by Alan Schom
On learning that Bonaparte had canceled a certificate that he himself had prepared, Dr. Desgenettes insisted on an immediate interview at headquarters, resulting in a bitter exchange — something to which Napoleon was unaccustomed. As in the case of Kléber and General Dumas, relations between the medical corps director and Bonaparte were never again the same.[256] Every day the commander in chief was burning more bridges.
Although Napoleon continued to confide in Monge, he played some cards very close to his chest, in particular the possibility of his leaving Egypt with just a few of his collaborators to return to France. To what extent Napoleon mentioned this is not clear. To be sure, Monge knew that Josephine’s blatant affair with Charles had left her husband the butt of many a ribald joke throughout the Army of the Orient. He also knew that the general’s decision to flaunt his affair with Pauline Fourès was a form of retaliation (unlike the greater discretion he was to demonstrate with other mistresses later). Following the defeat of his fleet, Bonaparte had notified Admiral Ganteaume on September 1 that he wanted three or four of the remaining warships that had escaped destruction in Alexandria harbor to be rearmed and prepared to put to sea at a moment’s notice.[257] He then sent funds to Alexandria that this work might be given top priority, for despite everything Napoleon was still intent on getting back to France to deal with both Josephine and the Directory. But apparently the more he reflected on the impact of the fleet’s destruction, the more he realized the necessity of another resounding victory over “the Turks” to ensure the support he would require to overthrow the French government.
Following the naval débâcle, Napoleon also conducted a highly discreet correspondence with the British fleet off the coast of Alexandria, attempting to arrange for some sort of signed truce, or even a peace treaty with the English.[258] Capt. Samuel Hood, the senior naval officer in charge of those cruisers, declined to play this game. Monge also encouraged Bonaparte to maintain — or attempt to maintain — negotiations with the Sublime Porte, while Napoleon for his part sent messages by land and sea to the sultan of the Ottoman Empire, purporting that the French were in Egypt to aid and work with the Turks, against the Austrians, the Russians, and the English. It was all rot, and both sides knew it; besides, there was not a single Russian or English soldier in Egypt.
On August 22 Napoleon had personally instructed Maj. Joseph Eugène Calmet-Beauvoisins to open negotiations with the Turks in Syria via Ahmet Pasha, known popularly as Djezzar, or “the Butcher.” But upon reaching Jaffa, Djezzar’s bluff son had treated the major arrogantly and rudely, not even permitting him to land. After the officer returned to Cairo on September 11 with this bad news, the next day Napoleon ordered Capt. Mailly de Chateaubriand to set out immediately on another one-man mission to attempt to open contact with the Turkish army. Alas, this young man found himself in Turkish chains in a dank dungeon in Acre, where he was later decapitated by Djezzar.
By December, then, when Napoleon dispatched a third emissary, by the name of Beauchamp, on the diplomatic errand of establishing direct relations with Constantinople, he was in a pretty foul temper, and his letter of instructions reflected this less conciliatory mood. In Constantinople, in conjunction with “our minister...you will demand that the Frenchmen arrested in Syria be released.” At the same time, “you will inform the Sublime Porte that we want to be his friends, that the purpose of our expedition to Egypt is to punish the Mamelukes and the English, and to prevent the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire” by the Austrian and Russian emperors. He was “proudly and imperiously [to] demand” that the Sultan release all French citizens in Constantinople, “for failure to do so will be regarded as a declaration of war.” But what Napoleon really wanted was compromise. If the Porte had already declared war on France (which he had done back in September) and had had France’s ministers arrested (which in fact was the case), Beauchamp was to say that Napoleon was returning a Turkish ship held in Alexandria as proof of the French government’s desire for friendly relations. Unfortunately, not only was Beauchamp’s sailing date delayed until February 13, 1799 — when the very purpose had been canceled by subsequent events — but the caravelle was intercepted off Rhodes and Beauchamp imprisoned, while the ship and Beauchamp’s written orders reached Constantinople only on April 14. It was a total fiasco.
