by Alan Schom
“If the landing indeed proves serious, it will be necessary to evacuate the whole of Upper Egypt while leaving a few of your men to garrison the forts there,” Napoleon instructed Desaix on July 15. “Inform General Reynier about the news I have just received [from Alexandria] and of the necessity to concentrate his troops,” Bonaparte ordered General Berthier, sending similar instructions by special courier to Kléber (now at Damietta) and others, as Napoleon called in the few remaining French troops at al-Arish and Katia to return to Rosetta and Alexandria. Panic swept army headquarters as every spare company was brought in, practically evacuating the entire northeastern desert contiguous to the Sinai, in addition to the southern portion of the country. For good measure, a desperate Bonaparte ordered General Dugua to have the hundreds of prisoners in Cairo shot while attracting the least amount of public attention possible. Napoleon instructed General Marmont to take up a defensive position between Abukir and Rosetta and “to fall upon the flanks of the enemy” as the army asembled around Birket.
Setting out for Giza with his general staff at 4:00 A.M. on July 16, Napoleon managed to rally and dazzle his men. Even the by now highly critical Bourrienne confessed his admiration. “I must render all justice to his imperturbable presence of mind, to his promptness of decision, to his rapidity of execution, which at this period of his life never abandoned him on all the great occasions.[277] Reaching al-Rahmaniyah three days later, he ordered Marmont to hold at Alexandria and Kléber to secure Rosetta, while Bonaparte himself held the middle of the French position at Birket, supported by Murat’s cavalry between there and Abukir. He told Kléber that he did not expect the enemy to have as many troops as the French.[278]
Perhaps even Napoleon’s spirits flagged a bit between July 20 and 22, when reports of the continued arrival of more enemy ships doubled the original estimate of 60. Lannes’s and Rampon’s divisions (formerly Bon’s) were nearing al-Rahmaniyah, while General Dugua was preparing to strip Cairo of most of its remaining garrison, with some twelve hundred men already en route. The hospitals in Cairo were ransacked for any men capable of standing and holding a musket, Berthier hoping to “give the Turks a lesson that will finally assure the possession of Egypt for France.”
“Maintain the greatest vigilance,” Bonaparte reminded Marmont. “No officer, especially no senior officer, is to undress at night; call the men to quarters frequently at night to ensure that every man knows the position to which he is assigned,” and for good measure watchdogs were to be posted just outside the walls. Only an obviously grave threat could have forced Bonaparte literally to strip the entire country of all French forces to confront the Turkish landings. Ibrahim Bey’s anticipated army sweeping out of the Sinai only aggravated matters, as Bonaparte alerted Dugua to this fresh danger. He further summoned General Dcsaix to collect what remained of Reynier’s division up there and to march on Ibrahim. As for the position at Abukir, Napoleon assured Desaix that he would “attack and throw them back into the sea.” He made these plans and pronouncements with little artillery to field and no realistic idea of the number of troops he would face.
On July 22 Napoleon ordered General Lannes’s division and General Lanusse (now temporarily heading Rampon’s division) to take up their position at Birket, while General Menou secured Lake Madiah (he was to be joined there by General Kléber). At 9:00 P.M. on July 24, on reaching his field headquarters near Birket, Napoleon ordered Murat, with the avant-garde of the army’s cavalry and supported by four infantry battalions, to attack the Turkish landing force in five hours’ time, with Lannes to Murat’s right, and Lanusse to his left. Marmont was to attack to the far west, between Alexandria and Abukir Bay, while Kléber was to push toward Abukir from Rosetta.
At 2:00 A.M. on July 25, what little artillery the French could muster suddenly thundered all along the line as ten thousand troops attacked Mustapha Pasha’s roughly equal force. Slashing his way straight through the Turkish line, Murat pushed past their entrenchments along the neck of land separating them from the sea and the lakes, with no Turkish cavalry to oppose him. The French next attacked the Turks’ second line of defense, which was supported by thirty or so gunboats. “The cavalry then decided the victory for us,” Napoleon related (truthfully, for a change) to the Directory, “swinging through the Turkish right, making a terrible slaughter...[as] the enemy threw themselves into the water to try to reach their boats a couple of miles out, all drowning in the process. It was the most horrible thing I have ever seen.”[279]
It took only eleven hours for Napoleon to win a decisive victory over the Turks. Some 2,000 of them had been killed in battle, and up to 4,000 more died fleeing to the beach or drowning in the surf. A further 2,500 or so who had taken refuge in Fort Abukir at the top of the peninsula surrendered to Menou a week later. Napoleon reported French casualties at fewer than 500 (Berthier’s more realistic count gave a figure of just under 1,000). But no matter how it was reckoned, it was Napoleon’s first real victory — so far as disabling an enemy force was concerned — since arriving in Egypt.
