Siege of Acre | |||||||
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Part of the French Campaign in Egypt and Syria during the War of the Second Coalition | |||||||
Failed siege of Acre by French forces led by Napoleon | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Ottoman Empire Great Britain | French Republic | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Jazzar Pasha Haim Farhi Sidney Smith Antoine de Phélippeaux | Napoleon Bonaparte Jean-Baptiste Kléber Eugène de Beauharnais (WIA) | ||||||
Units involved | |||||||
Nizam-i Djedid (Garrison Force) Royal Navy | Armée d'Orient | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
Garrison: 5,000 men [1] [2] Relief army (Mt. Tabor): 35,000 [3] –40,000 [4] Support: 2 British ships of the line [2] | 12,000 [1] –13,000 [2] | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
2,000 [1] (for the siege) |
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The siege of Acre of 1799 was an unsuccessful French siege of the Ottoman city of Acre (now Akko in modern Israel) and was the turning point of Napoleon's invasion of Egypt and Syria, along with the Battle of the Nile. It was Napoleon's third tactical defeat in his career, being defeated at the Second Battle of Bassano and the Battle of Caldiero three years previously during the Italian campaign, and his first major strategic defeat, along with the last time he was defeated in battle for 10 years. As a result of the failed siege, Napoleon Bonaparte retreated two months later and withdrew to Egypt.
Acre was a site of significant strategic importance due to its commanding position on the route between Egypt and Syria. Bonaparte wanted to capture it following his invasion of Egypt. He hoped to incite a Syrian rebellion against the Ottomans and threaten British India. After the siege of Jaffa, which was followed by two days and nights of massacre and rape by the French forces,[ citation needed ] the defenders of the citadel were even more determined to resist the French.
The French attempted to lay siege on 20 March using only their infantry. Napoleon believed the city would capitulate quickly to him. In correspondence with one of his subordinate officers he voiced his conviction that a mere two weeks would be necessary to capture the linchpin of his conquest of the Holy Land before marching on to Jerusalem.
However, the troops of the capable Jezzar Pasha, refusing to surrender, withstood the siege for one and a half months. Haim Farhi, al-Jazzar's Jewish adviser and right-hand man, played a key role in the city's defence, directly supervising the battle against the siege. After Napoleon's earlier capture of Jaffa, rampaging French troops had savagely sacked the captured city, and thousands of Albanian prisoners of war were ordered by Napoleon to be massacred on the sea-shore, [5] prior to the French offensive further northwards. These facts were well known to the townspeople and defending troops (many of them Albanians) in Acre, and the prospect of being massacred is likely to have stiffened their resistance.
A Royal Navy flotilla under Commodore Sidney Smith, commanding Tigre, helped to reinforce the Ottoman defences and supplied the city with additional cannon manned by sailors and marines. Smith used his command of the sea to capture the French siege artillery being sent by a flotilla of gunboats from Egypt and to bombard the coastal road from Jaffa. [6] The captured boats were: [7]
Name | Fate |
---|---|
Dangereuse | Sold 1801 |
Deux Frères | Lost in a gale in May 1799 |
Foudre | Sold 1801 |
Marie-Rose | Sold 1801 |
Negresse | Sold 1802 |
Torride | Last listed 1802 |
Vierge-de-Grâce | Recaptured and scuttled May 1799 |
An artillery expert from the fleet, French émigré Antoine de Phélippeaux, then redeployed against Napoleon's forces the artillery pieces which the British had intercepted. [6]
Smith anchored the British ships Tigre and Theseus so their broadsides could assist the Ottoman defence. British gunboats, which were of shallower draft, could come in closer, and together they helped repel repeated French assaults.
On 16 April an Ottoman relief force was fought off at Mount Tabor. By early May, replacement French siege artillery had arrived overland and a breach was forced in the defences. At the culmination of the assault, the besieging forces managed to make a breach in the walls. [6]
However, after suffering many casualties to open this entry-point, Napoleon's soldiers found, on trying to penetrate the city, that Farhi and de Phélippeaux had, in the meantime, built a second wall, several feet deeper within the city where al-Jazzar's garden was. Discovery of this new construction convinced Napoleon and his men that the probability of them taking the city was minimal. Moreover, after the assault was again repelled, Ottoman reinforcements from Rhodes were able to land. [6]
Having underestimated the stubborn attitude of the defending forces combined with a British blockade of French supply harbours and harsh weather conditions, Napoleon's forces were left hungry, cold and damp. Plague had struck the French camp as a result of the desperate condition of the men, and had by now led to the deaths of about 2,000 soldiers.
