In the meantime the “Legions of Rome,” as Bonaparte euphemistically called them, were converging on their embarkation points. By May 11 Generals Kléber, Bon and Reynier had collected almost 14,000 infantry, 860 cavalry and 1,160 gunners at Toulon, including in their number the contingent from Marseilles; at Genoa, d’Hilliers and Murat waited to embark 6,000 more infantry, 855 cavalry and 250 gunners in a subsidiary convoy. Besides his military duties, Murat was commissioned by his commander in chief to procure a number of crates of Italian wine for the general’s table. The remainder of the army gathered at Civita Vecchia and Ajaccio. At the former, General Desaix took over command of 6,900 foot soldiers, 1,080 horsemen and 250 artillerymen from the local commandant, General St. Cyr; at the latter, Vaubois prepared a smaller detachment of 3,900 infantry and 680 cavalrymen. General Bonaparte and his headquarters staff only reached Toulon on May 9 escorted by the 180 guides-à-cheval and 300 guides-à-pied of his personal bodyguard. Civilians included, the expedition totaled almost 38,000 men (some authorities put it as high as 55,000, but such estimates are exaggerated, and probably include the sailors), and was provided with 60 field and 40 siege guns, hard rations for 100 days, fresh water for 40, and a total of 1,200 horses (the balance of the cavalry was to be mounted when it reached Egypt). Some 300 women, cantinières, washerwomen and the like also boarded the ships, but Bonaparte was insistent that wives and mistresses be left behind for some future convoy to transport. One or two officers disobeyed orders and smuggled their wives on board with them, including a certain Lieutenant Fourés of the dragoons who was eventually to regret his decision to bring along his new-wed bride, the comely and vivacious “Bellitote,” disguised in military uniform.
Deprived of feminine company, the morale of the expedition was not notably high at the outset. Many Frenchmen have an inbred aversion to salt water, and a considerable number of desertions took place from the demi-brigades when they heard they were destined for “service overseas”; a few units lost a quarter of their strength in this way. Feeling among the sailors was little better; the prospect of crawling down the Mediterranean, burdened by a host of landsmen incarcerated in slow-moving transports, with the Royal Navy in all probability hot on their heels, was not exactly calculated to cheer a service whose record during this war had been an unrelieved series of disasters suffered at the hands of England’s seamen. Of all the men who set sail, General Bonaparte should have been the most enthusiastic, but even he suffered severe qualms at the prospect of a long sea voyage, instructing Brueys to furnish his quarters in the Orient with good food and a comfortable bed “as for someone who will be ill throughout the whole journey.” Indeed, cheerfulness and optimism were not notably evident in any quarter. Josephine sobbed, albeit crocodile tears; the officers gambled and conjectured; and the men grumbled and deserted. In an attempt to conjure up a flicker of enthusiasm from his command, the General held a large review on the 10th, and made a flamboyant speech which included the incentive of six arpents de terre. “I promise every soldier,” ran the relevant section, “that upon his return to France he shall have enough to buy himself six acres of land.” This was destined to be an unredeemed undertaking, and fully a third of his army was to find that its portion was to be only six feet of Oriental sand.
Speed and secrecy were vital if the expedition was to achieve its full impact on Great Britain and the Turk. In early May the Royal Navy was still off Lisbon. If it returned and caught the convoy at sea the results would be grim for all the landsmen, for Bonaparte’s instructions to the naval captains ordered them, in such an eventuality, to lay their ships alongside the English vessels for a protracted hand-to-hand grapple. To conceal the true destination of the armament, therefore, the Directory went to elaborate lengths. Cover plans included the preparation of raids on Ireland and Portugal, and on March 30 Bonaparte received an ostentatious order to take command of the men and shipping at Brest. These measures were designed to throw dust in the eyes of British intelligence, and so was the retention by the Toulon forces of the title “Army of England” until April 12. In spite of these precautions, however, security was not complete. Among the people in the secret of the true destination were a number of the savants, and certain of these proved incapable of discretion. An English spy at Frankfurt was the first to glean accurate tidings, and Pitt’s agent at Leghorn, a Mr. Audry, reported soon after that Malta and Alexandria were the objectives. The British cabinet, of course, had to weigh up the various conflicting pieces of evidence, but the indications were sufficient for the Admiralty to order Rear Admiral Nelson to re-enter the Mediterranean, but before this order reached the theater Lord St. Vincent had already detached him with three ships-of-the-line and some frigates from the Cadiz fleet (May 3) to endeavor to keep a close watch on the activities at Toulon. In fact, Bonaparte’s expedition was in greater peril than its commander at first appreciated.
