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

66 NAPOLEON’S EGYPTIn the city, a panicked population either volunteered to fight alongside theemirs, or stayed home, or tried to flee on the increasingly insecure roads. Al-Jabarti lamented that the markets were abandoned and accumulating dust andthat burglars and hooligans were the only ones doing any business. In the countryside,many peasants believed Bonaparte’s propaganda that he had been sentby the Ottoman sultan. On the Nile itself, the big galleons of the local riverinenavy, manufactured at Giza, had gathered.The brilliance of the gold- and silver-embroidered costumes and brightlypolished arms of the emirs reflected blinding arcs of sunshine into the eyes ofthe French. Mounted on their swift Arabians, each was armed to the teeth, withfive or six ivory-handled and jewel-encrusted pistols in his belt. Their curvedsabers, of Damascene steel and sharp as razors, could decapitate an enemy in asingle well-executed move. Moiret thought them highly imposing as they caracoledbefore their camp. It seemed clear to him from their maneuvers that theyintended to go on the offensive, and the French prepared to receive them.In a memo to the Directory penned only three days later, Bonaparte wrote,“I ordered the divisions of generals Desaix and Reynier to take up a position onthe right, between Giza and Imbaba, in such a manner as to cut off the enemyfrom communication with Upper Egypt, which was his natural retreat.” 2 After3:00 P.M., Murad Bey, the head of an elite cavalry corps, flew at the divisions ofReynier and Desaix with thousands of horsemen “as fast as lightning,” Bonaparterecalled. They appear very nearly to have taken the French unawares. Therest of the Egyptian army feigned an attack on the main body of the French soas to prevent other divisions from going to their succor.At the approach of the local horsemen, General Reynier gave the command,Vertray remembered, “and in the blink of an eye, we were arranged in asquare six men deep, ready to withstand the shock. This movement was executedwith a precision and coolness under fire that was truly remarkable.” ThenFrench artillerymen opened up on the attackers at long range (something theemirs and their Mamluks, unaccustomed to firearms used at anything more thanmedium range, did not expect). Many of the charging cavalrymen wheeled andretreated at the first shell. Across the river in the old city, the steady discharge ofFrench muskets sounded to al-Jabarti like “a cauldron boiling on a cracklingfire.” Murad then attempted to come around and take the French from behind,but the divisions had already formed into squares bristling with “a rampart ofbayonets” that he found impenetrable, even before the muskets began firing. Aslong as the French maintained their discipline and kept the infantry squares intact,they were invulnerable to the cavalry charges. If any number had broken