Napoleon's Egypt: Invading The Middle East - Reenactor.ru

THE FLIGHT OF IBRAHIM BEY87hands.” 3 On conquering any territory, Bonaparte dealt ruthlessly with theBedouin. He ordered them disarmed, demanded that a few heads be cut off, andtook hostages. For the most part, the Bedouin successfully resisted being subdued,though a few made an alliance with the French. In the province of Cairo,there were five principal tribes: the A’id, the Bili, the Huwaytat, the Sawaliha,and the Tarrabin. The latter two remained enemies of the French, and Bonaparteordered their villages burned and their flocks destroyed. They frequentlyraided the outskirts of Cairo but could be driven off by concerted cannon fire.The first three tribes eventually allied with the French. The daughters of theSawaliha chieftain were hostages with the commissioner in Cairo. The chieftainof the Bili, along with fighters and two hundred camels, joined Bonaparte’sarmy, as did the leader of the Tarrabin and his camel cavalry. 4 Malus wrote thatBili tribesmen, long before they allied with Bonaparte, were among those whoattacked the French near Bilbeis. Without the threat of recalcitrant Bedouin,the French could have taken and held towns such as al-Khanqa much more easilyand with much smaller military forces.Leclerc and his men, having set out to conquer a province and dispatchone of Egypt’s two great beys, had found themselves overmatched, and nowthey were surrounded by fierce tribesmen. Bonaparte, on receiving word evenbefore the battle of the difficulties Leclerc’s unit faced as it moved northeast,was constrained to do something. The commander in chief wrote the Directorythat on 5 August he had decided to order General Reynier to al-Khanqa tosupport Leclerc’s cavalry, which was battling “a cloud of Bedouin” on horse andpeasant irregulars of the land of Ibrahim Bey. Bonaparte wanted more than villages.He saw the caravan then returning to this area from Mecca as a treasuretrove of intelligence. “Subtly interrogate,” he instructed Gen. Reynier, “all themen who came from Bilbeis or Syria and send me their report.” He also instructedthat the garrison to be established at al-Khanqa be hardened to withstandan attack if Ibrahim Bey decided to come back toward Cairo. 5Bonaparte reported that Reynier’s force “killed some fifty peasants, someBedouin, and took up a position at al-Khanqa.” He ordered the divisions commandedby generals Jean Lannes (who had been an apprentice dyer in 1792when he joined the revolutionary army) and Dugua to join the chase, and he setout himself. According to the Egyptian chronicler al-Jabarti, French troopsmoved toward the east from the capital wave upon wave. 6 They passed al-Khanqa, which they found deserted, with the oven destroyed. (Had the Egyptianvillagers, noticing that the French rather liked their bread, deliberatelysabotaged the makeshift boulangerie?) The army went again to Abu Za’bal,