 | |
| Context | End of the French expedition to Egypt |
|---|---|
| Signed | 1801 |
| Location | Alexandria, Egypt |
The Capitulation of Alexandria in August 1801 brought to an end the French expedition to Egypt.
| | |
| Context | End of the French expedition to Egypt |
|---|---|
| Signed | 1801 |
| Location | Alexandria, Egypt |
The Capitulation of Alexandria in August 1801 brought to an end the French expedition to Egypt.
French troops, who had been abandoned by Napoleon Bonaparte who left for France never to return, had been defeated by British and Ottoman forces, and had retreated to Alexandria where they were besieged. On 30 August 1801 the French general Abdullah Jacques-François Menou offered to surrender and proposed terms, which were considered, partly accepted and in many details amended, by the British general John Hely-Hutchinson and admiral Lord Keith.
The text of the Capitulation is printed in full in Robert Wilson's History of the British expedition to Egypt. [1] Each article as proposed by General Menou is followed by a comment: the proposed articles as amended by these comments form the capitulation as it was finally put into effect, bringing the conflict to a formal end on 2 September 1801. The document is signed by General-in-Chief Menou, Admiral Keith, Lt.-General Hely-Hutchinson, Lt.-Col. James Kempt, and the Kapudan Pasha Küçük Hüseyin Pasha, representing the Ottoman forces.
Under Article 16 of the capitulation "the Arabian manuscripts, the statues, and the other collections which have been made for the French Republic, shall be considered as public property, and subject to the disposal of the generals of the combined army." This led to the transfer to British possession of the Rosetta Stone and other Egyptian antiquities collected by the French Commission des Sciences et des Arts and the scholars of the Institut d'Egypte .
At the Capitulation, the British discovered the French warships Cause, Egyptienne, Justice and Régénérée, and two former Venetian frigates in the harbour of Alexandria. The British and their Turkish allies agreed a division of the spoils. The British received Égyptienne, Régénérée, and "Venetian No. 2" – named by the French Léoben (ex-Venetian Medusa) – of 26 guns. the Ottomans received the 64-gun Causse (ex-Venetian Vulcano), Justice, of 46 guns, and "Venetian No. 1" – Mantoue (ex-Venetian Cerere) – also of 26 guns. The Turks also received some Turkish corvettes that were in the harbour. [2] [Note 1] Admiral Lord Keith commander of the naval forces, gave the value of Régénérée for prize money purposes at £16,771 13s 6d. [3]
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HMS Foudroyant was an 80-gun third rate of the Royal Navy, one of only two British-built 80-gun ships of the period. Foudroyant was built in the dockyard at Plymouth Dock and launched on 31 March 1798. Foudroyant served Nelson as his flagship from 6 June 1799 until the end of June 1800.
The siege of Alexandria was fought during the French Revolutionary Wars between French and British forces. It was the last action of the French campaign in Egypt and Syria (1798–1801). 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.
The Bombardment of Alexandria in Egypt by the British Mediterranean Fleet took place on 11–13 July 1882.
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Égyptienne was a French frigate launched at Toulon in 1799. Her first service was in Napoleon's Egyptian campaign of 1801, in which the British captured her at Alexandria. She famously carried the Rosetta Stone to Woolwich, and then the Admiralty commissioned her into the Royal Navy as the 40-gun fifth-rate frigate HMS Egyptienne. She served in a number of single-ship actions before being reduced to harbour service in 1807, and was sold for breaking in 1817.
Régénérée was a 40-gun Cocarde-class frigate of the French Navy. The British captured her in 1801 at the fall of Alexandria, named her HMS Alexandria, sailed her back to Britain, but never commissioned her. She was broken up in 1804.
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The action of 19 February 1801 was a minor naval battle fought off Ceuta in Spanish North Africa in February 1801 between frigates of the French and Royal Navies during the French Revolutionary Wars. The engagement formed part of a series of actions fought to prevent the French from resupplying their garrison in Egypt, which had been trapped there without significant reinforcement since the defeat of the French Mediterranean Fleet at the Battle of the Nile two and a half years earlier. The leader of the Egyptian expedition, General Napoleon Bonaparte, had returned to France in 1799 and promised aid to the troops left behind, prompting several expeditions to the region carrying reinforcements.
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The Battle of Mandora was a minor battle fought on 13 March 1801 between French forces under François Lanusse and the British expeditionary corps under Ralph Abercromby, during the French campaign in Egypt and Syria.
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.
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