegates, however, only 42 were engineers, the others being made up of speculators, politicians, and personal friends of de Lesseps. De Lesseps himself had no training as an engineer. The engineering congress estimated the cost of the project at $214 million; on February 14, 1880, an engineering commission revised this estimate to $168.6 million. De Lesseps twice reduced this estimate, with no apparent justification; on February 20 to $131.6 million, and again on March 1 to $120 million. The engineering congress estimated seven or eight years as the time required to complete the work; De Lesseps reduced the time to six years, as compared to the ten years required for the Suez Canal.

The proposed sea-level canal was to have uniform depth of 9 metres (29.5 ft), a bottom width of 22 metres (72 ft), and a width at water level of about 27.5 metres (90 ft), and involved excavation estimated at 120,000,000 cubic metres (157,000,000 yd³). It was proposed that a dam be built at Gamboa to control the flooding of the Chagres river, along with channels to carry water away from the canal. However, the Gamboa dam was later found to be impracticable, and the Chagres River problem was left unresolved.

[modifier] Construction Begins

Construction of the canal began on January 1, 1880, though digging at Culebra did not begin until January 22, 1882^[6]. A huge labour force was assembled; in 1888 this numbered about 20,000 men, nine-tenths of these being afro-Caribbean workers from the West Indies.

The project was hampered by inadequate equipment and planning; no adequate provision was made for the disposal of spoil, for example, despite the huge scale of the excavation. The most serious problem of all, however, was tropical disease, particularly malaria and yellow fever. Since it was not known at the time how these diseases were contracted, any precautions against them were doomed to failure. For example, the legs of the hospital beds were placed in tins of water to keep insects from crawling up; but these pans of stagnant water made ideal breeding places for mosquitoes, the carriers of these two diseases, and so worsened the problem. The disease issue created significant difficulties with keeping the work fully manned. Although extravagant rewards were given to French engineers who joined the canal effort, the huge death toll from disease made it difficult to retain them — many of them either left or died from disease a short time after arrival. The total death toll between 1881 and 1889 was estimated at over 22,000.

Even as early as 1885, it had become clear to many that a sea-level canal was impractical, and that an elevated canal with locks was the best answer; however, de Lesseps was stubborn, and it was not until October 1887 that the lock canal plan was adopted. Gustave Eiffel was enlisted to design the locks, which were to be in duplicate, 225 metres (738 ft) long and 25 metres (82 ft) wide, with a normal depth of 9 metres (29.5 ft).^[7]

By this time, however, the mounting financial, engineering and mortality problems, coupled with frequent floods and mudslides, were making it clear that the project was in serious trouble. Work was pushed forward under the new plan until May 1889, when the company became bankrupt, and work was finally suspended on May 15, 1889. After eight years, the work was about two-fifths completed, and some $234,795,000 had been spent.

The collapse of the company resulted in the "Panama scandals" in France, and the role of two Jewish speculators in the affair enabled Edouard Drumont, an anti-Semite, to exploit the matter. One hundred and four legislators were found to have been involved in the corruption and Jean Jaurès was commissioned by the French parliament to conduct an enquiry into the matter, completed in 1893.^[8]

[modifier] New French Canal Company

It soon became clear that the only way to salvage anything for the stockholders was to continue the project. A new concession was obtained from Colombia, and in 1894 the Compagnie Nouvelle du Canal de Panama was created to finish the construction. In order to comply with the terms of the concession, work started immediately on the Culebra excavation — which would be required under any possible plans — while a team of competent engineers began a comprehensive study of the project. The plan eventually settled on was for a two-level, lock-based canal.

The new effort never really gathered momentum; the main reason for this was the speculation by the United States over a canal built through Nicaragua, which would render a Panama canal useless. The largest number of men employed on the new project was 3,600 in 1896; this minimal workforce was employed primarily to comply with the terms of the concession and to maintain the existing excavation and equipment in saleable condition — the company had already started looking for a buyer, with a price tag of $100 million.

