Napoleon in Egypt (29 page)

The sound of the battle had been heard from the outset as far away as Alexandria, fifteen miles to the west, and Rosetta, twenty miles to the east. Many members of the French expedition had taken to the rooftops to observe the flashes and detonations of what all must have realized was a historic encounter, upon which their fate probably hung. Poussielgue, Napoleon’s financial controller, was on a high terrace in Rosetta and witnessed the explosion of
L’Orient
:

The sound of cannon-fire was very heavy until a quarter past nine, when we saw through the darkness an immense light, which made us realize that a ship was on fire. Around this time the sound of cannon-fire redoubled in intensity; at ten o’clock the ship which was on fire blew up with an almighty explosion, which we heard at Rosetta; between the sight of the explosion, and the hearing of it, took about two minutes. After this there was utter darkness and complete silence for about ten minutes. Then the firing restarted again, and lasted without a break until three in the morning.
²⁶

Later, the firing gradually died down once more, and then all but petered out for a couple of hours. The gunners on both sides were by this stage utterly exhausted. Drained of all adrenaline by the frenzy and terror of the night-long battle, they simply slumped where they stood, falling into a deep slumber, not even roused by the kicks of such officers as wished them to continue firing. Then, at five in the morning, according to Poussielgue, the cannon fire “restarted with more force than ever,” lasting until the morning, when he heard another large explosion. This was the French frigate
Artémise
blowing up: an incident which caused some controversy, owing to the actions of her commander, Captain Estandet. The
Artémise
, “having no means of escape, struck her colours”
²⁷
and the British sent boats to take possession of the surrendered French ship, “her officers and crew having previously left in their boats for the shore.” Whereupon the
Artémise
“burst into flames . . . and in about half an hour she blew up.” The firing of his ship by Captain Estandet contravened the accepted rules of naval engagement, and “aroused the indignation of Nelson and all on board the fleet, for having so dastardly burnt the ship, after her colours had been hauled down.” This incident gives an indication of the deep cultural difference between the French and the British at this time. Such rules of naval engagement were not enshrined in anything other than convention: the British adhered to tradition, whereas the French, having undergone a revolution, no longer felt themselves obliged to honor any such gentlemanly agreements.

The morning sun rose into the sky above a ghastly scene. Nicol remembered: “When we ceased firing, I went on deck to view the state of the fleets, and an awful sight it was. The whole bay was covered with dead bodies, mangled, wounded and scorched, not a bit of clothes on them except their trowsers.”
²⁸
Here Nicol was in fact drawing a veil of modesty over the scene; several eyewitness accounts remark on the fact that many French sailors who were rescued after their ship exploded were stark naked, having had all their clothes blown off them by the blast.

Nelson’s squadron had not lost a single ship, but most of them were in a sorry state, with two (including the
Bellerophon
) severely damaged and out of action, three more completely dismasted, and six partially dismasted. But there was no doubt about who were the victors. The French fleet was reduced to a far worse state:
L’Orient
and
Artémise
were blown to smithereens, six other ships had struck their colors, and four others were still flying their colors but were beached or grounded and had abandoned firing. Of the entire French fleet, the only ships to remain in full fighting trim were a few frigates and the two battleships at the rear of the French line, namely the
Guillaume Tell
and the
Généreux
. Rear-Admiral Villeneuve aboard the
Guillaume Tell
had officially been in command of the French fleet after Brueys was killed aboard
L’Orient
, but there had been no means of communicating this fact to him. Neither of the two French battleships at the rear of the line had taken any part in the action, and only late in the morning did they make their first move. Taking advantage of the offshore breeze, the
Guillaume Tell
and the
Généreux
headed away from the British ships and out of the bay, whereupon two French frigates, the
Justice
and the
Diane
, cut their cables and followed them. Nelson ordered ships in pursuit, but they soon proved to be in no fit condition to give chase. As a result, Villeneuve and his battleships escaped into the open sea.

