History of Qasr El Nil Bridge

• 16 / 5 / 2023

As if the Lions are a witness to the era, standing tall for a century and a half, telling us the secrets of Cairo and telling about the Renaissance, Development, revolutions, tours, visits of foreigners and the crossing of peasants from Cairo to Giza, the Nile Palace was named by the idea of Khedive Ismail to create the bridge, where the "Nile Palace" is that palace built by Muhammad Ali Pasha and to Egypt for his daughter Zeinab on the Bank of the Nile River.

Khedive Ismail was fast roaming and traveling between the capitals of the world, he decided to connect the banks of the Cairo Nile to the nearest point to the Abdeen Palace, the seat of government, passing through Ismailia Tahrir Square now, so Khedive ordered to build a bridge on the river to facilitate the movement of citizens and the transport of goods by sailboats loaded with goods on the way from the upper to the Delta and vice versa. If Housman was the engineer responsible for the development of Cairo with its streets and buildings, the Paris - obsessed Khedive assigned the construction work to the French company "Vive-Lille", and the construction of the bridge lasted 3 years until mid-1871, for 113.850 thousand Egyptian pounds, its length reached 406 meters, and its width 10.5 meters, and the company gifted the Khedive "maket" for the bridge made of pure gold.

The bridge consisted of 8 parts, including a movable part on the side of Ismailia square "Tahrir Square" with a length of 64 meters for crossing boats and ships, it is opened manually through gears, in addition to two final parts with a length of 46 meters, and 5 Intermediate parts with a length of 50 meters each, the bridge supports were established from the "Dabash" surrounded by a layer of hard limestone, the foundations were also carried out by compressed air, the bridge openings were designed to carry 40 tons, and allow the crossing of successive wagons weighing 6 tons. The height of the bridge body from the surface of the Nile was about 10 meters, in anticipation of the flooding of the Nile, in addition to placing the 4 Lions on the entrances of the bridge, two of which are on the sides of each entrance, which are bronze, and were specially manufactured in France and transported to Cairo, and to ensure the rigidity of the bridge body and its suitability for use, 6 guns with full ammunition were passed on it.

The construction of a bridge linking Tahrir's "Ismailia square" with the West Bank of the Nile in the Jazira region, following the example of European cities that connect bridges between its banks, this is the reason why Khedive Ismail thought about the construction of the Nile Palace Bridge in 1869, the first bridge established in Egypt to cross the Nile, which commemorates its opening today by King Fuad on June 6, 1933. Khedive Ismail did not hesitate to decide to build, and indeed the decision was issued and the project was assigned to one of the French companies, to build the bridge located near Tahrir Square, and the construction was at a cost of about 2.750 thousand francs, or the equivalent of 108 thousand Egyptian pounds at this time, and the construction took almost 3 years.

The bridge reached a length of 406 meters and a width of 10 meters and a half meters, including the side sidewalks, which reached a width of two and a half meters, and the bridge consisted of 8 parts, including a movable part on the side of Ismailia Square, a length of 64 meters for crossing boats and ships is manually opened through gears, in addition to two final parts with a length of 46 meters and 5 Intermediate parts, each of which reached a length of 50 meters, the bridge supports were made of the bridge can even carry 40 tons and allow the crossing of successive wagons weighing 6 tons each or carrying huge weights distributed on the bridge body.

After the construction of the bridge was completed, Khedive Ismail ordered the design of four Sbaa on top of the bridge from two sides, and indeed they were made by the French artist Eugene Guillaume, who made them in France, to bring them to Alexandria and then to their current place in Qasr El-Nil Palace, because of that the nickname Abu Sbaa came to everyone who bears the name "Ismail", and their cost came then 198 thousand francs. Ismail asked to put enormous statues at the beginning and end of the bridge, and Sharif Pasha commissioned the caretaker of the interior in April 1871 to contact Khwaja Jacques Mar to make four statues of African lions. About the Lions of the Nile Palace, the statues of the seven were made in Italy from bronze, shipped to Alexandria and cost 8,425 Egyptian pounds, which was then a very large amount, and when the bridge was rebuilt, the Four Lions were moved to its entrances, but they were chosen for lower positions," he said.

