The History of Napoleon Buonaparte

by J. G. Lockhart

At length the time for action came. Leaving 15,000 in and about Cairo, the division of Dessaix in Upper Egypt, and garrisons in the chief towns,—Buonaparte on the 11th of February 1799 marched for Syria at the head of 10,000 picked men, with the intention of crushing the Turkish armament in that quarter, before their chief force (which he now knew was assembling at Rhodes) should have time to reach Egypt by sea. Traversing the desert which divides Africa from Asia, he took possession of the fortress El-Arish, (15 Feb.) whose garrison, after a vigorous assault, capitulated on condition that they should be permitted to retreat into Syria, pledging their parole not to serve again during the war. Pursuing his march, he took Gazah (that ancient city of the Philistines) without opposition; but at Jaffa (the Joppa of holy writ) the Moslem made a resolute defence. The walls were carried by storm, 3000 Turks died with arms in their hands, and the town was given up during three hours to the fury of the French soldiery—who never, as Napoleon confessed, availed themselves of the licence of war more savagely than on this occasion.

A part of the garrison—amounting, according to Buonaparte, to 1200 men, but stated by others as nearly 3000 in number—held out for some hours longer in the mosques and citadel; but at length, seeing no chance of rescue, grounded their arms on the 7th of March. Eugene Beauharnois, who in person accepted their submission, was violently rebuked by Napoleon for having done so: the soldiery murmured, asking how these barbarians were to be fed, when they themselves were already suffering severe privations. The General summoned his chief officers to council and, after long discussion, it was resolved that, in this case, necessity left no room for mercy. On the 10th—three days after their surrender—the prisoners were marched out of Jaffa, in the centre of a battalion under General Bon. When they had reached the sand-hills, at some distance from the town, they were divided into small parties, and shot or bayoneted to a man. They, like true fatalists, submitted in silence; and their bodies were gathered together into a pyramid, where, after the lapse of thirty years, their bones are still visible whitening the sand.

Such was the massacre of Jaffa, which will ever form one of the darkest stains on the name of Napoleon. He admitted the fact himself;—and justified it on the double plea, that he could not afford soldiers to guard so many prisoners, and that he could not grant them the benefit of their parole, because they were the very men who had already been set free on such terms at El-Arish. To this last defence the answer is, unfortunately for him, very obvious. He could not possibly have recognised in every one of these victims, an individual who had already given and broken his parole. If he did—still that would not avail him:—the men surrendered with arms in their hands. No general has a right to see men abandon the means of defence, and then—after the lapse of three days too!—inflict on them the worst fate that could have befallen them had they held out. The only remaining plea is that of expediency; and it is one upon which many a retail as well as wholesale murderer might justify his crime.

Buonaparte had now ascertained that the Pacha of Syria, Achmet-Djezzar,[27] was at St. Jean d'Acre, (so renowned in the history of the crusades,) and determined to defend that place to extremity, with the forces which had already been assembled for the invasion of Egypt. He in vain endeavoured to seduce this ferocious chief from his allegiance to the Porte, by holding out the hope of a separate independent government, under the protection of France. The first of Napoleon's messengers returned without an answer; the second was put to death; and the army moved on Acre in all the zeal of revenge, while the necessary apparatus of a siege was ordered to be sent round by sea from Alexandria.

Sir Sydney Smith was then cruising in the Levant with two British ships of the line, the Tigre and the Theseus; and, being informed by the Pacha of the approaching storm, hastened to support him in the defence of Acre. Napoleon's vessels, conveying guns and stores from Egypt, fell into his hands, and he appeared off the town two days before the French army came in view of it. He had on board his ship Colonel Philippeaux, a French royalist of great talents (formerly Buonaparte's school-fellow at Brienne);[28] and the Pacha willingly permitted the English commodore and this skilful ally, to regulate for him, as far as was possible, the plan of his defence.

