1799.
The siege of Acre raised--Attention to names in bulletins--Gigantic
project--The Druses--Mount Carmel--The wounded and infected--
Order to march on foot--Loss of our cannon--A Nablousian fires at
Bonaparte--Return to Jaffa--Bonaparte visits the plague hospital--
A potion given to the sick--Bonaparte's statement at St. Helena.
The siege of St. Jean d'Acre was raised on the 20th of May. It cost us
a loss of nearly 3000 men, in killed, deaths by the plague, or wounds.
A great number were wounded mortally. In those veracious documents, the
bulletins, the French loss was made 500 killed, and 1000 wounded, and
the enemy's more than 15,000.
Our bulletins may form curious materials for history; but their value
certainly will not depend on the credit due to their details. Bonaparte
attached the greatest importance to those documents; generally drawing
them up himself, or correcting them, when written by another hand, if
the composition did not please him.
It must be confessed that at that time nothing so much flattered
self-love as being mentioned in a bulletin. Bonaparte was well aware of
this; he knew that to insert a name in a bulletin was conferring a great
honour, and that its exclusion was a severe disappointment. General
Berthier, to whom I had expressed a strong desire to examine the works
of the siege, took me over them; but, notwithstanding his promise of
secrecy, he mentioned the circumstance to the General-in-Chief, who had
desired me not to approach the works. "What did you go there for?" said
Bonaparte to me, with some severity; "that is not your place." I replied
that Berthier told me that no assault would take place that day; and
he believed there would be no sortie, as the garrison had made one the
preceding evening. "What matters that? There might have been another.
Those who have nothing to do in such places are always the first
victims. Let every man mind his own business. Wounded or killed, I would
not even have noticed you in the bulletin. You could have been laughed
at, and that justly."
Bonaparte, not having at this time experienced reverses, having
continually proceeded from triumph to triumph, confidently anticipated
the taking of St. Jean d'Acre. In his letters to the generals in Egypt
he fixed the 25th of April for the accomplishment of that event. He
reckoned that the grand assault against the tower could not be made
before that day; it took place, however, twenty-four hours sooner. He
wrote to Desaix on the 19th of April, "I count on being master of Acre
in six days." On the 2d of May he told Junot, "Our 18 and 24 pounders
have arrived. We hope to enter Acre in a few days. The fire of their
artillery is completely extinguished." Letters have been printed,
dated 30th Floréal (19th May), in which he announces to Dugua and to
Poussielque that they can rely on his being in Acre on 6th Floréal
(25th April). Some mistake has evidently been made. "The slightest
circumstances produce the greatest events," said Napoleon, according to
the Memorial of St. Helena; "had St. Jean d'Acre fallen, I should have
changed the face of the world." And again, "The fate of the East lay in
that small town." This idea is not one which he first began to entertain
at St. Helena; he often repeated the very same words at St. Jean d'Acre.
On the shore of Ptolemes gigantic projects agitated him, as, doubtless,
regret for not having carried them into execution tormented him at St.
Helena.
Almost every evening Bonaparte and myself used to walk together, at
a little distance from the sea-shore. The day after the unfortunate
assault of the 8th of May Bonaparte, afflicted at seeing the blood of so
many brave men uselessly shed, said to me, "Bourrienne, I see that this
wretched place has cost me a number of men, and wasted much time. But
things are too far advanced not to attempt a last effort. If I succeed,
as I expect, I shall find in the town the pasha's treasures, and arms
for 300,000 men. I will stir up and arm the people of Syria, who are
disgusted at the ferocity of Djezzar, and who, as you know, pray for
his destruction at every assault. I shall then march upon Damascus and
Aleppo. On advancing into the country, the discontented will flock
round my standard, and swell my army. I will announce to the people the
abolition of servitude and of the tyrannical governments of the pashas.
