Bonaparte Sets Out
Part 1
Part 2
Bonaparte's admiring biographer, Thiers, describes the French invasion of Egypt as `the rashest attempt that
history records: rasher even than Moscow'. But was it really so? In the year 1798 French arms were everywhere
victorious; the Dutch were allies, the central European states were contained along the Rhine,
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Spain was helpless,
and by his defeat of Austria Bonaparte had not only conquered northern and central Italy but had made himself
virtually director of the Papacy as well. It was really a matter of finding fresh battlefields for the revolutionary
army, since it was filled with confidence and eager for more victories.
It was true that England was still in the field, but what could England do? The Royal Navy might be very strong,
but its morale had recently been damaged by two mutinies, and for some time past England had withdrawn her fleet from
the Mediterranean, merely contenting herself with the blockade of Cadiz.
Her best ships were needed nearer at home,
since she herself was in imminent danger of invasion, and it was by no means certain that the French army would not
manage to get ashore, either in Ireland or in the vicinity of Folkestone, on the south coast. The French, in fact,
were actively planning just such an expedition.
Nor was the Egyptian campaign a hastily conceived project or a mere pretext for continuing the war. Bonaparte had
been preparing for it for a long time. He had very carefully studied affairs in the Near East: in 1797 Milan's
celebrated library was removed by the French as part of their booty; when the books arrived in Paris it was found
that nearly every volume relating to the East was annotated by marginal notes in Bonaparte's hand-writing.
He had
every reason to believe that the Ottoman Empire was far too weak to defend its distant province in Egypt, and that
in Egypt itself the Mamelukes were a worn-out military clique of medieval backwardness; how could their cavalry hope
to contend with the new infantry tactics and modern artillery? Bonaparte's friend Volney had travelled widely through
the Sultan's dominions, and had provided him with very full information on this score. 'The forces of the Mamelukes,
' Volney had written, `are a rabble, their way of fighting a duel, their war merely brigandage.'
As for Alexandria, the port at which presumably the French would land, it was defenceless: `One sees there no
fortifications of any kind: the lighthouse, even with its high towers, is no bastion. There are not four cannon in order,
and not a single gunner who knows how to aim them. The five hundred Janissaries who are supposed to form the garrison
have been reduced in numbers by a half, and are common workmen who hardly know how to light a pipe.'
Once conquered, Egypt would not be difficult to govern. `There is no country in the world,' Napoleon Bonaparte was to write later,
`where the government controls more closely, by means of the Nile, the life of the people. Under a good administration
the Nile gains on the desert: under a bad one, the desert gains on the Nile.'
Then too, it has to be remembered that Bonaparte was no northern Frenchman; he was a Corsican, he felt at home in
the Mediterranean. He believed, with some confidence, that he had an understanding of the devious politics of the
Moslems and the East. The Mamelukes were hated as foreign tyrants in Egypt, and had all but thrown off their
allegiance to Constantinople. Why should it not be possible to go to the Sultan and offer to regain for him his
lost province? Why should not the French invade and proclaim themselves as liberators who had no quarrel with
Islam or with the Egyptian people, but only with their oppressors, the Mamelukes?
And surely this was the most effective way to injure England. She had seized the Cape of Good Hope to open up a new
safe route to the east. Well then, the French would have Egypt, and from that base they would be able to menace the
British in India, perhaps even land in India itself. A canal cut through the isthmus at Suez would give the
French immediate access to the Red Sea, and not all the British ships labouring round the Cape could hold her back.
From Egypt, too, the French could strike north into the Ottoman Empire, and if the Sultan could not be coerced or
cowed he might very well be conquered. Egypt in fact could be made to fill a new role in the world, as a kind of
outlying fortress threatening both the east and the west, and once it was made secure it would be time enough
to turn directly upon England herself. And suppose all these dreams came to nothing, suppose the French succeeded
in taking Egypt and nothing more, the possession of the country would be a very useful bargaining point in making
peace with England. Part 2
Extract from “The Blue Nile”, Written by Alan Moorehead. Westerham Press Ltd Kent, London: 1972.
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