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.
At this time, Egypt was a province of the Ottoman Empire, but Napoleon viewed invading Egypt as a way to threaten British dominance in the Mediterranean Sea and threaten the British position in India, and to gain prestige for revolutionary arms.
Napoleon raised a large army including scientists and cultural experts, and sailed from Toulon on 19 May. Stopping to capture Malta on 12 June, he landed near Alexandria on 2 July and took the city. Napoleon's army proceeded to march against the Mameluke armies in Cairo and met them at the Battle of the Pyramids on 21 July. Facing a huge army, Napoleon organized his army into squares and used his artillery to disperse the Mameluke attacks. The Mameluke army retreated into Syria, leaving Napoleon dominant in Egypt.
Battle of the Nile
In an isolated incident near Île d'Aix, the crew of the vastly outgunned corvetteBayonnaise boarded the British Ambuscade and won her, in some of the bloodiest hand-to-hand fightings of 1798.
However, the British were threatened by this move, and admiral Horatio Nelson rushed to the coast of Egypt. There, he came upon the French fleet at anchor and systematically destroyed it in the Battle of the Nile. Without a fleet, Napoleon's army was trapped in Egypt, and the majority would never return to France.
Napoleon consolidated his base in Egypt for the remainder of the year. However, the local population in Cairo, encouraged by the battle of the Nile and annoyed by various taxes and impositions by the French, revolted in October, killing many of the French but eventually being suppressed. Damage to mosques sustained during this revolt embittered the Egyptian population against the French.
Campaigns in Europe
The French were also under pressure in Belgium and Luxembourg where the local people revolted against conscription and anti-religious violence (Peasants' War). French troops deposed Pope Pius VI, establishing a republic in Rome.
On 5 March 1798, French troops overran Switzerland at the invitation of French-speaking factions in Vaud, and the Old Swiss Confederation collapsed. On 12 April 1798, 121 cantonal deputies proclaimed the Helvetic Republic, "One and Indivisible". The new régime abolished cantonal sovereignty and feudal rights. The occupying forces established a centralized state based on the ideas of the French Revolution.
On 18 May the British launched a combined Royal Navy and British Army raid on Ostend to destroy the lock gates of the Bruge Canal and to burn the French gun-ships that were in the harbor. The objectives were achieved but the entire army contingent of 1,300 men was either killed or captured.
Ireland
An expeditionary force was sent to County Mayo in Ireland to assist in the rebellion against Britain in the summer of 1798. On 22 August, nearly two months after the main uprisings had been defeated, about 1,000 French soldiers under General Humbert landed in the north-west of the country, at Kilcummin in County Mayo. Joined by up to 5,000 local rebels, they inflicted a humiliating defeat (known as the Castlebar races to commemorate the speed of the British retreat) on the British at the Battle of Castlebar and set up a short-lived "Republic of Connacht", before final defeat at the Battle of Ballinamuck, in County Longford, on 8 September 1798.
Second Coalition
By the end of the year, the European powers, having recovered from their previous defeats and emboldened by Napoleon's absence,[citation needed] organized a new Second Coalition. The only military activity before the end of the year was in Italy, where Naples captured Rome on 28 October but was driven out by the end of the year.
The 1790s was a decade of the Gregorian calendar that began on January 1, 1790, and ended on December 31, 1799. Considered as some of the Industrial Revolution's earlier days, the 1790s called for the start of an anti-imperialist world, as new democracies such as the French First Republic and the United States of America began flourishing at this era. Revolutions – both political and social – forever transformed global politics and art, as wars such as the French Revolutionary Wars and the American Revolutionary War moulded modern-day concepts of liberalism, partisanship, elections, and the political compass.
1798 (MDCCXCVIII) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and a common year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar, the 1798th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 798th year of the 2nd millennium, the 98th year of the 18th century, and the 9th year of the 1790s decade. As of the start of 1798, the Gregorian calendar was 11 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.
The French Revolutionary Wars were a series of sweeping military conflicts lasting from 1792 until 1802 and resulting from the French Revolution. They pitted France against Great Britain, the Holy Roman Empire, Prussia, Russia, and several other monarchies. They are divided in two periods: the War of the First Coalition (1792–97) and the War of the Second Coalition (1798–1802). Initially confined to Europe, the fighting gradually assumed a global dimension. After a decade of constant warfare and aggressive diplomacy, France had conquered a wide array of territories, from the Italian Peninsula and the Low Countries in Europe to the Louisiana Territory in North America. French success in these conflicts ensured the spread of revolutionary principles over much of Europe.
