The Background of the Campaign

In 1798 Napoleon led an invasion of Egypt, the richest province in the Ottoman Empire. His goal had been to use the country as a base for his planned march on India. That plan came to an abrupt halt in May of that year when his invasion of Syria was repulsed at Acre. He retreated back into Egypt and in July defeated an Ottoman attempt to land a relief army at Abukir Bay. During that battle he learned of the growing crisis in Europe and the danger to France. He consequently turned his army over to General Jean-Baptiste Kleber and with a small group of followers took ship for France. Most histories of the Napoleonic Wars also abandon the battle for Egypt at this point, not returning to it until 1801 when a joint Ottoman-English force successfully invaded Egypt and finally drove the French out. Ignored by these histories is the first determined Ottoman attempt to retake the province led by Grand Vezir Yusuf Pasha. Here is the story of that campaign.

In late 1799 General Kleber, left in command of the French army in Egypt after Napoleon's return to France, came to consider the defense of Egypt pointless. He therefore sent agents to meet with the Grand Vezir to discuss a French surrender. The Grand Vezir was at this time with his army at Gaza and about to enter Egypt. Kleber was then nearby at his headquarters at Salhiya, with a large part of his army preparing to oppose the Grand Vezir's entry. They agreed to discuss terms and General Desaix and Jean Baptiste Poussielgue were sent to the Grand Vezir's camp for negotiations.

After long negotiations they worked out a document which became known as the Convention of Al Arish which was signed in January, 1800. The convention stated that hostilities should cease for 90 days, that the French army should evacuate Egypt, yield up to Ottoman troops the fortresses in the eastern part of the county at stated intervals and surrender Cairo in 40 days.

In exchange, the Grand Vezir promised that the French army and all its civilian attendants would be transported back to France in vessels furnished by the Ottomans, with all their arms, artillery and effects. The French would also receive 3,000,000 francs to meet their expenses during the evacuation.

Sir Sidney Smith, commanding the British blockade fleet off Egypt, signed the convention for the British and in the name of the Russian commissioner. The Russian commissioner also agreed to furnish the French with Russian passports to prevent molestation by either British or Russian warships.

Prepare for Evacuation

Following the Convention of Al Arish, Kleber began the withdrawal, surrendering the desert fortresses of Katieh, Salhiya and Bilbeis to the Grand Vezir's army and preparing his own army for evacuation.

While Smith supported the convention, his superiors, not wanting to see tens of thousands of battle hardened veteran French troops back in Europe, refused to honor the document. Instead, they ordered the British naval squadron in the Mediterranean to allow the passage of the French only as prisoners of war.

When in late February Sir Sidney Smith learned of his government's refusal to honor the convention, he immediately informed his French enemies, but not his Ottoman allies. He wrote to Kleber urging him to give up no more land or fortresses to the Ottomans. Kleber then informed the Grand Vezir of the change, ordering him to suspend his march or face renewed hostilities.

The Grand Vezir replied that the convention was a matter between France and the Ottoman Empire. As far as the Grand Vezir was concerned the treaty was signed and the Ottomans had every intention of honoring their part of the agreement. Therefore, he expected the French to do the same and he would continue his advance on Cairo.

General Kleber then entered into a new round of negotiations with the Ottoman ministers. While the Grand Vezir was insistent that the French surrender Cairo, he did offer to keep them supplied and allow them to keep all the land on the west side of the Nile and in the Delta to use for their support. Kleber said he was negotiating to reach an amicable arrangement between the French and the Ottomans until an understanding could be reached between the French and British governments. In reality, this pretense was but a cover to allow him time to assemble his forces for battle.

On the Plain of Koubbe

The two armies met on the plain of Koubbe, a few miles northeast of Cairo. It was here that the Ottoman army had encamped in preparation for its planned entry into the city.

On the day of the battle the Ottomans, who believed they had already made peace with the French, were taken by surprise. The French opened the battle around dawn on March 20 with an attack by 60 cannon on the Ottoman advanced position in the village of Matariya.

The village, considerably in advance of the main Ottoman camp, was held by a force of Janissaries under the command of the Grand Vezir's son, Nafif Pasha. This bombardment was immediately followed up by an advance by about 6,000 men, mostly infantry, but supported on the flanks by the French cavalry and dromedary corps, and by a contingent of Mamluks who were allied to the French. The Janissaries made a stout defense, dying in place instead of surrendering their position. Despite their bravery, they were heavily outnumbered and the village was soon captured.

The defense of the village, though, had given the main Ottoman army time to form up to meet the French. At approximately 8 a.m. the Grand Vezir was able to march his army out onto the plain between the villages of El-Hanca and Matariya. He then found a fine spot to observe the battle, called for his carpet and pipe, and seated himself, not to move again during the course of the battle. To meet this advance, Kleber drew up his army into two strong lines extending from the village of El Koubbe towards Boulac, flanked on the right by a wood of date-trees in which he emplaced part of his artillery.

Artillery Duel

The battle commenced with an artillery duel between the two armies. At the same time, a large force of Janissaries, deployed in skirmish order, advanced against the right of the French line and engaged it in a musket duel. As the battle progressed the superior gunnery of the French eventually allowed them to get the better of the counter-battery fire. The Janissary attack, unsupported with either cavalry or artillery, was having only limited success.

