Napoleon in Syria

Isolated in Egypt
General Bonaparte
Strikes into Syria

Siege of Acre

by John Dunn and Melanie Byrd
with artwork by Jacques Domange and Ray Rubin

Acre was located on a promontory jutting into the Mediterranean. In 1799, with a population of about 16,000, it was the third largest city in Syria, an important trade center, and Ahmad's headquarters. Although the sea walls dated from Crusader times, Acre's land defenses were fairly new. Begun in the mid-1700s, the powerful walls were built to withstand most modern artillery.

Ahmad garrisoned the city with 5,000 of his best troops. While unequal to Bonaparte's veterans in an open battlefield, these infantrymen were capable of defending Acre's fortifications vigorously. The massacre at Jaffa precluded any thoughts of surrender. Artillery, gunpowder, ammunition, food, and water were available in quantity. More importantly, additional supplies could still be brought in through the sea.

The fact that Acre was a large port was critical to the upcoming battle. On 15 March, reinforcements sailed into the harbor. It included 2,000 Arnauts, plus Commodore William Sidney Smith with the Royal Navy battleships H.M.S. Tigre and H.M.S. Theseus. Positioned to enfilade both sea flanks, these ships increased the odds against a quick French victory. In addition, 500 sailors and marines landed, along with 18- and 24-pounder guns. Thus reinforced, and with plenty of supplies, the garrison of Acre prepared for action. Ahmad confided to Smith, "If the French had set out to move a mountain, they could do it more quickly than drive me out of Acre."

Ahmad's confidence was bolstered by a critical naval victory of 18 March. On that day, Smith's squadron intercepted Captain Standelet's flotilla of transports. Capturing six, Smith also came into possession of their cargo, the French siege guns. Bonaparte was now deprived of his heavy artillery, while the same guns and powder were added to Acre's defenses.

Not yet aware of this setback, French soldiers moved north along the coast. On 19 March, Bonaparte directed the occupation of some abandoned castle ruins, plus all significant nearby hills. During the next two months, he launched eight major assaults against Acre. Without his heavy guns, Bonaparte's modern army of 1799 had to employ siege methods not much different from Sultan Khalil's capture of the city in 1291. Charged with overcoming these problems was head of engineers General Louis Caffarelli. Due to his missing leg, Egyptians called him Abu Khasaba, or "Father Wooden Leg." Al-Jabartti described him as "...daring in combat, and, in addition, knew how to besiege fortresses and take them."

These skills were put to the test at Acre. Working with the French artillery commander, General Dommartin, Caffarelli directed construction of trenches and breaching batteries. The latter consisted of only three 12-pounders, plus 8-pounders. Their short range and small destructive power required the French siege works be set close to Acre's defenses. French engineers started digging about 600 yards from the city walls. They attempted to negate the enemy's superior artillery by constructing zig-zag and parallel trenches.

Louis-Edmund Le Picard de Phélipeaux

Much credit for successful defense of Acre goes to the royalist émigré Louis-Edmund Le Picard de Phélipeaux. A French aristocrat who attended school with Bonaparte, Phélipeaux was an inveterate enemy of the Revolution and a top-rated artillery expert. Previously, he had served in several émigré units and then as a secret agent. Notably, in 1793, disguised as a police officer, he helped free Sidney Smith from the notorious Temple Prison (and probable execution by guillotine). Now serving directly beneath the man he had rescued six years earlier, Phélipeaux skillfully battled his countrymen. He not only sited the land artillery, but also helped convert the recently captured French supply ships into additional gunboats.

Generals Caffarelli and Dom-martin reconnoitered the defenses on 19 March. They suggested a sharp angle along the walls as the weak spot. Their report convinced Bonaparte to prepare an assault for 28 March. This called for an artillery bombardment followed by exploding a mine. From the start, counter-battery fire was deadly, and soon silenced all but three French guns. Next, attacking infantry discovered the mine was ineffective. Unaware that Acre possessed a stone-faced moat, French engineers used insufficient gunpowder to create a proper breach.

French troops still charged forward, braving a hail of artillery and small arms fire, but then found their scaling ladders too short. Some managed to climb up the walls, creating a temporary panic among the defenders. At this point, as he would do several times in the future, Ahmad charged forth, sword in hand, personally directing a counter-attack. Stones and grenades fell like rain, forcing a French retreat.

Ahmad "the Butcher"

A few days later, Ahmad, living up to his nickname "the butcher," executed more than a hundred Christians inside Acre. These included a few recently captured French soldiers, plus the entire staff of the French consulate. The only explanation offered was that "some Christians had supported Bonaparte," and thus all were suspect. The bodies were tossed into the sea, but many washed up close to the French lines. Stymied in his first attack, and despite being low on gunpowder, Bonaparte tried another mine on 1 April. When the debris and smoke cleared, "the damned tower" was hardly damaged, yet Bonaparte ordered his troops into the moat. This time, the defenders tossed in wood, bales of cotton, and other inflammables. The resulting fire routed the attackers back to their trenches.

