SYRIA
Meanwhile Turkey had declared war on France, and was sending an army
through Syria for the recovery of Egypt, while another expedition was
assembling at Rhodes. Like all great captains, Bonaparte was never
content with the defensive: his convictions and his pugnacious
instincts alike urged him to give rather than to receive the blow; and
he argued that he could attack and destroy the Syrian force before the
cessation of the winter's gales would allow the other Turkish
expedition to attempt a disembarkation at Aboukir. If he waited in
Egypt, he might have to meet the two attacks at once, whereas, if he
struck at Jaffa and Acre, he would rid himself of the chief mass of
his foes. Besides, as he explained in his letter of February 10th,
1799, to the Directors, his seizure of those towns would rob the
English fleet of its base of supplies and thereby cripple its
activities off the coast of Egypt. So far, his reasons for the Syrian
campaign are intelligible and sound. But he also gave out that,
leaving Desaix and his Ethiopian supernumeraries to defend Egypt, he
himself would accomplish the conquest of Syria and the East: he would
raise in revolt the Christians of the Lebanon and Armenia, overthrow
the Turkish power in Asia, and then march either on Constantinople or
Delhi.
It is difficult to take this quite seriously, considering that he had
only 12,000 men available for these adventures; and with anyone but
Bonaparte they might be dismissed as utterly Quixotic. But in his case
we must seek for some practical purpose; for he never divorced fancy
from fact, and in his best days imagination was the hand-maid of
politics and strategy rather than the mistress. Probably these
gorgeous visions were bodied forth so as to inspirit the soldiery and
enthrall the imagination of France. He had already proved the immense
power of imagination over that susceptible people. In one sense, his
whole expedition was but a picturesque drama; and an imposing climax
could now be found in the plan of an Eastern Empire, that opened up
dazzling vistas of glory and veiled his figure in a grandiose mirage,
beside which the civilian Directors were dwarfed into ridiculous
puppets.
If these vast schemes are to be taken seriously, another explanation
of them is possible, namely, that he relied on the example set by
Alexander the Great, who with a small but highly-trained army had
shattered the stately dominions of the East. If Bonaparte trusted to
this precedent, he erred. True, Alexander began his enterprise with a
comparatively small force: but at least he had a sure base of
operations, and his army in Thessaly was strong enough to prevent
Athens from exchanging her sullen but passive hostility for an
offensive that would endanger his communications by sea. The Athenian
fleet was therefore never the danger to the Macedonians that Nelson
and Sir Sidney Smith were to Bonaparte. Since the French armada
weighed anchor at Toulon, Britain's position had became vastly
stronger. Nelson was lord of the Mediterranean: the revolt in Ireland
had completely failed: a coalition against France was being formed;
and it was therefore certain that the force in Egypt could not be
materially strengthened. Bonaparte did not as yet know the full extent
of his country's danger; but the mere fact that he would have to bear
the pressure of England's naval supremacy along the Syrian coast
should have dispelled any notion that he could rival the exploits of
Alexander and become Emperor of the East.[112]
From conjectures about motives we turn to facts. Setting forth early
in February, the French captured most of the Turkish advanced guard at
the fort of El Arisch, but sent their captives away on condition of
not bearing arms against France for at least one year. The victors
then marched on Jaffa, and, in spite of a spirited defence, took it
by storm (March 7th). Flushed with their triumph over a cruel and
detested foe, the soldiers were giving up the city to pillage and
massacre, when two aides-de-camp promised quarter to a large body of
the defenders, who had sought refuge in a large caravanserai; and
their lives were grudgingly spared by the victors. Bonaparte
vehemently reproached his aides-de-camp for their ill-timed clemency.
