Arriving at Constantinople on December 26th, Sidney Smith’s first
endeavour, after signing the treaty of alliance, was to impress upon the
Porte his own plan of operations. Considering that Alexandria was the
first objective, and that, according to the best reports, its garrison
did not exceed 2000 troops, there was not one moment to lose in taking
possession of it. To obtain this result the best thing was to make
simultaneous attacks on many points by light-draught vessels. No more
than 4000 men were necessary for disembarking, while 2000 more—forming a
reserve—were to be posted at Rosetta and the gun-boats were to push up
the river to the town of Rahmanieh and intercept the communications
between the headquarters at Cairo and the coast. Sir Sidney could not be
put off by the arguments of the Turks, and finally it was agreed to lay
the new burden on Djezzar’s broad back and fall upon him for the 6000
soldiers needed.[434]
But Sidney Smith could not be expected to be satisfied with the prosaic
dictates of common sense. He was determined that the struggle for the
evacuation of Egypt should have no smaller result than converting the
veterans composing the army of the East into deadly enemies of the
Republic. He seemed to have shared in this respect the views of more
illustrious men, Burke and Windham. “Believe me, my dear lord,” he wrote
to Admiral Lord Keith, “there is no way of finishing this long contest,
in which we are engaged, but by putting our opponents one against the
other; what force have we got to set limits to their influence
otherwise? I speak from the experience I gained at Paris, when I say
France can only be set to rights by Frenchmen and till she is set to
rights in the internal springs of her government, we never can have
peace; for the necessitous, the turbulent and the proscribed part of
their 28 millions of men look to war as the element in which they can
best live.”[435] He fully believed in the current notion that the French
in Egypt were of “the dissatisfied part of the army which the republican
tyrants wished to get rid of.”[436]
He was, moreover, of opinion that no dependence could be placed upon the
Turks for driving the French from Egypt; in this he was correct.
Djezzar, upon whom the whole Turkish plan of campaign turned, was
handicapped by his fear lest the Porte was merely playing him a trick.
The pasha, moreover, “had very little idea of the abilities of the man
he had to oppose,” and Captain Hope, after a visit to Acre, was obliged
to declare that “if we do not completely cut off all supplies from
France and if the plague and famine do not drive their army out of Cairo
in my opinion the Turk never will.”[437] Turkey, moreover, was suffering
from acute financial embarrassments. “The boasted treasures of the
seraglio,” wrote Spencer Smith, “are to be taken in a very different
estimate from the traditional fables of servile historians or
superficial travellers.”[438] To its repeated request for a loan—not a
subsidy—the English Cabinet literally did not deign to reply. What more,
declared Smith, could a Turkish Army do than fight one pitched battle
and then become a “collection of banditti”?[439] What more could the
Porte do than “fulminate the thunders of Islamism against Bonaparte; a
weapon which he himself has found means to employ.”
The “intercepted correspondence,” moreover, had strengthened him in his
illusion that the army of the East would play the Coalition’s game in
France. Did not a general of that army call Egypt “a perfect Vendée”?
The inhabitants of that country—witness their serious rising in which
Bonaparte or, at least, Berthier, was supposed to have succumbed—were
against the foreigners to a man. To prevent that general from “realising
a part of his revolutionary projects” or recovering “some ground in
public opinion,” Smith thought that there was no time to lose in
carrying out his plans. Their military aspect has already been
described.
For the realisation of his original—and hitherto unnoticed—design of
corrupting the French Army,[440] he had brought with him into Turkey a
band of _émigrés_, foremost among whom was Phélippeaux, Bonaparte’s
schoolfellow and deadly enemy, who had helped Sidney Smith to effect his
escape from the Temple. The _rôle_ of Phélippeaux and his fellow
_émigrés_ would be to attract by his influence most of the discontented
officers of Bonaparte’s army, many of whom, to his knowledge, belonged
to the same party as himself and whose defection, consequently, would be
easy to obtain. The Porte’s duty under these circumstances would be to
encourage deserters by giving them posts in its armies or enabling them
to return home and rise against the Directory. The Turkish ministers
were staggered by the novelty of the suggestion, but, anxious to expel
the French out of Egypt with the least expenditure in men and money,
they readily consented.
Before Sidney Smith however had time to put his schemes in operation,
Bonaparte’s invasion of Syria had deranged them and forced upon the
“Commodore” a defensive _rôle_.
