It was a gross exaggeration to say that eighty ships had been trying to bombard Alexandria, as Sir Sidney possessed only five ships that could be called naval vessels while the Turks had only a few capital ships of their own. However, it was more dramatic to announce it this way for an audience. Napoléon didn’t scruple to exaggerate when it suited him, as most of his senior officers already were aware.
This kind of speech was typical of the man, but behind the bombast there was a shrewd and calculating mind. The news was no great surprise, as he had been expecting something of the kind to occur ever since he arrived back in Egypt.
Sir Sidney Smith was not a man to allow the French any kind of respite, and had without any doubt been able to convince the Sultan of Constantinople to provide an invasion force. Smith had foreseen the opportunity, knowing full well how exhausted the French army had to be after the debacle at Acre and the long and painful retreat across the Sinai desert back to Cairo.
To complicate things further, Napoléon’s army was spread out all over the country. He had to act quickly, demonstrating his caliber to his men once again as leader and a military commander. He immediately sent out gallopers. to recall Murat and his squadrons and to join him on the march to Abukir. But first Murat was to make sure that Murad Bey was not a threat to Napoléon’s rear.
He sent messengers to Alexandria, commanding Général Marmot to remain in the city and to defend it but not to attack the Turks. As information was sparse, he also sent horsemen north posthaste to ascertain the strength and disposition of the Turks and to verify whether they had moved inland from Abukir. That he had to prevent at all costs, as once the Turks gained the hinterland they could move around at will and would be very difficult to stop.
When he returned to Cairo to collect his men together, Napoléon thought carefully about the strategy he would put in place. He had the rare ability to conjure up a map of Egypt in his head and could envisage exactly where his resources were placed. Général Kléber and his division were in the eastern delta, protecting his right flank from any possibility of a land invasion from the Sinai.
He gave a mental shrug. Well, the counter land invasion had taken place, so he sent out fast riders to Général Kléber with orders to bring his entire division to Damanhur, forty miles southeast of Abukir, there to meet up with Murat.
Napoléon himself would assemble an army from Cairo and meet them both there.
“Call together every available able-bodied man,” he ordered. “Only the sick and the lame are to stay behind and defend the city while I am away.”
His aides rushed off to carry out the orders while Napoléon continued to stride about his office, now and again glancing at the real map pinned to the wall to ascertain the accuracy of his memory and to evaluate the options available.
He was taking a huge risk by throwing all his available men at the Turks in this one gambit and he was worried. He had no option but to trust his generals, all hand-picked and battle-wise, to comply with his plans and hold up their corner of the whole enterprise. He also worried about leaving his mistress behind, and before the day was out he was back at the palace of Elfi Bey attempting to reassure her about the unavoidable departure.
“But my Général, my Prince! Do you not have generals aplenty who can take care of these barbarians? Why do you leave me so soon?” she gave him a petulant moue. “Have I not pleased you?”
“My Darling Pauline, I shall miss you every minute of the time I am away.” He reached for an embrace, but she turned her back, holding up a hand to stop him, the other wrist across her brow in a dramatic pose. “You do not love me, I … I am sure of it,” she pretended to weep. “You are going to Alexandria where you have unimaginable numbers of women waiting for you! They will jump into bed with you the moment you appear. Perhaps you will even be killed!” she shrilled, looking as though she was about to faint at the very thought.
Napoléon shook his head vehemently and tugged at his jacket in the warm room. Cairo at this time of year was a sweat hole and he was perspiring with annoyance as much as from the heat. “No. No, my Darling, my nymph. I am not going there, I simply have to be at Abukir or we will lose all we have accomplished to the Turks. This one I cannot hand off to the generals,” he said with a hint of impatience.
“You must promise that you will return immediately, the moment you have disposed of those … those barbarians, my Prince!” She turned to him and rushed back into his arms, clinging to him fiercely. There followed a long passionate series of kisses and many whispered endearments before he was able to eventually disengage himself and reluctantly take his leave for the rest of the day. There was so very much to do.
During this time Napoléon sent messages south to Desaix, who was up in the higher reaches of the Nile with his army and the hoard of Savants, ordering him to make his way north as speedily as possible, to ensure that if the Turks broke past Napoléon they could be stopped before they arrived at the gates of Cairo.
In just over five days Napoléon had completed his preparations, assembled a sizeable force, and was marching it to Damanhur. He took with him almost all the French troops there were in the city, leaving Cairo largely in the control of his Greek officer Barthelemy, who ran the notorious police force. The Greek would doubtless become even more ruthless while his commander was away: it was in his nature to prefer fear to persuasion. The guillotine’s mechanism was being greased with lard even as the soldiers were leaving the city walls.
The men under Captain Joseph Clément were unhappy to be leaving the flesh pots of Cairo so soon after they had arrived. They packed their knapsacks only with essentials, as this was to be a long forced march. They filled their two water canteens, checked that their pouches were full of ball and cartridges and that their fine-grain priming powder was safe and dry. Then they assembled on parade in preparation for the march with their weapons smartly alongside. Their other baggage would travel more slowly via carts.