Now filled with dead bodies, the moat presented a macabre spectacle, along with a horrid stench. The French soldiers would continue to charge into this pile of unburied corpses, causing Smith to comment: "It is impossible to see the lives of even our enemies thus sacrificed, and their bravery so misapplied, without feeling regret."

Although always unsuccessful, repeated allied sorties from Acre demonstrated the garrison's high state of morale. For the French, the situation was more desperate. Food was limited, while ammunition supplies depleted to the point that Bonaparte offered a reward for every spent cannonball retrieved. Worse, by early April, the dreaded plague returned to haunt both sides.

After all the setbacks, some French officers probably shared Captain Jean Doguereau's opinion. He recorded, "We shall never take this place." More to the point, General Kléber saw French failures due to bad tactics. "We see Acre defended by Europeans," he explained, "and we have attacked it à la Turque!" On 9 April the irreplaceable Caffarelli was mortally wounded and the popular general died nine days later. His death was another serious blow to the besiegers, yet, remarkably, the French soon would face a greater challenge than Acre's walls.

Battle at Fula (Mount Tabor)

The Ottomans would attempt to relieve Acre. Ahmet, the Pasha of Damascus, led his 33,000-man Army of Damascus to link up with several groups of Mameluke refugees and Palestinian yarliyya and break the siege. After French forces guarding the eastern approaches to Acre under Generals Joachim Murat and Andoche Junot chased off Ahmet's advanced units, they were reinforced by a division under General Kléber. On 16 April, 2,000 Frenchmen battled 25,000 cavalry and 10,000 infantry near Fula. Clouds of light horsemen swarmed about the French, who formed two infantry squares and held a ruined castle.

25 miles away, Bonaparte saw the possibility for disaster. Leading a division to save Kléber, Napoleon's column arrived at mid-morning in the enemy's rear. Bonaparte detached his cavalry to take the Ottoman camp, then deployed two infantry squares for an assault on the main body. Kléber simultaneously formed his men into attack columns. The result was a deadly triangle, with the Turks in its center.

The one-sided battle at Fula eliminated the Army of Damascus. The Ottomans suffered more than 1,000 casualties, including 300 prisoners, 1,000 supply animals, much food and weapons, plus a significant quantity of coin. Kléber's men, who fought for nearly ten hours, lost two killed and sixty wounded; Bonaparte's column suffered about forty losses. With a flair for the dramatic, Napoleon chose to call it the Battle of Mount Tabor, after a local peak that figures prominently in the Christian Bible.

So the siege of Acre continued, due entirely to Bonaparte's determination. He may have been encouraged by a small but important French triumph. On 21 April, Rear-Admiral Jean-Baptise Perrée evaded the British blockade, getting three frigates into Jaffa harbor. He dropped off ammunition, nine heavy siege guns, and information that Ottoman reinforcements were headed for Acre, while their Army of Rhodes was nearly prepared to invade Egypt. Napoleon would have to act quickly, and he now had the artillery to batter down Acre's walls.

The guns were dragged north to Acre, where they were emplaced by 30 April. Comprised of 18- and 24-pounders, this changed the dynamics of the siege. Ahmad ordered the preparation of a second position behind his main lines. These were completed despite the untimely demise of Phélipeaux, who suffered a fatal sun stroke on 2 May.

As the French bombardment continued, thirty Ottoman transports arrived on 7 May. These brought reinforcements, including the 1,000-man Shifflick Regiment, considered the best troops in the Ottoman Empire. Their dispatch to Acre indicates the high value the Sultan in Constantinople placed on its defense.

Breech

A terrific bombardment, preceded by another mine, covered a night assault on 7 May. Finally gaining a lodgment in "the damned tower," picked men from the 18th and 32nd Demi-Brigades held out until next morning. On 8 May, French gunners created a breach in the walls. The crisis point of the siege had arrived.

On the morning of 8 May, the defenders saw a wave of advancing bayonets. Smith called this "...a most critical point of the contest." He deployed Royal Marines and British sailors to support the Shifflicks and Arnauts, who, instead of blocking the breach, pulled back to form a three-sided box.

The British arrived as General Lannes took 200 grenadiers through the breach and into the gardens near Ahmad's palace. Expecting such an eventuality, the defenders prepared an ambush, complete with grenades, Arnaut snipers, and enfilade fire from Royal Navy 68-pounder carronades! It was a slaughter, with dozens of French killed or wounded. Even tossing in his elite bodyguard of Guides-à-Pied, Bonaparte was unable to prevent a retreat when Ahmad directed a counter-attack. The survivors, with Lannes badly wounded, fled the gardens.

That night, the Shifflick Regiment launched four sorties, which Bonaparte described as "...filling our trenches with their dead bodies." Although repulsed, the Turks seemed poised to renew the attacks at any moment. Such high morale no longer existed among French troops, who launched a weak assault on 10 May. It failed like all the others, and General Bon took a mortal wound.

After the Shifflick Regiment launched another counter-attack which, although repulsed, brushed aside French skirmishers and overran some artillery, Bonaparte decided to give up the siege. While Reynier's division provided a rear guard, the French pulled out on 21 May, 61 days after siege began.

Napoleon in Syria, 1799

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