- Wojciech Kossak
- Plan of the Battle
Battle of the Pyramids | |||||||
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Part of the French Campaign in Egypt and Syria during the War of the Second Coalition | |||||||
The Battle of the Pyramids by Louis-François Lejeune | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
French Republic | |||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Strength | |||||||
25,000 [lower-alpha 1]
| 21,000–35,000 [lower-alpha 1]
| ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
289 killed or wounded [5] | 10,000 killed or wounded [6] [3] | ||||||
The Battle of the Pyramids, also known as the Battle of Embabeh, was a major engagement fought on 21 July 1798, during the French Invasion of Egypt. The battle took place near the village of Embabeh, across the Nile River from Cairo, but was named by Napoleon after the Great Pyramid of Giza visible nearly nine miles away.
After capturing Alexandria and crossing the desert, the French army, led by General Napoleon Bonaparte, scored a decisive victory against the main army of the local Mamluk rulers, wiping out almost the entire Ottoman army located in Egypt. It was the first battle where Bonaparte personally devised and employed the divisional square tactic to great effect. The deployment of the French brigades into these massive rectangular formations repeatedly threw back multiple cavalry charges of the Mamluks.
The victory effectively sealed the French conquest of Egypt as Murad Bey salvaged the remnants of his army, chaotically fleeing to Upper Egypt. French casualties amounted to roughly 300, but Ottoman and Mamluk casualties soared to approximately 10,000. Napoleon entered Cairo after the battle and created a new local administration under his supervision. The campaign formed part of a great global rivalry between France and Britain; the French objective was to establish a base from which to continue its campaign against British India. After the French fleet was destroyed by Horatio Nelson at the Battle of the Nile, Bonaparte marched through the Levant until his advance was stalled by Anglo-Turkish forces at Acre. [7]
After landing in Ottoman-controlled Egypt and capturing Alexandria on 2 July 1798, the French army led by General Bonaparte marched down the desert toward Cairo. They met the forces of the ruling Mamluks nine miles (15 kilometres) from the Pyramids and only four miles (6 kilometres) from Cairo. [lower-alpha 2] The Mamluk forces were commanded by two Georgian mamluks, Murad Bey and Ibrahim Bey, and had a force of powerful and highly trained cavalry at their command as well as fellahin militia acting as infantry. [2] On 13 July after French scouts located Murad's encampment, Bonaparte ordered an advance toward the enemy's forces, engaging them during the brief battle of Chobrakit. After the destruction of their flagship by French field artillery, the Mamluks retreated. The skirmish ended in a minor French victory. [2]
On 21 July, after marching all night, the French caught up with the Ottoman force in the vicinity of the village of Embabeh. After one hour rest, the men were ordered to get ready for battle. [2] Bonaparte ordered an advance on Murad's army with each of the five divisions of his army organised into hollow rectangles with cavalry and baggage at the center and cannon at the corners. Bonaparte exhorted his troops to remain steady and keep their ranks closed up when facing the Mameluke cavalry. [2]
“Soldiers! You came to this country to save the inhabitants from barbarism, to bring civilisation to the Orient and subtract this beautiful part of the world from the domination of England. From the top of those pyramids, forty centuries are contemplating you”
— General Bonaparte pre-battle Order of the Day, [1]
The French divisions advanced south in echelon, with the right flank leading and the left flank protected by the Nile. From right to left, Bonaparte posted the divisions of Louis Charles Antoine Desaix, Jean-Louis-Ébénézer Reynier, Charles-François-Joseph Dugua, Honoré Vial and Louis André Bon. In addition, Desaix sent a small detachment to occupy the nearby village of Biktil, just to the west. Murad anchored his right flank on the Nile at the village of Embabeh, which was fortified and held with infantry and some ancient cannons, his left flank was anchored on the village of Biktil, where the rest of his cannons were placed there to protect from French flanking movements. His Mamluk cavalry deployed in the center, between these villages. The other Mamluk army, commanded by Ibrahim Bey, stood across the Nile and watched the events unfold, unable to cross and intervene. Murad Bey's original plan was to repulse the French attacks on his fortified flanks, and then attack their demoralized center.
