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

THE FALL OF THE DELTA AND THE ARABIAN JIHAD241from Arabia. Some 7,000 Bedouin cavalrymen rode with Murad, accompanied by3,000 Egyptian infantry irregulars. On 18 January, just in the nick of time, theflotilla caught a favorable wind and arrived at Girga with supplies. On 20 JanuaryDesaix and his forces departed Girga. On the twenty-first, as he advanced,Desvernois saw fleeing toward him a crowd of Copts who had been sent as taxcollectors by Desaix. They informed him that Murad Bey and his supporters hadtaken up a strong position at the village of Samhud. Copts, especially numerousin Upper Egypt, sometimes gave key support to the French there.Desaix later wrote to Bonaparte, “Our advance guard, composed of the 7thHussars, had two platoons in front, commanded by Captain [Desvernois]. Theywere suddenly assailed by the troops from Mecca, supported by some Mamluks.”The implication is that the volunteers, armed mainly with lances, were onfoot, facing French light cavalry. The French pushed them back. “Findingthemselves hard pressed, they made an about-face, and running through twentyof them with sabers was the affair of a moment.” The jihadis managed to put abullet through one French cavalryman.Desaix then had his infantry form two big squares, with artillery on theirwings and the cavalry enclosed in one of them, and they marched on Samhud.He detailed two companies of musketeers, supported by a light cavalry Hussarplatoon led by Desvernois, to attack the village defended by “the sharifs ofMecca.” He recalled, “The enemy was on the bank of a canal. They put up avigorous resistance.” The holy warriors killed a musketeer and wounded Desaix’saide-de-camp, Rapp, while Desvernois suffered a dagger cut to the tendonsof his forearm, forcing him to wield his saber left-handed as he struggledto escape the battlefield. He managed to ride into the center of an infantrysquare, bloody and covered with dozens of cuts.It was now the turn of the French, Desaix gloated. As the enemy closed intoo near for shooting, the musketeers made a bayonet charge and wielded thebutts of their weapons with deadly effect, killing thirty. “And the village wasours.” The rest of the battle was predictable, with the infantry squares and artilleryimpenetrable to their opponents’ cavalry. With reinforcements, Desaixhad 2,500 men, including light cavalry, and was better placed to win than he hadbeen earlier. The Ottoman Egyptians charged, firing at will and uttering fearsomewar cries, then met the wall of muskets and bayonets and cascading cannonballsthat had pushed them inexorably toward the African interior. Desaixand Davout glimpsed Murad at the head of his cavalrymen and exposed, andDavout took out after him with the French Hussars, but the beys and theirMamluks vanished.