Napoleon in Egypt (57 page)

With the arrival of Smith’s squadron and the Turkish warships, Acre was now protected from the sea, and its walled harbor could receive reinforcements with little difficulty, even though it would soon come within range of the nearest French guns. Despite this, Smith had quickly begun to land further artillery, a vast supply of gunpowder and some 4,000 cannonballs, as well as several hundred British marines and trained naval gunnery units to assist the defenders. He also put ashore ample provisions for the 15,000 inhabitants of Acre and Djezzar’s 4,000 man garrison of mixed Turkish, Albanian and Syrian soldiers. The morale of Djezzar and his defenders now underwent a transformation. Vowing to overcome once and for all the heretic Napoleon and his infidel army, Djezzar’s troops manned the walls with renewed confidence, looking out at the ant-like figures of their besiegers taking up their positions amongst the olive groves and rolling countryside. The defensive walls on the landward side of Acre dated from the Crusader era, when they had been constructed by the Knights of St. John (hence the French name St. Jean d’Acre). Despite being reinforced by Djezzar, these walls were still continuing to crumble in parts, but they had been built so thick that such weaknesses were not deemed serious. After studying plans of the fortifications, Smith and Phélippeaux began working out with Djezzar how best to use the resources at their disposal in the defense of Acre.

Such was the city, and its three leading defenders, that now confronted the undefeated Napoleon in the most decisive engagement of his life so far—one upon which he knew his entire future plans depended. Smith too was well aware of Acre’s vital strategic importance: if it could be defended, Napoleon would be unable to continue his advance through Syria, knowing that his lines of communication were threatened, and that an army could be landed in his rear. On the other hand, if Acre fell, the only fortified city of consequence which lay in Napoleon’s path was Aleppo, 250 miles to the north. This was seventy miles inland, beyond the reach of British naval support, and stood at the crossroads leading either to Constantinople or to India.

The French forces were soon digging in, excavating a line of trenches across the neck of land facing the walls. Here they were camouflaged behind straw bales, as well as being hidden from view by the gardens and orchards, and the ancient ruined aqueduct. Undercover of darkness they began digging zigzag trenches forward towards the walls, which would enable the sappers to plant their devastating explosives and effect a breach. All this digging in would take at least a week, but to begin with it seems to have been undertaken hastily and made slow progress. As was so often the case, Kléber was not impressed with his commander-in-chief’s methods, and was not afraid to say so. The tall Kléber, walking alongside the short figure of Napoleon as they inspected the trenches, could not refrain from remarking sardonically: “What the devil kind of trenches are they digging here, General? They may be fine for you, but they only come up as far as my stomach.”
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Although Napoleon was as impatient as ever, the French could afford to take their time. They now had no shortage of supplies, as they were soon receiving ample provisions from the orchards, market gardens and herds of the friendly local Druze villages, who had promised Napoleon a further 15,000 men for his march north once Acre was taken. The main body of the French army was bivouacked out of range of the guns of Acre, on the heights to the north overlooking the plain before the city. Paymaster Peyrusse paints a vivid picture of life here: “Our camp becomes every day more like a great country fair. Wine, spirits, figs, discs of unleavened bread, grapes, butter, etc. . . . we have them all in abundance, even if we are charged ridiculously high prices; but when you’re on campaign you don’t care about money.”
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Napoleon himself supervised the placing of the French light artillery. The loss of the flotilla bringing his heavy siege guns was a blow, but not an irreparable one. He had managed to breach the walls of El-Arish and Jaffa with these guns, and remained supremely confident that he could repeat this feat. And if not, he had already sent to Alexandria for replacement heavy artillery to be dispatched forthwith.