Meanwhile, in the United States, the Isthmian Canal Commission was established in 1899 to examine the possibilities of a Central American canal and to recommend a route. In November 1901 the commission reported that a U.S. canal should be built through Nicaragua unless the French were willing to sell out at $40 million. This recommendation became a law on June 28, 1902, and the New Panama Canal Company was practically forced to sell for that amount or get nothing.^[9]

[modifier] The French Achievement

Although the French effort was to a large extent doomed to failure from the beginning — because of the unsolved disease issue and insufficient appreciation of the engineering difficulties — its work was, nevertheless, not entirely wasted. Between the old and new companies, the French in total excavated 59,747,638 cubic metres (78,146,960 yd³) of material, of which 14,255,890 cubic metres (18,646,000 yd³) were taken from the Culebra Cut. The old company dredged a channel from Panama Bay to the port at Balboa; and the channel dredged on the Atlantic side, known as the French canal, was found to be useful for bringing in sand and stone for the locks and spillway concrete at Gatún.

The detailed surveys and studies, particularly those carried out by the new canal company, were of great help to the later American effort; and considerable machinery, including railroad equipment and vehicles, were of great help in the early years of the American project.

In all, it was estimated that 22,713,396 cubic metres (29,708,000 yd³) of excavation were of direct use to the Americans, valued at $25,389,240, along with equipment and surveys valued at $17,410,586.

[modifier] Nicaragua

The discovery of gold in California in 1848 and the rush of would-be miners stimulated the United States' interest in creating a canal between the oceans. In 1887 a U.S. regiment went to survey canal possibilities in Nicaragua. In 1889 the Maritime Canal Company was asked to begin creating a canal in the area, and it chose Nicaragua. The company lost its funding in 1893 as a result of a stock panic, and canal work ceased in Nicaragua. In both 1897 and 1899, Congress charged a Canal Commission to look into possible construction, and Nicaragua was chosen as the location both times.

The Nicaraguan Canal proposal was finally made redundant by the American takeover of the French Panama Canal project. However, the increase in modern shipping, and the increasing sizes of ships, have revived interest in the project; there are fresh proposals for either a modern-day canal across Nicaragua capable of carrying post-Panamax ships, or a rail link carrying containers between ports on either coast.

[modifier] The United States and the canal

[modifier] Colombia in the 19th century

In 1846 the US Polk administration signed a treaty with Colombia, which owned Panama at the time. A railway across the isthmus was opened in 1855, the sole protector of the line was the US, according to the 1846 treaty. In April 1856 railway traffic was interrupted because of a riot in Panama City, in which at least 15 Americans were killed. In September 1856, US troops landed to protect the railway station for three days. U.S. troops landed in Panama at least six times in the nineteenth century to crush rebellions, ensuring that the area remained open.^[10]

During the last decade of the nineteenth century in Colombia, the ruling conservatives maintained power through fradulent elections. The situation was worsened by an economic crisis caused by falling coffee prices in the international market, which mainly affected the opposition liberal party. In 1899 a civil war called the Thousand Days War began in Colombia between the liberals and conservatives.^[11] During the war, the US refused to transport Colombia troops on the railway.^[12]

[modifier] Roosevelt and Panama independence

Theodore Roosevelt, who became president of the United States in 1901, believed that a U.S.-controlled canal across Central America was of vital strategic interest to the U.S. This idea gained wide impetus following the destruction of the battleship USS Maine in Cuba in February 1898. The USS Oregon, a battleship stationed in San Francisco, was dispatched to take her place, but the voyage — around Cape Horn — took 67 days. Although she was in time to join in the Battle of Santiago Bay, the voyage would have taken just twenty-one days via Panama.

Roosevelt was able to reverse a previous decision by the Walker Commission in favour of a Nicaragua Canal, and pushed through the acquisition of the French Panama Canal effort. Panama was then part of Colombia, so Roosevelt opened negotiations with the Colombians to obtain the necessary permission. In early 1903 the Hay-Herran Treaty was signed by both nations.

The Colombian Senate debated whether to accept the Hay-Herran Treaty. US secretary of state John Hay threated if the treaty was postponed or rejected, "action might be taken by the Congress next winter which every friend of Colombia would regret." American legal adviser of the New Company (the firm who owned the canal railroad), William Nelson Cromwell predicted to a newspaper that Panama would secede if the Colombian Senate rejected the treaty. President Roosevelt wrote to Hay: "Those contemptible little creatures in Bogota ought to understand how much they are jeopardizing things and imperiling their own future." Despite these warnings, the Colombian Senate rejected the treaty.

