Napoleon in Egypt (63 page)

we continued quietly along our route beside the sea . . . we hoped we would not see before our eyes any more hideous sights of dead and dying men . . .when, upon entering Haifa that horrific night, we came across a hundred sick or wounded who had been left in the middle of a big square. These desperate wretches filled the air with their cries and curses. Some, convinced they had been abandoned, were tearing off their bandages and rolling in the dirt. This sight sent a chill through all the men, so we stopped for a moment and men from each company were detailed with the task of carrying them to Tantura; then we continued on our way.
⁹

At Tantura, where the army had been waiting in vain for Perrée’s flotilla, Peyrusse’s retreating column stumbled in at three
A.M.
and came across “seven or eight hundred wounded or plague victims, together with twenty cannons and 1,200 bombs and no boat to transport them . . . The disorder was increased by the explosion of a crate of artillery shells which killed and wounded many people.”
¹⁰

As the long, straggling columns of French soldiers moved on through the burning countryside they were harassed by occasional raids from the tribesmen in the mountains around Nablus. At sea they made out the familiar sillhouette of the
Tigre
, along with Smith’s squadron, following them down the coast, and soon the boom of cannons began sounding across the water, with cannonballs occasionally cutting swaths through their marching ranks.

By May 24 the first ragged columns were marching into Jaffa, some sixty miles south of Haifa, where Napoleon gave the order to rest for four days. Several vessels were in the harbor, and 1,200 of the sick and wounded were loaded on board for shipment to Damietta. According to Sir Sidney Smith: “I took care to be between Jaffa and Damietta. . . . The enemy’s vessels being hurried to sea without seamen to navigate them, and the wounded being in want of every necessary, even water and provisions, they steered straight to His Majesty’s ships, in full confidence of receiving the succours of humanity; in which they were not disappointed. . . . Their expressions of gratitude to us were mingled with execrations on the name of their general, who had, as they said, thus exposed them to perish.”
¹¹
Having given the French vessels water and provisions, Smith sent them on to Damietta where those on board could receive proper treatment.

But Napoleon still had some 800 or so sick and wounded left on his hands in Jaffa, many of whom were suffering from the plague. Most of these were transported with the advance parties as they left the town, many carried on stretchers or assisted by captured tribesmen and Turkish prisoners. Some had died in Jaffa, others had recovered, until according to Desgenettes all that were finally left were some thirty or so “without any hope of recovery.” Though as we shall see, other eyewitnesses gave different figures.

Napoleon decided to assess the situation for himself, and visited the hospital. According to Bourrienne, who was with him:

Bonaparte strode rapidly through the wards, lightly rapping the top of his boot with his riding crop. . . . He addressed the patients: “We have to return to Egypt to save it from our enemies who are planning an invasion. In a few hours the Turks will be here, and all those who feel strong enough to rise can come with us; they will be carried on stretchers or on horseback.” . . . There were at least sixty plague patients . . . their absolute silence, complete exhaustion and general apathy indicated that their end was approaching. To bring them with us, in the state that they were in, would have been tantamount to infecting the rest of the army with the disease.
¹²

Napoleon suggested giving them fatal doses of opium, but once again Desgenettes refused to have anything to do with this, even to the point of denying that he had any left (which may well have been true). But Napoleon was determined, and brought in a Turkish physician from Constantinople called Hadj Mustafa, who had been aboard a ship which had inadvertently sailed into Jaffa without realizing the town had been taken by the French. He had with him sufficient laudanum (an opiate solution), and together with the French chief pharmacist Royer began administering this to the men. According to Desgenettes, who was present, lethal doses of laudanum were administered to twenty-five patients and “several of these rejected it by vomiting, felt relieved, were cured and lived to tell the tale.”
¹³

