Military Career of Napoleon the Great Part 9

At Cairo a terrible insurrection occurred on the 21st of October, but it was soon put down by the French troops, after a bitter struggle in which many soldiers lost their lives. Napoleon was in the thickest of the conflict on horseback in the centre of thirty Guides and soon restored confidence among his soldiers. Tranquility was restored in three days, after which many of the leaders were put to death. The others were pardoned.

Napoleon now proceeded to explore the Isthmus of Suez, where a narrow neck of land divides the Red Sea from the Mediterranean. He visited the Maronite Monks of Mount Sinai, and, as Mohammed had done before him, affixed his name to their charter of privileges; he examined, also, the Fountains of Moses, and on the 28th of December, 1798, nearly lost his life in exploring, during low water, the sands of the Red Sea, where Pharaoh is supposed to have perished while in pursuit of the Hebrews.

"The night overtook us," says Savary, "the waters began to rise around us; the Guard in advance exclaimed that their horses were swimming.

Bonaparte saved us all by one of those simple expedients which occur to an imperturbable mind. Placing himself in the centre he bade all the rest circle around him, and then ride out, each man in a separate direction, and each to halt as soon as he found his horse swimming. The man whose horse continued to march the last, was sure, he said, to be in the right direction; then accordingly we all followed, and reached Suez at two in the morning in safety, though so rapidly had the tide advanced that the water was at the breastplate of our horses ere we made the land." In referring to this narrow escape from sharing the fate of Pharaoh, Napoleon remarked to Las Casas: "This would have furnished all the preachers in Christendom with a splendid text against me."

On his return to Cairo Bonaparte dispatched a trusty messenger into India, inviting Tippoo Saib to inform him of the condition of the English army in that section, and declaring that Egypt was only the first port in a march destined to surpa.s.s that of Alexander. According to his secretary, "he spent whole days in lying flat on the ground stretched on maps of Asia."

After having pa.s.sed the balance of the year at Cairo the commander declared the time for action had now arrived. Leaving 15,000 men in and about Cairo, the division of Desaix in Upper Egypt, and garrisons in the chief towns, Bonaparte, on the 11th of February, 1799, marched for Syria at the head of 10,000 picked men, with the intention of crushing the Turkish armaments in that quarter before their chief force, which he learned was a.s.sembling at Rhodes, should have time to reach Egypt by sea.

The hostility of the Porte, which would of course be encouraged and a.s.sisted by England, implied impending danger on two points,--the approach of a Turkish army via Syria and the landing of another on the coast of the Mediterranean, under the protection of British ships. The necessity of forestalling their designs by an expedition to Syria was therefore apparent. In January, 1799, two Turkish armies were a.s.sembled; one at Rhodes; the other in Syria. The former was intended to make a descent upon the coast of Egypt at Aboukir, the latter had already pushed forward its advance guard to El-Arisch, a fort within the Egyptian territory, had established large magazines at Gaza and landed at Jaffa a train of artillery of forty guns.

Traversing the desert, seventy-five leagues across, which divides Egypt from Syria, with about twelve thousand men, one regiment being mounted on dromedaries, Napoleon took possession of the fortress El-Arisch on February 17th, after a vigorous a.s.sault. The march was made rapidly and in good order. Having resolved upon an immediate expedition into Syria, he did not wait to be attacked on both sides at the same time; but, according to his usual custom, determined to push forward and encounter one division of his enemies at a time. He addressed two letters to the Pasha of Syria, surnamed Djezzar or "the Butcher," from his horrible cruelties, offering him friendship and alliance, but the pasha observed a contemptuous silence as to the first communication, and replied to the second in his favorite fashion--seized the messenger and cut off his head. There was, consequently, nothing to be done with Djezzar but to fight him with such generals as Kleber, Bessieres, Caffarelli, Murat, Lannes, Junot and Berthier.

Pursuing his march, Napoleon took Gaza, the ancient city of the Philistines, without serious opposition, although three or four thousand of Djezzar's horse were drawn up to oppose them. At Jaffa, the Joppa of Holy Writ, the Moslems made a resolute defense, on March 6th, but at length the walls were carried by storm. Three thousand Turks died with arms in their hands in defense of the city, and the town was given up for three hours to pillage more savage than Napoleon had ever before permitted. This was followed by a ma.s.sacre of hundreds of the barbarians who were marched out of Jaffa some distance from the town, in the centre of a battalion under General Bon, divided into small parties and shot or bayoneted to a man. Like true fatalists they submitted in silence, and their bodies were gathered into a pyramid where for half a century their bones were still visible in the whitening sand.

