Today the Channel Tunnel is a taken-for-granted reality, a symbol of unity between the United Kingdom and continental Europe. Few, however, know that the idea of this underground connection has its roots in the nineteenth century, in an era of visionary impulses and geopolitical fears. The story of the first attempts to build a "Eurotunnel" in the 800th century is a fascinating mix of cutting-edge engineering, dreams of brotherhood between peoples and dark military machinations. A little-known but crucial chapter in the centuries-old relationship between the British Isle and the continent. It fascinated me a lot, and I recommend it to you.
The first projects: Albert Mathieu and the “Napoleonic” vision
The first proposals for a tunnel under the Channel date back to the end of the eighteenth century, but it was in the first half of the nineteenth century that the idea began to take shape. In 1802, during a brief truce in the Napoleonic Wars, the French mining engineer Albert Mathieu features what is believed to be the first detailed design: a tunnel ventilated by huge iron chimneys rising from the sea, with an artificial island and harbor midway, on the Varne shoal. The plan, exhibited at the French school of mining engineering and parliament, attracts the attention of Napoleon Bonaparte, who brings it to the attention of the British opposition politician Charles James Fox. But the return of war scuttled the project.
1802
However, it is with Aimé Thomé de Gamond, French geologist and engineer, that the idea of the Eurotunnel ante litteram is making giant strides. In the 30s, Thomé de Gamond produces a variety of plans, from vast bridges to iron pipes on the seabed. But the lack of geological knowledge held him and his contemporaries back. It is not known whether the Strait of Dover is a fault between the coasts or the result of the erosion of an ancient land bridge. In the first case, a tunnel would be almost impossible.
Aimé Thomé de Gamond: the father, or rather: the grandfather of the Eurotunnel
To solve the mystery, Thomé de Gamond makes three extraordinary solo dives in 1855. Weighed down by 72 kg of flint, with lard plugs in his ears and olive oil in his mouth to expel the air without ingesting water, he manages to descend over 30 meters to take samples of the seabed, then ascending again thanks to ten inflated pig bladders . The analysis confirms that Britain and France were once connected, and that the geological layers are continuous. Since the rock is soft chalk, there would be no need to drill or use explosives. A tunnel becomes feasible.
The discovery comes at a fertile time for science and technology in Europe. Railways, in particular, are at the forefront of progress: the first commercial line, Liverpool-Manchester, opens in 1830; in 1850 already 20.000 km of tracks crossed the continent. And tunnels, an integral part of railways since the beginning, are being built on an increasingly heroic scale, as the Moncenisio tunnel (12 km) between France and Italy or the Gotthard tunnel (15 km), the longest in the world at its inauguration in 1882.
In this context, the absence of a cross-Channel connection appears to be an anomaly, a failure of economic and social progress. As the engineer and supporter of the tunnel writes James Chalmers since 1861, looking at the railway map of Europe you can see lines converging towards the big cities. But there is an exception. Which? On the continent from north, east and south, and in England from south, west and north, the tracks come together, extend their iron arms as if to embrace each other, and then stop. Only over 130 years later will they start up again.
The project takes shape but…
The enthusiasm for technological progress goes hand in hand with the rise of an internationalist liberalism, embodied by events such as the Great London Exhibition of 1851 and Anglo-French Free Trade Treaty of 1860. The creators of the latter, Richard Cobden e Michael Knight, teach that the underlying forces of history are pushing inexorably towards the unity of humanity: better communications and trade will make war obsolete. They don't quite get the point, but that doesn't mean they aren't right over longer periods. However, both support the tunnel project, seeing it as a step towards eventual European unification, a “true arc of alliance,” in words attributed to Cobden and often cited by proponents of the plan. For this reason, even if it is not the identical project, what they wanted to create at the time was a real Eurotunnel.
However, a year after his dives (in 1856) Thomé de Gamond presents a comprehensive proposal for a double-track rail tunnel between Folkestone and Cap Gris-Nez. The project, praised by leading engineers and with the support of Queen Victoria, Prince Albert and Napoleon III, seems to be on its way to completion. But once again, a deterioration in relations between the two nations causes it to founder. After an attempted assassination of Napoleon by an Italian nationalist with a British-made bomb, the British press fuels fears of an invasion, cynically exploited by the Francophobic prime minister Lord Palmerston. For him, a Eurotunnel would remove “our natural defense against a continental enemy”. Nothing to do, 50s.
Finally confirmation: the Eurotunnel is feasible
In the 60s, Thomé de Gamond's surveys and findings are joined by those of British engineers such as William Low e John Hawkshaw. At the end of the decade, a joint Anglo-French committee was even established to carry the project forward. In 1875, the two countries pass laws authorizing their respective companies to begin construction. But just two years later, in 1877, progress stalls again, aided by financial problems and a lack of full proof of feasibility.