I shall arrive at Constantinople with large masses of soldiers. I shall
overturn the Turkish empire, and found in the East a new and grand
empire, which will fix my place in the records of posterity. Perhaps
I shall return to Paris by Adrianople, or by Vienna, after having
annihilated the house of Austria." After I had made some observations
which these grand projects naturally suggested, he replied, "What! do
you not see that the Druses only wait for the fall of Acre to rise in
rebellion? Have not the keys of Damascus already been offered me? I only
stay till these walls fall because until then I can derive no advantage
from this large town. By the operation which I meditate I cut off all
kind of succour from the beys, and secure the conquest of Egypt. I will
have Desaix nominated commander-in-chief; but if I do not succeed in the
last assault I am about to attempt, I set off directly. Time presses,--I
shall not be at Cairo before the middle of June; the winds will then lie
favourable for ships bound to Egypt, from the north. Constantinople will
send troops to Alexandria and Rosetta. I must be there. As for the army,
which will arrive afterwards by land, I do not fear it this year. I will
cause everything to be destroyed, all the way to the entrance of the
desert. I will render the passage of an army impossible for two years.
Troops cannot exist amoung ruins."
As soon as I returned to my tent I committed to paper this conversation,
which was then quite fresh in my memory, and, I may venture to say that
every word I put down is correct. I may add, that during the siege our
camp was constantly filled with the inhabitants, who invoked Heaven to
favour our arms, and prayed fervently at every assault for our success,
many of them on their knees, with their faces to the city. The people
of Damascus, too, had offered the keys to Bonaparte. Thus everything
contributed to make him confident in his favourite plan.
The troops left St. Jean d'Acre on the 20th of May, taking advantage
of the night to avoid a sortie from the besieged, and to conceal the
retreat of the army, which had to march three leagues along the shore,
exposed to the fire of the English vessels lying in the roads of Mount
Carmel. The removal of the wounded and sick commenced on the 18th and
19th of May.
Bonaparte then made a proclamation, which from one end to the other
offends against truth. It has been published in many works. The season
of the year for hostile landing is there very dexterously placed in
the foreground; all the rest is a deceitful exaggeration. It must be
observed that the proclamations which Bonaparte regarded as calculated
to dazzle an ever too credulous public were amplifications often
ridiculous and incomprehensible upon the spot, and which only excited
the laughter of men of common sense. In all Bonaparte's correspondence
there is an endeavour to disguise his reverses, and impose on the
public, and even on his own generals. For example, he wrote to General
Dugua, commandant of Cairo, on the 15th of February, "I will bring you
plenty of prisoners and flags!" One would almost be inclined to say that
he had resolved, during his stay in the East, thus to pay a tribute to
the country of fables.
--[The prisoners and flags were sent. The Turkish flags were
entrusted by Berthier to the Adjutant-Commandant Boyer, who
conducted a convoy of sick and wounded to Egypt. Sidney Smith
acknowledges the loss of some flags by the Turks. The Turkish
prisoners were used as carriers of the litters for the wounded, and
were, for the most part, brought into Egypt. (Erreurs, tome i. pp.
47 and 160)]--
Thus terminated this disastrous expedition. I have read somewhere that
during this immortal campaign the two heroes Murat and Mourad had often
been in face of one another. There is only a little difficulty; Mourad
Bey never put his foot in Syria.
We proceeded along the coast, and passed Mount Carmel. Some of the
wounded were carried on litters, the remainder on horses, mules, and
camels. At a short distance from Mount Carmel we were informed that
three soldiers, ill of the plague, who were left in a convent (which
served for a hospital), and abandoned too confidently to the generosity
of the Turks, had been barbarously put to death.
A most intolerable thirst, the total want of water, an excessive heat,
and a fatiguing march over burning sand-hills, quite disheartened the
men, and made every generous sentiment give way to feelings of the
grossest selfishness and most shocking indifference. I saw officers,
with their limbs amputated, thrown off the litters, whose removal
in that way had been ordered, and who had themselves given money to
recompense the bearers. I saw the amputated, the wounded, the infected,
or those only suspected of infection, deserted and left to themselves.
The march was illumined by torches, lighted for the purpose of setting
fire to the little towns, villages, and hamlets which lay in the route,
and the rich crops with which the land was then covered. The whole
country was in a blaze. Those who were ordered to preside at this work
of destruction seemed eager to spread desolation on every side, as if
they could thereby avenge themselves for their reverses, and find
in such dreadful havoc an alleviation of their sufferings. We were
constantly surrounded by plunderers, incendiaries, and the dying, who,
stretched on the sides of the road, implored assistance in a feeble
voice, saying, "I am not infected--I am only wounded;" and to convince
those whom they addressed, they reopened their old wounds, or inflicted
on themselves fresh ones. Still nobody attended to them. "It is all
over with him," was the observation applied to the unfortunate beings in
succession, while every one pressed onward. The sun, which shone in
an unclouded sky in all its brightness, was often darkened by our
conflagrations. On our right lay the sea; on our left, and behind us,
the desert made by ourselves; before were the privations and sufferings
which awaited us. Such was our true situation.
