Map of Egypt.
The denizens of the great Egyptian towns were not a warlike people; the great mass of the population, the down-trodden agricultural workers, or fellaheen, were even less so. Their strongest weapon was that Oriental stolidity which, like a fortress of mud, closes over hostile missiles without crumbling under their blows. Accordingly, the city of Alexandria, after a feeble and ineffectual resistance, yielded. Bonaparte, ever conciliatory, issued a proclamation to the people, which was translated by one of his savants into the vernacular. It was clear and concise, but had little influence on the populace. The condition of Egypt at the time seeks in vain a parallel in history. Saladin had followed a tradition of Eastern despotism in the formation of a body-guard destitute of all ties except those which bound them to his person. Purchased as infants in Georgia or Circassia, its members were, like the janizaries at Constantinople, trained to arms as an exclusive profession, and, mounted on the finest steeds of Arabia, they became the elite of his army. In time this force of acute and powerful men transformed itself into a warrior caste, was divided into twenty-four companies, and obeyed no authority except that of its captains. These were known in Oriental phrase as Beys, the subordinates were themselves what we call the Mamelukes; the whole, in number about eight thousand, formed a kind of chivalry which, though reduced to nominal submission in 1517, still governed the land with despotic power, and bade defiance to the Sultan's shaky authority. The first portion of Bonaparte's proclamation sketched the evils of Mameluke tyranny, the second called on the populace to aid their liberators. "We, too, are true Mussulmans. Is it not we who have destroyed the Pope that said war must be made on the Mussulmans? Is it not we who have destroyed the Knights of Malta because those insensate chevaliers believed God wanted them to make war on the Mussulmans? Thrice happy they who are on our side! They shall prosper in their fortune and in their place. Happy those who are neutral! They shall have time to understand us, and shall array themselves with us. But woe, thrice woe, to those who shall take up arms for the Mamelukes and fight against us! There shall be no hope left for them; they shall perish." The contrast between this language and that which its author had used in Italy concerning the Church shows how much sincerity there was in either case. Here as there he used religion as a political expedient.
The capture of Alexandria was a bitter disillusionment to the French soldiery, for the once rich and famous city had shrunk into poverty and insignificance. There was no booty and the squalor was repellent. With this unpropitious start their struggle on to Cairo was an awful trial. The sky was brass, their feet sank in the dry, hot soil, and mounted skirmishers tormented them from behind the low hillocks on each side of their line of march. No enemy more redoubtable than a few half-naked fellaheen really disputed their progress; but even when, on July tenth, they came within sight of the Nile and their sufferings were about to be mitigated, it was in vain that their general sought to silence their bitter cries of disheartened anger. Three days later they were attacked at Shebreket by the outposts of the Mamelukes, under Murad, chief Bey of the force. The irregular and individual attacks of the well-armed and gorgeously equipped cavalry broke harmlessly against the serried ranks of the French veterans, and the desultory firing of the Turkish artillery was quickly silenced; the rusty cannon, though aimed point-blank at the gunboat flotilla which was ascending the river, did little or no damage. The enemy withdrew, and concentrated their forces for a final stand at Om Dinar before Cairo, behind the lines of Embabeh. On July twenty-first Bonaparte ordered his troops in squares six men deep, as before. They were to advance so as to cut off the enemy's retreat southward, and were to halt only to receive a charge. "Soldiers," cried the general, "forty centuries look down upon you from the summit of the Pyramids!" The resistance was scarcely worthy of the name. Five thousand horsemen and as many fellaheen were behind the weak ramparts. Murad and his men dashed forward with desperate courage against the phalanx of Desaix, but only to rebound from its iron sides against the equally impassive lines of Reynier and Dugua. Ibrahim, the other Mameluke leader, fled eastward across the river, and Murad retreated toward the south; the undisciplined infantry scattered and ran like frightened sheep. Many of the Mamelukes were drowned in the Nile. It was their custom to carry their wealth on their persons, and the French soldiers, bending their bayonets into grappling-hooks, spent much time in fishing for the corpses. It was estimated that each body thus recovered would afford about ten thousand francs to the lucky finder.
