French Invasion of Egypt
Encyclopedia
The Egyptian Campaign (1798–1801) was Napoleon Bonaparte's campaign in "The Orient", ostensibly to protect French
trade interests, undermine Britain
's access to India
, and to establish scientific enterprise in the region. It was the primary purpose of the Mediterranean campaign of 1798
, a series of naval engagements that included the capture of Malta.
Despite many decisive victories and an initially successful expedition into Syria, Napoleon and his Armée d'Orient were eventually forced to withdraw, after mounting political disharmony in France, conflict in Europe, and the defeat of the supporting French Fleet at the Battle of the Nile
.
had assumed executive power in France. It would resort to the army to maintain order in the face of the Jacobin
and royalist threats, and count in particular on general Bonaparte, already a successful commander, especially thanks to his leadership of the Italian campaign.,
In August 1797, Bonaparte proposed a military expedition to seize Egypt
, a province of the Ottoman Empire
since the Ottoman–Mamluk War (1516–1517)
, in a letter to the Directoire, seeking to protect French
trade interests, attack British commerce and undermine Britain
's access to India
and the East Indies
, since Egypt was well-placed on the trade routes to these places. Bonaparte wished to establish a French presence in the Middle East, with the ultimate dream of linking with a Muslim enemy of the British in India, Tippoo Sahib. As France was not ready for a head-on attack on Great Britain itself, the Directoire decided to intervene indirectly and create a 'double port' connecting the Red Sea
to the Mediterranean Sea
, prefiguring the Suez Canal
.
At the time the expedition was being mooted, Egypt was an Ottoman
province which had collapsed in on itself, with dissension among the Mameluks. It was now out of the Ottoman sultan's direct control. In France, Egyptian fashion was in full swing — intellectuals believed that Egypt was the cradle of western civilisation and wished to export the Enlightenment
to the Egyptians, French traders already based on the River Nile were complaining of harassment by the Mameluks, and Napoleon wished to walk in the footsteps of Alexander the Great. He assured the Directoire that "as soon as he had conquered Egypt, he will establish relations with the Indian princes and, together with them, attack the English in their possessions." According to a 13 February 1798 report by Talleyrand, "Having occupied and fortified Egypt, we shall send a force of 15,000 men from Suez
to India, to join the forces of Tipu-Sahib and drive away the English." The Directoire agreed to the plan in March 1798. Though troubled by the enterprise's scope and cost, they readily agreed to the plan in order to remove the popular and over-ambitious general from the centre of power, though it long remained a secret that this was one of their main aims for the expedition.
, with 13 ships of the line, 14 frigates and 400 transport ships. To avoid being intercepted by the British fleet under admiral Nelson, the French force's destination still remained a mystery, only known by Bonaparte himself, his generals Berthier and Caffarelli and the mathematician Gaspard Monge
. Bonaparte was made the expedition's chief commander, with subordinates including Thomas Alexandre Dumas, Kléber, Desaix
, Berthier, Caffarelli, Lannes
, Damas
, Murat
, Andréossy, Belliard
, Menou and Zajączek
. His aides de camp included his brother Louis Bonaparte
, Duroc, Eugène de Beauharnais
, Thomas Prosper Jullien
, and the Polish nobleman Sulkowski
.
The great fleet at Toulon was joined by squadrons from Genoa
, Civitavecchia
and Bastia
and was put under the command of admiral Brueys and contre-amirals Villeneuve, Du Chayla
, Decrès
and Ganteaume
. It was about to set sail and depart when an event of little importance made it come to a complete halt — the hoisting of a tricolor flag on the palais de France in Vienna
by Bernadotte
, the French Republic's ambassador. That flag caused an uproar in which Bernadotte's character was outraged and he was forced to leave Vienna. The advantages recognised by the Treaty of Campo Formio
were thus called into question, shattering the hard-won peace that many had hoped would last longer. Fearing a break with the Austrian emperor, the Directoire could only see one man suitable to lead any force they sent against him — Bonaparte — which would remove him from the Egyptian expedition and possibly end it. However, deals were made after many apologies and explanations and the peace held. Bonaparte received orders to travel to Toulon as soon as possible. It is claimed that, in a stormy meeting with the Directoire, Bonaparte threatened to dissolve them and directeur Reubell gave him a pen saying "Sign there, general!".
Bonaparte arrived at Toulon on 9 May 1798, lodging with Benoît Georges de Najac
, the officer in charge of preparing the fleet. The army embarked confident in their commander's talent and on 19 May, just as he embarked, Bonaparte addressed the troops, especially those who had served under him in the armée d’Italie:
refused to welcome the French army for a limited period of re-provisioning before setting out again. Bonaparte decided to take the island by force and, thanks to the Maltese people's low esteem for the Knights of Saint John, it only took a few cannon blasts for the French to capture the strong fortress at Valetta on June 9. This made general Casabianca
comment "It was very lucky that there was someone here to open this place's gates for us". Before leaving the island, Bonaparte freed the Barbary and Italian prisoners languishing in its prisons, both for humanitarian reasons and for political ones, to make himself popular amongst these Muslims while he was on his way to fight other Muslims in Egypt.
for the time being, the fleet was in sight of Alexandria
, where it landed on 1 July, though his plan had been to land elsewhere. On the day of the landing he told his troops "I promise to each soldier who returns from this expedition, enough to purchase six arpent
s of land." and added:
Menou had been the first to set out for Egypt, but was the first Frenchman to land. Bonaparte and Kléber landed together and joined Menou at night at the Marabou, on which the first French tricolor to be hoisted in Egypt was raised. Bonaparte was informed that Alexandria
intended to resist him and he rushed to get a force ashore. At 2am he set off marching in three columns, arriving by surprise beneath Alexandria's walls and ordering an assault — the enemy gave up and fled. The city had not had time to surrender and put itself at the French's discretion but, despite Bonaparte's orders, the French soldiers broke into the city. Master of Egypt's capital, on 1 July Bonaparte paused before penetrating further into the country and issued a proclamation to the Muslim inhabitants of Alexandria:
When the whole expeditionary force had been disembarked, Admiral Brueys received orders to take the fleet to Aboukir Bay before anchoring the battle-fleet in the old port of Alexandria if possible or taking it to Corfu
. These precautions were made vital by the imminent arrival of the British fleet, which had already been seen near Alexandria 24 hours before the French fleet's arrival. It was wisest to avoid the risks of a naval battle — a defeat could have disastrous results and it was in the force's better interests to go by land, marching at top speed to Cairo
to frighten the enemy commanders and surprise them before they could put any defence measures in place.
Louis Desaix marched across the desert with his division and two cannon, arriving at Demenhour, fifteen miles (24 km) from Alexandria, on 18 messidor (6 July). Meanwhile Bonaparte left Alexandria, leaving the city under Kléber's command. General Dugua marched on Rosetta, with orders to seize and hold the entrance to the port housing the French fleet, which had to follow the route to Cairo down the river's left bank and rejoin the army at Rahmanié. On 20 messidor (8 July), Bonaparte arrived at Demenhour, where he found the forces that had met up, and on 22 messidor they marched on Rahmanié, where they then awaited the fleet with their provisions. The fleet arrived on 24 messidor (24 July) and the army began to march again at night, followed by the fleet.
The winds' violence suddenly forced the fleet to the army's left and straight into the enemy fleet, which was supported by musket fire from 4000 mameluks, reinforced by peasants and Arabs. The French fleet had numerical superiority but still lost its gunboats to the enemy. Attracted by the sound of gunfire, Bonaparte ordered his land force to the charge and attacked the village of Chebreiss, which was captured after two hours' fierce fighting. The enemy fled in disorder towards Cairo, leaving 600 dead on the battlefield.
After a day's rest at Chebreiss, the French land force continued the pursuit. On 2 thermidor
(20 juillet), it arrived half a mile from the village of Embabé. The heat was unbearable and the army was exhausted and needed a rest, but there was not enough time and so Bonaparte drew up his 25,000 troops for battle approximately nine miles (15 km) from the Pyramids of Giza. He is said to have shown his army the pyramids behind the enemy's left flank and at the moment of ordering the attack shouted "Soldiers, see the tops of the Pyramids" - in accounts written long afterwards, this phrase was altered into "Soldiers, remember that from the top of these pyramids, 40 centuries of history contemplate you", though historians later discovered that the pyramids were not visible from the battlefield. This was the start of the so-called battle of the Pyramids
, a French victory over an enemy force of about 21,000 Mamelukes
in the Battle of the Pyramids
(around 40,000 Mameluk soldiers stayed away from the battle). He defeated the Mameluk cavalry
using a larger version of the common infantry square
, with cannons and supplies safely on the inside. In all 300 French and approximately 6,000 Egyptians were killed. The battle gave rise to dozens of stories and drawings.
Dupuy
's brigade continued to pursue the routed enemy and at night entered Cairo, which had been abandoned by the beys Mourad and Ibrahim
. On 4 thermidor (22 July), the notables of Cairo came to Giza to meet Bonaparte and offered to hand over the city to him. Three days later, he moved his main headquarters there. Desaix
received orders to follow Mourad, who had set off for Upper Egypt
. An observation corps was put in place at Elkanka to keep an eye on the movements of Ibrahim, who was heading towards Syria. Bonaparte personally led the pursuit of Ibrahim, beat him at Salahie and pushed him completely out of Egypt.
The ships that had dropped off Napoleon and his army had sailed back to France, but a fleet of ships of the line
that had come with them stayed and supported the army along the coast. The British fleet had been searching for the French fleet for weeks in vain. It had not found it in time to prevent the landings in Egypt, but on 1 August it discovered the French battleships anchored in a strong defensive position in the Bay of Abukir
. The French believed that they were open to attack only on one side, the other side being protected by the shore. However, during the Battle of the Nile
the arriving British fleet under Horatio Nelson managed to slip half of their ships in between the land and the French line, thus attacking from both sides. In a few hours 11 out of the 13 French ships of the line and 2 out of the 4 French frigates were captured or destroyed, with the four remaining ships put to flight. This frustrated Bonaparte's goal of strengthening the French position in the Mediterranean Sea
, and instead put it totally under British control. News of the naval defeat reached Bonaparte en route back to Cairo from defeating Ibrahim but, far from being worried, Mullié states:
s to his main officers.
In a largely unsuccessful effort to gain the support of the Egyptian population, Bonaparte issued proclamation
s that cast him as a liberator of the people from Ottoman and Mameluk oppression, praising the precepts of Islam
and claiming friendship between France and the Ottoman Empire despite French intervention in the breakaway state. This position as a liberator and Ottoman ally initially gained him solid support in Egypt and later led to admiration for Napoleon from Muhammad Ali of Egypt
, who succeeded where Bonaparte had not in reforming Egypt and declaring its independence from the Ottomans. In a letter to a sheikh
in August 1798, Napoleon wrote, "I hope...I shall be able to unite all the wise and educated men of all the countries and establish a uniform regime based on the principles of the Quran which alone are true and which alone can lead men to happiness." However, Bonaparte's secretary Bourienne
wrote that his employer had no serious interest in Islam or any other religion beyond their political value.
Shortly after Bonaparte's return from facing Ibrahim came Mohammed's birthday, which was celebrated with great pomp. Bonaparte himself directed the military parades for the occasion, preparing for this festival in the cheik's house wearing oriental dress and a turban. It was on this occasion that the divan
granted him the title Ali-Bonaparte after Bonaparte proclaimed himself "a worthy son of the Prophet" and "favourite of Allah". Around the same time he took severe measures to protect pilgrim caravans from Egypt to Mecca
, writing a letter himself to the governor of Mecca.
Even so, thanks to the taxes he imposed on them to support his army, the Egyptians remained unconvinced of the sincerity of all Bonaparte's attempts at conciliation and continued to attack him ceaselessly. Any means, even sudden attacks and assassination, were allowed to force the "infidels" out of Egypt. Military executions were unable to deter these attacks and they continued, showing that in the end the French were in Egypt but not really its masters.
22 September 1798 was the anniversary of the founding of the First French Republic and Bonaparte organised the most magnificent celebration possible. On his orders, an immense circus was built in the largest square in Cairo, with 105 columns (each with a flag bearing the name of a département) round the edge and a colossal inscribed obelisk at the centre. On seven classical altars were inscribed the names of heroes killed in the French Revolutionary Wars
, whilst the structure was entered through a triumphal arch, on which was shown the battle of the Pyramids. Here there was some awkwardness — the painting flattered the French but aggrieved the defeated Egyptians they were trying to win over as allies.
On the day of the festival, Bonaparte addressed his troops, enumerating their exploits since the 1793 siege of Toulon and telling them:
After nominally making himself master of Egypt by force, Bonaparte tried to give Egypt what he saw as the benefits of western civilisation. Cairo soon took on the appearance of a European city, with its administration confided to a 'divan' chosen from among the best men of the province. At the same time the other cities received municipal institutions. An Institut d'Égypte
of French scholars was set up and he joined the title of President of the Institut to the title of académicien. The conqueror became the legislator, setting up a library, a chemistry laboruatory, a health service, a botanical garden, an observatory, an antiquities museum and a menagerie.
Under Bonaparte's orders, the scholars drew up a comparative table of Egyptian and French weights and measures, wrote a French-Arabic dictionary and calculated a triple Egyptian, Coptic and European calendar. Two journals were set up in Cairo, one for literature and political economy under the name Décade égyptienne, and the other for politics under the title Courrier égyptien.
Its numbers hugely reduced by deaths in action and from disease, the army could no longer hope for reinforcements from France after the naval disaster at Aboukir, but Bonaparte tried to overcome this problem by levying from among the slaves in Egypt between the ages of 16 and 24 and turning the 3000 sailors who had survived Aboukir into a légion nautique.
