With Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt and the chain of events
that followed, it was suggested, centuries of decline, inertia, and neglect
finally ended and the Middle East rose, albeit awkwardly, to meet the
challenges of modernity. The clock started ticking to mark this passage of
Middle Eastern civilization from a previous era into the present.
The voyages and land expeditions to the Middle East during
the Crusades (or, conversely, the Wars against the Saracens) pulled back the
curtain on a larger world than was previously known in Europe during the Middle
Ages. With the infusion of the works of ancient Greece and Rome, new
principles, new concepts, and new ways of investigating the empirical world
soon animated society in Western Christendom. The divine right of kings would
soon face scrutiny under the rediscovery of Greek philosophy and rational
inquiry. The concepts inherent in demos kratos, or the people rule, would, over
time, come to drive the aspirations and hopes of an expanding middle class. The
desire for liberty would eventually drive the Americans and French to
revolution, while British intellectual curiosity and the desire for empirical
exploration would catapult the island nation into a leading role of the early
Industrial Revolution.
With the landlines of communication and trade routes that
characterized the Old Silk Road between Europe, the Middle East, and South and
East Asia monopolized by the Ottomans and their allies, in the fifteenth
century, in terms of access to Asian markets, the European seafaring nations began
exploring alternatives to the traditional overland trading routes. Accordingly,
with the development of ocean-traversing technology and skills, the maritime
trading nations in Europe increased their ability to expand trade and protect
sea lines of communications (SLOCs). By the mid-eighteenth century, Britain had
risen to global prominence by virtue of its prowess in sea power, trade,
technological innovation, and military effectiveness. As London and Paris
competed for control in North America and following the loss of its franchise
within the original North American 13 colonies, Britain increased its
involvement in India. In order to facilitate the movement of goods, Egypt
became a key route of trade, extending from the Mediterranean, overland to the
Red Sea, and on to South Asia.
By the late eighteenth century, the Ottoman Empire’s control
in Egypt was declining, as was its overall strategic position in the eighteenth
century. The British, Russians, Habsburgs, French, and other powers in Eurasia
and the Middle East were engaged in maneuvering for advantage in the event of
the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.
In 1776 the Baron de Tott submitted to Louis XVI a
memorandum recommending that France acquire Egypt on the grounds that the
disintegration of the Ottoman Empire was inevitable … In 1782 Joseph II of
Austria suggested to Louis XVI that France should acknowledge that the Ottoman
Empire was no longer capable of protecting itself and Louis should take
advantage of that weakness and annex Egypt.
The Mamluks had been provided significant levels of autonomy
in administering Egypt as Ottoman vassals following their defeat in the
Ottoman-Mamluk War (1516–1517). However, by 1784, decades of mismanagement of
agriculture coupled with conditions of drought had led to famine in Egypt
followed by outbreaks of plague. Simultaneous to these events, the Mamluks had
also stopped making the required payments to the Ottoman treasury. As a result,
during 1786–1791, the Ottoman leadership tried unsuccessfully to bring their vassals
in Egypt back under control.
Further west, the rising vitality and energy of the
liberated people of France had overthrown the monarchy and were intent on
spreading revolutionary ideals—along with acquiring new trading
opportunities—and a young military commander, Napoleon Bonaparte, was meeting
with success in the French campaign in Italy. The use of both diplomacy and
military power that had been honed and expertly practiced by the French for
centuries, coupled with the collective energy of a newly liberated people that
the Prussians had come to refer to the energy of the French as leidenschaft,
helped propel France toward continental leadership (along with a centuries-long
tradition of military excellence) as a wide range of European states and principalities
entered agreements with the new French government.
Nonetheless, the competition and conflict between France and
the British monarchy continued unabated to the point where the British withdrew
all Mediterranean naval ships, in October 1796, in order to protect the home
islands from a potential invasion.
… Had it not been for Admiral John Jervis’s defeat of the
Spanish in the Atlantic off Cape St. Vincent in February 1797 and Admiral Adam
Duncan’s destruction of the Dutch fleet at the Battle of Camperdown in October,
her [Britain’s] enemies might have achieved a sufficient combination of force
to achieve the necessary conditions for a Channel crossing.
From a French strategic perspective, the end of the
eighteenth century brought with it an opportunity to test the vacuum created in
the Eastern Mediterranean by the withdrawal of the British fleet. More
specifically, French control in Egypt would provide leverage in challenging
British commercial interests in the Eastern Mediterranean and in cutting Britain’s
overland route to India via the Red Sea. If Napoleon could establish control in
Egypt, the French would be in a position to more effectively challenge
Britain’s vast commercial interests in India, interests which helped finance
British naval power projection. British naval power would have to be reduced,
French military commanders believed (including Napoleon), before a channel
crossing could be successfully mounted.
