Nasser’s nationalisation speech invoked 120,000 corvée deaths building the Suez Canal.

Evidence

Mises did not mention the strict police control exercised by the British over the migrant workers who built the canal, but they played a starring role in Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser’s speech announcing the nationalisation. ‘Egypt undertook to supply labour to dig the Canal by corvée of which 120,000 died without getting paid’, he told his audience, as Egyptian troops reclaimed the canal. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 291

Categorization

• SHARE: A vivid, specific historical number worth sending to anyone interested in the Suez Crisis or labour history of infrastructure.