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

THE MOST BEAUTIFUL NILE THAT HAS EVER BEEN121had to abandon their wounded, whom the villagers immediately dispatched.Out of ammunition, they finally were set upon by their pursuers and decapitated.One survivor escaped and was given refuge in the village of Shubra, wherehe was later picked up by a French officer. Another, a French woman accompanyingher husband, was captured and married off to an Abu Qawra Arab sheikh.That night in Damietta, General Vial tried to send some troops southwestto Mansura on the Nile, but they found their path blocked by an armed villageallied with some Bedouin, and were forced to abandon their skiffs and return byland to their Mediterranean port. They lost a man killed and six wounded, accordingto Capt. Pierre-François Gerbaud. Niello Sargy, who was at Rosetta,reported the Mansura rebellion as a Bedouin attack. The careful report submittedby Lieutenant Colonel Théviotte, apparently gleaned from the survivingmale eyewitness, does not actually mention Bedouin, and in light of Turk’s comments,it is likely that a mixture of townspeople and the Bedouin and peasantswho had arrived for market day participated in the uprising.The French tended to see sedentary Egyptians as lacking in energy and initiativeand to blame the Bedouin for all concerted violence, but this was a blindspot of theirs. Mansura, a fair-sized Egyptian town, served as an entrepôt forfarmers in that part of the Delta, and its population was rich enough, well armedenough, and well organized enough to stage a revolt on its own, even if peasantsand Bedouin joined in. In the aftermath, Turk said, the city elders tried to put allthe blame on the latter. The issue that sparked the rebellion was almost certainlyresentment of the French occupation and the prospect of heavy Frenchtaxes, of which Vial appears unwisely to have forewarned them.Vial, helpless in the face of such a large uprising, sent word of it to Bonapartein Cairo. The commander in chief reprimanded him for having left such asmall contingent behind. (Since Bonaparte horded thousands of troops at Cairofor his own defense and seems to have understaffed the garrisons at Rosetta andDamietta, some of the blame here actually rests with him.) The commander inchief now dispatched General Dugua to Mansura with several strong columns.They were able to disperse the surrounding Bedouin and retake the city, whichwas largely deserted by the time they entered it.In symbolic retribution, Dugua sentenced to decapitation two local EgyptianMuslim men of property in Mansura, who the French believed had promotedand funded the rebellion. Turk alleged that Dugua reminded thetownspeople that he was under orders to burn down rebellious settlements, butwould spare them on condition that they paid a fine of 4,000 silver kis (an Ottomandenomination). They agreed, and followed through. 28 He also asserted