Over the next few weeks, the very slowness of the French convoy proved its salvation. The Toulon squadron set sail on May 19, and two days later met the Genoa convoy; on the 23rd the Ajaccio division hove in sight, but the failure of the Civita Vecchia shipping to appear caused Bonaparte some anxiety. After a brief delay, however, he decided to sail on for Malta, and on June 9 the expedition sighted the main island and, to its considerable relief, the sails of the missing ships. Desaix had left Civita Vecchia only on the 26th and had, in fact, been found by Murat in one of the searching frigates shortly thereafter, but the two generals had decided to sail straight for Malta. They sighted Gozo island on June 6, and Murat carried out a very daring and rash reconnaissance of the entry of Grand Harbour itself, doing everything in his power, it seemed, to warn the Grand Master of the coming onslaught. It was fortunate for the French that there was little fight left in the Knights of St. John.
Already good fortune had saved Bonaparte from a brush with the Royal Navy; a sudden severe gale on May 21 dismasted Nelson’s flagship, H.M.S. Vanguard, and scattered his squadron. Before the damage could be repaired off Sardinia, the Toulon armament had disappeared into the blue, and it was not until June 14 that Nelson received reliable information that the French had been seen off Sicily. By this time the British admiral had been reinforced to a strength of 13 sail-of-the-line, but he was still desperately short of frigates, those vital “eyes of the fleet.”
While Nelson threshed uncertainly around the Mediterranean, Bonaparte took possession of the island of Malta against only nominal opposition. A pretext for the attack was fabricated out of the Grand Master’s refusal to allow more than four French ships into Grand Harbour at any one time for watering. “General Bonaparte will secure by force what should have been accorded to him freely,”9 he declared, and on the 10th the troops swarmed ashore. Reynier occupied Gozo and Valetta was soon isolated by generals d’Hilliers and Desaix, while Vaubois, accompanied by Bonaparte in person, led the main assault and seized the aqueduct. There was very little fighting; the ancient spirit of the Order of St. John, once the scourge of Islam, had long since decayed into soft living. Earlier subtle French moves had undermined what little resistance remained. In 1798 a trade mission of supposedly peaceful intent visited the island, but behind the scenes the French representatives had contacted disaffected elements among the Knights, the majority of whom were, in any case, of French origin, and paved the way for the invasion. The Treasurer of the Order had been bought over, and surrounded by this atmosphere of treachery and supported by only an understrength garrison of 1,200 men, there is little wonder that the last Grand Master, the apathetic von Hompesch, made only a show of resistance before accepting Bonaparte’s offer of terms on the 12th. For the cost of three men killed, the French secured an invaluable naval base and a great deal of treasure. There were less pleasant implications, however, as both Austria and Russia had long coveted possession of this strategic island, and its high-handed seizure by the French was bound to lead to international repercussions.