All the streets in Cairo were closed at night by gates to stop the inhabitants aiding the Arabs in a night attack on the French. Bonaparte removed these fences, since the Egyptians could use them as barricades if they rose against the French — this removal proved to be justified by the events that soon followed.
, Cairo's commander, was the first to be killed, then Sulkowski, friend and aide de camp to Bonaparte. Excited by the sheikhs and imams, the Egyptians swore by the Prophet to exterminate all Frenchmen and any Frenchman they met — at home or in the streets — was mercilessly killed. Crowds rallied at the city gates to keep out Bonaparte, who was repulsed and forced to take a detour to get in via the Boulaq gate.
The French army's situation was critical — the British were menacing coastal towns, Murad Bey
was still in the field in Upper Egypt, and generals Menou and Dugua were only just able to hold down Lower Egypt. The Arabs and the Egyptian peasants had common cause with those rising against the French in Cairo — the whole desert was in arms. A manifesto of the Great Lord was published widely throughout Egypt, stating:
Bonaparte did not feel threatened by the storm building on all sides. Via his orders the Arabs were beaten back into the desert and the artillery was turned back on the rebel city. Bonaparte personally hunted down the rebels from street to street and forced them to concentrate in the Great Mosque. Luckily for the French the sky was covered with clouds and thunder was rumbling, a very rare phenomenon in Egypt. Many of the supersitious residents considered the thunder as a sign from heaven and they begged for mercy from their enemies. Bonaparte replied "He [ie God] is too late — you've begun, now I will finish!". He then immediately ordered his cannon to open fire on the Mosque. The French broke down the gates and stormed into the building, massacring the Egyptians inside.
Back in absolute control of Cairo, Bonaparte sought out the authors and instigators of the revolt. Several sheikhs and many Turks or Egyptians were convicted of participation in the plot and executed. To complete his punishment, the city was hit by a high tax and its divan was replaced by a military commission. To negate the effects of the Great Lord's firman, the French posted a proclamation in all the cities of Egypt, ending in the words:
The most religious of the prophets said "The revolt has fallen asleep — cursed be he who wakes it up!". While Bonaparte remained in Egypt, there was no further revolt.
and see with his own eyes the possibility of a canal (known as the Canal of the Pharaohs
) said to have been cut in antiquity between the Red Sea
and the Mediterranean by order of the pharaohs. Before setting out on the expedition, he gave Cairo back its self-government as a token of its pardon — a new 'divan' made up of 60 members replaced the military commission.
Then, accompanied by his colleagues from the Institut, Berthollet
, Monge
, Le Père
, Dutertre
, Costaz
, Caffarelli, and followed by a 300-man escort, Bonaparte set out for the Red Sea and after three days' marching across the desert he and his caravan arrived at Suez. After giving orders to complete the fortifications at Suez, Bonaparte crossed the Red Sea and on 28 December 1798 moved into Arabia to look for the celebrated fountains of Moses 17 kilometres from Suez. On his return, surprised by the rising tide, he ran the risk of drowning. Arriving back at Suez, after much exploration the expedition fulfilled its aim, finding the remains of the ancient canal
built by Senusret III
and Necho II
.
decided to wage war against France, and sent two armies to Egypt. The first army, under the command of Jezzar Pasha
, had set out with 12,000 soldiers; but was reinforced with troops from Damascus
, Aleppo
, Iraq
(10,000 men), and Jerusalem (8,000 men). The second army, under the command of Mustafa Pasha, began on Rhodes
with about eight thousand soldiers. He also knew he would get about 42,000 soldiers from Albania
, Constantinople
, Asia Minor
, and Greece
. The Ottoman planned two offensives against Cairo
. From Syria
, across the desert of Salhayeh-Belbays-El Kankah, and from Rhodes
by sea landing in the Aboukir
area or the port city of Damietta
.
He prepared around 13,000 soldiers who were organised in divisions under the command of Generals Reynier (with 2,160 men), Kléber
(with 2,336), Bon
(2,449), Lannes
(2,938), division cavalry under General Murat
(900), brigade of infantry and cavalry under Brigade chief Bessières
(400), camel-company (89), artillery under Dommartin
(1,387), and engineers and sappers under Caraffeli
(3,404). Every infantry and cavalry division had 6 cannons. Napoleon took 16 siege
cannons which were placed on ships in Damietta under the command of Captain Standelet. He also ordered contre-amiral Perrée
to Jaffa with siege artillery pieces. The total artillery sent on the campaign was 80 cannon.
Regnier and the vanguard quickly arrived before Arish, captured it, destroyed part of the garrison and forced the rest to take refuge in the castle. At the same time he put Ibrahim's mamemluks to flight and captured their camp. Bonaparte's French forces left Egypt on 5 February 1799 and, seven days after leaving Cairo, Bonaparte too arrived at Arish and bombarded one of the castle towers. The garrison surrendered two days later and some of the garrison joined French army.
, where it rested for two days, and then moved onto Jaffa. This city was surrounded by high walls flanked by towers. Jezzar had entrusted its defence to elite troops, with the artillery manned by 1200 Ottoman gunners. The city was one of the ways into Syria, its port could be used by his fleet and a large part of the expedition's success depended on its fall. This meant Bonaparte had to capture the city before advancing further, and so he laid siege
to it from 3 to 7 March.
All the outer works were in the besiegers' power and a breach could be produced. When Bonaparte sent a Turk to the city's commander to demand his surrender, the commander beheaded him despite the envoy's neutrality and ordered a sortie. He was repulsed and on the evening of the same day the besiegers' bullets caused one of the towers to crumble. Despite the defenders' desperate resistance, Jaffa fell. Two days and two nights of carnage were enough to assuage the French soldiers' fury - 4000 prisoners were shot or beheaded by a Muslim executioner taken on in Egypt. This vengeful execution found apologists, who wrote that Napoleon could neither afford to hold such a large number of prisoners nor let them escape to join Jezzar's ranks.
Before leaving Jaffa, Bonaparte set up a divan for the city along with a large hospital on the site of the Carmelite monastery at Mount Carmel
to treat those of his soldiers who had caught the plague, whose symptoms had been seen among them since the start of the siege. A report from generals Bon and Rampon on the plague's spread worried Bonaparte. To calm his army, it is said he went into the sufferers' rooms, spoke with and consoled the sick and touched them, saying "See, it's nothing", then left the hospital and told those who thought his actions unwise "It was my duty, I'm commander-in-chief". However, some later historians state that Napoleon avoided touching or even meeting plague-sufferers to avoid catching it and that his visits to the sick were invented by later Napoleonic propaganda. For example, long after the campaign, Antoine-Jean Gros
produced the propaganda painting Bonaparte visiting the plague-victims of Jaffa
in 1804. This showed Napoleon touching a sick man's body, modelling him on an Ancien Régime king-healer touching sufferers from the 'King's Evil'
during his coronation rites — this was no coincidence, since 1804 was the year Napoleon Bonaparte crowned himself emperor.
From Jaffa the army set off for the coastal town of Acre
. En route it captured Haifa
and the munitions and provisions stored there, along with the castle at Jaffet, the castle at Nazareth
and the town of Tyre. The siege of Acre
began on 18 March but the French were unable to take it and it was here that the Syrian campaign came to an abrupt halt. The city was defended by newly created Ottoman infantry elites (Nizam-ı Cedid
) under the command of Jezzar Pasha
and was right on the coast, enabling it to be reinforced and resupplied by the British and Ottoman fleets.
After sixty days' repeated attacks and two murderous and inconclusive assaults, the city remained uncaptured. Even so, it was still awaiting reinforcements by sea as well as a large army forming up in Asia on the sultan's orders to march against the French. To find out the latter's movements, Jezzar ordered a general sortie against Bonaparte's camp. This sortie was supported by its own artillery and a naval bombardment from the British. With his usual impetuosity, Bonaparte pushed Jezzar's columns back against their own walls and then went to help Kléber, who was retrenched in the ruins with 4000 Frenchmen and 20000 Ottomans under his command. Bonaparte conceived a trick which used all the advantages offered him by the enemy position, sending Murat and his cavalry across the River Jordan to defend the river crossing and Vial and Rampon to march on Nablus
, while Bonaparte himself put his troops between the Ottomans and the magazines. These manoeuvres were successful, in what was known as the battle of Mount Tabor
. The enemy army, taken by surprise at many points at once, was routed and forced to retreat, leaving their camels, tents, provisions and 5000 dead on the battlefield.
However, one of those fighting on the Ottoman side was the French émigré and engineer officer Phélippeaux, one of Bonaparte's classmates at the École militaire. Phélippeaux ordered cannon to be placed in the most advantageous positions and new trenches dug as if by magic behind the ruins which Bonaparte's forces had captured. At the same time Sidney Smith, commander of the British fleet, and his ships' crews landed. These factors renewed the courage of the besieged and they pushed Bonaparte's force back, with stubborn fury on both sides. Three final consecutive assaults were all repulsed, convincing Bonaparte that it would be unwise to continue trying to capture Acre. He raised the siege in May and consoled his soldiers with the proclamation:
To conceal its withdrawal from the siege, the army set off at night. Arriving at Jaffa, Bonaparte ordered three evacuations of the plague sufferers to three different points — one by sea to Damietta
, one by land to Gaza and one by land to Arish. During the retreat the army picked clean all the lands through which they passed, with livestock, crops and houses all destroyed by sword and fire and Gaza the only place to be spared, in return for remaining loyal to Bonaparte. To speed the retreat, Bonaparte also took the controversial step of killing prisoners and plague-stricken men along the way. His supporters argued that this was necessary given continuing harassment of stragglers by Ottoman forces.
At Cairo the army found the rest and supplies it needed to recover, but its stay there could not be a long one. Bonaparte had been informed that Murad Bay had evaded the pursuit by generals Desaix
, Belliard
, Donzelot
and Davoust
and was descending on Upper Egypt. Bonaparte thus marched to attack him at Giza, also learning that 100 Ottoman ships were off Aboukir, threatening Alexandria.
Without losing time or returning to Cairo, Bonaparte ordered his generals to make all speed to meet the army commanded by the pasha of Rumelia
, Saïd-Mustapha, which had joined up with the forces under Murad Bey and Ibrahim. Before leaving Giza, where he found them, Bonaparte wrote to Cairo's divan, stating:
First Bonaparte advanced to Alexandria, from which he marched to Aboukir, whose fort was now strongly garrisoned by the Ottomans. Bonaparte deployed his army so that Mustapha would have to win or die with all his family. Mustapha's army was 18,000 strong and supported by several cannon, with trenches defending it on the landward side and free communication with the Ottoman fleet on the seaward side. Bonaparte ordered an attack on 25 July and the Battle of Abukir
ensued. In a few hours the trenches were taken, 10,000 Ottomans drowned in the ocean and the rest captured or killed. Most of the credit for the French victory that day goes to Murat, who captured Mustapha himself. Mustapha's son was in command of the fort and he and all his officers survived but were captured and sent back to Cairo as part of the French triumphal procession. Seeing Bonaparte return with these high-ranking prisoners, the population of Cairo superstitiously welcomed him as a prophet-warrior who had predicted his own triumph with such remarkable precision.
- as Bonaparte saw it, this meant France needed him and would welcome him back.
He only shared the secret of his return with a small number of friends whose discretion and loyalty were well-known. He left Cairo in August 1799 on the pretext of a voyage in the Nile Delta
without arousing suspicion, accompanied by the scholars Monge
and Berthollet
, the painter Denon, and generals Berthier, Murat
, Lannes
and Marmont. On 23 August 1799 a proclamation informed the army that Bonaparte had transferred his powers as commander in chief to general Kléber. This news was taken badly, with the soldiers angry with Bonaparte and the French government for leaving them behind, but this indignation soon ended, since the troops were confident in Kléber, who convinced them that Bonaparte had not left permanently but would soon be back with reinforcements from France. As night fell, the frigate Muiron
silently moored by the shore, with three other ships escorting her. Some became worried when a British corvette was sighted at the moment of departure, but Bonaparte cried "Bah! We'll get there, luck has never abandoned us, we shall get there, despite the English."
On 1 October Napoleon's small flotilla entered port at Ajaccio
, where contrary winds kept them until 8 October, when they set out for France. When the coast came in sight, ten British ships were sighted. Contre-amiral Ganteaume
suggested changing course towards Corsica, but Bonaparte said "No, this manoeuvre would lead us to England, and I want to get to France.". This courageous act saved them and on 8 October 1799 (16 vendémiaire year VIII) the frigates anchored in the roads off Fréjus
. As there were no sick men on board and the plague in Egypt had ended six months before their departure, Bonaparte and his entourage were allowed to land immediately without waiting in quarantine
. At 6pm he set off for Paris, accompanied by his chief of staff Berthier. He stopped off at Saint-Raphaël
, where he built a pyramid commemorating the expedition.
Kléber defeated the Mamelukes at the battle of Heliopolis
in March 1800, and then suppressed an insurrection in Cairo
. However, on 14 June (26 prairial) 1800 a Syrian student called Suleiman al-Halabi
assassinated Kléber with a dagger in the heart, chest, left forearm and right thigh. Command of the French army passed to Menou
, who held command from 3 July until August 1801. Menou's letter was published in Le Moniteur on 6 September, with the conclusions of the committee charged with judging those responsible for the assassination:
Under continual harassment from a new Anglo-Ottoman land offensive, after the loss of 13,500 men (mostly to disease), and eventually besieged in Alexandria
, Menou eventually capitulated
to the British on 31 August 1801. Under the terms of his capitulation
, the British general Ralph Abercromby
allowed the French army to be repatriated in British ships. Menou also signed over to Britain the priceless hoard of Egyptian antiquities such as the Rosetta Stone
which it had collected. After initial talks in Al Arish on 30 January 1800, the Treaty of Paris on 25 June 1802 ended all hostilities between France and the Ottoman Empire, resecuring Egypt for the Ottomans.
