The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1915-02-14

Empires Are PIaying-A Journey
Through the Gateway Between East
and West at Port Said, and in the
Land of the PharaOhs Under the
Strange, Invisible Rule of England.
Mr.. Horgah'S stony today Is Of his journey to the
susz Canal, the throat Of the British EMPIRE where
Germans and TURKS ars Threatening to choke their
English foe. and through the Gateway between east
and west at Port Said to the srat erOSsrOadI Of the
world and into Esypt. which has been the spoil Of
all the Empires that have risen In 1000 ysaI and
which, under the strange. Invisible rule Of England
today. Is the greatest prize at stake 10 the
Another article will be published next Sunday In
this SesI Of sketches Of the famous backgrounds Of
the war a. Mr. Morgan NV them In his recent
travels along the route Of NapSIson'I campaigns.
When men thought the earth was
fat, they believed that Egypt was the
middle of the world. Now when they
understand that the earth is round,
they are no less agreed that Egypt is
its commercial, strategical and politi-
cal center.
It is in fact the four corners on the
two main roads running from north to
south and from east to weA. For the
one highway between Africa and Asia
and the great highway between the Oc-
cident and the Orient cross each other
there. Whoever holds that crossing at
the end of this war will be the victor.
Napoleon was the first man of mod
ern times to see that Egypt was the
greatest prize the sword could win.
Caesar, Alexander and the ancient con-
querOrs had made ii the keystone in
their arch of conquest. The Crusaders.
while they battled for the rescue of
the Holy Sepulchre, were not blinded
by their religious zeal to the worldly
advantage of recapturing from the
Nahometans the crossroads of trade
and power. But Islam hurled them
lumbus and Nasco de Cana to explore
new avenues to the East.
For 500 years Egypt was abandoned
to the Arab and the Turk. and all but
forgotten by Europe. which with the
discovery of the Cape of Good Hope
was no longer dependent upon the
five centuries a twilight rested upon
the land of the Pharoahs and that half
a thousand years is almost as blank
as the era of the Pyramid builders.
The Pathfinder.
1t remained for the strategic eye of
Napoleon to penetrate that dusk and to
see that Egypt still was the center. Of
the world. On his return from his
Italian triumphs, he found a France
peace with all the nations of CONT
mental Europe Yet he saw the repub-
lie defied by little island off in the
France" as he said. and Britain shut
ting the gates of the sea against
French commerce.
Receiving from the Directory COM
mission to organize an army for the
conquest of England. he went to the
shores of the English Channel and
Dunkirk. TO Furnes, to Newport, to
Ostcnd and to Antwerp. but without
finding a place where he could leap the
muat of the insular foe. ThereupOn he
resolved to take his army to Egypt. |
seize the crossroads there and planting
himself between the English and India, |
capture London in Asia.
Perhaps few of the tourists, while |
rejoicing in their first white helmets |
and smoking their Egyptian cigarettes
among the palms on the broad porch |
Of Shepherds Hotel at Cairo take |
thought that Napoleon BOnaparte and |
not Thomas Cook blazed the pathway |
for them. l have reason to know that |
fewer still are aware that near by the |
hotel where a European bookseller
now. has his shop, the, long-haired child |
that just behind Shepherds, Gen. |
kleber was slain by the knife of pa |
triOtic assassin.
Nor do many in the throng of Euro !
peauS and Americans on their way by |
trolley or automobile to the Sphinx and |
the Pyramids of Ghizeh mark the little |
grove of date palms, which they see |
across the irrigated field, the scene |
Of the battle OF the Pyramids. But it |
was there where forty centuries look |
ID down, that the sword of Napoleon |
cut the first breach in the barrier with |
which Islam had so long shut in the |
people OF Asia and shut out the mod |
rrn world.
SueE and Panama.
He conquered Egypt and seized the
crossing. but his campaign failed be-
cause England's grayhOunds followed
him and Nelson pounded his fleet to
pieces at the mouth of the Nile. Thus
cut OFF from Europe, he was forced to
abandon his conquest and steal back to
France. Vt he never ceased to doubt
that he had discovered the true key
tu the mastery OF the earth. and even
At St Helena he sighed: Egypt is the
most important country in the world"
The. vision Of a Napoleon was re-
Egypt then. But today, with the Suez
Canal flowing across il. no imagina tion
is needed to see that its possession is
world. For the Suez is to the Eastern
Hemisphere. what the Panama Canal
will be to the Western.
There is no stranger coincidence in
the photography OF our globe than
may be found in the Isthmus of SueZ
and the Isthmus of Panama. At the
latter a strip of land. but thirty miles
wide at the least, holds together the
continents of the West; while the
other, with a width of only seventy
miles. forms a rope of sand that binds
the continents of the East.
Napoleon and the Canal.
The construction of A canal across
Egypt was part of Napoleon's Oriental
dream. and he carried with him the en-
Eineers to plan il. He meant to con-
meet the Mediterranean and the Red
Sea and leave the Cape of Good Hope
to revert to the solitude in which
EascO had found II.
The idea was by no means original
For those narrowly divided seas had
been united by Darius 500 years before
Christ. and the Macedonian Ptolemies
had widened the Persian's canal and
erected a system of locks. But by the
reign of Cleopatra Darius ditch had
siltcd up. and il remained for the
Romans under TTajan to restore IL once
more in the first of the Christian CEN
turtles. The needless Arabs, however left
The canal TO the winds and the sands and
the desert swallowed II again. When
Napoleon came thc Egyptians had forgot
from France invented one of those i'm
possibilities with which the cautious and
the judicious were forever lettering his
eagle flights.
The learned aCademicians somehow ,
made the discovery. apparently without ,
the trouble Of taking measurements. that |
the Red Sea was nearly thirty-three feet
higher than the waters of the MediteF- | ,
ranean. They warned the young general
in-chief that If he dug simple sea-Ievel
canal he would drown Egypt. and he ! !
dropped the project, leaving It to be car
Tied out in the reign Of another Napoleon,
hearty three-quarters OF a century after
ward when Ferdinand de Lesseps an I'M (