On 25 July 1799 Napoleon Bonaparte attacked an Ottoman army that had landed at Aboukir Bay, east of Alexandria, to drive the French out of Egypt. In a few hours the French broke both Ottoman lines and pushed the survivors into the sea, where thousands drowned. The French called it the land battle of Aboukir, to set against the naval disaster in the same bay a year earlier. It was Bonaparte's last victory in Egypt: four weeks later he sailed secretly for France.
The Ottoman counterstroke
The French had invaded Egypt, then an Ottoman province, in 1798, hoping the sultan would stay neutral. After the destruction of the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile, the Ottoman Empire went to war with France and allied with Britain and Russia. Its plan was a double blow: one army would march overland from Syria, while another would come by sea and land on the Egyptian coast.1
Bonaparte struck first into Syria, but failed to take Acre and was back in Cairo by 14 June 1799. On 12 July an Anglo-Turkish fleet under Sir Sidney Smith appeared off Alexandria, and on 14 July the seaborne army began landing at Aboukir Bay. It quickly took the fort at Aboukir, which historian J. Rickard says was held by 300 French soldiers, and then dug in on the peninsula instead of marching on Alexandria.2
Two lines, two attacks
The size of both armies is uncertain. Darrell Dykstra, writing for EBSCO's Research Starters, gives 11,000 French against about 15,000 Ottomans. Rickard argues that the Ottoman force, about 15,000 strong when it was formed, had been worn down by fighting and disease, and that its commander, Mustafa, once reported only 7,000 men fit to fight; he finds French figures from 6,000 to 8,000.3
Bonaparte gathered a field army from his garrisons, marched to Alexandria and attacked on 25 July. According to Rickard, the Ottomans stood in two lines, the first on the plain and the second closer to the sea. The French infantry struck the center of the first line while General Joachim Murat's cavalry hit both its flanks, rolling it back onto the second; after a pause, the second attack began at three in the afternoon.4
The second line broke, and the Ottoman army was driven into the sea. Dykstra estimates that perhaps 2,000 were killed and twice as many drowned trying to swim out to the ships, while the rest held out for a week in Aboukir Castle before surrendering. Rickard describes the moment, famous in French accounts, when Murat's charge brought him face to face with Mustafa: Mustafa shot Murat in the jaw and Murat struck back with his saber, cutting off two of the Ottoman commander's fingers. He also notes that among the men who escaped by sea was Muhammad Ali, the future ruler of Egypt.5
A victory and a departure
The Fondation Napoléon points out that the French called the battle the land battle of Aboukir, a victory that went some way to make up for the loss of the fleet in Aboukir Bay in 1798. It ended the Ottoman attempt by sea and secured the French hold on Egypt for the moment, though not Ottoman and British opposition to it.6
News from Europe told Bonaparte that the situation in France was fragile. On the night of 22 August 1799 he embarked secretly for France, leaving General Jean-Baptiste Kléber in command of the army; Rickard dates his sailing to 23 August. He reached France in October. The army he left behind held Egypt for two more years, until the British landed at Aboukir in 1801 and the French capitulated.7
Also on this day
- 1139: Battle of Ourique. Near Ourique in southern Portugal, the Portuguese forces of Afonso Henriques fought an Almoravid army during the Reconquista.
