Murat was there, with his proud cavalry—Murat, whom Napoleon has described as in battle probably the bravest man in the world. Of majestic frame, dressed in the extreme of military ostentation, and mounted upon the most powerful of Arabian chargers, he towered, proudly eminent, above all his band. With the utmost enthusiasm he charged into the swollen tide of turbaned heads and flashing scimitars. As his strong horse reared and plunged in the midst of the sabre strokes falling swiftly on every side around him, his white plume, which ever led to victory, gleamed like a banner over the tumultuous throng. It is almost an inexplicable development of human nature to hear Murat exclaim, “In the hottest of this terrible fight, I thought of Christ, and of his transfiguration upon this very spot, two thousand years ago, and the reflection inspired me with ten-fold courage and strength.” The fiend-like disposition created by these horrible scenes, is illustrated by the conduct of a French soldier on this occasion. He was dying of a frightful wound. Still he crawled to a mangled Mameluke, even more feeble than himself, also in the agonies of death, and, seizing him by the throat, tried to strangle him. “How can you,” exclaimed a French officer, to the human tiger, “in your condition, be guilty of such an act?” “You speak much at your ease,” the man replied, “you who are unhurt; but I, while I am dying, must reap some enjoyment while I can.”
The victory was complete. The Turkish army was not merely conquered, it was destroyed. As that day's sun, vailed in smoke, solemnly descended, like a ball of fire, behind the hills of Lebanon, the whole majestic array, assembled for the invasion of Egypt, and who had boasted that they were “innumerable as the sands of the sea or as the stars of heaven,” had disappeared to be seen no more. The Turkish camp, with four hundred camels and an immense booty, fell into the hands of the victors.
This signal victory was achieved by a small division of Napoleon's army, of but six thousand men, in a pitched battle, on an open field. Such exploits history can not record without amazement. The ostensible and avowed object of Napoleon's march into Syria was now accomplished. Napoleon returned again to Acre, to prosecute with new vigor its siege, for, though the great army, marshaled for his destruction, was annihilated, he had other plans, infinitely more majestic, revolving in his capacious mind. One evening he was standing with his secretary upon the mount which still bears the name of Richard Cœur de Lion, contemplating the smouldering scene of blood and ruin around him, when, after a few moments of silent thought, he exclaimed, “Yes, Bourrienne, that miserable fort has cost me dear. But matters have gone too far not to make a last effort. The fate of the East depends upon the capture of Acre. That is the key of Constantinople or of India. If we succeed in taking this paltry town, I shall obtain the treasures of the Pacha, and arms for three hundred thousand men. I will then raise and arm the whole population of Syria, already so exasperated by the cruelty of Achmet, and for whose fall all classes daily supplicate Heaven. I shall advance on Damascus and Aleppo. I will recruit my army, as I advance, by enlisting all the discontented. I will announce to the people the breaking of their chains and the abolition of the tyrannical governments of the Pachas. The Druses wait but for the fall of Acre, to declare themselves. I am already offered the keys of Damascus. My armed masses will penetrate to Constantinople, and the Mussulman dominion will be overturned. I shall found in the East a new and mighty empire, which will fix my position with posterity.”
