Philippe Jean Bunau-Varilla

 - A French Engineer -

( 1859 - 1940 )
 


* List of the stories he appears in :
- F PM 01201 C : "The Sharpie of the Culebra Cut" (Lo$#10b), from 2001, by Don Rosa (by name only).

 

* His biography :
     French engineer born in 1959, graduate from the school of engineering of the famed Ecoles des Ponts et Chaussees, Philippe Bunau-Varilla was a prominent character in the Panama Canal controversy. An engineer after 1884 in the original French company for building the canal, he was chief engineer before the company went bankrupt in 1889 and was the organizer (1894) of the new company that took over the rights of the old one. Unable to develop his plans in France, he undertook to sell the company to the United States, converting (1901) Mark Hanna and President McKinley, who had been interested in the Nicaragua route, to the Panama project. After new opposition developed, he persuaded the French directors to reduce the price of the company, and President Theodore Roosevelt was won over to the Panama plan. When difficulties arose with the Colombian government, Bunau-Varilla conspired with insurrectionists in Panama and touched off (1903) a successful revolution. As First Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary of the Republic of Panama to Washington, he negotiated the Hay–Bunau-Varilla Treaty, which gave the United States control of the Panama Canal. In World War I a water chlorination process that he had developed was used at the battle of Verdun.
 

* His place in the Barks/Rosa stories universe :
    In "The Sharpie of the Culebra Cut", he appears by name when Scrooge tells Roosevelt he has been sold the right of his mountain by the French agent of the treaty, Philippe Bunau-Varilla. It is said that the French, who have been first to build the Panama Canal, wanting to renew the success they had with the Suez canal, wanted to dig this mountain (they used to call it the "Golden Mountain") because there was a rumour of some gold hidden in it, and that they wanted to use this gold to finance the operation...
 

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