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

THE EGYPTIAN REVOLUTION211again. Many houses had fallen prey to blazing fires,” Desvernois recalled.“The repression was terrible. We killed more than 3,000 insurgents withoutourselves losing more than a hundred men.” The merchant Grandjean, incontrast, estimated that the revolt took the lives of 800 Frenchmen. Detroyeestimated 250 French dead, including a general, the head of a brigade, somesubalterns, and several engineers and medical personnel. Bonaparte put forwardfor propaganda purposes the incredibly small number of 21 French soldierskilled. Grandjean felt that the uprising could have been fatal to theentire enterprise in Egypt if it had been better generaled and if the Egyptianshad been better armed. Most, he said, had had no more than staves of hardwood, which were effective enough, but only at close quarters. Their musketswere “bad,” and in the end they simply could not overcome the advantagethat artillery bestowed on the French. The zoologist Saint-Hilaire actuallyboasted of how repressive French governance could be, writing back toFrance: “An insurrection broke out on 30 Vendémiaire and lasted until yesterdayevening. The miserable inhabitants of Cairo did not know that theFrench are the tutors of the world in how to organize to combat insurgencies.That is what they learned to their cost.” 19 In the aftermath, Desvernoiswas convinced, the spirit of the Egyptians was struck with a salutary terror.The chastisement inflicted on them established that the French had somesort of celestial protection and that it was futile to resist them. It might havebeen comforting to him to think so.Bonaparte inflicted such a horrific retribution on the insurgents that the aftermathof the revolt cost almost as much human life as the rebellion itself. LieutenantLaval observed, “They arrested the principal leaders of the revolt, whowere shot along with many of the prisoners that we had taken when they cameout of the mosque. Most were Bedouin thieves.” 20 They were not, of course, actuallyfor the most part Bedouin, though some may have been mixed into thecrowd making a last stand at the al-Husayn Mosque. The rallying of theBedouin and peasants from Cairo’s hinterland demonstrates that the revolt wasnot merely a protest by merchants and guildsmen against new taxes, but insteadhad a nativist dimension that appealed across social classes. Many in the Egyptianpopular classes, linked across city districts and by crafts guilds and Sufi orders,simply did not accept the legitimacy of French rule. That night, Bernoyerrecalled, the French made numerous further arrests. Altogether they took some2,000 of the most active insurgents into custody.