by Alan Schom
After declaring the islands under effective French revolutionary rule, Bonaparte concluded by promising respect for private religious beliefs, including Islam, symbolizing this by the unheard-of gesture of freeing some two thousand North African and Turkish slaves chained to Maltese galleys. Then, after appointing General Vaubois the new commander in Malta, at the head of a garrison of nearly four thousand French troops, Napoleon finally found time to write to his brother Joseph, informing him of his latest coup and assuring him that, as usual, he was in excellent health. Napoleon also asked Joseph to send Josephine to join him in Egypt. With the last courier now on his way to Paris, he instructed Brueys to prepare to put to sea early on the morrow. So far, so good.
The Orient now transformed into a veritable treasure ship worthy of the Spanish Main. Ten days after their arrival, on the morning of June 19, 1798, Admiral Brueys signaled the fleet to weigh anchor and chart a southeasterly course. If all went well, within two weeks’ time they would be in sight of their secret destination at last.
Chapter Seven – Land of the Pharaohs
‘You are about to undertake a conquest that will have an incalculable effect upon world civilizations...We will succeed in all our enterprises, because Fate is on our side.’
To the French Army, June 22, 1798
“I cannot...help feeling how...much depends upon its success [that of Nelson’s fleet], and how absolutely necessary it is at this time to run some risk, in order, if possible, to bring about a new system of affairs in Europe, which shall save us all from being overrun by the exorbitant power of France,” Earl Spencer, First Lord of the Admiralty, wrote to Vice Admiral St. Vincent off Cadiz in April 1798.[174]
On entering the Mediterranean in the second week of May, Nelson’s three ships of the line and four frigates headed for the Gulf of Lyons. While they were some seventy-five miles off the Hyeres Islands, on the night of May 20-21, the unexpected occurred: Nelson’s embryonic squadron was suddenly hit by a fierce gale, his own flagship, the seventy-four-gun Vanguard, on her beam and nearly capsizing as her foremast and main- and mizzen topmasts were snapped, leaving her in near ruins.[175] By the time Nelson rendezvoused on June 7 with the reinforcements sent by St. Vincent, it was of course too late. The French were long gone.
Despite his relative youth and the loss of an arm in the Canaries the year before, not to mention the vigorous protests of more senior admirals, the thirty-nine-year-old Nelson was considered by both the notoriously difficult Admiralty Board and the even more pernickety Admiral St. Vincent to be the right man — the only man — to tackle the French in the Mediterranean Sea.
It was on the junction on June 7 that Nelson received revised orders from Commander in Chief St. Vincent, instructing him specifically “to proceed in quest of the armament preparing by the enemy at Toulon and Genoa,” though St. Vincent still had no idea of Bonaparte’s objective (he suggested Naples, Sicily, Portugal, Spain, and Ireland as possible destinations).[176] Closer to the mark, the Right Hon. Henry Dundas, secretary of war, had other ideas on the matter, as he informed First Lord Spencer on June 2: “Did the instructions to Lord St. Vincent mention that Egypt might be the contemplation of Buonaparte’s expedition? I may be whimsical, but I cannot help having a fancy of my own on that subject.”[177]
Having learned only on May 28 of the escape of the French fleet from Toulon, and realizing that he had already missed a golden opportunity, Nelson now began a wide sea search for an opponent with a full ten-day head start, and with the additional disadvantage of having no hard evidence of either the French objective or even the direction in which they were sailing. Nevertheless St. Vincent’s latest orders had given Nelson full scope to pursue the enemy “to any part of the Mediterranean, Adriatic, Morea Archipelago, or even into the Black Sea,” and once finding them to “take, sink, burn or destroy” them, which is exactly what Nelson now had his heart set on doing.[178]
