Napoleon commenced the siege on the 18th of March and opened his trenches immediately on his arrival. "On that little town," he said to one of his generals, as they were standing together on an eminence, "On yonder little town depends the fate of the East: behold the key of Constantinople or of India." "The moment Acre falls," he said about the same time to Bourrienne, "all the Druses of Mount Lebanon 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 Turks can offer no effectual resistance, and it is not unlikely that I may return to France by the route of Adrianople and Vienna, destroying the house of Austria on my way."
For ten days the French labored hard in their trenches, being exposed to the fire of extensive batteries, formed chiefly of Bonaparte's own artillery. On March 28th, however, a breach was at last effected and the French mounted with such fiery zeal that the garrison gave way. Shortly afterwards Djezzar himself appeared on the battlements, and flinging his pistols at the head of his flying men, urged and compelled them to renew the defense, which they finally did, causing the French to retreat with great loss.
In the meantime Junot, having marched with his division to encounter a large Mussulman army that had been gathered among the mountains of Samaria, and was preparing to descend upon Acre, Napoleon was compelled to follow him to Nazareth, where he was rescued on April 8th. Here, as usual, the splendid cavalry of the Orientals were unable to resist the solid squares and well-directed musketry of the French. General Kléber, with another division, was in like manner rescued by the general-in-chief at Mount Thabor on April 15th, after the former had fought against fearful odds from six in the morning till one in the afternoon.
Napoleon now returned to the siege of Acre with all possible dispatch, pressed it on with desperate assaults day after day, losing many of his best soldiers. Accustomed to the easy victories which he had obtained on every encounter with the Turkish forces in Syria, he was not prepared to expect the determined resistance by which his progress was now arrested. Acre is surrounded by a wall flanked with towers, and was further defended by a broad and deep ditch with strong works. At one time the French succeeded in forcing their way into the great tower and in establishing themselves in one part of it for a time despite all opposition; but they were finally dislodged; each advantage ended with itself and no progress was made towards subduing the place. At another time a break was made in the walls in a distant part of the town, and a French party entered Acre at the opening. Djezzar then threw such a crowd of Turks upon them that all discipline was lost and nearly every French soldier met death. The brave Lannes, who headed the party, was with difficulty rescued after being desperately wounded.
During this siege Napoleon sent an officer with an order to the most exposed position; he was killed. He sent another, who was also killed; and so with a third. The order was imperative and Bonaparte had but two aides with him, Eugene Beauharnais and Lavalette. He signaled to the latter to come forward, and said to him in a low voice, so that Eugene could not hear: "Take this order, Lavalette, I don't want to send this boy and have him killed so young; his mother (Josephine) has intrusted him to me. You know what life is. Go!" The aide returned in safety.
On another occasion during the siege a piece of shell struck Eugene on the head: he fell, and lay for a long time under the ruins of a wall which the shell had knocked down. Bonaparte thought he was killed, and uttered a cry of grief. The youth was only wounded, however, and at the end of nineteen days asked leave to return to his post, in order to take part in the other assaults, which failed like the first, in spite of Bonaparte's obstinacy. "This wretched hole," said he, "has cost me a good deal of time and a great many men, but things have gone too far; I must try one last assault."
An instance of the enthusiastic attachment which Napoleon was capable of inspiring occurred during this memorable siege. One day, when the commander was in the trenches, a shell thrown by Sir Sidney Smith, fell at his feet. Two grenadiers immediately rushed towards him,—placed him between them, and raised their arms above his head so as to completely cover every part of his body. The shell burst without injuring one of the group, although they were covered with sand. Both these grenadiers were made officers immediately; one of them, subsequently, was the General Dumesnil, so much talked of 1814, for his resolute defense of Vincennes against the Russians. He had lost a leg in the campaign of Moscow; and to the summons to surrender he replied, "Give me back my leg and I will give up the fortress!" The fate of his heroic companion is not recorded.
The siege had now continued for sixty days. Napoleon once more commanded an assault on the 8th of May, and his officers and soldiers obeyed him with devoted but fruitless gallantry. "That Sidney Smith," he said later, "made me miss my fortune." The loss his army had by this time undergone was very great, and the hearts of all the men were quickly sinking.