“Wonder where we’re going now?” muttered Poupard to his next in line, Christophe, who was craning his neck to see down the long green and blue line.
“Damn if I know,” Christophe replied in a low voice. “Off for another try for Acre maybe?”
“Merde,” grunted Pierre. “I’ve had enough of those bastard Arabs!”
“Silence!” growled Sergeant Émile who, since he had been promoted, could hear a whisper in the ranks from a hundred paces.
“Prepare to march! Attention!” roared Lieutenant Lefevre, standing next to Captain Clément halfway down the length of the column.
There was a loud rattle of musket straps as the weapons were jerked upwards with a sharp movement and placed on right shoulders, then smacked with the left hand which, after a short pause, was just as smartly snapped to the side. “Right turn!” Lefevre shouted, and the entire column swiveled sharply to the right and hundreds of hob-nailed boots crashed to attention.
“Forward march!”
The column began to move off, resembling some enormous blue and white caterpillar interspersed with the green jackets of the Infantry regiment. The bayonets which were fixed for this occasion flashed in the sunlight. The soldier’s left arms moved in exact sequence and every man was in step. To the Arabs, the citizens of Cairo, and the Europeans watching this spectacle of French martial strength, they presented a brave sight: the army of Napoléon tramping off to fight yet another battle. The ration wagons, quartermaster stores, ambulances and water carts trundled along behind.
*****
The long line of horsemen who followed Murad Bey moved rapidly along the western side of the Nile, keeping well to the edge of the cultivated region where men on horses would attract less attention. Murat Bey had no illusions as to what might happen should his column be detected. He had gone to great pains to conceal any sign of his small army from the untrustworthy fellaheen peasants. He hoped to arrive intact at Abukir, where he assumed the Turks under Mustafa Pasha would have landed by now, according to the excited messenger. He assu
med too that the Turks would have established a firm hold on Abukir prior to marching on Alexandria.
The goal was for him to join Mustafa Pasha and provide cavalry support when the Turkish army set out from Abukir for Cairo to destroy the French once and for all. Unfortunately, the passage of such a large force of cavalry, even though they kept away from habitation as much as possible, could not escape the vigilance of Bonaparte’s alert chasseurs and even the Arabs who spied for the French. The Turks were not popular with all Egyptians.
They were nearing the lake called Natron, some distance to the west of the Great Pyramid of Giza, when his forward scouts shouted back at him that there was a cloud of dust ahead.
Chapter 11
Général Murat and the Mamelukes
Général Murat of the French cavalry snapped shut his glass and turned to his officers.
“We have found them, gentlemen. Prepare for an attack. They will try to punch through our lines and advance to Abukir. I do not need to tell you that this cannot be permitted.”
Although young, Général Murat was a skilled cavalry officer and shrewd judge of the lay of the land, and by now wise in the way in which the Arabs fought battles. He had positioned his brigade so that the Mamelukes had the lake to their right when they advanced. He had placed his horse artillery on his own right flank where they could inflict the most damage and themselves move very rapidly to points of most resistance. His men, well used to moving efficiently, were in position within a few minutes. The field artillery were loaded and the horses behind cover, but close enough to be harnessed within a matter of minutes should the need arise.
Général Murat judged that the Mamelukes would rely upon their most common tactic to carry the day and that would be a headlong charge straight at the center of his own forces. The artillery were there to ensure that they were caught between the guns and the lake while his own cavalry would hold the front and stop the Mamelukes from breaking through to the North.
To Murat’s intense satisfaction this did indeed happen. From a rise to the west of the lake waters Murat Bey and his riders saw the French ahead of them and with a roar put spurs to their horses. With wild war cries and much waving of spears and swords the turbaned mass of brightly clothed horsemen galloped recklessly straight at the motionless ranks of the French cavalry. They were so intent upon the enemy to their front that they quite failed to notice the horse artillery concealed behind other mounds on their left flank until it was far too late.
As the screaming mass of Mameluke horsemen came within a hundred yards of the French forces, the guns of the horse artillery opened fire with a horrendous roar. Shells and grapeshot were fired at almost point-blank range into the galloping mob of riders, who at first did not hear the bellow of the artillery over the noise of their own charge, until their ranks began to be torn apart by the grape shot and the shells exploded overhead, hurling shards of iron into their ranks. As they faltered from the shock of the gun fire, Murat gave the signal for his own massed cavalry to charge. The distance was short, barely fifty yards by this time, and effect was devastating.
The tight ranks of French horsemen crashed into the Mamelukes and the close-quarter battle began in earnest. It was a savage fight where men slashed and stabbed at one another in a ferocious melee. For a short while it seemed in doubt that the French could hold the Mamelukes, for they fought fiercely, were excellent horsemen, furthermore they outnumbered the French almost two to one. But the French cavalry discipline held as the guns continued to take their toll, whittling away at Mameluke’s flank and tearing gaps in their ranks that they could not fill.