Thus began one of the most remarkable — and frequently frustrating — pursuits in naval history, as the British fleet headed “instinctively” to the southeast, stopping at Naples on June 17, then entering the Strait of Messina, where on June 22 Nelson was informed (incorrectly) that Bonaparte had taken, and already left, Malta. “If they pass Sicily,” Nelson wrote Dundas, “I shall believe they are going on their scheme of possessing Alexandria,”[179] and hence he continued in that direction himself. Unknown to either Napoleon or Nelson, however, on June 23 the two fleets were in fact only seventy-eight miles apart![180] Ironically, so determined was Nelson to get Bonaparte that he now crowded all sail for Egypt, overtaking the unseen French on a parallel course, arriving in Alexandria on June 28. Finding no sign of the French warships or flotilla in the harbor, however, or even any news of them, within hours of his arrival the impatient rear admiral put to sea again, sailing on a northeasterly heading toward the coast of Anatolia, between the islands of Cyprus and Rhodes, before zigzagging on a more indecisive course to the southern coast of Crete and ultimately back to the Sicilian port of Syracuse. What again neither Bonaparte nor Nelson knew was that on June 29, even as the British were sailing from Alexandria, the French were approaching it. At one point the two opposing fleets, even closer than six days earlier, were only seventy-four miles apart, just a few hours’ sailing time.[181]
Nelson was to learn of his astonishing near miss only three weeks later, when, cursing his own phenomenal bad luck and Napoleon’s seemingly miraculous escape, he declared, “The devil’s children have the devil’s luck!” But, now determined to follow them even “to the Antipodes” if need be, after hastily revictualing at Syracuse, on July 24-25 he set out yet again for Alexandria.[182]
Late on the evening of June 27, slowed by weak winds and still some 180 miles northwest of the Egyptian coast, Vice Admiral Brueys ordered the frigate Junon to precede the armada to Alexandria to get a detailed report of the situation from the French consul there. Two days later, just hours after the British fleet had disappeared over the horizon, the Junon reached Alexandria to collect Consul Magallon (the nephew of Consul General Charles Magallon) and bring him back to an anxiously awaiting Bonaparte.
Vivant Denon, a passenger aboard the Orient, reported that the young consul informed the commander in chief “that a fleet of fourteen English warships” had left Alexandria before the arrival of the Junon. “This knowledge of the presence of the English darkened our horizon,” Denon continued, “for they could now reappear at any moment.” What is more, the favorable weather conditions had already begun to deteriorate, the wind becoming “very strong, swinging transports out of control, mixing the convoy with the fleet, rendering such a state of confusion that would have inevitably resulted in the greatest of disasters for us had the enemy then appeared.” Although the dismay caused by this latest fiasco could be seen on everyone else’s face, “I could not discern the slightest change in the general’s expression,” concluded the artist.[183] By now the French fleet was approaching Abukir Bay, “but it was this unexpected news of the English that decided him suddenly on the landing here at Marabut Beach,” General Kléber related, “for the General’s original plan had been to enter the delta by the two mouths of the Nile [at Rosetta and Damietta] simultaneously, while at the same time we were seizing Alexandria.”[184]
As a result of the consul’s report and Bonaparte’s fresh instructions, at 6:45 A.M. on July 1 Admiral Brueys ordered the crews of his fleet to be piped to their action stations, while Rear Admiral Blanquet apprised the other ships of the new landing instructions.[185] At 8:00 A.M., with the armada still several miles north of Abukir, Brueys ordered the warships to leave the convoy and to form a separate battle line closer to shore. With that maneuver executed, they dropped anchor and prepared to land the troops. At 11:00 came the long-awaited order from the flagship to lower away the gunboats, sloops, and other boats serving as landing craft from the larger vessels. Napoleon’s spur-of-the-moment revised debarkation orders had envisaged Kléber’s division securing the far right of Marabut
Beach, General Reynier’s to the left of them, then Desaix’s in the middle, with Menou’s to its left, and — anchoring the extreme left flank — General Bon’s division. That orderly plan was soon washed away by a raging storm.