An unusual aspect of the Egyptian expedition was the inclusion of an enormous contingent of scientists and scholars ("savants") assigned to the invading French force, 167 in total. This deployment of intellectual resources is considered as an indication of Napoleon's devotion to the principles of the Enlightenment
, and by others as a masterstroke of propaganda
obfuscating the true imperialist motives of the invasion.
These scholars included engineers and artists, members of the Commission des Sciences et des Arts, the geologist Dolomieu
, Henri-Joseph Redouté, the mathematician Gaspard Monge
(a founder member of the École polytechnique), the chemist Claude Louis Berthollet
, Vivant Denon, the mathematician Jean-Joseph Fourier
(who did some of the empirical work upon which his "analytical theory of heat" was founded in Egypt), the physician Malus, the naturalist Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire
, the botanist Alire Raffeneau-Delile, and the engineer Nicolas-Jacques Conté
of the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers
. Their original aim was to help the army, notably by opening a Suez Canal
, mapping out roads and building mills to supply food. They founded the Institut d'Égypte
with the aim of propagating Enlightenment values in Egypt through interdisciplinary work, improving its agricultural and architectural techniques for example. A scientific review was created under the title Décade égyptienne and in the course of the expedition the scholars also observed and drew the flora and fauna in Egypt and became interested in the country's resources.
The Egyptian Institute that Napoleon established saw the construction of laboratories, libraries, and a printing press. The group worked prodigiously, some of the discoveries were not finally cataloged until the 1820s.
A young engineer officer Pierre-François-Xavier Bouchard discovered the Rosetta Stone
in July 1799. However, many of the antiquities collected by the French in Egypt were seized by the British Navy and ended up in the British Museum
- only about 50 of the 5000 Egyptian objects in the Louvre
were collected during the 1799-1801 Egyptian expedition. Even so, the scholars' research in Egypt gave rise to the Description de l'Égypte
, published on Napoleon's orders between 1809 and 1821.
Napoleon's discoveries in Egypt gave rise to fascination over Ancient Egypt
ian culture and the birth of Egyptology
in Europe.
Bonaparte's initial use of Arabic in his printed proclamations was rife with error. In addition to much of the awkwardly translated Arabic wording being unsound grammatically, often the proclamations were so poorly constructed that there were simply undecipherable. The French Orientalist Jean Michel de Venture de Paradis, perhaps with the help of Maltese aides, were responsible for translating the first of Napoleon's French proclamations into Arabic. The Maltese, Catholic Christians, speak a dialect distantly related to Egyptian dialect. However, they were seldom schooled in writing classical Arabic, which differs greatly in grammar, vocabulary, and idiom. Venture de Paradis, alternatively, who had lived in Tunis, understood Arabic grammar and vocabulary, but did not know how to use them idiomatically.
The Sunni Muslim clerics of the Al-Azhar University
in Cairo reacted incredulously to Napoleon's proclamations. Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti
, a Cairene cleric and historian, received the proclamations with a combination of amusement, bewilderment, and outrage. He berated the French's poor Arabic grammar and the infelicitous style of their proclamations. Over the course of Napoleon's invasion of Egypt, al-Jabarti wrote a wealth of material regarding the French and their occupation tactics. Among his observations, he rejected Napoleon's claim that the French were "muslims" (the wrong noun case was used in the Arabic proclamation, making it a lower case "m") and poorly understood the French concept of a republic and democracy - words which did not exist at the time in Arabic.
, the campaign had a powerful impact on the Ottoman Empire in general and the Arab world
in particular. The invasion demonstrated the military, technological, and organisational superiority of the Western European powers to the Middle East, leading to profound social changes in the region. The invasion introduced Western inventions, such as the printing press
, and ideas, such as liberalism
and incipient nationalism
, to the Middle East, eventually leading to the establishment of Egyptian independence and modernisation under Muhammad Ali Pasha in the first half of the 19th century and eventually the Nahda
, or Arab Renaissance. To modernist historian
s, the French arrival marks the start of the modern Middle East
.
The campaign ended in what some back home in France believed was a failure, with 15,000 French troops killed in action and 15,000 by disease. However, Napoleon's reputation as a brilliant military commander remained intact and even rose higher, despite some of his failures during the campaign. This was due to his expert propaganda, such as his Courrier d’Égypte, set up to propagandise the expeditionary force itself and support its morale. That propaganda even spread back to France, where news of defeats such as at sea in Aboukir Bay and on land in Syria were suppressed. Defeats could be blamed on the now-assassinated Kléber, leaving Napoleon free from blame and with a burnished reputation. This opened his way to power and he profited from his reputation by engineering his becoming First Consul
in the coup d'État of 18 brumaire
(November 1799).
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
trade interests, undermine Britain
Kingdom of Great Britain
The former Kingdom of Great Britain, sometimes described as the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain', That the Two Kingdoms of Scotland and England, shall upon the 1st May next ensuing the date hereof, and forever after, be United into One Kingdom by the Name of GREAT BRITAIN. was a sovereign...
's access to India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, and to establish scientific enterprise in the region. It was the primary purpose of the Mediterranean campaign of 1798
Mediterranean campaign of 1798
The Mediterranean campaign of 1798 was a series of major naval operations surrounding a French expeditionary force sent to Egypt under Napoleon Bonaparte during the French Revolutionary Wars. The French Republic sought to capture Egypt as the first stage in an effort to threaten British India, and...
, a series of naval engagements that included the capture of Malta.
Despite many decisive victories and an initially successful expedition into Syria, Napoleon and his Armée d'Orient were eventually forced to withdraw, after mounting political disharmony in France, conflict in Europe, and the defeat of the supporting French Fleet at the Battle of the Nile
Battle of the Nile
The Battle of the Nile was a major naval battle fought between British and French fleets at Aboukir Bay on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt from 1–3 August 1798...
.
Proposal
At the time of the expedition, the DirectoireFrench Directory
The Directory was a body of five Directors that held executive power in France following the Convention and preceding the Consulate...
had assumed executive power in France. It would resort to the army to maintain order in the face of the Jacobin
Jacobin Club
The Jacobin Club was the most famous and influential political club in the development of the French Revolution, so-named because of the Dominican convent where they met, located in the Rue St. Jacques , Paris. The club originated as the Club Benthorn, formed at Versailles from a group of Breton...
and royalist threats, and count in particular on general Bonaparte, already a successful commander, especially thanks to his leadership of the Italian campaign.,
In August 1797, Bonaparte proposed a military expedition to seize Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, a province of the Ottoman Empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
since the Ottoman–Mamluk War (1516–1517)
Ottoman–Mamluk War (1516–1517)
The Ottoman–Mamluk War of 1516–1517 was a conflict between the Egyptian Mamluk Sultanate and the Ottoman Empire, which led to the fall of the Mamluk Sultanate and the incorporation of Syria, Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula as provinces of the Ottoman Empire...
, in a letter to the Directoire, seeking to protect French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
trade interests, attack British commerce and undermine Britain
Kingdom of Great Britain
The former Kingdom of Great Britain, sometimes described as the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain', That the Two Kingdoms of Scotland and England, shall upon the 1st May next ensuing the date hereof, and forever after, be United into One Kingdom by the Name of GREAT BRITAIN. was a sovereign...
's access to India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
and the East Indies
East Indies
East Indies is a term used by Europeans from the 16th century onwards to identify what is now known as Indian subcontinent or South Asia, Southeastern Asia, and the islands of Oceania, including the Malay Archipelago and the Philippines...
, since Egypt was well-placed on the trade routes to these places. Bonaparte wished to establish a French presence in the Middle East, with the ultimate dream of linking with a Muslim enemy of the British in India, Tippoo Sahib. As France was not ready for a head-on attack on Great Britain itself, the Directoire decided to intervene indirectly and create a 'double port' connecting the Red Sea
Red Sea
The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. In the north, there is the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez...
to the Mediterranean Sea
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
, prefiguring the Suez Canal
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal , also known by the nickname "The Highway to India", is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Opened in November 1869 after 10 years of construction work, it allows water transportation between Europe and Asia without navigation...
.
At the time the expedition was being mooted, Egypt was an Ottoman
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
province which had collapsed in on itself, with dissension among the Mameluks. It was now out of the Ottoman sultan's direct control. In France, Egyptian fashion was in full swing — intellectuals believed that Egypt was the cradle of western civilisation and wished to export the Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
to the Egyptians, French traders already based on the River Nile were complaining of harassment by the Mameluks, and Napoleon wished to walk in the footsteps of Alexander the Great. He assured the Directoire that "as soon as he had conquered Egypt, he will establish relations with the Indian princes and, together with them, attack the English in their possessions." According to a 13 February 1798 report by Talleyrand, "Having occupied and fortified Egypt, we shall send a force of 15,000 men from Suez
Suez
Suez is a seaport city in north-eastern Egypt, located on the north coast of the Gulf of Suez , near the southern terminus of the Suez Canal, having the same boundaries as Suez governorate. It has three harbors, Adabya, Ain Sokhna and Port Tawfiq, and extensive port facilities...
to India, to join the forces of Tipu-Sahib and drive away the English." The Directoire agreed to the plan in March 1798. Though troubled by the enterprise's scope and cost, they readily agreed to the plan in order to remove the popular and over-ambitious general from the centre of power, though it long remained a secret that this was one of their main aims for the expedition.
Before departure from Toulon
Rumours became rife as 40,000 soldiers and 10,000 sailors were gathered in the ports of the Mediterranean and a vast fleet at ToulonToulon
Toulon is a town in southern France and a large military harbor on the Mediterranean coast, with a major French naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur region, Toulon is the capital of the Var department in the former province of Provence....
, with 13 ships of the line, 14 frigates and 400 transport ships. To avoid being intercepted by the British fleet under admiral Nelson, the French force's destination still remained a mystery, only known by Bonaparte himself, his generals Berthier and Caffarelli and the mathematician Gaspard Monge
Gaspard Monge
Gaspard Monge, Comte de Péluse was a French mathematician, revolutionary, and was inventor of descriptive geometry. During the French Revolution, he was involved in the complete reorganization of the educational system, founding the École Polytechnique...
. Bonaparte was made the expedition's chief commander, with subordinates including Thomas Alexandre Dumas, Kléber, Desaix
Louis Charles Antoine Desaix
Louis Charles Antoine Desaix was a French general and military leader. According to the usage of the time, he took the name Louis Charles Antoine Desaix de Veygoux.-Biography:...
, Berthier, Caffarelli, Lannes
Jean Lannes
Jean Lannes, 1st Duc de Montebello, was a Marshal of France. He was one of Napoleon's most daring and talented generals. Napoleon once commented on Lannes: "I found him a pygmy and left him a giant"...
, Damas
François-Étienne de Damas
-Life:Damas was born in Paris. Destined by his family for a career in architecture, instead he joined the National Guard on 14 July 1789 and served in the camp sous Paris in 1792. Damas's mathematical knowledge led général Meusnier of the engineers to choose him as his aide-de-camp on coming to...
, Murat
Joachim Murat
Joachim-Napoléon Murat , Marshal of France and Grand Admiral or Admiral of France, 1st Prince Murat, was Grand Duke of Berg from 1806 to 1808 and then King of Naples from 1808 to 1815...
, Andréossy, Belliard
Augustin Daniel Belliard
Augustin Daniel Belliard, comte Belliard et de l'Empire was a French general.Belliard became an officer between 1792 and 1793 under Dumouriez in Belgium...
, Menou and Zajączek
Józef Zajaczek
Prince Józef Zajączek , was a Polish general and politician.His first important military post was that of an aide-de-camp to hetman Franciszek Ksawery Branicki...
. His aides de camp included his brother Louis Bonaparte
Louis Bonaparte
Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, Prince Français, Comte de Saint-Leu , King of Holland , was the fifth surviving child and the fourth surviving son of Carlo Buonaparte and Letizia Ramolino...
, Duroc, Eugène de Beauharnais
Eugène de Beauharnais
Eugène Rose de Beauharnais, Prince Français, Prince of Venice, Viceroy of the Kingdom of Italy, Hereditary Grand Duke of Frankfurt, 1st Duke of Leuchtenberg and 1st Prince of Eichstätt ad personam was the first child and only son of Alexandre, Vicomte de Beauharnais and Joséphine Tascher de la...
, Thomas Prosper Jullien
Thomas Prosper Jullien
Thomas Prosper Jullien was a French army officer of the French Revolutionary Wars. Aide de camp to Bonaparte, he rose to the rank of captain and was brother of the famous general Louis Joseph Victor Jullien de Bidon....
, and the Polish nobleman Sulkowski
Joseph Sulkowski
Joseph Sulkowski, was a Polish captain in the French Revolutionary Army and friend and aide de camp to Bonaparte. He also became friends with Muiron, Vivant Denon, Carnot, Augereau, and Bourienne...
.
The great fleet at Toulon was joined by squadrons from Genoa
Genoa
Genoa |Ligurian]] Zena ; Latin and, archaically, English Genua) is a city and an important seaport in northern Italy, the capital of the Province of Genoa and of the region of Liguria....