Given the weakness of the Ottoman Empire and the strategic
position of Egypt in terms of British communications with its vast holdings in
India, a campaign in Northeast Africa aimed at Cairo would degrade British
trade and, eventually, British sea power. In fact, as early as the seventeenth
century, King Louis XIV of France had proposed a canal linking the
Mediterranean and Red Seas across the Egyptian Isthmus.
While France maintained what was generally considered the
most effective land army in Western Europe—a martial tradition that had earlier
blocked the Islamic invasion of Western Europe in 732 CE—Britain had
concentrated on building what was arguably the most capable navy in the world.
The French military successfully convinced the civilians in the French
Directoire to make Cairo the objective, rather than London, at least for the time
being. Thus, the invasion plans for Britain were shelved, and the strategy was
to challenge British sea power by extending French power throughout the
Mediterranean, which would undermine Britain’s access to India. Following the
establishment of a beachhead in Egypt, the objective was to leverage France’s
relationship with Tipu Sultan, then ensconced as the ruler of the Sultanate of
Mysore and a hindrance to the British East India Company in South Asia. The
French Directoire approved the Egyptian campaign on March 5, 1798.
As Napoleon gathered his expeditionary forces in Toulon,
France, for the Egyptian campaign, he addressed the assembled troops on May 19,
1798:
You have made war on the mountains, on the plains, and on
the cities; it remains for you to fight on the seas … The genius of liberty
which made you, at her birth, the arbiter of Europe, wants to be genius of the
seas and the furthest of nations.
Napoleon’s assembled force consisted of 40,000 soldiers,
10,000 sailors, 280 transport ships, 14 frigates, and 13 ships-of-the-line (64
to 120 guns). The French expeditionary force consisted of 31,000 infantry
formed into five divisions, with each division having elements of cavalry
(approximately 600 per division), artillery, and engineers (artillerymen and
engineers totaling about 3,000). The artillery consisted of 171 assorted
howitzers, mortars, and field guns firing shells, canister, and ball shot.
Napoleon also brought a new weapon, a weapon which would factor into many
modern-era wars and campaigns yet to come: a printing press, in this instance,
an Arabic printing press, which he would use to help him communicate to the
Arabs. When his forces arrived in Egypt in the summer of 1798, this marked the
arrival of the first printing press in the Middle East.
One of his first messages using the press was a proclamation
in Arabic to the inhabitants of Alexandria, Egypt, on July 1, 1798, stating
that it was the intent of France to bring the blessings of liberty to the
people of Egypt and to free them from the tyranny of the Mamluks. The printed
proclamation, in Arabic, read in part: “… If Egypt is the Mamluks’ farm, then
they should show the lease that God gave them for it.”
While Napoleon was intent on spreading the ideals of the
Revolution in the Middle East and ultimately marching to the Indus River in
India as did his hero, Alexander the Great, he like all great military leaders
in history, whether operating in Europe, the Middle East, or Asia, needed to
“incentivize” his military operations in such a manner that would motivate
individual soldiers and in language they would understand. As his troops later
prepared to disembark upon arrival in Egypt, he sent a message to his soldiers:
“I promise to each soldier who returns from this expedition enough to purchase
six arpents of land.” Soldiers and warriors throughout history, whether Muslim,
Christian, Hindu, Buddhist, or Jew, required incentives, whether it be a
unifying religious-political ideology or immediate material inducement or, as
in the case of the most successful armies in world history, both. Thus the
French Revolution, not unlike the Roman expeditions or the Islamic expansionary
campaigns of the seventh to seventeenth centuries, offered not only lofty,
heroic, and “universally” valid ideals but also material reward.
On July 1, 1798, Napoleon’s Army of the Orient, as the force
was now being called, arrived off the coast of Alexandria, Egypt. Napoleon had
brought with him, in addition to the Arabic printing press, a commission of
scholars and scientists from L’Academie whose function was to examine all
aspects of Egyptian history and culture while simultaneously sharing concepts
arising from the Enlightenment regarding science, the arts, and
self-government, for which they brought a substantial library. The proceeding
interactions marked the introduction of Western modernity into the Middle East
and the reciprocal movement of ideas (particularly about ancient Egypt) to
European civilization. Nevertheless, Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign (1798–1801)
also has a less noble distinction in world history as being “the largest and
most violent meeting between Western and Muslim Arab armies since the
Crusades.”