Two usually reliable sources—Napoleon’s aide Lavallette and his surgeon-in-chief Larrey—strenuously denied that Napoleon did in fact poison dozens of his own soldiers at Jaffa. But it is difficult to disbelieve both Desgenettes and Bourrienne, and perhaps most indicative of all is a guilty note that Kléber scribbled in code in his private pocketbook at the time, which suggests that not only plague victims were involved. Decoded and translated, this note reads: “It was suggested that the health officers give opium to the fever patients and the seriously wounded.”
^*
14

Having left the last victims to die in peace, Napoleon evacuated Jaffa. Within a few hours Sir Sidney Smith sailed into the port and came ashore, where he found no sign of Turkish soldiers on the rampage. Instead, he was greeted by a ghoulish scene: “The heaps of unburied Frenchmen, lying on the bodies of those whom they massacred two months ago . . . Seven poor wretches are left alive in the hospital; they are protected and shall be taken care of.”
¹⁵

From Jaffa the grim retreat continued south, reaching Gaza on May 29. The temperature was now rising towards its debilitating summer zenith, and instead of the mud and cold rain they had to contend with on their way out, the French soldiers now faced the prospect of crossing the desert in temperatures of over 30º C (or the high eighties Fahrenheit). On top of this, they now had no pack mules carrying water skins. According to Napoleon’s aide Lavallette, “When they saw before them the terrible desert, knowing from experience what they would have to suffer in crossing it without water, they began muttering amongst themselves, and after this they mutinied.”
¹⁶
Such setbacks proved temporary, but Lavallette gives a good indication of the stress Napoleon was under. Despite his explicit order that horses should be strictly reserved for the sick and the wounded, “his chief stablemaster was foolish enough to ask if he was ready to mount his favorite mare, and this was the first time I saw him strike someone. Furious he went for him and thrashed him with his riding crop.”

Bourrienne vividly evokes the effect of the desert on the men: “An all-consuming thirst, the total lack of water, the overwhelming heat, the tiring march through the burning sand dunes, made them lose all sense of compassion, so that they succumbed to the most cruel selfishness and were afflicted with a frightful indifference to their fellow humanity. I saw them throw men off their stretchers, officers who had amputated limbs whom they were ordered to carry, who had even given them money for their troubles.”
¹⁷

When the French soldiers made it across the desert to El-Arish, they knew that they were back in Egypt at last. Even so, there were still at least two long days’ march before they reached the edge of the desert at Katia. According to Private Millet: “Having arrived at El Arish . . . we believed we would find provisions there; but there was very little, and this was under guard, reserved for the resident garrison and for the sick and wounded who were already there. So we had to go on to Katia without provisions, except for the little which remained from what we had received at Gaza.”
¹⁸
Richardot records another scene:

Kléber’s division, which continued to be the rearguard . . . halted around sunset. The troops, who were already exhausted, believed they had finished marching for the day and prepared to spend the night on the spot when, to their great surprise, the drums sounded for the continuation of the march. But either through spontaneous feeling, or by a prearranged plot, the troops would not budge, they refused to march on the command which was given, and you could hear the most violent swearing against the commander-in-chief [Napoleon] coming from all units. One of Kléber’s aides advanced quickly on the grenadiers who had ganged up together, and he commanded them in a threatening tone and gestures to start marching, but immediately he was greeted with fixed bayonets. The officer quickly ran to Kléber, who had already started, in order to inform him of what had happened. “Leave them be,” said Kléber. “Let them please themselves and swear as much as they want—it’s the only way they have of letting off steam. Just leave them. Let’s not show that we know they’ve mutinied. They’ll certainly come, you’ll see. Let’s march on.”

We followed the general’s advice and a little later the division was on the march.
¹⁹

During the afternoon of June 5 the French army finally reached Katia, where by this stage, according to Captain François, “the army was so strung out that it had just become one long queue, with many soldiers lost in the desert. It was necessary to sound several cannon shots by the wells where we had halted to give direction to those who were lost, many of whom did not arrive at the refreshing wells until well after nightfall.”
²⁰
As an example of how the soldiers coped crossing the desert, François recorded that: “My comrade Noel, who had both legs cut off at Acre, was saved by my care and by the twelve men charged with carrying him in turns on a stretcher; seven of our unit died crossing the desert. . . . As for me, in spite of the heat and the lack of a dressing, the wounds in my head healed into scars.”