Yet this would do Villeneuve little good—for it would mean that Napoleon now had a scapegoat. In his memoirs, he would place most of the blame for the defeat upon “the bad conduct of Rear-Admiral Villeneuve,” launching into a long tirade against him: “The opinion of the sailors of both fleets is unanimous. Villeneuve could have turned this into a French victory at any time: he could have done this at eight in the evening; he could have done it at midnight, after the loss of
L’Orient
; and it was once again within his power at daybreak.”
²⁹
Despite Napoleon’s evident bias, there nonetheless remains an element of truth in what he says. The two fleets were fairly evenly matched, though the French had the greater firepower. However, two major factors contributed to Nelson’s victory: firstly, his decision to attack at once; and secondly, the masterly seamanship and initiative shown by his captains, which enabled them to take advantage of the gap they had spotted on the shore side of the French. Had Villeneuve acted decisively—especially after the
Bellephoron
was dismasted, forced to cut her lines and drift away from the combat—he might have sandwiched Nelson’s ships between two lines of French ships. Yet such a move, sailing into the wind, would have required even greater seamanship; and it would also have required Villeneuve to act on his own initiative. The Revolution may have changed the French attitude towards the rules of naval engagement, but not towards its conduct: here Nelson was the true revolutionary.

The first few days following the Battle of the Nile were largely devoted to treating the wounded and burying the dead. Many were buried at sea in traditional fashion, their bodies sewn into a hammock or sailcloth, weighted down with two cannonballs, and slid over the side; others, including those who died as a result of their wounds, were buried on the island at the head of Aboukir Bay. British figures state that Nelson had 895 casualties, of whom 218 were killed; the French dead were estimated at 1,200 or thereabouts. Over 3,000 French sailors were taken prisoner, but Nelson found himself unable to cope with so many, especially as a large number were wounded. Consequently he shipped most of these ashore on parole, once they had sworn that they would not take up arms against the British, a condition that both sides must have known would not be observed. Only senior French officers and men deemed to be of value were retained as prisoners. Nelson now set about rendering all the ships of his squadron seaworthy and ready for action, salvaging gear and timbers from many of the incapacitated French ships, whilst taking the rest of them in tow as prizes.

Before Nelson departed from the Egyptian coast he was joined by two British frigates which had been dispatched somewhat tardily by St. Vincent from Cadiz. These were now ordered to remain behind, along with the
Swiftsure, Zealous
and
Goliath
, all under the command of Captain Hood of the
Zealous
, to enforce a blockade of French-occupied Egypt, maintaining a constant patrol between Alexandria, Rosetta and Damietta. Nelson’s victory meant that links between Napoleon and France had now been severed, though the French were not at once fully aware of this: as late as August 8 a ship sailed from Alexandria bound for France. That same day it was intercepted, and found to be “containing despatches from Bonaparte, and thousands of letters from the French army, to their friends in France, which gave the English a true description of the nature of their expedition, and the deprivations which those who composed it were then suffering.”
³⁰
This was how news of Napoleon’s cuckolding reached the
Morning Chronicle
in London.

Nelson had been one of the few who had always taken Napoleon’s dream of invading India seriously, and after his victory at the Battle of the Nile he wrote a note to the governor of Bombay, telling him that there was no fear of Napoleon moving on India now. (As we shall see, Napoleon thought otherwise.) The officer bearing Nelson’s note—Lieutenant Duval of the
Zealous
, who had volunteered to undertake the hazardous overland journey to India—was put ashore on the Turkish coast at Alexandretta, in the northeastern corner of the Mediterranean. From here, dressed in Arab clothes and traveling by camel, he made his way to Baghdad and then on to the port of Basra, where he took ship for Bombay, arriving on October 21—in fact, just two weeks after news of Napoleon’s invasion of Egypt reached India by means of a ship traveling from England round the Cape of Good Hope. Such delays, and time differences between different means of communication, would now begin to play a major role in the fate of Napoleon’s expedition.