What could he now do with these 2,500 or 3,000 prisoners? They could
not be trusted to serve with the French; besides, the provisions
scarcely sufficed for Bonaparte's own men, who began to complain
loudly at sharing any with Turks and Albanians. They could not be sent
away to Egypt, there to spread discontent: and only 300 Egyptians were
so sent away.[113] Finally, on the demand of his generals and troops,
the remaining prisoners were shot down on the seashore. There is,
however, no warrant for the malicious assertion that Bonaparte readily
gave the fatal order. On the contrary, he delayed it for three days,
until the growing difficulties and the loud complaints of his soldiers
wrung it from him as a last resort.
Moreover, several of the victims had already fought against him at El
Arisch, and had violated their promise that they would fight no more
against the French in that campaign. M. Lanfrey's assertion that there
is no evidence for the identification is untenable, in view of a
document which I have discovered in the Records of the British
Admiralty. Inclosed with Sir Sidney Smith's despatches is one from the
secretary of Gezzar, dated Acre, March 1st, 1799, in which the Pacha
urgently entreats the British commodore to come to his help, because
his (Gezzar's) troops had failed to hold El Arisch, and the _same
troops_ had also abandoned Gaza and were in great dread of the French
at Jaffa. Considered from the military point of view, the massacre at
Jaffa is perhaps defensible; and Bonaparte's reluctant assent
contrasts favourably with the conduct of many commanders in similar
cases. Perhaps an episode like that at Jaffa is not without its uses
in opening the eyes of mankind to the ghastly shifts by which military
glory may have to be won. The alternative to the massacre was the
detaching of a French battalion to conduct their prisoners to Egypt.
As that would seriously have weakened the little army, the prisoners
were shot.
A deadlier foe was now to be faced. Already at El Arisch a few cases
of the plague had appeared in Kléber's division, which had come from
Rosetta and Damietta; and the relics of the retreating Mameluke and
Turkish forces seem also to have bequeathed that disease as a fatal
legacy to their pursuers. After Jaffa the malady attacked most
battalions of the army; and it may have quickened Bonaparte's march
towards Acre. Certain it is that he rejected Kléber's advice to
advance inland towards Nablus, the ancient Shechem, and from that
commanding centre to dominate Palestine and defy the power of
Gezzar.[114]
[Illustration: PLAN OF THE SIEGE OF ACRE FROM A CONTEMPORARY SKETCH]
Always prompt to strike at the heart, the commander-in-chief
determined to march straight on Acre, where that notorious Turkish
pacha sat intrenched behind weak walls and the ramparts of terror
which his calculating ferocity had reared around him. Ever since the
age of the Crusades that seaport had been the chief place of arms of
Palestine; but the harbour was now nearly silted up, and even the
neighbouring roadstead of Hayfa was desolate. The fortress was
formidable only to orientals. In his work, "Les Ruines," Volney had
remarked about Acre: "Through all this part of Asia bastions, lines of
defence, covered ways, ramparts, and in short everything relating to
modern fortification are utterly unknown; and a single thirty-gun
frigate would easily bombard and lay in ruins the whole coast." This
judgment of his former friend undoubtedly lulled Bonaparte into
illusory confidence, and the rank and file after their success at
Jaffa expected an easy triumph at Acre.
This would doubtless have happened but for British help. Captain
Miller, of H.M.S. "Theseus," thus reported on the condition of Acre
before Sir Sidney Smith's arrival:
"I found almost every embrasure empty except those towards the sea.
Many years' collection of the dirt of the town thrown in such a
situation as completely covered the approach to the gate from the
only guns that could flank it and from the sea ... none of their
batteries have casemates, traverses, or splinter-proofs: they have
many guns, but generally small and defective--the carriages in
general so." [115]
Captain Miller's energy made good some of these defects; but the place
was still lamentably weak when, on March 15th, Sir Sidney Smith
arrived. The English squadron in the east of the Mediterranean had,
to Nelson's chagrin, been confided to the command of this ardent young
officer, who now had the good fortune to capture off the promontory of
Mount Carmel seven French vessels containing Bonaparte's siege-train.
