Читать книгу The History of Napoleon Buonaparte - J. G. Lockhart - Страница 29

The French fleet was reinforced, ere it had proceeded far on its way, by General Dessaix, and his division from Italy; and, having prosperous winds, appeared on the 10th of June off Malta. The Knights of St. John were no longer those hardy and devout soldiers of the cross, who for ages inspired terror among the Mussulmans, and were considered as the heroic outguards of Christendom. Sunk in indolence and pleasure, these inheritors of a glorious name hardly attempted for a moment to defend their all but impregnable island, against the fleet which covered the seas around them. The Parisian authorities had tampered successfully beforehand with some of the French knights. Division of counsels prevailed: and in confusion and panic the gates were thrown open. As Napoleon was entering between the huge rocky barriers of La Valette, Caffarelli said to him: "It is well there was some one within to open the door for us; had there been no garrison at all, the business might have been less easy."

From Malta—where he left a detachment of troops to guard an acquisition which he expected to find eminently useful in his future communications with France—Buonaparte steered eastwards; but, after some days, ran upon the coast of Candia to take in water and fresh provisions, and, by thus casually diverging from his course, escaped imminent danger. For Nelson, soon returning to Toulon, missed the shipping which had so lately crowded the harbour, and ascertaining that they had not sailed towards the Atlantic, divined on the instant that their mark must be Egypt. His fleet was inferior in numbers, but he pursued without hesitation; and taking the straight line, arrived off the Nile before any of the French ships had appeared there. Buonaparte, on hearing off Candia that the English fleet was already in the Levant, directed Admiral Brueyes to steer not for Alexandria, but for a more northerly point of the coast of Africa. Nelson, on the other hand, not finding the enemy where he had expected, turned back and traversed the sea in quest of him, to Rhodes—and thence to Syracuse. It is supposed that on the 20th of June the fleets almost touched each other; but that the thickness of the haze, and Nelson's want of frigates, prevented an encounter. Napoleon, reconnoitring the coast, ascertained that there was no longer any fleet off Alexandria, and in effect reached his destination undisturbed on the 1st of July. At that moment a strange sail appeared on the verge of the horizon. "Fortune," exclaimed he, "I ask but six hours more—wilt thou refuse them?" The vessel proved not to be English; and the disembarkation immediately took place, in spite of a violent gale and a tremendous surf. The Admiral Brueyes in vain endeavoured to persuade Buonaparte to remain on board until the weather should be more calm. He sternly refused, and landed at Marabout, three leagues to the eastward of Alexandria, about one in the morning of the 2nd July—having lost many by drowning.

Egypt, a province of the Ottoman empire, then at peace with France, was of course wholly unprepared for this invasion. The Turks, however, mustered what force they could, and, shutting the gates of the city, held out—until a division, headed by Napoleon in person, forced their way, at three in the morning, through the old crumbling walls, and it was no longer possible to resist at once superior numbers and European discipline. Two hundred French died in the assault; the Turkish loss was much greater: and, if we are to believe almost all who have written concerning this part of his history, Buonaparte, after taking possession, abandoned the place for three hours to the unbridled licence of military execution and rapine—an atrocity for which, if it really occurred, there could have been only one pretext; namely, the urgent necessity of striking awe and terror into the hearts of the population, and so preventing them from obeying the call of their military chieftains, to take arms in defence of the soil. De Bourienne and Berthier, however, wholly deny this story.

If Napoleon's conduct on this occasion was as it has been commonly represented, it was strangely contrasted with the tenor of his General Order to the army, issued immediately before their disembarkation. "The people," he then said, "with whom we are about to live, are Mahometans; the first article of their faith is, There is no God but God, and Mahomet is his Prophet. Do not contradict them: deal with them as you have done with the Jews and the Italians. Respect their muphtis and imans, as you have done by the rabbis and the bishops elsewhere. … The Roman legions protected all religions. You will find here usages different from those of Europe: you must accustom yourselves to them. These people treat their women differently from us; but in all countries he who violates is a monster; pillage enriches only a few; it dishonours us, destroys our resources, and makes those enemies whom it is our interest to have for friends."