Napoleon, while admitting that the act was one of the darkest stains on his name that he had to acknowledge, still justified himself on the double plea that he could not afford soldiers to guard so many prisoners--estimated variously from 1200 to 3,000--and that he could not grant them the benefit of parole because they were the very men who had already been set free by him on such terms at El-Arisch after they had given their word not to serve against him for a year. "Now," said Napoleon at St. Helena, "if I had spared them again and sent them away on their parole, they would directly have gone to St. Jean d'Acre, where they would have played me over again the same trick that they had done at Jaffa. In justice to the lives of my soldiers, since every general ought to consider himself as their father, and them as his children, I could not allow this. To leave as a guard a portion of my army, already small and reduced in number, in consequence of the breach of faith of those wretches, was impossible. I therefore * * * ordered that the prisoners should be singled out and shot. * * * I would do the same thing to-morrow and so would any general commanding an army under such circ.u.mstances."

Napoleon now ascertained that the Pasha of Syria was at St. Jean d'Acre, so renowned in the history of the Crusades, and determined to defend that place to extremity with the force which had already been a.s.sembled for the invasion of Egypt. Sir Sidney Smith, with two ships of war, was cruising before the port and the garrison was a.s.sisted by European science.

The French army moved on Acre, eager for revenge, while the necessary apparatus of a siege was ordered to be sent round by sea from Alexandria. Sir Sidney Smith was informed by Djezzar, of the approaching storm, and hastened to support him in the defense of Acre. Napoleon's vessels, conveying guns and stores from Egypt, fell into his hands and he appeared off the town two days before the French army came in view of it. He was permitted to regulate the plan of defense, turning Napoleon's own cannon against him from the walls.

Napoleon commenced the siege on the 18th of March and opened his trenches immediately on his arrival. "On that little town," he said to one of his generals, as they were standing together on an eminence, "On yonder little town depends the fate of the East: behold the key of Constantinople or of India." "The moment Acre falls," he said about the same time to Bourrienne, "all the Druses of Mount Lebanon will join me; the Syrians, weary of Djezzar's oppressions, will crowd to my standard: I shall march upon Constantinople with an army to which the Turks can offer no effectual resistance, and it is not unlikely that I may return to France by the route of Adrianople and Vienna, destroying the house of Austria on my way."

For ten days the French labored hard in their trenches, being exposed to the fire of extensive batteries, formed chiefly of Bonaparte's own artillery. On March 28th, however, a breach was at last effected and the French mounted with such fiery zeal that the garrison gave way. Shortly afterwards Djezzar himself appeared on the battlements, and flinging his pistols at the head of his flying men, urged and compelled them to renew the defense, which they finally did, causing the French to retreat with great loss.

In the meantime Junot, having marched with his division to encounter a large Mussulman army that had been gathered among the mountains of Samaria, and was preparing to descend upon Acre, Napoleon was compelled to follow him to Nazareth, where he was rescued on April 8th. Here, as usual, the splendid cavalry of the Orientals were unable to resist the solid squares and well-directed musketry of the French. General Kleber, with another division, was in like manner rescued by the general-in-chief at Mount Thabor on April 15th, after the former had fought against fearful odds from six in the morning till one in the afternoon.

Napoleon now returned to the siege of Acre with all possible dispatch, pressed it on with desperate a.s.saults day after day, losing many of his best soldiers. Accustomed to the easy victories which he had obtained on every encounter with the Turkish forces in Syria, he was not prepared to expect the determined resistance by which his progress was now arrested.

Acre is surrounded by a wall flanked with towers, and was further defended by a broad and deep ditch with strong works. At one time the French succeeded in forcing their way into the great tower and in establishing themselves in one part of it for a time despite all opposition; but they were finally dislodged; each advantage ended with itself and no progress was made towards subduing the place. At another time a break was made in the walls in a distant part of the town, and a French party entered Acre at the opening. Djezzar then threw such a crowd of Turks upon them that all discipline was lost and nearly every French soldier met death. The brave Lannes, who headed the party, was with difficulty rescued after being desperately wounded.

