| Second Siege of El Arish | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the French Campaign in Egypt and Syria of the French Revolutionary Wars | |||||||
 French Campaign in Egypt | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
 France | |||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Louis-Joseph Elisabeth Cazals |  Yusuf Ziyaüddin Pasha | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 300 men | 14,000 men | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| Most were killed | Unknown | ||||||
The siege of El Arish was a military engagement between the French garrison and the Ottoman army. The Ottomans attacked and invested in the fort, massacring the French garrison.
The Ottoman army, led by the Grand Vizier, Yusuf Pasha, arrived at Jaffa and began negotiations between the belligerents. The French general, Kléber, dispatched General Desaix and M. Poussielgue to negotiate on Sidney Smith's ship; however, after the appearance of the Ottomans, El Arish, it was important to carry the negotiations with them. However, an unexpected event threatened to prolong the conflict. [1]
El Arish was garrisoned by 300 French men led by Chef de Bataillon Louis-Joseph Elisabeth Cazals. The Ottoman army consisted of 14,000 men. They besieged the fort on December 23, 1799. The fort was isolated from the main force in Egypt, and the French troops were demoralized by Napoleon's departure of Egypt and wished to see their homeland again. [2] The Colonel resolved to defend the fort; however, the French asked the Colonel to surrender the fort. [3] [4] Cazals ordered a captain to attack the Ottomans, who had built trenches around the fort; however, the troops refused to move. Having lost confidence, which created a sign to the Ottomans that they were ready to surrender. [5] Some of the rebellious troops even pulled down the French flag. The Ottomans, finding that they were not defending, began scaling the walls, which was met with no opposition. The Ottoman prisoners learned of this and began throwing rocks to help the Ottomans enter the walls. The Ottomans then began massacring majority of the French troops. The sick and wounded were killed. Some of the French troops, realizing what happened, regrouped with the rest and defended themselves valiantly; however, all of them were almost massacred. [6] [7]
In Gaza, news of the massacre reached. Kléber was resentful with what happened and complained to Sir Sidney about it. After lengthy discussion, Kléber admitted that the massacre was due to misunderstanding and allowed the negotiations to continue. On January 24, 1800, both sides signed the Convention of El Arish. [8] [9]
Jean-Baptiste Kléber was a French military leader of the French Revolutionary Wars. After serving for one year in the French Royal Army, he entered Habsburg service seven years later. However, his humble birth hindered his opportunities. Eventually, he volunteered for the French Revolutionary Army in 1792 and quickly rose through the ranks.
The Battle of Magdhaba took place on 23 December 1916 during the Defence of Egypt section of the Sinai and Palestine Campaign in the First World War. The attack by the Anzac Mounted Division took place against an entrenched Ottoman Army garrison to the south and east of Bir Lahfan in the Sinai desert, some 18–25 miles (29–40 km) inland from the Mediterranean coast. This Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) victory against the Ottoman Empire garrison also secured the town of El Arish after the Ottoman garrison withdrew.
The Battle of Rafa, also known as the Action of Rafah, fought on 9 January 1917, was the third and final battle to complete the recapture of the Sinai Peninsula by British forces during the Sinai and Palestine campaign of the First World War. The Desert Column of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) attacked an entrenched Ottoman Army garrison at El Magruntein to the south of Rafah, close to the frontier between the Sultanate of Egypt and the Ottoman Empire, to the north and east of Sheikh Zowaiid. The attack marked the beginning of fighting in the Ottoman territory of Palestine.
ʻArish or el-ʻArīsh is the capital and largest city of the North Sinai Governorate of Egypt, as well as the largest city on the Sinai Peninsula, lying on the Mediterranean coast 344 kilometres (214 mi) northeast of Cairo and 45 kilometres (28 mi) west of the Egypt–Gaza border.
The Third Battle of Gaza was fought on the night of 1–2 November 1917 between British and Ottoman forces during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of World War I and came after the British Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) victory at the Battle of Beersheba had ended the Stalemate in Southern Palestine. The fighting occurred at the beginning of the Southern Palestine Offensive, and, together with attacks on Hareira and Sheria on 6–7 November and the continuing Battle of Tel el Khuweilfe, which had been launched by General Edmund Allenby on 1 November, it eventually broke the Gaza-to-Beersheba line defended by the Yildirim Army Group. Despite having held this line since March 1917, the Ottoman Army was forced to evacuate Gaza and Tel el Khuweilfe during the night of 6–7 November. Only Sheria held out for most of 7 November before it too was captured.
The Sinai and Palestine campaign was part of the Middle Eastern theatre of World War I, taking place between January 1915 and October 1918. The British Empire, the French Third Republic, and the Kingdom of Italy fought alongside the Arab Revolt in opposition to the Ottoman Empire, the German Empire, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It started with an Ottoman attempt at raiding the Suez Canal in 1915 and ended with the Armistice of Mudros in 1918, leading to the cession of Ottoman Syria.
Admiral Sir William Sidney Smith was a British Royal Navy officer. Serving in the American and French revolutionary wars and Napoleonic Wars, he rose to the rank of Admiral.
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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.
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The siege of El Arish was a successful siege by French forces under Napoleon Bonaparte against Ottoman forces under Mustafa Pasha. The French army, commanded by Jean Baptiste Kléber and Jean Reynier laid siege to the fortress of El Arish for nine days. The fortress finally fell to the French on 20 February 1799.
The siege of Jaffa was a military engagement between the French army under Napoleon Bonaparte and Ottoman forces under Ahmed al-Jazzar. On the 3 of March, 1799, the French laid siege to the city of Jaffa, which was under Ottoman control. It was fought from 3 to 7 March 1799. On the 7 March, French forces managed to capture the city. For the pillaging of the city, the rape and murder of its civilian population by Napoleon's troops, and the execution of the Ottoman prisoners of war, the siege of Jaffa has been called "one of the most tragic episodes of [Napoleon's] Egyptian campaign."
The French invasion of Egypt and Syria was the invasion and occupation of Ottoman territories in Egypt and Syria by French forces under the command of Napoleon 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.
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 Raid on Nekhl was the second of three battles by British forces to recapture the Sinai Peninsula during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign of World War I. Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) mounted forces travelled into the centre of the Sinai Peninsula to attack and push the last Ottoman Army garrisons back into Palestine.
The Raid on Bir el Hassana (Hasna) occurred in the Sinai Peninsula in February 1917, during World War I. It was a minor action between an augmented battalion of the Imperial Camel Corps on the one side and a score of Turkish troops plus some armed Bedouin on the other. The raid occasioned the first aeromedical evacuation in the British Army.
Kör Yusuf Ziyaüddin Pasha, also known as Yusuf Ziya Pasha, was an Ottoman statesman of Georgian origin, who twice served as the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire in 1798–1805 and 1809–1811. Before, between and after his terms as grand vizier, he served numerous posts as governor of various provinces and districts throughout the empire. As grand vizier, he commanded the Ottoman ground forces against the French Army in the Ottoman reconquest of Egypt and later served as a commander in the Ottoman wars with the Russian Empire.
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 Convention of El Arish was signed on 24 January 1800 by representatives from France and the Ottoman Empire in the presence of a British representative. It was intended to bring to an end the French campaign in Egypt and Syria, with the repatriation of French troops to France and the return of all territory to the Ottomans.