The loss of his own heavy artillery and the presence of two English ships, were inauspicious omens; yet Buonaparte doubted not that the Turkish garrison would shrink before his onset, and he instantly commenced the siege. He opened his trenches on the 18th of March. "On that little town," said he to one of his generals, as they were standing together on an eminence, which still bears the name of Richard Cœur-de-lion—"on yonder little town depends the fate of the East. Behold the key of Constantinople, or of India."—"The moment Acre falls," said he about the same time to De Bourienne, "all the Druses will join me; the Syrians, weary of Djezzar's oppressions, will crowd to my standard. I shall march upon Constantinople with an army to which the Turk can offer no effectual resistance—and it seems not unlikely that I may return to France by the route of Adrianople and Vienna—destroying the house of Austria on my way!"

From the 18th to the 28th of March, the French laboured hard in their trenches, being exposed to the fire of extensive batteries, arranged by Philippeaux so as to command their approach, and formed chiefly of Buonaparte's own artillery, captured on the voyage from Alexandria. The Turks also were constantly sallying out, and their Pacha personally set the example of the most heroic resolution. Nevertheless, on the 28th, a breach was at last effected, and the French mounted with such fiery zeal that the garrison gave way, until Djezzar appeared on the battlements, and flinging his own pistols at the heads of the flying men, urged and compelled them to renew the defence. In the end the French retreated with great loss, and—the Turks, headed by the English seamen, pursuing them to their lines—a great mine, designed to blow up the chief tower of Acre, was explored, and means taken for countermining it.

Meanwhile a vast Mussulman army had been gathered among the mountains of Samaria, and was preparing to descend upon Acre, and attack the besiegers in concert with the garrison of Djezzar. Junot, with his division, marched to encounter them, and would have been overwhelmed by their numbers, had not Napoleon himself followed and rescued him (April 8) at Nazareth, where the splendid cavalry of the orientals were, as usual, unable to resist the solid squares and well-directed musketry of the French. Kleber, with another division, was in like manner endangered, and in like manner rescued by the general-in-chief at Mount Tabor (April 15). The Mussulmans dispersed on all hands; and Napoleon, returning to his siege, pressed it on with desperate assaults, day after day, in which his best soldiers were thinned, before the united efforts of Djezzar's gallantry, and the skill of his allies. At length, however, a party of French succeeded in forcing their way into the great tower, and in establishing themselves in one part of it, in despite of all the resolution that could be opposed to them. At the same critical moment, there appeared in the offing a Turkish fleet, which was known to carry great reinforcements for the Pacha. Everything conspired to prompt Napoleon to finish his enterprise at whatever cost, and he was bravely seconded.

Sir Sydney Smith, however, was as resolute to hold out until the fleet should arrive, as Napoleon was eager to anticipate its coming. The English commander repaired with his handful of seaman to the tower, and after a furious assault dislodged the occupants. Buonaparte did not renew the attack in that quarter, but succeeded in breaking the wall in another part of the town; and the heroic Lannes headed a French party who actually entered Acre at that opening. But Djezzar was willing they should enter. He suffered them to come in unmolested; and then, before they could form, threw such a crowd of Turks upon them, that discipline was of no avail: it was a mere multitude of duels, and the brave orientals with their scimitars and pistols, overpowered their enemies, and put them to death—almost to a man. Lannes himself was with difficulty carried back desperately wounded.

The rage of Buonaparte at these repeated discomfitures may be imagined. The whole evil was ascribed, and justly, to the presence of Sir Sydney Smith; and he spoke of that chivalrous person ever after with the venom of a personal hatred. Sir Sydney, in requital of Buonaparte's proclamation—inviting (as was his usual fashion) the subjects of the Pacha to avoid his yoke, and ally themselves with the invaders—put forth a counter address to the Druses and other Christian inhabitants of Syria, invoking their assistance in the name of their religion, against the blasphemous general of a nation which had renounced Christianity. Napoleon upon this said that Sir Sydney was a madman; and if his story be true, Sir Sydney challenged him to single combat; to which he made answer, that he would not come forth to a duel unless the English could fetch Marlborough from his grave, but that, in the meantime, any one of his grenadiers would willingly give the challenger such satisfaction as he was entitled to demand. Whatever inaccuracy there may be in some of these circumstances, there is no doubt of the fact that Buonaparte and the brave commodore strove together at Acre, under the highest influence of personal resentment, as well as martial skill and determination.