But the First Consul was resolved not to give in. It is true that he
decided, on the advice, probably, of Talleyrand,[701] to ratify the
Convention of El-Arish.[702] But this was because Marengo had not been
fought and won. The decision was against the grain, and the First Consul
took care to refute the allegations in the despatches of Kléber, which
had been intercepted and published by Great Britain.[703] He was,
therefore, pleased at the non-execution of the Convention and the Battle
of Heliopolis. He confirmed Menou—as the avowed enemy of the policy of
evacuation—in the chief command.[704]
The First Consul did not neglect to use diplomatic means. He endeavoured
to force Britain by means of his superiority on the Continent to consent
to a naval armistice, which was to allow him to send reinforcements to
Malta and Egypt. But nothing came out of this negotiation.[705]
He also tried to press the Porte to enter into negotiations with France.
The Prussian, Spanish and Danish envoys in Constantinople brought the
two governments into touch.[706] Talleyrand urged Ali Effendi, the
Turkish ambassador, to enter into negotiations for peace. But the Turks
made it clear that negotiations were impossible till after Egypt had
been evacuated. This was the policy to which they steadfastly held.[707]
Talleyrand, with his accustomed sophistry, pointed out to Ali that it
was “contrary to the accepted diplomatic practice,” which was “que les
demandes effectives de l’une soient contre-balancées par de pareilles
demandes effectives de la part de l’autre.”[708]
It was decided, moreover, to send Descorches—ex-French ambassador in
Constantinople—to Egypt on a diplomatic mission.[709] His conduct was to
be determined by the condition of affairs in that country. He should, in
the first place, endeavour to persuade the Grand Vizier to consent to
the possession of Egypt by France in return for an annual tribute and
the recognition of the Sultan’s suzerainty. “Combien ne lui (Sultan)
conviendrait-il pas de substituer à la domination de ces Beys insolents
et souvent rebelles celle d’une nation grande, loyale, éclairée,
industrieuse, qui respecterait les traités, qui tiendrait religieusement
ce qu’elle aurait promis, qui bientôt ferait réfleurir ce pays depuis si
longtemps dévasté et qui par sentiment comme par intérêt serait toujours
disposée à prêter des secours utiles au Grand Seigneur.” But the Porte
might, unfortunately, refuse to consider the question in this way and
insist on evacuation pure and simple. Descorches was authorised to agree
to this should he find that the plague had carried off 1500 soldiers and
that no reinforcements had arrived before “floréal” (20 April-19 May,
1800): but he should postpone its execution till after the general peace
and obtain, in return, the withdrawal of the Porte from the Coalition
and the renewal of the old treaties between France and Turkey.
Descorches remained in Marseilles three months, waiting for a ship. When
he finally embarked, contrary winds threw him back into Toulon. There he
found a letter from Talleyrand countermanding the mission, the
government having heard of the Convention of El-Arish.[710]
It might be generally said of this and other efforts for a rapprochement
with the Porte that the First Consul set himself an insoluble problem;
to conciliate the Turks without restoring Egypt, safeguard the existence
of the Ottoman Empire while setting an example for making conquests at
her expense.
Neither the First Consul nor the Tsar Paul was inclined to bring forward
a discussion on the partition of Turkey. Much has been written on the
last few months of the reign of Paul. M. Tatistchef attributes the
failure of the attempt to create a Franco-Russian alliance to the
“gallophobe” or anti-revolutionary sentiment of most Russian
diplomatists.[711] The views and intentions of the Tsar had been
something of a mystery even to his son, Nicholas. When Brunov submitted
to Nicholas a historical sketch[712] of his father’s policy, in which he
states that Paul acted in the affairs of the Order of St. John from
motives of “honour,” the Tsar wrote in the margin, “I now understand my
father’s policy.”[713] It seems that what led to the wild misstatements
on the concert between Paul and Bonaparte was a memorandum of
Rostopchine on the partition of Turkey[714] and the “expedition” of
Orloff’s Cossacks to India. M. Waliszewski, however, has made it clear
that no concert could have taken place on that expedition.[715] In spite
of Rostopchine’s memorandum, moreover, Russia insisted on the evacuation
of Egypt and offered her services for the conclusion of peace between
France and Turkey.[716] All talk, therefore, on the partition of the
Sultan’s dominions was simply “de la politique de Magnificence,” as M.
