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

THE EGYPTIAN REVOLUTION209the rebellious city folk made perhaps better use of artillery than had the emirsattests to their resolve and ingeniousness, and it must have been satisfying forthem to meet the Europeans with modern weaponry rather than staves. As themorning wore on, the exchange became increasingly heated. Doguereau remembered:“We were all along being fired on by the inhabitants who were behindthe wall. Soon, we suffered fire from a cannon set up a little to our right.”The French replied with heavy artillery from the high ground they occupied.The quartermaster and Rousseau fan, Bernoyer, got a glimpse of ignoble savagery:“All the streets became the theater of a bloody slaughter.” 12Al-Bakri and his two colleagues, accompanied by two French soldiers,wended their way Monday morning to the area called Bab al-Zuwayla in a furtherattempt to contact the great clerics in the al-Husayn quarter. They werespotted by a crowd, however, which “came upon them in a fury and preventedtheir entrance.” They had to retreat hastily, going to the nearby Mosque ofIskandar, and sent a message to the clerics inside Muslim-held territory. Atlength Sheikh al-Sharqawi rode out with a group of other clerics. They attemptedto clear the barricades that barred their path to the outside, but at theKharratin quarter they encountered a band of armed militants who fired onthem and forced them back. Al-Sharqawi and his group tried again to maketheir way to French-held territory for parleys, but were stopped at every turn. 13Bernoyer, the grouchy designer of uniforms, said that he then strapped on asaber and picked up a gun, despite his not being a soldier. He mounted up andjoined a squadron of cavalrymen, passing through “absolutely deserted streets”until they reached the Birkat al-Fil (“Pool of the Elephant”) Square, where theyfound a larger crowd engaged in combat with the 22nd Light. The reinforcementsnow set up two cannon and fired at the Egyptians. At the first volley thecrowd hesitated. When the second cannonball felled several of their comrades,terror overcame them and the throng stampeded into alleyways too narrow toaccommodate them. Gen. Jean Reynier, in command at that scene, gave theorder to charge. “There resulted a frightful massacre. The square was emptied.”Bernoyer told a story that he said convinced him that a Muslim “can resist to thedeath better than any other individual.” A cavalryman saw a straggler attemptingto flee and fired at him. The fugitive was dropped, but then got back up andthrew himself into the pool after which Birkat al-Fil was named and beganswimming. On his arrival at the other side, he was hit again by gunfire and fellback into the water. He crossed in a different direction, and as he was emergingwas struck on the head by a French grenadier, a glancing blow with a saber. “Hesank back and disappeared. I thought him dead, but not at all. He reappeared!”