Beware of Heroes

by Peter Shankland

  A little before sunset a massive column of troops appeared advancing towards the breach with solemn step. The ships’ guns opened with a tremendous crash; shells burst in the column, but it went on undeterred. The advance guard, led by General Rambeaud, found the main breach undefended, and with a shout of triumph that was echoed through all the French lines, two or three hundred men poured into the town. Bonaparte thought that Acre was his. But Phélippeaux had provided a second line of defence of solid wall and loop-holed houses, and this checked them. They were assailed from all sides by musketry fire, and then by Turks armed with scimitars and daggers; and at the same time Sir Sidney sent in the Chiftlicks along the fosse on both sides of the beach and closed it behind them so that they were cut off.

  General Lannes rushed up the main assault force to rescue them, but someone raised the cry of Sauve qui peut! — Every man for himself! — and it retreated in confusion. General Lannes, trying to rally them, was struck by a bullet in the neck. A captain dragged him by one leg down from the breach and back into the French lines.

  Of the advance guard not a man returned. General Rambeaud was killed, and all his men were cut down except a few who managed to scale the second line of defence and take refuge in a mosque where they held out until Sir Sidney came up with his pikemen and rescued them from the fury of the Turks. They surrendered to him and were marched off to the ships.

  Chapter Nine – Bonaparte Defeated

  On the evening of the disastrous assault of 8th May, General Bourrienne reports that he was walking with Bonaparte at a little distance from the seashore, and that he said to him: ‘I see that this wretched place has cost me a number of men, and wasted much time. But things are too far advanced not to attempt a last effort. If I succeed, as I expect, I shall find in the town the pasha’s treasure, and arms for 300,000 men. I shall stir up and arm the people of Syria, who are disgusted at the ferocity of Djezzar and who, as you know, pray for his destruction at every assault. I shall then march upon Damascus and Aleppo. As I pass through the country the discontented will flock round my standard and swell my army. I shall announce to the people the abolition of servitude and of the tyrannical governments of the pashas. I shall arrive at Constantinople with large masses of soldiery. I shall overturn the Turkish Empire, and found in the East a new and grand empire that will fix my place in the records of posterity. Perhaps I shall return to Paris by Adrianople or by Vienna, after annihilating the House of Austria.’

  Bourrienne made, he says, some observations which these grand projects naturally suggested to him, and Bonaparte continued: ‘What! Do you not see that the Druses only wait for the fall of Acre to rise in rebellion? Have not the keys of Damascus already been offered to me? I am only waiting till these walls fall before I accept them, because until then I can derive no advantage from the possession of that large town.’ And he added that if his final assault should fail, he would set off at once for Cairo.

  At the same time Sir Sidney, with curious insight into Bonaparte’s mind, was writing a long official report, dated 9th May, in which he said:

  Bonaparte will no doubt renew the attack, the breach being perfectly practicable for fifty men abreast; indeed the town is not, nor ever has been, defensible according to the rules of art, but according to every other rule it must and shall be defended; not that it is worth defending, but we feel that it is by this breach Bonaparte means to march to farther conquests. It is on the issue of this conflict that depends the opinion of the multitude of spectators on the surrounding hills, who wait only to see how it ends to join the victor; and for such a reinforcement for the execution of his known projects, Constantinople, and even Vienna, must feel the shock.

  For his final effort Bonaparte brought Kléber’s division from the fords of the Jordan ‘to share in the glory of the capture of Acre’. He was calculating on the effect of introducing fresh troops who for the past three weeks had been spared the discouragements and defeats suffered by the rest of the army. They arrived on 9th May, and were hailed in the camp with joy and acclamation. They were confident that they could succeed where all the others had failed. The battle-weary grenadiers brought them bottles of brandy, and they spent the evening drinking, and dancing the farandole, while the guns fired intermittently, pounding the enemy’s lines to prepare the way for the next attack. It was launched at 3 a.m. on the 10th, General Kléber’s division leading, with General Bon’s division in support.