The fact of the matter is that the Ottoman sultan, upon learning of the French seizure of Egypt in the first week of September 1798, had had the French chargé d’affaires arrested, and with him most of the French colony in Constantinople. Napoleon first received word of the Porte’s not-so-sublime actions and his declaration of war on France on October 9 from a Greek ship putting into Damietta. Even Talleyrand realized that France’s invasion of Egypt would be the most difficult point to negotiate with the Porte.
The news of Napoleon’s initial successful landing in Egypt in the first week of July reached Paris only on September 10, accompanied by cheering crowds and the usual celebratory cannonfire from the Ecole Militaire. Later that same day, with the thunder of artillery still reverberating through the French capital, a special courier from Toulon, galloping across the Place de la Révolution, reined in sharply at the Rue Royale and dashed into the Naval Ministry to hand Admiral Bruix a dispatch announcing the news of Brueys’s defeat by Nelson at Abukir.
The full implications of the Abukir Bay naval disaster were already being felt all across the Mediterranean, as Britain’s Royal Navy that same month attacked the French garrisons at Corfu (which surrendered on March 3, 1799), while General Vaubois, who was personally ordered to surrender Malta, managed to hold out against the British until September 4, 1800. Thus the two strategically situated new French naval bases were cut off completely and of no further use to France. To be sure, Napoleon knew nothing of this yet, nor of the later capture of Villeneuve and Decrès after attempting to escape Malta, where they had ultimately fled from the Battle of Abukir. With the destruction of its principal battle fleet, France had lost all significant clout, military and diplomatic, throughout the Mediterranean. Hence the futility of Bonaparte’s desperate efforts to negotiate with the Turks in Syria or Constantinople.
Talleyrand, who had deceived Bonaparte about his private, personal support of him and his Egyptian expedition, and about his own intention to serve as ambassador to the Sublime Porte, drafted a letter for Jean-Baptiste Treilhard, the president of the Executive Directory, who dispatched it over his own signature to Bonaparte on November 4, 1798: “You can imagine the Directory’s regrets and the difficulty they have in understanding the details of your expedition to date.” Because of the naval defeat, Treilhard continued. France now found itself in a great dilemma vis-à-vis the other European powers and throughout the Mediterranean. “It is to this terrible event, which you so greatly feared and anticipated when you found the fleet could not leave the Egyptian coast, that we must attribute all our international problems.” This “fleet disaster” had undermined French foreign policy in every sphere. Because of it Malta was blockaded, there were fresh troubles in Italy, and the British and Austrians were closer than ever to forming a new anti-French coalition including Russia and Prussia. What is more, the government was now forced to decree the emergency conscription of another two hundred thousand young men, while General Joubert had been sent to head the Army of Italy, and Gen. Jean-Baptiste Jourdan was preparing the Army of the Rhine. If war broke out, Treilhard contended, Italy would no doubt be the place. Nevertheless “the external enemy will be conquered...and the imperishable republic...strong through the union of all members of its government, will emerge victorious from all attacks...You must therefore arrange to rely entirely on yourself, at least for some time to come.” In the final analysis, Director Treilhard closed, Bonaparte was left with three choices: he could remain in Egypt and simply bide his time; he could march to India; or he could march to Constantinople. Then he closed with a scathing dig at the mighty man who just months before had personally challenged and bullied this same Directory: “No matter h
ow you resolve to act, we expect from the genius and luck of Bonaparte nothing less than sweeping operations and illustrious results.” Treilhard (and Talleyrand, whose hand was evident throughout this draft) had the last bitter laugh after all — or so it would seem for the moment. As for the recipient of this attack, Bonaparte would not receive it until March 25, 1799, in Acre, during yet another military setback.
From a military viewpoint Napoleon, as commander in chief of the Army of the Orient, had several objectives on reaching Cairo, all of which he hoped to achieve more or less simultaneously: he had to secure Alexandria and the entire coastline between there and Damietta; to occupy and secure the two lower branches of the Nile between Cairo and Rosetta and the capital and Damietta; and to pacify the upper courses of the Nile from Cairo southward to Aswan and up to Wadi Haifa. In addition he had to pursue and destroy the armies of the two Mameluke princes, Murad Bey, who had fled along the Nile south of Cairo, and Ibrahim Bey, who had disappeared with the remnants of his army to the northeast toward al-Arish.
