The Baron Menou, on whom the command now devolved, was an inferior person to Kleber. He had made some figure amongst the nobles who followed the revolutionary cause in the Constituent Assembly, and was the same general whose want of decision at the affair of the Sections had led to the employment of Buonaparte in his room, and to the first rise, consequently, of the fortunes which had since swelled so high. Menou altered for the worse several of the regulations of Kleber, and, carrying into literal execution what Buonaparte had only written and spoken of, he became an actual Mahommedan, married a native Turkish woman, and assumed the name of Abdallah Menou. This change of religion exposed him to the ridicule of the French, while it went in no degree to conciliate the Egyptians.[637]
The succours from France, which Buonaparte had promised in his farewell address to the Egyptian army, arrived slowly, and in small numbers. This was not the fault of the chief consul, who had commanded Gantheaume to put to sea with a squadron, having on board four or five thousand men; but being pursued by the English fleet, that admiral was glad to regain the harbour of Toulon. Other efforts were made with the same indifferent success. The French ports were too closely watched to permit the sailing of any expedition on a large scale, and two frigates, with five or six hundred men, were the only reinforcements that reached Egypt.
Meantime the English Cabinet had adopted the daring and manly resolution of wresting from France this favourite colony by force. They had for a length of time confined their military efforts to partial and detached objects, which, if successful, could not have any effect on the general results of the war, and which, when they miscarried, as was the case before Cadiz, Ferrol, and elsewhere, tended to throw ridicule on the plans of the Ministry, and however undeservedly, even upon the character of the forces employed on the service. It was by such ill-considered and imperfect efforts that the war was maintained on our part, while our watchful and formidable enemy combined his mighty means to effect objects of commensurate importance. We, like puny fencers, offered doubtful and uncertain blows, which could only affect the extremities; he never aimed, save at the heart, nor thrust, but with the determined purpose of plunging his weapon to the hilt.
The consequence of these partial and imperfect measures was, that even while our soldiers were in the act of gradually attaining that perfection of discipline by which they are now distinguished, they ranked—most unjustly—lower in the respect of their countrymen, than at any other period in our history. The pre-eminent excellence of our sailors had been shown in a thousand actions; and it became too usual to place it in contrast with the failure of our expeditions on shore. But it was afterwards found that our soldiers could assume the same superiority, whenever the plan of the campaign offered them a fair field for its exercise. Such a field of action was afforded by the Egyptian expedition.
BRITISH EXPEDITION TO EGYPT.
This undertaking was the exclusive plan of an ill-requited statesman, the late Lord Melville;[638] who had difficulty in obtaining even Mr. Pitt's concurrence in a scheme, of a character so much more daring than Britain had lately entertained. The expedition was resolved upon by the narrowest possible majority in the Cabinet; and his late majesty interposed his consent in terms inferring a solemn protest against the risk about to be incurred. "It is with the utmost reluctance" (such, or nearly such, were the words of George III.) "that I consent to a measure which sends the flower of my army upon a dangerous expedition against a distant province."[639] The event, however, showed, that in arduous circumstances, the daring game, if previously well considered, is often the most successful.
On the 8th March, 1801, General Sir Ralph Abercrombie, at the head of an army of seventeen thousand men, landed in Egypt, in despite of the most desperate opposition by the enemy. The excellence of the troops was displayed by the extreme gallantry and calmness with which, landing through a heavy surf, they instantly formed and advanced against the enemy. On the 21st of March, a general action took place. The French cavalry attempted to turn the British flank, and made a desperate charge for that purpose, but failed in their attempt, and were driven back with great loss. The French were defeated, and compelled to retreat on Alexandria, under the walls of which they hoped to maintain themselves. But the British suffered an irreparable loss in their lamented commander, Sir Ralph Abercrombie, who was mortally wounded in the course of the action. In this gallant veteran his country long regretted one of the best generals, and one of the worthiest and most amiable men, to whom she ever gave birth.
The command descended on General Hutchinson, who was soon joined by the Capitan Pacha, with a Turkish army. The recollections of Aboukir and Heliopolis, joined to the remonstrances and counsels of their English allies, induced the Turks to avoid a general action, and confine themselves to skirmishes, by which system the French were so closely watched, and their communications so effectually destroyed, that General Belliard, shut up in a fortified camp in Cairo, cut off from Alexandria, and threatened with insurrection within the place, was compelled to capitulate, under condition that his troops should safely be transported to France, with their arms and baggage. This was on the 28th of June, and the convention[640] had scarce been signed, when the English army was reinforced in a manner which showed the bold and successful combination of measures under which the expedition had been undertaken.
An army of seven thousand men, of whom two thousand were sepoys, or native Indian troops, were disembarked at Cosseir, on the Red Sea, and, detached from the Indian settlements, now came to support the European part of the English invasion. The Egyptians saw with the extremity of wonder, native troops, many of them Moslemah, who worshipped in the mosques, and observed the ritual enjoined by the Prophet, perfectly accomplished in the European discipline. The lower class were inclined to think, that this singular reinforcement had been sent to them in consequence of Mohammed's direct and miraculous interposition; only their being commanded by English officers did not favour this theory.
In consequence of these reinforcements, and his own confined situation under the walls of Alexandria, Menou saw himself constrained to enter into a convention for surrendering up the province of Egypt. He was admitted to the same terms of composition which had been granted to Belliard; and thus the war in that quarter was, on the part of Great Britain, triumphantly concluded.