  As usual the ships bombarded their trenches, and the advancing column was taken in the flanks by the English Redoubts, and in the rear by the gun in the lighthouse and by the two guns mounted on barges by the mole. When they had forced their way through the breach they were fiercely attacked from Djezzar’s palace, and from the second line of defence, which they penetrated — but there was a third which stopped them. The women, believing that the town was about to be sacked, streamed out of the houses, wailing and throwing dust into the air, and this stimulated the defenders to make one last effort. Meanwhile General Reynier’s division attacked the English Redoubts but failed to carry them.

  Kléber had been ordered not to lead the assault in person, but to remain in touch with Bonaparte to take orders from him. He did neither the one nor the other. He stood in the breach in the smoke and thunder of musketry, shouting encouragement to his men in his stentorian voice, and beating his thigh with his sword in a fury of impatience. ‘Nothing could be more beautiful than Kléber on the day of battle,’ Bonaparte said — but it was all in vain: after two hours, seeing that no further progress was being made, the retreat was sounded. At 2 p.m. they tried again with the same result. They had 200 killed and 500 wounded including nearly all Kléber’s aides-de-camp. The leader of the assault, Adjutant-general Fouler, was dead. General Bon was dying. Captain Crozier, whose word Bonaparte had dishonoured by the massacre of the prisoners at Jaffa, had sought death in every engagement. Hearing that this was to be the last assault he mounted a battery and stood exposed to the enemy’s fire until he fell mortally wounded. Life had become insupportable to him.

  When Kléber’s assault failed, Bonaparte gave up all hope of capturing Acre, and turned to the problem of how to disengage and extricate his army encumbered with hundreds of sick and wounded. On the following day, 11th May, he ordered Admiral Perrée to come with his whole flotilla to Caesarea, where he could not be seen by the English ships on the other side of Cape Carmel, ‘and embark 400 unhappy wounded from Tantourah who would otherwise be at the mercy of the most horrible of enemies...You and your crews will gain more glory by this action than by the most brilliant combat...’

  He had not yet held a Council of War to consult his generals about raising the siege, but Sir Sidney got wind of it and wrote to him as follows:

  General, I have known for some days that you have been planning to raise the siege; the precaution of sending your wounded away leaving no one behind is praiseworthy. I who have no cause to love you, to say the least of it, should never have said so, but circumstances have led me to wish that you should reflect on the instability of human affairs. Would you ever have thought that a poor prisoner in the cells of the Temple, that an unfortunate man on whose behalf you refused to interest yourself for a moment when you were in a position to do him a signal service — for at that time you were all powerful — would you ever have thought, I say, that that same man would become your opponent and force you, in the sands of Syria, to raise the siege of a miserable little town? These are events, you must admit, that surpass all human calculations. Believe me, General, you must adopt a more modest line of thought; and the man who tells you that Asia is not a theatre created for your glory will not, in fact, be your enemy. This letter is a small revenge that I allow myself.

  This was not the sort of letter that Bonaparte wished to make public. He told his staff that the British Commodore had challenged him to a duel, and that he had declined, saying that when he brought the Duke of Marlborough to meet him he would accept — a ridiculous story with not a word of trut
h in it, but it served his purpose and went down well in the officers’ mess. Their duel was of a different kind, fought with less conventional but not less deadly weapons. The slander about the alleged plague-contaminated ship rankled like a poisoned missile in Sir Sidney’s generous heart, and his return blows left wounds that never healed.

  Bonaparte’s belief in his own greatness was based on the idea that he was the embodiment and expression of the mass will. Sir Sidney’s reminders of the instability of human affairs and the fickleness of the masses, struck at the foundations of this belief; and the growing conviction that he had bad luck whenever Sir Sidney crossed his path tended to undermine the legend that he was assiduously trying to build up, in his own mind and other people’s, that he was star guided, omniscient and ever fortunate.

  On 17th May he summoned his generals to a Council of War and consulted them on the question of raising the siege. Kléber said, ‘General, I liken the town of Acre to a piece of cloth. When I go to a merchant to buy it, I ask to feel it; I look at it, I touch it, and if I find it too dear I leave it.’ All the generals agreed that Acre was costing too much and they confirmed the decision that Bonaparte had come to a week ago.

