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

12THE FALL OF THE DELTAAND THE ARABIAN JIHADThe revolt in the capital had spread rapidly into the Delta, which theFrench had spent the previous two months attempting to subdue.The garrison at Bilbeis heard immediately of the revolt in Cairo andbegan going about armed and redoubling its guard patrols. 1 On 23 October,they sent out a cavalry expedition to scout the area. At an old Roman camp inthe desert, not far from Cairo itself, they discovered some 12,000 men had assembled,armed with muskets, swords, lances, and clubs. Some were mountedon horseback. The French began planning a campaign against them.In the capital, Bonaparte ordered that artillery not be used in mopping-upoperations since it could be heard for miles around. He feared giving the falseimpression to the rebellious countryside that the insurgency was still alive. Hisapprehension shows how hazardous the situation of the French still was.Sergeant François explained that a peasant–Bedouin alliance still aimed at assistingthe craftsmen of Cairo. The troops at Bilbeis, originally intended as a bulwarkagainst the return of Ibrahim Bey from Syria, now had to march towardCairo to relieve it. Sgt. François’s unit encountered attacking Bedouin cavalrymenas they moved southwest and brought up their artillery to scatter them.“We killed a few,” he remarked with satisfaction. But then things turned aroundand they had to repair to camp, pursued “by a crowd of assailants,” whom theyappear to have barely fended off. They made another sortie the next evening,marching in an infantry square and supported by artillery. They encountered alarge force of Bedouin and “mounted peasants,” but the latter kept retreatingunder artillery fire, refusing to engage directly. The French returned to theirmakeshift fort, taking fire all night. They lost eleven dead and sixteen wounded.“Twenty-three villages recognized as the most rebellious were pillaged and