With these visions animating his mind, and having fully persuaded himself that he was the child of destiny, he prosecuted, with all possible vigor, the siege of Acre. But English and Russian and Turkish fleets were in that harbor. English generals, and French engineers, and European and Turkish soldiers, stood, side by side, behind those formidable ramparts, to resist the utmost endeavors of their assailants, with equal vigor, science, and fearlessness. No pen can describe the desperate conflicts and the scenes of carnage which ensued. Day after day, night after night, and week after week, the horrible slaughter, without intermission, continued. The French succeeded in transporting, by means of their cruisers, from Alexandria, a few pieces of heavy artillery, and the walls of Acre were reduced to a pile of blackened ruins. The streets were plowed up, and the houses blown down by bomb-shells. Bleeding forms, blackened with smoke, and with clothing burnt and tattered, rushed upon each other, with dripping sabres and bayonets, and with hideous yells which rose even above the incessant thunders of the cannonade. The noise, the uproar, the flash of guns, the enveloping cloud of sulphurous smoke converting the day into hideous night, and the unintermitted flashes of musketry and artillery, transforming night into lurid and portentous day, the forms of the combatants, gliding like spectres, with demoniacal fury through the darkness, the blast of trumpets, the shout of onset, the shriek of death, presented a scene which no tongue can tell nor imagination conceive. There was no time to bury the dead, and the putrefaction of hundreds of corpses under that burning sun added appalling horrors. To the pure spirits of a happier world, in the sweet companionship of celestial mansions, loving and blessing each other, it must have appeared a spectacle worthy of pandemonium. And yet the human heart is so wicked, that it can often, forgetting the atrocity of such a scene, find a strange pleasure in the contemplation of its energy and its heroism. We are indeed a fallen race.
There were occasional lulls in this awful storm, during which each party would be rousing its [pg 320] energies for more terrible collision. The besiegers burrowed mines deep under the foundations of walls and towers, and with the explosion of hundreds of barrels of gunpowder, opened volcanic craters, blowing men and rocks into hideous ruin. In the midst of the shower of destruction darkening the skies, the assailants rushed, with sabres and dripping bayonets, to the assault. The onset, on the part of the French, was as furious and desperate as mortal man is capable of making. The repulse was equally determined and fearless.
Sir Sydney Smith conducted the defense, with the combined English and Turkish troops. He displayed consummate skill, and unconquerable firmness, and availed himself of every weapon of effective warfare. Conscious of the earnest desire of the French soldiers to return to France, and of the despair with which the army had been oppressed when the fleet was destroyed, and thus all hope of return was cut off, he circulated a proclamation among them, offering to convey safely to France every soldier who would desert from the standard of Napoleon. This proclamation, in large numbers, was thrown from the ramparts to the French troops. A more tempting offer could not have been presented, and yet so strong was the attachment of the soldiers for their chief, that it is not known that a single individual availed himself of the privilege. Napoleon issued a counter proclamation to his army, in which he asserted that the English commodore had actually gone mad. This so provoked Sir Sydney, that he sent a challenge to Napoleon to meet him in single combat. The young general proudly replied, “If Sir Sydney will send Marlborough from his grave, to meet me, I will think of it. In the mean time, if the gallant commodore wishes to display his personal prowess, I will neutralize a few yards of the beach, and send a tall grenadier, with whom he can run a tilt.”
In the progress of the siege, Gen. Caffarelli was struck by a ball and mortally wounded. For eighteen days he lingered in extreme pain, and then died. Napoleon was strongly attached to him, and during all the period, twice every day, made a visit to his couch of suffering. So great was his influence over the patient, that though the wounded general was frequently delirious, no sooner was the name of Napoleon announced, than he became perfectly collected, and conversed coherently.
The most affecting proofs were frequently given of the entire devotion of the troops to Napoleon. One day, while giving some directions in the trenches, a shell, with its fuse fiercely burning, fell at his feet. Two grenadiers, perceiving his danger, instantly rushed toward him, encircled him in their arms, and completely shielded every part of his body with their own. The shell exploded, blowing a hole in the earth sufficiently large to bury a cart and two horses. All three were tumbled into the excavation, and covered with stones and sand. One of the men was rather severely wounded; Napoleon escaped with but a few slight bruises. He immediately elevated both of these heroes to the rank of officers.
“Never yet, I believe,” said Napoleon, “has there been such devotion shown by soldiers to their general, as mine have manifested for me. At Arcola, Colonel Muiron threw himself before me, covered my body with his own, and received the [pg 321] blow which was intended for me. He fell at my feet, and his blood spouted up in my face. In all my misfortunes never has the soldier been wanting in fidelity—never has man been served more faithfully by his troops. With the last drop of blood gushing out of their veins, they exclaimed, Vive Napoleon.”