  There were two main problems: how to represent the defeat as a victory, and how to get the wounded back to Egypt. The most obvious course, that a more humane commander would have adopted, was to send a flag of truce to Sir Sidney and ask for a cartel ship to evacuate the wounded; but how could he claim that Acre was the climax of a victorious campaign if their number and their plight became known, and if he allowed them to be saved by the generosity of his principal antagonist? No. The wounded would have to suffer. Small wonder that Kléber noted in his personal diary, ‘All illusions lost.’

  The situation was complicated by a number of plague victims who had to be evacuated also: the disease had continued intermittently in the French camp throughout the siege, though there was none in Acre itself. It was a milder form than at Jaffa, only one case in ten by the end of April proving mortal, but the dread of catching it prayed on the minds of the troops. The Chief Medical Officer, Desgenettes, had done everything in his power to allay their fears — he had even publicly inoculated himself with pus from one of the buboes, or boils, that were the distinctive symptom of the disease, without catching it — but the horror remained. In the plague hospital on Mount Carmel there were 222 cases; if they were left behind it was certain that they would be massacred by the Turks, who had much to avenge. If they were taken they might spread the infection through the rest of the army. Bonaparte suggested that the hopeless cases should be given an overdose of opium, as they would die in any case, but Desgenettes would not agree to this, so they were left to shift for themselves.

  On 17th May he issued a proclamation to his army, listing its achievements in Syria and explaining that they were returning to Egypt because the season was approaching in which landings by the enemy might be expected there. He told them that they had fatigues and dangers before them, and that they would find in them new opportunities for glory. Three men from each demi-brigade were chosen to carry the standards captured from the Turks; they were ordered to pass through the villages with flags flying and bands playing.

  He had already written to the Dewan of Cairo announcing that he was returning with many prisoners and captured flags, having razed the ramparts of Acre and bombarded the town so that not one stone remained upon another. Djezzar was gravely wounded, he said, and all the inhabitants had evacuated the town by sea.

  He gave orders that the trenches should be repaired, and that some of the guns should be moved in order to give the enemy the impression that they were preparing for a new assault; and that all the ammunition they couldn’t carry away, including 1,000 mortar bombs that had just arrived, should be fired, not into the fortifications this time, but into the town.

  The bombardment continued for four days and four nights. Acre looked as if it was on holiday, the mezzuins chanting from the minarets, fires burning in the narrow streets and the houses continually lit up by the flicker of bursting shells. Through it all, the defenders continued their sorties and finally succeeded, on the 18th, in driving the French out of the Cursed Tower.

  Meanwhile Bonaparte had summoned the Druse leaders to his tent. He told them, in the presence of his staff, that France had sent him an urgent call and, although Acre would have been taken soon, he had to renounce his projects and give up all thought of going farther east. ‘I must tell you,’ he said, ‘why I have so obstinately refused to accept your assistance against Djezzar: it is because I wanted to call on you for greater projects. You are a brave and a hospitable people whom I shall remember, and upon whom I shall call when, after my return to France, I shall be able to take up my vast strategic plans again in the east.’

  During the night of 20th-21st May, the French withdrew along the road to Haifa, Junot covering the left flank, Kléber commanding the rearguard which was protected by a screen of Murat’s cavalry. The siege had lasted sixty-two days.

  Sir Sidney followed them down the coast in The Tigre. He had sent the Theseus, immediately after the last great assault had been beaten off, to prevent any further supplies being landed at Jaffa, and to find Perrée’s squadron. She sighted it off Caesarea and gave chase, but a sudden explosion under the fore part of the poop forced her to haul off, and Perrée escaped. The ship was on fire in five places and so extensively damaged that only the prolonged exertions of her crew saved her from complete destruction. Captain Miller was killed, and thirty-two of his ship’s company were killed or wounded. This unhappy accident was the result of his attempts to conserve his dwindling supplies of ammunition. It was the practice for both sides to collect the expended cannon balls and fire them back again, but he went one better — he collected the enemy’s unexploded shells that fell into the town, and used them again. He had sixty or seventy of them on board, waiting to be re-fused, when one exploded and set off the rest. Sir Sidney reported the death of his friend ‘with inexpressible grief’.