Throughout the siege, both Napoleon and Jezzar sought in vain the assistance of the Shihab leader, Bashir—ruler of much of present-day Lebanon. Bashir remained neutral. As things turned out, it was the French which suffered most from the attitude of Bashir, whose intervention on their side might have turned the balance of power in their favour.
Finally, the siege was raised. Napoleon Bonaparte retreated two months later on 21 May after a failed final assault on 10 May, and withdrew to Egypt. [6]
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In 1805, Napoleon asserted that if he had
been able to take Acre [in 1799], I would have put on a turban, I would have made my soldiers wear big Turkish trousers, and I would have exposed them to battle only in case of extreme necessity. I would have made them into a Sacred Battalion—my Immortals. I would have finished the war against the Turks with Arabic, Greek, and Armenian troops. Instead of a battle in Moravia, I would have won a Battle of Issus, I would have made myself emperor of the East, and I would have returned to Paris by way of Constantinople. [8]
The allusions from Classical Antiquity included in the speech are to the Sacred Band of Thebes and the Persian Immortals—elite units of, respectively, the city state of Thebes and the Achaemenid Kings of Persia; and to the Battle of Issus where Alexander the Great decisively defeated the latter. (In fact, though Acre was not conquered, Napoleon's Imperial Guard did come to be informally called "The Immortals".) [9]
Whether or not Napoleon would have been able to carry out the above grand design, it is likely that had he taken Acre he might have remained a considerable further time in the East, would not have returned to France in 1799 and hence would not have carried out later that year the coup which established him in power as First Consul. He might have still taken power in France, later on and under different circumstances, or in his absence someone else might have overthrown the shaky rule of the Directorate. Either way, the later history of France and of Europe might have been substantially different. Also, whether or not Napoleon would have managed to make himself Emperor of the East and reach Constantinople, his energetically trying to do that would have certainly had a substantial effect on the Ottoman Empire's history.
Some hold[ weasel words ] that a statement attributed to Napoleon during the war, according to which he promised to return the land to the Jews if he were to succeed in his conquest of Palestine, was meant to capture the attention of Farhi, a Syrian Jew, and betray his master by switching his support to the French. Whether this is true or not, Farhi defended the city with the rest of the Ottoman forces.
Napoleon showed great interest in winning over the Jews during the campaign, [10] including the account of Las Cases in "Mémorial de Sainte Hélène" about Napoleon's military campaign records that it was reported among Syrian Jews that after Napoleon took Acre, he would go to Jerusalem and restore Solomon's temple [11] and decrees were passed in favour of Jews (and Coptic Christians and women) in French-controlled Egypt. [12]
In present-day Acre, the hill on which Napoleon set his camp, south-east of the city walls of Acre, is still known as "Napoleon's Hill" (גבעת נפוליון). Acre also has a Napoleon Bonaparte Street (רחוב נפוליון בונפרטה), the only city in Israel with such a street name.
Among the Arab population of the Old City of Acre, the knowledge of their forebears having successfully withstood the barrage of such a world-famous conqueror is a source of civic pride and local patriotism. In a folk tale circulated by Acre Arabs, Napoleon, upon lifting the siege of Acre, let a cannon shoot his hat into the city "so that at least a part of him would enter into Acre". [13]
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.
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The siege of Jaffa was a military engagement between the French army under Napoleon Bonaparte and Ottoman forces under Ahmed al-Jazzar. On March 3, 1799, the French laid siege to the city of Jaffa, which was under Ottoman control. It was fought from March 3-7, 1799. On March 7, 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."
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Bashir Shihab II was a Lebanese emir who ruled the Emirate of Mount Lebanon in the first half of the 19th century. Born to a branch of the Shihab family which had converted from Sunni Islam, the religion of previous Shihabi emirs, he was the only Maronite ruler of the Mount Lebanon Emirate.
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.
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Ahmed Pasha al-Jazzar was the Acre-based Ottoman governor of Sidon Eyalet from 1776 until his death in 1804 and the simultaneous governor of Damascus Eyalet in 1785–1786, 1790–1795, 1798–1799, and 1803–1804. Having left his native Bosnia as a youth, he began a military career in Egypt in the service of mamluk officials, eventually becoming a chief enforcer and assassin for Ali Bey al-Kabir, Egypt's practical ruler. He gained the epithet of al-Jazzar for his deadly ambush on a group of Bedouin tribesmen in retaliation for the death of his first master in a Bedouin raid. Al-Jazzar fell out with Ali Bey in 1768 after refusing to take part in the assassination of another of his former masters. He ultimately fled to Syria, where he was tasked by the Ottomans with defending Beirut from a joint assault by the Russian Navy and Zahir al-Umar, the Acre-based ruler of northern Palestine. He eventually surrendered and entered Zahir's service before defecting from him and fleeing with stolen tax money.