We reached Tentoura on the 20th of May, when a most oppressive heat
prevailed, and produced general dejection. We had nothing to sleep on
but the parched and burning sand; on our right lay a hostile sea; our
losses in wounded and sick were already considerable since leaving Acre;
and there was nothing consolatory in the future. The truly afflicting
condition in which the remains of an army called triumphant were
plunged, produced, as might well be expected, a corresponding impression
on the mind of the General-in-Chief. Scarcely had he arrived at Tentoura
when he ordered his tent to be pitched. He then called me, and with a
mind occupied by the calamities of our situation, dictated an order
that every one should march on foot; and that all the horses, mules, and
camels should be given up to the wounded, the sick, and infected who
had been removed, and who still showed signs of life. "Carry that to
Berthier," said he; and the order was instantly despatched. Scarcely had
I returned to the tent when the elder Vigogne, the General-in-Chief's
groom, entered, and raising his hand to his cap, said, "General, what
horse do you reserve for yourself?" In the state of excitement in which
Bonaparte was this question irritated him so violently that, raising his
whip, he gave the man a severe blow on the head, saying in a terrible
voice, "Every-one must go on foot, you rascal--I the first--Do you not
know the order? Be off!"
Every one in parting with his horse was now anxious to avoid giving it
to any unfortunate individual supposed to be suffering from plague. Much
pains were taken to ascertain the nature of the diseases of the sick;
and no difficulty was made in accommodating the wounded of amputated.
For my part I had an excellent horse; a mule, and two camels, all which
I gave up with the greatest pleasure; but I confess that I directed my
servant to do all he could to prevent an infected person from getting
my horse. It was returned to me in a very short time. The same thing
happened to many others. The cause may be easily conjectured.
The remains of our heavy artillery were lost in the moving sands of
Tentoura, from the want of horses, the small number that remained being
employed in more indispensable services. The soldiers seemed to forget
their own sufferings, plunged in grief at the loss of their bronze
guns, often the instruments of their triumphs, and which had made Europe
tremble.
We halted at Caesarea on the 22d of May, and we marched all the
following night. Towards daybreak a man, concealed in a bush upon the
left of the road (the sea was two paces from us on the right), fired
a musket almost close to the head of the General-in-Chief, who was
sleeping on his horse. I was beside him. The wood being searched, the
Nablousian was taken without difficulty, and ordered to be shot on the
spot. Four guides pushed him towards the sea by thrusting their carbines
against his back; when close to the water's edge they drew the triggers,
but all the four muskets hung fire: a circumstance which was accounted
for by the great humidity of the night. The Nablousian threw himself
into the water, and, swimming with great agility and rapidity, gained
a ridge of rocks so far off that not a shot from the whole troop, which
fired as it passed, reached him. Bonaparte, who continued his march,
desired me to wait for Kléber, whose division formed the rear-guard,
and to tell him not to forget the Nablousian. He was, I believe, shot at
last.
We returned to Jaffa on the 24th of May, and stopped there during the
25th, 26th, 27th, and 28th. This town had lately been the scene of a
horrible transaction, dictated by necessity, and it was again destined
to witness the exercise of the same dire law. Here I have a painful duty
to perform--I will perform it. I will state what I know, what I saw.
I have seen the following passage in a certain, work:--"Bonaparte,
having arrived at Jaffa, ordered three removals of the infected: one by
sea to Damietta, and also by land; the second to Gaza; and the third to
El-Arish!" So, many words, so many errors!
Some tents were pitched on an eminence near the gardens east of Jaffa.
Orders were given directly to undermine the fortifications and blow them
up; and on the 27th of May, upon the signaling given, the town was in a
moment laid bare. An hour afterwards the General-in-Chief left his tent
and repaired to the town, accompanied by Berthier, some physicians and
surgeons, and his usual staff. I was also one of the party. A long and
sad deliberation took place on the question which now arose relative to
the men who were incurably ill of the plague, or who were at the point
of death. After a discussion of the most serious and conscientious kind
it was decided to accelerate a few moments, by a potion, a death which
was inevitable, and which would otherwise be painful and cruel.
