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

THE FALL OF THE DELTA AND THE ARABIAN JIHAD235conditions. First, the British and Russians had to pledge not to attempt to takeany of the Ottoman possessions in the Balkans. Second, the Ottomans had torenew their friendship with France and break off relations with the British andRussians. Beauchamp was to warn the Sublime Porte that a refusal to treat withFrance would trigger an invasion of Syria. In the event, the British capturedBeauchamp and delivered him to the Ottomans, who imprisoned him with theother French diplomats in the Seven Towers. Bonaparte had given the Ottomansan ultimatum: negotiate with Beauchamp, or face an invasion of Syria.The invasion was on.Lavalette recalled that when he escorted Beauchamp to the port in late December,he met General Marmont, who was in charge of its security. 28 “You have arrived,”he told him, “at a very bad time. . . . The plague was declared yesterdayamong our troops.” He said that the order given when the French first arrivedin Alexandria, that the clothing of anyone who came down with the plagueshould be burned, had not been fully implemented. The clothing of the strickenhad been put back into circulation among the healthy Egyptians. “And since ourtroops have intimate relations with a section among them, the contact hadcaused the plague to develop among the French.” That is, the French soldiersand officers were sleeping with local women. Marmont said that four had diedthe day before, and eight had been stricken.Soon thirty persons were dying each day in Alexandria, counting bothtroops and civilian Egyptians. The general then ordered that the French troopsstay in cantonments and away from the local population. Lavalette was skepticalabout the idea of keeping the troops away from Egyptian women, since, hesaid, they were convinced that the plague was just something they would haveto risk, “and relations of the soldiers with them continued despite the most severediscipline.” As time went on, the French became so alarmed that they occasionallymade war on prostitutes. “All the public women who are surprisedhaving relations with the French are closed up in a sack and tossed in thewater,” the printer Galland remarked some time later. 29 Such measures weremore an occasional hysteria than a systematic policy and hardly made a dentin the sex trade. Lavalette remembered being charged with ordering a militaryadministrator, Michaud, and ten men to come from Rosetta to Alexandria.They lodged with Marmont. Two days later, Michaud was alone—all theothers, he said, had died. One of them, Renaud, had gone to town to sign papersto receive his rations. The next morning his eyes were wild, his tongue