Once it became obvious that the French were winning the artillery battle, Grand Vezir Yusuf Pasha arrayed his cavalry forces for a general charge. To meet this attack, Kleber formed his entire force into four great squares with artillery at the angles, similar to the deployments used so effectively by Napoleon at the Battle of the Pyramids. To protect his cavalry from the numerically superior Ottoman cavalry, Kleber deployed it in the intervals between the squares. Companies of grenadiers were used to double the corners and were ready for offensive operations when needed.

At Yusuf's command 20,000 horsemen charged at full speed, shaking the ground with their thundering tramp. The French stood firm while their artillery poured volley after volley of canister into the advancing masses. The front ranks were nearly all swept away by the storm of fire and the rear ranks wheeled about and fled.

At right, Mamluk and Arab soldiers, from a sketch of Ottoman troops in Egypt taken from Capt. Thomas Walsh's Journal of the Campaign in Egypt.

The Ottoman cavalry was soon rallied and attacked again, but found it impossible to withstand the murderous volleys of the French squares. Unable to break through the French squares the Ottoman cavalry eventually lost heart and broke off the attack.

With both the Ottoman artillery and cavalry neutralized, Kleber now ordered the general advance. This attack commenced about noon. By one p.m. the majority of the Ottoman army, already uneasy over the flight of their cavalry, was in general retreat after offering only token resistance to the French.

About this time Yusuf, who had refused to give ground, was finally convinced to retire by Captain Lacy, a British military observer, when the French attempted to cut off his line of retreat by marching in two oblique lines. Believing these forces to be his own troops returning to the battle, Yusuf had allowed them to approach within a mile of his position.

The battle was a complete victory for the French who captured 19 Ottoman cannon, plus a large quantity of baggage and tents. During the night of the 20th, the French followed the retreating Ottoman army closely, keeping up a warm fire upon them with their horse artillery. While Yusuf tried to make a stand at Bilbeis on the 21st, his forces were too scattered and the French pursuit too intense. Instead, he was forced to fall back on Jaffa.

Casualties

It was during this retreat that the Ottomans took the majority of their casualties. These loses were inflicted, not by the French, but by other Muslims. The poverty-stricken local Bedouins mercilessly attacked and robbed the stragglers, reportedly killing thousands.

As the army fell back, the French quickly, and with a minimum of effort, retook the fortresses and fortified villages just recently surrendered to the Ottomans. The Ottomans would believe from this time on that Smith's intelligence with the French led directly to their defeat at the Battle of Heliopolis. Whether this was true or not, he did spend much of the rest of his time in Egypt on blockade duty off Alexandria where he regularly entertained and was in turn entertained by the French commander and other officers of that city. It is also interesting to note that following the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 Smith took up permanent residence in Paris where he was considered a great friend of the French and was regularly feted by the French officers and men he had come to know in Egypt.

In his own writings, Napoleon himself agreed with the Ottomans, saying that Smith's actions had "saved the French army. If he had kept it secret for seven or eight days longer, Cairo would have been given up to the Turks, and the French army necessarily have been obliged to surrender."

However, the situation was not to be all in Kleber's favor. During the battle a detachment of Janissaries under the command of Nafif Pasha, and a detachment of Mamluks under Murat Bey, had broken through the French lines and entered Cairo near the village of Boulac. Inspired by Nafif and Murat, and with the French out of the city battling the forces of the Grand Vezir, the people of Cairo revolted against their foreign occupiers. After driving off the main Ottoman army, the French had to fight house to house until April 25 to recover the city, suffering over a thousand casualties in the process. One unsupported report of the battle for Cairo claims that the scientists who accompanied Napoleon's invasion army devised a cart-sized flamethrower which was used to deadly effect in the narrow, twisting streets of the city.

The withdrawal of the French from other parts of Egypt to meet the Grand Vezir's army also caused the French to lose control of both the Delta and Upper Egypt, temporarily cutting off their supply of taxes and grain.

Brutality

The brutality of the hand-to-hand fighting in Cairo, often involving attacks on women and children, earned Kleber the intense hatred of the entire Muslim world. As a result, on June 14, 1800, he was assassinated by a fanatical Islamic religious student and command of the French army in Egypt passed to General Jacques-Francois 'Abdullah' Menou.

Unlike Kleber, who saw service in Egypt as futile and a waste of good men and material, Menou enjoyed his service in Egypt. Once in command, he attempted to make the country into a permanent French colony. He accepted Islam, took the name Abdullah and married a native wife: but all his plans would eventually come to naught.

As the year drew to a close four new armies, two English and two Ottoman, were assembling to once again fall on Egypt. These all attacked the French in Egypt in 1801. The remaining 26,000 French held out until August of 1801, when they were finally forced to surrender to the joint Anglo-Ottoman army. The final terms of surrender were almost identical to those negotiated two years earlier in the Convention of Al Arish. In the end, the British refusal to recognize the treaty resulted in nothing more than two more years of meaningless warfare and millions of pounds and thousands of lives lost.

Author's Note