Over the five days following the island’s capture, Bonaparte tore apa
rt and refashioned every aspect of Maltese life. The Order of St. John was abolished and its members deported, apart from a handful who were persuaded to join the Army of Egypt. A host of edicts outlined a new constitution, created a public education system and reconstituted the island’s economy. The treasures of the Order, amassed over 500 years, were promptly sequestered. Bonaparte invariably exacted a price for his “improvements,” and seven million francs’ worth was diverted to the military chest, and, when the expedition sailed on, “it bore with it many a silver Saint on an unexpected pilgrimage against the Infidel.”10
The armada sailed on June 19, leaving General Vaubois and 4,000 men to hold the imposing fortifications of Valetta. The expedition also left behind General d’Hilliers, invalided back to France by ill health, his division being taken over by Menou. In the succeeding fortnight, the French fleet narrowly avoided Nelson on at least one occasion. On the 17th, Nelson, off Naples, learned of the attack on Malta, but four days later a Genoese merchantman erroneously reported that Bonaparte had left Malta on the 16th. Nelson, therefore, calculated that the French had an overall lead of six days (in reality they had only three), and at once set sail for Alexandria. The French, meanwhile, sailed for Crete, consciously trying to put Nelson off the scent, and thence south toward Egypt. On the night of June 22-23, the different courses of the two fleets crossed, but the British were unaware of the enemy’s proximity although some of the French sailors heard alien ships’ bells. Five days later, Nelson, traveling at twice the speed of the overloaded convoy, reached Alexandria only to find no trace of the French. Shortly afterward the British fleet sailed north for Anatolia, but Captain Hardy in the brig Mutine left Alexandria only on the 29th, two hours ahead of the arrival of Bonaparte’s leading frigate, La Junon. Although good fortune or “destiny” was so clearly on his side, General Bonaparte determined not to try his luck too far, and on the 1st July he ordered the immediate landing of the army near Marabout, discarding the better anchorage of Aboukir Bay in his eagerness to see his men safely ashore. By the 3rd, the operation was successfully completed.
The French squadron of Admiral Brueys was not destined to be so fortunate. Nelson might have missed the golden opportunity of destroying the Egyptian expedition at sea through a combination of miscalculation and bad luck, but exactly one calendar month after the French landing, the Royal Navy returned on August 1 to find Brueys anchored in Aboukir Bay. Before dawn on the 2nd, the French admiral was dead and L’Orient blown up, the impact of the explosion being felt, some asserted, as far away as Cairo. Three more French ships-of-the-line were disabled and aground, and a further six were wearing the white ensign; the remaining three were in full flight down the Mediterranean. In this sudden and decisive fashion ended the brief period of French naval predominance in the Mediterranean sea, and in the months that followed the catastrophe was to have far-reaching repercussions. The Army of Egypt found itself cut off from France and under a condition of blockade, complications that had little immediate effect on the progress of the campaign in the land of the Nile, but which were destined to doom the expedition to ultimate failure. Most damaging was the blow suffered by French prestige. After the Nile, the prospect of continued, if only nominal, friendship with Constantinople rapidly diminished, and elsewhere in Europe Nelson’s achievement undoubtedly hastened the formation of the Second Coalition. Between September 1798 and February the following year, Turkey, Naples, Russia and Austria joined forces with Great Britain and Portugal. Although in the long run the formation of this coalition was destined to prove to Bonaparte’s personal advantage, providing him with the opportunity of increasing his reputation and of overthrowing the Directory, and thus doomed Europe to a further sixteen years of almost continuous war, its immediate effect was to presage disaster for France in Germany, Switzerland and North Italy.
Rear Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson and Commodore Sir William Sidney Smith, two British sailors who, between them, thwarted Bonaparte’s plans in 1798-1799
Although Nelson’s victory did not immediately compromise Bonaparte’s expedition (the reduction of Lower and Middle Egypt was already too far advanced by early August to be easily affected), it was, nonetheless, a distinct blow to his future plans. To the end of his life, he pretended to deprecate the British achievement: “Nelson’s action was desperate,” he once stated, “and should not be held as a model.”11 But for all that he was very eager to unload responsibility for the disaster onto the uncomplaining shoulders of the deceased Admiral Brueys. Bonaparte asserted that he ordered Brueys to secure the fleet within the strong harbors of Alexandria or to sail for the safer waters of Corfu, but there is no complete proof that this was the case. Wherever the ultimate responsibility lay, however, Brueys can be justly criticized for taking up such an insecure position in the Bay of Aboukir, his ships being anchored out of range of the protective shore batteries yet leaving enough water under their lee to allow Nelson’s “Band of Brothers” to penetrate between the line of battle and the shore. In any case, for all his bluster, Bonaparte was unable to disguise the magnitude of the disaster from either the Directory or his men, but he not unnaturally made every effort to minimize its impact. In his dispatch to the former he merely mentioned the naval battle at the end of a long string of successes on land; to encourage the latter and to dispel the clouds of homesickness which increasingly affected morale, he stressed new objectives: “The sea, of which we are no longer master, separates us from our homeland, but no sea separates us from either Africa or Asia.”12
