The Voyage to Egypt--Malta surrendered--The French escape Nelson,
and take Alexandria--The March up the Nile--The Battle of the
Pyramids--Cairo surrenders--The Battle of Aboukir.
The French fleet was reinforced, ere it had proceeded far on its way, by
General Dessaix, and his division from Italy; and, having prosperous
winds, appeared on the 10th of June off Malta. The Knights of St. John
were no longer those hardy and devout soldiers of the cross, who for
ages inspired terror among the Mussulmans, and were considered as the
heroic outguards of Christendom. Sunk in indolence and pleasure, these
inheritors of a glorious name hardly attempted for a moment to defend
their all but impregnable island, against the fleet which covered the
seas around them. The Parisian authorities had tampered successfully
beforehand with some of the French knights. Division of counsels
prevailed: and in confusion and panic the gates were thrown open. As
Napoleon was entering between the huge rocky barriers of La Valette,
Caffarelli said to him: "It is well there was some one within to open
the door for us; had there been no garrison at all, the business might
have been less easy."
From Malta--where he left a detachment of troops to guard an acquisition
which he expected to find eminently useful in his future communications
with France--Buonaparte steered eastwards; but, after some days, ran
upon the coast of Candia to take in water and fresh provisions, and, by
thus casually diverging from his course, escaped imminent danger. For
Nelson, soon returning to Toulon, missed the shipping which had so
lately crowded the harbour, and ascertaining that they had not sailed
towards the Atlantic, divined on the instant that their mark must be
Egypt. His fleet was inferior in numbers, but he pursued without
hesitation; and taking the straight line, arrived off the Nile before
any of the French ships had appeared there. Buonaparte, on hearing off
Candia that the English fleet was already in the Levant, directed
Admiral Brueyes to steer not for Alexandria, but for a more northerly
point of the coast of Africa. Nelson, on the other hand, not finding the
enemy where he had expected, turned back and traversed the sea in quest
of him, to Rhodes--and thence to Syracuse. It is supposed that on the
20th of June the fleets almost touched each other; but that the
thickness of the haze, and Nelson's want of frigates, prevented an
encounter. Napoleon, reconnoitring the coast, ascertained that there was
no longer any fleet off Alexandria, and in effect reached his
destination undisturbed on the 1st of July. At that moment a strange
sail appeared on the verge of the horizon. "Fortune," exclaimed he, "I
ask but six hours more--wilt thou refuse them?" The vessel proved not to
be English; and the disembarkation immediately took place, in spite of a
violent gale and a tremendous surf. The Admiral Brueyes in vain
endeavoured to persuade Buonaparte to remain on board until the weather
should be more calm. He sternly refused, and landed at Marabout, three
leagues to the eastward of Alexandria, about one in the morning of the
2nd July--having lost many by drowning.
Egypt, a province of the Ottoman empire, then at peace with France, was
of course wholly unprepared for this invasion. The Turks, however,
mustered what force they could, and, shutting the gates of the city,
held out--until a division, headed by Napoleon in person, forced their
way, at three in the morning, through the old crumbling walls, and it
was no longer possible to resist at once superior numbers and European
discipline. Two hundred French died in the assault; the Turkish loss was
much greater: and, if we are to believe almost all who have written
concerning this part of his history, Buonaparte, after taking
possession, abandoned the place for three hours to the unbridled licence
of military execution and rapine--an atrocity for which, if it really
occurred, there could have been only one pretext; namely, the urgent
necessity of striking awe and terror into the hearts of the population,
and so preventing them from obeying the call of their military
chieftains, to take arms in defence of the soil. De Bourienne and
Berthier, however, wholly deny this story.
If Napoleon's conduct on this occasion was as it has been commonly
represented, it was strangely contrasted with the tenor of his _General
Order_ to the army, issued immediately before their disembarkation.
"The people," he then said, "with whom we are about to live, are
Mahometans; the first article of their faith is, _There is no God but
God, and Mahomet is his Prophet._ Do not contradict them: deal with them
as you have done with the Jews and the Italians. Respect their muphtis
and imans, as you have done by the rabbis and the bishops elsewhere....
