THE PROCLAMATION THAT FAILED
As soon as Bonaparte's flagship, _l'Orient_, had arrived sufficiently
near to the shore a boat was sent into the harbour to bring off the
French Consul, Monsieur Magallon. With their usual want of tact in a
sudden emergency the people at once protested against his leaving, and
would have prevented his going had it not been that the commander of a
Turkish warship then in the harbour, having probably a keen sense of
the possible results to himself and his ship a refusal might produce,
persuaded the Governor to allow him to go. From Monsieur Magallon,
therefore, Bonaparte learned the little serious opposition the town
could offer, since not only was the garrison limited to a body of
about five hundred janissaries, a species of militia possessing
scarcely any military training or experience, but it was so wholly
unprovided with ammunition and other necessaries that at the most it
could make but a momentary resistance. Bonaparte, influenced no doubt
by the fear that Nelson returning might surprise him in the act of
disembarking, decided upon landing immediately. It was in vain that
Admiral Brueys pleaded for a brief delay, urging that the weather was
most unpropitious, and that the roughness of the sea, their distance
from the shore, their ignorance of the coast, the rocky and dangerous
nature of the landing-place, and the approach of night, all combined
to render the operation a most hazardous one. Bonaparte would hear of
no delay, and so, the fleet having been warily drawn close to the
shore, the task of landing the forty thousand men of the expedition
was commenced.
The spot chosen for this purpose was one about three miles to the west
of the town, and the first boatloads reached the shore at ten o'clock
at night. The beaching of the boats was a work of the utmost danger
and difficulty, the darkness upon the rocky beach rendering the scene
one of the greatest confusion. Fortunately for the French, no attempt
was made to oppose their landing, for had the full resources of the
town been brought to bear upon them at this critical point, slight as
those resources were, the invaders must have suffered heavily. As it
was, Bonaparte himself landed a little after midnight, and having
slept for an hour or so upon the sands, set out on foot for the town
with a party of four hundred men. He was, we are told, in the best of
spirits, and marched gaily along with no ear for the surges beating on
the beach, and never recking that, even then, other surges were
drearily droning on the shores of St. Helena the melancholy music that
was to be the doleful dirge of his dying days.
Just as the day was breaking a number of Bedouin Arabs attacked the
little force, but after exchanging a few shots retired beyond range,
and Bonaparte, followed near at hand by additional troops, continued
his advance without further incident until close under the walls of
the town.
Although quite conscious of the hopelessness of their position, the
Governor and the townspeople determined to resist, and the arrival of
the French was therefore saluted with a brisk but ineffectual
cannonading from the walls. Promptly dividing his force into three
divisions, Bonaparte commanded a general assault to be made, and soon,
in spite of the fusillading of the enemy and the showers of stones and
burning materials thrown upon them, two of the divisions succeeded in
scaling the walls, while the third forced its way through one of the
gates. A sharp but brief contest followed in the streets of the town,
but the Governor and the militia having retired to one of the forts,
the people, accepting the assurances that Bonaparte had conveyed to
them, that he came to re-establish the authority of the Sultan and to
overthrow their oppressors, the Mamaluks, by whom it had been usurped,
and that their own lives, property, and religion would be respected,
threw down their arms.
The town thus occupied by the French, the Governor, short of
ammunition, and without hope of succour or aid of any description,
yielded to the inevitable and surrendered with his troops. Anxious to
conciliate the people as much as possible, Bonaparte at once offered
to reinstate the Governor upon the condition of his consenting to
remain faithful to the French, and the offer having been accepted he
was replaced in charge of the town, but subject to the supervision of
General Kleber, who having been wounded in the attack was to remain
for the time in command of the French garrison.
