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

2 NAPOLEON’S EGYPTof monarchy) would have been unimaginable, but he and his contemporarieslived through and adapted to these developments.Recruited into the Aquitaine Regiment, Moiret had risen to sergeant major.He had served as a subaltern at Savoy (the Alpine border region between what isnow France and Italy) when the French Republic annexed it from the king ofSardinia in 1792. Such “officers of fortune” who rose through the ranks seldomwent beyond captain, but in any case Moiret was said to be reluctant to leave theold friends in his corps for a chance at promotion. He led not an impersonalfighting machine but a portable village of dense social networks. The 75th InfantryDemi-Brigade in which he served had recently earned the nickname “Invincible”for having fought so well in Italy against the Austrians at Lodi andelsewhere. These units were created early in the Revolution to accommodatethe influx of untrained volunteers, mixing one battalion of experienced soldierswith one of newcomers. 1 A demi-brigade formally comprised 3,000 men,though many at Toulon were only at half strength, in part because of desertionsby troops who had not been paid in a long time or who were unwilling to set outon a mysterious adventure across the sea.Gen. Napoleon Bonaparte, a Corsican who had come to France for his educationat the Royal Military Academy and excelled in mathematics and the deploymentof artillery, had been given command of the Army of England after hisbrilliant successes against the Austrians in northern Italy. He and the French executiveclosely guarded the secret destination of this expedition, even from theminister of war, Barthélemy Schérer! 2 Moiret and his fellow junior officers,equally uninformed, speculated about the purpose of the expedition. Was it toresemble more the invasions of the Normans or those of Saint Louis during theFifth Crusade? The Normans had invaded England from the French coast in1066, whereas Saint Louis had set out to subdue the Near East. Everyone knewthat preparations were being made for an eventual republican assault on royalistBritain, and the army being assembled had been drawn in part from the FrenchArmy of England. Although launching an attack on Britain from the Mediterraneandid not make sense logistically, it could not be ruled out as a strategy forsurprise, especially if coupled with preliminary operations in Spain.The Revolution of 1789, which asserted the rule of the people, had set mostof the crowned heads of Europe against the French, and some publics as well. Inthe wars that followed the 1793 beheading of the French monarchs Louis XVIand Marie Antoinette, revolutionary France had defeated most of its opponents.In response, the British had launched into action most aggressively at sea, andhad attempted, with indifferent success, to blockade some French-held ports on