The Roman legions protected all religions. You will find here usages
different from those of Europe: you must accustom yourselves to them.
These people treat their women differently from us; but _in all
countries he who violates is a monster; pillage enriches only a few; it
dishonours us, destroys our resources, and makes those enemies whom it
is our interest to have for friends_."
To the people of Egypt, meanwhile, Napoleon addressed a proclamation in
these words:--"They will tell you that I come to destroy your religion;
believe them not: answer that I come to restore your rights, to punish
the usurpers, and that I respect, more than the Mamelukes ever did, God,
his Prophet, and the Koran. Sheiks and Imans, assure the people that we
also are true Mussulmans. Is it not we that have ruined the Pope and the
Knights of Malta? Thrice happy they who shall be with us! Woe to them
that take up arms for the Mamelukes! they shall perish!"[24]
Buonaparte was a fatalist--so that one main article of the Mussulman
creed pleased him well. He admired Mahomet as one of those rare beings,
who, by individual genius and daring, have produced mighty and permanent
alterations in the world. The General's assertion of his own belief in
the inspiration of the Arab impostor, was often repeated in the sequel;
and will ever be appreciated, as it was at the time by his own
soldiery--whom indeed he had addressed but the day before in language
sufficiently expressive of his real sentiments as to all forms of
religion. Rabbi, muphti, and bishop, the Talmud, the Koran, and the
Bible, were much on a level in his estimation. He was willing to make
use of them all as it might serve his purpose; and, though not by nature
cruel, he did not hesitate, when his interest seemed to demand it, to
invest his name with every circumstance of terror, that could result
from the most merciless violation of those laws of humanity which even
his Koran enforces, and which his own address to his army had so
recently inculcated.
Napoleon left Alexandria on the 7th July, being anxious to force the
Mamelukes to an encounter with the least possible delay. He had a small
flotilla on the Nile, which served to guard his right flank: the
infantry marched over burning sand at some distance from the river. The
miseries of this progress were extreme. The air is crowded with
pestiferous insects, the glare of the sand weakens most men's eyes, and
blinds many; water is scarce and bad: and the country had been swept
clear of man, beast, and vegetable. Under this torture even the gallant
spirits of such men as Murat and Lannes could not sustain
themselves:--they trod their cockades in the sand. The common soldiers
asked, with angry murmurs, if it was here the General designed to give
them their seven acres? He alone was superior to all these evils. Such
was the happy temperament of his frame, that--while others, after having
rid them of their usual dress, were still suffused in perpetual floods
of perspiration, and the hardiest found it necessary to give two or
three hours in the middle of the day to sleep--Napoleon altered
nothing; wore his uniform buttoned up as at Paris; never showed one bead
of sweat on his brow; nor thought of repose except to lie down in his
cloak the last at night, and start up the first in the morning. It
required, however, more than all his example of endurance and the
general influence of Napoleon's character, could do to prevent the army
from breaking into open mutiny. "Once," said he at St. Helena, "I threw
myself suddenly amidst a group of _generals_, and, addressing myself to
the tallest of their number with vehemence, said, _You have been talking
sedition: take care lest I fulfil my duty: your five feet ten inches
would not hinder you from being shot within two hours._"
For some days no enemy appeared; but at length scattered groups of
horsemen began to hover on their flanks; and the soldier, who quitted
the line but for a moment, was surrounded and put to death ere his
comrades could rescue him. The rapidity with which the Mamelukes rode,
and their skill as marksmen, were seconded by the character of the soil
and the atmosphere; the least motion or breath of wind being sufficient
to raise a cloud of sand, through which nothing could be discerned
accurately, while the constant glare of the sun dazzled almost to
blindness. It was at Chebreis that the Mamelukes first attacked in a
considerable body; and at the same moment the French flotilla was
assaulted. In either case the superiority of European discipline was
made manifest; but in either case also the assailants were able to
retreat without much loss. Meantime the hardships of the march
continued; the irregular attacks of the enemy were becoming more and
more numerous; so that the troops, continually halting and forming into
squares to receive the charge of the cavalry by day, and forced to keep
up great watches at night, experienced the extremes of fatigue as well
as of privation. In the midst of this misery the common men beheld with
no friendly eyes the troop of _savans_ mounted on asses (the common
conveyance of the country), with all their instruments, books and
baggage. They began to suspect that the expedition had been undertaken
for some merely scientific purposes; and when, on any alarm, they were
ordered to open the square and give the learned party safe footing
within, they used to receive them with military jeerings. "Room for the
asses:--stand back, here come the _savans_ and the _demi-savans_."
