The Great Canal, in a rapid

[maddox]

With Le Grande Canal getting a lot of attention, and thanks to Phoenix and Borys, fueled by the professional comments from The Rock Doctor, and the gentle pushing of Earl822 this tread will be dedicated to the Great Canal.

With backtracking from the past. Starting with Premier Jardans first visit.

[maddox]

Paris Temps 1901

The Grand Canal - Debacle Extraordinaire !!

When visiting the Works of the Grand Canal I could hardly believe my eyes: hardly any results, some shallow diggins, most diggings have occurred for other purposes, namely digging graves. The Grand Canal is a cemetery, how has this come to be ??!!
This is surely the most embarrassing show of incompetence I've ever had the misfortune to witness. The gross squandering of resources is clearly evident, lives have been thrown away as casually as ten thousands of Francs. Precious construction materials have disappeared unnoticed and without a single trace of accountability. The bean counters of this project are frankly a disgrace to their service. The engineers were more concerned about their own comfortable lodgings than the workplaces. Workers are being housed in rickety mud-sheds, literally living in the filth, eating, sleeping, dying. Disease reigns the Works. Disaster goes hand in hand with sheer incompetence, aided by graft and conniving.
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE ? ?? !!! Who has made this calamity to exist ? Who has allowed this disgrace to continue festering like an open sore in these beautiful lands ?
I stand humbly corrected. I may not have overseen this failure as I should have. The responsibility knows no ceiling and for this I suffer in shame. But amends needs must be made. Measures needs must be undertaken.
I have commanded l'Institut Pasteur to embark unto a voyage in this horrible miasmic swamp of misery. They will examine the cause for the rampant disease in the Works. They will find a cure to save the lives of the still-living workers. They will make recommandations for the lodging of these workers and have them implemented with utmost haste. Professeur Docteur Charles Louis Alfonse Laveran leads this valiant crew of scientists and medical specialists and will have free rein in order to eradicate the diseases.
In addition, the Compagnie Universelle du Canale Maritime de Panama has been sacked for this project and will be replaced by several Professeurs-Ingenieurs Hydrolique et Geographique of l'Ecole Polytechnique de Paris. They will embark with their most promising students and are expected to have these students graduating on this great Works.
It is clear to all that such great works should not be left to money-grabbing entrepreneurs, but should be undertaken by the State who is sublimely suited for this magnitude of world-shaping endeavours.
One of the Canal Treaty Partners failed to fulfill his duties and should be held acountable at least partly for this failure because of unadequate contributions in materials and competent personnel. Hereby one quarter share of the Canal will be offered to anyone who will participate. If no other state steps forward then France will continue this Great Works on Her own. To honour the other Treaty Partners.

(my outline, Phoenix's deft hand in writing)

[maddox]

After 5 years of intensive development with money, manpower and tools from France, United Kingdom, Russia and  the late Anuhuac. The canal is progressing , Only the steady influx of newer and bigger technological wonders from the steam age make this titans work possible.

Mid july 1906, Great Canal Zone, Middle America.
Under a gentle evening sun.

"PHSSHHHHHHH !"
"Chugah-chugah-chugah..."
"Wwwwhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiine..."
Ponderously the huge machine set into motion. With steam leaking from every possible crevice and nook, with joints creaking, the behemoth Pantagruel edged forward, while strangely graceful floating on its wide hull. The earth being shattered beneath its huge scoop moaned and groaned. The birds in the distant trees chittered and gossiped about humanity's folly. And sadly shook their feathery little heads at the hideous wound gaping wide in the earth, left in the wake of the machine and its countless minions.
Slowly, but surely, a canal was being digged. And where the machine left, the miniature minions scurried to' and fro' in order to build up the great walls that would support the shores. The cofferdam behind the digger held the water at bay and made it possible for the human labourers to build the lock doors, the huge size of the endeavour dwarfing the mortal blobs of flesh next to the gigantic concrete structures. Pump stations, the size of churches, dotted what was left of the landscape, their huge pipes criss-crossing everywhere and transporting massive amounts of sea-water where it was needed.
Diminiutive compared to the digger, the steam shovels nevertheless towered over the workers. They scooped up the debris and hoisted it over to the railcars lining the works. A veritable ant-hill of railcars added to the confusion of the ever-scurrying humans that swarmed the works.
When all this was complete, the lock floods, the digger rises, and presses forward to start the next lock.