, Civitavecchia
Civitavecchia
Civitavecchia is a town and comune of the province of Rome in the central Italian region of Lazio. A sea port on the Tyrrhenian Sea, it is located 80 kilometers west-north-west of Rome, across the Mignone river. The harbor is formed by two piers and a breakwater, on which is a lighthouse...
and Bastia
Bastia
Bastia is a commune in the Haute-Corse department of France located in the northeast of the island of Corsica at the base of Cap Corse. It is also the second-largest city in Corsica after Ajaccio and the capital of the department....
and was put under the command of admiral Brueys and contre-amirals Villeneuve, Du Chayla
Armand Blanquet du Chayla
Count Armand Blanquet du Chayla was an officer in the French Navy, most famous as second in command of the French fleet during its defeat at the Battle of the Nile.-Early actions:...
, Decrès
Denis Decrès
Denis Decrès, , was an officer of the French Navy and count, later duke of the First Empire.-Early career:...
and Ganteaume
Honoré Joseph Antoine Ganteaume
Count Honoré Joseph Antoine Ganteaume was a French admiral.Ganteaume was born to a family of merchant sailors, and sailed on a dozen commercial cruises in his youth...
. It was about to set sail and depart when an event of little importance made it come to a complete halt — the hoisting of a tricolor flag on the palais de France in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
by Bernadotte
Charles XIV John of Sweden
Charles XIV & III John, also Carl John, Swedish and Norwegian: Karl Johan was King of Sweden and King of Norway from 1818 until his death...
, the French Republic's ambassador. That flag caused an uproar in which Bernadotte's character was outraged and he was forced to leave Vienna. The advantages recognised by the Treaty of Campo Formio
Treaty of Campo Formio
The Treaty of Campo Formio was signed on 18 October 1797 by Napoleon Bonaparte and Count Philipp von Cobenzl as representatives of revolutionary France and the Austrian monarchy...
were thus called into question, shattering the hard-won peace that many had hoped would last longer. Fearing a break with the Austrian emperor, the Directoire could only see one man suitable to lead any force they sent against him — Bonaparte — which would remove him from the Egyptian expedition and possibly end it. However, deals were made after many apologies and explanations and the peace held. Bonaparte received orders to travel to Toulon as soon as possible. It is claimed that, in a stormy meeting with the Directoire, Bonaparte threatened to dissolve them and directeur Reubell gave him a pen saying "Sign there, general!".
Bonaparte arrived at Toulon on 9 May 1798, lodging with Benoît Georges de Najac
Benoît Georges de Najac
Benoît Georges de Najac was a French nobleman, fleet commissioner, reformer and freemason. He became an écuyer , and a comte de l’Empire , as comte de Najac....
, the officer in charge of preparing the fleet. The army embarked confident in their commander's talent and on 19 May, just as he embarked, Bonaparte addressed the troops, especially those who had served under him in the armée d’Italie:
Capture of Malta
Napoleon's fleet arrived off Malta, where Grand Master Ferdinand von Hompesch zu BolheimFerdinand von Hompesch zu Bolheim
Ferdinand von Hompesch zu Bolheim was the 71st Prince and Grand Master of the Order of Malta, the first German to be elected to the office....
refused to welcome the French army for a limited period of re-provisioning before setting out again. Bonaparte decided to take the island by force and, thanks to the Maltese people's low esteem for the Knights of Saint John, it only took a few cannon blasts for the French to capture the strong fortress at Valetta on June 9. This made general Casabianca
Luc-Julien-Joseph Casabianca
See Casabianca for other meaningsLuc-Julien-Joseph Casabianca was a French Navy officer.- Career :...
comment "It was very lucky that there was someone here to open this place's gates for us". Before leaving the island, Bonaparte freed the Barbary and Italian prisoners languishing in its prisons, both for humanitarian reasons and for political ones, to make himself popular amongst these Muslims while he was on his way to fight other Muslims in Egypt.
Disembarkation at Alexandria
Thirteen days after leaving Malta and continuing to successfully elude detection by the Royal NavyRoyal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
for the time being, the fleet was in sight of Alexandria
Alexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...
, where it landed on 1 July, though his plan had been to land elsewhere. On the day of the landing he told his troops "I promise to each soldier who returns from this expedition, enough to purchase six arpent
Arpent
An arpent is a unit of length and a unit of area. It is a pre-metric French unit based on the Roman actus. It is used in Quebec as well as in some areas of the United States that were part of French Louisiana.-Unit of length:...
s of land." and added:
Menou had been the first to set out for Egypt, but was the first Frenchman to land. Bonaparte and Kléber landed together and joined Menou at night at the Marabou, on which the first French tricolor to be hoisted in Egypt was raised. Bonaparte was informed that Alexandria
Alexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...
intended to resist him and he rushed to get a force ashore. At 2am he set off marching in three columns, arriving by surprise beneath Alexandria's walls and ordering an assault — the enemy gave up and fled. The city had not had time to surrender and put itself at the French's discretion but, despite Bonaparte's orders, the French soldiers broke into the city. Master of Egypt's capital, on 1 July Bonaparte paused before penetrating further into the country and issued a proclamation to the Muslim inhabitants of Alexandria:
When the whole expeditionary force had been disembarked, Admiral Brueys received orders to take the fleet to Aboukir Bay before anchoring the battle-fleet in the old port of Alexandria if possible or taking it to Corfu
Corfu
Corfu is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. It is the second largest of the Ionian Islands, and, including its small satellite islands, forms the edge of the northwestern frontier of Greece. The island is part of the Corfu regional unit, and is administered as a single municipality. The...
. These precautions were made vital by the imminent arrival of the British fleet, which had already been seen near Alexandria 24 hours before the French fleet's arrival. It was wisest to avoid the risks of a naval battle — a defeat could have disastrous results and it was in the force's better interests to go by land, marching at top speed to Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
to frighten the enemy commanders and surprise them before they could put any defence measures in place.
Victory on land, defeat at sea
The winds' violence suddenly forced the fleet to the army's left and straight into the enemy fleet, which was supported by musket fire from 4000 mameluks, reinforced by peasants and Arabs. The French fleet had numerical superiority but still lost its gunboats to the enemy. Attracted by the sound of gunfire, Bonaparte ordered his land force to the charge and attacked the village of Chebreiss, which was captured after two hours' fierce fighting. The enemy fled in disorder towards Cairo, leaving 600 dead on the battlefield.
After a day's rest at Chebreiss, the French land force continued the pursuit. On 2 thermidor
Thermidor
Thermidor was the eleventh month in the French Republican Calendar. The month was named after the French word thermal which comes from the Greek word "thermos" which means heat....
(20 juillet), it arrived half a mile from the village of Embabé. The heat was unbearable and the army was exhausted and needed a rest, but there was not enough time and so Bonaparte drew up his 25,000 troops for battle approximately nine miles (15 km) from the Pyramids of Giza. He is said to have shown his army the pyramids behind the enemy's left flank and at the moment of ordering the attack shouted "Soldiers, see the tops of the Pyramids" - in accounts written long afterwards, this phrase was altered into "Soldiers, remember that from the top of these pyramids, 40 centuries of history contemplate you", though historians later discovered that the pyramids were not visible from the battlefield. This was the start of the so-called battle of the Pyramids
Battle of the Pyramids
The Battle of the Pyramids, also known as the Battle of Embabeh, was fought on July 21, 1798 between the French army in Egypt under Napoleon Bonaparte, and local Mamluk forces. It occurred during France's Egyptian Campaign and was the battle where Napoleon put into use one of his significant...
, a French victory over an enemy force of about 21,000 Mamelukes
Mamluk
A Mamluk was a soldier of slave origin, who were predominantly Cumans/Kipchaks The "mamluk phenomenon", as David Ayalon dubbed the creation of the specific warrior...
in the Battle of the Pyramids
Battle of the Pyramids
The Battle of the Pyramids, also known as the Battle of Embabeh, was fought on July 21, 1798 between the French army in Egypt under Napoleon Bonaparte, and local Mamluk forces. It occurred during France's Egyptian Campaign and was the battle where Napoleon put into use one of his significant...
(around 40,000 Mameluk soldiers stayed away from the battle). He defeated the Mameluk cavalry
Cavalry
Cavalry or horsemen were soldiers or warriors who fought mounted on horseback. Cavalry were historically the third oldest and the most mobile of the combat arms...
using a larger version of the common infantry square
Infantry square
An infantry square is a combat formation an infantry unit forms in close order when threatened with cavalry attack.-Very early history:The formation was described by Plutarch and used by the Romans, and was developed from an earlier circular formation...
, with cannons and supplies safely on the inside. In all 300 French and approximately 6,000 Egyptians were killed. The battle gave rise to dozens of stories and drawings.
Dupuy
Dominique Martin Dupuy
Dominique Martin Dupuy was a French revolutionary general of brigade.The son of a baker from Toulouse, he engaged in the Régiment d'Artois before the French Revolution. In 1791, he was volunteer in the 1st battalion of the Haute-Garonne regiment, where he was soon elected junior lieutenant-colonel...
's brigade continued to pursue the routed enemy and at night entered Cairo, which had been abandoned by the beys Mourad and Ibrahim
Ibrahim Bey
Ibrahim Bey was an Egyptian Mamluk chieftain of Georgian origin.Ibrahim Bey was born as Abram Shinjikashvili into the family of a Christian priest in Martqopi in the eastern Georgian province of Kakheti. As a child, he was captured by Ottoman slave raiders and sold out in Egypt where he was...
. On 4 thermidor (22 July), the notables of Cairo came to Giza to meet Bonaparte and offered to hand over the city to him. Three days later, he moved his main headquarters there. Desaix
Louis Charles Antoine Desaix
Louis Charles Antoine Desaix was a French general and military leader. According to the usage of the time, he took the name Louis Charles Antoine Desaix de Veygoux.-Biography:...
received orders to follow Mourad, who had set off for Upper Egypt
Upper Egypt
Upper Egypt is the strip of land, on both sides of the Nile valley, that extends from the cataract boundaries of modern-day Aswan north to the area between El-Ayait and Zawyet Dahshur . The northern section of Upper Egypt, between El-Ayait and Sohag is sometimes known as Middle Egypt...
. An observation corps was put in place at Elkanka to keep an eye on the movements of Ibrahim, who was heading towards Syria. Bonaparte personally led the pursuit of Ibrahim, beat him at Salahie and pushed him completely out of Egypt.
The ships that had dropped off Napoleon and his army had sailed back to France, but a fleet of ships of the line
Ship of the line
A ship of the line was a type of naval warship constructed from the 17th through the mid-19th century to take part in the naval tactic known as the line of battle, in which two columns of opposing warships would manoeuvre to bring the greatest weight of broadside guns to bear...
that had come with them stayed and supported the army along the coast. The British fleet had been searching for the French fleet for weeks in vain. It had not found it in time to prevent the landings in Egypt, but on 1 August it discovered the French battleships anchored in a strong defensive position in the Bay of Abukir
Abu Qir Bay
The Abū Qīr Bay is a spacious bay on the Mediterranean Sea in Egypt, lying between Abu Qir and the Rosetta mouth of the Nile. It contains a natural gas field, discovered in the 1970s.On August 1, 1798, Horatio Nelson fought the Battle of the Nile, often referred to as the "Battle of Aboukir Bay"...
. The French believed that they were open to attack only on one side, the other side being protected by the shore. However, during the Battle of the Nile
Battle of the Nile
The Battle of the Nile was a major naval battle fought between British and French fleets at Aboukir Bay on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt from 1–3 August 1798...
the arriving British fleet under Horatio Nelson managed to slip half of their ships in between the land and the French line, thus attacking from both sides. In a few hours 11 out of the 13 French ships of the line and 2 out of the 4 French frigates were captured or destroyed, with the four remaining ships put to flight. This frustrated Bonaparte's goal of strengthening the French position in the Mediterranean Sea
Mediterranean Sea
The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
, and instead put it totally under British control. News of the naval defeat reached Bonaparte en route back to Cairo from defeating Ibrahim but, far from being worried, Mullié states:
Bonaparte's administration of Egypt
After the naval defeat at Aboukir, Bonaparte's campaign remained land-bound. However, his army still succeeded in consolidating power in Egypt, although it faced repeated nationalist uprisings, and Napoleon began to behave as absolute ruler of all Egypt. He set up a pavilion and from within it presided over a 'fête du Nil' - it was he who gave the signal to throw into the floats the statue of the river's fiancée, his name and Mohammed's were mingled in the same accalamations, on his orders gifts were distributed to the people, and he gave kaftanKaftan
A kaftan is a man's coat usually reaching to the ankles with long sleeves, and which buttons down the front. It can be made of wool, cashmere, silk, or cotton. It is often worn with a sash....
s to his main officers.
In a largely unsuccessful effort to gain the support of the Egyptian population, Bonaparte issued proclamation
Proclamation
A proclamation is an official declaration.-England and Wales:In English law, a proclamation is a formal announcement , made under the great seal, of some matter which the King in Council or Queen in Council desires to make known to his or her subjects: e.g., the declaration of war, or state of...
s that cast him as a liberator of the people from Ottoman and Mameluk oppression, praising the precepts of Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
and claiming friendship between France and the Ottoman Empire despite French intervention in the breakaway state. This position as a liberator and Ottoman ally initially gained him solid support in Egypt and later led to admiration for Napoleon from Muhammad Ali of Egypt
Muhammad Ali of Egypt
Muhammad Ali Pasha al-Mas'ud ibn Agha was a commander in the Ottoman army, who became Wāli, and self-declared Khedive of Egypt and Sudan...