To make matters worse, in April 1900 the Colombian Senate insinuated that the New Company's grant may be unconstitutional and would not be renewed. This would cause all of the New Company's property to be seized by the Colombian government in 1904. Roosevelt swore that he would have no more to do with "the foolish and homicidal corruptionists in Bogota." "the Bogota lot of jack rabbits" should not be allowed "permenantly to bar one of the future highways of civilization."^[13]

The Roosevelt administration was hesitant to invade Colombia. Instead, Roosevelt wrote in a letter to ultra-imperialist Senator Albert Shaw of the possibility of a Panama revolt.^[14] Panama had decided to become part of Colombia when it gained its independence from Spain in 1821, but it had seceded four times in the next forty years. The Colombian government had suppressed an uprising in 1885.^[15] Roosevelt implied to Panamanian rebels that if they revolted, the U.S. Navy would assist their cause for independence. On October 15, 1903 four US warships set sail for Panama.^[16] Panama proceeded to proclaim its independence on November 3, 1903, and the USS Nashville in local waters impeded any interference from Colombia (see gunboat diplomacy).

The victorious Panamanians returned the favour to Roosevelt by allowing the United States control of the Panama Canal Zone in February 23 1904, for an initial payment of US$10 million with an annual payment of $250,000 for rental of the land (as provided in the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, signed on November 18, 1903).

[modifier] The takeover

The United States formally took control of the French property relating to the canal on 4 May, 1904, when Lieutenant Mark Brooke of the United States Army was presented with the keys; there was little ceremony.

The newly created Panama Canal Zone Control came under the control of the Isthmian Canal Commission during canal construction.

[modifier] Making sense of the task

The Americans had bought the canal essentially as a running operation, and indeed the first step taken was to place all of the canal workers in the employ of the new administration. However, this was not as helpful to the project as it may have seemed, as the operation was at that point being maintained at essentially minimum strength, in order to comply with the canal's concession and keep the plant in working order.

The Americans therefore inherited a small workforce, but also a great jumble of buildings, infrastructure and equipment, much of which had been the victim of fifteen years of neglect in the harsh, humid jungle environment. There were virtually no facilities in place for a large workforce, and the infrastructure was crumbling. The early years of the American work therefore produced little in terms of real progress, but were in many ways the most crucial and most difficult of the project.

The task of cataloguing the assets was a huge one; it took many weeks simply to card index the available equipment. A total of 2,148 buildings had been acquired, many of which were completely uninhabitable after years of neglect, and housing was at first a significant problem. The Panama Railway was in a severe state of decay. Still, there was a great deal that was of significant use; many locomotives, dredgers and other pieces of floating equipment were put to good use by the Americans throughout their construction effort.

John Findley Wallace was elected chief engineer of the canal on 6 May, 1904, and immediately came under pressure to "make the dirt fly". However, the initial bureaucratic oversight from Washington stifled his efforts to get large forces of heavy equipment in place rapidly, and caused a great deal of friction between Wallace and the commission. Both Wallace and Gorgas, determined to make great strides as rapidly as possible, found themselves frustrated by delay and red tape at every turn; finally in 1905, Wallace resigned.

[modifier] Setting the course

Wallace was replaced as chief engineer by John Frank Stevens, who arrived on the isthmus on July 26, 1905. Stevens rapidly realised that a serious investment in infrastructure was necessary, and set to upgrading the railway, improving sanitation in the cities of Panamá and Colón, remodelling all of the old French buildings, and building hundreds of new ones to provide housing. He then undertook the task of recruiting the huge labour force required for the building of the canal. Given the unsavoury reputation of Panama by this time, this was a difficult task, but recruiting agents were dispatched to the West Indies, Italy, and Spain, and a supply of workers was soon arriving at the isthmus.

Like Wallace before him, Stevens found the red tape vexing; but his approach was to press ahead anyway, and get approval later. He improved the drilling and dirt-removal equipment at the Culebra Cut, with a great improvement in efficiency. He also revised the inadequate provisions for the disposal of the vast quantities of spoil that were to be excavated.