Despite this sweeping program of pacification in Egypt and the reduced size of his army (to twenty thousand men), Napoleon made the decision to march on Syria, which required securing not only the Delta but also the desert stretches to the east of the Damietta branch of the Nile, linking Cairo with the trade routes to Syria. This meant hastening the occupation of the Damietta branch, including the important canal leading from Mansûra to Lake Manzalah, and the route from Cairo passing Heliopolis, Balbais, Qaram, Salheyeh, and Peluse. Much to his surprise, he was to find the area round Damietta, Mansura, and the Shakiyah Provinces, to the east of the Damietta branch of the Nile, untamed and openly hostile, requiring reinforcements with fresh troops and the building of barracks, depots, and fortifications in the more inaccessible but strategically important areas around Salheyeh and Peluse (modern Port Said). Only when they had been secured could he launch his invasion of Syria and drive toward Acre, Damascus, and the Bosporus.
On August 25 General Desaix had finally sailed upriver from Giza with four battalions totaling 3,200 men to seek and destroy Murad Bey and his army and to pacify the entire southern region of the Nile between Cairo and the Sudan. Desaix first confronted Murad Bey’s 9,000 Mamelukes at the Battle of Sediman on October 7, defeating and routing them. It proved a hollow victory, however: Murad lost only 400 men (to Desaix’s 110) as he escaped practically unscathed into the desert.[259] By the end of October, Desaix’s ranks were thinning due to ophthalmia[260] and dysentery. Stalwart and unrelenting, however, he ultimately passed Bani Sur, Abu Jirja, Mania, Manfalut, and Asyut, clashing with the Mamelukes at Sawqui (January 2), Samhud (January 22), Banut (March 8-10), Bir al-Bar (April 2), and Kassai (May 30, 1799).[261] Brig. Gen. Louis Davout ultimately inflicted the greatest casualties on Murad at Bani Adin on April 16, leaving behind two thousand Egyptian dead, a tally that did not, however, prevent the ever elusive Murad Bey from slipping through his fingers once again.
Meanwhile, to the north the campaign continued much as before. Gen. Jacques Menou finally succeeded Manscourt at Alexandria on November 28, joining the command of that province with his own at Rosetta. In mid-October General Dugua, with 4,274 men, was sent as governor to Damietta, with orders from Bonaparte “to pursue the Arabs and punish them vigorously.”[262] General Andréossy was sent to Lake Manzalah on a special mission to help prepare the invasion route to Syria, while Damas, Murat, and the infamous Lanusse conquered the northeast.
Napoleon had been seriously considering the invasion of Syria at least as early as September, when he asked General Reynier to prepare a study of the route and ordered the ruthless cavalry commander Murat to do “all the harm possible” to the Arabs of that region. “My intention,” he said, “is to destroy them.” Napoleon ordered Dugua to take his entire division and to make himself “sovereign master” by “beheading the opposition and taking hostages...Burn their villages, make a terrible example of them.”
On December 3 Bonaparte ordered General Bon to march on Suez, to secure that port and gain control of all commerce on the Red Sea, while establishing friendly contact with the Arabs on the other side of that sea, at Yanbu and Jidda (to prevent them from further aiding Murad). Reaching Suez on December 7, Bon quickly accomplished his mission.