There are frequent stories about these statues; it is said that it was planned to place them at the gates of the zoo in Giza, and the plan was changed during the reign of Khedive Tawfik bin Ismail to be placed on the bridge named after his father. It is rumored that she was the reason for the nickname "Abu al-Sabaa" for everyone who bears the name Ismail. The statues were made of bronze in Italy, and were transported to Alexandria and from there to their current position at the entrances to the bridge. after the opening of the bridge with its four lions, the name “Abu al-Saba” spread among the public as a popular designation for the bridge, from which the new name expanded to include the same Khedive that the Egyptians nicknamed Abu al-Saba. In the mid-twentieth of the last century, with the advent of cars, the Qasr Al-Nile Bridge, with its old construction, was no longer able to accommodate the movement of new vehicles. So the Ministry of Public Works began to expand the bridge or create a new bridge to keep pace with the development and protect the Qasr Al-Nile Bridge from collapse. 

King Fouad ordered it to be rebuilt again and expanded, and the company "darman long", a famous English company that built the Sydney Bridge in about the same period, was chosen to implement the project in 1931, it doubled the width of the bridge to twenty meters at a cost of about 292 thousand pounds at that time, and it was completed in 1933, and in memory of the father of King Fuad I, who opened the bridge himself on June 6, 1933, where King Fuad opened the Khedive Ismail bridge, known today as the Nile Palace Bridge, which is The first bridge to be built on the Nile of Cairo in 1869, and the second bridge to be built in Egypt after the bridge built in 1856, it is a tribute from King Fouad to the dream of Khedive Ismail to turn Cairo into a piece of Europe. The name did not last long; the July Revolution of 1952 took place, and the bridge returned to its old name, Qasr El-Nil Bridge.

Since that date, the bridge has become one of the most important arteries of Cairo connecting it with Zamalek Island, and during the following years, the bridge witnessed unforgettable events, including an accident that King Farouk suffered in his car with a Lowry belonging to the British Army, his driver treated the king of Egypt rudely, as well as the famous car accident suffered by Ahmed Hassanein, head of the royal court during the reign of Farouk I, and there were many signs that this incident was orchestrated by King Farouk to get rid of Hassanein because of his relationship with Queen Nazli, Farouk's mother. Khedive Ismail is considered one of the rulers who adopted a comprehensive project for the development of Cairo, and he wanted to emulate the European model and turn Cairo into a European-style city, and Cairo witnessed major transformations during his reign, most notably making it a seat of government instead of a castle, and its area was doubled by the establishment of several new neighborhoods such as Ismailia district and Square (currently Tahrir Square), which was named after him, and a group of and develop it".

The historian Abdul Rahman Al-Rafi mentions in his book about the era of Khedive Ismail that Khedive established the magnificent Qasr Al-Nile bridge to reach the area of Al - Jazira-where Sarai Al-Jazira was established in Cairo in 1872, and cost 108 thousand Egyptian pounds at the time, and historians state that the goal of building the Qasr Al-Nile bridge was to connect the eastern and Western banks of the Nile, and the crossing before that happened via boats. The Qasr El Nil bridge is a bridge located near Tahrir Square in Cairo. It is the first bridge established in Egypt to cross the Nile. It began to be built in 1869 during the reign of Khedive Ismail, where he issued a high order to the works department in 1865 during the construction of the Sarai of the island to erect a bridge connecting Cairo and the island for 113 thousand and 850 Egyptian pounds, and a French company built it, to be completed in mid-1871 with a length of (406 meters) and width (10,5 meters), including (2,5 meters) for the two Side Piers and a road width (8 meters).

It was decided to impose crossing fees according to the type of passers-by on the bridge, men and women are a quarter of a penny, children and deer are exempt from fees and carts full of goods are two cents and empty a penny, the bridge was called the Nile Palace Bridge because there was a large Palace on the Nile from the direction of Tahrir Square called the Nile Palace a new bridge has been built in place of the Old Bridge to meet the increasing transportation needs and modern loads and is in line with what Cairo has reached from Omran in The reign of King Fuad I, where he laid the foundation stone of the new bridge on February 4, 1932 in memory of his father, it was named (Khedive Ismail bridge) with a bridge length (382 meters) - the bridge width (20 meters) for 291,955 pounds, and King Fuad I opened it on June 6, 1933. The Qasr El-Nil Bridge witnessed violent confrontations between peaceful demonstrators and the central security forces on January 28 in what was known as the Friday of anger.