To the people of Egypt, meanwhile, Napoleon addressed a proclamation in these words:—"They will tell you that I come to destroy your religion; believe them not: answer that I come to restore your rights, to punish the usurpers, and that I respect, more than the Mamelukes ever did, God, his Prophet, and the Koran. Sheiks and Imans, assure the people that we also are true Mussulmans. Is it not we that have ruined the Pope and the Knights of Malta? Thrice happy they who shall be with us! Woe to them that take up arms for the Mamelukes! they shall perish!"[24]

Buonaparte was a fatalist—so that one main article of the Mussulman creed pleased him well. He admired Mahomet as one of those rare beings, who, by individual genius and daring, have produced mighty and permanent alterations in the world. The General's assertion of his own belief in the inspiration of the Arab impostor, was often repeated in the sequel; and will ever be appreciated, as it was at the time by his own soldiery—whom indeed he had addressed but the day before in language sufficiently expressive of his real sentiments as to all forms of religion. Rabbi, muphti, and bishop, the Talmud, the Koran, and the Bible, were much on a level in his estimation. He was willing to make use of them all as it might serve his purpose; and, though not by nature cruel, he did not hesitate, when his interest seemed to demand it, to invest his name with every circumstance of terror, that could result from the most merciless violation of those laws of humanity which even his Koran enforces, and which his own address to his army had so recently inculcated.

Napoleon left Alexandria on the 7th July, being anxious to force the Mamelukes to an encounter with the least possible delay. He had a small flotilla on the Nile, which served to guard his right flank: the infantry marched over burning sand at some distance from the river. The miseries of this progress were extreme. The air is crowded with pestiferous insects, the glare of the sand weakens most men's eyes, and blinds many; water is scarce and bad: and the country had been swept clear of man, beast, and vegetable. Under this torture even the gallant spirits of such men as Murat and Lannes could not sustain themselves:—they trod their cockades in the sand. The common soldiers asked, with angry murmurs, if it was here the General designed to give them their seven acres? He alone was superior to all these evils. Such was the happy temperament of his frame, that—while others, after having rid them of their usual dress, were still suffused in perpetual floods of perspiration, and the hardiest found it necessary to give two or three hours in the middle of the day to sleep—Napoleon altered nothing; wore his uniform buttoned up as at Paris; never showed one bead of sweat on his brow; nor thought of repose except to lie down in his cloak the last at night, and start up the first in the morning. It required, however, more than all his example of endurance and the general influence of Napoleon's character, could do to prevent the army from breaking into open mutiny. "Once," said he at St. Helena, "I threw myself suddenly amidst a group of generals, and, addressing myself to the tallest of their number with vehemence, said, You have been talking sedition: take care lest I fulfil my duty: your five feet ten inches would not hinder you from being shot within two hours."

For some days no enemy appeared; but at length scattered groups of horsemen began to hover on their flanks; and the soldier, who quitted the line but for a moment, was surrounded and put to death ere his comrades could rescue him. The rapidity with which the Mamelukes rode, and their skill as marksmen, were seconded by the character of the soil and the atmosphere; the least motion or breath of wind being sufficient to raise a cloud of sand, through which nothing could be discerned accurately, while the constant glare of the sun dazzled almost to blindness. It was at Chebreis that the Mamelukes first attacked in a considerable body; and at the same moment the French flotilla was assaulted. In either case the superiority of European discipline was made manifest; but in either case also the assailants were able to retreat without much loss. Meantime the hardships of the march continued; the irregular attacks of the enemy were becoming more and more numerous; so that the troops, continually halting and forming into squares to receive the charge of the cavalry by day, and forced to keep up great watches at night, experienced the extremes of fatigue as well as of privation. In the midst of this misery the common men beheld with no friendly eyes the troop of savans mounted on asses (the common conveyance of the country), with all their instruments, books and baggage. They began to suspect that the expedition had been undertaken for some merely scientific purposes; and when, on any alarm, they were ordered to open the square and give the learned party safe footing within, they used to receive them with military jeerings. "Room for the asses:—stand back, here come the savans and the demi-savans."

On the 21st of July the army came within sight of the Pyramids, which, but for the regularity of the outline, might have been taken for a distant ridge of rocky mountains. While every eye was fixed on these hoary monuments of the past, they gained the brow of a gentle eminence, and saw at length spread out before them the vast army of the beys, its right posted on an entrenched camp by the Nile, its centre and left composed of that brilliant cavalry with which they were by this time acquainted. Napoleon, riding forwards to reconnoitre, perceived (what escaped the observation of all his staff) that the guns on the entrenched camp were not provided with carriages; and instantly decided on his plan of attack. He prepared to throw his force on the left, where the guns could not be available. Mourad Bey, who commanded in chief, speedily penetrated his design; and the Mamelukes advanced gallantly to the encounter. "Soldiers," said Napoleon, "from the summit of yonder pyramids forty ages behold you;" and the battle began.