Even at this date, no decision had been taken regarding whether the canal should be a lock canal or a sea-level canal — the excavation that was under way would be useful in either case. Towards the end of 1905, President Roosevelt sent a team of engineers to Panama to investigate the relative merits of both schemes, as regards their costs and time requirements. The engineers decided in favour of a sea-level canal by a vote of eight to five; but the Canal Commission, and Stevens himself, opposed this scheme, and Stevens's report to Roosevelt was instrumental in convincing the president of the merits of a lock-based scheme. The Senate and House of Representatives ratified the lock-based scheme, and work was free to formally continue under this plan — which, as it turned out, was similar to the scheme proposed in 1879 by Adolphe Godin de Lépinay. The new canal was to be substantially different to the French design, however — 91 metres (300 ft) wide as opposed to 22 metres (72 ft), straighter, and with locks significantly larger than Eiffel's.

Another controversy from this time was whether the canal work should be carried out by contractors, or by the U.S. government itself. Opinions were strongly divided, but Stevens eventually came to favour the direct approach, and this was the one finally adopted by Roosevelt. However, Roosevelt also decided that army engineers should carry out the work, and appointed Major George Washington Goethals as chief engineer under the direction of Stevens in February 1907.

Stevens was already frustrated by the administrative situation, and the decision to involve the army at this level may have been the last straw; in any case, he resigned, and was replaced by Goethals.

[modifier] Dealing with disease

One of the greatest challenges facing the builders of the Panama Canal was dealing with the tropical diseases rife in the area, particularly yellow fever and malaria. The eventual success of the project is owed substantially to the sanitation program put in place by Dr William C. Gorgas, which included general health care and the provision of an extensive health infrastructure.

A significant part of this work was an intensive effort to eradicate mosquitoes, the carriers of malaria and yellow fever, from the canal zone. This was accomplished by removing any possible sources of standing water, in which mosquitoes breed, including draining and filling large areas of swamp, and by oiling remaining pools of standing water.

These efforts were a great success, and contributed significantly to the overall success of the canal project. The hospitals maintained were reputed to be the best anywhere in the tropics; some 32,000 patients were treated per year. By 1906 yellow fever was virtually wiped out in the canal zone, and the number of deaths caused by the other top disease, malaria, was also reduced significantly.

[modifier] Living conditions

The canal zone originally had very minimal facilities for entertainment and relaxation for the canal workers, except the saloons; as a result the men drank heavily, largely because there was nothing else to do, and drunkenness was a great problem. The generally unfriendly conditions resulted in many American workers returning home each year.

It was clear that conditions had to be improved if the project were to succeed, so a program of improvements was put in place. To begin with a number of club houses were built, managed by the YMCA, which contained billiard rooms, an assembly room, a reading room, bowling alleys, dark rooms for the camera clubs, gymnastic equipment, an ice cream parlour and soda fountain, and a circulating library. The members' dues were only ten dollars a year; the remaining deficit (of about $7,000, at the larger club houses) was paid by the Commission.

Baseball grounds were built by the commission, and special trains were laid on to take people to matches; a very competitive league soon developed. Fortnightly Saturday night dances were held at the Hotel Tivoli, which had a spacious ballroom.

These measures had a marked influence on life in the canal zone: drunkenness fell off sharply, and the saloon trade dropped by sixty per cent. Crucially, the number of workers leaving the project each year dropped significantly.

[modifier] Construction in earnest

The work that had been done to this point was unimpressive in terms of actual construction but, in terms of preparation, absolutely essential. By the time Goethals took over, all of the infrastructure for the construction had been created, or at least greatly overhauled and expanded from the original French effort, which eased his task considerably; and he was soon able to start making real progress with the construction effort. He divided the project into three divisions: Atlantic, Central and Pacific.

• The Atlantic division, under Major William L. Sibert, was responsible for construction of the massive breakwater at the entrance to Limon Bay, the Gatun locks and their 3.5-mile approach channel, and the immense Gatun Dam.

• The Pacific Division, under Sydney B.Williamson (the only civilian member of this high-level team), was similarly responsible for the Pacific entrance to the canal, including a three-mile breakwater in Panama Bay, the approach channel, and the Miraflores and Pedro Mighel locks and their associated dams.

• The Central division, under Major David du Bose Gaillard, was responsible for everything in between; in particular, it had arguably the greatest challenge of the whole project — the excavation of the Gaillard Cut, one of the greatest engineering tasks of its time, which involved cutting eight miles through the continental divide down to a level 12 metres (40 ft) above sea level.

