A deadlier foe was now to be faced. Already at El Arisch a few cases of the plague had appeared in Kléber's division, which had come from Rosetta and Damietta; and the relics of the retreating Mameluke and Turkish forces seem also to have bequeathed that disease as a fatal legacy to their pursuers. After Jaffa the malady attacked most battalions of the army; and it may have quickened Bonaparte's march towards Acre. Certain it is that he rejected Kléber's advice to advance inland towards Nablus, the ancient Shechem, and from that commanding centre to dominate Palestine and defy the power of Gezzar.[114]
[Illustration: PLAN OF THE SIEGE OF ACRE FROM A CONTEMPORARY SKETCH]
Always prompt to strike at the heart, the commander-in-chief determined to march straight on Acre, where that notorious Turkish pacha sat intrenched behind weak walls and the ramparts of terror which his calculating ferocity had reared around him. Ever since the age of the Crusades that seaport had been the chief place of arms of Palestine; but the harbour was now nearly silted up, and even the neighbouring roadstead of Hayfa was desolate. The fortress was formidable only to orientals. In his work, "Les Ruines," Volney had remarked about Acre: "Through all this part of Asia bastions, lines of defence, covered ways, ramparts, and in short everything relating to modern fortification are utterly unknown; and a single thirty-gun frigate would easily bombard and lay in ruins the whole coast." This judgment of his former friend undoubtedly lulled Bonaparte into illusory confidence, and the rank and file after their success at Jaffa expected an easy triumph at Acre.
This would doubtless have happened but for British help. Captain Miller, of H.M.S. "Theseus," thus reported on the condition of Acre before Sir Sidney Smith's arrival:
"I found almost every embrasure empty except those towards the sea. Many years' collection of the dirt of the town thrown in such a situation as completely covered the approach to the gate from the only guns that could flank it and from the sea … none of their batteries have casemates, traverses, or splinter-proofs: they have many guns, but generally small and defective—the carriages in general so." [115]
Captain Miller's energy made good some of these defects; but the place was still lamentably weak when, on March 15th, Sir Sidney Smith arrived. The English squadron in the east of the Mediterranean had, to Nelson's chagrin, been confided to the command of this ardent young officer, who now had the good fortune to capture off the promontory of Mount Carmel seven French vessels containing Bonaparte's siege-train. This event had a decisive influence on the fortunes of the siege and of the whole campaign. The French cannon were now hastily mounted on the very walls that they had been intended to breach; while the gun vessels reinforced the two English frigates, and were ready to pour a searching fire on the assailants in their trenches or as they rushed against the walls. These had also been hastily strengthened under the direction of a French royalist officer named Phélippeaux, an old schoolfellow of Bonaparte, and later on a comrade of Sidney Smith, alike in his imprisonment and in his escape from the clutches of the revolutionists. Sharing the lot of the adventurous young seaman, Phélippeaux sailed to the Levant, and now brought to the defence of Acre the science of a skilled engineer. Bravely seconded by British officers and seamen, he sought to repair the breach effected by the French field-pieces, and constructed at the most exposed points inner defences, before which the most obstinate efforts of the storming parties melted away. Nine times did the assailants advance against the breaches with the confidence born of unfailing success and redoubled by the gaze of their great commander; but as often were they beaten back by the obstinate bravery of the British seamen and Turks.
The monotony was once relieved by a quaint incident. In the course of a correspondence with Bonaparte, Sir Sidney Smith is said to have shown his annoyance by sending him a challenge to a duel. It met with the very proper reply that he would fight, if the English would send out a Marlborough.
During these desperate conflicts Bonaparte detached a considerable number of troops inland to beat off a large Turkish and Mameluke force destined for the relief of Acre and the invasion of Egypt. The first encounter was near Nazareth, where Junot displayed the dash and resource which had brought him fame in Italy; but the decisive battle was fought in the Plain of Esdraëlon, not far from the base of Mount Tabor. There Kléber's division of 2,000 men was for some hours hard pressed by a motley array of horse and foot drawn from diverse parts of the Sultan's dominions. The heroism of the burly Alsacian and the toughness of his men barely kept off the fierce rushes of the Moslem horse and foot. At last Bonaparte's cannon were heard. The chief, marching swiftly on with his troops drawn up in three squares, speedily brushed aside the enveloping clouds of orientals; finally, by well-combined efforts the French hurled back the enemy on passes, some of which had been seized by the commander's prescience. At the close of this memorable day (April 15th) an army of nearly 30,000 men was completely routed and dispersed by the valour and skilful dispositions of two divisions which together amounted to less than a seventh of that number. No battle of modern times more closely resembles the exploits of Alexander than this masterly concentration of force; and possibly some memory of this may have prompted the words of Kléber—"General, how great you are!"—as he met and embraced his commander on the field of battle. Bonaparte and his staff spent the night at the Convent of Nazareth; and when his officers burst out laughing at the story told by the Prior of the breaking of a pillar by the angel Gabriel at the time of the Annunciation, their untimely levity was promptly checked by the frown of the commander.
The triumph seemed to decide the Christians of the Lebanon to ally themselves with Bonaparte, and they secretly covenanted to furnish 12,000 troops at his cost; but this question ultimately depended on the siege of Acre. On rejoining their comrades before Acre, the victors found that the siege had made little progress: for a time the besiegers relied on mining operations, but with little success; though Phélippeaux succumbed to a sunstroke (May 1st), his place was filled by Colonel Douglas, who foiled the efforts of the French engineers and enabled the place to hold out till the advent of the long-expected Turkish succours. On May 7th their sails were visible far out on an almost windless sea. At once Bonaparte made desperate efforts to carry the "mud-hole" by storm. Led with reckless gallantry by the heroic Lannes, his troops gained part of the wall and planted the tricolour on the north-east tower; but all further progress was checked by English blue-jackets, whom the commodore poured into the town; and the Turkish reinforcements, wafted landwards by a favouring breeze, were landed in time to wrest the ramparts from the assailants' grip. On the following day an assault was again attempted: from the English ships Bonaparte could be clearly seen on Richard Coeur de Lion's mound urging on the French; but though, under Lannes' leadership, they penetrated to the garden of Gezzar's seraglio, they fell in heaps under the bullets, pikes, and scimitars of the defenders, and few returned alive to the camp. Lannes himself was dangerously wounded, and saved only by the devotion of an officer.
Both sides were now worn out by this extraordinary siege. "This town is not, nor ever has been, defensible according to the rules of art; but according to every other rule it must and shall be defended"—so wrote Sir Sidney Smith to Nelson on May 9th. But a fell influence was working against the besiegers; as the season advanced, they succumbed more and more to the ravages of the plague; and, after failing again on May 10th, many of their battalions refused to advance to the breach over the putrid remains of their comrades. Finally, Bonaparte, after clinging to his enterprise with desperate tenacity, on the night of May 20th gave orders to retreat.