Britain’s Euphrates expedition sought a year-round steamship route to India.

Evidence

By the early 1830s these interests were centered around the exploration of the Euphrates river with a view to checking whether it was navigable. The British parliament had allocated the sum of £20,000 for such a project which a certain Colonel Chesney was to lead. Two steamships were especially constructed (appropriately called the Tigris and the Euphrates) which were to be shipped in pieces to the Syrian coast and then carried overland from there to be assembled on the Euphrates. The whole project was of considerable importance for British communication with India since it was expected to shorten the distance from Bombay to London and also reduce the time taken to cover the distance. Furthermore, if successful, it would prove that steamships would be able to reach India all year round instead of the eight months per year that they were restricted to by taking the Red Sea route. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1577

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader reading purpose on British imperial interests in the region and how they collided with Egyptian expansion.