During this siege Napoleon sent an officer with an order to the most exposed position; he was killed. He sent another, who was also killed; and so with a third. The order was imperative and Bonaparte had but two aides with him, Eugene Beauharnais and Lavalette. He signaled to the latter to come forward, and said to him in a low voice, so that Eugene could not hear: "Take this order, Lavalette, I don't want to send this boy and have him killed so young; his mother (Josephine) has intrusted him to me. You know what life is. Go!" The aide returned in safety.

On another occasion during the siege a piece of sh.e.l.l struck Eugene on the head: he fell, and lay for a long time under the ruins of a wall which the sh.e.l.l had knocked down. Bonaparte thought he was killed, and uttered a cry of grief. The youth was only wounded, however, and at the end of nineteen days asked leave to return to his post, in order to take part in the other a.s.saults, which failed like the first, in spite of Bonaparte's obstinacy. "This wretched hole," said he, "has cost me a good deal of time and a great many men, but things have gone too far; I must try one last a.s.sault."

An instance of the enthusiastic attachment which Napoleon was capable of inspiring occurred during this memorable siege. One day, when the commander was in the trenches, a sh.e.l.l thrown by Sir Sidney Smith, fell at his feet. Two grenadiers immediately rushed towards him,--placed him between them, and raised their arms above his head so as to completely cover every part of his body. The sh.e.l.l burst without injuring one of the group, although they were covered with sand. Both these grenadiers were made officers immediately; one of them, subsequently, was the General Dumesnil, so much talked of 1814, for his resolute defense of Vincennes against the Russians. He had lost a leg in the campaign of Moscow; and to the summons to surrender he replied, "Give me back my leg and I will give up the fortress!" The fate of his heroic companion is not recorded.

The siege had now continued for sixty days. Napoleon once more commanded an a.s.sault on the 8th of May, and his officers and soldiers obeyed him with devoted but fruitless gallantry. "That Sidney Smith," he said later, "made me miss my fortune." The loss his army had by this time undergone was very great, and the hearts of all the men were quickly sinking.

Among the officers and men who fell on this memorable 8th of May was Croisier, the aide-de-camp, who had incurred the commander's displeasure at Jaffa. Napoleon had once before been violently irritated against him for some seeming neglect at Cairo, and the word "coward" had escaped him. The feelings of Croisier, then deeply affected had become insupportable since the event at Jaffa, and he sought death at every opportunity. On this day Napoleon observed the tall figure of his unfortunate aide-de-camp mounted on a battery, exposed to the thickest of the enemy's fire, and called loudly and imperatively, "Croisier, come down! you have no business there." Croisier neither replied nor moved; the next instant he received his death wound.

A Turkish fleet had now arrived to reinforce Djezzar, and upon the utter failure of the attack of the 21st of May, the eleventh different attempt to carry the place by a.s.sault, Napoleon yielded to stern necessity, raised the siege, and began his retreat upon Jaffa. On leaving this latter place some six days after, a number of plague patients in the hospitals were found to be in a state that held out no hope of their recovery, and the commander, unwilling to leave them to the cruel practices of the Turks, suggested that opium be administered by one of the medical staff as a speedy death.

The various accounts of this incident in no way agree in detail.

Bonaparte denied at St. Helena that the opium was given, but said that the patients, seven in number were abandoned. He declared also, that if his own son had been among the number he would have advised that it be done rather than to leave them to suffer the tortures of the Turks. Sir Sidney Smith found seven alive in the hospitals when he came up. A rear guard had been left to protect them and they probably galloped off before the English entered the place. Bourrienne, who acted as secretary to Napoleon at this time, gives a different account, while others a.s.sert that 500 men were thus disposed of. The real facts will probably never be known although both Hazlitt and Sir Walter Scott acquit Napoleon of all blame after a careful investigation of all the facts. That Bonaparte's motives were good his enemies generally admit, as he seems to have designed, by shortening these men's lives, to do them the best service in his power.

The retreating march was a continued scene of misery; the wounded and sick were many, the heat oppressive, and the burdens almost intolerable.