This event had a decisive influence on the fortunes of the siege and
of the whole campaign. The French cannon were now hastily mounted on
the very walls that they had been intended to breach; while the gun
vessels reinforced the two English frigates, and were ready to pour a
searching fire on the assailants in their trenches or as they rushed
against the walls. These had also been hastily strengthened under the
direction of a French royalist officer named Phélippeaux, an old
schoolfellow of Bonaparte, and later on a comrade of Sidney Smith,
alike in his imprisonment and in his escape from the clutches of the
revolutionists. Sharing the lot of the adventurous young seaman,
Phélippeaux sailed to the Levant, and now brought to the defence of
Acre the science of a skilled engineer. Bravely seconded by British
officers and seamen, he sought to repair the breach effected by the
French field-pieces, and constructed at the most exposed points inner
defences, before which the most obstinate efforts of the storming
parties melted away. Nine times did the assailants advance against the
breaches with the confidence born of unfailing success and redoubled
by the gaze of their great commander; but as often were they beaten
back by the obstinate bravery of the British seamen and Turks.
The monotony was once relieved by a quaint incident. In the course of
a correspondence with Bonaparte, Sir Sidney Smith is said to have
shown his annoyance by sending him a challenge to a duel. It met with
the very proper reply that he would fight, if the English would send
out _a Marlborough_.
During these desperate conflicts Bonaparte detached a considerable
number of troops inland to beat off a large Turkish and Mameluke force
destined for the relief of Acre and the invasion of Egypt. The first
encounter was near Nazareth, where Junot displayed the dash and
resource which had brought him fame in Italy; but the decisive battle
was fought in the Plain of Esdraëlon, not far from the base of Mount
Tabor. There Kléber's division of 2,000 men was for some hours hard
pressed by a motley array of horse and foot drawn from diverse parts
of the Sultan's dominions. The heroism of the burly Alsacian and the
toughness of his men barely kept off the fierce rushes of the Moslem
horse and foot. At last Bonaparte's cannon were heard. The chief,
marching swiftly on with his troops drawn up in three squares,
speedily brushed aside the enveloping clouds of orientals; finally, by
well-combined efforts the French hurled back the enemy on passes, some
of which had been seized by the commander's prescience. At the close
of this memorable day (April 15th) an army of nearly 30,000 men was
completely routed and dispersed by the valour and skilful dispositions
of two divisions which together amounted to less than a seventh of
that number. No battle of modern times more closely resembles the
exploits of Alexander than this masterly concentration of force; and
possibly some memory of this may have prompted the words of
Kléber--"General, how great you are!"--as he met and embraced his
commander on the field of battle. Bonaparte and his staff spent the
night at the Convent of Nazareth; and when his officers burst out
laughing at the story told by the Prior of the breaking of a pillar by
the angel Gabriel at the time of the Annunciation, their untimely
levity was promptly checked by the frown of the commander.
The triumph seemed to decide the Christians of the Lebanon to ally
themselves with Bonaparte, and they secretly covenanted to furnish
12,000 troops at his cost; but this question ultimately depended on
the siege of Acre. On rejoining their comrades before Acre, the
victors found that the siege had made little progress: for a time the
besiegers relied on mining operations, but with little success; though
Phélippeaux succumbed to a sunstroke (May 1st), his place was filled
by Colonel Douglas, who foiled the efforts of the French engineers
and enabled the place to hold out till the advent of the long-expected
Turkish succours. On May 7th their sails were visible far out on an
almost windless sea. At once Bonaparte made desperate efforts to carry
the "mud-hole" by storm. Led with reckless gallantry by the heroic
Lannes, his troops gained part of the wall and planted the tricolour
on the north-east tower; but all further progress was checked by
English blue-jackets, whom the commodore poured into the town; and the
Turkish reinforcements, wafted landwards by a favouring breeze, were
landed in time to wrest the ramparts from the assailants' grip. On the
following day an assault was again attempted: from the English ships
Bonaparte could be clearly seen on Richard Coeur de Lion's mound
urging on the French; but though, under Lannes' leadership, they
penetrated to the garden of Gezzar's seraglio, they fell in heaps
under the bullets, pikes, and scimitars of the defenders, and few
returned alive to the camp. Lannes himself was dangerously wounded,
and saved only by the devotion of an officer.