On the 21st of July the army came within sight of the Pyramids, which,
but for the regularity of the outline, might have been taken for a
distant ridge of rocky mountains. While every eye was fixed on these
hoary monuments of the past, they gained the brow of a gentle eminence,
and saw at length spread out before them the vast army of the beys, its
right posted on an entrenched camp by the Nile, its centre and left
composed of that brilliant cavalry with which they were by this time
acquainted. Napoleon, riding forwards to reconnoitre, perceived (what
escaped the observation of all his staff) that the guns on the
entrenched camp were not provided with carriages; and instantly decided
on his plan of attack. He prepared to throw his force on the left, where
the guns could not be available. Mourad Bey, who commanded in chief,
speedily penetrated his design; and the Mamelukes advanced gallantly to
the encounter. "Soldiers," said Napoleon, "from the summit of yonder
pyramids forty ages behold you;" and the battle began.
The French formed into separate squares, and awaited the assault of the
Mamelukes. These came on with impetuous speed and wild cries, and
practised every means to force their passage into the serried ranks of
their new opponents. They rushed on the line of bayonets, backed their
horses upon them, and at last, maddened by the firmness which they could
not shake, dashed their pistols and carbines into the faces of the men.
They who had fallen wounded from their seats, would crawl along the
sand, and hew at the legs of their enemies with their scimitars. Nothing
could move the French: the bayonet and the continued roll of musketry by
degrees thinned the host around them; and Buonaparte at last advanced.
Such were the confusion and terror of the enemy when he came near the
camp, that they abandoned their works, and flung themselves by hundreds
into the Nile. The carnage was prodigious. Multitudes more were drowned.
Mourad and a remnant of his Mamelukes retreated on Upper Egypt. Cairo
surrendered: Lower Egypt was entirely conquered.
Such were the immediate consequences of _the Battle of the Pyramids_.
The name of Buonaparte now spread panic through the East; and the
"Sultan Kebir" (or King of Fire--as he was called from the deadly
effects of the musketry in this engagement) was considered as the
destined scourge of God, whom it was hopeless to resist.
The French now had recompense for the toils they had undergone. The
bodies of the slain and drowned Mamelukes were rifled, and, it being the
custom for those warriors to carry their wealth about them, a single
corpse often made a soldier's fortune. In the deserted harems of the
chiefs at Cairo, and in the neighbouring villages, men at length found
proofs that "eastern luxury" is no empty name. The _savans_ ransacked
the monuments of antiquity, and formed collections which will ever
reflect honour on their zeal and skill. Napoleon himself visited the
interior of the Great Pyramid, and on entering the secret chamber, in
which, 3000 years before, some Pharaoh had been in-urned, repeated once
more his confession of faith--"There is no God but God, and Mahomet is
his prophet." The bearded orientals who accompanied him, concealed their
doubts of his orthodoxy, and responded very solemnly, "God is merciful.
Thou hast spoken like the most learned of the prophets."