Bonaparte took a rapid view of the destroyed ramparts of the town and
returned to the hospital, where there were men whose limbs had
been amputated, many wounded, many afflicted with ophthalmia, whose
lamentations were distressing, and some infected with the plague. The
beds of the last description of patients were to the right on entering
the first ward. I walked by the General's side, and I assert that I
never saw him touch any one of the infected. And why should he have done
so? They were in the last stage of the disease. Not one of them spoke
a word to him, and Bonaparte well knew that he possessed no protection
against the plague. Is Fortune to be again brought forward here? She
had, in truth, little favoured him during the last few months, when he
had trusted to her favours. I ask, why should he have exposed himself to
certain death, and have left his army in the midst of a desert created
by our ravages, in a desolate town, without succour, and without the
hope of ever receiving any? Would he have acted rightly in doing so--he
who was evidently so necessary, so indispensable to his army; he on
whom depended at that moment the lives of all who had survived the
last disaster, and who had proved their attachment to him by their
sufferings, their privations, and their unshaken courage, and who had
done all that he could have required of men, and whose only trust was in
him?
Bonaparte walked quickly through the rooms, tapping the yellow top of
his boot with a whip he held in his hand. As he passed along with
hasty steps he repeated these words: "The fortifications are destroyed.
Fortune was against me at St. Jean d'Acre. I must return to Egypt to
preserve it from the enemy, who will soon be there: In a few hours the
Turks will be here. Let all those who have strength enough rise and come
along with us. They shall be carried on litters and horses." There were
scarcely sixty cases of plague in the hospital; and all accounts
stating a greater number are exaggerated. The perfect silence,
complete dejection, and general stupor of the patients announced their
approaching end. To carry them away in the state in which they were
would evidently have been doing nothing else than inoculating the rest
of the army with the plague. I have, it is true, learned, since my
return to Europe, that some persons touched the infected with impunity;
nay; that others went so far as to inoculate themselves with the plague
in order to learn how to cure those whom it might attack. It certainly
was a special protection from Heaven to be preserved from it; but to
cover in some degree the absurdity of such a story, it is added that
they knew how to elude the danger, and that any one else who braved it
without using precautions met with death for their temerity. This is, in
fact, the whole point of the question. Either those privileged persons
took indispensable precautions; and in that case their boasted heroism
is a mere juggler's trick; or they touched the infected without using
precautions, and inoculated themselves with the plague, thus voluntarily
encountering death, and then the story is really a good one.
The infected were confided, it has been stated, to the head apothecary
of the army, Royer, who, dying in Egypt three years after, carried the
secret with him to the grave. But on a moment's reflection it will be
evident that the leaving of Royer alone in Jaffa would have been to
devote to certain death; and that a prompt and cruel one, a man who was
extremely useful to the army, and who was at the time in perfect health.
It must be remembered that no guard could be left with him, and that
the Turks were close at our heels. Bonaparte truly said, while walking
through the rooms of the hospital, that the Turks would be at Jaffa in a
few hours. With this conviction, would he have left the head apothecary
in that town?
Recourse has been had to suppositions to support the contrary belief to
what I state. For example, it is said that the infected patients were
embarked in ships of war. There were no such ships. Where had they
disembarked, who had received them; what had been done with them? No
one speaks of them. Others, not doubting that the infected men died
at Jaffa, say, that the rearguard under Kléber, by order of Bonaparte,
delayed its departure for three days, and only began its march when
death had put an end to the sufferings of these unfortunate beings,
unshortened by any sacrifice. All this is incorrect. No rear-guard was
left--it could not be done. Pretence is made of forgetting that the
ramparts were destroyed, that the town was as open and as defenceless as
any village, so this small rear-guard would have been left for certain
destruction. The dates themselves tell against these suppositions. It
is certain, as can be seen by the official account, that we arrived at
Jaffa on 24th May, and stayed there the 25th, 26th, and 27th. We left
it on the 28th. Thus the rear-guard, which, according to these
writers, left-on the 29th, did not remain, even according to their own
hypothesis, three days after the army to see the sick die. In reality it
left on the 29th of May, the day after we did. Here are the very words
of the Major-General (Berthier) in his official account, written under
the eye and under the dictation of the Commander-in-Chief:--
The army arrived at Jaffa, 5th Prairial (24th May), and remained
there the 6th, 7th, and 8th (25th-27th May). This time was employed
in punishing the village, which had behaved badly. The
fortifications of Jaffa were blown up. All the iron guns of the
place were thrown into the sea. The wounded were removed by sea and
by land. There were only a few ships, and to give time to complete
the evacuation by land, the departure of the army had to be deferred
until the 9th (28th May). Kléber's division formed the rear-guard,
and only left Jaffa on the 10th (29th May).