By August 1907 a million cubic yards (765,000 m³) per month was being excavated, which was a record for the difficult rainy season; not long after, this was doubled, and then increased again; at the peak of productivity, three million cubic yards (2,300,000 m³) were being excavated per month. (In terms of pure excavation, this is equivalent to digging a Channel Tunnel every 3½ months.) Never in the history of construction work had so much material been removed so quickly.

[modifier] The Gaillard Cut

One of the greatest barriers to a canal was the continental divide, which originally rose to 64 metres (210 feet) above sea level at the drainage divide; the effort to create a cut through this barrier of rock was clearly one of the greatest challenges faced by the project, and indeed gave rise to one of the greatest engineering feats of its time.

When Goethals arrived at the canal, he had brought with him Major David du Bose Gaillard of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Gaillard was placed in charge of the central district of the canal, which stretched from Pedro Miguel Locks to the Gatun Dam, and dedicated himself to the job of getting the Culebra Cut, as it was then known, excavated.

The scale of the work was massive: six thousand men worked in the cut, drilling holes in which were placed a total of 27 thousand tonnes (60 million pounds) of dynamite to break up the rock, which was then taken away by as many as 160 trains in a day. Landslides were a frequent and major problem, due to the oxidation and weakening of the underlying iron strata in the rock. The scale of the job, and the frequent unpredictable slides, tended towards chaos; but Gaillard overcame the difficulties with quiet, clear-sighted leadership.

On May 20, 1913, steam shovels made a passage through the Culebra Cut at the level of the canal bottom. The French effort had reduced the summit to 59 metres (193 ft), but over a relatively narrow width; the Americans had lowered this to 12 metres (40 ft) above sea level, over a much greater width, and had excavated over 76 million cubic metres (100 million yd³) of material. Some 23 million cubic metres (30 million yd³) of this material was additional to the planned excavation, having been brought into the cut by the landslides.

Dry excavation ended on September 10, 1913; a slide in January had brought 1,500,000 cubic metres (2,000,000 yd³) of earth into the cut, but it was decided that this loose material would be removed by dredging once the cut was flooded.

[modifier] The dams

Two artificial lakes form key parts of the canal, Lake Gatun and Miraflores Lake. Four dams were constructed to create these lakes:

• two small dams at Miraflores impound Miraflores Lake;

• a dam at Pedro Miguel encloses the south end of the Gaillard Cut, which is essentially an arm of Lake Gatun;

• the Gatun Dam is the main dam blocking the original course of the Chagres River and creating Lake Gatun.

The two dams at Miraflores are an earth dam 825 metres (2,700 ft) long connecting with Miraflores Locks from the west, and a concrete spillway dam 150 metres (500 ft) long to the east of the locks. The concrete east dam has eight regulating gates similar to those on the Gatun Spillway.

The dam at Pedro Miguel is of earth and is 430 metres (1,400 ft) long, extending from a hill on the west to the lock. The face of the dam is protected by rock riprap at the water level.

By far the largest of the dams, and by far the most demanding, was the Gatun Dam, which created and impounds Lake Gatun. This huge earthen dam, which is 640 metres (2,100 ft) thick at the base and 2,300 metres (7,500 ft) long along the top, was the largest of its kind in the world when the canal opened.

[modifier] The locks

The project of building the locks began with the first concrete laid at Gatún on August 24, 1909.

The locks at Gatún are built into a cutting made in a hill bordering the lake, which required the excavation of 3,800,000 cubic metres (5,000,000 yd³) of material, mostly rock. The locks themselves were made of 1,564,400 cubic metres (2,046,100 yd³) of concrete; an extensive system of electric railways and overhead cableways were used to transport concrete into the lock construction sites.

The Pacific-side locks were finished first; the single flight at Pedro Miguel in 1911 and Miraflores in May 1913. The seagoing tug Gatun, an Atlantic entrance working tug used for hauling barges, had the honour on September 26, 1913, of making the first trial lockage of Gatun Locks. The lockage went perfectly, although all valves were controlled manually since the central control board was still not ready.