************************************************************************

"Well, gentlemen ? What do you think of this ?" The engineer proudly beamed at his guests. It was not his task to wonder what a group of Middle Kingdom gooks were doing here, of all places, but he was told to value their input. If they had any.
"Not bad," murmured one of the older looking ones, "But why so few people ?"

What's he saying ?" the engineer asked an interpreter. The young man blushed a bit and stammered... "Aahh... I don't understand either. Please allow me to investigate the answer..." He then turned to the Chinese and started yabbering away in a language that to the non-Chinese engineer sounded a lot like 5 cats having a go at one pussy. At length, however, the young man nodded to the foreign visitors and then turned back towards the engineer. "It seems, Sir, that the Middle Kingdom uses an -aah- more different approach to any problem of this magnitude. They were merely wondering where the other workers are."
"Other workers ?"
"Yes Sir. It seems that, when we are more wont to think in numbers of hundreds for a workforce our slant-eyed counterparts seem to be more inclined towards the thousands. Tens of, in fact."
The engineer stared at the foreigners. They smiled back.
"Did you tell them we have machines to do that work ?"
"Yes Sir. And they told me it was just a matter of working out what is easiest. Building and then operating these machines is expensive, you must find the ores, melt them, make the machines, find the fuel, prepare it for use... Having half a million coolies puttering about is more cost-effective: they propagate without any help, run on a handful of rice and vegetables and basically are self-repairing."
"But... people complain, want more money, find the work too hard... machines don't do that..."
"Complain ? Coolies ?"
The engineer rubbed his forehead. "Let me try to recapitulate this. The answer of the Middle Kingdom to any great undertaking is just throw enough people at it and it just solves itself. Right ?"

(Phoenixs feeling creative)

[maddox]

Paris Current events


"Monsieur Le Premier, we have a very very expensive telegraph from the Grand Canal."
"How do you mean 'very very' expensive ?"

+++Telex to France+++
BEGIN- Who sent those maniacs in the first place ? -STOP- 500.000 ? -STOP- Are they crazy ? -STOP- Impossible !! -END

"What did he mean by '500.000' ?"
"Workforce, Sir."
"Where from ?"
"Uhh... does Your Excellency remember that polite young man from the Middle Kingdom. A 'Prince' or something ? The one who said he might be able to add the expertise of millennia to the Great Endeavour ?"
"Oh, that envoy in Vienna..."
"The very one, Sir."
"... working very hard to enable the Détente if I remember..."
"He sent a gaggle of engineers of his own to the Grand Canal. Not to spy mind you, but to -aahh- 'enhance' the know-how."
Premier Paxhain stared at the telegraph. "And this was their answer. Half a million of crazy gooks. Give me 2 reasons to give the permission... or even to accept that offer."
"I'm not an engineer, Your Excellency, so I cannot in good faith answer your question."
"Then find me one ! "

+++Telex to Grand Canal+++
BEGIN- Hold on please. -STOP- Need to get over 50 years of hostility. -STOP- But start building barracks. -END

(and the rest of the part)

[maddox]

Meanwhile, other place, other circumstances.

Jean-Pierre Gouvique was an eccentric. Some suspected that is was some inner need driven by his bog standard Christian name. That eccentric streak made him volunteer for the Grande Canal immediatelly after leaving the Ecole Grandiose Politchnique de Genie Francoise. 4 years, 3 bouts of malaria and 1 of yellow fever later, he was shipped back to France, a wreck. His eccentricism made him go for holidays to the Norman kingdom, to their south-west coast resorts. Standing on the Paddington station, he marveled how much space there was between platforms and between the sets of tracks. The large gap between the platform and the step also was a surpise, although not so pleasant. Everything looked as if the trains had shrunk, as if there had been an Age of Giants - like Pantagruel - in times past ... Panatagruel brought memeories of the hell which the canal was, of the light Decauville trains and tracks struggling to carry away the dirt excavated by the gigantic machine ... he dozed off.
Arriving at his destinaton, sniffing the salty air, he asked the porter, pointing towards the strange single track bridge, just not wide enough to fit two.
- "Ze trains have become little, yes?" - he asked amiably in his best Norman (another eccentricity - WHO bothered to learn Norman??)
- "Aye! Barely 15 years ago they came and changed the gauge from God Ordaned seven feet to those puny 4 something. The railroad hasn't been the same since ... " he said to the back of the sprinting and arm waving Frenchman.
- Da gaffer was damn right and correct. Garlic burns yer brains away ... " - he shruged and headed with the luggage towards the Hotel La Grande Maison, the only boarding house in Gullsand.

With thanks to Borys