The French formed into separate squares, and awaited the assault of the Mamelukes. These came on with impetuous speed and wild cries, and practised every means to force their passage into the serried ranks of their new opponents. They rushed on the line of bayonets, backed their horses upon them, and at last, maddened by the firmness which they could not shake, dashed their pistols and carbines into the faces of the men. They who had fallen wounded from their seats, would crawl along the sand, and hew at the legs of their enemies with their scimitars. Nothing could move the French: the bayonet and the continued roll of musketry by degrees thinned the host around them; and Buonaparte at last advanced. Such were the confusion and terror of the enemy when he came near the camp, that they abandoned their works, and flung themselves by hundreds into the Nile. The carnage was prodigious. Multitudes more were drowned. Mourad and a remnant of his Mamelukes retreated on Upper Egypt. Cairo surrendered: Lower Egypt was entirely conquered.

Such were the immediate consequences of the Battle of the Pyramids. The name of Buonaparte now spread panic through the East; and the "Sultan Kebir" (or King of Fire—as he was called from the deadly effects of the musketry in this engagement) was considered as the destined scourge of God, whom it was hopeless to resist.

The French now had recompense for the toils they had undergone. The bodies of the slain and drowned Mamelukes were rifled, and, it being the custom for those warriors to carry their wealth about them, a single corpse often made a soldier's fortune. In the deserted harems of the chiefs at Cairo, and in the neighbouring villages, men at length found proofs that "eastern luxury" is no empty name. The savans ransacked the monuments of antiquity, and formed collections which will ever reflect honour on their zeal and skill. Napoleon himself visited the interior of the Great Pyramid, and on entering the secret chamber, in which, 3000 years before, some Pharaoh had been in-urned, repeated once more his confession of faith—"There is no God but God, and Mahomet is his prophet." The bearded orientals who accompanied him, concealed their doubts of his orthodoxy, and responded very solemnly, "God is merciful. Thou hast spoken like the most learned of the prophets."

While Napoleon was thus pursuing his career of victory in the interior, Nelson, having scoured the Mediterranean in quest of him, once more returned to the coast of Egypt. He arrived within sight of the towers of Alexandria on the 1st of August—ten days after the battle of the Pyramids had been fought and won—and found Brueyes still at his moorings in the bay of Aboukir. Nothing seems to be more clear than that the French admiral ought to have made the best of his way to France, or at least to Malta, the moment the army had taken possession of Alexandria. Napoleon constantly asserted that he had urged Brueyes to do so. Brueyes himself lived not to give his testimony; but Gantheaume, the vice-admiral, always persisted in stating, in direct contradiction to Buonaparte, that the fleet remained by the General's express desire. The testimonies being thus balanced, it is necessary to consult other materials of judgment; and it appears extremely difficult to doubt that the French admiral—who, it is acknowledged on all hands, dreaded the encounter of Nelson—remained off Alexandria for the sole purpose of aiding the motions of the army, and in consequence of what he at least conceived to be the wish of its general. However this might have been, the results of his delay were terrible.

The French fleet were moored in a semicircle in the bay of Aboukir, so near the shore, that, as their admiral believed, it was impossible for the enemy to come between him and the land. He expected, therefore, to be attacked on one side only, and thought himself sure that the English could not renew their favourite manœuvre of breaking the line,[25] and so at once dividing the opposed fleet, and placing the ships individually between two fires. But Nelson daringly judged that his ships might force a passage between the French and the land, and succeeding in this attempt, instantly brought on the conflict, in the same dreaded form which Brueyes had believed impossible. The details of this great sea fight belong to the history of the English hero.[26] The battle was obstinate—it lasted more than twenty hours, including the whole night. A solitary pause occurred at midnight, when the French admiral's ship L'Orient, a superb vessel of 120 guns, took fire, and blew up in the heart of the conflicting squadrons, with an explosion that for a moment silenced rage in awe. The admiral himself perished. Next morning two shattered ships, out of all the French fleet, with difficulty made their escape to the open sea. The rest of all that magnificent array had been utterly destroyed, or remained in the hands of the English.

Such was the battle of Aboukir, in which Nelson achieved, with a force much inferior to the French, what he himself called, "not a victory, but a conquest." Three thousand French seamen reached the shore: a greater number died. Had the English admiral possessed frigates, he must have forced his way into the harbour of Alexandria, and seized the whole stores and transports of the army. As things were, the best fleet of the Republic had ceased to be; the blockade of the coast was established: and the invader, completely isolated from France, must be content to rely on his own arms and the resources of Egypt.