The Panama Canal, which opened in 1914, is one of the most outstanding engineering successes in history. The history of the Panama Canal has many stories of heroic explorers, brilliant engineers, and tireless laborers. It also includes critical choices by rational, intelligent decision-makers. Unfortunately, the French decision-making processes and decision-making system contributed to their failure.
An early critical choice was whether to build a sea-level canal or a lock canal. Ferdinand de Lesseps was a French diplomat who led the effort to build the Suez Canal and became part of a group interested in building a canal across Panama. In 1879 he organized a meeting in Paris to evaluate the options for a canal across Central America. De Lesseps was determined that the sea-level route across Panama should be approved, however, and he personally convinced many French delegates to support that alternative, which helped him and his business associates raise money to build the canal.
Approximately 100 small subcontractors worked to dig the canal, but, without central coordination, they impeded each other’s efforts to remove the excavated dirt and rock. Moreover, the contractors chose the simplest (cheapest) way to dump the excavated dirt and rock, and these operations were often stopped by storms, which slowed the excavation of the canal. They were not loyal to the canal company or motivated by its goals, and there was no central office to coordinate their activities.
The French effort was bankrupt within 10 years.
For more about the canal's history, check out The Canal Builders by Julie Greene and The Path Between the Seas by David McCullough.
Next time: the Americans.
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