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

166 NAPOLEON’S EGYPTThe French expeditions into the northeastern Delta reveal to us importantcharacteristics of its social geography. The lake people of Manzala, the politicaland military alliances of the peasants and Bedouin, the role of the swamp (especiallyduring the Nile inundation of late summer and fall) and desert in promotinga degree of local independence, and the regularity with which both richpeasants and Bedouin resorted to handheld firearms are not reported in theCairo-centered political chronicles that survive in Arabic as sources for eighteenth-centuryhistory. Millet’s observation that female as well as male peasantsjoined in the attack on the French northeast of Mansura suggests a role forwomen in village uprisings about which male chroniclers are otherwise silent.Social alliances and disputes are also revealed. The orientation of the Mediterraneanport of Damietta toward the Europeans and the significant political andeven military role of the Greek, Syrian, and other Christians there suggest howfragmented Egypt’s politics may have been at that time. The way in whichEyyüb Bey, a Mamluk multazim, or tax farmer, transplanted Bedouin from theLibyan desert to the village of Sonbat tells us about the conditions under whichpastoralists and villagers could cooperate. 5 Ordinarily, there is a certain amountof conflict between Bedouin and farming villagers, because the same land can beused either for pasturage or for growing crops, but not both. Bedouin raise livestockon the hoof and wander around in search of pasture. If they encroach onfarmland, they cause crop damage, and animal hooves are destructive of irrigationworks. The only way the pastoralists can peacefully coexist with peasants inthe same area is if they are offered fallow land and they stick to it, somethingthat state enforcement helps ensure. In the Ottoman system, when pastoralistswere used for security duty, they were given state stipends, which also helpedensure good behavior. Presumably that is what the bey who brought in the Dirnhad done. He delegated to the Bedouin the task of keeping the feuding peasantsin check and probably also fending off attacks by other Bedouin, and thatarrangement facilitated a mutually beneficial relationship between the peasantfarmers of Sonbat and the nomads. Gains in security would translate into bettercrop yields and more money for Eyyüb Bey. With the French invasion and theend of the beylical state (and thus of the stipends they were being paid for keepingorder) the liberated Dirn had become, predictably, a nuisance to the settledvillagers beyond their home base. They began raiding and looting the otherhamlets, creating a social division of which the French took advantage.Likewise, the lagoon kingdom of Hasan Tubar is unknown to the chronicleral-Jabarti. The story of Lake Manzala suggests ways in which different socialformations (peasants, Bedouin, lake dwellers) were capable of forming