[modifier] Opening

On October 10, 1913, the dike at Gamboa, which had kept the Culebra Cut isolated from Gatun Lake, was demolished; the initial detonation was set off telegraphically by President Woodrow Wilson in Washington. The flooding of the cut opened the way for dredging to remove the remaining material from the cut, and on January 7, 1914, the Alexandre La Valley, an old French crane boat, became the first ship to make a complete transit of the Panama Canal under its own steam.

As construction tailed off, the canal team began to disperse. Thousands of workers were laid off; entire towns were either disassembled or demolished. Gorgas left to help fight pneumonia in the South African gold mines, and went on to become surgeon general of the Army. On April 1, 1914, the Isthmian Canal Commission ceased to exist, and the zone came under a new Canal Zone Governor; the first holder of this office was Colonel Goethals.

A grand celebration was originally planned for the official opening of the canal, as befits so great an effort which had aroused strong feelings in the United States for many years. However, the great opening never occurred. The outbreak of World War I forced cancellation of the main festivities, and the grand opening became a modest local affair. The Canal cement boat Ancon, piloted by Captain John A. Constantine, the Canal's first pilot, made the first official transit of the canal on August 15, 1914. There were no international dignitaries in attendance; Goethals followed the Ancon's progress from shore, by railroad.

[modifier] Taking stock of the project

When the canal opened, it was a technological marvel. The canal was an important strategic and economic asset to the U.S. and revolutionized world shipping patterns; the opening of the canal removed the need for ships to travel the long and dangerous route via the Drake Passage and Cape Horn (at the southernmost tip of South America). The canal saves a total of about 7,800 miles (12,500 km) on a trip from New York to San Francisco by sea.

The anticipated military significance of the canal was proven in World War II, when the United States used the canal to help revitalize her Pacific Fleet ^[17]. Some of the largest ships the United States had to send through the canal were aircraft carriers, in particular the Essex class. These were so large that, although the locks could hold them, the lampposts that lined the canal had to be removed. Also sent through were submarines, a major contributor to the defeat du Japon.

The Panama Canal cost the United States around $375 million, including the $10 million paid to Panama and the $40 million paid to the French company. It was the single most expensive construction project in United States history to that time; remarkably, however, it was actually some $23 million below the 1907 estimate, in spite of landslides and a design change to a wider canal. An additional $12 million was spent on fortifications.

More than 75,000 men and women worked on the project in total; at the height of construction, there were 40,000 workers working on it. According to hospital records, 5,609 workers died from disease and accidents during the American construction era.

A total of 182,610,550 cubic metres (238,845,587 yd³) of material were excavated in the American effort, including the approach channels at both ends of the canal. Adding the work inherited from the French, the total excavation required for the canal was around 204,900,000 cubic metres (268,000,000 yd³). This is equivalent to over 25 times the excavation done in the Channel Tunnel project.

Of the three presidents whose periods in office span the construction period, the name of President Theodore Roosevelt is often the one most associated with the canal, and Woodrow Wilson was the president who presided over its opening. However, it may have been Howard Taft who gave the greatest personal impetus to the canal over the longest period. Taft visited Panama five times as Roosevelt's Secretary of War, and twice as President. He also hired John Stevens and later recommended Goethals as his replacement. Taft became president in 1909, when canal construction was only at the halfway mark, and remained in office for most of the remainder of the work. However, Goethals later wrote, "The real builder of the Panama Canal was Theodore Roosevelt."

The following words of Theodore Roosevelt's Arena Speech are displayed in the Rotunda of the Administration Building:

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.

David du Bose Gaillard tragically died from a brain tumour in Baltimore on December 5, 1913, aged 54, having been promoted to colonel only a month before, and so never saw the opening of the great man-made valley whose creation he directed. The Culebra Cut, as it was originally known, was renamed the Gaillard Cut on April 27, 1915, in his honour. A plaque commemorating his work stood over the cut for many years; in 1998 it was moved to the Administration Building in Balboa, close to the Goethals Memorial. ^[18]

[modifier] The Madden Dam

By the 1930s it was seen that water supply would be an issue for the canal, with the level of Gatun Lake dropping dangerously low in the dry season. The first major improvement project to the canal was therefore the building of the Madden Dam across the Chagres River above Gatun Lake. This created a new man-made reservoir, Alhajuela Lake (also known as Madden Lake), which acts as additional water storage for the canal; this can be used to keep Gatun Lake topped up during the dry season, December through April. ^{[19] [20]}