, who succeeded where Bonaparte had not in reforming Egypt and declaring its independence from the Ottomans. In a letter to a sheikh
Sheikh
Not to be confused with sikhSheikh — also spelled Sheik or Shaikh, or transliterated as Shaykh — is an honorific in the Arabic language that literally means "elder" and carries the meaning "leader and/or governor"...
in August 1798, Napoleon wrote, "I hope...I shall be able to unite all the wise and educated men of all the countries and establish a uniform regime based on the principles of the Quran which alone are true and which alone can lead men to happiness." However, Bonaparte's secretary Bourienne
Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne , French diplomat, was born at Sens.He was educated at the military school of Brienne in Champagne along with Napoleon Bonaparte; and although the solitary habits of the latter made intimacy difficult, the two youths seem to have been on friendly terms...
wrote that his employer had no serious interest in Islam or any other religion beyond their political value.
Shortly after Bonaparte's return from facing Ibrahim came Mohammed's birthday, which was celebrated with great pomp. Bonaparte himself directed the military parades for the occasion, preparing for this festival in the cheik's house wearing oriental dress and a turban. It was on this occasion that the divan
Divan
A divan was a high governmental body in a number of Islamic states, or its chief official .-Etymology:...
granted him the title Ali-Bonaparte after Bonaparte proclaimed himself "a worthy son of the Prophet" and "favourite of Allah". Around the same time he took severe measures to protect pilgrim caravans from Egypt to Mecca
Mecca
Mecca is a city in the Hijaz and the capital of Makkah province in Saudi Arabia. The city is located inland from Jeddah in a narrow valley at a height of above sea level...
, writing a letter himself to the governor of Mecca.
Even so, thanks to the taxes he imposed on them to support his army, the Egyptians remained unconvinced of the sincerity of all Bonaparte's attempts at conciliation and continued to attack him ceaselessly. Any means, even sudden attacks and assassination, were allowed to force the "infidels" out of Egypt. Military executions were unable to deter these attacks and they continued, showing that in the end the French were in Egypt but not really its masters.
22 September 1798 was the anniversary of the founding of the First French Republic and Bonaparte organised the most magnificent celebration possible. On his orders, an immense circus was built in the largest square in Cairo, with 105 columns (each with a flag bearing the name of a département) round the edge and a colossal inscribed obelisk at the centre. On seven classical altars were inscribed the names of heroes killed in the French Revolutionary Wars
French Revolutionary Wars
The French Revolutionary Wars were a series of major conflicts, from 1792 until 1802, fought between the French Revolutionary government and several European states...
, whilst the structure was entered through a triumphal arch, on which was shown the battle of the Pyramids. Here there was some awkwardness — the painting flattered the French but aggrieved the defeated Egyptians they were trying to win over as allies.
On the day of the festival, Bonaparte addressed his troops, enumerating their exploits since the 1793 siege of Toulon and telling them:
After nominally making himself master of Egypt by force, Bonaparte tried to give Egypt what he saw as the benefits of western civilisation. Cairo soon took on the appearance of a European city, with its administration confided to a 'divan' chosen from among the best men of the province. At the same time the other cities received municipal institutions. An Institut d'Égypte
Institut d'Égypte
The Institut d’Égypte was a learned academy formed by Napoleon Bonaparte to carry out research during his Egyptian campaign.-Early work:It first met on 24 August 1798, with Gaspard Monge as president, Bonaparte himself as vice-president and Joseph Fourier and Costaz as secretaries...
of French scholars was set up and he joined the title of President of the Institut to the title of académicien. The conqueror became the legislator, setting up a library, a chemistry laboruatory, a health service, a botanical garden, an observatory, an antiquities museum and a menagerie.
Under Bonaparte's orders, the scholars drew up a comparative table of Egyptian and French weights and measures, wrote a French-Arabic dictionary and calculated a triple Egyptian, Coptic and European calendar. Two journals were set up in Cairo, one for literature and political economy under the name Décade égyptienne, and the other for politics under the title Courrier égyptien.
Its numbers hugely reduced by deaths in action and from disease, the army could no longer hope for reinforcements from France after the naval disaster at Aboukir, but Bonaparte tried to overcome this problem by levying from among the slaves in Egypt between the ages of 16 and 24 and turning the 3000 sailors who had survived Aboukir into a légion nautique.
All the streets in Cairo were closed at night by gates to stop the inhabitants aiding the Arabs in a night attack on the French. Bonaparte removed these fences, since the Egyptians could use them as barricades if they rose against the French — this removal proved to be justified by the events that soon followed.
Revolt of Cairo
On 22 October 1798, while Bonaparte was in old Cairo, the city's population was spreading weapons around the streets and fortifying strongpoints, especially at the Great Mosque. The chef de brigade DupuyDominique Martin Dupuy
Dominique Martin Dupuy was a French revolutionary general of brigade.The son of a baker from Toulouse, he engaged in the Régiment d'Artois before the French Revolution. In 1791, he was volunteer in the 1st battalion of the Haute-Garonne regiment, where he was soon elected junior lieutenant-colonel...
, Cairo's commander, was the first to be killed, then Sulkowski, friend and aide de camp to Bonaparte. Excited by the sheikhs and imams, the Egyptians swore by the Prophet to exterminate all Frenchmen and any Frenchman they met — at home or in the streets — was mercilessly killed. Crowds rallied at the city gates to keep out Bonaparte, who was repulsed and forced to take a detour to get in via the Boulaq gate.
The French army's situation was critical — the British were menacing coastal towns, Murad Bey
Murad Bey
Murad Bey was an Egyptian Mamluk chieftain , cavalry commander and joint ruler of Egypt with Ibrahim Bey. He was of Georgian origin having been born in Tbilisi....
was still in the field in Upper Egypt, and generals Menou and Dugua were only just able to hold down Lower Egypt. The Arabs and the Egyptian peasants had common cause with those rising against the French in Cairo — the whole desert was in arms. A manifesto of the Great Lord was published widely throughout Egypt, stating:
Bonaparte did not feel threatened by the storm building on all sides. Via his orders the Arabs were beaten back into the desert and the artillery was turned back on the rebel city. Bonaparte personally hunted down the rebels from street to street and forced them to concentrate in the Great Mosque. Luckily for the French the sky was covered with clouds and thunder was rumbling, a very rare phenomenon in Egypt. Many of the supersitious residents considered the thunder as a sign from heaven and they begged for mercy from their enemies. Bonaparte replied "He [ie God] is too late — you've begun, now I will finish!". He then immediately ordered his cannon to open fire on the Mosque. The French broke down the gates and stormed into the building, massacring the Egyptians inside.
Back in absolute control of Cairo, Bonaparte sought out the authors and instigators of the revolt. Several sheikhs and many Turks or Egyptians were convicted of participation in the plot and executed. To complete his punishment, the city was hit by a high tax and its divan was replaced by a military commission. To negate the effects of the Great Lord's firman, the French posted a proclamation in all the cities of Egypt, ending in the words:
The most religious of the prophets said "The revolt has fallen asleep — cursed be he who wakes it up!". While Bonaparte remained in Egypt, there was no further revolt.
Canal of the Pharaohs
With Egypt quiet again and under his control, Bonaparte used this time of rest to visit SuezSuez
Suez is a seaport city in north-eastern Egypt, located on the north coast of the Gulf of Suez , near the southern terminus of the Suez Canal, having the same boundaries as Suez governorate. It has three harbors, Adabya, Ain Sokhna and Port Tawfiq, and extensive port facilities...
and see with his own eyes the possibility of a canal (known as the Canal of the Pharaohs
Canal of the Pharaohs
The Canal of the Pharaohs also called the Ancient Suez Canal or Necho's Canal is the forerunner of the Suez Canal, constructed in ancient times. It followed a different course than its modern counterpart, by linking the Nile to the Red Sea via the Wadi Tumilat. Work begun under the Pharaohs...
) said to have been cut in antiquity between the Red Sea
Red Sea
The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. In the north, there is the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez...
and the Mediterranean by order of the pharaohs. Before setting out on the expedition, he gave Cairo back its self-government as a token of its pardon — a new 'divan' made up of 60 members replaced the military commission.
Then, accompanied by his colleagues from the Institut, Berthollet
Claude Louis Berthollet
Claude Louis Berthollet was a Savoyard-French chemist who became vice president of the French Senate in 1804.-Biography:...
, Monge
Gaspard Monge
Gaspard Monge, Comte de Péluse was a French mathematician, revolutionary, and was inventor of descriptive geometry. During the French Revolution, he was involved in the complete reorganization of the educational system, founding the École Polytechnique...
, Le Père
Jacques-Marie Le Père
Jacques-Marie Le Père was a French civil engineer.-Life:He accompanied the French Campaign in Egypt and Syria, was director of 'Ponts et Chaussées' in Egypt...
, Dutertre
André Dutertre
André Dutertre was a French painter.-Life:A professor at the école gratuite de dessin, his students included Vien and Collet....
, Costaz
Louis Costaz
Louis, baron Costaz Louis, baron Costaz Louis, baron Costaz (17 March 1767, Champagne-en-Valromey (Bugey – 15 February 1842, Paris was a French scientist and administrator.His brother Gastroass was bishop of Nancy. After studying maths, he taught at the military school at Thiron until 1793,...
, Caffarelli, and followed by a 300-man escort, Bonaparte set out for the Red Sea and after three days' marching across the desert he and his caravan arrived at Suez. After giving orders to complete the fortifications at Suez, Bonaparte crossed the Red Sea and on 28 December 1798 moved into Arabia to look for the celebrated fountains of Moses 17 kilometres from Suez. On his return, surprised by the rising tide, he ran the risk of drowning. Arriving back at Suez, after much exploration the expedition fulfilled its aim, finding the remains of the ancient canal
Canal of the Pharaohs
The Canal of the Pharaohs also called the Ancient Suez Canal or Necho's Canal is the forerunner of the Suez Canal, constructed in ancient times. It followed a different course than its modern counterpart, by linking the Nile to the Red Sea via the Wadi Tumilat. Work begun under the Pharaohs...
built by Senusret III
Senusret III
Khakhaure Senusret III was a pharaoh of Egypt. He ruled from 1878 BC to 1839 BC, and was the fifth monarch of the Twelfth Dynasty of the Middle Kingdom. Among his achievements was the building of the Sisostris Canal...
and Necho II
Necho II
Necho II was a king of the Twenty-sixth dynasty of Egypt .Necho II is most likely the pharaoh mentioned in several books of the Bible . The Book of Kings states that Necho met King Josiah of the Kingdom of Judah at Megiddo and killed him...
.
Ottoman offensives
In the meantime the Ottomans in Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul) received news of the French fleet's destruction at Aboukir and believed this spelled the end for Bonaparte and his expedition, trapped in Egypt. Sultan Selim IIISelim III
Selim III was the reform-minded Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1789 to 1807. The Janissaries eventually deposed and imprisoned him, and placed his cousin Mustafa on the throne as Mustafa IV...
decided to wage war against France, and sent two armies to Egypt. The first army, under the command of Jezzar Pasha
Jezzar Pasha
Ahmed al-Jazzar was the Ottoman ruler of Acre and the Galilee from 1775 until his death.-Biography:...
, had set out with 12,000 soldiers; but was reinforced with troops from Damascus
Damascus
Damascus , commonly known in Syria as Al Sham , and as the City of Jasmine , is the capital and the second largest city of Syria after Aleppo, both are part of the country's 14 governorates. In addition to being one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Damascus is a major...
, Aleppo
Aleppo
Aleppo is the largest city in Syria and the capital of Aleppo Governorate, the most populous Syrian governorate. With an official population of 2,301,570 , expanding to over 2.5 million in the metropolitan area, it is also one of the largest cities in the Levant...
, Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
(10,000 men), and Jerusalem (8,000 men). The second army, under the command of Mustafa Pasha, began on Rhodes
Rhodes
Rhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...
with about eight thousand soldiers. He also knew he would get about 42,000 soldiers from Albania
Albania
Albania , officially known as the Republic of Albania , is a country in Southeastern Europe, in the Balkans region. It is bordered by Montenegro to the northwest, Kosovo to the northeast, the Republic of Macedonia to the east and Greece to the south and southeast. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea...
, Constantinople
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...
, Asia Minor
Anatolia
Anatolia is a geographic and historical term denoting the westernmost protrusion of Asia, comprising the majority of the Republic of Turkey...
, and Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
. The Ottoman planned two offensives against Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
. From Syria
Syria
Syria , officially the Syrian Arab Republic , is a country in Western Asia, bordering Lebanon and the Mediterranean Sea to the West, Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, and Israel to the southwest....
, across the desert of Salhayeh-Belbays-El Kankah, and from Rhodes
Rhodes
Rhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...
by sea landing in the Aboukir
Abu Qir
Abū Qīr is a village on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt, northeast of Alexandria by rail, containing a castle used as a state prison by Muhammad Ali of Egypt....
area or the port city of Damietta
Damietta
Damietta , also known as Damiata, or Domyat, is a port and the capital of the Damietta Governorate in Egypt. It is located at the intersection between the Mediterranean Sea and the Nile, about north of Cairo.-History:...
.
French response
In January 1799, during the canal expedition, the French learned that of the hostile Ottoman movements and that Jezzar had seized the desert fort of El-Arich ten miles (16 km) from Syria's frontier with Egypt, which he was in charge of guarding. Certain that war with the Ottoman sultan was imminent and that he would be unable to defend against the Ottoman army, Bonaparte decided that his best defence would be to attack them first in Syria, where a victory would give him more time to prepare against the Ottoman forces on Rhodes.He prepared around 13,000 soldiers who were organised in divisions under the command of Generals Reynier (with 2,160 men), Kléber
Jean Baptiste Kléber
Jean Baptiste Kléber was a French general during the French Revolutionary Wars. His military career started in Habsburg service, but his plebeian ancestry hindered his opportunities...