Meanwhile, in the far northeastern corner of Egypt, Napoleon was gathering only extremely patchy intelligence reports from Reynier on Ibrahim Bey’s forces at al-Arish (where he had been halted by Djezzar, who would not permit him to advance to Damascus), estimating Ibrahim’s total forces at about 2,300 men. At the same time some of Bon’s and Caffarelli’s men were continuing to build forts at Peluse and Katiyah, to secure the invasion route northward, and Ganteaume was ordered by Bonaparte to prepare naval transport ships, with cannon, siege artillery, and supplies, to accompany the proposed expedition into Syria.[263]
With all finally in order, and Cairo now calm once again, Napoleon issued a parting message to the Cairenes, informing them that he had forgiven theii bloody uprising and trespasses: “God has ordered me to be lenient and merciful. The day will come when everyone will have proof that I am following higher orders now and that in consequence no man can touch me.” Then he added one of his many equivocal messages to the Muslims — messages that he would later try to delete from French history. He announced that after the enemies of Islam had been defeated, and Islam “defeats the cross, I will come from the far West to fulfill the task He has imposed upon me”; that is, to become their leader.
Having delivered this proclamation, Napoleon, escorted by some three hundred crack troops and accompanied by Berthier, Dommartin, Caffarelli, Ganteaume, Monge, Berthollet, and others, set out from Cairo, crossing the Eastern Desert and arriving at Suez on December 27. After a quick tour of inspection, he left again three days later, adding a side trip to study the ruins of the ancient Suez Canal, which he hoped to restore. Then, returning via Balbais, he reached Cairo on January 6, 1799, now firmly determined to strike into Syria as quickly as possible.[264]
Chapter Eleven – Road to Damascus
‘I will create a great new empire in the Orient that will truly establish my place in posterity.’
The Syrian campaign was to be Napoleon’s final full-scale military expedition in the Middle East, and it seemed doomed almost from the beginning. Berthier, who had finally received permission to return to Europe and his Italian mistress, had changed his mind, deciding to throw in his lot with Bonaparte once again.[265] Otherwise there was little in the way of good news. Morale continued to decline; thousands of troops were blinded and hospitalized by a seemingly incurable eye virus; while Desgenettes’s December reports now confirmed that bubonic plague was sweeping the country from Alexandria to Cairo (it alone would ultimately kill another two thousand Frenchmen). Fear, lassitude, and general apathy were everywhere prevalent. The Ottoman sultan’s declaration of war against the French Republic on September 9, 1798, had been the final blow, effectively sealing the fate of the French. But if Napoleon had no navy with which to counter the British squadron off the Egyptian coast, his troops could still march, and that is just what he was set on having them do. With a total effective force by now down to fewer than twenty thousand men, however, the thirteen thousand he was preparing to launch against Djezzar Pasha’s force — in excess of forty thousand, awaiting them to the north, protected by mighty fortresses and large cavalry units — appeared daring if not utterly foolhardy.
On January 31, 1799, the first of the four partial divisions set out from Cairo overland via Balbais, Salheyeh, and Katia, Kléber in command of his own and Reynier’s divisions. With the basic stores of food and munitions now in place, Reynier departed through sand dunes and under the unrelenting Egyptian sun, reaching Katia on February 4, and on the sixteenth left for the sprawling oasis of al-Arish. Even as Kléber’s division was setting out from Katia on February 11, Bonaparte was heading north from Cairo with Bon’s and Lannes’s divisions (Lannes having replaced Vial).
Leaving
in his berlin (a light traveling carriage) on the eleventh, and attended by these final two divisions, a grim Bonaparte — with the latest report in his pocket of the British bombardment of Alexandria on February 3 — set out on the road to Damascus and war that would either make or break him. The enemy was closing in on all sides, and this was his last chance. By marching up to Acre Napoleon hoped to win over Djezzar from the Ottoman sultan, and with his aid smash the two Ottoman armies advancing by land and sea transport to recapture Egypt, aided by the British navy.
But as General Reynier discovered on reaching the coastal town of al-Arish, French army intelligence had proved faulty once again. Ordered to build a small fort there to hold off Ibrahim’s followers, an astonished Reynier instead found a large stone fortress already in place, manned by some 2,300 well-armed and well-supplied Mameluke and Albanian troops. The siege of this fort bogged down until Bonaparte’s arrival there on February 16, its nine hundred survivors surrendering three days later. On the twenty-second they proceeded up the strip of desert coast to Gaza, which fell to them two days later, and after seizing al-Ramleh on March 1, reached Jaffa on the third.