Battle of the pyramids
Contemporary propaganda representation of the Battle of the Pyramids
| date | July 21, 1798 |
|---|---|
| place | near Embabeh , Egypt |
| output | decisive French victory |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
| Troop strength | |
| 20,000 men | 35,000 men |
| losses | |
|
29 dead |
20,000 dead, wounded and prisoners |
The Battle of the Pyramids took place on July 21, 1798 as part of Napoléon's Egyptian campaign between the French Oriental Army and the Mamluk forces . The Mamluk army under Murad Bey Muhammad was crushed. The battle itself took place several kilometers from the pyramids. For propaganda reasons, Napoléon coined the term "Battle of the Pyramids".
prehistory
After landing in Alexandria on July 1, 1798, Napoléon marched towards the capital Cairo , the decisive step in the occupation of Egypt, which at the time was formally part of the Ottoman Empire . In a first battle at Chebreiss he inflicted a first defeat on the Mamluks, in which these 300 riders lost. The Mamluks then withdrew to Cairo to gather all available forces for a decisive battle. Their army camped on the left bank of the Nile near the village of Embabeh , near the plains of Giza , in order to protect the capital Cairo on the right bank of the Nile by the river. Their leader, Mourad Bey, presided over 10,000 Mamluk horsemen, who were reinforced by Arab cavalry and 24,000 fellahs and janissaries who had set up camp in the village. While the Mamluks were considered to be elite units, some of the foot troops were only equipped with bows and arrows and swords compared to the French. The troops spread out on the plain between the Nile and the pyramids and carried out makeshift fortifications until the French arrived in the village.
The French army, which had marched overnight, met the enemy at dawn. Napoleon is said to have given the following short speech that has become famous:
Soldiers! Vous êtes venus dans ces contrées pour les arracher à la barbarie, porter la civilization dans l'Orient, et soustraire cette belle partie du monde au joug de l'Angleterre. Nous allons combattre. Songez que du haut de ces monuments quarante siècles vous contemplent.
"Soldiers! You have come to this region to wrest it from barbarism, to bring civilization to the East and to wrest this beautiful part of the world from the yoke of England. We will fight. Remember that 40 centuries look down on you from these monuments. "
In fact, Napoleon's soldiers could not see the pyramids at all, because they were still a day's march away. It is probably a belated heroization that Napoleon only dictated in exile on St. Helena.
The battle
The French army consisted of five divisions. Desaix and Reynier commanded the right wing, which consisted of two divisions, Menou and Bon the left wing, which also consisted of two divisions. Napoleon himself was in the center with Kléber's division , which was commanded by Dugua , as General Kléber himself had been wounded in Alexandria. Bonaparte had the divisions take up six rows in the form of a square . His command is said to have been: "Donkeys and scholars in the middle!"
Napoleon ordered Desaix to move out of range of the Turkish cannons and then attack the Mamluks. At the same time Bon was supposed to take the fortified village on his side in a frontal attack in order to cut off the Mamluk riders from their camp and the foot troops located there. Murad Bey recognized this intention and ordered his riders to attack the advancing French columns, which under the impact of the Mamluks formed their squares again and took the attackers under fire, thus repelling the repeated violent attacks. The divisions of Generals Bon and Menou then stormed the village and defeated the Turkish troops entrenched there in hand-to-hand combat, killing numerous Turks and members of their auxiliary troops. Murad Bey was able to escape towards Gizeh with the 2,500 remaining riders; Parts of the Turkish division and the Egyptian Fellach were able to swim to the other side of the Nile.
consequences
The French had only slight losses with around 30 dead and around 300 wounded, while over 20,000 soldiers were killed or wounded on the side of their opponents.
The battle opened the way for Napoleon and his troops to Cairo, where he entered on July 24, 1798. At the same time, it marked the end of around 700 years of Turkish rule in Egypt. Napoleon's plans to bring the Middle East under his control, however, were nullified just ten days later by Nelson's victory at Abukir over the French fleet.
literature
-
Juan Cole : Napoleon's Egypt. Invading the Middle East . Palgrave Macmillan, New York 2007, ISBN 1-4039-6431-9 .
- German: The battle at the pyramids. Napoleon conquers the Orient. Konrad Theiss, Stuttgart 2010, ISBN 978-3-8062-2202-9 .
- George Alfred Henty : At Aboukir and Acre. A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt. Cortero Publishing, 2010, ISBN 978-1-935585-23-7 (novel, EA London 1889)
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Johannes Willms : Napoleon. A biography. Beck, Munich 2005. Quoted from Helge Hesse : Here I stand, I can't help it. Through world history in 80 sentences. Munich 2008, p. 190.
- ↑ Helge Hesse: Here I stand, I can't help it. Through world history in 80 sentences. Munich 2008, p. 189.
- ↑ Helge Hesse: Here I stand, I can't help it. Through world history in 80 sentences. Munich 2008, p. 188.