(with 2,336), Bon
Louis André Bon
Louis André Bon was a French general of the French Revolutionary Wars, best known for his participation in the 1798 French invasion of Egypt-Life:...
(2,449), Lannes
Jean Lannes
Jean Lannes, 1st Duc de Montebello, was a Marshal of France. He was one of Napoleon's most daring and talented generals. Napoleon once commented on Lannes: "I found him a pygmy and left him a giant"...
(2,938), division cavalry under General Murat
Joachim Murat
Joachim-Napoléon Murat , Marshal of France and Grand Admiral or Admiral of France, 1st Prince Murat, was Grand Duke of Berg from 1806 to 1808 and then King of Naples from 1808 to 1815...
(900), brigade of infantry and cavalry under Brigade chief Bessières
Jean-Baptiste Bessières
Jean-Baptiste Bessières, 1st Duc d' Istria was a Marshal of France of the Napoleonic Era. His younger brother, Bertrand, followed in his footsteps and eventually became a Divisional General...
(400), camel-company (89), artillery under Dommartin
Elzéard Auguste Cousin de Dommartin
Elzéard Auguste Cousin de Dommartin became a French general during the French Revolutionary Wars, fought in Italy under Napoleon Bonaparte, and commanded the artillery division of the Armée d'Orient during the French invasion of Egypt in 1798.-Life:Cousin de Dommartin received his first commission...
(1,387), and engineers and sappers under Caraffeli
Louis-Marie-Joseph Maximilian Caffarelli du Falga
Louis-Marie-Joseph-Maximilian Caffarelli du Falga was a French commander and scholar...
(3,404). Every infantry and cavalry division had 6 cannons. Napoleon took 16 siege
Siege
A siege is a military blockade of a city or fortress with the intent of conquering by attrition or assault. The term derives from sedere, Latin for "to sit". Generally speaking, siege warfare is a form of constant, low intensity conflict characterized by one party holding a strong, static...
cannons which were placed on ships in Damietta under the command of Captain Standelet. He also ordered contre-amiral Perrée
Jean-Baptiste Perrée
Jean-Baptiste Perrée was a French contre-amiral. He was born in Saint-Valéry-sur-Somme in Picardy.Perrée was midshipman in 1793, and was promoted to acting lieutenant de vaisseau in May 1793, taking command of Proserpine and raiding commerce, capturing 63 prizes. His rank was confirmed in late 1793...
to Jaffa with siege artillery pieces. The total artillery sent on the campaign was 80 cannon.
Regnier and the vanguard quickly arrived before Arish, captured it, destroyed part of the garrison and forced the rest to take refuge in the castle. At the same time he put Ibrahim's mamemluks to flight and captured their camp. Bonaparte's French forces left Egypt on 5 February 1799 and, seven days after leaving Cairo, Bonaparte too arrived at Arish and bombarded one of the castle towers. The garrison surrendered two days later and some of the garrison joined French army.
Jaffa
After marching 60 miles (96.6 km) across the desert the army arrived in GazaGaza
Gaza , also referred to as Gaza City, is a Palestinian city in the Gaza Strip, with a population of about 450,000, making it the largest city in the Palestinian territories.Inhabited since at least the 15th century BC,...
, where it rested for two days, and then moved onto Jaffa. This city was surrounded by high walls flanked by towers. Jezzar had entrusted its defence to elite troops, with the artillery manned by 1200 Ottoman gunners. The city was one of the ways into Syria, its port could be used by his fleet and a large part of the expedition's success depended on its fall. This meant Bonaparte had to capture the city before advancing further, and so he laid siege
Siege of Jaffa
The Siege of Jaffa was fought from 3 to 7 March 1799 between France and the Ottoman Empire. The French were led by Napoleon Bonaparte, and they captured the city.-Course:...
to it from 3 to 7 March.
All the outer works were in the besiegers' power and a breach could be produced. When Bonaparte sent a Turk to the city's commander to demand his surrender, the commander beheaded him despite the envoy's neutrality and ordered a sortie. He was repulsed and on the evening of the same day the besiegers' bullets caused one of the towers to crumble. Despite the defenders' desperate resistance, Jaffa fell. Two days and two nights of carnage were enough to assuage the French soldiers' fury - 4000 prisoners were shot or beheaded by a Muslim executioner taken on in Egypt. This vengeful execution found apologists, who wrote that Napoleon could neither afford to hold such a large number of prisoners nor let them escape to join Jezzar's ranks.
Mount Carmel
Mount Carmel ; , Kármēlos; , Kurmul or جبل مار إلياس Jabal Mar Elyas 'Mount Saint Elias') is a coastal mountain range in northern Israel stretching from the Mediterranean Sea towards the southeast. Archaeologists have discovered ancient wine and oil presses at various locations on Mt. Carmel...
to treat those of his soldiers who had caught the plague, whose symptoms had been seen among them since the start of the siege. A report from generals Bon and Rampon on the plague's spread worried Bonaparte. To calm his army, it is said he went into the sufferers' rooms, spoke with and consoled the sick and touched them, saying "See, it's nothing", then left the hospital and told those who thought his actions unwise "It was my duty, I'm commander-in-chief". However, some later historians state that Napoleon avoided touching or even meeting plague-sufferers to avoid catching it and that his visits to the sick were invented by later Napoleonic propaganda. For example, long after the campaign, Antoine-Jean Gros
Antoine-Jean Gros
Baron Antoine-Jean Gros , also known as Jean-Antoine Gros, was both a French History and neoclassical painter.-Early life and training:...
produced the propaganda painting Bonaparte visiting the plague-victims of Jaffa
Bonaparte Visiting the Plague-Victims of Jaffa
Bonaparte Visits the Plague Stricken in Jaffa is an 1804 painting commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte from Antoine-Jean Gros to portray an event during the Egyptian Campaign...
in 1804. This showed Napoleon touching a sick man's body, modelling him on an Ancien Régime king-healer touching sufferers from the 'King's Evil'
Scrofula
Tuberculous cervical lymphadenitis refers to a lymphadenitis of the cervical lymph nodes associated with tuberculosis. It was previously known as "scrofula".-The disease:...
during his coronation rites — this was no coincidence, since 1804 was the year Napoleon Bonaparte crowned himself emperor.
Mount Tabor
Acre, Israel
Acre , is a city in the Western Galilee region of northern Israel at the northern extremity of Haifa Bay. Acre is one of the oldest continuously inhabited sites in the country....
. En route it captured Haifa
Haifa
Haifa is the largest city in northern Israel, and the third-largest city in the country, with a population of over 268,000. Another 300,000 people live in towns directly adjacent to the city including the cities of the Krayot, as well as, Tirat Carmel, Daliyat al-Karmel and Nesher...
and the munitions and provisions stored there, along with the castle at Jaffet, the castle at Nazareth
Nazareth
Nazareth is the largest city in the North District of Israel. Known as "the Arab capital of Israel," the population is made up predominantly of Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel...
and the town of Tyre. The siege of Acre
Siege of Acre (1799)
The Siege of Acre of 1799 was an unsuccessful French siege of the Ottoman-defended, walled city of Acre and was the turning point of Napoleon's invasion of Egypt and Syria.-Background:...
began on 18 March but the French were unable to take it and it was here that the Syrian campaign came to an abrupt halt. The city was defended by newly created Ottoman infantry elites (Nizam-ı Cedid
Nizam-i Cedid
The Nizam-ı Cedid was a series of reforms carried out by the Ottoman Empire sultan Selim III during the late eighteenth century in a drive to catch up militarily and politically with the Western Powers...
) under the command of Jezzar Pasha
Jezzar Pasha
Ahmed al-Jazzar was the Ottoman ruler of Acre and the Galilee from 1775 until his death.-Biography:...
and was right on the coast, enabling it to be reinforced and resupplied by the British and Ottoman fleets.
After sixty days' repeated attacks and two murderous and inconclusive assaults, the city remained uncaptured. Even so, it was still awaiting reinforcements by sea as well as a large army forming up in Asia on the sultan's orders to march against the French. To find out the latter's movements, Jezzar ordered a general sortie against Bonaparte's camp. This sortie was supported by its own artillery and a naval bombardment from the British. With his usual impetuosity, Bonaparte pushed Jezzar's columns back against their own walls and then went to help Kléber, who was retrenched in the ruins with 4000 Frenchmen and 20000 Ottomans under his command. Bonaparte conceived a trick which used all the advantages offered him by the enemy position, sending Murat and his cavalry across the River Jordan to defend the river crossing and Vial and Rampon to march on Nablus
Nablus
Nablus is a Palestinian city in the northern West Bank, approximately north of Jerusalem, with a population of 126,132. Located in a strategic position between Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, it is the capital of the Nablus Governorate and a Palestinian commercial and cultural center.Founded by the...
, while Bonaparte himself put his troops between the Ottomans and the magazines. These manoeuvres were successful, in what was known as the battle of Mount Tabor
Battle of Mount Tabor
The Battle of Mount Tabor, or Skirmish of Mount Tabor, opposed French forces under General Kleber to an Ottoman force led by the Pasha of Damascus on 16 April 1799. General Bonaparte was besieging Acre, and Damascus sent its army to relieve the siege...
. The enemy army, taken by surprise at many points at once, was routed and forced to retreat, leaving their camels, tents, provisions and 5000 dead on the battlefield.
Acre
Returning to besiege Acre, Bonaparte learned that contre-amiral Perrée had landed seven siege artillery pieces at Jaffa. Bonaparte then ordered two assaults, both vigorously repulsed. A fleet was sighted flying the Ottoman flag and Bonaparte realised he must capture the city before that fleet arrived there with reinforcements. A fifth general attack was ordered, which took the outer works, planted the French tricolour on the rampart, pushed the Ottomans back into the city and forced the Ottoman fire to relent. Acre was thus taken or about to capitulate.However, one of those fighting on the Ottoman side was the French émigré and engineer officer Phélippeaux, one of Bonaparte's classmates at the École militaire. Phélippeaux ordered cannon to be placed in the most advantageous positions and new trenches dug as if by magic behind the ruins which Bonaparte's forces had captured. At the same time Sidney Smith, commander of the British fleet, and his ships' crews landed. These factors renewed the courage of the besieged and they pushed Bonaparte's force back, with stubborn fury on both sides. Three final consecutive assaults were all repulsed, convincing Bonaparte that it would be unwise to continue trying to capture Acre. He raised the siege in May and consoled his soldiers with the proclamation:
Retreat from Acre
The French force's situation was now critical — the enemy could harass its rear as it retreated, it was tired and hungry in the desert, it was carrying a large number of plague-sufferers. To carry these sufferers in the middle of the army would spread the disease, so they had to be carried in the rear, where they were most at risk from the fury of the Ottomans, keen to avenge the massacres at Jaffa. There were two hospital depots, one in the large hospital on Mount Carmel and the other at Jaffa. On Bonaparte's orders, all those at Mount Carmel were evacuated to Jaffa and Tentura. The gun horses were abandoned before Acre and Bonaparte and all his officers handed their horses over to the transport officer Daure, with Bonaparte walking to set an example.To conceal its withdrawal from the siege, the army set off at night. Arriving at Jaffa, Bonaparte ordered three evacuations of the plague sufferers to three different points — one by sea to Damietta
Damietta
Damietta , also known as Damiata, or Domyat, is a port and the capital of the Damietta Governorate in Egypt. It is located at the intersection between the Mediterranean Sea and the Nile, about north of Cairo.-History:...
, one by land to Gaza and one by land to Arish. During the retreat the army picked clean all the lands through which they passed, with livestock, crops and houses all destroyed by sword and fire and Gaza the only place to be spared, in return for remaining loyal to Bonaparte. To speed the retreat, Bonaparte also took the controversial step of killing prisoners and plague-stricken men along the way. His supporters argued that this was necessary given continuing harassment of stragglers by Ottoman forces.
Back in Egypt
Finally, after 4 months away from Egypt, the expedition arrived back at Cairo with 1800 wounded, after losing 600 men to the plague and 1200 to enemy action. In the meantime Ottoman and British emissaries had brought news of Bonaparte's setback at Acre to Egypt, stating that his expeditionary force was largely destroyed and Bonaparte himself was dead. On his return Bonaparte scotched these rumours by re-entering Egypt as if he was at the head of a triumphal army, with his soldiers carrying palm branches, emblems of victory. In his proclamation to the inhabitants of Cairo, Bonaparte told them:Land battle at Abukir
Louis Charles Antoine Desaix
Louis Charles Antoine Desaix was a French general and military leader. According to the usage of the time, he took the name Louis Charles Antoine Desaix de Veygoux.-Biography:...
, Belliard
Augustin Daniel Belliard
Augustin Daniel Belliard, comte Belliard et de l'Empire was a French general.Belliard became an officer between 1792 and 1793 under Dumouriez in Belgium...
, Donzelot
François-Xavier Donzelot
Baron François-Xavier Donzelot was a French general and a Governor of the Ionian Islands and Martinique. He was the son of François Donzelot and Jeanne–Baptiste Maire and had a brother named Joseph. He became a general of the French army in March 1801. Months later, he signed the surrender...
and Davoust
Louis Nicolas Davout
Louis-Nicolas d'Avout , better known as Davout, 1st Duke of Auerstaedt, 1st Prince of Eckmühl, was a Marshal of France during the Napoleonic Era. His prodigious talent for war along with his reputation as a stern disciplinarian, earned him the title "The Iron Marshal"...
and was descending on Upper Egypt. Bonaparte thus marched to attack him at Giza, also learning that 100 Ottoman ships were off Aboukir, threatening Alexandria.