The main objective was the city of Cairo, which had a
population of approximately 300,000 and was along the Nile River (the longest
river in the world). Napoleon understood that if he suffered significant delays
in reaching it, his army might become victims to the great flooding that
occurred in the river on a regular basis. Even on the relatively short journey
to Alexandria, Napoleon’s troops found that nomadic Bedouin tribesmen had
filled many of the wells along the army’s advance, and, as a result, the Army
of the Orient was already parched and suffering from a lack of potable water.
To add to the discomfort, the French were outfitted in wool uniforms and
carried heavy packs in a summer environment where temperatures often rose to
115 degrees Fahrenheit. Moreover, French commanders mistakenly assumed that the
population would welcome an army bringing them liberty from autocratic rule.
The French military found themselves surrounded by a generally unwelcoming
population, unprepared for the extreme heat, and suffering from a lack of food
and water. Morale immediately took a turn for the worse.
The first French units left Alexandria on July 3. They
lacked sufficient horses … and one division even had to leave its artillery
behind. Napoleon sought to obtain horses and camels from local Bedouin leaders,
but the sheiks in Cairo convinced the tribesmen to switch sides and they
harassed the French along the entire line of march. The khamsin, the
desiccating wind that blows up the dust of the Libyan Desert into great
choking, blinding clouds, had begun … Thirst quickly became the deadliest enemy
… Before the march was over, hundreds had died, some by their own hand.
Hence, the campaign unfolded in both a harsher physical and
harsher cultural environment than French planners had anticipated. While much
of the Egyptian population was indeed in a state of relative political
captivity under ruthless autocrats, the French were unable to effectively
convey their message of liberty and the rights of man, finding them-selves
outmaneuvered in terms of messaging and communications by a merchant elite and
ruling class well vested in the current status quo. They were not interested in
French achievements in liberal reform, science, the arts, or in French business
establishing a presence in a society where a handful of powerful
agriculturalists and wealthy merchants had long controlled commerce as well as
Egyptian society.
The Egyptian elite, armed with a more expansive knowledge
base regarding cultural fears and hopes, were better positioned for delivering
an effective strategic narrative to the masses and outmaneuvered French efforts
at proclaiming the benefits of liberty and equality. While Napoleon’s use of an
Arabic printing press was a pragmatic first step in the modernization and
evolution of the Middle East and, over the long term, proved beneficial to the
masses, the reality was that since most of the population was illiterate at the
time of the French Egyptian campaign, it proved to be of limited value in
furthering the realization of the immediate objectives of Napoleon’s
operations, which was to control the country, deprive the British access, and
to sever London’s lines of communication to India, followed by the invasion of
Britain and the overthrow of the British monarchy.
Prior to departure from Alexandria, Napoleon divided his
army sending some 12,000 troops with generals Dugua and Murat and the remaining
forces from Kleber’s command onto the town of Rosetta with orders to proceed
south along the Nile after meeting up with a flotilla, which carried arms and
supplies under Admiral Peree. Marching with Napoleon was the main body of
25,000 men, which took a direct route across the Beheira Desert to the village
of Damanhur and then to El Rahmaniyah where both sections of the Army of the
Orient would link up before proceeding to the main objective at Cairo.
While the Mamluk cavalry, inheritors of a tradition of
excellence that had stopped the Mongol army at Ain Jalut in 1260 CE, was
generally considered one of the finest (if not the finest) cavalry forces in
the Mediterranean during the late Middle Ages, the Franks had assembled the
finest infantry in the world as early as the eighth century CE and had
maintained that status, arguably, for a thousand years (the Swiss and the
Prussians, notwithstanding). Now, after having achieved complete surprise in
terms of the Ottomans, the British, and the Mamluks, that infantry, now armed
with muskets and artillery and commanded by one of the most successful generals
in world history, suddenly appeared off the coast of Egypt, disembarked, and
proceeded to march on Egypt’s largest city. For the Ottoman-Egyptian army, the
“Franks” had returned, and Napoleon had achieved the desired shock of surprise,
including the psychological impact in the minds of enemy commanders and the
individual soldiers. The initiative had been seized, and the enemy was forced
to scramble in order to react to the next move.
Napoleon, failing with the strategic narrative in a foreign
land, was now ready, however, to introduce the most proficient practitioners of
nomadic steppe cavalry maneuver (the Mamluks) to the most proficient infantry
army and practitioner of early modern-era warfare (a Napoleon-led French army).
The Mamluks had paid a price by not adopting gunpowder weapons in their battles
against the Ottoman Empire. The nightmare was about to be repeated with the
arrival of the muskets and cannon of the French army.