Having thus easily established himself upon Egyptian soil, Bonaparte
lost no time in preparing for an advance upon Cairo, and the landing
of the remainder of the troops, together with the horses for the
cavalry, and the whole of the baggage and equipment of the expedition,
was pressed forward as rapidly as possible. Both as a measure tending
to facilitate this movement and as an important part of the policy he
had resolved to follow in his dealings with the people, Bonaparte set
himself to gain their friendship. Strict orders were, therefore,
issued that the people were not to be molested in any way, and some
soldiers having been detected in looting after the surrender of the
town, he seized the opportunity to give a proof that his assurances
were not intended to be an idle parade of words, and had the offenders
summarily and severely punished. In this, as in other ways, it is
evident that Bonaparte was under the impression that he could gain, if
not the full allegiance, at least the passive neutrality of the
Alexandrians, and, indeed, it was clear from the preparations that he
had made prior to his actual arrival in the country, that he had
looked forward to being received by the Egyptians as a deliverer and
saviour. Two of these preparations deserve special mention here. One,
curiously characteristic of the French spirit of the day, was the
provision of an immense number of tricoloured cockades to be
distributed to, and worn by, the people as evidence of their
reconciliation with the French; the other was the composition and
printing of a proclamation in Arabic which was to serve at once as a
declaration of the aims and intentions of the French in entering Egypt
and as an appeal to the friendship and support of the people. This
proclamation has, with great justice, been described as a most
extraordinary document. Of considerable length, it was framed
throughout with the object of soothing the religious susceptibilities
of the Egyptians, and was so worded as to represent Bonaparte and the
French, if not as Mahomedans, at least as the special friends and
protectors of Islam. Beginning with the well-known formula, "In the
name of the most merciful God," invariably prefixed by Mahomedans to
all important writings, it proceeded to state that the French had
arrived in Egypt with the intention of punishing the Mamaluks for
their ill-treatment of the French and other foreign subjects resident
in the country; to restore to the people themselves the rights of
which they were deprived by their tyrannical rulers, and to
re-establish the authority of the Sultan of Turkey, the legitimate
sovereign. Had the proclamation stopped here it would in all
probability have been accepted by the people as a genuine expression
of the purport and scope of the invasion, but it went on with great
elaboration to promise boons to the people that these were quite
incapable of either comprehending, or had they done so, of
appreciating. These promises were couched in the spirit then dominant
in Paris, and, indeed, throughout France, that is to say, the spirit
of the Revolution, the "Gospel" of "Liberty, equality, and
fraternity," that was to turn the world into a paradise. Thenceforth,
it declared, it was to be possible for all to arrive at the most
exalted posts; public affairs were to be directed by the most learned,
virtuous, and intelligent; and thus the people were to be made happy.
All this was in perfect accord with the theory and teaching of the
Mahomedan religion, but it was in some respects very far indeed from
the practice to which the people had for centuries been accustomed. As
to the promise of opening out facilities for advancement, we have seen
that in the Governor of the town the people had a convincing proof
that these already existed, and it is not at all probable that it ever
occurred to them that the facilities at which the French General
hinted were of a very different nature to those of which Sayed Mahomed
had availed himself. It is not surprising, therefore, that these
promises seemed to the Egyptians nothing more than mere idle bombast,
and were by them promptly put down as simply a valueless bid for their
favour. What followed was still less calculated to win their
confidence, for, as evidence of the friendly spirit of the invasion,
Bonaparte went on to declare his faith in the unity of God, his
respect for the Prophet Mahomed and the Koran, and to claim that he
had "destroyed the Pope" and the Knights of Malta because they were
the enemies of Islam. Such professions as these to the Egyptians
carried on their face their own contradiction, for, if Bonaparte was
in truth a Moslem, or a friend of Islam, how was it, they asked, that
he had entered the dominions of the Sultan without some acknowledgment
from him of the claim thus made to be acting upon his behalf?
The concluding phrases of the proclamation came, too, rather as an
anti-climax to the lofty spirit of benevolence and high aim that the
body of it was intended to express, for the whole rigmarole--I can
scarcely find a better word for it--came to an end with a commonplace
promise that those who submitted to the French should be "exalted,"
while those who opposed them should be "utterly destroyed." One can
fancy how the Egyptians smiled to themselves at this conclusion and
accepted it as in itself the whole object and purport of the document.
But whatever may have been their private feelings on the subject, and
their own historians have told us how little reliance they put upon
the professions and promises thus offered them, it is certain that
outwardly the Alexandrians discreetly accepted both the cockades and
the proclamation without any show of feeling other than that of amused
curiosity. So little, indeed, did they betray their true feelings, the
French were unquestionably deceived, and did not realise how different
these were from those which they had expected the proclamation to
excite. But it is certain that none of the Egyptians were in the least
deceived by its plausible tone, and while they refrained from any
display of hostility to the French, they were looking forward with
high hopes to their early annihilation by the Mamaluks.
Large numbers of this proclamation having been printed by the aid of
the Oriental type and printing presses, with which the expedition was
provided, Bonaparte not only had it freely distributed in Alexandria,
but forwarded copies of it to Cairo and elsewhere, using as his
messengers for this purpose some Mahomedans he had released from the
prisons of Malta, and had brought with him to Egypt, with the object
of utilising them as interpreters, and in the hope that gratitude for
their release would cause them to espouse and advocate his cause.
