There was no intention to diminish the weight of the military element as the predominant partner. By the premature death of Hoche, Napoleon was left without a rival, and he did not hesitate to speak of the Directory as a makeshift government. The immediate question was to prevent an outbreak between the victorious general and his superiors, by which a return to the monarchy might be made easy. France was still at war with Great Britain; therefore, when Napoleon proposed to attack the vulnerable point of British influence in Egypt, with the ultimate purpose of advancing from there on the British domains in India, the plan was eagerly accepted by the Directors, despite the obviously utopian character of the proposal. Napoleon spoke in his best sententious style of the East as the only place where real glory could be acquired. The Directors were willing that he should absent himself from France, glad to purchase freedom from his control by assigning him a new important command over the best troops in France.
It is not probable that Napoleon was at all in earnest in planning an expedition to India; he appreciated the weakness of the home government, and from Egypt it would not be difficult to return, whenever he was needed, in the rôle of the sole savior of the country. The scale of preparation for this unique military adventure was most imposing; there was an air of mystery about it; people talked of its destination being Constantinople or India. Ships, to the number of 500, were gathered at Toulon, manned by 10,000 sailors and fitted to transport 35,000 veteran troops, taken mostly from the army of Italy. All of Napoleon’s best generals were to be with him, Berthier, Murat, Lannes, Davout, Marmont, Duroc, and the two popular commanders from the army of the Rhine, Kléber and Desaix. Great care was given to the material and scientific side of the expedition. Scholars and scientific experts were to accompany it, either for the purpose of antiquarian research in Egypt, or to develop the unused powers of the soil of the fertile Nile valley. There was plenty of money, for Berthier was sent to Rome to exact additional contributions from churches and convents. He called himself the treasurer of the Egyptian expedition and promised to fill his treasure chests.
The great fleet set sail on the 19th of May, 1798; only when the ships were at sea did the troops know what was to be their destination. The first point reached was Malta, where the famous Knights, so long the residuary legatees of the great crusading tradition, surrendered without resistance and received a French garrison. By good fortune the French armada escaped the vigilance of the English fleet which was cruising in the Mediterranean; and the army was landed at Alexandria on June 30th.
At this time Turkey had only the nominal sovereignty in Egypt, the real power being in the hands of a military caste, the Mamelouks, who exercised an oppressive rule over the cultivators of the soil, and the Arab chieftains, who represented the ancient conquerors of the country. Napoleon proclaimed himself as a liberator, promising to respect the customs and religion of the land, and offering his help in the development of its natural resources. After the easy capture of Alexandria there was a long, weary march across the desert to Cairo, during which the troops so suffered from intense heat, fatigue, and lack of food that there was discontent among both officers and men.
The final stand of the Mamelouks was made near Cairo within sight of the Pyramids, where they tried to rush the French squares with their cavalry. But the French artillery with its murderous fire decimated the advancing squadrons before they could come in contact with the French troops, with the result that on the French side the loss was only about thirty men, while the Mamelouks reckoned theirs by the thousand. Many of them, too, were drowned in the Nile. The French soldiers bent their bayonets and fished the bodies out in order to get the gold pieces in the belts of the dead warriors. Napoleon grimly reported that “the army was becoming reconciled to Egypt.” In the midst of these brilliant achievements, the victory of Nelson at Aboukir on the 1st of August came like a bolt from the blue, for the French admiral’s fleet was virtually annihilated, and by this disaster the French army was cut off from its base and, as it were, imprisoned in the land it had conquered. Yet Nelson could not follow up his victory; he had no frigates and, therefore, could not enter the harbor of Alexandria to destroy the provisions and the transport ships which were collected there.
One of the results of the naval battle was an uprising at Cairo, which was ruthlessly repressed, 5000 of the insurgents losing their lives. After an expedition had been sent into upper Egypt as far as the cataracts of Syene, the country was reduced to some kind of order, but there were further difficulties to deal with from another quarter, for, under the instigation of England, the Turks were preparing to retake Egypt, and two armies were now on the way with this object. One of them was to proceed through Asia Minor and Syria; to meet the enemy Napoleon, with the bulk of his army, advanced through Syria, conquering towns as he proceeded with his usual unbroken fortune. The march was signalized by spectacular deeds of personal prowess on the part of his subordinate generals. But he also shocked his admirers by the horrible massacre of 3000 prisoners at Jaffa. The excuse for this deed of bloodshed was that the victims had been previously released on parole and had broken it by taking part in the defense of Jaffa. The first failure in this unexampled course of success came at St. John d’Acre, an important seaport which was obstinately defended by its Turkish garrison, aided by an English commodore, Sidney Smith. After two unsuccessful assaults had been made by the French, with heavy losses, Napoleon withdrew in unconcealed disgust at his failure. He never forgot Sidney Smith, and spoke of him always as the man who had spoiled his luck; “that idiot [bicoque] was the only thing,” he said, “that prevented me from entering India and striking a deathblow at England.”
After the raising of the siege hope of further progress through Syria was abandoned, and the army, suffering from illness and discontent, had a miserable march back to Egypt, their route being marked by dead and dying. Napoleon showed great constancy in this disastrous experience, exposing himself to the ravages of the plague and restoring the confidence of his men by his coolness. On reaching Egypt the French found that a Turkish army of 18,000 men had disembarked at Alexandria; these, however, were soon disposed of at the second battle of Aboukir, fought almost a year after the first (July 25, 1799). The Turkish soldiers who refused, or were not able, to reembark on their transports were thrown into the sea.
While the expedition was marked by such deeds of barbarism, it had a more justifiable side because of the civilized and progressive administration given to Egypt by its French conquerors. Intelligent efforts were made to conciliate the Mussulman population; justice, finance, and administration were reformed; even a beginning was made in establishing something resembling representative government. Works of public utility were encouraged, some planned on a large scale, such as the building of a canal at Suez, a project only realized many decades afterwards. Remarkable also were the scientific results attained through the foundation of an Egyptian Institute consisting of French specialists in archeology, architecture, and art. Among its members were men who devoted themselves to promoting an industrial reformation, while others accomplished hygienic improvements for the cities. Indeed, the most durable result of this extraordinary scheme of Oriental conquest was the primacy of culture it gave to France in Egypt, a primacy she has continued to maintain even in the face of the military occupation of the country by England.
III
THE FALL OF THE DIRECTORY
During the long absence of Napoleon from France, the incapacity of the government of the Directory at home and abroad had been continually manifested; there were internal disorders due to royalist insurrections, which seemed for a time most threatening in the southwest, in the Garonne valley, while at Paris the radicals, who represented what was left of the Terrorist element, were restless under a system which they charged with disloyalty to the revolutionary tradition. There was, besides, no harmony between the legislative and executive organs of government; the Directors were not respected, some being manifestly incompetent, others, like Barras, mere intriguers.