Abandoning the ill-omened tower, which had cost the besiegers so many men, Buonaparte now turned his efforts towards a considerable breach that had been effected in the curtain, and which promised a more easy entrance. It proved, indeed, but too easy; for Djezzar Pacha opposed to the assault on this occasion a new mode of tactics. Confiding in his superior numbers, he suffered the French, who were commanded by the intrepid General Lannes, to surmount the breach without opposition, by which they penetrated into the body of the place. They had no sooner entered, than a numerous body of Turks mingled among them with loud shouts; and ere they had time or room to avail themselves of their discipline, brought them into that state of close fighting, where strength and agility are superior to every other acquirement. The Turks, wielding the sabre in one hand, and the poniard in the other, cut to pieces almost all the French who had entered. General Rambaud lay a headless corpse in the breach—Lannes was with difficulty brought off severely wounded. The Turks gave no quarter; and instantly cutting the heads off of those whom they slew, carried them to the pacha, who sat in public distributing money to those who brought him these bloody trophies, which now lay piled in heaps around him. This was the sixth assault upon these tottering and blood-stained ramparts. "Victory," said Napoleon, "is to the most persevering;"[407] and contrary to the advice of Kleber, he resolved upon another and yet more desperate attack.
On the 21st May the final effort was made. The attack of the morning failed, and Colonel Veneux renewed it at mid-day. "Be assured," said he to Buonaparte, "Acre shall be yours to-night, or Veneux will die on the breach."[408] He kept his word at the cost of his life. Bon was also slain, whose division had been the executioners of the garrison of Jaffa. The French now retreated, dispirited and despairing of success. The contest had been carried on at half a musket shot distance; and the bodies of the dead lying around, putrified under the burning sun, spread disease among the survivors. An attempt was made to establish a suspension of arms for removing this horrible annoyance. Miot says that the pacha returned no answer to the proposal of the French. According to Sir Sidney Smith's official reports, the armistice for this humane purpose was actually agreed on, but broken off by the French firing upon those who were engaged in the melancholy office, and then rushing on to make their last unsuccessful charge and assault upon the breach. This would have been a crime so useless, and would have tended so much to the inconvenience of the French themselves, that we cannot help suspecting some misunderstanding had occurred, and that the interruption was under a wrong conception of the purpose of the working party.
This is the more probable, as Sir Sidney Smith, who reports the circumstance, was not at this time disposed to put the best construction on any action of Buonaparte's, who, on the other hand, regarded the British seamen with peculiar dislike, and even malignity. The cause of personal quarrel betwixt them was rather singular.
Buonaparte had addressed the subjects of Achmet Djezzar's pachalik, in terms inviting them to revolt, and join the French; yet was much offended when, imitating his own policy, the pacha and Sir Sidney Smith caused letters to be sent into his camp before Acre, urging his soldiers to mutiny and desertion. Sir Sidney also published a proclamation to the Druses, and other inhabitants of the country, calling on them to trust the faith of a Christian knight, rather than that of an unprincipled renegado. Nettled at these insults, Buonaparte declared that the English commodore was mad; and, according to his account, Sir Sidney replied by sending him a challenge. The French general scornfully refused this invitation, unless the challenger would bring Marlborough to meet him, but offered to send one of his grenadiers to indulge the Englishman's desire of single combat. The good taste of the challenge may be doubted, if indeed such was ever sent; but the scorn of the reply ought to have been mitigated, considering it was addressed to one, in consequence of whose dauntless and determined opposition Buonaparte's favourite object had failed, and who was presently to compel him, for the first time, to an inglorious retreat.
Another calumny, circulated by Buonaparte against the English commodore, was, that Sir Sidney Smith had endeavoured to expose his French prisoners to the infection of the plague, by placing them in vessels where that dreadful contagion prevailed. This charge had no other foundation, than in Buonaparte's wish, by spreading such a scandal, to break off all communication between the commodore and the discontented of his own army. After the heat excited by their angry collision had long subsided, it is amusing to find Napoleon, when in the island of Saint Helena, declaring, that his opinion of Sir Sidney Smith was altered for the better, since he had become acquainted with the rest of his countrymen, and that he now considered him as a worthy sort of man—for an Englishman.
THE SIEGE OF ACRE RAISED.
The siege of Acre had now continued sixty days since the opening of the trenches. The besiegers had marched no less than eight times to the assault, while eleven desperate sallies were evidence of the obstinacy of the defence. Several of the best French generals were killed; among the rest Caffarelli,[409] for whom Buonaparte had particular esteem; and the army was greatly reduced by the sword and the plague, which raged at once among their devoted bands. Retreat became inevitable. Yet Buonaparte endeavoured to give it such a colouring as might make the measure seem voluntary. Sometimes he announced that his purpose of going to Acre was sufficiently accomplished when he had battered down the palace of the pacha; at other times he affirmed he had left the whole town a heap of ruins; and finally, he informed the Directory that he could easily have taken the place, but the plague being raging within its walls, and it being impossible to prevent the troops from seizing on infected clothes for part of their booty, he had rather declined the capture of Acre, than run the risk of introducing this horrid malady among his soldiers. What his real feelings must have been, while covering his chagrin with such flimsy pretexts, may be conjectured from the following frank avowal to his attendants in Saint Helena. Speaking of the dependence of the most important affairs on the most trivial, he remarks, that the mistake of the captain of a frigate, who bore away, instead of forcing his passage to the place of his destination, had prevented the face of the world from being totally changed. "Acre," he said, "would otherwise have been taken—the French army would have flown to Damascus and Aleppo—in a twinkling of an eye they would have been on the Euphrates—the Syrian Christians would have joined us—the Druses, the Armenians would have united with us."—Some one replied, "We might have been reinforced to the number of a hundred thousand men."—"Say six hundred thousand," said the Emperor; "who can calculate the amount? I would have reached Constantinople and the Indies—I would have changed the face of the world."[410]
CHAPTER XIV.
Discussion concerning the alleged Poisoning of the Sick in the Hospitals at Jaffa—Napoleon acquitted of the charge—French Army re-enter Cairo on the 14th June—Retrospect of what had taken place in Upper and Lower Egypt during Napoleon's Absence—Incursion of Murad Bey—18,000 Turks occupy Aboukir—Attacked and defeated—This Victory terminates Napoleon's Career in Egypt—Admiral Gantheaume receives Orders to make ready for Sea—On the 22d August Napoleon embarks for France—Arrives in Ajaccio on the 30th September—and lands at Frejus on the 9th October.