Napoleon in Egypt (39 page)

Hassan Bey spoke to me of the war that the Sublime Porte had declared against us, and said to me that Russia and Britain, now allied with Turkey, were going to attack us. I replied in Italian: “Do you think that the Porte would ever become allied to Russia, your natural enemy, who has unceasingly sought to expand into your territory?” I repeated to him that you have frequent correspondence with Constantinople by way of Syria, and that the Sultan was well aware of what was happening. The Turk who accompanied him then said to me, in a tone of some ferocity, that at Rhodes 140 Frenchmen had been clapped in irons and that similar measures had been taken in provinces throughout Turkey.
¹⁶

In short, there was no meeting of minds. Commodore Hood insisted that Turkey was at war with France, but Lieutenant Guibert remained unconvinced: “It didn’t even have the appearance of truth. In general, despite the ostensible friendliness and warmth that they affected towards the old pasha of Rhodes [Hassan Bey] and his attendants, the British appeared to me to be in little sympathy with them, and were above all very discontented with the Arabs.”
¹⁷
Guibert revealed that one British captain had told him how Hassan Bey “had appeared very astonished to see the sociable manner of the discussions between the French and the British, he pointed out that in Turkey such envoys were in danger of losing their lives. Whereupon the British officer could not refrain from telling him: ‘We are not barbarians like you.’”

The full import of this latter exchange would have been all too clear to the French diplomatic representative in Constantinople, who was at that very moment languishing in the notorious Yedikule dungeons. Despite the apparently deceptive signals Napoleon had received in Cairo, and the similarly deceptive messages he had sent from Cairo to Constantinople, the entire situation had been transparently clear to the Porte for some time.

As we have seen, news had probably reached Constantinople of Napoleon’s intention to invade Egypt by early May 1798, owing to some highly skilled espionage work by Greek agents working for the Turkish embassy in Paris. At the time, French affairs in Constantinople were being handled by Citizen Ruffin, a junior diplomat of little experience. The ambassador appointed to replace Verninac—who had so inspired Napoleon in Italy on his journey home—had died. As soon as news of Napoleon’s expedition reached Constantinople, Citizen Ruffin was hastily summoned before the Turkish foreign minister Reis Effendi.
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Despite Reis Effendi’s insistence, Ruffin was unable to offer any explanation: all he could do was insist that he knew nothing whatsoever of any invasion plans, and assure the minister that he was certain France harbored no aggressive intent against its long-term ally. This was also the position adopted, rather more disingenuously, by Talleyrand when he was confronted by the Turkish ambassador in Paris. Even when news of the actual invasion first reached Paris, ironically via Constantinople, Talleyrand continued to assure the ambassador that France had no hostile intentions.

As Ruffin wrote in his report to Talleyrand: “There is an old Turkish proverb: ‘When an Ottoman hunter goes after a hare, he starts out in a horse and cart.’ This aptly captures the prudent tardiness of the Porte.”
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Here, at least, Ruffin knew what he was talking about. Just as he predicted, in the customary manner of the Ottomans Sultan Selim III decided to bide his time and see what would happen. The far-flung and ramshackle Ottoman Empire was now coming to be regarded as “the sick man of Europe,” with European powers casting covetous eyes upon its territory. During a ruinous five-year war, which had only ended six years previously, Russia had seized the Crimea, and Austria had expanded into the Balkans. France was virtually the only European power that Selim III could rely upon, and he had no wish to end this alliance by any precipitate action. This lenient attitude towards France also received encouragment from an unlikely source—the sultan’s favorite wife, Sultana Velideh, a Frenchwoman who had arrived at her present position as a result of a remarkable adventure. Aimée du Buc de Rivery had been born in Martinique and by a curious coincidence was in fact a cousin and childhood friend of Napoleon’s Josephine. When she had been sailing home to Martinique after her convent schooling in France, her ship had been attacked by pirates, who had taken her captive and sold her in Algiers. The sight of this impeccable white virgin had attracted the attention of the sultan’s representative, who had sent her to Selim in Constantinople, where her beauty, vivacity and intelligence had quickly established her as the sultan’s favorite. However, Sultana Velideh’s influence could do little to aid the hapless Ruffin, who remained in ignorance in the French Embassy. His uncomfortable situation was further worsened when news of Napoleon’s great victory at the Battle of the Pyramids reached Constantinople.

