Battle of the Pyramids
The Battle of the Pyramids, also known as the Battle of Embabeh, was a major engagement fought on 21 July 1798, during the French Invasion of Egypt. The battle took place near the village of Embabeh, across the Nile River from Cairo, but was named by Napoleon after the Great Pyramid of Giza visible nearly nine miles away.
After capturing Alexandria and crossing the desert, the French army, led by General Napoleon Bonaparte, scored a decisive victory against the main army of the local Mamluk rulers, wiping out almost the entire Ottoman army located in Egypt. It was the first battle where Bonaparte personally devised and employed the divisional square tactic to great effect. The deployment of the French brigades into these massive rectangular formations repeatedly threw back multiple cavalry charges of the Mamluks.
The victory effectively sealed the French conquest of Egypt as Murad Bey salvaged the remnants of his army, chaotically fleeing to Upper Egypt. French casualties amounted to roughly 300, but Ottoman and Mamluk casualties soared to approximately 10,000. Napoleon entered Cairo after the battle and created a new local administration under his supervision. The campaign formed part of a great global rivalry between France and Britain; the French objective was to establish a base from which to continue its campaign against British India. After the French fleet was destroyed by Horatio Nelson at the Battle of the Nile, Bonaparte marched through the Levant until his advance was stalled by Anglo-Turkish forces at Acre.[7]
Prelude[edit]
After landing in Ottoman-controlled Egypt and capturing Alexandria on 2 July 1798, the French army led by General Bonaparte marched down the desert toward Cairo. They met the forces of the ruling Mamluks nine miles (15 kilometres) from the Pyramids and only four miles (6 kilometres) from Cairo.[b] The Mamluk forces were commanded by two Georgian mamluks, Murad Bey and Ibrahim Bey, and had a force of powerful and highly trained cavalry at their command as well as fellahin militia acting as infantry.[2] On 13 July after French scouts located Murad's encampment, Bonaparte ordered an advance toward the enemy's forces, engaging them during the brief battle of Chobrakit. After the destruction of their flagship by French field artillery, the Mamluks retreated. The skirmish ended in a minor French victory.[2]
Aftermath[edit]
Upon hearing news of the defeat of their legendary cavalry, the waiting Mamluk armies in Cairo dispersed to Syria, Bonaparte entered the conquered capital of Egypt on 24 July.[2] On 11 August French forces caught up with Ibrahim Bey inflicting on him a crushing defeat at Salalieh.[2]
After the Battle of Pyramids, Napoleon instituted French administration in Cairo and suppressed the subsequent rebellions violently. Although Napoleon tried to co-opt the local Egyptian ulema, scholars like Al-Jabarti poured scorn on the ideas and cultural ways of the French.[10] Despite their cordial proclamations to the natives, with some French soldiers even converting to Islam in order to take Muslim wives, clerics like Abdullah al-Sharqawi, who headed Napoleon's Cairo government or divan,[11] later described the French as: "‘materialist, libertine philosophers … [who] deny the resurrection, and the afterlife, and … [the] prophets"[12] while for the French, mathematician Joseph Fourier regretted that "the Muslim religion would on no account permit the development of the mind".[12]
The Battle of the Pyramids signalled the beginning of the end of seven centuries of Mamluk rule in Egypt. Despite this auspicious beginning, British Admiral Horatio Nelson's victory in the Battle of the Nile ten days later effectively ended Napoleon's ambitions in Egypt.[13]
