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

GRAND CAIRO83Desvernois observed of Sharqiya that Bonaparte “wanted it cleaned out immediately.”Bonaparte’s military still lacked much in the way of cavalry, since theyhad brought few European horses and had as yet captured and retrained relativelyfew Arabian steeds. 33 This gap put the French at a disadvantage in catchingup to and engaging Ottoman-Egyptian cavalry and Bedouin.On 1 August, Bonaparte addressed a memo to Leclerc ordering him to headout toward Bilbeis and to establish himself in the best villages he encountered.He was to establish a relationship with the five or six Bedouin tribes in the areaand to let them know that if they dared commit the least further excess, “alltheir camps and villages would be ravaged.” Leclerc’s garrison was also to gatherand pass on information about the situation in the east, whether it came fromthe caravan, from Ibrahim Bey, or from Syria. He was also to establish flourmills in all the villages of Sharqiya so as to provision the French troops withbread. 34 Bonaparte’s to-do list encapsulated the tasks of practical imperialism,centering on diplomacy, terror, spying, and food.Leclerc, Bonaparte’s brother-in-law and commander of the cavalry, departedCairo 2 August with four squadrons, hussars and light infantry, and a battalionand two pieces of light artillery. One Captain Malus wrote a series ofdispatches to General Caffarelli concerning their progress. 35 They passed al-Matariya, where they found good and abundant water and provisions, withoutdifficulty. They then made a foray toward Abu Za’bal, having heard that it wasvery rich, but found it well defended by Bedouin and peasant irregulars, and sothey reconsidered their detour and headed again toward al-Khanqa, a villagenine miles from Bilbeis on the route to Syria. They took the town, initially withlittle resistance, on 4 August. On the morning of 5 August, Desvernois said,“Ibrahim Bey, leading slave soldiers and Bedouins, attacked us.” 36