Général Murat, with superb timing, then committed his reserve companies to the fight. These horsemen swept through their own artillery positions to crash into the left flank of the Turks, driving them into the lake. The horse artillery had meanwhile, with great efficiency and speed, hauled their guns out of the way of the fighters and re-appeared like harbingers of death further along the Mameluke flank to destroy the men at the rear.
Every time the Turks tried to get to the guns they were met with a wall of fire and destroyed. Horses and men were thrown about like bloody rag dolls by the blasts of grape, torn to pieces as they galloped with insane courage at the guns of the French.
The Mamelukes fighting desperately by the lake shore had lost the impetus of their charge and were now being pushed back into the water or slaughtered by the long, heavy sabers of the French cuirassiers. The tangle of dead and wounded hampered both sides as they fought desperately for possession of the field of battle. The screams of the wounded and dying men and horses were now louder than the war cries of both sides.
The Mamelukes were reduced from three thousand mounted men to less than a few hundred. Murad Bey realized to his despair that he no longer possessed an army of any use to the invasion. He now had to preserve what was left and signaled to his remaining men to flee. They were chased out into the desert to the West where they could no longer do any harm. He now had the humiliating task of sending a messenger around the French army to Mustafa Pasha and inform him that he would not be able to support him any further.
Still exhilarated by the battle and sorely tempted to chase them all down, Général Murat halted his men’s pursuit with the bugles and regrouped. His brigade had not come away unscathed. He himself was covered with blood, although none of it was his own. Most of his men were in similar bloody and dusty condition. Though Murat had taken losses and there were many wounded, he had accomplished what his commander had asked of him and still had a good thousand men for the task ahead. There was no doubt that his assiduous use of the horse artillery had helped win the day. Satisfied with the conclusion of the battle, he sent his wounded back to Cairo under escort and set out for Damanhur to catch up with Napoléon’s army.
*****
Napoléon arrived in Damanhur within four days of leaving the area of Cairo. It was an extraordinary forced march, carried out by men who had barely recovered from the Syrian campaign, but once again these hard-bitten veterans demonstrated that they were anything but a worn out army. In Damanhur, while his men rested, Napoléon and his generals completed the assembly of the army of nine thousand men and mounted artillery, augmented by the thousand remaining cavalrymen that Murat brought with him from the western deserts.
Unfortunately Kléber had not yet arrived with his division, so Napoléon was faced with a difficult decision. The intelligence he received was that the leader of the Turks was the renowned Sayid Mustafa Pasha, now past middle age but with a long record of victories against the Russians in the past.
Napoléon and his officers discussed this at length.
“According to our intelligence, the Turk, with the help of the British, landed a force of fifteen thousand men who took possession of the peninsula, including the fortress,” Général Lanusse offered.
“Then his men butchered our people defending it, and put their heads on display,” Général Lannes growled. His tone was grim.
“How brave they are!” someone sneered from the assembled group of officers.
“We should make sure all the men are aware of this outrage,” Napoléon stated to the assembled officers in the tent. “Nothing incenses a soldier more than that kind of barbaric behavior. We need to have an enraged army attacking these Turks. I want our men to drive them into the sea. There will be no quarter until they are decisively beaten.”
His generals agreed soberly. Although they might have been party to the horrors of Jaffe, that was quickly forgotten as they contemplated the task ahead of them.
“Our scouts and spies have seen that the Turks have thrown up major lines of defense across that flat half-league-wide neck, and they've installed artillery,” Lanusse said, pointing to the map on the table in front of them. “That is most likely the work of those British officers, who are with Sydney Smith, of that I am sure,” he finished.
“Their flanks are protected, particularly on the east side by Turkish gun boats, but the British ship
s are laid off at a two-mile distance. I have to say I am surprised and very happy to discover that the British ships might not be able to contribute much by way of support,” Napoléon said to his men. “They cannot fire up to two leagues can they?”
“Unlikely, Mon Général,” an aide said, shaking his head. “But their gun boats can come in very close to the shore.”
“We should fight our way right into their center and open a way for my cavalry,” Murat said.
Pondering this information, Napoléon tried to put himself in the place of the Pasha. The Pasha, who was an experienced general, would know full well the strengths of the man he knew he would face. The French were known for the phenomenal speed: they could maneuver their famous columns on the battle field, bringing light field artillery to exploit weak areas of defense, and force strong points to break when confronted by an army on the open field. Their battle squares were impervious to the Turkish or Mameluke cavalry charges. The enemy literally destroyed themselves on the bayonets and rapid fire of the French squares, as had been demonstrated ever since they had arrived in Egypt.
“So what will the Pasha do?” he mused out loud for the benefit of his officers.
“He should have gone out and taken Dalmatia and even laid siege to Alexandria, but he has not,” Général Lanusse said in response.
“Instead he has remained idle, and has built walls in the hope that we will throw men at his defenses and destroy our army in a futile effort to capture them,” an aide said. “After which Egypt would lie open to the Pasha.”
Napoléon tapped his finger on the map in front of them with a pensive look on his face.
Midshipman Graham and the Battle of Abukir Page 9