The official report of what passed at Jaffa was drawn up by Berthier,
under the eye of Bonaparte. It has been published; but it may be
remarked that not a word about the infected, not a word of the visit to
the hospital, or the touching of the plague-patients with impunity,
is there mentioned. In no official report is anything said about the
matter. Why this silence? Bonaparte was not the man to conceal a fact
which would have afforded him so excellent and so allowable a text for
talking about his fortune. If the infected were removed, why not mention
it? Why be silent on so important an event? But it would have been
necessary to confess that being obliged to have recourse to so painful a
measure was the unavoidable consequence of this unfortunate expedition.
Very disagreeable details must have been entered into; and it was
thought more advisable to be silent on the subject.
But what did Napoleon himself say on the subject at St. Helena? His
statement there was to the following effect:--"I ordered a consultation
as to what was best to be done. The report which was made stated that
there were seven or eight men (the question is not about the number) so
dangerously ill that they could not live beyond twenty-four hours,
and would besides infect the rest of the army with the plague. It was
thought it would be an act of charity to anticipate their death a few
hours."
Then comes the fable of the 500 men of the rear guard, who, it is
pretended, saw them die! I make no doubt that the story of the poisoning
was the invention of Den----. He was a babbler, who understood a story
badly, and repeated it worse. I do not think it would have been a crime
to have given opium to the infected. On the contrary, it would have been
obedience to the dictates of reason. Where is the man who would not, in
such a situation, have preferred a prompt death, to being exposed to the
lingering tortures inflicted by barbarians? If my child, and I believe
I love him as much as any father does his, had been in such a state,
my advice would have been the same; if I had been among the infected
myself, I should have demanded to be so treated.
Such was the reasoning at St. Helena, and such was the view which he and
every one else took of the case twenty years ago at Jaffa.
Our little army arrived at Cairo on the 14th of June, after a painful
and harassing march of twenty-five days. The heats during the passage of
the desert between El-Arish and Belbeis exceeded thirty-three degrees.
On placing the bulb of the thermometer in the sand the mercury rose to
forty-five degrees. The deceitful mirage was even more vexatious than
in the plains of Bohahire'h. In spite of our experience an excessive
thirst, added to a perfect illusion, made us goad on our wearied horses
towards lakes which vanished at our approach, and left behind nothing
but salt and arid sand. In two days my cloak was completely covered with
salt, left on it after the evaporation of the moisture which held it
in solution. Our horses, who ran eagerly to the brackish springs of
the desert, perished in numbers, after travelling about a quarter of a
league from the spot where they drank the deleterious fluid.
Bonaparte preceded his entry into the capital of Egypt by one of those
lying bulletins which only imposed on fools. "I will bring with me,"
said he, "many prisoners and flags. I have razed the palace of the
Djezzar and the ramparts of Acre--not a stone remains upon another.
All the inhabitants have left the city, by sea. Djezzar is severely
wounded."
I confess that I experienced a painful sensation in writing, by his
dictation, these official words, everyone of which was an imposition.
Excited by all I had just witnessed, it was difficult for me to refrain
from making the observation; but his constant reply was, "My dear
fellow, you are a simpleton: you do not understand this business." And
he observed, when signing the bulletin, that he would yet fill the world
with admiration, and inspire historians and poets.
Our return to Cairo has been attributed to the insurrections which
broke out during the unfortunate expedition into Syria. Nothing is
more incorrect. The term insurrection cannot be properly applied to the
foolish enterprises of the angel El-Mahdi in the Bohahire'h, or to the
less important disturbances in the Charkyeh. The reverses experienced
before St. Jean d'Acre, the fear, or rather the prudent anticipation of
a hostile landing, were sufficient motives, and the only ones, for our
return to Egypt. What more could we do in Syria but lose men and time,
neither of which the General had to spare?