Driault describes it.[717] “Paul” wrote Sorel, “voyait l’intérêt de sa
couronne à faire flotter de haut le pavillon russe dans la Méditerranée,
et à se créer sur les rivages de cette mer et dans ses îles, des clients
parmi les rois des anciennes dynasties.”[718]
Nothing came therefore of all the attempts—diplomatic and naval—to save
Egypt. The fate of the French colony was to be settled in the valley of
the Nile itself. The feverish activity of Bonaparte, however,
demonstrated to the British Government the great value he set on the
possession of Egypt, and determined it to take active measures to baulk
him in his ambition.
To Henry Dundas was due the credit of this determination. We have seen
elsewhere how that minister envisaged the question of Egypt in a way
different from that of his colleagues. To him it was of first rate
importance. The presence of the French there was in itself a great evil,
an evil which gave him many a sleepless night.[719] He thought, indeed,
with his colleagues that the French would finally succumb to disease and
the attacks of the Turks and Mamelukes and hoped, with them, that the
presence of General Koehler and his officers would prove sufficient to
enable the Turks to make short work of the army of the Republic; but he
differed from them in thinking of the possibility of giving a helping
hand to the “agencies” of destruction. “If Buonaparte,” he wrote to
Wellesley in October, 1799, “shall not soon die out of himself and by
the forces of the country itself, it may be right to give him some help
by sending a force from the Mediterranean for the purpose.”[720] The
decision to refuse permission for the return of Kléber to his country
was taken while Dundas was in Holland,[721] and it was partly to
tranquillise him[722] and partly to keep the “divan” steady that the
Government promised that the British naval force in the Levant should be
reinforced and “that it is in contemplation to prepare such other means
of annoying and distressing the enemy either from Europe or India or
perhaps by an operation concerted from both sides” to co-operate with
the Turkish army.[723] This was in December, 1799.
The events of the year 1800 strengthened Dundas’ position. It became
more and more clear that the Turks could do nothing. Koehler described
their army as a collection of banditti. The Grand Vizier, its commander,
was “so weak, so frivolous and childish that an infant three years old
would have more foresight.”[724] “He is always very polite and, provided
you will talk about his fine horses, the great superiority of the Turks
on horseback, about his little fountain of water with a child’s boat in
it, nothing can be more satisfactory than our conferences, but directly
I touch upon anything which relates to military operations . . . he
waives the conversation.”[725] He wasted Koehler’s time on an unworkable
“invention” of his for the transport of cannon on horseback. J. P.
Morier was amazed on entering the Grand Vizier’s tent for a Conference
to find the dignitary amusing himself with buffoons.[726] He might get
up one morning to find himself without a follower. He was shot at on
more than one occasion.[727]
The violent hostility displayed by the Tsar towards Britain was another
important consideration. There was no fathoming the depths to which it
might drag the Turks. The Porte, which attributed to the British
Government the failure of the negotiations with Kléber,[728] might, in
its ill-humour, listen to Russian overtures and declare against Britain.
It might, in order to prevent an understanding between Paul and
Bonaparte at its expense, throw in its lot with France and acquiesce in
the loss of Egypt. The situation was so insecure that highly respectable
British residents in Turkey imitated the Levantine practice of seeking
foreign protectors, to the great indignation of the British
Ambassador.[729]
It was also evident that Egypt would be a stumbling-block in the way of
any negotiation with France.[730] “We might,” wrote Dundas, “go to the
utmost possible extent of our offers of compensation from the conquests
we have made; France would say in reply, ‘if you think this is an
equivalent for Egypt, we do not,’ . . . what answer can we make? It is
in order to take away from the enemy all the advantages they expect from
it, or, if they cannot be taken away entirely, to divide or (if I may
use the expression) to neutralise them”[731] . . . that a British army
had to endeavour to expel them from Egypt.