20
THE PYRAMIDS LOOK DOWN
The troops had already been a month in Africa when their link with France was abruptly severed, and the days had not passed without incident and exertion. The first action took place at eight in the morning on July 2, when General Menou stormed the Triangular Fort on the outskirts of Alexandria, and Kleber and Bon respectively seized the Pompey and Rosetta gates. Bonaparte stationed himself for the greater part of the forenoon on a pile of masonry known as Pompey’s Pillar, watching the turn of events, slashing with his whip at the pile of ancient potsherds on which he was seated. The assaulting troops, rendered desperate by their thirst, soon made short work of the terror-stricken defenders. Although resistance continued for a time amid the narrow streets of the town, Alexandria was completely under French control by midday, when the local sheikhs tendered the keys in submission. The French had suffered 300 casualties, including among the wounded both Menou and Kléber, but Bonaparte lost no time in following up his troops’ success with a barrage of propaganda aimed at the lowly inhabitants of the Delta. A lurid proclamation was at once distributed (printed in advance on the presses carried aboard L’Orient), announcing the coming of the French to be the will of Allah, and that their purpose was to free the people of Egypt from their ancient servitude to the Mamelukes. Bonaparte guaranteed, furthermore, that the Moslem faith would be respected and protected by the newcomers.
Within the next twenty-four hours the remainder of the troops, horses, supplies and savants were disembarked, the latter in a disgruntled mood owing to the complete lack of attention accorded them by the military. Bonaparte had no time to listen to their complaints; military considerations needed all his present attention. While the disordered troops of the morning’s attack sorted themselves out, General Desaix’s newly landed division was at once routed for the important strategical points of Damanhur and Rahmaniya, the latter hard by the Nile some 45 miles from Alexandria. On the 5th, General Bon followed in Desaix’s tracks. If any officer or man in either of these divisions was not already disillusioned about the joys of the land of Egypt, he rapidly became so in the days that followed. For all ranks the 72-hour trek through the arid, bleak and colorless landscape proved a living hell. The men were still wearing European-type uniforms and were loaded down with equipment, which seemed to include everything but a water bottle, and the only food ration available was dry biscuit. Not a few soldiers went out of their minds as the march crawled onward, and a number shot
themselves. Many were suffering from ophthalmia, causing temporary blindness. Towns prominent on the map turned out to be mere hovels on the ground; all too often the village wells were found filled in by the hovering swarms of Bedouin tribesmen, and mirages of water frequently appeared to tantalize further the desperate men. Even General Desaix complained to headquarters of the impossible conditions, but Bonaparte’s inflexible will drove them on. On the night of the 6th, the divisions of Reynier and Vial set out from Alexandria in their turn, followed next day by Bonaparte and his staff. The wounded Kléber was left with 2,000 men to garrison the city, General Menou being designated for the governorship of Rosetta, and General Dugua together with Murat and the men of Kléber’s old command were ordered to march thither by way of Aboukir. It was the desert road for every other soldier.
The Conquest of Lower Egypt; from Alexandria to the Nile
After their untold suffering, Bonaparte concentrated four dispirited divisions, totaling some 18,000 men, at Damanhur on July 9. Many units were in a state bordering on mutiny and the mood of the general officers was little better, but not for an instant did Bonaparte lose control of the situation. He rejected with scorn his officers’ ultimatum, and their spokesman, General Mireur, was found out in the desert the next morning, dead by his own hand. A threat to shoot General Dumas, another ringleader, served to bring the remainder back to their loyalty. Not unnaturally, however, nerves were tense, as the unfortunate incident involving Croisier revealed. This young aide-de-camp received a blistering reprimand for failing to wipe out a large body of marauding Bedouin who ventured to approach headquarters. In fact, Croisier did well to drive them off with the handful of Guides available at the time, but Bonaparte was implacable, and his subordinate never recovered from the rebuke and henceforward only thought of finding death in action. Human suffering apart, however, Bonaparte was justified in demanding such extreme efforts from his men; he was aware that he must complete his conquest before the Nile floods made movement difficult, and it was equally important to forestall the attack of his enemies, Murad and Ibrahim Bey.
The Campaigns of Napoleon Page 30