Two days after the battle, Napoleon dispatched his key commanders back to their old posts — Desaix to Upper Egypt, Lanusse to Menouf, and Kléber back to Damietta.[280] But Napoleon’s countenance no doubt fell when questioning their principal prisoner taken in the field, no less than the Turkish commander in chief, Mustapha Pasha, from whom he discovered that a fresh army was already en route from Damascus to Cairo. Thus Napoleon now sent Reynier back to Salheyeh to strengthen fortifications in that quarter. In a rare display of praise for someone other than himself, in the special Order of the Day, of July 27, 1799, Napoleon singled out Gen. Joachim Murat “who covered himself with glory at the battle of Aboukir.” The combined naval operations of Britain, Russia, and Turkey had been a supreme flop, thanks to Turkish incompetence. For rather than advancing from their original beachhead, the troops had just dug in and waited, failing even to isolate the city of Alexandria. Among the French casualties, Napoleon lost a fourth aide-de-camp, Guibert, while Generals Murat, Fugiere, and Lannes (yet again) had been wounded, as Napoleon renamed the fort at Alexandria after a fallen general, his Corsican friend Caffarelli.
“The name of Aboukir was detested by every Frenchman before this battle took place; the events of July 25 have now rendered it glorious,” Napoleon proclaimed to the army on August 1 before setting out for Cairo. “We have just reconquered the establishments in India and those of our allies. In a single operation we have made it possible for the French government to oblige England, in spite of her previous naval victories, to agree to a glorious peace with the Republic.” Napoleona...
Even though he now had the badly needed victory with which to return to France, on reaching Cairo on August 11, Napoleon was not in a particularly happy mood. Newspapers he had received from the English fleet reported that Europe was indeed at war again and that a new allied coalition threatened France. War had broken out on March 13 — General Jourdan’s Army of the Rhine had been beaten at Feldkirch, and General Schérer’s Army of Italy had been defeated at Rivoli (of all places). The English navy was successfully blockading both the French and Spanish navies at Toulon and Cartagena. The French, he discovered, had lost Corfu, and Malta itself was effectively sealed off by a British blockade (and would soon fall). As for his Army of the Orient, despite his great victory, Napoleon was still isolated from the outside world, “the prisoner of his own conquest.”
Meanwhile the Sublime Poite was marshaling fresh armies, by land and sea, and most of Egypt remained unconquered. Relations between Napoleon and his senior commanders were as bad as ever. Kléber worked with Napoleon only out of his sense of duty to the republic he loved, but Desaix, it seems, had disobeyed earlier orders to abandon the south and to advance to Balbais. On learning of this Napoleon snapped: “I have not been at all happy with your conduct, Citizen General...Regardless of the circumstances one finds oneself in, they must never prevent a soldier from obeying orders.” Napoleon also managed to complain about
the incompetence of General Destain and, for the first time, one of his favorites, the Pole, Zayoncheck.
On top of everything, he found fresh trouble brewing in the Divan, and even open rebellion and talk of treason in the gilded halls of the Egyptian Institute, despite the presence of Monge. With this to greet the triumphant warrior, the day following his return to Cairo Bonaparte secretly notified Ganteaume to pack and store the recent war trophies, taken in Syria and at Abukir, aboard ship. He would be returning to the coast shortly, he informed him. Although Bonaparte carefully concealed plans for his secret departure from Egypt, nevertheless vague rumors soon began to circulate, mainly in the harbor of Alexandria, where feverish preparations were under way to arm and victual four French ships. Ganteaume’s unusual interest and daily quayside visits, and the delicacies included among the victuals, made it clear that these vessels were not being prepared for just another messenger. Indeed, apart from Bourrienne, Ganteaume, and Berthier, Napoleon confided in no one, not even Monge. (Monge was incapable of subterfuge, and Napoleon did not inform him until the day of departure itself.) On August 17 General Dugua complained to Napoleon: “They say that you are leaving for France, that you are taking Monge, Berthollet, Lannes and Murat with you.” Although it was only a rumor, he continued, it was “having a very bad effect on army morale. I hope you will refute it at once.”