With feelings running high throughout Turkey, Ruffin was summoned to Reis Effendi and informed that no Frenchman resident in the Ottoman Empire was to appear in public, and also that from now on he himself was banned from the foreign ministry. If he wished to deliver any diplomatic communication to Reis Effendi, he was only permitted to call at his private residence after dark. Although Reis Effendi assured him “that these were simply practical measures, to avoid any angry incidents,”
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Ruffin had sufficient diplomatic expertise to understand the subtleties of what was happening. As he explained in his report to Talleyrand: “Before I took my leave of him, he made no attempt to offer me either sherbet, perfume or a scented handkerchief, and I concluded from the absence of these traditional marks of hospitality that this had not been a diplomatic meeting but had in fact been a diplomatic reprimand.”

Meanwhile, behind the scenes the British had been doing their utmost to persuade the Porte of the seriousness of the French invasion of Egypt, suggesting that this could well be the prelude to a full-scale offensive against the Ottoman Empire, with Napoleon marching up through Syria to threaten Constantinople itself. The British did not in fact take such an outlandish idea very seriously, although ironically Napoleon did, believing that it was a realistic alternative: he had informed Talleyrand that if he was prevented from marching overland to India, he would “return home via Constantinople.”
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In order to protect the territory of its empire, the Porte would be best advised to form an alliance with the British, according to their persuasive minister plenipotentiary Charles Spencer Smith, brother of Sir Sidney Smith, the maverick sailor who had played a decisive role at the siege of Toulon. Spencer Smith even went so far as to suggest that the Porte should forget its differences with its traditional enemy, Russia, and instead form a triple alliance with Russia and Britain against the French. The Porte took cognizance of this astonishing advice, but continued to bide its time.

When news of Nelson’s victory at the Battle of the Nile and the destruction of the French fleet reached Constantinople, the Porte belatedly stirred into action. On September 2 Ruffin and his two official interpreters were summoned to the sultan’s residence at Topkapi Palace to present themselves at the seraglio.
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The French delegation was received in stony silence. Ruffin recorded that in accordance with etiquette and the local tradition of hospitality, “coffee was served, and afterwards, when the chargé d’affaires had set down his cup, Reis Effendi made a speech.”
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In the course of this, he referred to

the ancient and sincere friendship which for so long and so happily united our two powers. The Porte had only been able to view with the saddest astonishment the invasion that the aforesaid republic had allowed itself to embark upon, in the midst of peace, against Egypt. This was the most precious province of the Ottoman Empire, which could be seen as nothing less than the navel of Islam, by reason of its proximity to the two revered and noble cities of Mecca and Medina.

Immediately this speech was over, the French delegation was placed under arrest. It was then marched out of the palace and through the streets of Constantinople by a detachment of Janissaries of the Imperial Guard. According to one of the delegation, they passed “through a crowd of curious onlookers from all walks of life, who crammed the streets, the shops and the crossroads, without uttering a single shout or manifestation of aggression.”
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Ruffin and his colleagues were taken to the Yedikule, the Castle of Seven Towers, the notorious dungeons in the ancient Byzantine walls of the city, which stood next to the so-called Well of Blood into which the heads of executed prisoners were cast. Despite these medieval conditions, Ruffin manfully prepared his report for Talleyrand on what had happened. Meanwhile, on September 9 the Porte issued a declaration of war against France, which was duly conveyed to Paris under the good offices of the Spanish ambassador. At the same time, French nationals throughout the Ottoman Empire were rounded up and thrown into jail. This almost certainly involved some thousand or more men, women and children, although precisely how many is impossible to determine. The identity of any foreigner was difficult to establish in this age before passports, and many zealous local authorities simply picked up anyone they suspected of being French. Ruffin reported that 200 were arrested in Constantinople, including “businessmen, artists, writers, citizens and ‘protégés’ [as well as] rajas of various nations and even returned Turkish emigrés.”
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At least a quarter of these ended up as galley slaves.

