Napoleon in Cairo

The brief episode of the French occupation was to be significant for Egypt in several ways. The arrival of a European army accompanied by scholars and scientists appropriately inaugurated the impact of the West, which was to be felt increasingly in the next 150 years. Egypt, protected for five centuries by the Mamluk and Ottoman sultanates, was no longer immune from European attack: it had become an object of the contending policies of France and Britain, a part of the “Eastern Question.”

Bonaparte's savants had little success in interpreting Western culture to the traditionalist 'ulama' of Cairo; their achievement was rather to unveil Egypt to Europe. They uncovered the celebrated Rosetta Stone (see photograph), which held a trilingual inscription making it possible to decipher hieroglyphs and which thus laid the foundation of modern Egyptology. Their reports and monographs were collected in the monumental Description de l' gypte (“Description of Egypt”), which was published in parts from 1809 to 1828 in Paris.

 

From the French to the British occupation (1798–1882)

The French occupation and its consequences (1798–1805)

Although several projects for a French occupation of Egypt had been advanced in the 17th and 18th centuries, the purpose of the expedition that sailed under Napoleon Bonaparte from Toulon in May 1798 was specifically connected with the war against Britain. Bonaparte had discounted the feasibility of an invasion of England but hoped, by occupying Egypt, to damage British trade, to threaten India, and to obtain assets for bargaining in any future peace settlement. Meanwhile, as a colony under the benevolent and progressive administration of Revolutionary France, Egypt would be regenerated and regain its ancient prosperity. The military and naval forces were therefore accompanied by a commission of scholars and scientists to investigate and report the past and present condition of the country.

Eluding the British Mediterranean fleet under Lord Nelson, the French landed at Abu Qir (Aboukir) Bay on July 1 and took Alexandria the next day. In an Arabic proclamation, Bonaparte assured the Egyptians that he came as a friend to Islam and the Ottoman sultan, to punish the usurping Mamluks and to liberate the people. From Alexandria the French advanced on Cairo. After entering Cairo (July 25), Bonaparte sought to conciliate the population, especially the religious leaders ('ulama'), by demonstrating his sympathy with Islam and by establishing councils (divans) as a means of consulting Egyptian opinion. The destruction of the French fleet at Abu Qir by Nelson in the so-called Battle of the Nile on August 1 virtually cut Bonaparte's communications and made it necessary for him to consolidate his rule and to make the expeditionary force as self-sufficient as possible.An unforeseen revolt in Cairo on October 21 was suppressed after an artillery bombardment that ended any hopes of cordial Franco-Egyptian coexistence.

Ottoman Syria, dominated by Ahmad al-Jazzar, the governor of Acre, was the base from which French-occupied Egypt might most easily be threatened, and Bonaparte resolved to deny it to his enemies. His invasion force crossed the frontier in February 1799 but failed to take Acre after a protracted siege (March 19–May 20), and Bonaparte evacuated Syrian territory. A seaborne Ottoman invading force landed at Abu Qir in July but failed to maintain its bridgehead. At this point Bonaparte resolved to return to France and succeeded in slipping away on August 22, past the British fleet.