To put everyone off the scent, Napoleon announced that he was preparing for an immediate tour of the north. “I am leaving tomorrow for Menouf, whence I am going to make several different tours of inspection of the Delta to see for myself what injustices are being committed in the countryside and to better get to know the people of this land,” he told the Divan on the seventeenth. To Dugua he varied the theme, stating vaguely that he was setting out for the Mediterranean “to study the position of the enemy along the coast.” When Monge was cornered by his esteemed colleague Costaz at the institute, he blushed and did indeed dissimulate sheepishly and incoherently. He was sure by now that the rumors were true. When next pressed by the suspicious poet, Parseval-Grandmaison, who for one had no intention of being left behind in this hellhole, Monge muttered, “I don’t know a thing. I believe we are going to Lower Egypt.”[281]
At 10:00 P.M. on August 17, Napoleon’s carriage pulled up before the institute. Monge, Berthollet, and Denon hustled inside with their baggage, as their betrayed colleagues bade them adieu. Embarrassed, they were no doubt greatly relieved as they left among a clatter of hooves, Monge leaving the institute he had founded and was never to see again. Arriving at the Elfi palace, Monge, Berthollet, and Denon joined Bonaparte. Casually kissing Pauline Fourès good-bye as she strolled through the lush gardens of the palace in her favorite hussar’s uniform, Napoleon told her he would be back in a few days. In fact he had no intention of ever seeing her again, nor did he.
At midnight several vehicles set out from the palace with the chosen, including four of his aides-de-camp — Eugène de Beauharnais, Duroc, Lavalette, and Merlin — his Armenian servant, Roustan Raza, Jaubert, and five future marshals of France — Lannes, Marmont, Murat, Bessières, and Berthier. Reaching Bulaq in the early morning they embarked on the vessels that took them down the Nile to Alexandria.[282] To Bonaparte’s great annoyance Grandmaison had secretly followed and begged to be permitted to join them; aided by a guilty Monge, he succeeded.
Even before reaching Alexandria, to further put his own senior commanders off the scent, Napoleon dispatched couriers to Menou (ordering him to meet him at the port) and to Kléber (to leave for Rosetta), deceptions they learned of only after Napoleon’s departure. It was under these circumstances that Kléber was subsequently informed by letter that he was appointed Napoleon’s successor as commander in chief of a bereft army about to be attacked by further Turkish forces.
Because of France’s precarious state, Napoleon informed Kléber in this final communication that he felt it incumbent on himself to return to the homeland, to repair their national fortunes. He also left orders for Kléber to send Aide-de-camp Junot and General Desaix back to France that autumn. On reaching France, he assured him, he would have a fresh convoy sent out with weapons, munitions, “and enough reinforcements to repair the losses incurred during the last two campaigns.” But if things continued to go badly in Egypt, Napoleon instructed Kléber:
You are authorized to conclude a peace treaty with the Ottoman Porte, on the principal condition that you be permitted to evacuate Egypt...Accustomed as I am to see the recompense for the pains and labor of our undertakings in the later opinion of our posterity, needless to say I am thus abandoning Egypt with the greatest regret. The interest of the fatherland, its glory, duty, the extraordinary events occurring there alone have decided me to pass through the midst of enemy squadrons to return to Europe. I shall be here with you in heart and spirit...The army that I confide to you is composed of my children. Over the period of time...I have been given the mark of their attachment to me.
He closed with “by the very special friendship that I have for you, and for the true attachment I have for them — BONAPARTE.” But as Bourrienne put it, he did not have the courage to face his successor; “he wished to avoid his reproaches and Kléber’s brutal frankness.” Napoleon had made a colossal hash of his Egyptian campaign, and abandoning a condemned army en masse, he left Kléber to cope with the resultant disaster of all his miscalculations. After an earlier clash with Bonaparte, Kléber had referred to him as “that little bugger.” What he said on receiving this astounding betrayal was not recorded.