Without losing time or returning to Cairo, Bonaparte ordered his generals to make all speed to meet the army commanded by the pasha of Rumelia
Rumelia
Rumelia was an historical region comprising the territories of the Ottoman Empire in Europe...
, Saïd-Mustapha, which had joined up with the forces under Murad Bey and Ibrahim. Before leaving Giza, where he found them, Bonaparte wrote to Cairo's divan, stating:
First Bonaparte advanced to Alexandria, from which he marched to Aboukir, whose fort was now strongly garrisoned by the Ottomans. Bonaparte deployed his army so that Mustapha would have to win or die with all his family. Mustapha's army was 18,000 strong and supported by several cannon, with trenches defending it on the landward side and free communication with the Ottoman fleet on the seaward side. Bonaparte ordered an attack on 25 July and the Battle of Abukir
Battle of Abukir (1799)
The Battle of Abukir was Napoleon Bonaparte's decisive victory over Seid Mustafa Pasha's Ottoman army on 25 July 1799 during the French invasion of Egypt...
ensued. In a few hours the trenches were taken, 10,000 Ottomans drowned in the ocean and the rest captured or killed. Most of the credit for the French victory that day goes to Murat, who captured Mustapha himself. Mustapha's son was in command of the fort and he and all his officers survived but were captured and sent back to Cairo as part of the French triumphal procession. Seeing Bonaparte return with these high-ranking prisoners, the population of Cairo superstitiously welcomed him as a prophet-warrior who had predicted his own triumph with such remarkable precision.
Bonaparte leaves Egypt
The land battle at Abukir was Bonaparte's last action in Egypt, partly restoring his reputation after the French naval defeat at the same place a year earlier. However, with the Egyptian campaign stagnating and political instability developing back home, a new phase in Bonaparte's career was beginning — he felt that he had nothing left to do in Egypt which was worthy of his ambition and that (as had been shown by the defeat at Acre) the forces he had left to him there were not sufficient for an expedition of any importance outside of Egypt. He also foresaw that the army was getting yet weaker from losses in battle and to disease and would soon have to surrender and be taken prisoner by its enemies, which would destroy all the prestige he had won by his many victories. Bonaparte thus spontaneously decided to return to France. During the prisoner exchange at Aboukir and notably via the Gazette de Francfort Sidney Smith had sent him, he was in communication with the British fleet, from which he had learned of events in France. As Bonaparte saw (and later mythologised) it France was thrown back into retreat, its enemies had recaptured France's conquests, France was unhappy at its dictatorial government and was nostalgic for the glorious peace it had signed in the Treaty of Campo FormioTreaty of Campo Formio
The Treaty of Campo Formio was signed on 18 October 1797 by Napoleon Bonaparte and Count Philipp von Cobenzl as representatives of revolutionary France and the Austrian monarchy...
- as Bonaparte saw it, this meant France needed him and would welcome him back.
He only shared the secret of his return with a small number of friends whose discretion and loyalty were well-known. He left Cairo in August 1799 on the pretext of a voyage in the Nile Delta
Nile Delta
The Nile Delta is the delta formed in Northern Egypt where the Nile River spreads out and drains into the Mediterranean Sea. It is one of the world's largest river deltas—from Alexandria in the west to Port Said in the east, it covers some 240 km of Mediterranean coastline—and is a rich...
without arousing suspicion, accompanied by the scholars Monge
Gaspard Monge
Gaspard Monge, Comte de Péluse was a French mathematician, revolutionary, and was inventor of descriptive geometry. During the French Revolution, he was involved in the complete reorganization of the educational system, founding the École Polytechnique...
and Berthollet
Claude Louis Berthollet
Claude Louis Berthollet was a Savoyard-French chemist who became vice president of the French Senate in 1804.-Biography:...
, the painter Denon, and generals Berthier, Murat
Joachim Murat
Joachim-Napoléon Murat , Marshal of France and Grand Admiral or Admiral of France, 1st Prince Murat, was Grand Duke of Berg from 1806 to 1808 and then King of Naples from 1808 to 1815...
, Lannes
Jean Lannes
Jean Lannes, 1st Duc de Montebello, was a Marshal of France. He was one of Napoleon's most daring and talented generals. Napoleon once commented on Lannes: "I found him a pygmy and left him a giant"...
and Marmont. On 23 August 1799 a proclamation informed the army that Bonaparte had transferred his powers as commander in chief to general Kléber. This news was taken badly, with the soldiers angry with Bonaparte and the French government for leaving them behind, but this indignation soon ended, since the troops were confident in Kléber, who convinced them that Bonaparte had not left permanently but would soon be back with reinforcements from France. As night fell, the frigate Muiron
French frigate Muiron
The Muiron was a frigate of the French Navy, famous for ferrying Bonaparte on the 22 August 1799 under the flagship of Admiral Ganteaume from Egypt to France after the Battle of the Nile....
silently moored by the shore, with three other ships escorting her. Some became worried when a British corvette was sighted at the moment of departure, but Bonaparte cried "Bah! We'll get there, luck has never abandoned us, we shall get there, despite the English."
Bonaparte's voyage to France
On their 41-day voyage back they did not meet a single enemy ship to stop them, with some sources suggesting that Bonaparte had purchased the British fleet's neutrality via a tacit agreement, though others hold this unlikely, since many would argue that he also had a pact with Nelson to leave him to board on the Egyptian coast unopposed with the fleet bearing his large army. It has been suggested that Sidney Smith and other British commanders in the Mediterranean helped Napoleon evade the British blockade, thinking that he might act as a Royalist element back in France, but there is no solid historical evidence in support of this conjecture..On 1 October Napoleon's small flotilla entered port at Ajaccio
Ajaccio
Ajaccio , is a commune on the island of Corsica in France. It is the capital and largest city of the region of Corsica and the prefecture of the department of Corse-du-Sud....
, where contrary winds kept them until 8 October, when they set out for France. When the coast came in sight, ten British ships were sighted. Contre-amiral Ganteaume
Honoré Joseph Antoine Ganteaume
Count Honoré Joseph Antoine Ganteaume was a French admiral.Ganteaume was born to a family of merchant sailors, and sailed on a dozen commercial cruises in his youth...
suggested changing course towards Corsica, but Bonaparte said "No, this manoeuvre would lead us to England, and I want to get to France.". This courageous act saved them and on 8 October 1799 (16 vendémiaire year VIII) the frigates anchored in the roads off Fréjus
Fréjus
Fréjus is a commune in the Var department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France.It neighbours Saint-Raphaël, effectively forming one town...
. As there were no sick men on board and the plague in Egypt had ended six months before their departure, Bonaparte and his entourage were allowed to land immediately without waiting in quarantine
Quarantine
Quarantine is compulsory isolation, typically to contain the spread of something considered dangerous, often but not always disease. The word comes from the Italian quarantena, meaning forty-day period....
. At 6pm he set off for Paris, accompanied by his chief of staff Berthier. He stopped off at Saint-Raphaël
Saint-Raphaël, Var
Saint-Raphaël is a commune in the Var department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France.Immediately to the west of Saint-Raphaël lies another, older, town called Fréjus, and together they form an urban agglomeration known as Fréjus Saint-Raphaël...
, where he built a pyramid commemorating the expedition.
End of the campaign
The troops Bonaparte left behind were supposed to be honorably evacuated under the terms of a treaty Kléber had negotiated with Smith in early 1800, but British Admiral Keith reneged on this treaty, sending an amphibious assault force of 30,000 Mamelukes against Kléber.Kléber defeated the Mamelukes at the battle of Heliopolis
Heliopolis (Cairo Suburb)
Modern Heliopolis is a district in Cairo, Egypt. The city was established in 1905 by the Heliopolis Oasis Company, headed by the Belgian industrialist Édouard Louis Joseph, Baron Empain, as well as Boghos Nubar, son of the Egyptian Prime Minister Nubar Pasha.-History:The Baron Empain, a well known...
in March 1800, and then suppressed an insurrection in Cairo
Cairo
Cairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
. However, on 14 June (26 prairial) 1800 a Syrian student called Suleiman al-Halabi
Suleiman al-Halabi
Suleiman al-Halabi, also known as Soleyman El-Halaby , was a Syrian student who assassinated French general Jean Baptiste Kléber. He was tortured by burning his hand to the bone before being executed by impalement.-Early life:...
assassinated Kléber with a dagger in the heart, chest, left forearm and right thigh. Command of the French army passed to Menou
Jacques-Francois Menou
Jacques-François de Menou, baron de Boussay was a French general under Napoleon I of France. Born Jacques Menou in Boussay on 3 September 1750, he died in Mestre in the Veneto on 13 August 1810...
, who held command from 3 July until August 1801. Menou's letter was published in Le Moniteur on 6 September, with the conclusions of the committee charged with judging those responsible for the assassination:
Under continual harassment from a new Anglo-Ottoman land offensive, after the loss of 13,500 men (mostly to disease), and eventually besieged in Alexandria
Alexandria
Alexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...
, Menou eventually capitulated
Capitulation (surrender)
Capitulation , an agreement in time of war for the surrender to a hostile armed force of a particular body of troops, a town or a territory....
to the British on 31 August 1801. Under the terms of his capitulation
Capitulation of Alexandria (1801)
The Capitulation of Alexandria in August 1801 brought to an end the French expedition to Egypt.French troops, defeated by British and Ottoman forces, had retreated to Alexandria where they were besieged...
, the British general Ralph Abercromby
Ralph Abercromby
Sir Ralph Abercromby was a Scottish soldier and politician. He rose to the rank of lieutenant-general in the British Army, was noted for his services during the Napoleonic Wars, and served as Commander-in-Chief, Ireland.He twice served as MP for Clackmannanshire and Kinross-shire, and was...
allowed the French army to be repatriated in British ships. Menou also signed over to Britain the priceless hoard of Egyptian antiquities such as the Rosetta Stone
Rosetta Stone
The Rosetta Stone is an ancient Egyptian granodiorite stele inscribed with a decree issued at Memphis in 196 BC on behalf of King Ptolemy V. The decree appears in three scripts: the upper text is Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the middle portion Demotic script, and the lowest Ancient Greek...
which it had collected. After initial talks in Al Arish on 30 January 1800, the Treaty of Paris on 25 June 1802 ended all hostilities between France and the Ottoman Empire, resecuring Egypt for the Ottomans.
Scientific expedition
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
, and by others as a masterstroke of propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
obfuscating the true imperialist motives of the invasion.
These scholars included engineers and artists, members of the Commission des Sciences et des Arts, the geologist Dolomieu
Déodat Gratet de Dolomieu
Dieudonné Sylvain Guy Tancrède de Dolomieu usually known as Déodat de Dolomieu was a French geologist; the rock dolomite and the largest summital crater on the Piton de la Fournaise volcano were named after him.Déodat de Dolomieu was born in Dauphiné, France, one of 11 children of the Marquis de...
, Henri-Joseph Redouté, the mathematician Gaspard Monge
Gaspard Monge
Gaspard Monge, Comte de Péluse was a French mathematician, revolutionary, and was inventor of descriptive geometry. During the French Revolution, he was involved in the complete reorganization of the educational system, founding the École Polytechnique...
(a founder member of the École polytechnique), the chemist Claude Louis Berthollet
Claude Louis Berthollet
Claude Louis Berthollet was a Savoyard-French chemist who became vice president of the French Senate in 1804.-Biography:...
, Vivant Denon, the mathematician Jean-Joseph Fourier
Joseph Fourier
Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier was a French mathematician and physicist best known for initiating the investigation of Fourier series and their applications to problems of heat transfer and vibrations. The Fourier transform and Fourier's Law are also named in his honour...
(who did some of the empirical work upon which his "analytical theory of heat" was founded in Egypt), the physician Malus, the naturalist Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire
Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire
Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire was a French naturalist who established the principle of "unity of composition". He was a colleague of Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and expanded and defended Lamarck's evolutionary theories...
, the botanist Alire Raffeneau-Delile, and the engineer Nicolas-Jacques Conté
Nicolas-Jacques Conté
Nicolas-Jacques Conté was a French painter, balloonist, army officer, and inventor of the modern pencil.He was born at Saint-Céneri-près-Sées in Normandy, and distinguished himself for his mechanical genius which was of great avail to the French army in Egypt...
of the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers
Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers
The Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers , or National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts, is a doctoral degree-granting higher education establishment operated by the French government, dedicated to providing education and conducting research for the promotion of science and industry...
. Their original aim was to help the army, notably by opening a Suez Canal
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal , also known by the nickname "The Highway to India", is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Opened in November 1869 after 10 years of construction work, it allows water transportation between Europe and Asia without navigation...
, mapping out roads and building mills to supply food. They founded the Institut d'Égypte
Institut d'Égypte
The Institut d’Égypte was a learned academy formed by Napoleon Bonaparte to carry out research during his Egyptian campaign.-Early work:It first met on 24 August 1798, with Gaspard Monge as president, Bonaparte himself as vice-president and Joseph Fourier and Costaz as secretaries...
with the aim of propagating Enlightenment values in Egypt through interdisciplinary work, improving its agricultural and architectural techniques for example. A scientific review was created under the title Décade égyptienne and in the course of the expedition the scholars also observed and drew the flora and fauna in Egypt and became interested in the country's resources.
The Egyptian Institute that Napoleon established saw the construction of laboratories, libraries, and a printing press. The group worked prodigiously, some of the discoveries were not finally cataloged until the 1820s.
