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

242 NAPOLEON’S EGYPTThe Meccan volunteers had not made the difference in the battle, though asuntrained civilians they had brought no dishonor on themselves, either. Theydid, however, greatly improve morale for Murad and his allies who continued tofight against the French occupation in Upper Egypt. Nor was this the last contingentof such volunteers to arrive in Egypt from the Hejaz. The significanceof the mujahidin lay elsewhere than in the likelihood that seminarians andtownspeople could by dint of sheer enthusiasm bring down a modern Europeanarmy. The jihadis were a harbinger that the Muslim world was gathering againstthe French. The Muslim world was not led politically by Mecca but by Istanbul.Sultan Selim III was in a better position than al-Jilani to raise trained and wellequippedholy warriors who could make a stand against the Republican army.He was also willing to ally with powerful Christian empires in a way that wouldnot have occurred to al-Jilani, but which increased the effectiveness of his riposteby several orders of magnitude. Not mere religious enthusiasm but steadfast,cultured, and pragmatic faith had the better chance of success.Bonaparte marshaled 10,000 troops in early February to begin the assaulton Cezzar Pasha’s forces in Syria, preparing to face the sultan’s holy war inearnest. The other challenges that he faced that winter in Egypt, whether recalcitrantBedouin and villagers unwilling to submit to crushing taxes and expropriationor the spread of plague and other infectious diseases among histroops, were omens of things to come rather than obstacles surmounted. Itwas clear that the Egyptian public alone could not throw off the French yoke,however hard it tried, though it likely had already killed a few thousand soldiersaltogether and over time could inflict substantial attrition. Six monthsinto the occupation, the French had likely killed at least 12,000 Egyptians.The French had a marginal advantage over the Egyptians in organization, tactics,and quality of weaponry. It was small enough, but it was sufficient in themedium term.Bonaparte thought of himself as having remade Egypt, but his impact wasso far superficial. He was deeply in debt, and his troops’ pay months in arrears.The Islamic legitimacy he had quixotically sought still escaped him whenever hewas not physically present among the clergy. The Delta was still unsettled, especiallyin the west. The parliament of saints was restless, and millenarian noiseswere bruited abroad. As long as Murad Bey eluded Desaix, Upper Egypt and theRed Sea remained the soft underbelly of the French Republic of Egypt. Bonaparte’sarmy was marooned without a fleet and facing steady attrition from battle,disease, and sabotage. His one chance to rescue triumph from the maw offailure lay not in further securing Egypt but in breaking out of it and finding a