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

THE CONSTANT TRIUMPH OF REASON145voking a mass flight in which they left everything behind. He found it difficultto pursue them, saying that Bedouin can run “like rabbits” and can swim across“every sort of river.” It actually seems a little unlikely that Bedouin were suchgreat swimmers, and one wonders if some local peasants, used to the fallmarshes, were among them.The Bedouin and villagers rallied at Sonbat, taking positions on the highground around the village. The French again forced them back, and they fled intothe surrounding swamps, throwing down their weapons so as not to be impeded.Verdier represented his troops as wading in after them, until they saw themdrowned or they disappeared. One suspects that the Dirn tribesmen and Sonbatpeasants mostly faded away into autumn wetlands they by then knew well.Verdier reported with regret that many more of the enemy would have beenkilled had so many of the cartridges sent from Cairo not been defective, oftenmisfiring or achieving a range of no more than twenty feet. They found hiddenin the village three fine horses that servants of the emirs had secreted therewhen they fled the French. Some of the dead Bedouin were discovered wearingFrench shoes, proving their involvement in the massacre of the Mansura garrison.Verdier gloated, “You ordered me to destroy this lair. Very well, it nolonger exists.” He had discovered their arms cache in the mud and had brokenthe firearms. He assured his superior that Hanud, Shubra, and what was left ofSonbat had henceforth closed their doors to the Dirn Bedouin. “That day onlycost the Republic one grenadier of the 25th Demi-Brigade, who was lightlywounded in the knee, and bestowed on it a great quantity of sheep and fifty-ninecamels, large and small, which I am bringing to you.” The dire straits of the Republicat that point are revealed in its need for some sheep and camels pillagedfrom an Egyptian village. Since Bonaparte was not able to actually pay histroops, they were often living off such looting of the local population, whichthey referred to in their private letters as the collection of “contributions.”In Cairo, the sheer mass of French troops had initially intimidated the populace,ensuring a modicum of security. There Bonaparte was free to concentrateon institution building. In August he had convened the EgyptianInstitute, modeled on the French Institute, as a scientific society that wouldintensively study Egypt and help with the needs of the army. Captain Say depictedBonaparte’s establishment of the Institute as a way of helping implantliberty in Egypt, consisting of “a government where equality of rights assuresto all the ability to succeed without discrimination.” 6 The concerns of the