It is at this point that Sir Edward Watkin, Liberal member of Parliament and president of three large railway companies, takes charge of the project. Stubborn and combative, consummate businessman with a drawn mind by large engineering companies, Watkin believes passionately in the power of free trade. He assembles an eminent scientific and legal advisory committee, but the key figures are two officers of the Army Corps of Engineers, the colonel Frederick Beaumont and the captain Thomas English, which finally demonstrate the feasibility of the tunnel. And they go much further.
Off to the construction site
In 1880, Thomas English patents a new drilling machine based on an earlier design by Beaumont. The following year, the two refined the idea further. The result? An engineering triumph: equipped with a rotary cutter that can dig a 2 meter diameter tunnel at a speed of 1 meter per hour, and a conveyor belt for clearing debris, the machine requires fewer than ten men to operate . Above all, being powered by compressed air, not only does it not produce dangerous fumes, but it can even ventilate the tunnel while it works.
In October 1880, Beaumont and English's machine begins test drilling at Abbot's Cliff, near Dover. The layer of gray chalk it burrows into is easy to cut, but practically waterproof. The following September, after digging 842 meters of test tunnel, the machine is moved to a new site under Shakespeare Cliff, the closest point between England and France. At the end of the year, Watkin founded the Submarine Continental Railway Company to oversee this work. French too Compagnie du Chemin de fer Sousmarine begins drilling from Sangatte, near Calais, using a modified version of Beaumont and English's machine. For the first time in the history of the project, miners are working under the sea.
Eurotunnel, big dreams begin
Watkin feels close to the finish line, and daydreams. He envisions an international underwater railway powered entirely by compressed air, with carriages hauled by 80-ton locomotives that ventilate the tunnel as they travel. In June 1881, announces to the astonished nation that he expects to complete an “experimental” tunnel within five years, with the aim of opening the line in the 90s. The only apparent obstacle is the small detail of getting Parliament to pass a bill that would allow the company to dig beneath the seabed, property of the British Crown.
But just when it seems that nothing can stop the Watkin tunnel, hitherto dormant forces erupt on the project. Unbeknownst to the public (yes, there is also a nineteenth-century "gombloddo"), an official committee, with a strong military imprint, was formed in 1881 to examine the implications of the Eurotunnel. Among the evidence he considers is a memorandum from the general Sir Garnet Wolseley, Army Quartermaster General.
Wolseley is a profound reactionary with an open contempt for the liberal vision of Cobden, Gladstone and Watkin. Rather than a measured technical analysis, his memorandum is a furious invective against the "specious cry of universal brotherhood" and "selfish cosmopolitans." In place of Watkin's optimistic prophecy of Anglo-French friendship, Wolseley substitutes his analysis of interstate relations, which emphasizes the inherently violent and jealous nature of humanity.
Things get complicated
A chronic pessimist, Wolseley believes the British Army is dangerously underfunded, a situation he blames directly on liberal internationalists. In this context, rich and liberal Britain is a prize to be won rather than a civilization to be emulated. A Eurotunnel, he argues, would be “a constant incentive for the unscrupulous foreigner to make war on us”. And he doesn't stop there in his "analysis".
Wolseley points out that the use of trains in recent wars in the United States and Europe has allowed generals to move troops much further and quickly than ever before. Connecting Britain to France, he says, would expose the UK to the same danger. Without evidence, he suggests that the tunnel could be used to bring five thousand soldiers an hour into the country. He imagines a sudden surprise attack during a time of “deep peace,” without warning or declaration of war, “while we gentlemen of England lie in bed, dreaming of the time when the lion and the lamb shall lie together.” With London the only unfortified European capital and without a large conscript army comparable to those of France or Germany, the United Kingdom would have been quickly overwhelmed. Annexed to the continent and unable to retreat behind its protective moat, the British people would face “national annihilation,” becoming “the helots of France forever.”
Was the problem Eurotunnel or the British company?
Wolseley's reasoning was quite practical, even if it doesn't seem so. Personal freedom, low taxation, free trade and a small army: were these Britain's shortcomings? Advantages? I can't say. However, I can say that all these factors were made possible by the security offered by the English Channel. By introducing the danger, however remote, of a land invasion, a Eurotunnel would spread a fear to which the British were unaccustomed. What all nations with insignificant armies feel when they are close to very powerful nations. The United Kingdom was supposed to “imitate the continental nations” and establish a system of universal military conscription. The greatest threat posed by a Eurotunnel for the time, in the end, was not necessarily the horror of an invasion, but the economic and social cost of averting it. Now as then, it's always about damn money.