As is the case with the origin of the Egyptian Expedition, the motives
and aims of the campaign in Syria have long been shrouded in mystery.
Was it intended as the mere anticipation of a threatened Turkish attack
or as the preliminary of grandiose projects destined to “change the face
of the East”? In contemporary documents the aim is clearly stated. On
February 10th, when the van was actually in touch with the enemy, he
wrote to the Directory: “In this operation I have three aims: firstly,
to assure the conquest of Egypt by constructing a stronghold beyond the
desert, and thenceforth to remove the armies of any nation whatsoever
from Egypt to such a distance that they can in no way combine with a
European army which should come to land on its coasts; secondly, to
oblige the Porte to explain itself and thereby support the negotiations
that you have doubtless set on foot, and the mission of the Consul
Beauchamp, whom I am sending to Constantinople on the great Turkish
‘caravel’; thirdly, to deprive the English fleet of the supplies that it
draws from Syria, by employing the two remaining months of winter so as
to make all that coast friendly to me through war and
negotiations.”[441] He concluded by stating that he would return to
France “if war was to break out between France and the monarchies.” The
same statements were made in other letters of the same date.[442]
Berthier, his chief of staff, speaks of the motives of the campaign in
analogous terms.[443]
The value of the evidence submitted is beyond assail. It is true that
Bonaparte was not in the habit of confiding his schemes to the
Directory. In this case, however, this does not arise. For, had he
really entertained designs of Oriental conquest, the co-operation of the
French Government was indispensable. Moreover, when Berthier wrote, the
Directory did not exist and there could have been no reason for
reticence.
In later years, however, he stated that he had contemplated vast schemes
of empire and that his vision extended to Hindustan. At St. Helena he
discussed the project at great length and declared that even as late as
1801, after the Treaty of Lunéville, it could have been realised had
Kléber escaped the assassin’s dagger.[444] To Madame de Rémusat, in the
course of the conversations of the Boulogne camp, he made similar
assertions.[445]
In comparing contemporary statements with later ones it is impossible to
accept the latter. For though it is certain that the Egyptian Expedition
was envisaged in some vague way to result in the ruin of British power
in the East, there is not the slightest indication that the Directory
did as much as enter into the schemes formulated by the exile of St.
Helena in his forced leisure. There can be no doubt, moreover, that the
letter addressed on January 25th, 1799, to Tippoo Sahib, in which that
potentate was informed of the arrival on the shore of the Red Sea of his
“innumerable and invincible army, filled with the desire of delivering
you from the iron yoke of England,” was no more than a device to keep
the British in India busy. He was, as has been shown, counting on a
speedy return to France, and was merely waiting to hear that “the pear
had ripened.” In the meantime, a campaign in Syria would give an
opportunity for fresh victories which would efface the impression
produced by the destruction of the fleet, and cover him with the glory
of having outshone the crusaders.
He could at times indulge in grandiose schemes and found empires as vast
as that of Alexander, but he immediately subjected them to the calm
scrutiny of reason. “He was well aware,” writes Bourrienne, “that these
plans were out of keeping with our small forces, the feebleness of the
government, and the soldiers’ loathing of the desert.”[446]
Was he thinking more seriously of proceeding through Asia Minor to
Constantinople? Talleyrand relates “that he spoke several times of
returning to Europe via Constantinople, which was not precisely the
route to India. Yet it did not require great penetration to divine that,
after making a triumphal entry into Stamboul, he neither intended to
restore the throne of the Sultan Selim nor yet to replace the Ottoman
Empire by a “united and indivisible republic.”[447] But believing in the
possibility of peace with Turkey, he could not have aimed at conquering
Constantinople. It is true that the Directory, as shall be seen,[448]
suggested to Bonaparte such a measure; but its despatch did not reach
him before he was occupied in the siege of Acre. In point of fact this
latter design seems to be a gloss on the original plan, which was
nothing more than striking at Djezzar and Ibrahim before their forces
marched into Egypt.