Nelson also dispatched both the battleship
Leander
and the brig
Mutine
separately to carry news of his victory to England, which still remained largely isolated from the European mainland, and fearful of French invasion. Sending both ships proved a wise precaution, as the
Leander
was intercepted off Crete—ironically by the
Généreux
, one of the ships that had managed to escape with Villeneuve.
^*
Word of Nelson’s great victory at what came to be known as the Battle of the Nile would only reach England via the
Mutine
, which put in at Naples, where Emma Hamilton fainted when she heard what had happened, the first public hint of her feelings for Nelson. The news then passed overland via Austria and Germany to beleaguered England, where it arrived on October 2. Here it was greeted with the ringing of church bells and the firing of cannons, with London bedecked in illuminations. Nelson’s name was on everyone’s lips, and just as he had hoped, he was elevated to the House of Lords—becoming Lord Nelson of the Nile.

Weeks after the battle was over, the artist Denon described what he witnessed at Aboukir Bay:

At midnight, we arrived at the sea. The rising moon illuminated an unprecedented scene; twelve miles of shoreline covered with the debris of our fleet gave us the measure of what had taken place in the battle. All along the coast wandering Arabs, in search of nails or bits of iron, were burning masts, gun carriages, boats, much still as good as when it recently left our ports. Even the debris seemed like treasure to those who lived in this place so bereft of anything. The thieves fled at our approach; there remained only the bodies of the unfortunate victims, brought in by the sea and deposited on the sand, which now more than half covered them, so that they appeared more sublime than frightful. Gradually such deathly sights made my spirits sink into a somber melancholy; I avoided these horrifying specters, their frozen gestures preventing me from looking at them . . . at the fate that had awaited what were now just effigies on a foreign shore, desiccated by the burning sun, their skulls already blanched. . . . What is this stripped skeleton? . . . Only a few months ago, I had seen these boys, young, full of life, of courage and hope . . . held in the embrace of their mothers, their sisters, their lovers, the feeble grasp of their young children. . . .
³¹

XI

“We are now obliged to accomplish great things”

N
EWS
of the destruction of the French fleet did not reach Napoleon until almost a fortnight later, on August 13, as he was returning from El Saliyeh and his unsuccessful attempt to capture Ibrahim Bey. All witnesses agree that he received the news with his customary sangfroid, “without a flicker of emotion passing over his features.”
¹

Although he was not directly responsible, this was his first taste of defeat: the myth of his invincibility was destroyed—and would be regarded as such throughout Europe. Napoleon sensed this, but refused to accept it. From the outset he was determined that no one should see this defeat as his fault. Although he blamed Villeneuve for his inaction, the main blame for the loss of the fleet was placed on the French naval commander Vice-Admiral Brueys; and there is no denying that there was some justification for this.

After the unloading of the French fleet at Alexandria, Napoleon had given explicit orders to Brueys before departing for Cairo: if the channels did prove too shallow for the French fleet to be safely anchored in the port at Alexandria, it should be anchored at Aboukir Bay—but only if “it would be able to defend itself against a superior fleet.”
²
If not, Brueys was to sail for Corfu. In the event, the harbor channels proved too shallow for the large French ships of the line, and Brueys sailed down the coast to Aboukir Bay. Brueys and Napoleon now sent several messages to one another, but most of these did not get through, as their couriers were ambushed by Bedouin en route. This failure of communication led to misunderstandings. Napoleon thought, or claims he thought, that Brueys had sailed for Corfu. Brueys, on the other hand, did not act upon what he took to be a mere suggestion from Napoleon; he did not wish to be seen as abandoning Napoleon and his army in Egypt. Whatever Brueys’ intentions, it was undoubtedly the inept anchoring of his fleet that led to his downfall. All remembered his exceptional bravery during the battle, and his refusal to give up his command despite his legs having been shot away, and Napoleon would pay generous tribute to this bravery in his letter to Brueys’ widow, as well as in his official report to the Directory: “If he made mistakes, he expiated them by a glorious death.” But he left no doubt that there had been mistakes, and serious ones at that: Brueys had disobeyed orders, and anchored his fleet without sufficient precaution.
³
Napoleon’s verdict was: “He did well to die.”
⁴
Someone had to take the blame, and it was not going to be Napoleon.