The War of the Second Coalition (1798–1802) was the second war on revolutionary France by most of the European monarchies, led by Britain, Austria and Russia, and including the Ottoman Empire, Portugal, Naples, various German monarchies and Sweden, though Prussia did not join this coalition and Spain supported France.
The history of Egypt under the Muhammad Ali dynasty (1805–1953) spanned the later period of Ottoman Egypt, the Khedivate of Egypt under British occupation, and the nominally independent Sultanate of Egypt and Kingdom of Egypt, ending with the Revolution of 1952 and the formation of the Republic of Egypt.
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 French army, under Napoleon Bonaparte, scored a decisive victory against the forces of the local Mamluk rulers, wiping out almost the entire Ottoman army located in Egypt. It was the battle where Napoleon employed the divisional square tactic to great effect. Actually a rectangle, the deployment of the French brigades into these massive formations repeatedly threw back multiple cavalry charges by the Mamluks.
By 1799, the French Revolutionary Wars had resumed after a period of relative peace in 1798. The Second Coalition had organized against France, with Great Britain allying with Russia, Austria, the Ottoman Empire, and several of the German and Italian states. While Napoleon's army was still embroiled in Egypt, the allies prepared campaigns in Italy, Switzerland, and the Netherlands.
During the French Revolutionary Wars, the revolutionary armies marched eastward, enveloping Switzerland in their battles against Austria. In 1798, Switzerland was completely overrun by the French and was renamed the Helvetic Republic. The Helvetic Republic encountered severe economic and political problems. In 1798 the country became a battlefield of the Revolutionary Wars, culminating in the Battles of Zürich in 1799.
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader who rose to prominence during the latter stages of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars.
The Battle of Abukir was a battle in which 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 was a naval battle on 1 August 1798. 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.
The Eyalet of Egypt operated as an administrative division of the Ottoman Empire from 1517 to 1867. It originated as a result of the conquest of Mamluk Egypt by the Ottomans in 1517, following the Ottoman–Mamluk War (1516–1517) and the absorption of Syria into the Empire in 1516. The Ottomans administered Egypt as an eyalet of their Empire from 1517 until 1867, with an interruption during the French occupation of 1798 to 1801.
Pierre-François Bouchard was an officer in the French Army of engineers. He is most famous for discovering the Rosetta Stone, an important archaeological find that allowed Ancient Egyptian writing to be understood for the first time in centuries.
The French campaign in Egypt and Syria (1798–1801) was Napoleon Bonaparte's campaign in the Ottoman territories of Egypt and Syria, proclaimed to defend French trade interests, to establish scientific enterprise in the region and ultimately to join the forces of Indian ruler Tipu Sultan and drive away British from the subcontinent. It was the primary purpose of the Mediterranean campaign of 1798, a series of naval engagements that included the capture of Malta. The campaign ended in defeat for Napoleon, and the withdrawal of French troops from the region.
The Siege of Alexandria was fought between 17 August and 2 September 1801, during the French Revolutionary Wars, between French and British forces and was the last action of the Egyptian Campaign. The French had occupied Alexandria, a major fortified harbour city on the Nile Delta in northern Egypt, since 2 July 1798, and the garrison there surrendered on 2 September 1801.
Events from the year 1798 in France.
The Khedivate of Egypt was an autonomous tributary state of the Ottoman Empire, established and ruled by the Muhammad Ali Dynasty following the defeat and expulsion of Napoleon Bonaparte's forces which brought an end to the short-lived French occupation of Lower Egypt. The Khedivate of Egypt had also expanded to control present-day Sudan, South Sudan, Eritrea, Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Greece, Cyprus, southern and central Turkey, and northwestern Saudi Arabia.
The Battle of Shubra Khit, also known as the Battle of Chobrakit, was 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.
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.
The Siege of Cairo also known as the Cairo Campaign was a siege that took place during the French Revolutionary Wars, between French and British with Ottoman forces and was the penultimate action of the Egyptian Campaign. British commander John Hely-Hutchinson advanced to Cairo, where he arrived after a few skirmishes in mid June. Joined by a sizeable Ottoman force Hutchinson invested Cairo and on 27 June the surrounded 13,000-strong French garrison under General Augustin Daniel Belliard, out-manned and out-gunned then surrendered. The remaining French troops in Egypt under Jacques-François Menou disheartened by this failure, retired to Alexandria.
The Irish Republic of 1798, more commonly called the Republic of Connacht, was a short-lived puppet state proclaimed during the Irish Rebellion of 1798 that resulted from the French Revolutionary Wars. In theory the republic was to cover the whole island of Ireland, but its functional control was limited to only very small parts of the Province of Connacht. Opposing British forces were deployed across most of the country including the main towns such as Dublin, Belfast and Cork.
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