By now Charles Spencer Smith had convinced the Porte to sign a treaty with Britain; at the same time the Porte had been persuaded to ally itself with Russia, in what has been called “one of the most improbable alliances in the history of international relations.”
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Within weeks, a Russian fleet was sailing down the Bosphorus on its way to join with the Turkish fleet in the Mediterranean, passing as it did so through the heart of Constantinople, where its appearance was greeted with enthusiastic cheers from the city shores.

Back in Egypt, Napoleon remained ignorant of these developments, and in the absence of any concrete evidence he still refused to believe that the Porte had declared war on France. The presence of Hassan Bey and his warships amongst the blockading British squadron could easily be accounted for, not least because Hassan Bey consistently refused to give any of Napoleon’s envoys an unequivocal message on paper confirming that the Porte had declared war. General Marmont insisted in his memoirs: “The certainty of any declaration of war by the Porte was not yet established.”
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This would seem to indicate that Napoleon was not alone in his belief that there was no rupture with Turkey. Indeed, this optimistic view appears to have been prevalent amongst the majority of the French Army of the Orient.

Less easy to explain away was the appearance in Egypt of a
firman
: an imperial decree issued by Sultan Selim III calling for a holy war against the French. This had been sent by the Porte to Djezzar, at Acre in Syria, who was still harboring the Mameluke leader Ibrahim Bey. Copies of the
firman
were then sent by messengers across the Sinai desert into Egypt, along with messages to the Egyptian people from Djezzar and Ibrahim Bey. These seem to have been read out after Friday prayers at the mosques in Cairo sometime during October. The
firman
may have been couched in poetic language, but its message was transparently clear:

In the name of God the merciful . . .

The French people (may God destroy their country from top to bottom and cover their flags in ignominy) are a faithless and obstinate nation whose wickedness knows no restraint. . . . They are sunk in a sea of vice and error, they are gathered together under the flag of the devil, and they are only happy amidst disorder, taking their inspiration from hell itself. . . . The lion does not care about the number of foxes who are thinking of attacking him, and the falcon is not afraid of a swarm of crows who croak at him. . . . With the power of the Prophet this army of atheists will be scattered before you and exterminated. . . .
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It also included passages outlining French beliefs:

They mock all religions, they reject belief in another life, as well as its rewards and tortures, they do not believe in the resurrection of the body, nor in the last judgment, and they think that a blind chance presides over their life and death, that they owe their existence to pure matter, and that after this life their body returns to the earth. . . . Their aim is to spread disunity amongst rulers, trouble amongst emperors, and incite their subjects to revolt.

This perspicacious summary of French revolutionary principles also included the following:

The French think that men, being born equal, must be equally free; that all distinction between men is unjust, and that each ought to be the master of his own opinion and his manner of living. . . . They have the impudence to say: We are brothers and friends, the same interests unite us, and we have the same religious opinions.

This was a surprisingly accurate reflection of the ideas the French thought they were bringing to the Levant; such notions were the benefits of a progressive civilization, no less. Indeed, Napoleon himself could easily have written this last passage in his proclamation to the people of Egypt. The words would have been understood at once, and acted upon with zeal, had they been read out in public in many European countries of the period, and over the ensuing centuries many of these beliefs have come to be accepted throughout the Western world. Yet the Muslim authorities of the period were happy to broadcast them in mosques throughout the land, knowing that such ideas would not only be beyond the understanding of a people who had never known any freedom, but would also be rejected. The very core of what the French thought they were bringing to the Egyptians, and giving to their society, which appeared so backward, was not only incomprehensible but offensive to the people they were addressing. This was a situation which the French, in their turn, would soon begin to find incomprehensible and offensive.