Both sides were now worn out by this extraordinary siege. "This town
is not, nor ever has been, defensible according to the rules of art;
but according to every other rule it must and shall be defended"--so
wrote Sir Sidney Smith to Nelson on May 9th. But a fell influence was
working against the besiegers; as the season advanced, they succumbed
more and more to the ravages of the plague; and, after failing again
on May 10th, many of their battalions refused to advance to the breach
over the putrid remains of their comrades. Finally, Bonaparte, after
clinging to his enterprise with desperate tenacity, on the night of
May 20th gave orders to retreat.
This siege of nine weeks' duration had cost him severe losses, among
them being Generals Caffarelli and Bon: but worst of all was the loss
of that reputation for invincibility which he had hitherto enjoyed.
His defeat at Caldiero, near Verona, in 1796 had been officially
converted into a victory: but Acre could not be termed anything but a
reverse. In vain did the commander and his staff proclaim that, after
dispersing the Turks at Mount Tabor, the capture of Acre was
superfluous; his desperate efforts in the early part of May revealed
the hollowness of his words. There were, it is true, solid reasons for
his retreat. He had just heard of the breaking out of the war of the
Second Coalition against France; and revolts in Egypt also demanded
his presence.[116] But these last events furnished a damning
commentary on his whole Syrian enterprise, which had led to a
dangerous diffusion of the French forces. And for what? For the
conquest of Constantinople or of India? That dream seems to have
haunted Bonaparte's brain even down to the close of the siege of Acre.
During the siege, and later, he was heard to inveigh against "the
miserable little hole" which had come between him and his destiny--the
Empire of the East; and it is possible that ideas which he may at
first have set forth in order to dazzle his comrades came finally to
master his whole being. Certainly the words just quoted betoken a
quite abnormal wilfulness as well as a peculiarly subjective notion of
fatalism. His "destiny" was to be mapped out by his own prescience,
decided by his own will, gripped by his own powers. Such fatalism had
nothing in common with the sombre creed of the East: it was merely an
excess of individualism: it was the matured expression of that feature
of his character, curiously dominant even in childhood, that _what he
wanted he must of necessity have_. How strange that this imperious
obstinacy, this sublimation of western willpower, should not have been
tamed even by the overmastering might of Nature in the Orient!
As for the Empire of the East, the declared hostility of the tribes
around Nablus had shown how futile were Bonaparte's efforts to win
over Moslems: and his earlier Moslem proclamations were skilfully
distributed by Sir Sidney Smith among the Christians of Syria, and
served partly to neutralize the efforts which Bonaparte made to win
them over.[117] Vain indeed was the effort to conciliate the Moslems
in Egypt, and yet in Syria to arouse the Christians against the
Commander of the Faithful. Such religious opportunism smacked of the
Parisian boulevards: it utterly ignored the tenacity of belief of the
East, where the creed is the very life. The outcome of all that
_finesse_ was seen in the closing days of the siege and during the
retreat towards Jaffa, when the tribes of the Lebanon and of the
Nablus district watched like vultures on the hills and swooped down on
the retreating columns. The pain of disillusionment, added to his
sympathy with the sick and wounded, once broke down Bonaparte's
nerves. Having ordered all horsemen to dismount so that there might be
sufficient transport for the sick and maimed, the commander was asked
by an equerry which horse he reserved for his own use. "Did you not
hear the order," he retorted, striking the man with his whip,
"everyone on foot." Rarely did this great man mar a noble action by
harsh treatment: the incident sufficiently reveals the tension of
feelings, always keen, and now overwrought by physical suffering and
mental disappointment.
