Napoleon's Battle of the Pyramids

Young Napoleon

The Expédition d’Egypte started as a military campaign, aimed at preventing the British from expending their empire into the Middle-East.  It ended up shaping Western Egyptology and Orientalism for the centuries to come and setting Napoleon Bonaparte on the road to becoming Emperor.

In 1798, the twenty-nine year old Napoleon, still known as Bonaparte, was a general among others in the crippling Directoire (Directory), “a republic of self-interest”.  Bonaparte's military successes in Italy had effectively ended the war with the coalition against revolutionary France, and he convinced the Directory to allow him to head the Expedition d’Egypte.

Hidden motives

Bonaparte’s desire to invade and seize Egypt was motivated by his admiration for past conquerors. An admirer of Alexander the Great and reader of Herodotus, his idea of Egypt was highly influenced by his knowledge of the Ptolemaic dynasty. The Directory motivations were less romantic. Egypt was key in the geopolitics of the time. Its geographical position combined with its climate made it an ideal door to British India and a possible colony for cotton and sugar. Psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud had his own explanation of Bonaparte’s motives. In a letter to Thomas Mann, he wrote that Bonaparte, feeling inferior to his brother Joseph, decided to invade the country of biblical Joseph.

Like most campaigns from a bullish older brother, the first battles were easy enough. The French army reached Aboukir, a bay on the Mediterranean, close to the canopic branch of the Nile, on July 1st 1798. They then captured Alexandria and entered Cairo. Despite being ill equipped for an expedition in the desert in the middle of summer, the French army won the Bataille des Pyramides (Battle of the Pyramids).

Up the creek without a paddle

Until the August 1st 1798, Bonaparte believed he would be back in France by winter, in time to invade England. But when Nelson destroyed the French fleet at Aboukir, Napoleon and his troops found themselves stranded in Cairo. A quick change of plan was needed, and so the mainly military campaign turned into a scientific expedition.

Edward Said considers 1798 to be the point of crystallisation of Orientalism. The campaign started a trend of professionalized and systematic Orientalist scholarship. 167 scholars and scientists accompanied the army. Their first aim was to survey the possibility of a digging up a passage through Suez, but being stranded in Egypt led them to rediscover Ancient Egypt. The subsequent publication of the Description de l’Egypte (Description of Egypt) was both a description of the country and a manifesto of colonialist France.

About turn

The French were shocked by the poverty of the country they invaded. Stranded in Cairo, with no means of going back to France, they decided to modernise the city. They studied the agricultural possibilities of the land and focused on the Nile.

Napoleon was a master communicator who never hesitated to use religion to meet his ends. He presented the conquest as liberation from the Mamluks tyranny, and introduced his soldiers as defenders of Islam. He made a point of (badly) translating every proclamation into Arabic and meeting with religious leaders. His attitude was a perfect example of Orientalism. Less than ten years before, Revolutionary France had proclaimed the equality of men by birth and their right to freedom. Napoleon’s soldiers believed in reason and secularism. One of the Directory’s ambitions was to spread those ideas, seen as an inheritance from Ancient Egypt, Rome and Greece to every possible country. Invading Egypt was not seen as an invasion but as a return to a previous civilisation.

All's well that ends well

Napoleon left Egypt on August, 23rd 1799, although the French remained in the country for two more years. The Expèdition d’Egypte may not have been the success Napoleon hoped for, but it did however form a lasting bond between France and Egypt which survives today.

The French interest for all things Egyptian started with the 1802 publication by Vivant Denon of his account of his journey, which was shortly followed by the publication of the Description de L'Egypte. Egyptian influences quickly influenced many aspects of French art and culture, from culinary techniques to crockery.

In the 1920s, the Art Deco movement took America by storm. Originally stemming from a group of Parisian artists, the style appeared to borrow heavily from the geometric shapes and precise patterns of the Egyptians. It's a style that has left its mark on popular culture in just about every decade since, and can be seen in designs like the original coca-cola bottle and the Chrysler Building in New York City.

Napoleon's intentions may have been to bring French civilisation to Egypt, but the result was a domino effect that would spread the art and culture of Egypt across the world.

Image by James Hobbs, flickr.com/people/theurbansnapper. All rights reserved.

Written by Lucie Goulet

Lucie is a final year student in International Relations and History. She is really interested in how the internet is modifying the way we study history.

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About The Author

Lucie Goulet

Lucie is a final year student in International Relations and History. She is really interested in how the internet is modifying the way we study history.

 

Last three pieces by this author: Heinrich Schliemann's Search For Troy, Ancient Beauties: Neanderthal Make-up and the Medicinal Benefits of Cleopatra Eyes, Bombs, Nazis and a Major Facelift: The History of Berlin's Neues Museum

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