This contention is, finally, borne out by the number of troops he led
into Syria, namely, 12,900 men.[449]
The first success of the invading army was obtained at El-Arish on
February 13th, where a skilful night attack on the force sent by Djezzar
to relieve the fort of that place threw the garrison on its own
resources. On February 20th that garrison, composed of 1500 men, was
released with its arms on condition that it would not take part in the
war in Syria or Egypt for a year.[450] Bonaparte recognised the danger
of allowing liberty to a body of armed men with whom the promise not to
bear arms against him would weigh very little, and sought, consequently,
to enrol them in his army and, in other ways, not to execute the
conditions granted.[451] The next important place, Gaza, did not resist,
and its capture placed in the hands of the French immense stores.[452]
On March 7th, Jaffa was summoned to surrender, but its commander refused
and the messenger’s head was cut off and placed on a pike over the chief
tower.[453] Before nightfall the town was taken by storm and underwent
all the horrors of pillage. Two of Bonaparte’s aides-de-camp, however,
ventured—unauthorised—to spare the lives of a large number of the
garrison who had taken refuge in a caravanserai.[454] No written
engagement was concluded, but merely a pledge calculated to prevent
further effusion of blood on both sides. This placed the General in a
difficult situation. Food was very scarce; to send them to Egypt would
have needed a strong escort and would thus weaken the army, and to
release them on parole would have been a sure means of strengthening
Djezzar. Moreover, some of the garrison of El-Arish, released in that
manner, were found among the prisoners of Jaffa. After deliberating with
some of his generals, Bonaparte took the cruel as well as impolitic
resolution of massacring the 2240 men in cold blood.[455]
The booty taken was immense. But it was during the halt at Jaffa that
the symptoms of the plague first appeared and its ravages began to be
felt. The firm conduct of Bonaparte—commemorated in the famous canvas of
Gros, and the wise policy of Desgenettes, the chief physician, who
refused even to use the word “plague”—kept up the spirit of the
soldiers.[456] It was also at Jaffa that Bonaparte issued manifestoes
similar in tone and spirit to the Egyptian ones, with the difference
that it was Djezzar instead of the Beys who was the enemy he wanted to
destroy.[457] Even after this, he sought to win over the old pasha.[458]
It was on the road to Acre that Bonaparte first discerned the “Theseus”
and the “Tigre,” under the command of Sidney Smith, called to Syrian
waters by the appeals of Djezzar for help.[459] Phélippeaux gave up the
_rôle_ of seeking converts to the Royalist cause among the French
soldiers for the far more fruitful one of repairing the ruined
fortifications. But Sir Sidney did more than place the talents of the
French officer at the disposal of the pasha. After the fall of Jaffa,
Bonaparte ordered the French flotilla at Damietta to set sail for that
town and await instructions, which directed it to Acre.[460] But hearing
of the presence of the English he sent word, on March 18th, to Jaffa to
detain the ships there.[461] It was now too late. For Sidney Smith knew
of their approach and took his measures to fall in with them. Of the
flotilla composed of a corvette and nine sail of gun vessels only the
corvette and two small vessels escaped. The event was decisive; for, in
addition to the fact that the prizes mounted 34 guns, they carried the
siege artillery on which the French reckoned for the reduction of
Acre.[462] They had thenceforth to bear the fire of their own heavy
ordnance.
Though the walls of Acre were very weak, its position on a low-lying
promontory of rectangular shape gave the utmost possible advantage to
the power holding the sea, to the flanking fire of whose ships the
columns of assault were exposed.[463] The first impression the French
had of the town, however, was that it was miserably fortified. The ease
with which Jaffa fell, moreover, confirmed them in the belief that they
would make short work of the defence.[464]
While engaged in the preparations for a regular siege, Bonaparte sought
to win over the enemies of Djezzar, foremost among whom were the Druses,
some Beduin tribes and the townsfolk of the different pashaliks. The
result was,[465] generally speaking, that the people approached adopted
an attitude of benevolent neutrality and waited to see on which side
victory would declare itself. These circumstances gave the “Commodore”
the opportunity of playing a congenial part. He addressed a circular
letter to the Druses “recalling them to the sense of their duty and
enjoining them to cut off their supplies from the French camp” and “sent
them at the same time a copy of Bonaparte’s impious proclamation, in
which he boasted of having overthrown all Christian establishments and
accompanied it by a suitable exhortation, calling upon them to choose
between the friendship of a Christian knight and that of an unprincipled
renegade.”[466] According to him, this had the desired effect.[467] But
unfortunately the “Christian knight” in this case was the ally of the
barbarous Djezzar, and the Druses could not have been deeply moved by
the destruction of the Papacy or of the Order of St. John. They would
have all welcomed the defeat or destruction of the Bosnian tyrant.