There was indeed much to exasperate him. At Acre he had lost nearly
5,000 men in killed, wounded, and plague-stricken, though he falsely
reported to the Directory that his losses during the whole expedition
did not exceed 1,500 men: and during the terrible retreat to Jaffa he
was shocked, not only by occasional suicides of soldiers in his
presence, but by the utter callousness of officers and men to the
claims of the sick and wounded. It was as a rebuke to this inhumanity
that he ordered all to march on foot, and his authority seems even to
have been exerted to prevent some attempts at poisoning the
plague-stricken. The narrative of J. Miot, commissary of the army,
shows that these suggestions originated among the soldiery at Acre
when threatened with the toil of transporting those unfortunates back
to Egypt; and, as his testimony is generally adverse to Bonaparte, and
he mentions the same horrible device, when speaking of the hospitals
at Jaffa, as a camp rumour, it may be regarded as scarcely worthy of
credence.[118]
Undoubtedly the scenes were heartrending at Jaffa; and it has been
generally believed that the victims of the plague were then and there
put out of their miseries by large doses of opium. Certainly the
hospitals were crowded with wounded and victims of the plague; but
during the seven days' halt at that town adequate measures were taken
by the chief medical officers, Desgenettes and Larrey, for their
transport to Egypt. More than a thousand were sent away on ships,
seven of which were fortunately present; and 800 were conveyed to
Egypt in carts or litters across the desert.[119] Another fact
suffices to refute the slander mentioned above. From the despatch of
Sir Sidney Smith to Nelson of May 30th, 1799, it appears that, when
the English commodore touched at Jaffa, he found some of the abandoned
ones _still alive_: "We have found seven poor fellows in the hospital
and will take care of them." He also supplied the French ships
conveying the wounded with water, provisions, and stores, of which
they were much in need, and allowed them to proceed to their
destination. It is true that the evidence of Las Cases at St. Helena,
eagerly cited by Lanfrey, seems to show that some of the worst cases
in the Jaffa hospitals were got rid of by opium; but the admission by
Napoleon that the administering of opium was justifiable occurred in
one of those casuistical discussions which turn, not on facts, but on
motives. Conclusions drawn from such conversations, sixteen years or
more after the supposed occurrence, must in any case give ground
before the evidence of contemporaries, which proves that every care
was taken of the sick and wounded, that the proposals of poisoning
first came from the soldiery, that Napoleon both before and after
Jaffa set the noble example of marching on foot so that there might be
sufficiency of transport, that nearly all the unfortunates arrived in
Egypt and in fair condition, and that seven survivors were found alive
at Jaffa by English officers.[120]
The remaining episodes of the Eastern Expedition may be briefly
dismissed. After a painful desert march the army returned to Egypt in
June; and, on July 25th, under the lead of Murat and Lannes, drove
into the sea a large force of Turks which had effected a landing in
Aboukir Bay. Bonaparte was now weary of gaining triumphs over foes
whom he and his soldiers despised. While in this state of mind, he
received from Sir Sidney Smith a packet of English and German
newspapers giving news up to June 6th, which brought him quickly to a
decision. The formation of a powerful coalition, the loss of Italy,
defeats on the Rhine, and the schisms, disgust, and despair prevalent
in France--all drew his imagination westwards away from the illusory
Orient; and he determined to leave his army to the care of Kléber and
sail to France.
The morality of this step has been keenly discussed. The rank and
file of the army seem to have regarded it as little less than
desertion,[121] and the predominance of personal motives in this
important decision can scarcely be denied. His private aim in
undertaking the Eastern Expedition, that of dazzling the imagination
of the French people and of exhibiting the incapacity of the
Directory, had been abundantly realized. His eastern enterprise had
now shrunk to practical and prosaic dimensions, namely, the
consolidation of French power in Egypt. Yet, as will appear in later
chapters, he did not give up his oriental schemes; though at St.