Dejected by the sight of so much suffering Napoleon issued an order that every horse, mule and camel should be given up to the sick, wounded and infected. Shortly afterwards one of his attendants came to ask which horse he wished to reserve for himself. "Scoundrel!" the commander cried, "do you not know the order? Let every one march on foot--I the first! Begone!" He accordingly, during the rest of the march, walked by the side of the sick, cheering them to hope for recovery, and exhibiting to all the soldiery the example at once of endurance and compa.s.sion. As he had done in Italy, Napoleon always shared the privations and fatigue of the army and their extremities were sometimes so great that the troops were compelled to contend with each other for the smallest comforts. Upon one occasion in the desert, the soldiers would scarcely allow their general to dip his hands in a muddy pool of water; and when pa.s.sing the ruins of Pelusium, almost suffocated by heat, a soldier yielded him the ruins of an ancient doorway beneath which he contrived to shade his head for a few minutes and which Napoleon observed, "was no trifling favor."

On the march between Cesarea and Jaffa, Napoleon very narrowly escaped death. Many of the men had by this time regained their horses, owing to the continual death of the wretched objects who had been mounted upon them. The commander was so exhausted that he had fallen asleep on his horse. A little before daybreak, a native, concealed among the bushes close to the roadside, took aim at his head, and fired. The ball missed: the man was pursued, caught and ordered to be instantly shot. Four Guides drew their triggers, but all their carbines hung fire, owing to the extreme humidity of the night. The Syrian leaped into the sea, which was close to the road; swam to a ledge of rocks, which he mounted and there stood, undaunted and untouched by the shots of the whole troop, who fired at him as they pleased. Napoleon left Bourrienne behind to wait for Kleber, who formed the rear guard and to order him "not to forget the Naplousian." It is not certain that he was shot at last.

On his return to Cairo on the 14th of June, 1799, after a march of twenty-five days, Napoleon once more re-established himself in his former headquarters; but he had not long occupied himself with the establishment of a new government for Egypt which was then in a state of perfect tranquility, when word came to him of a probable uprising at Alexandria. The commander therefore decided to go there at once. He arrived on the 24th of July and found his army posted in the neighborhood of Aboukir, prepared to antic.i.p.ate an attack of the Turks which had appeared off Aboukir under the protection of two British ships commanded by Sir Sidney Smith, on the morrow. Surveying their intrenched camp from the heights above, the commander said to Murat; "Go how it may, the battle of tomorrow will decide the fate of the world." "Of this army at least," answered Murat; "but the Turks have no cavalry, and if ever infantry were charged to the teeth by horse, they shall be so by mine," a promise which the brave cavalry leader made good.

Next morning the Turkish outposts were attacked and the enemy driven in with great slaughter. The retreat might have ended in a rout but for the eagerness of the enemy who engaged in the task of spoiling and maiming those who fell before them. This gave to Murat the opportunity of charging the main body,--which had been drawn up in battle array on the field,--in flank with his cavalry. From that moment the engagement was no longer a battle but a ma.s.sacre. The French infantry, under the rallying eye of Napoleon, forced a pa.s.sage to the intrenchments, and attacking the Turks on all sides, caused them to throw themselves headlong into the waves, rather than await the fury of the French cavalry and the steady fire of the artillery. The sea at first appeared literally covered with turbans. It was only when weary with slaughter that quarter was given to about 6,000 men--the rest of the Turkish army, consisting of 18,000 having perished on the field or in the sea. Six thousand were taken prisoners.

The defeat of the Turks at Aboukir filled the French soldiers at Cairo with extreme rapture; Murat was promoted to the rank of a general of division and Napoleon ordered his name and that of Roize and the numbers of the regiments of cavalry present at the battle, engraved upon pieces of bra.s.s cannon. Mustapha Pasha, the commanding general of the Turks, on being brought into the presence of his victor, was saluted with these words: "It has been your fate to lose this day; but I will take care to inform the sultan of the courage with which you have contested it."

"Spare thyself that trouble," answered the proud pasha, "my master knows me better than thou." On the evening after the battle, General Kleber embraced Bonaparte and said to him, "General, you are as great as the world!" "It is not written on high that I am to perish by the hands of the Arabs," replied Napoleon.

