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

THE FLIGHT OF IBRAHIM BEY105Bonaparte ordered General Menou to the key port city of Rosetta near Alexandriato organize that province, he wrote with unusual candor, “The Turks canonly be led by the greatest severity. Every day I cut off five or six heads in thestreets of Cairo. We had to manage them up to the present in such a way as toerase that reputation for terror that preceded us. Today, on the contrary, it isnecessary to take a tone that will cause them to obey, and to obey, for them, is tofear.” 27 He meant by “Turks” all Muslims, of course.The chronicle of al-Jabartimentions executions in Cairo, though the patrician author would not have caredto mention punishments meted out to what he considered the rabble. Thememoirs of French officers are full of accounts of villagers being massacred,though they speak less of the situation in Cairo itself. Bonaparte’s boast shouldbe taken at face value. If he made this rate of execution a habit, the commanderin chief was massacring 150 to 180 men a month in Cairo alone under normalcircumstances.Among all Bonaparte’s generals, perhaps only Menou took the commanderin chief completely seriously in making these words his guide to administeringthe subject populations. Note the difference between Bonaparte’s treatment ofordinary Muslims, some of whom were decapitated daily to keep the others inline, and his instructions that the feathers of the Coptic tax collectors never beruffled.