Helena he once oddly spoke of the Egyptian expedition as an "exhausted
enterprise," it is clear that he worked hard to keep his colony. The
career of Alexander had for him a charm that even the conquests of
Cæsar could not rival; and at the height of his European triumphs, the
hero of Austerlitz was heard to murmur: "J'ai manqué à ma fortune à
Saint-Jean d'Acre."[122]
In defence of his sudden return it may be urged that he had more than
once promised the Directory that his stay in Egypt would not exceed
five months; and there can be no doubt that now, as always, he had an
alternative plan before him in case of failure or incomplete success
in the East. To this alternative he now turned with that swiftness and
fertility of resource which astonished both friends and foes in
countless battles and at many political crises.
It has been stated by Lanfrey that his appointment of Kléber to
succeed him was dictated by political and personal hostility; but it
may more naturally be considered a tribute to his abilities as a
general and to his influence over the soldiery, which was only second
to that of Bonaparte and Desaix. He also promised to send him speedy
succour; and as there seemed to be a probability of France regaining
her naval supremacy in the Mediterranean by the union of the fleet of
Bruix with that of Spain, he might well hope to send ample
reinforcements. He probably did not know the actual facts of the case,
that in July Bruix tamely followed the Spanish squadron to Cadiz, and
that the Directory had ordered Bruix to withdraw the French army from
Egypt. But, arguing from the facts as known to him, Bonaparte might
well believe that the difficulties of France would be fully met by his
own return, and that Egypt could be held with ease. The duty of a
great commander is to be at the post of greatest danger, and that was
now on the banks of the Rhine or Mincio.
The advent of a south-east wind, a rare event there at that season of
the year, led him hastily to embark at Alexandria in the night of
August 22nd-23rd. His two frigates bore with him some of the greatest
sons of France; his chief of the staff, Berthier, whose ardent love
for Madame Visconti had been repressed by his reluctant determination
to share the fortunes of his chief; Lannes and Murat, both recently
wounded, but covered with glory by their exploits in Syria and at
Aboukir; his friend Marmont, as well as Duroc, Andréossi, Bessières,
Lavalette, Admiral Gantheaume, Monge, and Berthollet, his secretary
Bourrienne, and the traveller Denon. He also left orders that Desaix,
who had been in charge of Upper Egypt, should soon return to France,
so that the rivalry between him and Kléber might not distract French
councils in Egypt. There seems little ground for the assertion that he
selected for return his favourites and men likely to be politically
serviceable to him. If he left behind the ardently republican Kléber,
he also left his old friend Junot: if he brought back Berthier and
Marmont, he also ordered the return of the almost Jacobinical Desaix.
Sir Sidney Smith having gone to Cyprus for repairs, Bonaparte slipped
out unmolested. By great good fortune his frigates eluded the English
ships cruising between Malta and Cape Bon, and after a brief stay at
Ajaccio, he and his comrades landed at Fréjus (October 9th). So great
was the enthusiasm of the people that, despite all the quarantine
regulations, they escorted the party to shore. "We prefer the plague
to the Austrians," they exclaimed; and this feeling but feebly
expressed the emotion of France at the return of the Conqueror of the
East.
And yet he found no domestic happiness. Josephine's _liaison_ with a
young officer, M. Charles, had become notorious owing to his prolonged
visits to her country house, La Malmaison. Alarmed at her husband's
return, she now hurried to meet him, but missed him on the way; while
he, finding his home at Paris empty, raged at her infidelity, refused
to see her on her return, and declared he would divorce her. From this
he was turned by the prayers of Eugène and Hortense Beauharnais, and
the tears of Josephine herself. A reconciliation took place; but there
was no reunion of hearts, and Mme. Reinhard echoed the feeling of
respectable society when she wrote that he should have divorced her
outright. Thenceforth he lived for Glory alone.
* * * * *