This splendid and most decisive victory at Aboukir concluded Bonaparte's career in the East. It was imperiously necessary, ere he could have ventured to quit the command of the army, that he should have to his credit some such glory after the retreat from Syria. It preserved his credit with the public and enabled him to state that he left Egypt for the time in absolute security. After the engagement Napoleon sent a flag of truce to Sir Sidney Smith, and an interchange of civilities commenced between the English and the French. This circ.u.mstance, trifling in itself, led to important consequences. Among other things, a copy of a French journal, dated the 10th of June 1799 was sent ash.o.r.e by Sir Sidney Smith. No news from France had reached Egypt for ten months.

Napoleon seized the paper with eagerness and its contents verified his worst fears; he had said some time before while at Acre that he feared France was in trouble. As he opened the paper he exclaimed: "My G.o.d! My presentiment is realized; the imbeciles have lost Italy! All the fruits of our victories are gone! I must leave Egypt." He then spent the whole night in his tent reading a file of the English newspapers which had been furnished him. From these he learned of Suwarrow's victories over the French in Italy and of the disastrous internal state of France. In the morning Admiral Gantheaume received hasty orders to prepare the two frigates _Muiron_ and _Carrere_ and two corvetts, for sea, with the utmost secrecy and dispatch, furnishing them with two months provisions for five hundred men.

Napoleon returned to Cairo on the 9th of August, but it was only to make some parting arrangements as to the administration of affairs there, for he had resolved to intrust Egypt to other hands, and at once set out for France. He reached Alexandria once more, and was there met by those whom he had decided should make the return voyage with him. He selected Berthier, Lannes, Murat, Marmont and Andreossy with five hundred picked men to accompany him: these with Monge and Denon proceeded to depart from Alexandria without delay. On the 18th a courier from Gantheaume brought information that Sir Sidney Smith had left the coast to take water at Cyprus. This was the signal for Napoleon's instant departure.

On the morning of August 23d, 1799, Bonaparte and his chosen followers embarked at Rosetta on two frigates and two smaller vessels, which had been saved in the harbor of Alexandria. A lack of water, and an accident to one of the English ships had compelled the enemy to raise the blockade and so favored his departure. In writing to the Divan and announcing his departure he said: "Remind the Musselmen frequently of my love for them. Acquaint them that I have two great means to conduct men--persuasion and force; with the one I gain friends, and with the other I destroy my enemies."

General Kleber was now placed in command of the Army of Egypt by Napoleon who informed his successor of the reasons of his departure for France, and his intention of sending recruits and munitions at the earliest possible moment. He said to Kleber, "The army which I confide to you is composed of my children; in all times, even in the midst of the greatest sufferings I have received the mark of their attachment; keep alive in them these sentiments. You owe this to the particular esteem and true attachment which I bear myself towards you."

The French frigates had hardly pa.s.sed from sight of land when they were reconnoitred by an English corvette, a circ.u.mstance which seemed of evil augury. Bonaparte a.s.sured his companions by his usual allusions to his own "destiny" which he declared would protect him on sea as well as land. "We will arrive safe," said he, "fortune will never abandon us--we will arrive safe despite the enemy."

Napoleon left no responsibility upon the admiral to whom the various manoeuvres have been ascribed: "As if," says Bourrienne, "any one could command when Bonaparte was present!"

By express directions of Napoleon, the squadron, instead of taking the ordinary course, kept close to the African coast, in the direction of the southern point of Sardinia; his intention being to take a northerly course along the northern coast of that island. He had irrevocably determined, that should the English fleet appear, he would run ash.o.r.e; make his way, with the little army under his command, to Orin, Tunis, or some other port; and thence find another opportunity of getting to France.

The entire voyage was one of constant peril, for the Mediterranean was traversed in all directions by English ships of war. For twenty-one days, adverse winds, blowing from west or northwest, continually drove the squadron on the Syrian coast, or back towards Alexandria. It was once proposed that they should again put into that port, but Napoleon would not hear of it, declaring that he would brave any danger. On the 30th of September he reached Ajaccio, and was received with enthusiasm at the place of his birth; but according to his own phrase, "it rained cousins" and he was wearied with solicitations. "What will become of me," he said, "if the English, who are cruising hereabouts, should learn that I have landed in Corsica? I shall be forced to stay here. That I could never endure. I have a torrent of relations pouring upon me." "His brilliant reputation," says Bourrienne, "had prodigiously augmented his family connections, and from the great number of his pretended G.o.d-children it might have been thought that he had held one-fourth of the children of Ajaccio at the baptismal font." It was during his stay in Corsica that Napoleon first heard of the loss of the battle of Novi by the French army and of the death of Joubert. "But for that confounded quarantine" he exclaimed, "I would hasten ash.o.r.e, and place myself at the head of the Army of Italy. All is not over; and I am sure that there is not a general who would refuse me the command. The news of the victory gained by me, would reach Paris as soon as the battle of Aboukir; that, indeed, would be excellent!"