Before hostilities got under way, Napoleon sent word by sea to Smith, requesting an exchange of prisoners. He knew that the British squadron was holding a number of French prisoners taken from ships attempting to evade the blockade of Alexandria and the other northern ports. Similarly, on March 21 the French had captured a number of English sailors whom Smith had sent in on a daring but unsuccessful raid intended to capture several sloops which had fallen into French hands in Haifa harbor. Smith at once agreed to the exchange, but informed Napoleon that he would have to keep one badly beaten French officer called Delasalle, whom he had come across in the dungeons of Acre. He told Napoleon that he had managed to persuade Djezzar to let him take Delasalle back to the
Tigre
for treatment, adding confidentially: “It would be much better not to complain to Djezzar about his mistreatment, for this would merely remind him of the matter, and make him wish to lay hands on him once more, given the present antagonism which Djezzar and the Turks now have towards the French. Monsieur Delasalle is at present my guest and will remain so until a suitable occasion arises for him to be sent back to France.”
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Napoleon conveyed his thanks to Smith in a similarly gracious reply: “Do not doubt, Commander, my desire to deal with you in a civilized fashion, hence my eagerness to seize the opportunity to be useful to men of your nation who have been unfortunate enough to suffer from the hazards of war.”
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The French artillery barrage began just before dawn on March 28. It was immediately answered by heavy fire from the city walls, as well as a punishing crossfire from the British and Turkish ships anchored offshore. Within two hours the well-directed French fire had opened a breach in the city walls, but at considerable cost. Forty French artillerymen had been killed and many more wounded, while all but three of the French guns had been knocked out.

The breach was in the tower where the French had been concentrating their fire, and this opening in the walls was further extended by the detonation of a mine placed by French sappers. According to Captain François, who was in the front line, Napoleon and his staff were up with them in the trenches the whole time, assessing when to give the order to charge. Soon the trenches were filling up and almost overflowing as the support troops moved in behind those ready to go over the top, but still Napoleon hesitated, until the officers informed him that they could hold the men back no longer. François described what happened when the order was given:

[the men] charged towards the breach, the grenadiers at their head; but to their great surprise they were halted by the steep banks of the moat, which they had not realized was there. . . . The grenadiers were not going to let themselves be defeated by this unforeseen obstacle. With the aid of ladders which had been given to us by the Druze, they clambered down into the moat before the breach and prepared to mount into the tower, in spite of the terrible fire that the enemy was aiming down at them from the breach and from the ramparts above. Captain Mailly Châteaurenault of the general staff clambered up first, but he was felled by a burst of fire. If the grenadiers had been backed up by the support troops, who were now separated from them by the fatal steep banks of the moat, they would have succeeded in scaling the tower. Nevertheless, they continued to advance; their ferocious bravery inspired such terror in the Turks that we saw them jump down from the breach into the moat and abandon the tower, but the pasha [Djezzar] forced more men into the breach, injuring some of them in the process, treating them as cowards, telling them that the French were fleeing. He threatened [the Turkish soldiers] with his vengeance and fired a couple of pistol shots at them.
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By now the support troops had come to a halt, realizing that without ladders they would not be able to get down into the moat and up the other side like the grenadiers. Finding themselves exposed to heavy fire from the ramparts, they retreated and sought cover back in the trenches:

Meanwhile the grenadiers, still at the foot of the tower, continued their efforts to clamber up the ten or twelve feet which separated them from the breach. By now all the fire of the Turks was directed at them. Most fell backwards, from the top of their ladders. . . . The besieged soldiers hurled a rain of stones, grenades, flaming blocks of tarred wood and boiling oil. The grenadiers fled and took cover in the trenches, leaving behind them a great number of their comrades. Then the Turks poured down into the moat and cut off the heads of the fallen soldiers, whether they were dead or wounded.

