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

94 NAPOLEON’S EGYPThim that the dalliance of these “tumultuous beys” with Russia could prove injuriousto the empire. 12The beys’ external alliances were the least of the empire’s problems, as ittranspired. In 1784 European consuls in Alexandria were reporting back to theircapitals that the beys were engaged in a virtual civil war with one another.Murad Bey had to leave Cairo, then returned with allies and forced five otherbeys to flee. He and Ibrahim fell out and fought a naval battle with cannonadeson the Nile. They reconciled, then fell out again. The Gazeta de Madrid for 4October 1784 carried a notice based on consular reports: “The reconciliation ofIbrahim Bey with Murad Bey did not last long, as one might have suspected.They are already openly at war. The former departed to Upper Egypt, where hecan fortify his position. The latter is master of Lower Egypt and it is feared thatthe uproar will shortly move there.” Murad, attempting to retain the loyalty ofhis troops in the Delta, was said to be tolerating much bad behavior by them towardthe people, which included ordering premature harvesting of grain and itsconfiscation. The conditions of civil war thus interfered with the harvests.In spring of 1785 it was reported that in order to protest the failure of thebeys to send the annual tribute for three years running, the sharif of Mecca hadbegun refusing to allow Egyptians to come on pilgrimage or visit the tomb ofthe Prophet Muhammad in Medina. For 1785, al-Jabarti reported rebelliousprovincial governors, Bedouin factional fighting in the province of Buhayra,brawls in the streets of Alexandria, Bedouin raids on the returning pilgrimagecaravan, rampant price inflation, and, to top it all off, a plague outbreak. Adiplomatic row broke out when Murad Bey, strapped for cash in his struggleagainst the other Mamluk houses, suddenly granted the French the right totransship goods from their South Indian colony at Pondicherry through Suez.The British, believing they had an agreement with the Ottoman authorities inIstanbul that no such permission would be granted, protested loudly. TheBritish and the French were still struggling for control of India, and Murad hadabruptly given some help to Paris.The struggle over who could transship goods looked increasingly absurd inlight of the ruinous taxes and imposts the beys were imposing on the merchants.French commercial houses in Cairo were going bankrupt and their proprietorswere trying to flee the country. In February and March 1786, the Europeanconsuls of Alexandria reported having received a demand from one of the beysof Cairo for an enormous sum of money and a threat that, if it were not surrendered,a Christian church that the Mamluks had refurbished for them would bedestroyed. The Europeans appealed to Nefise Hanim, the wife of Murad Bey, to