On the 7th of October the voyage was at last resumed, the winds being again favorable, and on the morning of the 9th, after a narrow escape from the English, he moored in safety in the bay of Frejus.

The story he brought of the victory of Aboukir, gave new fuel to the flame of universal enthusiasm, and Napoleon's return to Paris bore all the appearance of a triumphal procession. The shouts of welcome with which he was hailed were echoed by the whole population of France. He returned from Egypt as a "conqueror," although almost alone; yet Providence designed in this apparently deserted condition that he should be the instrument of more astonishing changes than the greatest efforts of the greatest conquerors had ever before been able to effect upon the civilized world. Napoleon was regarded as the champion of liberty, as well as the successful military leader; and none of his actions, or expressed opinions had as yet contradicted such an estimation of his principles.

The campaign in Egypt was of little service to France, but to Napoleon it was most useful. Of the aides-de-camp whom he took with him four perished there, Croisier, Sulkowski, Guibert and Julian; two, Duroc and Eugene Beauharnais were wounded; Lavalette and Merlin alone returned safe and sound. Bonaparte had the highest regard for Josephine's son Eugene. He was brave and manly, and although a youth of seventeen soon won Bonaparte's lasting affection. If there was a dangerous duty,--to ride into the desert and reconnoitre the bands of Arabs or Mamelukes, Eugene was always the first to volunteer. One day when he was hastening forward with his usual eagerness, Bonaparte called him back, saying: "Young man, remember that in our business we must never _seek_ danger; we must be satisfied with doing our duty, doing it well, and leaving the rest to G.o.d!"

At the capital Napoleon was received with every demonstration of joy by the French people, who now looked upon him as their liberator. All parties seemed to be weary of the Directory, and to demand the decisive interference of the unrivalled soldier. On his return he was much surprised to learn of the real condition of France, and to an emissary of Barras he said with some degree of feeling: "What have you done with that land of France which I left to your care in so magnificent a condition? I bequeathed you peace, and on my return find war. I left you the memory of victories, and now I have come back to face defeats. I left with you the millions I had gathered in Italy, and today I see nothing in every direction but laws despoiling the people, coupled with distress. What have you done with the one hundred thousand of French citizens, my companions in glory, all of whom I knew? You have sent them to their death. This state of things cannot last; for it would lead us to despotism, and we require liberty reposing on a basis of equality." The Directory offered him the choice of any army he would command. He did not refuse, but pleaded the necessity of a short interval of leisure for the recovery of his health and speedily withdrew from the conference in order to avoid any more such embarra.s.sing offers.

He had by this time, evidently, a very clear perception of the course before him, and had made up his mind to place himself in circ.u.mstances to confer high offices and commands, instead of accepting them.

In talking afterwards to Madame de Remusat about this period in his career, Napoleon said: "The Directory was not uneasy at my return; I was extremely on my guard, and never in my life have I displayed more skill.

Everyone ran into my traps, and when I became the head of the State there was not a party in France that did not base its hopes on my success."

IV

Pa.s.sAGE OF THE ALPS, AND BATTLE OF MARENGO

At the time of Napoleon's return from the Egyptian expedition the legislative bodies of Paris were divided into two parties, the Moderates, headed by Sieyes, and the Democrats, by Barras. Finding it impossible to remain neutral, Bonaparte took sides with the former.

Lucien, his brother, had just been elected president of the Council of Five Hundred; the subtle and able Talleyrand and the accomplished Sieyes were his confidants, and he determined to overwhelm the imbecile government and take the reins in his own hands. He had measured his strength, established his purpose, and, as France stood in need of a more energetic and regenerated government, he now went calmly to its execution.

During his absence in Egypt France had cause to deplore the loss of his military genius, and had hailed his return with rapturous acclamations.