The Mamluks, being a force that was still largely feudal and medieval in all of its practical characteristics, including its military, were completely at odds with the modern standing French army. The majority of the Egyptian army was drafted Fellahin (peasants), its mainstay was the Mamluk horse. An episode during the battle that demonstrated the rift between the armies occurred when a Mamluk rider, dressed in heavy armour, rode to within only a few steps from the French lines and demanded a duel. The French responded with gunfire. [8]
....Then the column that came to fight Murad Bey was divided according to methods known to them (The French) in warfare, and it approached the barricades, so that it surrounded the soldiers from behind and in front of it, and its drums sounded, and it sent its successive guns and cannons, and the wind became fiercer, and the smoke became dark, and the world was darkened by the smoke of gunpowder and the dust of the wind. For people it seemed that the earth shook and the sky fell on it.
— ʻAbd al-Rah̤mān al-Jabartī's History of Egypt
Napoleon ordered Desaix's square to advance to the right (towards the Egyptian center) and the rest of his squares to the left (in the direction of Embebeh), Murad Bey saw an opportunity and ordered his defterdar Ayyub Bey to attack the French squares, at about 15:30, the Mamluk cavalry hurled itself at the French without warning. The divisional squares of Desaix, Reynier and Dugua held firm and repelled the horsemen with point-blank musket and artillery fire. Unable to make an impression on the French formations, some of the frustrated Mamluks rode off to attack Desaix's detached force. This was also a failure. Meanwhile, nearer the river, Bon's division deployed into attack columns and charged Embabeh. Breaking into the village, the French routed the garrison. Trapped against the river, many of the Mamluks and infantry tried to swim to safety, and hundreds drowned. The French reported a loss of 29 killed and 260 wounded. Murad's losses were far heavier, perhaps as many as 10,000 including 3,000 of the elite Mamluk cavalry, and his defterdar Ayyub Bey was also killed in the battle. [6] Murad Bey himself was also wounded in the cheek with a hit from a saber. [9] Murad escaped to Upper Egypt with his 3,000 surviving cavalry, where he carried out an active guerrilla campaign before being defeated by Desaix in late 1799.
Upon hearing news of the defeat of their legendary cavalry, the waiting Mamluk armies in Cairo dispersed to Syria, Bonaparte entered the conquered capital of Egypt on 24 July. [2] On 11 August French forces caught up with Ibrahim Bey inflicting on him a crushing defeat at Salalieh. [2]
After the Battle of Pyramids, Napoleon instituted French administration in Cairo and suppressed the subsequent rebellions violently. Although Napoleon tried to co-opt the local Egyptian ulema , scholars like Al-Jabarti poured scorn on the ideas and cultural ways of the French. [10] Despite their cordial proclamations to the natives, with some French soldiers even converting to Islam in order to take Muslim wives, clerics like Abdullah al-Sharqawi, who headed Napoleon's Cairo government or divan, [11] later described the French as: "‘materialist, libertine philosophers … [who] deny the resurrection, and the afterlife, and … [the] prophets" [12] while for the French, mathematician Joseph Fourier regretted that "the Muslim religion would on no account permit the development of the mind". [12]
The Battle of the Pyramids signalled the beginning of the end of seven centuries of Mamluk rule in Egypt. Despite this auspicious beginning, British Admiral Horatio Nelson's victory in the Battle of the Nile ten days later effectively ended Napoleon's ambitions in Egypt. [13]
The battle was depicted in the 2023 historical drama Napoleon, although the depiction of the battle has been heavily criticized for its historical inaccuracies, among which include Napoleon's army shooting at the pyramids. [14]
The battle was depicted by François-André Vincent in a sketch, [15] and by various other artists.
The Battle of Marengo was fought on 14 June 1800 between French forces under the First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte and Austrian forces near the city of Alessandria, in Piedmont, Italy. Near the end of the day, the French overcame General Michael von Melas' surprise attack, drove the Austrians out of Italy and consolidated Bonaparte's political position in Paris as First Consul of France in the wake of his coup d'état the previous November.
The War of the Second Coalition was the second war targeting revolutionary France by many European monarchies, led by Britain, Austria, and Russia and including the Ottoman Empire, Portugal, Naples and various German monarchies. Prussia did not join the coalition, while Spain supported France.
1798 was a relatively quiet period in the French Revolutionary Wars. The major continental powers in the First coalition had made peace with France, leaving France dominant in Europe with only a slow naval war with Great Britain to worry about. The leaders of the Directory in Paris feared Napoleon Bonaparte's popularity after his victories in Italy, so they were relieved when he proposed to depart France and mount an expedition to Egypt to gain further glory.