Djezzar had promised a large bounty for every infidel head brought before him, and that same evening the heads of the French soldiers were displayed on spikes along the city ramparts. Regarding all this as a minor setback, Napoleon wrote confidently next day to Dugua in Cairo, describing how “numerous deputations have arrived from all sides, even the Arab tribes have not been slow in showing their pleasure at our arrival; everyone wishes to be delivered from their oppressor who is boxed up in Acre. Our breach batteries are all in place, we have begun to pound the walls, and we hope to take the place pretty soon.”
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Meanwhile, Captain François noted in his diary: “Continued digging in. The soldiers putting in an incredible effort, despite being under enemy fire; they are filled with the desire to avenge what has happened. The besieged troops shout down menacing threats at us in Turkish, Arabic, in English and even in French.”
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Djezzar’s actions had reinvigorated his troops, giving them new heart; they no longer feared the invincible French who had swept all before them in a tide of blood at Jaffa. At the same time, some of the French were becoming a little less optimistic than their commander-in-chief. As Doguereau noted in his journal: “From this moment on many amongst us came to the conclusion that we would not take the place.”
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Djezzar’s reaction to the initial French onslaught was in character. He ordered the slaughter of all Christians amongst the indigenous population of Acre, and had all French prisoners in his dungeons strangled. The victims of the massacre were thrown over the city walls into the sea, where their presence soon became evident: “The soldiers in the trenches of General Vial’s division saw washed up on the seashore many bodies shoved into empty rice and coffee chests.”
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Bourrienne also recorded the grim scene, which evidently continued for some days: “The waves frequently washed up dead bodies on the beach, and we came across them when we bathed in the sea.”
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Napoleon held Sir Sidney Smith responsible for this massacre, blaming him for not restraining Djezzar, despite the fact that Smith had already warned him about Djezzar’s uncontrollable behavior. At any rate, from now on Napoleon began to develop a deep hatred for Smith.

Once again, Napoleon became impatient. Despite his training as an artillery officer, he was never at ease whilst conducting a siege, whose brute force tactics gave little rein to his superlative military skills. Two heavy guns which had been captured at Haifa—a thirty-two-pounder and a twenty-four-pounder—finally arrived at Acre on April 1, having been dragged overland; but these remained unused as the French had no cannonballs of their caliber. Recognizing the French lack of any heavy artillery, the Ottoman defenders began to jeer at the French artillerymen, yelling through the night: “Sultan Selim boom, boom, boom. Bonaparte ping, ping, ping.” Napoleon was irritated to observe that “the besieged forces lost no time in rendering the breach impenetrable, filling it with mines, explosives, charged grenades, barrels of pitch, bundles of sticks, wood wrapped with cloth soaked in inflammable sulphur and iron spikes.”
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During the daytime the besieged Ottomans kept the French at bay with a constant artillery barrage from the ramparts. Now that they were being supplied by the British, they had all the ammunition they wanted, and soon the plain around the French trenches was littered with cannonballs of all sizes. Napoleon quickly turned this to his advantage, issuing the order on April 4: “All soldiers who during today and tomorrow find cannon balls on the plain and bring them to head quarters will be paid accordingly: 36 and 33 pounders 20 sous each, 12 pounders 15 sous each, 8 pounders 10 sous.”
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These were generous sums: a sou was a twentieth of a pound (livre), or five centimes. At this rate, a soldier heaving and hauling back a thirty-three-pound cannonball would get the best part of a day’s wage for a junior savant, more than enough to buy a good supply of wine for him and his comrades, even at the inflated Druze prices.

Meanwhile the outbreak of plague amongst the French army was being brought under control. Desgenettes had issued some reassuring advice on the matter, which was distributed through all divisions: “The army is informed that it is very advantageous to health to wash at frequent intervals feet, hands and face with fresh water and even better to wash them with warm water, into which has been poured a few drops of vinegar or alcoholic spirit.” He also recommended those who had caught the disease to take,

in order to sustain immediate hydration and strength, as a matter of urgency, a drink consisting of coffee and quinine, flavoured with fresh lemon or lemon juice. The swelling of the glands requires, in principle, a soothing poultice, and when the patient is weak, his tumors must immediately be opened by the application of one or several cauterizing lances. Experience has already shown the effectiveness of this treatment; experience has also proved, through close observation of a great number of cases, that this sickness is not contagious.
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