While Napoleon was thus pursuing his career of victory in the interior,
Nelson, having scoured the Mediterranean in quest of him, once more
returned to the coast of Egypt. He arrived within sight of the towers of
Alexandria on the 1st of August--ten days after the battle of the
Pyramids had been fought and won--and found Brueyes still at his
moorings in the bay of Aboukir. Nothing seems to be more clear than that
the French admiral ought to have made the best of his way to France, or
at least to Malta, the moment the army had taken possession of
Alexandria. Napoleon constantly asserted that he had urged Brueyes to do
so. Brueyes himself lived not to give his testimony; but Gantheaume, the
vice-admiral, always persisted in stating, in direct contradiction to
Buonaparte, that the fleet remained by the General's express desire. The
testimonies being thus balanced, it is necessary to consult other
materials of judgment; and it appears extremely difficult to doubt that
the French admiral,--who, it is acknowledged on all hands, dreaded the
encounter of Nelson--remained off Alexandria for the sole purpose of
aiding the motions of the army, and in consequence of what he at least
conceived to be the wish of its general. However this might have been,
the results of his delay were terrible.
The French fleet were moored in a semicircle in the bay of Aboukir, so
near the shore, that, as their admiral believed, it was impossible for
the enemy to come between him and the land. He expected, therefore, to
be attacked on one side only, and thought himself sure that the English
could not renew their favourite manoeuvre of breaking the line,[25] and
so at once dividing the opposed fleet, and placing the ships
individually between two fires. But Nelson daringly judged that his
ships might force a passage between the French and the land, and
succeeding in this attempt, instantly brought on the conflict, in the
same dreaded form which Brueyes had believed impossible. The details of
this great sea fight belong to the history of the English hero.[26] The
battle was obstinate--it lasted more than twenty hours, including the
whole night. A solitary pause occurred at midnight, when the French
admiral's ship _L'Orient_, a superb vessel of 120 guns, took fire, and
blew up in the heart of the conflicting squadrons, with an explosion
that for a moment silenced rage in awe. The admiral himself perished.
Next morning two shattered ships, out of all the French fleet, with
difficulty made their escape to the open sea. The rest of all that
magnificent array had been utterly destroyed, or remained in the hands
of the English.
Such was the battle of Aboukir, in which Nelson achieved, with a force
much inferior to the French, what he himself called, "not a victory, but
a conquest." Three thousand French seamen reached the shore: a greater
number died. Had the English admiral possessed frigates, he must have
forced his way into the harbour of Alexandria, and seized the whole
stores and transports of the army. As things were, the best fleet of the
Republic had ceased to be; the blockade of the coast was established:
and the invader, completely isolated from France, must be content to
rely on his own arms and the resources of Egypt.
[Footnote 24: At this period Egypt, though nominally governed by a pacha
appointed by the Grand Seignior, was in reality in the hands of the
Mamelukes; a singular body of men, who paid but little respect to any
authority but that of their own chiefs. Of these chiefs or beys there
were twenty-four; each one of whom ruled over a separate district; who
often warred with each other; and were as often in rebellion against
their nominal sovereign. According to the institutions of the Mamelukes
their body was recruited solely by boys, chiefly of European birth,
taken captive, and brought up from their earliest days in all military
exercises. These were promoted according to their merits; it being the
custom that when a bey died, the bravest of his band succeeded him. The
Mamelukes thus formed a separate _caste_; and they oppressed most
cruelly the population of the country which had fallen into their
keeping. The _fellahs_, or poor Arabs, who cultivate the soil, being
compelled to pay exorbitantly for permission to do so, suffered the
extreme of misery in the midst of great natural wealth. The _Cophts_,
supposed to be descended from the ancient Egyptian nation, discharged
most civil functions under the Mamelukes, and had the trades and
professions in their hands, but they also were oppressed intolerably by
those haughty and ferocious soldiers.
The Mamelukes were considered by Napoleon to be, individually, the
finest cavalry in the world. They rode the noblest horses of Arabia, and
were armed with the best weapons which the world could produce:
carbines, pistols, etc., from England, and sabres of the steel of
Damascus. Their skill in horsemanship was equal to their fiery valour.
With that cavalry and the French infantry, Buonaparte said, it would be
easy to conquer the world.]
[Footnote 25: This manoeuvre was first practised on the 12th of August,
1782, by Lord Rodney's fleet; and, as appears to be now settled, at the
suggestion of that admiral's captain of the fleet, the late Sir Charles
Douglas, Bart.]
[Footnote 26: See the admirable _Life of Nelson_, by Southey; which will
form one of the volumes of this Library.]