The collapse of the sea
The Fall of the Sea is a novel by the French author Jules Verne . Literary scholars believe that large parts of the novel were written by Verne's son Michel Verne , as Jules Verne was already suffering from health problems shortly before his death. Parts of the novel are said to have existed as early as 1902. The novel was first published in 1905 by the Pierre-Jules Hetzel publishing house under the French title L'Invasion de la mer . The first German-language edition appeared in 1905 under the title Der Einbruch des Meeres . The English title of the novel is Invasion of the Sea .
action
The story begins in the oasis of Gabès , a coastal town in what is now Tunisia , which was then a French colony . The Targi Hadjar is a prisoner in Gabes prison. He is accused of participating in the raid on a geological expedition. He is freed from prison through a rescue operation by friends.
The colonial rulers from France want to transform the desert of Tunisia, which has the shape of a huge depression, into an inland sea . The basis for this project is based on plans by the French Roudaire. Its aim was to revive agriculture and give trade a new basis. In order for these plans to become a reality, there are plans to build an approximately one hundred and seventy kilometers long canal . Through it, the water from the Mediterranean near the city of Gabès is to be channeled into the inland sea. The salt water from the Mediterranean is supposed to evaporate in the inland sea and thus cause rain in the area. In this way, the surrounding land should also be made fertile.
The improved access from the Mediterranean to the inland due to the navigability of the canal is to be used by French troops. A hundred years after the French flag was hoisted in the Kasbah of Algiers , the French fleet is said to be sailing the inland sea in the Sahara and supplying the military bases in the desert. In this way this part of Africa should be pacified.
In addition to solving scientific and technical problems, the planners are also fighting against popular resistance. The new sea would drive them away from their traditional settlements. Thousands of people living in the desert would lose their homes. Oases would sink in the floods and the previous routes of the caravans would then lie on the seabed. The Tuareg and Bedouins defend their habitat. For this reason, the expedition of the chief engineer von Schaller with his assistant François, who wanted to check the status of the work of the canal construction, is under military escort.
Von Schaller inspects the sewer sections already built under Roudaire and also the new construction sections. One of them is completely devastated and abandoned by construction workers. Parts of the newly built canal have been filled in again. A local explains why. He blames Berbers for the destruction. The group falls on a feint and separates. The rest, led by Captain Hardigan, are ambushed by the real culprits, the Tuareg led by the freed Hajar. The escorts of the French military cannot prevent them and Schaller's chief engineer from falling into the power of the nomads. But soon they can flee again. You fight your way through the salt desert of the bulkhead and reach a hilly oasis with the last of your strength. But huge herds of animals flee through the country and earthquakes cause groundwater to break through to the surface of the salt-encrusted area. The following night the water level increases alarmingly. The group finds itself on an island. On the morning of the next day they see the entire Tuareg tribe of Hadjar drowning while fleeing from a huge tidal wave . The cause is an earthquake that causes a huge subsidence. The Mediterranean pours across a great breadth into the huge desert depression. Nature has thus anticipated the construction work. The scattered military escort finally rescues the members of the group with a steamboat .
literature
- Heinrich Pleticha (ed.): Jules Verne manual . Deutscher Bücherbund / Bertelsmann, Stuttgart and Munich 1992.
- Volker Dehs and Ralf Junkerjürgen: Jules Verne . Voices and interpretations of his work. Fantastic Library Wetzlar, Wetzlar 2005.
- Volker Dehs: Jules Verne . Jules Verne. A critical biography. Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf 2005. ISBN 3-538-07208-6
Individual evidence
Web links
- "The slump of the sea" as an e-book in HTML on zeno.org
- The collapse of the sea in Andreas Fehrmann's Jules Verne Collection