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

182 NAPOLEON’S EGYPTTheir nervousness was all the greater because they were beginning to fall ill.“Many men have been stricken by opthalmia and many have gone blind; othersare covered with small red pimples. More than half of the division is strickenwith this malady, which devours them like the mange; a third at least have eyedisease.” They expected to be attacked the next day, and they designated battlepositions for the blind, who were placed along the walls of the fort with musketsplaced in their hands and pointed so as to hit any enemy advancing to withinthirty or forty feet. They were not to fire, in case of attack, until ordered to doso by the commander. The other sick soldiers were constrained to go out andfight alongside the healthy. The next day they heard that the village of Abaka,near Bilbeis, had joined the Bedouin insurgents and taken up arms. His unitwent out to confront them and received fire as they approached the hamlet.They used their two pieces of cannon to cut a breach in the village walls, thenpoured through, firing their muskets. “In an instant the village was invaded.The streets were covered with the dead and wounded. We returned to campthat evening, charged with divesting them of and carrying away with us theirhorses, camels, water buffaloes, sheep, donkeys, and grain.” He remarked thatEgyptian villages were typically built on slightly elevated land and surroundedby walls with two big gates. Often each gate would have a tower next to it fromwhich village guards could fire at various angles. The fortifications, he said,were sufficient to fend off attacks by Bedouin.Also in late September, generals Joachim Murat and François Lanussefought Bedouin tribesmen around Mit Ghamr, a major town due north of Cairoalong the eastern branch of the Nile that led to Mansura and Damietta. 3 TheEuropeans had to leave their cannons behind because they could not drag themacross canals and through the autumn sloughs. The nomads withdrew up a hill,or tall, at the base of which stood water from the rising Nile. The French troops“braved the liquid element” and charged up the hill, and in the blink of an eye,Murat wrote, “there floated at its summit the flag of the Grand Nation.” TheBedouin rapidly retreated to their camp in a somewhat distant meadow, puttingwetlands between them and their attackers. Murat and Lanusse, despite the fatigueamong their troops, decided to chase after them: “Republican ardor takesno account of perils,” Murat pronounced. He added, “We marched half a leaguein the water and the mud.” The Bedouin, taking heavy casualties, fled theircamp, leaving their vast herds behind. The French pursued them relentlessly,until a broken dike and nightfall made it impossible for them to advance farther.They returned to the Bedouin camp and collected “about 5,000” animals fromthe herd, including sheep, camels, and donkeys, but had to shoot some of them