Just before weighing anchor on the twenty-third, Napoleon sent a warmer message to Dugua, informing him that “an urgent duty” required his return to France and giving Dugua permission to return to France to take up his position in the legislature. In a later note he assured the Executive Directory: “I have left Egypt well organized...and the Nile more beautiful than it has been in the last fifty years.” Pure Napoleona. He had in fact left in his wake burning villages; an empty treasury; an army decimated by battle, climate, and disease, its morale absolutely shattered, surrounded by a resentful, hostile Muslim population just waiting for the first ripe occasion to turn on them. In the army Bonaparte’s name was anathema, and every major commander except Desaix and the deceased Caffarelli had officially requested to be relieved of command and sent back to France. An army of more than thirty thousand had been reduced to perhaps twelve thousand. Kléber, whom he now left in command, would be assassinated in the gardens of the Elfi palace the following June by a knife-wielding Arab who claimed that he wished to shake his hand; while Desaix, who would indeed reach Napoleon later that year, would die on the battlefield after helping to win the Battle of Marengo. General Jacques Menou, who succeeded Kléber, converted to Islam, changed his name to Abdullah, married a beautiful teenage Arab girl. He arrested the faithful General Reynier for treason, no less, and ultimately surrendered to the British in 1801. The Egyptian fiasco was complete. Or, as Bourrienne so aptly summed it up, “So ended that disastrous expedition.”[283]
For Napoleon the Egyptian campaign had been a turning point in his life and career. His faith shaken in Josephine, whom he had adored, their marriage would never again be the same, later ensured by her inability to have any more children. For the French army, it was a crossroads as well. Many hundreds of officers would finally be repatriated to France by their British captors in 1801, but the vast majority would never forget or forgive their abandonment and betrayal by Bonaparte. Most would achieve higher rank, some even becoming marshals of France, but all knew that in Napoleon Bonaparte they had a commander in chief whose word and loyalty were worthless, a man who abandoned them to save his own skin. Napoleon himself for the first time realized the limits of even his own abilities and conceptions. The Egyptian campaign made no strategic sense at a time when France was barely holding its own in Europe. Further, it had been hastily conceived and most unprofessionally executed, resulting not only in its ultimate failure but also in the destruction of close to two-thirds of
the men who had been entrusted to him by the families of the first French Republic.
And yet, ironically, this misadventure made possible the greatest event of his life. On returning to France and landing in Saint-Raphael Bay on October 9, 1799, much to his utter astonishment, the thirty-year-old Napoleon Bonaparte found himself greeted by a madly exuberant French people who knew little of his phenomenal disasters and instead saw only the man who had captured Malta, the Pyramids, and Egypt, the latter-day republican crusader who had taken Cairo from the heathens, capped by his final resplendent victory over the Turks at the Battle of Abukir. It was in this light that he was permitted to rush to Paris the conquering hero and sweep all before him. “The little bugger” had succeeded in spite of himself, and Kléber for one could never quite understand it.
Chapter Twelve – Prelude to a Coup
‘The directors believe that they are using him, but one fine morning he is going to gobble them up, without their being able to do anything about it.’
General Pichegru to Favre de L’aude, 1797
On May 3, 1748, during the reign of Louis XV, in the sleepy port of Fréjus, a son was born to the town’s postmaster and most obedient royal tax collector. The infant would one day be responsible for the shaking of the very foundations of the House of Bourbon, bringing it down and with it the entire ancien régime.
Coming of humble stock, Emmanuel Sieyès was fortunate in having parents who believed in educating their children. He was first sent to a Jesuit school in Fréjus and then on to colleges in Draguignan run by the Doctrinaires. At seventeen he was dispatched to Paris to the prestigious Petit Séminaire de Saint-Sulpice to continue his studies (a young Talleyrand meanwhile attended its sister institution for the aristocracy, the Séminaire de Saint-Sulpice). After five years of rather mediocre results, however, he was abruptly asked to leave. The reasons were never made public, the priests simply indicating that they did not wish to have the pleasure of ordaining him as a product of their institution. And thus it was that only two years later, on July 28, 1772, Sieyès finally left the nearby Lazarist Séminaire de Saint-Firmin an ordained priest.[284] Although Sieyès’s childhood hopes had been for a glorious military career, a weak constitution and chronic poor health and eyesight had destined him instead for a career in the church. Although ordained at the relatively late age of twenty-four, and despite a personal recalcitrance vis-à-vis church authority in general, he succeeded — thanks to his native ability and perseverance, and the good fortune of having a few powerful friends, including the bishop of Fréjus, behind him when it counted.
