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

224 NAPOLEON’S EGYPTburned by us; their livestock and grains were brought to camp. All the inhabitants,except for the women and children, found in these villages were killed.More than 900 were put to death.” Most of the men must have fled, if that wasthe death toll from Reynier’s destruction of twenty-three villages.It is probably to this campaign that Bourrienne referred when he spoke of aFrench attack on “tribes” near Cairo who had surprised and slit the throats of“many French.” The French not only killed 900 of the rural insurgents, but decapitatedthem. The troops who had ridden out from Cairo brought many of theirsevered heads back to stage a macabre public spectacle at Azbakiya Square. Theygathered a crowd, and then “the sacks were opened and the heads rolled out beforethe assembled populace.” Bourrienne was convinced that the demonstrationterrified the Cairenes into submission. François was equally convinced that thesacking of the twenty-three villages had quelled their rebellion. He said that wordreached the surrounding villages that Bonaparte had decisively put down the revoltin Cairo, and village headmen of Sharqiya came in delegations to GeneralReynier at Bilbeis to ask for mercy. They said, François reported, that they had repentedand “only went to Cairo to respond to the orders of Ibrahim Bey.”François’ further narrative makes it clear that despite this temporary victory, thegarrison at Bilbeis continued to face attacks and remained under virtual siege.Bonaparte’s aide-de-camp Lavalette recalled, “The revolt of Cairo spreaddown the two arms of the Nile, especially that of Damietta.” 2 The key Mediterraneanport fell into danger again, as did its supply lines with Cairo. The commanderin chief wrote General Lanusse in alarm on 27 October that thestagecoach and wagon drivers coming from Damietta up to the capital “had hadtheir throats slit by the villagers of Ramla and Banha al-’Asal in the province ofQalyub, and by those of Bata and Mishrif in that of Minuf. Try to seize theirheadmen and cut off their heads. I assure you that there will be money comingfrom Damietta.” 3The commander in chief urgently wrote General Berthier on 1 November,ordering him to send General Lannes with four hundred men to the village of al-Qata, near Rosetta, “to punish the inhabitants for having confiscated this morningtwo skiffs bearing artillery.” 4 He was to arrest the village headman, or, failing that,a dozen prominent villagers, and “do everything he could to restore to us the bayonets,cannons, firearms, etc., which were pillaged.” Gerbaud heard that they alsocaptured 4,000 muskets, and that a week later Bonaparte had dispatched GeneralMurat with 1,300 men to join up with Lannes in recovering the guns. This accountsuggests that the Delta villagers were preparing for further resistance andknew where they could find the means for it. In late October, Bonaparte was alsocut off from news of Alexandria by disturbances around Rahmaniya.