Murad Bey Mohammed was an Egyptian Mamluk chieftain (Bey), cavalry commander and joint ruler of Egypt with Ibrahim Bey. He is often remembered as being a cruel and extortionate ruler, but an energetic courageous fighter.
Ibrahim Bey was an Egyptian Mamluk chieftain and regent of Egypt.
In the Battle of Abukir Napoleon Bonaparte defeated Seid Mustafa Pasha's Ottoman army on 25 July 1799, during the French campaign in Egypt. It is considered the first pitched battle with this name, as there already had been a naval battle on 1 August 1798, the Battle of the Nile. No sooner had the French forces returned from a campaign to Syria, than the Ottoman forces were transported to Egypt by Sidney Smith's British fleet to put an end to French rule in Egypt.
Ottoman Egypt was an administrative division of the Ottoman Empire after the conquest of Mamluk Egypt by the Ottomans in 1517. The Ottomans administered Egypt as a province (eyalet) of their empire. It remained formally an Ottoman province until 1914, though in practice it became increasingly autonomous during the 19th century and was under de facto British control from 1882.
The French invasion of Egypt and Syria was a military campaign in and occupation of Ottoman territories in Egypt and Syria by French forces under the command of Napoleon took place during the French Revolutionary Wars. It was the primary purpose of the Mediterranean campaign of 1798, in which the French captured Malta while being followed by the British Royal Navy, whose pursuit was hampered by a lack of scouting frigates and reliable information.
Louis Charles Antoine Desaix was a French general and military leader during the French Revolutionary Wars. According to the usage of the time, he took the name Louis Charles Antoine Desaix de Veygoux. He was considered one of the greatest generals of the Revolutionary Wars.
The Battle of Mount Tabor was fought on 16 April 1799, between French forces commanded by Napoleon Bonaparte and General Jean-Baptiste Kléber, against an Ottoman Army under Abdullah Pasha al-Azm, ruler of Damascus. The battle was a consequence of the siege of Acre, in the later stages of the French Campaign in Egypt and Syria.
The Battle of Heliopolis was an engagement that pitted the French Armée d'Orient under the command of General Jean-Baptiste Kléber against an Ottoman army at Heliopolis on 20 March 1800. The French were victorious, inflicting over 9,000 casualties on the Ottomans while suffering only 600 killed or wounded.
The Battle of Shubra Khit, also known as the Battle of Chobrakit, and known among the French as Combat de Chébreïss was among the first major engagement of Napoleon's campaign in Egypt that took place on 13 July 1798. On their march to Cairo, the French army encountered an Ottoman army consisting of Mamluk cavalry and drafted Fellahins under Murad Bey. Napoleon lined his forces up into infantry squares, a tactic which helped repel the Mamluk cavalry, largely due to their inability to penetrate them without suffering severe casualties. A naval battle also occurred, with an Ottoman flotilla being repelled by a French flotilla.
Fort Julien is a fort located on the left or west bank of the Nile about 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) north-west of Rashid (Rosetta) on the north coast of Egypt. It was originally built by the Mamluks and occupied by the French during Napoleon Bonaparte's campaign in Egypt and Syria between 1798 and 1801. The fort became famous as the place where the Rosetta Stone was found in 1799.
The Revolt of Cairo was a revolt that occurred on 21–22 October 1798 by the citizens of Cairo against the French occupation of Egypt led by Napoleon Bonaparte.
El Rahmaniya is a city and markaz in Beheira Governorate, Egypt.
Trabluslu Ali Pasha, also known as Cezayirli Ali Pasha or Seydi Ali Pasha, or Ali Burghol (Burghul) was an Ottoman statesman. He served as the Ottoman governor of Egypt from July 1803 to February 1804.
Shubra Khit is a town in Beheira Governorate in Egypt, which is famous for being the place of the "Battle of Shubra Khit" between the army of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Mamluk cavalry under Murad Bey on July 13, 1798.
Battle of the Pyramids, July 21, 1798 is an early 19th century drawing by French painter François-André Vincent. Done in black ink and graphite on washed paper, the study depicts the Battle of the Pyramids. The work is currently on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Nafisa al-Bayda, was the spouse of the Egyptian Mamluk leaders Ali Bey al-Kabir and Murad Bey. She has been referred to as the most famous Mamluk woman in 18th-century Egypt. She was a successful business financier and philanthropist, but is most known for her diplomatic service as the mediator between Murad Bey and the French occupation forces of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1798–1801.