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

THE FALL OF THE DELTA AND THE ARABIAN JIHAD229The work went more slowly than Bonaparte would have liked, in part becauseNovember was rice harvesting season and few peasant builders were available.In particular, he wanted the fort at al-Izba finished so as to protect Damiettafrom any attack when he sent armies from there across the lake toward Syria.The problem of peasant revolts was by no means resolved, but late in 1798, thescout Pierre Millet recalled, “During the time we were at Damietta, we enjoyedfair tranquility. The commander in chief employed all possible means toconstruct forts to provide us a refuge from the insults of the populace and ofthe Bedouin.” 14 These forts, which Bonaparte was planting throughout Egypt,were generally armed with artillery, unlike the earlier ill-fated garrisons atplaces such as Mansura. Bonaparte was increasingly able to expand and deploycavalry as well.Earlier, he had lacked horses, and anyway they could not be used in theDelta when the water was high and the earth was inundated or turned to marsh.By December, as the water level was falling rapidly, Bonaparte had “requisitioned”large numbers of horses, and mounted cavalrymen could again be sentagainst rebellious peasants. The French could not forestall a steady drumbeat ofattacks and occasional revolts in the Delta, but with Nile skiffs mounted withcannon, with a growing cavalry, and with newly built forts provided with at leasta few cannon, they were less open to simply being massacred. The lack of woodin Egypt was increasingly, however, a limitation on further French building offortifications and ships, which suggested to some officers that a forest wouldhave to be found. As the Bible mentioned in ancient times, the nearest woodlandswere the cedars of Lebanon, in Bonaparte’s time a part of Ottoman Syria.The introduction of the French Republic into the midst of the Muslim worldcreated several distinct responses. Sultan Selim III declared conventional war onthe French, in concert with his Christian allies, the British and the Russians. Butthe sultan also called for an Islamic holy war against the Army of the Orient,charging Ahmed Cezzar Pasha of Sidon with gathering a vassal army loyal to thesultan that would attack the French and drive them from Egypt. 15 The sultan declaredfighting the French to be an individual duty for Muslims. In Arabia andYemen, Muslim scholars and activists called for volunteers to go to the aid ofMurad Bey and to fight the forces of Gen. Louis Desaix in Upper Egypt. All ofthese challenges from the Muslim world—that of Cezzar, that of the Arabiandevotees of holy war, and that of Egyptian Muslim irregulars in Egypt—weremaking themselves felt that winter.