That Bonaparte's conception of the probable attitude of the Egyptians
towards the expedition was entirely erroneous, is clearly evident from
the whole tone of the proclamation. Thoroughly well-informed as he
appears to have been, as to the actual state of the country and the
deplorable misgovernment from which it was suffering, he and his
countrymen seem to have jumped to the conclusion that they would be
received and welcomed by the people as deliverers. That they should
have so thought is a very noticeable fact, for it plainly proves that
all the information that they had received, including that furnished
by the Consul Magallon and other French residents, afforded no ground
for any suspicion that the French would incur any risk or danger from
fanaticism on the part of the people. That they were keenly awake to
the absolute necessity of conciliating the intense attachment of the
Egyptians to their faith, is not more clearly evident than is the fact
that they had no conception of hostile fanaticism as a factor to be
considered in their relations with the people. It was with
self-satisfied bigotry and not fanaticism that Bonaparte considered he
had to deal, and as we shall see in the course of our story, he was so
far perfectly correct. But in arguing from this assumption, he was led
by ignorance of the facts with which he had to deal, to absolutely
erroneous conclusions. The fundamental error into which he fell is one
that, notwithstanding the warning his experience might have conveyed,
was repeated by ourselves in the beginning of the present occupation
of the country, and distinguishes even the recommendations of the
brilliant statesman, Lord Dufferin. This error was the assumption that
a people so sorely oppressed and downtrodden as were the Egyptians
could not fail to be grateful and friendly to any one who should
deliver them from their oppressors, yet it needed but a slight
acquaintance with the people, with the evils from which they suffered,
and the light in which they regarded those evils, to show that this
could not be so. As we have seen, the dominant trait of the Egyptians'
character was, and is, their loyalty to Islam, and, as a consequence,
their fidelity to the Sultan. Knowing nothing of the Christian
religion or of the political condition of Christendom, they looked
with contempt upon Christians generally as in every way their
inferiors, and recalling how great but unavailing had been the
struggle of the Christians for the possession of the Holy Land, they
regarded their long abstention from all further effort for its
conquest, as a proof and tacit admission of their inability to face
the armies of the Sultan. Thus the Egyptians of that day, as indeed
the great mass of them still do, believed the Sultan to be the
greatest and most powerful monarch in the world. That his rule in
Egypt was little more than nominal they did not perceive. In their
eyes it was a real and substantial power. That they should thus be
blind to what seems to us self-evident truth, is largely to be
attributed to the fact that almost all that was done in the country,
was done in the name of the Sultan. It was in his name and, as they
were often assured, by his authority that the taxes and exactions by
which they were ruined were imposed; and since Beys, Ulema, and all
who represented these, were never tired of preaching that all
resistance or disobedience was rebellion against the Sultan, it was
but natural that they should regard his rule as very far indeed from
being the mere fiction it in reality was.
Nor did the tyranny and oppression from which they suffered in the
least militate against their loyalty, for they never for a moment
attributed their woes or troubles to any more distant cause than the
officials by whose immediate action they were inflicted. That the
higher officials did not protect them was, as they thought, due solely
to the misrepresentations, indifference, or ill-faith of those through
whom alone they had access to them. There was not a fellah in the land
in those days, nor is there one to-day, that did not or does not
believe that if he could only lay his grievances before the Sultan or
the Khedive in person, he would receive perfect justice and ample
compensation for all his tribulations. They were confirmed in this
opinion by the nature of the oppression from which they suffered, for
this necessarily varied in different places and at different times,
according to the personal character of the officials through or by
whom it was inflicted. Moreover, among the worst of their tyrants of
high degree, however callous these might be to the miseries of the
people, there were but few, indeed, who did not consider it a matter
of policy, and therefore in some measure one of pleasure, to pose now
and then as a minister of justice, or as a benevolent benefactor. To
render justice to the poor and oppressed, and to be profuse in
liberality, have ever been the surest means of gaming the real and
sincere approbation or devotion of the Egyptians, as of all other
Oriental peoples. None knew this fact or appreciated it more
thoroughly than some of those from whose heartless cruelty they
suffered most. Nor was it difficult in the roughly organised
administration of the country, for the worst of their oppressors to
play the part of an innocent victim of the wrong-doing of others, for
when appealed to, the higher officials threw the blame upon their
subordinates, while these in their turn professed to be the unwilling
but helpless agents of their superiors. Thus finding all complaints
useless, the sufferers always nourished the thought that if they could
only plead their case personally to the Sultan, the one and only
person who could not urge his own impotency to remedy the evils they
complained of, or grant them the relief they sought, they would be
assured of the justice and mercy they so sorely needed, and which they
could gain from no other. That this should be their idea is not
surprising, for they have never as yet risen beyond the idea of
personal government, and therefore while their belief in the
immaculate justice and merciful disposition of the Sultan was
liberally fed and encouraged by all around them, even by those from
whose tyranny and greed they suffered most, they attributed his
evident indifference to their griefs to the impossibility of his
knowing and dealing with all the acts of all the officials of his
Empire. Of an organised system of government, in which the controlling
power is able to exert itself through all grades of its officials from
the highest downwards to the lowest, they had no knowledge, and indeed
could have no conception, nor even in the present day, after more than
twenty years' experience of the working of such a Government, have
they any just idea of its organisation or of the principles or methods
upon which its efficiency is based. Nor did the Egyptians see the
cruelty and tyranny from which they suffered from the same point of
view as the French did, or as we do. However limited and imperfect
were the services that the Government rendered them, they were
conscious that they were in some respects dependent upon it. It at
least afforded them a certain amount of protection for life and
property, and gave them a rude system of justice. As a return for
these benefits they admitted its right to tax them, and being thus
entitled to tax them, it naturally, as it seemed to them, taxed them
to the uttermost penny, while they as naturally paid as little as
possible.
