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

THE EGYPTIAN REVOLUTION207streets, only arriving as the lilac gray dawn broke. Malus said that this attempt todeploy artillery inside the city failed, since the barricades and houses around theal-Azhar district were too effective. 8 The French position remained parlous.By dawn on Monday morning, 22 October, the French had set up their artillerypieces more effectively at the Citadel and on the Muqattam Hills abovethe capital. Bonaparte was still trying to have Sayyid al-Bakri contact his colleaguesin the al-Husayn quarter, in hopes of getting them to quell the revoltthemselves. He put off any order to fire on the city while al-Bakri was continuingthis effort at negotiation. He issued a proclamation in Arabic and Turkish:“It is not true that Cezzar has crossed the desert. The destruction of the gatesbetween quarters was in conformity with the principles of good policing. Thearming of the Citadel near the city was only the execution of a military regulation.”The inhabitants were reminded of the battle of the Pyramids and the conductof the Sultan Al Kabir with them. It ended by proposing that they putthemselves under the judgment of the divan.Bonaparte later admitted that this broadsheet worsened the situation, sinceit helped convince the Cairenes that the French were afraid and made themeven more “insolent.” The Muslim clerics advising Bonaparte, presumably includingSayyid al-Bakri, urged him to take decisive action, since, they said, theBedouin were streaming into the city that day. The nearby tribes had already arrivedat the gates, several thousand strong. Pelleport wrote, “Clouds ofBedouin, called by the chiefs of the insurrection, approached the city and cut offits communications with the outside.” Bernoyer recalled, “The next morning,the rebels in the center of the city facilitated the entry of rebels from the surroundingareas.” Armed with pikes and sticks, the strongest force of rebels assembledat the great cemetery, the City of the Dead, on the eastern outskirts ofthe city, a warren of tombs and mausoleums, some of them belonging to Mamluksultans of the medieval period. They were reinforced by the pastoralists andby peasants coming from the villages around the capital. The commander inchief wrote, “I learned that seven or eight hundred of the Bili and the Tarrabin,were committing hostilities and interrupting the communications of Bulaq.” 9The urban insurrection was developing a Bedouin adjunct, both within andwithout the city walls. Indeed, the uprising quickly spread throughout theDelta, and was not merely a “Cairo revolt.”Bourrienne recalled:Bonaparte had barely returned to headquarters (it was only 8 A.M. in the morning)when he learned, while breakfasting, that some Bedouin on horseback