A young engineer officer Pierre-François-Xavier Bouchard discovered the Rosetta Stone
Rosetta Stone
The Rosetta Stone is an ancient Egyptian granodiorite stele inscribed with a decree issued at Memphis in 196 BC on behalf of King Ptolemy V. The decree appears in three scripts: the upper text is Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the middle portion Demotic script, and the lowest Ancient Greek...
in July 1799. However, many of the antiquities collected by the French in Egypt were seized by the British Navy and ended up in the British Museum
British Museum
The British Museum is a museum of human history and culture in London. Its collections, which number more than seven million objects, are amongst the largest and most comprehensive in the world and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its...
- only about 50 of the 5000 Egyptian objects in the Louvre
Louvre
The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...
were collected during the 1799-1801 Egyptian expedition. Even so, the scholars' research in Egypt gave rise to the Description de l'Égypte
Description de l'Egypte
Description de l'Égypte is the title of several books.* Description de l'Égypte - Description de l'Égypte ou Recueil des observations et des recherches qui ont été faites en Égypte pendant l'expédition de l'armée française Pub; First Edition , L'Imprimerie Imperiale, 1809-1813; l'Imprimerie...
, published on Napoleon's orders between 1809 and 1821.
Napoleon's discoveries in Egypt gave rise to fascination over Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt was an ancient civilization of Northeastern Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now the modern country of Egypt. Egyptian civilization coalesced around 3150 BC with the political unification of Upper and Lower Egypt under the first pharaoh...
ian culture and the birth of Egyptology
Egyptology
Egyptology is the study of ancient Egyptian history, language, literature, religion, and art from the 5th millennium BC until the end of its native religious practices in the AD 4th century. A practitioner of the discipline is an “Egyptologist”...
in Europe.
The Printing Press
The printing press was first introduced to Egypt by Napoleon. He brought with his expedition a French, Arabic, and Greek printing press, which were far superior in speed, efficiency and quality than the nearest presses used in Istanbul. In the Middle East, Africa, India and even much of Eastern Europe and Russia, printing was a minor, specialized activity until the 1700s at least. From about 1720, the Mutaferrika Press in Istanbul produced substantial amounts of printing, of which some Egyptian clerics were aware of at the time. Juan Cole reports that "Boneaparte was a master of what we would now call spin, and his genius for it is demonstrated by reports in Arabic sources that several of his more outlandish allegations were actually taken seriously in the Egyptian countryside."Bonaparte's initial use of Arabic in his printed proclamations was rife with error. In addition to much of the awkwardly translated Arabic wording being unsound grammatically, often the proclamations were so poorly constructed that there were simply undecipherable. The French Orientalist Jean Michel de Venture de Paradis, perhaps with the help of Maltese aides, were responsible for translating the first of Napoleon's French proclamations into Arabic. The Maltese, Catholic Christians, speak a dialect distantly related to Egyptian dialect. However, they were seldom schooled in writing classical Arabic, which differs greatly in grammar, vocabulary, and idiom. Venture de Paradis, alternatively, who had lived in Tunis, understood Arabic grammar and vocabulary, but did not know how to use them idiomatically.
The Sunni Muslim clerics of the Al-Azhar University
Al-Azhar University
Al-Azhar University is an educational institute in Cairo, Egypt. Founded in 970~972 as a madrasa, it is the chief centre of Arabic literature and Islamic learning in the world. It is the oldest degree-granting university in Egypt. In 1961 non-religious subjects were added to its curriculum.It is...
in Cairo reacted incredulously to Napoleon's proclamations. Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti
Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti
Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti or in Egyptian Arabic el Gabarti was a Somali–Egyptian Muslim scholar and chronicler who spent most of his life in Cairo.-Biography:While little is known of his life, according to Franz Steiner, al-Jabarti was...
, a Cairene cleric and historian, received the proclamations with a combination of amusement, bewilderment, and outrage. He berated the French's poor Arabic grammar and the infelicitous style of their proclamations. Over the course of Napoleon's invasion of Egypt, al-Jabarti wrote a wealth of material regarding the French and their occupation tactics. Among his observations, he rejected Napoleon's claim that the French were "muslims" (the wrong noun case was used in the Arabic proclamation, making it a lower case "m") and poorly understood the French concept of a republic and democracy - words which did not exist at the time in Arabic.
Analysis
In addition to its significance in the wider French Revolutionary WarsFrench Revolutionary Wars
The French Revolutionary Wars were a series of major conflicts, from 1792 until 1802, fought between the French Revolutionary government and several European states...
, the campaign had a powerful impact on the Ottoman Empire in general and the Arab world
Arab world
The Arab world refers to Arabic-speaking states, territories and populations in North Africa, Western Asia and elsewhere.The standard definition of the Arab world comprises the 22 states and territories of the Arab League stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the west to the Arabian Sea in the...
in particular. The invasion demonstrated the military, technological, and organisational superiority of the Western European powers to the Middle East, leading to profound social changes in the region. The invasion introduced Western inventions, such as the printing press
Printing press
A printing press is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium , thereby transferring the ink...
, and ideas, such as liberalism
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
and incipient nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
, to the Middle East, eventually leading to the establishment of Egyptian independence and modernisation under Muhammad Ali Pasha in the first half of the 19th century and eventually the Nahda
Al-Nahda
Al-Nahda was a cultural renaissance that began in the late 19th century and early 20th century in Egypt, then later moving to Ottoman-ruled Arabic-speaking regions including Lebanon, Syria and others...
, or Arab Renaissance. To modernist historian
Modernism
Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...
s, the French arrival marks the start of the modern Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
.
The campaign ended in what some back home in France believed was a failure, with 15,000 French troops killed in action and 15,000 by disease. However, Napoleon's reputation as a brilliant military commander remained intact and even rose higher, despite some of his failures during the campaign. This was due to his expert propaganda, such as his Courrier d’Égypte, set up to propagandise the expeditionary force itself and support its morale. That propaganda even spread back to France, where news of defeats such as at sea in Aboukir Bay and on land in Syria were suppressed. Defeats could be blamed on the now-assassinated Kléber, leaving Napoleon free from blame and with a burnished reputation. This opened his way to power and he profited from his reputation by engineering his becoming First Consul
French Consulate
The Consulate was the government of France between the fall of the Directory in the coup of 18 Brumaire in 1799 until the start of the Napoleonic Empire in 1804...
in the coup d'État of 18 brumaire
18 Brumaire
The coup of 18 Brumaire was the coup d'état by which General Napoleon Bonaparte overthrew the French Directory, replacing it with the French Consulate...
(November 1799).
Timeline and battles
- 1798
- 19 May (30 Floréal year VI) : Departure from ToulonToulonToulon is a town in southern France and a large military harbor on the Mediterranean coast, with a major French naval base. Located in the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur region, Toulon is the capital of the Var department in the former province of Provence....
- 11 June (23 Prairial year VI) : Capture of MaltaMaltaMalta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
- 1 July (13 Messidor year VI) : Landing at AlexandriaAlexandriaAlexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...
- 21 July (3 Thermidor year VI) : Battle of the PyramidsBattle of the PyramidsThe Battle of the Pyramids, also known as the Battle of Embabeh, was fought on July 21, 1798 between the French army in Egypt under Napoleon Bonaparte, and local Mamluk forces. It occurred during France's Egyptian Campaign and was the battle where Napoleon put into use one of his significant...
, French land victory - 1 and 2 August (14-15 Thermidor year VI) : Battle of the NileBattle of the NileThe Battle of the Nile was a major naval battle fought between British and French fleets at Aboukir Bay on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt from 1–3 August 1798...
, British naval victory over French squadron anchored in Aboukir Bay - 10 August : Battle at Salheyeh, French victory
- 7 October : Battle of Sédiman, French victory
- 21 October (30 Vendémiaire) : Cairo Revolt
- 19 May (30 Floréal year VI) : Departure from Toulon
- 1799
- 7 March : Siege of JaffaSiege of JaffaThe Siege of Jaffa was fought from 3 to 7 March 1799 between France and the Ottoman Empire. The French were led by Napoleon Bonaparte, and they captured the city.-Course:...
, French victory - 20 May (1 Prairial an VII) : Siege of AcreSiege of Acre (1799)The Siege of Acre of 1799 was an unsuccessful French siege of the Ottoman-defended, walled city of Acre and was the turning point of Napoleon's invasion of Egypt and Syria.-Background:...
, French troops retire after eight assaults - 8 April : Battle at Nazareth, French victory, Junot with 500 defeats 3000 Turks
- 7 March : Siege of Jaffa
-
- 11 April : Battle of Cana, French victory, Napoleon wins a great battle against Turks
- 16 April (27 Germinal year VII) : Bonaparte relieves the troops under Kléber just as the latter are about to be overwhelmed at the foot of Mount TaborBattle of Mount TaborThe Battle of Mount Tabor, or Skirmish of Mount Tabor, opposed French forces under General Kleber to an Ottoman force led by the Pasha of Damascus on 16 April 1799. General Bonaparte was besieging Acre, and Damascus sent its army to relieve the siege...
- 1 August (14 Thermidor year VII) : Battle of AbukirBattle of Abukir (1799)The Battle of Abukir was Napoleon Bonaparte's decisive victory over Seid Mustafa Pasha's Ottoman army on 25 July 1799 during the French invasion of Egypt...
, French victory - 23 August (6 Fructidor year VII) : Bonaparte embarks on the frigate Muiron and abandons command to Kléber
- 1800
- 24 January (4 Pluviôse year VIII) : Kléber concludes the convention of El-Arich with the British admiral Sidney Smith
- February (Pluviôse-Ventôse year VIII) : French troops begin their withdrawal, but the British admiral Keith refuses to recognize the convention's terms.
- 20 March (29 Ventôse year VIII) : Battle of HeliopolisBattle of Heliopolis (1800)The Battle of Heliopolis was a French victory by the armée d'Orient under General Kléber over the Ottoman army at Heliopolis on 20 March 1800....
, Kléber wins one last victory, against a force of 30,000 Ottomans - 14 June (25 Prairial year VIII) : A fanatic named Suleiman al-HalabiSuleiman al-HalabiSuleiman al-Halabi, also known as Soleyman El-Halaby , was a Syrian student who assassinated French general Jean Baptiste Kléber. He was tortured by burning his hand to the bone before being executed by impalement.-Early life:...
assassinates Kléber in his garden in CairoCairoCairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life...
. General MenouJacques-Francois MenouJacques-François de Menou, baron de Boussay was a French general under Napoleon I of France. Born Jacques Menou in Boussay on 3 September 1750, he died in Mestre in the Veneto on 13 August 1810...
, a convert to Islam, takes over command - 3 September (16 Fructidor year VIII) : The British recapture Malta from the French
- 1801
- 8 March (17 Ventôse year IX) : British landing near Aboukir
- 21 March (30 Ventôse year IX) : Battle of AlexandriaBattle of AlexandriaThe Battle of Alexandria or Battle of Canope, fought on March 21, 1801 between the French army under General Menou and the British expeditionary corps under Sir Ralph Abercrombie, took place near the ruins of Nicopolis, on the narrow spit of land between the sea and Lake Abukir, along which the...
, French defeat, army under MenouJacques-Francois MenouJacques-François de Menou, baron de Boussay was a French general under Napoleon I of France. Born Jacques Menou in Boussay on 3 September 1750, he died in Mestre in the Veneto on 13 August 1810...
digs in at AlexandriaAlexandriaAlexandria is the second-largest city of Egypt, with a population of 4.1 million, extending about along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in the north central part of the country; it is also the largest city lying directly on the Mediterranean coast. It is Egypt's largest seaport, serving...
ready for the siege of AlexandriaSiege of AlexandriaThe Siege of Alexandria was fought between 17 August and 2 September 1801, during the French Revolutionary Wars, between French and British forces and was the last action of the Egyptian Campaign. The French garrison at Alexandria surrendered on 2nd September... - 31 March (10 Germinal year IX) : Ottoman army arrives at El-Arich
- 19 April (29 Germinal year IX): British and Ottoman forces capture Fort JulienFort JulienFort Julien was a fort in Egypt, originally built by the Ottoman Empire and occupied by the French during Napoleon Bonaparte's campaign in Egypt and Syria between 1798-1801. It stood on the left bank of the Nile a couple of miles north-east of Rashid on the north coast of Egypt...
at RosettaRosettaRosetta is a port city on the Mediterranean coast of Egypt. It is located east of Alexandria, in Beheira governorate. It was founded around AD 800....
after a four-day bombardment, opening the Nile. - 27 June (8 Messidor year IX) : General BelliardAugustin Daniel BelliardAugustin Daniel Belliard, comte Belliard et de l'Empire was a French general.Belliard became an officer between 1792 and 1793 under Dumouriez in Belgium...
surrenders in CairoCairoCairo , is the capital of Egypt and the largest city in the Arab world and Africa, and the 16th largest metropolitan area in the world. Nicknamed "The City of a Thousand Minarets" for its preponderance of Islamic architecture, Cairo has long been a centre of the region's political and cultural life... - 31 August (13 Fructidor year IX) : Siege of Alexandria ends in Menou's surrender
See also
- Crusader invasions of EgyptCrusader invasions of EgyptThe Crusader invasion of Egypt was a series of campaigns undertaken by the Kingdom of Jerusalem to strengthen its position in the Levant by taking advantage of the weakness of Fatimid Egypt....
— 1154–1169 - Italian invasion of EgyptItalian invasion of EgyptThe Italian Invasion of Egypt was an Italian offensive action against British, Commonwealth and Free French forces during the Western Desert Campaign of the Second World War. Initially, the goal of the offensive was to seize the Suez Canal. To accomplish this, Italian forces from Libya would have...
— 1940