The engineer in charge of the project was Richard Bilonick. The dam is 275 metres (900 ft) long, 6.7 metres (22 ft) high, and 55 metres (180 ft) thick; it was built using 460,000 cubic metres (600,000 yd³) of concrete. The dam, which was constructed at a cost of $9 million, was inaugurated in 1935. ^[21]

[modifier] The Third Locks Scheme

As the situation in Europe deteriorated in the late 1930s, the United States began to be concerned once more about its ability to move warships between the oceans. The largest U.S. battleships — the Iowa class — could barely fit in the locks, and the proposed new Montana class battleships would have been significantly wider than the lock chambers. There were also concerns about the locks being put out of action by enemy bombing, since the destruction of a single lock installation would have blocked the canal completely.^{[22] [23]}

These concerns led the U.S. Congress to pass a resolution authorising a study into improving the canal's defences against attack, and into expanding the capacity of the canal to handle large vessels. This resolution was passed on May 1, 1936, and a Special Engineering Section was created on July 1, 1937, to carry out the study.

A report was made to Congress on February 24, 1939, recommending that work be carried out to protect the existing lock structures, and to construct a new set of locks capable of carrying larger vessels than the existing locks could accommodate. This would additionally provide the ability for the canal to continue operation if one set of locks was bombed. On August 11, 1939, Congress authorised work to begin.

The plan was to build three new locks, at Gatún, Pedro Miguel, and Miraflores, in parallel with the existing locks and served by new approach channels. The new locks would add a single traffic lane to the canal, with each chamber being 365.8 metres (1,200 ft) long, 42.7 metres (140 ft) wide, and 13.7 metres (45 ft) deep. The new locks would be 800 metres (½ mi) to the east of the existing Gatún locks, and 400 metres (¼ mi) to the west of the existing Pedro Miguel and Miraflores locks.

The first excavations for the new approach channels at Miraflores began on July 1, 1940, following the passage by Congress of the Appropriation Act on June 24, 1940. The first dry excavation at Gatún began on February 19, 1941. A considerable amount of material was excavated before the project was finally abandoned at the end of the war; the new approach channels can still be seen in parallel to the original channels at Gatún and Miraflores.

[modifier] Handover of the Canal

[modifier] Troubled US–Panama relations

After construction, the canal and the Canal Zone surrounding it were administered by the United States, under treaty with Panama. However, nationalists resented what they saw as an American colony splitting their country in half at the canal. U.S. supervision of elections — and intervention in a series of riots in the mid-1920s — only reinforced that view. Under a cloud of economic depression, a bloody coup in 1931 led by Arnulfo Arias Madrid resulted in presidential elections the next year won by Arias's brother, Harmodio. The United States, which had begun to drift toward a non-intervention policy in the late 1920s, did not interfere.

The American presence in Panama, however, continued to fuel the nationalists' fire. Arnulfo Arias, elected president in 1940, was deposed by his own military in late 1941 in the midst of a diplomatic battle over U.S. requests for military sites inside the republic in preparation for World War II. Arias's successor, Ricardo de la Guardia, granted the requests — but without the 999-year leases the United States wanted. Instead, the Americans were to vacate the bases at the end of the war. When the U.S. balked and tried to negotiate a treaty to extend the occupation, thousands of Panamanians rioted, forcing the republic's legislature to reject the treaty offer. Just after the war, National Police Commander José Antonio Remón won the presidency, negotiating a treaty with the U.S. to increase Panama's take of the canal tolls. But Remón, who for years had essentially manipulated Panamanian politics, was assassinated in 1953, two years before the treaty was enacted.

Egypt's nationalization of the Suez Canal in 1956 — and U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles' statement that his country had "rights of sovereignty" in the Canal Zone — brought more turmoil to Panama's relations with the United States. Student riots erupted in the 1950s. When Panamanians threatened a "peaceful invasion" of the Canal Zone, the United States sent troops to back Panama's National Guard and canal police to repel the demonstrators. The Americans eventually built a fence around the zone.