In February 1882, excerpts from Wolseley's memorandum are published in The Nineteenth Century magazine, and, over the next month, he and other Army and Navy officers lead a coordinated public campaign against the tunnel. In this they are helped by the publisher James Knowles, which organizes a special issue and a petition against the project, signed by many eminent public figures. Knowles' accompanying editorial reduces Wolseley's arguments to a trinity of terror: more military spending, more widespread fear, and the possibility of invasion. It is clear that the issue has hit something deep in the nervous system of liberal Britain. And the "media" of the time does not fail to throw water where it suits them.
Watkin's (vain) defense
Sir Edward Watkin is not one to give up easily. And after all the investments made, he is even less willing to do it. This is why he responds to these attacks with every weapon in his arsenal. He encourages his friends to write and speak in support of the Eurotunnel, and soon the newspapers are consumed with debates about the project. Supporters of the Eurotunnel point out that destroying, blocking or flooding the work would be easy in the event of danger. Watkin also employs softer means of persuasion, inviting a wide range of celebrities (today we would say influencers) to visit the sea tunnel works, where they can enjoy a champagne reception and examine the drilling machine under the glow of electric lights.
But these refutations fail to stem the tide of public opinion, which, now obsessed by the fear of panic, is strongly against the tunnel. Torn between his personal beliefs and political instincts, Gladstone moves the matter to a parliamentary committee. That he fails to reach an agreement, dividing six to four against the project. It's the excuse the government needs to get out of it. The Watkin Channel Tunnel Experimental Works Bill is formally withdrawn from the Commons on July 24, 1883. By the time the machines shut down, they had dug almost 4 kilometers. We can remember it as the date when the “first” Eurotunnel project officially died.
Eurotunnel, and then?
The French digging machine is soon moved to Liverpool, where it digs a ventilation tunnel for the Mersey Railway. The British machine is left where it is, 40 meters under the English Channel. The Submarine Continental Railway Company's name disappeared in 1886, when it merged with the Channel Tunnel Company. Watkin campaigned vigorously but unsuccessfully for another eight years. He retired from the railways in 1894 and died in 1901.
All the questions that remain
If military objections had been withdrawn, could the tunnel have been completed in the 19th century? It's not easy to say. Beaumont and English have demonstrated how an underwater tunnel can be built, but their “experimental” work is small compared to the full project. Watkin himself admits that state support is probably needed before the connection can be terminated. Beaumont's compressed air trains are unlikely to be feasible on a large scale, and the problem of ventilation and ongoing maintenance would have been immense.
On the other hand, the emergence of electric trains by the end of the century would have greatly simplified the problem. What is certain is that geology was on their side. In the late 80s, during the construction of the current tunnel, a Eurotunnel/TransManche drilling rig intersected the 1882 tunnel under the sea. The 1882 works were found watertight, with tracks and trolleys still in place - a reminder that people had passed there before.
In conclusion
The story of the “first Eurotunnel” under the Channel is a fascinating mix of visionary momentum, technological progress and a clash of worldviews. And, all things considered, it seems like it happened yesterday. On the one hand, engineers like Thomé de Gamond and entrepreneurs like Watkin saw the submarine connection as a symbol of brotherhood between peoples and a catalyst for free trade and peace. On the other hand, military figures such as General Wolseley feared that the tunnel would expose Britain to invasion, undermining the very foundations of British society.
Exactly 90 years after the interruption, in 1973, new excavations began. Interrupted again. In 1979 (election of Margaret Thatcher) e in 1981 (election of François Mitterrand) UK and France lay the final foundations for the Eurotunnel as we know it. Another 5 years. In 1986 the agreement for the construction was signed. In 1988 construction resumed, and the 1 December 1990 workers and engineers from the two sides drilled the last layer of rock, embracing each other. Eurotunnel opening? 6 May 1994.
In loving memory
Although a Eurotunnel was not completed in the 19th century, the pioneering efforts of Thomé de Gamond, Beaumont, English and Watkin laid the foundations for its realization in the following century. Their engineering innovations, such as the compressed air drilling machine, and their geological investigations demonstrated the feasibility of the project. And their vision of a more interconnected and peaceful Europe, however controversial at the time, anticipated the ideals that would lead to the birth of the European Union.
Today, as we travel comfortably through the Eurotunnel under the Channel on Eurostar trains, it is easy to take this connection for granted. But it is important to remember the technical and political challenges that the tunnel's early proponents faced, and the farsightedness of their vision. We can listen, if we try, to the equivalent of the “Facebook comments” of the time, as they devalue the work and say it will never happen. It was not so.
The story I told you is a reminder that every great progress is the fruit of bold dreams, hard work and perseverance in the face of obstacles. And that sometimes, the ideas that seem most utopian can become the foundation of our future.