The so-called battle of the Pyramids will ever have a fictitious and romantic fame, largely due, of course, to the quality of Bonaparte's wonderful proclamations, which long after he admitted to Gourgaud were "un peu charlatan." Its results, however, were temporarily very important. Cairo was delivered by it into French hands, and the possession of Egypt's capital seemed of the first importance both to the soldiers and to their friends at home. The idea that East and West were fighting under the shadow of those monuments which, now hoary with age, were among the first achievements of civilized human intelligence, thrilled the "great nation," and added new luster to Bonaparte's laurels in the minds of a people wont to revel in great conceptions. Yet but thirty French soldiers were killed, and only one hundred and twenty were wounded. It was a skirmish; much more decisive than that at Shebreket, to be sure, and somewhat more bloody, but only a skirmish. Both were represented to the Directory as great battles, the five Mamelukes killed in the first being magnified to three hundred. The camp at Embabeh furnished rich spoils to the victorious leaders, but the fabled wealth of Cairo, destined for the soldiery, proved to be like apples of Sodom. The army had been angry and disheartened; deprived of its accustomed booty, it became sullen and mutinous. There was no news from home. Oriental apathy long defied even Bonaparte's administrative powers. Egypt was subdued, but the situation of the general and of his troops was apparently desperate. Long afterwards the Emperor said to Gourgaud that, horrible as was the confession, he believed it fortunate that the French fleet was destroyed at Aboukir, "otherwise the army would have reëmbarked." If he had commanded Mamelukes, he would have been master of the East, he added.
Nothing daunted by what would have broken a feebler spirit, the disillusioned conqueror turned to the conquest of another world. Africa had failed him, but Asia was near, and a revolution might be effected there. The maltreatment of French merchants in Syria had been one of the Directory's original grounds of complaint; it must serve another turn, and if the Sultan were sufficiently humbled, he might be compelled to an alliance against the menacing league of Russia and Austria. The need for carrying out this plan was further confirmed by the awful news which soon came from Alexandria. Nelson, having scoured in vain the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, had returned first to Sicily, then to Greece, and finally to Egypt. Bonaparte had left instructions for Admiral Brueys to work the fleet into the old port of the Ptolemies; but if the anchorage or water-draft should prove insufficient, he was to sail for Corfu. It was believed that with his splendid new eighty-gun ships, and unhampered by the transports, he was more than a match for the inferior squadron of Nelson, whose largest vessels had but seventy-four guns. But Brueys, finding it impossible to enter the harbor with his warships, and fearing to sail for Corfu without the provisions promised by the general, disobeyed his orders, and took up what he believed to be an impregnable position near by in the bay of Aboukir, his line being parallel with the shoaling beach, and his van protected by insufficient batteries on Aboukir island to the northwest. The strongest ships in the center and van were those stationed seaward.
Nelson descried the anchored fleet on August first, about midday; before evening his daring scheme was formed and carried out. The English ships advanced in two divisions, one attacking the enemy's center and rear from the sea side, while the other, performing by skilful steering what Brueys had believed an impossible feat, entered the shoal waters, and, cutting off the shore defense, simultaneously attacked on that side. The French van, like the rest of the fleet, was at anchor, and could not come to the assistance of its sister ships. Thus entrapped, the French sailors fought with desperate courage, but they were out-manœuvered, and the English cross-fire was deadly. Moreover, with Nelson a new temper had entered the British navy. At Bastia he had determined the result by his personal daring, for the men of the Agamemnon, when led by him, "minded shot as little as peas"; at Calvi he had lost an eye in a desperate venture; at Cape St. Vincent he had boarded two opposing Spanish ships at the head of his own Captain's crew, with the cry, "Westminster Abbey or victory!" and now, in the battle of the Nile, his greatest fight, he inspired the whole fleet with such audacious bravery that to this day his countrymen sing the proud boast of the ballad-writer, "At the battle of the Nile, I was there all the while." Though he had as many vessels as the French, they were of inferior quality and strength; but the result was never doubtful. The brave Brueys went down in his own Orient as the dauntless crew shouted, "Long live the Republic!" and Rear-Admiral Villeneuve barely escaped with two ships of the line and two frigates. Two other vessels of the latter class had been towed into the harbor; all the rest were destroyed. From that awful day the modern maritime ascendancy of England was considered a menace by continental Europe. France had struck Great Britain deadly blows in the annihilation of her allies ashore, and was to do so again. England, however, on her own chosen element, seemed thenceforward indomitable.
Any plan which Bonaparte may have entertained for the use of fleets to transport himself or his armies either on the Mediterranean or on the Atlantic during the expected Continental convulsion had to be abandoned. As was explained in a despatch from the Directory, which he did not receive until long after, he must either make Egypt self-sufficient without aid from France, or march on Constantinople to intimidate or wheedle the Grand Turk, or invade India, collect all the elements hostile to British rule, and establish himself there. Any thought of immediate return to France must be abandoned, however disposed he might be to pluck his "pear." On the other hand, France without Bonaparte was a different subject for European consideration, military or political. The wild schemes of her government for aiding the Irish rebels or invading British soil were necessarily either futile in their inception or never tried; the coalition was shaping itself, and with Bonaparte and Hoche both removed from the scene, the statesmen and generals of the other great powers were only too ready to try conclusions with France.