  On the following day, Perrée received the orders to embark the wounded. He summoned his captains to a council of war to decide what to do. His captains advised him that it was impossible to carry out the order; that Admiral Ganteaume, when he wrote them, did not know that they would encounter superior forces of the enemy; and that the squadron, short of water and stores, and with no means of replenishing them, and short of a considerable quantity of ammunition which had been sent to the army, could not put up an honourable resistance to an enemy. They decided unanimously that the wisest course, and that most conformable to the interests of the Republic, would be to return to Europe. They thought also that it would be useful to bring the government information about the situation of the army in Syria.

  Perrée agreed that it was impossible to carry out the orders, or to remain any longer on that coast. ‘I believe,’ he concluded, ‘that for the safety of the squadron under my orders I must set sail for Europe.’ He took his whole squadron back to France.

  The retreating French army reached Haifa at 1 a.m. on the 21st. The paymaster, Peyrusse, wrote:

  We were hoping that we should no longer have before our eyes the hideous sight of dead and dying men, when, as we entered Haifa in the dark of the night, we saw about a hundred sick and wounded men who had been left in the middle of a large square. These poor, desperate people filled the air with their screams and their curses; some were tearing off their bandages and rolling in the dust. This spectacle petrified the army.

  ‘When you can no longer support yourselves,’ Kléber said, ‘then you carry the wounded.’ They picked them up and carried them in their arms to Tantourah.

  At Tantourah they found on the beach 700 or 800 more wounded and plague cases, and no ships to transport them. Bonaparte ordered that the generals, and the infantry and artillery officers, should give up their horses to the wounded and go as far as Jaffa on foot: when his groom came and asked him, cap in hand, which horse he reserved for his own use, he lost h
is temper and struck him across the face with his riding-whip, shouting, ‘Don’t you know the order? Everybody on foot! Myself included.’ The officers dismounted, but by next day most of them had their horses again.

  Towards daybreak on the 23rd, between Caeserea and Jaffa, a Naplousian mountaineer fired at Bonaparte who was sleeping on his horse; the man was captured and ordered to be shot on the spot. Four Guides pushed him towards the sea by thrusting their carbines against his back; when close to the water’s edge they drew the triggers, but all four carbines hung fire, a circumstance which was accounted for by the great humidity of the night. The Naplousian threw himself into the water and, swimming with great agility and rapidity, gained a ridge of rocks so far off that not a shot from the whole troop, which fired as it passed, reached him. Bonaparte ordered General Bourrienne to wait for Kléber, whose division formed the rearguard, to tell him not to forget the Naplousian when it should be light enough to see him. Bourrienne describes the retreat as follows:

  A most intolerable thirst, the total want of water, an excessive heat, and a fatiguing march over burning sandhills quite disheartened the men, and made every generous sentiment give way to feelings of the grossest selfishness and the most shocking indifference. I saw officers, with their limbs amputated, thrown off their litters...I saw the amputated, the wounded, the infected, or those only suspected of infection, deserted and left alone. The march was illuminated by torches lighted for the purpose of setting fire to the little towns, villages and hamlets which lay on the route, and to the rich crops with which the land was covered. The whole country was in a blaze. Those who were ordered to preside over this work of destruction seemed eager to spread desolation on every side, as if they could thereby revenge themselves for their reverses, and find in such dreadful havoc an alleviation of their suffering. We were constantly surrounded by plunderers, incendiaries, and the dying who, stretched out on the roadside, implored assistance in feeble voices, saying, ‘I am not infected — I am only wounded’. And to convince those whom they addressed they reopened their old wounds, or inflicted fresh ones on themselves. Still nobody attended to them. Nothing was said but ‘It’s all up with him’, and ‘It’s all up with him’, as everyone pressed onward. The sun which shone in an unclouded sky in all its brightness was often darkened by our conflagrations. On our right lay the sea; on our left and behind us the desert we ourselves had made; ahead were the privations and the suffering that awaited us.