It was simply a contest between the Government and the governing, not
unlike the bargaining that was their sole method of carrying on trade
in the bazaars and markets, and they had and could have no conception
of any other manner in which the Government of a country could be
conducted. It was not possible, therefore, for the people to grasp the
ideas Bonaparte was anxious to press upon them, nor was it possible
that during his short stay in Alexandria they should have any
opportunity of gaining a better comprehension of his Republican
ideals, so utterly at conflict with all their conceptions of the
relations of a people with those who governed them. It is true, that
having confirmed Mahomed Kerim as Governor of the town, Bonaparte had
appointed a Dewan, or Council of seven members, to aid in the
administration of its affairs; and to these he, no doubt, gave sage
advice and strict injunctions as to the duty of governing for the
benefit of the people; but while to him this Council was suggestive of
the Directory of Paris, and thus of the spirit of the Republic, to the
Alexandrians it was but a reproduction of the Dewan at Cairo, which to
them was typical of nothing but tyranny and torture. Further, the
strict discipline necessarily enforced upon all the members of the
expedition, and rendered all the more evident and striking, in that
all ranks were ceaselessly engaged in the work of receiving the stores
from the ships and preparing for the advance, when contrasted with the
laxity that prevailed in the ranks of the Mamaluks and of all other
troops that the people had previously had any knowledge of, was not at
all calculated to point with any but sarcastic emphasis the doctrines
of equality and fraternity presented to them.
And not only the spirit, but even the wording of the proclamation, was
fatal to its success. In it Bonaparte had declared that "all men are
equal in the sight of God." This, to Mahomedan ears, was nothing short
of rank and absolute blasphemy, for the Koran, which to the Mahomedan
is the veritable and literal "Word of God," emphatically asserts, and
in the plainest terms, the contrary. This clause was, therefore, in
itself sufficient to stamp the whole document with impotency, and
showed how imperfectly Bonaparte and his advisers were informed on
some of the points most affecting the sentiments and spirit of the
people. To the Moslem all mankind is divided into two classes--the
Moslems and the non-Moslems. Between these they admit of no equality
whatever. Among themselves they are theoretically equal. As a Moslem
the Sultan himself is no more than his meanest servant. Hence the
democratic spirit that exists everywhere in Islam, and hence the
freedom with which servants and even slaves address their masters. But
in contradiction to this, the man who rules, whether as Sultan or as
his deputy, or in any minor degree as the master of a household or
otherwise, is, from the mere fact of his ruling, regarded as being
invested with a Divine right to do so, since, although one subject to
limitations, it is equally a doctrine of the Koran, that all power is
from God, and therefore to be respected as such. Thus in Islam
democracy and despotism go hand in hand; and while the Moslem of
Egypt, as the Moslem of other lands, sees no incongruity or difficulty
in this, to the European mind the concurrent operation of these two
conflicting theories gives rise to many puzzling problems. Yet the
solution is simple enough, for the democracy of Islam is the democracy
of the grave, the recognition of the truth that all must die, and that
in death all are equal; for though this belief be shared by all men as
the one great truism of life, among Mahomedans everywhere there is an
active sense of its verity that ever present with them modifies all
their views of life and death in a manner wholly foreign to the
European mind.
To the Egyptians, therefore, the proclamation was a mere flood of
futile folly, and so little confidence was placed in its promises or
in the French protestations of amity, that many of the people who
could afford to do so made haste to quit the town and seek shelter in
Rosetta or elsewhere, wherever they could speed by boat or by land as
opportunity offered.