The Egyptian campaign is a military expedition to the East led by General Bonaparte from 1798 to 1800, as part of the fight against England, the only power to maintain hostilities against Revolutionary France. Appointed by the Directory to lead the expedition to Egypt in 1798, Napoleon Bonaparte secured control of the country at the Battle of the Pyramids. He appears as the liberator from the Mamluk yoke, while the scientists who accompany him rediscover the past of Egypt. But Admiral Nelson destroys the French fleet at Aboukir. Bonaparte gone, the French evacuated the country in 1801.
The context of the Egyptian campaign
It was under the Directory that the Egyptian expedition was decided. The directors who assumed executive power used the army to maintain order in the face of Jacobin and royalist threats. This is why they appeal to General Bonaparte, already victorious during the Italian campaign. The purpose of the expedition was twofold:to keep Bonaparte away, considered too cumbersome and ambitious by the Directory, and above all to hinder the commercial power of England. The advantages of this expedition:to cut the Isthmus of Suez, one of the routes from England to Asia, to prepare an expedition against India, the main source of English wealth and finally to secure a colony which could replace those that France has lost.
The expedition seems risky as it ties up an army in the distance as war threatens to resume in Europe. But escaping the control of the sultan, the resistance of Egypt is considered weak. After Campoformio, Bonaparte has sufficient forces to defeat the Directory. The latter is unpopular, the coup is possible but success is not guaranteed. Discredited, the Directory nevertheless remained the legal government. Bonaparte knows that he must multiply brilliant actions so as not to be forgotten. His election to the Academy of Sciences in 1797 gave him a reputation as a scholar. After the failure of Hoche in England, there remains the solution proposed by Talleyrand, namely Egypt.
Officially a scientific expedition
On May 19, 1798, 200 ships left Toulon with 35,000 men on board. The expedition was prepared in the greatest secrecy in order to avoid the English fleet. The official pretext is that of a scientific expedition. 167 scholars, engineers and artists, members of the science and arts commission, such as Dolomieu, Henri-Joseph Redouté, the mathematician Gaspard Monge, the chemist Claude Berthollet or Vivant Denon, took part in the journey and founded the Institut d'Egypte whose mission is to propagate the ideas of the Enlightenment. A review was even created for this purpose, the "Egyptian Decade".
Archaeological excavations lead to the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, which bear inscriptions in hieroglyphic Egyptian, Demotic and Greek. This stele marks the beginning of Egyptology thanks to Champollion's decipherment. In reality, Bonaparte seeks additional glory in the East, while watching with one eye the expected decomposition of dictatorial power.
Bonaparte's campaign in Egypt
The French landed near Alexandria in Egypt in July 1798. On July 21, victory at the Battle of the Pyramids gave access to Cairo. Despite the defeat in the harbor of Aboukir on August 1, 1798 against the British fleet, Bonaparte reorganized Egypt as he had done for Italy. There he established a government of seven people, standardized taxes and fairly distributed the available land. A population census is undertaken.
In October 1798, Cairo rose up which cost General Dupuy his life. If the Egyptian notables most often agree to join the French army, the people remain hostile to the occupation because the British blockade leads to a shortage and an increase in the cost of goods.
Bonaparte defeats the Turks in April 1799 at Mount Tabor. But the lack of artillery bothers him and the plague begins to appear. He retreats. Under the threat of a Turkish landing in Egypt, Bonaparte defeated the Ottoman forces at Aboukir on July 25, 1799. This victory had the merit of erasing the previous defeat.
Bonaparte returns to France and end of the expedition to Egypt
With this expedition to the East and the creation of new states on its borders, Europe suddenly realizes that France is growing and dangerously extending its influence. From this threat was born the second coalition, formed by England, Austria, Russia and Naples. The allies gather more than 300,000 men against 150,000 for the French, whose best troops are in Egypt.
These new threats divert attention from Egypt. As a result, the remoteness, which represented an advantage for Bonaparte, turns into a handicap. On August 23, the Emperor entrusted the command of the army of Egypt to Kléber and returned to France.
After having succeeded in deceiving the English in the Mediterranean, the announcement of his victory reached Paris a few days before his arrival, thus putting an end to the pessimistic rumors that made him a defeated general. He acquires the image of a warlord who supports France in the face of external threats and provokes demonstrations of joy on the way home.
Wreathed in prestige based on intense propaganda (the Courrier d'Egypte was addressed to the expeditionary force and was meant to bolster the morale of the troops), Bonaparte seized power by the coup of 18 Brumaire (November 9, 1799). Two years later, the survivors of his army in Egypt signed a capitulation with the English, which ensured their repatriation as well as that of the scientists still present.
The Egyptian campaign will give birth to a new discipline, Egyptology, and open the way to an archeology more oriented towards the knowledge of civilizations and the study of their vestiges than by the simple search for treasures.
Bibliography
- The Egyptian Campaign, by Jacques-Olivier Boudon. Belin, 2018.
- Bonaparte and the Egyptian campaign, by Catherine Chadefaud. Ellipses, 2018.