Sidney Smith knew that their attitude only depended on the fall or
escape of Acre. “It is on the issue of this conflict,” he wrote, “that
depends the opinion of the multitude of spectators on the surrounding
hills, who wait only to see how it ends to join the victor; and with
such a reinforcement for the execution of his known projects,
Constantinople and even Vienna must feel the shock.”[468]
The failure of an attempt of his on Haifa, on which affair he did not,
in his despatches, waste a word, had brought him into relations with
Bonaparte, who ratified, on March 23rd, an agreement for exchange of
prisoners and thanked Sir Sidney for liberating a French courier from
the unspeakable prison of Constantinople known as the “bagno.”[469]
Neither Bonaparte at this stage, nor historians after him, suspected
that the “humanity” of Smith was the outcome of a nature in which
chivalrous impulsiveness was combined with calculating craftiness. From
the outset he had recommended to the Porte a “humanity offensive” as a
sure means of encouraging the French to desert their colours.[470]
The French broke ground for their trenches on March 19th, and these, as
a result of the prevailing optimism, were indifferently done.[471] The
bombardment began on March 23rd, and on the next day a great part of the
tower fell with a crash. But the far-sighted Phélippeaux had made a
counterscarp which stopped all the efforts of the French sappers. The
assault of March 28th was a disastrous failure, for which the French
paid heavily. This first great check restored the spirit of the besieged
and made them more amenable to carry out the suggestions of their
Christian allies.[472] Smith advised vigorous sallies executed at short
intervals to destroy the French works. In the absence of subordinate
officers, however, “exertions that depend upon order cannot be
executed,” and the various sorties did not have the expected effect and
did not stop the progress of the French in their trenches.[473]
During the early period of the siege, the French had to meet other
enemies. A force intended for the relief of the garrison of Acre had
been gathered on the banks of the Jordan.[474] Detachments of French
under Junot and under Murat, and, later on, the division of Kléber, were
sent against it. Fearing the risks incurred by Kléber, Bonaparte
personally marched to his help, and near the foot of Mount Tabor, on
April 16th, he succeeded not only in extricating his lieutenant but in
destroying hundreds of the Turks, Mamelukes, Nablousians and Syrians
forming the relieving force under the Pasha of Damascus.
On the day of his return to the camp before Acre, April 19th, three
French frigates from Alexandria succeeded in eluding Sir Sidney’s
vigilance and landing six heavy pieces of artillery.[475] Their
battering power thus increased, the assailants showed great vigour. On
April 25th, the French fired a mine with good effect; but the storming
column was baffled by inner entrenchments. Bonaparte did not lose hope,
but he seemed to have made up his mind to return to Egypt once the town
was taken.[476] The assault of May 1st was beaten back by the enfilading
fire from two ravelins, which were built at the suggestion of Sir Sidney
and the musketry poured in from the inner walls.[477] On that day
Phélippeaux succumbed to sunstroke and exhaustion.[478] On May 7th the
Turkish fleet, bringing reinforcements, at last hove to in view on the
horizon. Its delay was due to the fact that it was originally ordered to
proceed to Alexandria, and Sidney Smith found himself “obliged to be
peremptory in the repetition of his orders to it to join him at
Acre.”[479] The sight determined Bonaparte to carry the place at once.
The assault, executed with great vigour, was beaten back, but the French
kept their lodgment in the great tower, and Smith expressed on May 9th
his fear that the defence would be overpowered.[480] He clung on,
however, and the event justified his stubbornness. For after the failure
of the great assault of May 8th, Bonaparte had come to the decision of
raising the siege. Writing to the Directory on May 10th, he asserted
that he had gained his object, that nothing remained but to march in the
streets of Acre, to do which, however, he would have to open a trench
before every house, and that as the season was advanced he would return
to Egypt to meet the Turkish or European Army expected to land there in
July or August.[481] In this analysis he passed over one important
factor, namely, the plague. Its ravages were not relatively very great;
but the medical service was seriously handicapped in various ways.[482]
Another factor was the news of the seething discontent in Egypt and the
rise of a fanatic who proclaimed himself the “Mahdy” or the “deliverer”
who was to regenerate the world. He also had received news in March that
the war had now actually broken out in Europe, and there was no time to
lose.