Haim Farhi, was a Jewish adviser to the governors of the Galilee in the days of the Ottoman Empire, until his assassination in 1820.
The Shihab dynasty is an Arab family whose members served as the paramount tax farmers and emirs of Mount Lebanon from the early 18th to mid-19th century, during Ottoman rule (1517–1918). Before then, the family had been in control of the Wadi al-Taym region, purportedly as early as the 12th century. During early Ottoman rule, they maintained an alliance and marital ties with the Ma'n dynasty, the Chouf-based, paramount Druze emirs and tax farmers of Mount Lebanon. When the last Ma'nid emir died without male progeny in 1697, the chiefs of the Druze in Mount Lebanon appointed the Shihab emir, Bashir, whose mother belonged to the Ma'n, as his successor. Bashir was succeeded by another Shihab emir with a Ma'nid mother, Haydar, after his death.
Bonaparte Visits the Plague Stricken in Jaffa is an oil-on-canvas painting commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte and painted in 1804 by Antoine-Jean Gros, portraying an event during the French invasion of Egypt. The scene shows Napoleon during a striking scene which is supposed to have occurred in Jaffa on 11 March 1799, depicting the French general making a visit to his ill soldiers at the Armenian Saint Nicholas Monastery.
Elzéar Auguste Cousin de Dommartin became a French general during the French Revolutionary Wars, fought in Italy under Napoleon Bonaparte, and commanded the artillery division of the Armée d'Orient during the French invasion of Egypt in 1798.
Following are timelines of the history of Ottoman Syria, taken as the parts of Ottoman Syria provinces under Ottoman rule.
Muhammad (Mehmet) Abu Nabbut Agha was the governor of Jaffa and Gaza in the early 19th century on behalf of the Ottoman Empire, from 1807 to 1818, as well as the governor of Thessaloniki from 1819 to 1827 during the Greek War of Independence.
Louis-Edmond Antoine le Picard de Phélippeaux, mainly referred to as Antoine de Phélippeaux, was a French émigré best known for defeating Napoleon Bonaparte in an effort to defend Egypt. In 1783, Louis Phélippeaux met Napoleon Bonaparte at the École Militaire in Paris where the two young men became lifelong enemies. Phélippeaux was also an enemy of the state to France, due to his loyalty to the Ancien Régime and his participation in many anti-revolutionary movements. Previously a French military officer, Phélippeaux emigrated to Great Britain in 1791 during the French Revolution. He served in the Army of Condé and fought against the French Republic. Fighting against Napoleon in a battle in Acre, Phélippeaux died from fever in May 1799.
Sulayman Pasha al-Adil was the Ottoman governor of Sidon Eyalet between 1805 and 1819, ruling from his Acre headquarters. He also simultaneously served as governor of Damascus Eyalet between 1810 and 1812. He was a mamluk of his predecessor, Jazzar Pasha. His rule was associated with decentralization, a reduction of Acre's military, and limits to his predecessors' cotton monopoly. Moreover, he oversaw a policy of non-interference with his deputy governors, such as Muhammad Abu-Nabbut and Mustafa Agha Barbar, and diplomacy with the autonomous sheikhs of the various Levantine regions where he held authority, including Emir Bashir Shihab II and Musa Bey Tuqan. He exercised control over his domain largely through depending on the loyalty of his deputies, who also had been mamluks of Jazzar. In effect, Sulayman Pasha presided over the world's last functioning mamluk system.
Abdullah Pasha ibn Ali was the Ottoman governor (wali) of Sidon Eyalet between May 1820 and May 1832, with a nine-month interruption in 1822–23. Like his predecessors Jazzar Pasha and Sulayman Pasha, Abdullah Pasha ruled from the port city of Acre. During his reign, all of Palestine and the Syrian coastline came under his jurisdiction. Among his major military victories was his survival of an imperial-backed siege of Acre in 1822 instigated by the Farhi family in retaliation for Abdullah's execution of his mentor Haim Farhi, the suppression of revolts in Mount Lebanon and Jerusalem in 1824 and 1826, respectively, and the 1831 capture of the Sanur fortress.
Abdallah Bey was an Ottoman Arab statesman who served as the governor of Jaffa in the Sidon Eyalet under Wāli Ahmad Pasha al-Jazzar in the late 18th century.
Preceded by War of the Second Coalition | French Revolution: Revolutionary campaigns Siege of Acre (1799) | Succeeded by Battle of Ostrach |