At Katia, tragedy momentarily gave way to comedy, when to his surprise Napoleon found himself encountering Menou, whom he had appointed governor of Palestine almost three months previously. Menou had been so reluctant to leave Rosetta, and his new wife, that he had only made it this far on his journey to Syria. Napoleon peremptorily informed General Abdullah Menou, as he now styled himself after his conversion to Islam, that his post no longer existed and he could return to Rosetta and his wife.

Napoleon now sent ahead to General Dugua in Cairo, informing him that owing to the great military success of the Syrian campaign, preparations were to be made for the army’s triumphal entry into the city. He proposed to enter through the Bab-el-Nasr gate (“The Gate of Victory”), and he wished to be greeted by all the members of the
divan
and a full ceremonial guard of the resident French garrison.

Napoleon was determined that the victorious returning army should look at its best, and to this end the men would be provided with new uniforms and were to wear palm leaves in their caps as a mark of honor. Meanwhile the sick and wounded were to be dispatched north, where they would be dispersed through the hospitals of the coast and the delta. At the same time, the ragtag procession of refugees that had attached itself to the French army was to be sent to Damietta, with the promise of a parcel of fertile delta land for each family. After two days’ rest and recuperation at Katia, the army set off on the road to Cairo, where they were eventually met by a supply convoy bringing their new uniforms. Smartly attired, they marched the last lap into Cairo on June 14. Here General Dugua had laid on a suitable welcome for the returning heroes, who paraded past lines of cheering crowds, accompanied by military bands playing rousing marches, each division bearing before it the many Turkish flags it had captured from the enemy during the course of the campaign. Napoleon himself was greeted by the
divan
, and Sheik El-Bekri presented him with a fine black Arab stallion, complete with a young Mameluke groom called Roustam Raza.
^*

Upon their return to barracks, the heroes of Napoleon’s Syrian campaign were awarded a special “bounty” payment (which still did not make up for all the pay they were owed), and given three days’ leave in the fleshpots of Cairo to spend it. Just as Napoleon hoped, news of his “glorious Syrian campaign” would eventually reach France, where its success was to be compared favorably with the failures of the increasingly inept Directory, making many long for the return of this hero to France.

XXVI

Sensational Discoveries

W
HILE
the heroic soldiers of the Syrian campaign celebrated in the stews of Cairo, Napoleon returned to his residence at Elfi Bey’s palace and the waiting arms of his mistress Pauline Fourès. Yet as ever he found little time for relaxation: his arrival at his headquarters on Ezkebiyah Square prompted a flurry of orders, missives and dispatches. And just a week after his return, he sent word to Admiral Ganteaume in Alexandria that the fast frigates
La Muiron
and
La Carrère
should be put on a state of permanent readiness “so that they could sail at a moment’s notice.”
¹
Although Ganteaume did not know it at the time, this order was given in case Napoleon should choose to return to France: there was no point in keeping his options open unless he made preparations to take them. Astonishingly, no one seems to have guessed at the motive behind this almost matter-of-fact order. Had anyone done so, the rumor would rapidly have spread throughout the army with catastrophic effect, but this was not the case.

Napoleon soon summoned a meeting of the Cairo
divan
, where his triumphant arrival carried an instructive message. According to Nicolas Turc, he began his opening speech to the assembled dignitaries: “I have learned, he declared, that enemies have spread rumors of my death. Take a good look at me, and assure yourselves that I really am Bonaparte.”
²
He later issued instructions that this news should be posted in the streets of Cairo “so that all the city knows that Bonaparte is in good health, that he is not dead [and] that he has returned from conquering new countries bringing with him numerous victories.”