As thousands of soldiers scrambled over the sides of dozens of ships, the real mayhem was just beginning. The high winds combined with nearly universal military incompetence to produce utter confusion throughout the vast armada. Fortunately the British were not in sight. In order to negotiate the shallows of the reef-strewn bay, Napoleon himself, bent on landing as quickly as possible, was unexpectedly forced to shift, when still four and half miles out, from one of the larger landing vessels to a smaller surfboat, delaying his arrival by at least another hour. The conditions that Admiral Blanquet had earlier described as “fair, fresh, the weather and sea beautiful,” had by now been transformed into a “very rough night.” Even Berthier, who rarely referred to the sea if he could possibly avoid doing so, complained about “the violent wind that was churning up the sea, rendering it very difficult for the navigation of our boats, creating the greatest obstacles to the execution of our landing instructions.” In fact the gale-force winds were now heaving one boat on top of another, smashing some, overturning others, and hurling men and debris alike into the foaming surf, sometimes while they were still hundreds of yards from shore. Admiral Brueys, who was held responsible for this operation, had frantically attempted to dissuade Bonaparte from carrying out amphibious landings in raging seas, over uncharted reefs, destined for dark unknown beaches, beneath storm-laden skies — only to be overruled. The chaos and disorder were complete. “The landing was rough,” General Belliard conceded, as hundreds of craft bobbed out of control in the furious surf before being hurled ashore amid dozens of bodies of the dead and injured. Nevertheless, from the initial wave of boats about 2,500 men landed safely and assembled along the black expanse of Marabut Beach. But despite Bonaparte’s orders, it proved utterly impossible to winch artillery and horses over the sides of the larger ships and transports into the landing craft below.
However, Bonaparte was not to be deterred from his objective, the seizure of Alexandria. At 2.30 A.M. three ragged columns now totaling perhaps 5,000 men formed in the howling wind. Bonaparte, with Generals Dumas (commander of the still-nonexistent cavalry), Dommartin (commanding the equally nonexistent artillery), and Caffarelli (the peg-legged commander of the army’s engineers) at his side, moved out on foot to Fort Abukir and then west along the tempest-tossed shoreline. Despite the inability to land either food or water, they proceeded and a few hours later had come within one and a half miles of Alexandria, when hostile bedouin cavalry appeared out of the night, darting in and around the confused troops. This was the beginning of harassing tactics that would continue until the day the French left the country three years later.
Reaching the towering stone walls of the port, Napoleon moved the three partially formed “divisions” into position. Gen. Jacques F. Menou, who had advanced along the far right flank hugging the beach, had brought his men up between the triangular fort and the seawalls. Kléber’s more powerful division drew up in the center, between the triangular fort and Pompey’s Gate, facing the long southern walls of the city. Separated from them by several hundred yards, General Bon’s division secured the left flank, attacking the Rosetta Gate at the extreme eastern end of the walls. Although there were some brisk exchanges of small-arms fire — the defenders of walls having little powder for their artillery and even less desire to fight — the French (without artillery of their own) advanced, the commanding generals leading their troops into battle. By 11:00 A.M. the French had scaled walls and broken down city gates to take possession of this once-great seat of learning — but at a price. According to Berthier’s report — his figures were always dictated by Napoleon and thus suspect — twenty-one French were killed and sixty wounded during the brief siege, with another twenty soldiers drowning during the night landings. Total casualty figures, including drowned, in fact amounted to a few hundred; among the wounded were General Menou, who was hurled down a wall and struck by large rocks, and General Kléber, who survived though shot in the head. Shortly before noon a delegation from the besieged city emerged from Pompey’s Gate, approached Bonaparte’s headquarters, and surrendered then and there.
“I have come to restore your rights and to punish the usurpers,” Bonaparte assured the people of Alexandria on July 2. “I respect God, his prophet, Muhammad, and the Koran far more than the Mamelukes do.” Determined to relieve the anxiety of the Egyptians and to assure them of his friendship, and hence to avoid the appearance of the traditional marauding conqueror, he announced severe restrictions on his troops’ actions and harsh penalties for infractions thereof, including the firing squad for “any member of the army found to be guilty of pillaging or rape.” On the other hand, all Mamelukes were to be arrested and their property and wealth confiscated. The Egyptians for their part were ordered to lay down their arms “within twenty-four hours” and to send official delegations from every community offering their formal submission to the French, in exchange for a promise of friendship and protection. Any village refusing to comply and caught “bearing arms against the French army, [was] to be burned.” The one property the immobilized French did universally seize wherever they went, however, was transport in any form — horses, donkeys, oxen, and camels. With that one exception, the Egyptian people (as opposed to the ruling Mameluke class) were theoretically inviolable, at least so far as Napoleon was concerned. This included their religion, religious leaders, and institutions, all to be respected by the French. “Every Egyptian must thank God for the destruction of the Mameluke and cry out: ‘Glory to the Sultan! Glory to the French army, his friend! Curses upon the Mamelukes, and happiness to the people of Egypt!’” Napoleon proclaimed.