One of the difficult problems of the retreat was the transport of the
wounded and invalids. There was a suggestion that an appeal should be
made to Sir Sidney to facilitate sending them by sea. This appeal,
however, was impossible; for Bonaparte had already circulated, on April
18th, an order to Berthier in which he held the English officer
responsible for the atrocities committed during the siege by Djezzar,
accused him of embarking French prisoners on plague-infected vessels,
described his conduct as that of a fool, and strictly charged the French
officers not to hold any communications with the English.[483] The cause
of this diatribe has been something of a puzzle. Impartial French
writers, recognising that the accusations were false, could not find an
explanation. British writers were not more enlightened. It has been
suggested that Bonaparte’s hostility to Sir Sidney dated from the
latter’s share in burning the French fleet when Toulon was recaptured by
the Republicans. This conjecture is strengthened by Bonaparte’s habitual
reference to Smith as the “capitaine des brûlots.” There can be no
doubt, however, that the true cause was the English commander’s attempt
to sow the seeds of mutiny in the French ranks. One of the means he used
for that end was to take advantage of the various sallies, notably that
of May 16th, to disperse in the French trenches a proclamation from the
Porte and endorsed by him promising repatriation to deserters. He even
sent a copy to the French general, with a covering letter advising him
to evacuate the territories of the Sultan.[484] He alleged that “the
soldiers held their eager hands above the parapet of their works to
receive the copies of it when thrown from the trench.”[485] Probably
here the wish was father to the thought, for we find French writers of
all shades of opinion unanimous in denying that the proclamation had had
any effect. Sir Sidney, at any rate, was not mistaken as to the cause of
the hostility. “The intention of it (the accusation),” he wrote, “was
evidently to do away the effect which the proclamation of the Porte
began to make on the soldiers.”[486] He, in his turn, brought forward
the accusation that assassins had been set upon him.[487] This was
probably the mere outcome of an exaggerated sense of his importance.
On May 20th, the retreat began in perfect order and without any
interference from the garrison. It was when the Army was leaving Jaffa
that there occurred what has been since known as the “poisoning of the
plague-stricken.” The proposal to administer a strong dose of opium to
the patients whose grave condition would not allow them to accompany the
Army was contemplated four days before the siege of Acre was raised, but
had to be abandoned owing to the categorical refusal of the chief
physician, Desgenettes.[488] Later on, however, Bonaparte found men
willing to carry it out. The number of those to whom the opium was
administered could not have been large and the dose, moreover, did not
have in most of the cases the desired effect, for Sidney Smith
immediately on his arrival at Jaffa on the heels of the French, found
“seven poor wretches left alive in the hospital” and declared that “they
are protected and shall be taken care of.”[489]
In the middle of June the Syrian Army, now sadly diminished,[490]
entered Cairo in triumph, after a retreat the terrible hardships of
which foreshadowed those of the more famous one from Moscow.
The Syrian campaign was, up to a certain extent, a success, for in the
course of it the Mamelukes of Ibrahim, the troops of Djezzar, the
irregular bands, and the regular Turkish soldiers sent from
Constantinople and Damascus were beaten with loss, their preparations
were disorganised and their bases destroyed. The harm that the failure
at Acre did was rather moral than material. Whatever technical
criticisms can be advanced against Bonaparte’s conduct of the campaign
or of the siege, the cause of failure is clear. It was sea power. Sidney
Smith’s real contribution to the success was not his dabbling in the
sordid politics of Syria or his attempt to corrupt the French soldiers;
it was the capture of their heavy artillery.
The lovers of the picturesque dwell on what would have happened had Acre
fallen, and Napoleon persisted down to his closing days in saying that
its mud walls had come between him and his destiny.[491] Probably he
continued to harp on Acre because he fastened his gaze too closely on
what was after all, only one of the manifestations of sea power, its
defence, or because he wanted to demonstrate that the Empire of the East
could be realised, that the failure to win it in 1799 was only due to a
mere accident and that one day, under happier auspices, success could be
achieved.
[Footnote 434: Minutes of a Conference of 17 Jan., 1799. F.O. Turkey,
21.]
[Footnote 435: 13 March, 1800. Barrows, I, p. 387.]
[Footnote 436: Barrows, I, p. 385.]
[Footnote 437: To Spencer Smith, 11 Sept., 1798. F.O. Turkey, 20.]
[Footnote 438: To Grenville, 3 Nov., 1798. _Ibid._]
[Footnote 439: To Grenville, 7 March, 1799. _Dropmore Papers_, IV, p.