In 1963, United States president John F. Kennedy ordered that the Panamanian flag was to be raised wherever there was a United States flag in the Canal Zone. This move was resented by many Americans living in the zone; the zone's Governor, Robert J. Fleming, Jr., ordered the removal of the United States' flag from many buildings such as high schools, in order to avoid flying the Panamanian flag. This created further tensions, with Americans seeing this as a weakening of U.S authority, and Panamanians seeing the zone as a part of Panama.

Balboa High school students, with the support of their parents, raised a United States flag at the school, and kept a guard on it. On January 9, 1964, a group of Panamanian students attempted to raise the Panamanian flag next to it, but were held back by the American students; in the scuffles which developed, the Panamanian flag was torn. News of this incident sparked several days of rioting and confrontations between Panamanians and Canal Zone authorities; several people on both sides were killed. Today, January 9 is known in Panama as Martyrs' Day.^[24]

[modifier] Negotiations toward a handover

In 1968 Arnulfo Arias was elected again to the presidency after a tumultuous campaign. As soon as he took office, he called for the immediate transfer of the Canal Zone to Panamanian jurisdiction, but he was deposed 11 days later when he tried to change the National Guard's leadership. In the coup's aftermath, military dictator Omar Torrijos Herrera took charge. While he worked to solidify power, Torrijos put canal issues on the back burner, but eventually turned his attention to obtaining a new treaty.

Negotiations began anew in 1971, encouraged by a U.N. resolution calling for a "just and equitable" treaty. Watergate interrupted the talks in 1974, as did debate over the issue during the 1976 U.S. election campaign. The new president, Jimmy Carter, made the canal treaty a priority. On September 7, 1977 — nine months after Carter took office — Carter and Torrijos signed the two Torrijos-Carter Treaties. The first abolished the Canal Zone as of October 1, 1979, its jurisdiction reverting to Panama, and provided for the gradual transfer of canal operations to Panama by December 31, 1999. The other treaty pledged both countries to guarantee the canal's neutrality in times of peace and war.

[modifier] Military takeover of Panama

But Torrijos, who moderated the fierce Panamanian nationalist bent, died in a plane crash in 1981, plunging Panama's government again into turmoil. Col. Manuel Noriega, a former chief of secret police and U.S. CIA operative, emerged as the country's leader, until opponents within the National Guard accused him of drug trafficking. A U.S. federal court in Miami indicted the dictator in 1988, but Noriega moved only to strengthen his stranglehold on Panama's government. After Noriega survived a bloody coup in 1989, U.S. President George H. W. Bush launched an invasion of Panama. Two weeks later, the invasion was over, and Noriega was behind bars in Miami.

[modifier] The handover

The invasion effectively ended military control over Panama. President Mireya Moscoso took office on September 1 1999 and was Panama's first woman in the job. The treaty came into force on 31 December 1999, and since that date the canal has been run by the Panama Canal Authority.

The handover was highly controversial in the U.S., and its passage was difficult. The controversy was largely caused by contracts to manage two ports at either end of the canal, which Panama awarded to a Hong Kong-based conglomerate, Hutchison Whampoa. Some contend that the company has close ties to the Chinese government and the Chinese military.^[25] However, the U.S. State Department says it has found no evidence of connections between Hutchison Whampoa and Beijing.^[26] Some Americans were also wary of placing this strategic waterway under the protection of the Panamanian security force.^[27]

[modifier] Sources

[modifier] Référence générale

• (en) Cet article est partiellement ou en totalité issu d’une traduction de l’article en anglais : « History of the Panama Canal. »

[modifier] Notes

[modifier] Bibliographie

• The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914, David McCullough, Simon & Schuster, 1977 (a comprehensive history of the building of the canal), 698 p.
• The Panama Canal, what it is, what it means, J. Barrett, 1913
• The Panama Canal: The Crisis in Historical Perspective, Walter LaFeber, Oxford, 1990 (a survey of U.S. diplomatic, legal, political, economic, and military involvement with the canal)
• The Panama Canal, Frederic J. Haskin
• Huge Panama Canal Is Carved Out of the Jungle, from Engineering News-Record
• A History of the Panama Canal, from the Panama Canal Authority
• Military Foundations of Panamanian Politics, Robert C. Harding II, Transaction Publishing, 2001. (An analysis of the development of Panama's political system, particularly that of the role of the United States and the Panamanian military).