Napoleon in Egypt (60 page)

A column of grenadiers immediately charged the breach. Although it soon became clear that there was no hope of getting through, this did not deter the grenadiers, who bravely launched themselves into the breach. The enemy had in fact remained in the top of the tower and hidden behind the battlements; they began crushing our troops with rocks, shells and hand grenades. However, since nothing was able to repel our troops, the enemy resorted to throwing down on them 2 or 3 barrels of gunpowder whose ignition caused all our men to suffocate in the blast, although a few did manage to get out half-covered with flames.
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Despite such setbacks, Napoleon was still writing confidently back to Cairo: “I expect to take Acre by 5 or 6 May.”
³

As Napoleon had commented when he was a younger man, coincidentally in the same year as his previous encounter with Sidney Smith at the siege of Toulon: “It is axiomatic in the art of war that the side which remains behind its fortified line is always defeated. Experience and theory agree on that point.”
⁴
It was evident that the tide was now turning against Djezzar’s forces, which were suffering heavy casualties and would not be able to hold out much longer. Amongst these casualties was Napoleon’s school bête noire Phélippeaux; Sir Sidney Smith wrote on May 2, the day after his friend’s death: “Phélypeaux [
sic
] has fallen a sacrifice to his zeal for this service: want of rest and exposure to the sun having given him a fever, of which he died. Our grief for his loss is excessive on every account.”
⁵
But Phélippeaux’s influence lived on. He had instructed Djezzar to hang lanterns on the ramparts at night, and for the time being this successfully thwarted the French attempts to mine the walls undercover of darkness. Despite such measures, Djezzar was becoming increasingly pessimistic. Sidney Smith did his best to rouse him, but the old tyrant preferred to resort to his own time-honored devices, consulting his court astrologer, who cast chicken bones to read Napoleon’s intentions. The bones predicted that Napoleon would attack the central tower—a safe bet, given that his artillery had focused on little else—and Djezzar pondered this revelation gloomily.

Four days later the siege passed into its fiftieth day, and on the following day Napoleon’s heavy artillery arrived after its long haul overland. But as these guns were being maneuvered into position, the French received an unpleasant surprise. In the words of Bernoyer, there “appeared at sea a convoy of thirty sails. At first we thought it must be reinforcements arriving from France; but our hopes vanished when we made out the English and Turkish flags.”
⁶
This fleet, under the command of Hassan Bey, had been dispatched from Rhodes and was bringing a division of Turkish troops, as well as large quantities of fresh supplies for the beleaguered garrison.

Napoleon immediately ordered an all-out artillery barrage, to be followed by an assault next morning before these reinforcements could be landed. Through the night, regardless of the lanterns, the French sappers moved along their trenches towards the walls, building up earthworks and mounds to protect themselves. Looking down from the ramparts, Smith grimly observed that these mounds were “composed of sand bags and
the bodies of their dead, built in with them
[his italics], their bayonets alone being visible above them.”
⁷

Before dawn the French launched their attack. The waves of bayonet-wielding grenadiers, their red uniforms and dark plumed helmets dimly illuminated in the lantern-glow, charged over the mounds of earth and cadavers that had now been pushed forward to fill in the moat. Smith recorded that “the enemy gained ground, made a lodgement on the second storey of the north-east tower, the upper part being completely battered down, and the ruins in the ditch forming the ascent by which they mounted. Daylight shewed us the French standard on the outer angle of the tower.” He concluded that this was now “a most critical part of the conquest” and led the 800 British marines and naval gun crews down from the walls with the aim of defending the breach, which remained partially blocked, with only a few unarmed Turkish defenders tossing stones over the rubble onto the French heads. Smith and his men relieved them in a desperate last stand, with “the heaps of ruins between the two parties serving as a breastwork for both, the muzzles of their muskets touching and the spearheads of their standards locked.” In a hectic last-ditch battle, the British and French soldiers continued shooting at each other at point-blank range amidst the rubble and smoke, with neither side willing to concede.

When Djezzar learned what Smith was doing, he was horrified. According to Smith: “Djezzar Pasha, hearing that the British were on the breach, quitted his station, where, according to ancient Turkish custom, he was sitting to reward such as should bring him the heads of the enemy and distributing musket cartridges with his own hands. The energetic old man, coming behind us, pulled us down with violence, saying if any harm happened to his English friends all was lost.” Djezzar insisted that his own troops should defend the breach, knowing that this was how his soldiers fought at their best. Smith seems to have gambled on this response, and immediately evacuated his men to guard the landing of the Turkish troops and fresh supplies. By now the French heavy siege guns were beginning to have an effect, “every shot knocking down whole sheets of a wall, much less solid than that of the tower.” Through the morning the French artillery succeeded in opening a further breach in the walls adjoining the central tower, which Smith reckoned was “practicable for fifty men abreast.”

Late that afternoon Smith mounted onto the battlements and scoured the enemy positions through his telescope. He noticed that “groups of generals and aides-de-camps . . . were now assembled on the [opposite hillside]. Bonaparte was distinguishable in the centre of the semi-circle; his gesticulation indicated a renewal of attack, and his despatching of an aide-de-camp to the camp shewed that he waited only for a reinforcement.” Smith’s reading of the situation was correct, and just before sunset the French launched a determined assault through the breach, with General Lannes leading his men in. According to Smith: “Djezzar Pasha’s idea was not to defend the brink this time, but rather to let a certain number of the enemy in, and then close with them, according to the Turkish mode of war. The [French] column thus mounted the breach unmolested and descended from the ramparts into the Pasha’s garden, where, in a very few minutes, the bravest and the most advanced among them lay headless corpses, the sabre, with the addition of a dagger in the other hand, proving more than a match for the bayonet.”
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The rest of Lannes’ invaders defended themselves valiantly, eventually breaking through; but they were perturbed to notice that they were now cut off, with no support troops managing to make it into the garden after them. Despite this, they fought their way forward into the narrow streets of the town beside the main mosque and Djezzar’s palace, where they encountered all kinds of obstructions, as well as fierce resistance from the crack Albanian troops that had disembarked from Hassan Bey’s fleet. These men were encouraged in their resistance by the women of the town, who were letting out their traditional ululating shriek from the rooftops above the gunshots and cries of the men below. Chief of Staff Berthier recorded:

The firing from the buildings, from the barricades in the street, and from Djezzar’s palace, caught the front and the rear of those who were descending the breach into the town, and those already in the town began to withdraw, as they were unable to hold out. . . . All the column inside the town was turned into a scrum of men trying to get out; General Lannes went forward in an effort to reverse this retreat and get the column moving forward again. . . . The effect of the initial charge through the breach was entirely dissipated; General Lannes was seriously wounded, General Rambaud was killed. . . . There was nothing else to do but sound the retreat, and the order was given.
⁹

Amidst the chaos, the leading part of the column became cut off. Bernoyer describes their reaction:

Seeing they were not followed by their comrades, they lost hope of being rescued; these brave soldiers decided to stand their ground to the last man. They took possession of a mosque, where they barricaded themselves in and defended like lions against the efforts of the numerous opposing troops, who were enraged by the losses they had suffered in the course of the day’s fighting.

Faced with such combat, which was to be a fight to the bitter end, the English Admiral Sidney Smith was moved by sentiments of humanity and generosity to intervene, and lost no time in coming to the rescue of our brave soldiers with a detachment of English soldiers. He called upon our grenadiers to surrender themselves and in return he promised them protection: they trusted him and this amiable officer saved the life of 200 men.
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10

Eventually the French assault was abandoned. The fighting had now continued for over twenty-four hours, and there followed a lull, with “both parties being so fatigued as to be unable to move.” Smith knew that this uncanny silence could not last. After supervising the landing of Hassan Bey’s troops, at sunset he mounted the battlements once more. His assessment of the situation was grim: “The town is not, nor ever has been, defensible, according to the rules of art; but according to every other rule, it must and shall be defended.” But this time it was not the French generals who stood on the heights, surveying the plain before Acre; through his eyeglass, Smith could make out crowds of tribesmen and villagers who had gathered from all around on the far hillsides to watch the final outcome of the siege. Smith fully understood the significance of this: “’Tis on the issue of this conflict that depends the opinion of the multitude of spectators on the surrounding hills, who wait only to see how it ends to join the victor, and with [a victory for Napoleon being] such a reinforcement for the execution of his known projects, Constantinople, and even Vienna, must feel the shock.” Indicatively, Smith did not mention any effect, global or otherwise, that might result from Napoleon’s defeat, and later confirmed his pessimism, admitting: “We may, and probably shall be overpowered.” Such a judgment only makes his unceasing bravery even more admirable.

Meanwhile, in the opposing camp, not all the French generals were enthusiastic about their confident young commander-in-chief’s tactics. According to a remark usually attributed to Junot: “The Turks have a medieval army inside and we Europeans with our modern army are on the outside, yet we’re the ones using medieval methods, while they’re defending European style.”
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Throughout the next day, May 9, the eerie calm continued, while Napoleon prepared for his final all-out assault on Acre. That evening, as he walked on the beach out of range of the city’s guns, with Bourrienne at his side, he confessed that “he was distressed to see the blood of so many brave men uselessly spilt.” Then he outlined his plans: if he succeeded in overrunning Acre, as he was convinced he would, he expected to find Djezzar’s treasures, which would be more than enough to finance an army, as well as

arms enough for 3,000 men. I will call to arms the whole of Syria. . . . I will march on Aleppo and Damascus. I will enlarge my army as I advance through the country attracting all those who are discontented. I will announce to the people the end of their servitude and of the tyrannous government of the pashas. I will arrive at Constantinople with massed armies. I will overthrow the Turkish empire. I will found in the Orient a great new empire which will write my name in history, and perhaps I will return to Paris by way of Adrianople [in European western Turkey] or through Vienna after having annihilated the House of Austria.
¹²

Such a speech may sound like the exaggerated ranting of a man attempting to psych himself up on the eve of a decisive battle, but this does not mean that its contents can simply be dismissed. As we have seen, these grandiose dreams had been developing in Napoleon’s mind throughout the Egyptian expedition. Bourrienne, for one, stresses that he was constantly referring to such schemes, and several generals’ memoirs indicate that they too had heard, often firsthand, about Napoleon’s “Oriental fantasy.” The historian’s need to refer to this, again and again, is in order to stress the actuality of this fantasy, and the primacy of its place in Napoleon’s thinking. And it is possible that Napoleon’s motive for repeating it involved very similar reasons. The self-conviction required for such an unprecedented ambition, in a sane mind very much in contact with reality, can only be imagined.

It was in a bid to appeal to this very sanity that Sidney Smith had written to Napoleon during the calm hours of May 9, in a letter revealing some information that had just reached him. Along with the Turkish reinforcements, Hassan Bey’s fleet had also brought to Acre a young French Royalist officer, Major Charles de Trotté, who had been present when Beauchamp, Napoleon’s final emissary to Constantinople, had been intercepted by the British. De Trotté had read Napoleon’s letter to the grand vizier, as well as his secret instructions to Beauchamp about what to say if asked whether the French would leave Egypt, and he passed this information on to Smith. Mischievously, Smith decided to make use of this in his letter to Napoleon, quoting Beauchamp’s secret instructions word for word (literally so, for he had the courtesy to write his letter in French):