491.]
[Footnote 440: Minutes of a Conference of 17 Jan., 1799. F.O. Turkey,
21.]
[Footnote 441: _Correspondance_, V, 3952.]
[Footnote 442: _Correspondance_, V, 3934, 3953, 3994, 4035, 4080, 4101.]
[Footnote 443: _Relation_, p. 38.]
[Footnote 444: _Correspondance_, XXX, 13, 14.]
[Footnote 445: _Memoirs_, I, p. 274.]
[Footnote 446: _Mémoires_, II, p. 187.]
[Footnote 447: _Memoirs_, I, p. 198.]
[Footnote 448: P. 93.]
[Footnote 449: Jonquière, IV, p. 149.]
[Footnote 450: 20 Feb., 1799. _Correspondance_, V, 3982.]
[Footnote 451: Malus, _Agenda_, p. 122.]
[Footnote 452: _Correspondance_, 13 March, V, 4035.]
[Footnote 453: _Ibid._, V, 4011.]
[Footnote 454: Bourrienne, _Memoirs_, II, p. 221.]
[Footnote 455: Assertion that these men came under the Capitulation of
El-Arish [_Correspondance_, V, 4035; XXX, p. 49; _Relation of Berthier_,
p. 62; O’Meara, _Napoleon dans l’Exil_, I, p. 354] refuted by Jonquière,
IV, p. 269 note—that such men could not have exceeded 400.]
[Footnote 456: _Histoire Médicale_, p. 51.]
[Footnote 457: _Correspondance_, V, 4022.]
[Footnote 458: _Ibid._, V, 4026.]
[Footnote 459: _Dropmore Papers_, IV, p. 492.]
[Footnote 460: _Correspondance_, V, 4018.]
[Footnote 461: _Ibid._, V, 4038.]
[Footnote 462: 23 March. To St. Vincent, Barrows, I, p. 266.]
[Footnote 463: To Blankett, 16 May. _Ibid._, I, p. 315.]
[Footnote 464: Jonquière, IV, p. 307.]
[Footnote 465: _Correspondance_, V, 4044, 4047, 4046.]
[Footnote 466: To Nelson, 30 May, 1799. Barrows, I, p. 315, and to
Spencer Smith, 14 May. I, p. 390.]
[Footnote 467: _Ibid._]
[Footnote 468: To St. Vincent, 3 May. Barrows, I, p. 281.]
[Footnote 469: _Correspondance_, V, 4055.]
[Footnote 470: Minutes of the Conference of 17 Jan., 1799. F.O. Turkey,
21.]
[Footnote 471: Kléber, who was a tall man, observed that the trenches
would be useful only for men of the height of the Commander-in-Chief.
Bourrienne, II, p. 232.]
[Footnote 472: At the beginning Smith had threatened to bombard the town
if the Turks allowed the French to take possession of it. Barrows, I, p.
256.]
[Footnote 473: _Ibid._, I, p. 273.]
[Footnote 474: Berthier’s _Relation_, p. 71.]
[Footnote 475: Jonquière, IV, p. 429.]
[Footnote 476: Orders to send a battalion to Egypt, 25 April.
_Correspondance_, V, 4109.]
[Footnote 477: To St. Vincent, 2 May. Barrows, I, p. 281.]
[Footnote 478: _Ibid._]
[Footnote 479: To St. Vincent 9 May. Barrows, I, p. 281 f.]
[Footnote 480: _Ibid._]
[Footnote 481: _Correspondance_, V, 4124.]
[Footnote 482: _Histoire Médicale_, p. 86.]
[Footnote 483: _Correspondance_, V, 4098.]
[Footnote 484: Jonquière, IV, pp. 526-7.]
[Footnote 485: To Nelson, 30 May. Barrows, I, p. 307.]
[Footnote 486: To Nelson, Barrows, I, p. 307.]
[Footnote 487: To Spencer Smith, 14 May. _Ibid._, I, p. 296.]
[Footnote 488: Desgenettes, _Souvenirs_, III, p. 256.]
[Footnote 489: To Nelson, 30 May. Barrows, I, p. 307.]
[Footnote 490: Jonquière, IV, p. 632, calculates the losses in killed
and wounded at about 5000.]
[Footnote 491: _See_ the chapter on “The Supreme Regrets” in Rosebery,
_Napoleon: The Last Phase_.]