The question was considered towards the end of September, 1801. On
September 19th he wrote to Pitt: “The importance of expelling the French
from Egypt is obvious; for it is clear that Bonaparte will subordinate
every object to the retention of that colony. The danger to India may
not be immediate, but it must be faced. Besides, our sacrifice of
Turkish interests to those of Austria (by refusing to ratify the
Convention of El-Arish) may induce the Sultan to bargain with France in
terms most unfavourable to us. Or, again, France and Russia may plan a
partition of the Ottoman Empire. The objections that we are pledged to
do what we can for Austria and Portugal are not vital. For Portugal is
safe while the Viennese Court opposes France; and by our subsidies and
naval help we have borne our fair share in the coalition. Further
efforts in that direction will be fruitless. We must now see to our own
interests. By occupying all the ports of Egypt, we can coop up the
French and force them to capitulate. Action must not be postponed for
any consideration whatever.”[732] On the 24th there arrived a despatch
from Elgin stating that the Reis Effendi “confidentially demanded from
me to solicit as strong a corps as can be spared from the detachment
which has come this spring to Minorca.”[733] This is important, for the
Turks had rejected all “hints” to make such an application.[734] Much
time was taken by the Cabinet in the discussion.[735] The arguments of
Dundas convinced, as to the principle, even Windham, who stated that he
was willing to depart “in this single case” from his “system” of
confining British efforts to landings in France in co-operation with the
Royalists.[736] But he rested his opposition to the scheme on the
grounds of insufficiency of information and the unfavourableness of the
season.[737] “I am quite sure,” he wrote, “that those who are full of
confidence upon this point know very little of what they are talking
about and calculate much more upon the sanguineness of their own wishes
than upon any knowledge or information which they have upon the
subject.”[738] Dundas, however, had his way.
It was further decided that a contingent of Indian troops should attack
the French from the Red Sea.[739] This idea seemed to have occurred to
many, to Dundas,[740] Sidney Smith,[741] Elgin,[742] and others.
Wellesley, replying to Elgin, humorously spoke of the Ambassador’s “wild
project of sinking my host in the Red Sea without knowing whether it is
to meet Pharaoh or the Israelites there.”[743] He approved of the
principle, but could do nothing without co-operation from the
Mediterranean.[744] In the meantime, there was no harm in harassing the
French by “desultory operations.”[745] Unacquainted with the intentions
of the home Government and desirous not to disperse his forces, he
adopted the plan of concentrating the squadron of Rainier and the
European troops at a point “from which they may be ready to issue with
promptitude and facility either to the west coast of India or to the Red
Sea or to any other quarter that the enemy may menace during the north-
eastern monsoon.”[746] His choice fell upon Trincomali. He thought,
moreover, that if the concentrated forces would not be needed for the
defence of India or for Egypt, a “blow could be struck” at the
Mauritius.[747] Early in February, 1801, however, he received Dundas’
instructions to send 1000 European troops and 2000 Sepoys.[748]
Dundas embarked on the new venture with reprehensible levity. The force
under Sir Ralph Abercromby, which was destined for Egypt, numbered about
15,000, while the French were estimated at 13,000—a gross
miscalculation. The fortifications of Alexandria were described by
Dundas as incomplete. The Minister also believed that the French were so
anxious to return home that they might accept Abercromby’s offer of
repatriation. Advance into the interior, after the capture of
Alexandria, was not forbidden but deprecated.[749]
Sir Ralph Abercromby did not sail directly to Egypt.[750] He landed on
the coast of Asia Minor on 29th December, 1800. His object was to enable
the troops to recuperate and to concert operations with the Turks: they
to act from the eastern frontier of Egypt and he down the Eastern branch
of the Nile.[751] But General Moore, after a visit to the Turkish
headquarters, reported that “nothing could be done with the Turks.”[752]
Abercromby reverted to his instructions.[753] The difficulties of the
British commander were immense. He lacked most essentials and was in
great doubt as to the reliability of the “Intercepted Correspondence.”
The Porte issued firman after firman and no more. The Sultan urged his
ministers to be more active and “emphatically accompanied his
declaration by placing his hand on his yatagan,”[754] but even this did
not improve matters.
The force arrived at Abukir Bay on the 1st of March, but was not able to
land till the 8th[755]. Menou had ample time to despatch reinforcements
and oppose the landing. But he did nothing of the sort. He was deceived
by the reports of the local commander[756] into blind security.[757] On
the 13th March, the British moved towards Alexandria, but failed to
carry the French strong positions to the eastward of the city,[758] and
entrenched themselves opposite the French works. In the meantime Menou
arrived at Alexandria with 10,000 men.[759] On the 21st of March was
fought the greatest battle of the campaign.[760] Victory rested with the
British, and Menou shut himself within the fortifications of Alexandria.