It was a new kind of warfare for the French, forbidden to lay hands on the conquered enemy, although in fact Napoleon was frequently to find it impossible to enforce his oft-repeated strictures and penalties against French violators, whose actions later kept undermining his policy. One of the problems was that among the guilty were to be found numerous senior army officers, sometimes flagrantly opposing their commander in chief, eroding his authority more and more. Nevertheless his policy was clear — to win the Egyptian people (not the Mamelukes) over and prepare the land for a reorganized government à la française and a peaceful conquest whenever possible, preparatory to establishing a French colony.
Some of the new regulations were hardly surprising — demanding that all inhabitants turn over their arms to the French, for example — but others were simply absurd, such as the demand that “every inhabitant [of Alexandria] wear the tricolor cocarde.” Even more difficult, if not impossible, to execute was Napoleon’s order requiring all French troops “to salute all high Muslim officials when bedecked in the French tricolor sash of office,” this from an undisciplined army in which French soldiers frequently refused to salute even their own officers. Regardless, the new orders were read before the troops. All Muslim institutions were to be respected; Bonaparte expressly forbade “every Frenchman, soldier or civilian alike, from entering a mosque or congregating before them...[and] those who contravene these orders will be shot.” Nor would the troops be permitted to take the usual small liberties in the marketplace, Napoleon reminding them of the great importance he placed on “our soldiers paying for everything they take...and that the Turks [Egyptians] be neither robbed nor insulted. We must make friends of them, and restrict ourselves to making war only on the Mamelukes.” Given these prescriptions, guarantees, and lofty sentiments, on July 4 the principal muftis and sheikhs of Alexandria signed a solemn declaration to support the new French regime. The conquest of Egypt could now begin in earnest.
With the city secured and the gates manned by French troops, what did the French themselves find as they stopped to look around them? “Awful sand, nothing alive to be seen in any direction, burning heat during the day, then cold at night,”
Col. Jean-Marie-René Savary succinctly summed it up. For the troops still camping along Marabut Beach after landing, it was grimmer still. “We lack simply everything. We have neither food [except the hard biscuit prebaked in France] nor the pots with which to cook it, even if we could find water.” In fact, whether seen from within or beyond the elongated walls of the port, the situation was hardly inspiring for the unprepared European suddenly dropped into a scene straight out of the Arabian Nights. The food problem likely could be solved within a matter of weeks, once French logistics were in place, but the land itself was quite another matter.
To begin with, Alexandria was built on one of the most peculiar sites ever conceived as a country’s sole major port. Located on a long, slender spit of land — little more than a series of sand dunes — rarely more than a mile and a half wide and several miles long, the city itself faced the Mediterranean, with its back to the usually dried-up bed of Lake Mareotis and the briny waters of Lakes Abukir and Idku. They in turn cut the port off entirely from the mainland, apart from the narrow causeway separating Lakes Abukir and Mareotis, and the large canal linking Alexandria with Rahmaniya on the Nile — this panhandle the only direct land access from the port to the Nile and Cairo.
Nor did the immediate hinterland offer searching French eyes much relief: The lakes were surrounded by sand and, in the case of Lake Idku, by extensive marsh. But a couple of miles inland, along the canal from Alexandria (generally dried up for more than half the year), there were occasional patches of palm trees and small fields, large enough somehow to sustain more than a dozen villages and hamlets between Alexandria and Rahmaniya, including Birket and Damanhur. More than forty miles to the east, along the Egyptian coast from Alexandria, lay the mouth of the Rosetta branch of the Nile. To the west there was nothing but desert. Thus, Alexandria was so badly situated that if by some means a powerful foreign navy could reach and blockade it, and then land troops to either side of the port while securing the canal and causeway behind it, the chief link with the mainland — Egypt’s only principal outlet on the Mediterranean — could be lost. (And this is precisely what the British were to do in 1801, when they took Alexandria from the French.)