The battle did not by itself decide the fate of the Colony. Moore was
despondent and was in great doubt as to the issue.[761] But the French
Commander-in-Chief played the Austrian and divided his forces. He issued
absurd proclamations,[762] but gave Belliard, the commander in Cairo, no
directions whatever.[763] General Hutchinson, the successor of
Abercromby, who had died of wounds received in action, decided to leave
a force to besiege Alexandria and to move with the main body of the Army
towards the capital and reduce it with the help of the Grand Vizier. On
the 27th June, Belliard capitulated.[764] He had under him about 12,000
men and hardly offered any serious resistance. “His surrendering,” wrote
Moore, after inspecting the fortifications of Cairo, “seems to me one of
the basest acts I have heard of.”[765] The truth of the matter was that
the French were anxious to a man to go back to their country. They
thought there was no dishonour in capitulating on the generous terms
offered by the British—terms which reproduced those of the Convention of
El-Arish. “Quand les armées croient possible de sortir d’une position
critique avec une convention sans se déshonorer, tout est perdu,” wrote
Napoleon.[766] The fall of Cairo brought about that of Alexandria. On
the 2nd of September, Menou capitulated on the same terms as
Belliard.[767] The Indian Contingent, disembarked at Cosseir, hurried
northward, but arrived too late to take part in the campaign.
Thus was ended the French occupation of Egypt. The success of the
British troops was in great measure due to the faults of Menou and the
lack of enthusiasm on the part of his followers.[768] “The whole story,”
says Mr. Fortescue, “is a bitter commentary upon Bonaparte’s original
expedition . . . a sufficient indication of the gambling spirit which
was to be his ruin.”[769] An admirer of Napoleon concurs in this
judgment. “It was the rashest attempt that history records: rasher even
than Moscow,” M. Thiers told Nassau Senior. “It contained the germ of
Napoleon’s subsequent life. It showed his marvellous powers of
combination and execution and the wildness with which his imagination
led him to despise moral and physical obstacles.”[770] But the short
sojourn of the French in the Valley of the Nile had permanently affected
its later history. The Mamelukes never recovered from the blows dealt
them by the French. The Turks proved too weak to complete their
destruction. An adventurer of genius turned the stalemate to his
personal profit. The French Expedition introduced the West to the
scientific study of the ancient monuments and language of Egypt and
attracted upon it the gaze of an “interested” Europe. The Question of
Egypt had begun. “L’Egypte,” wrote Joseph de Maistre in 1807, “est un
théâtre sur lequel il faut ouvrir les yeux. Deux grandes puissances en
ont tâté et l’une ou l’autre l’aura.”[771]
[Footnote 650: It is not warrantable to state that Menou was insincere
in his change of religion. “Quant à moi,” he once wrote, “je ne prétends
nullement à l’honneur de la croix, je me contenterai tout simplement de
ma petite religion mentale.” (To Lascaris, 21 messidor, VIII, 10 July,
1800. Rousseau, _Kléber et Menou_, p. 333.)]
[Footnote 651: In the year VI. Rigault, _Menou_, p. 38.]
[Footnote 652: Memorandum to Kléber, 6 Jan., 1800. Rigault, _Menou_, pp.
25-30.]
[Footnote 653: Reynier, MSS. notes. Rigault, _Menou_, p. 266.]
[Footnote 654: Proclamation, 5 messidor, VIII (24 June, 1800). Rigault,
pp. 97-8.]
[Footnote 655: Menou to Grand Vizier, 10 messidor (29 June, 1800).
Rigault, p. 108. Menou to Berthier, 2 vendémiaire, IX (24 Sept., 1800).
Rousseau, _Kléber et Menou_, p. 360.]
[Footnote 656: Menou to Sir Sidney Smith, 1 messidor, VIII (20 June,
1800). Rigault, p. 106.]
[Footnote 657: Rigault, _Menou_, p. 116.]
[Footnote 658: “. . . J’ai reconnu que les Chrétiens étaient les plus
vils et les plus méprisables habitants de ce pays-ci . . . Les Syriens .
. . avares, fourbes, lâches, vindicatifs et vils au dernier degré . . .
Nous sommes arrivés ici, ils ont cru ne voir en nous que des Mamelukes
français et Chrétiens qui se substituaient à des Mamelukes Géorgiens et
Musulmans.”
Menou to Rampon, 5 nivôse, IX (26 Dec., 1800).