This collecting of musket balls lasted four days; but the English and Turks finally guessed the meaning of this performance which they had at first taken to be bravado.
A count of the balls showed that they had picked up thirty-four hundred. Bonaparte paid for them to the last sou through Estève, the paymaster of the army.
"Ah!" said Estève, when he recognized the sergeant-major, "so you are speculating in artillery again! I paid you for a cannon at Froeschwiller, and now I am to pay you for thirty-four hundred cannon-balls at Saint-Jean-d'Acre."
"Pooh!" said the sergeant-major, "I am none the richer for it; the six hundred francs at Froeschwiller, together with the Prince de Condé's treasure, went to the fund of the widows and orphans of Dawendorff."
"And what are you going to do with this money?"
"Oh! I have a use for it."
"Might I ask what it is?"
"Certainly, since I depend on you to undertake the commission, citizen-paymaster. This money is destined for our brave Captain Guillet's old mother. He was killed at the last assault. He bequeathed her to his company before he died. The Republic is not very rich and might forget to pay the pensions of its widows. Well, in default of a pension the company will send her a little capital. It is a great pity, though, that those fools of Turks and those devils of Englishmen should have guessed our game and refused to keep it up any longer; we would have made up a sum of a thousand francs for the poor woman. But what will you, citizen-paymaster! The prettiest girl in the world can give no more than she has; and the thirty-second brigade, although it is the prettiest girl in the army, has only one hundred and seventy francs to offer."
"Where does Captain Guillet's mother live?"
"At Châteauroux, the capital of the Indre. Ah! it is fine to be faithful to one's old regiment, and that is just what he was, that brave Captain Guillet."
"Very well, the sum shall be paid to her, in the name of the third company of the thirty-second brigade, and of—"
"Pierre-Claude Faraud, the executor of his will."
"Thanks. And now, Pierre-Claude Faraud, the commander-in-chief wishes me to say to you that he wants to speak with you."
"Whenever he likes," replied the sergeant-major, with that twist of the neck which was peculiar to him. "Pierre-Claude Faraud is never too much embarrassed to talk."
"He will send for you."
"I await the summons." And the sergeant-major turned upon his heel and returned to the barracks of the thirty-second brigade, to wait until he was sent for.
Bonaparte was eating dinner in his tent when he was informed that the sergeant-major whom he had sent for was awaiting his pleasure.
"Let him come in," said Bonaparte.
The sergeant-major entered.
"Ah! it is you," said Bonaparte.
"Yes, citizen-general, did you not send for me?" replied Faraud.
"What brigade do you belong to?"
"The thirty-second."
"To what company?"
"The third."
"Captain?"
"Captain Guillet, deceased."
"Not replaced?"
"Not replaced."
"Which of the two lieutenants is the braver."
"There is no 'braver' in the thirty-second. They are all equally brave."
"The older, then?"
"Lieutenant Valats, who stayed at his post with a shot through his breast."
"The second lieutenant was not wounded?"
"That was not his fault."
"Very well. Valats then will be captain, and the second lieutenant will succeed him. Now, is there not an under-officer who has distinguished himself?"
"All the men distinguished themselves."
"But I cannot make them all lieutenants, stupid."
"That is a fact. Well, then there is Taberly."
"Who is Taberly?"
"A brave man."
"And would his appointment be well received?"
"With applause."
"Then there will be a vacant sub-lieutenancy. Who is the oldest sergeant-major?"
The man whom he was questioning made a movement with his neck as if his cravat were strangling him. "He is one Pierre-Claude Faraud," he replied.
"What have you to say about him?"
"Nothing much."
"Perhaps you do not know him?"
"It is exactly because I do know him."
"Well, I know him also."
"You know him, general?"
"Yes; he is an aristocrat of the Army of the Rhine—"
"Oh!"
"A quarrelsome fellow—"
"General!"
"Whom I caught fighting a duel with a brave Republican at Milan."
"He was one of his friends, general. Friends may fight."
"And whom I sent to the guard-house for forty-eight hours."
"Twenty-four, general."
"Then I cheated him out of the other twenty-four."
"He is ready to take them, general."
"A sub-lieutenant is not sent to the guard-house; he is put under arrest."
"General, Pierre-Claude Faraud is not a sub-lieutenant, he is only a sergeant-major."
"Oh, yes; he is a sub-lieutenant."
"That's a good one, for example! Since when?"
"Since this morning. See what it is to have patrons."
"I? Patrons?"
"Oho! So it is you?"
"Yes, it is I. And I should like to know who my patrons are."
"I," replied Estève, "who have twice seen you generously give away money which you have earned."
"And I," said Roland, "because I want a brave man to second me on an expedition from which few will return."
"Take him," said Bonaparte; "but I advise you not to give him sentry duty if there are any wolves in the country."
"What, general, do you know that story?"
"I know everything, monsieur."
"General," said Faraud, "you are the one to do my twenty-four hours in the guard-house."
"Why?"
"Because you have just said monsieur."
"Come, come," said Bonaparte, laughing, "you are a bright fellow; I shall remember you. In the meantime you must drink a glass of wine to the health of the Republic."
"General," said Roland, "citizen Faraud never drinks to the health of the Republic in anything but brandy."
"The deuce! And I have none," said Bonaparte.
"I have provided for the emergency," replied Roland; and going to the flap of the tent he said, "Come in, citizeness Reason."
Citizeness Reason obeyed. She was still beautiful, although the sun of Egypt had darkened her complexion.
"Rose here!" exclaimed Faraud.
"Do you know the citizeness?" asked Roland, laughing.
"I should think so; she is my wife!" replied Faraud.
"Citizeness," said Bonaparte, "I saw you at work in the midst of the musket balls. Roland wanted to pay you for the brandy you gave him when he came out of the water, but you refused. As I had no brandy here, and my guests each desire a glass, Roland said: 'Let us call the Goddess of Reason, and we can pay her for it all at the same time.' So we called you. Now serve us."
Citizeness Reason tipped her little cask and poured out a glassful for each. She forgot Faraud.
"When the health of the Republic is drunk," observed Roland, "everybody drinks."
"But any one who chooses is at liberty to drink water," cried Bonaparte; and raising his glass, he cried, gayly, "To the health of the Republic."
The toast was repeated in chorus. Then Roland, drawing a parchment from his pocket, said: "Here is your bill of exchange on posterity, but it is in your husband's name. You may indorse it, but he alone can use it."
The Goddess of Reason unfolded the parchment with trembling hands, while Faraud looked on with sparkling eyes.
"Here, Pierre," she cried, "read it! It is your commission as sub-lieutenant in Taberly's place."
"Is that true?" asked Faraud.
"Look for yourself."
Faraud looked.
"Hurrah! Sub-lieutenant Faraud!" he shouted. "Long live General Bonaparte!"
"Twenty-four hours' arrest for having cried 'Long live General Bonaparte!' instead of 'Long live the Republic!'" said Bonaparte.
"I certainly cannot escape them," said Faraud; "but I will do those twenty-four hours with pleasure."
During the night following Faraud's promotion to a sub-lieutenancy, Bonaparte received eight heavy pieces of artillery and an abundance of ammunition. Faraud's thirty-four hundred balls had served to repulse the sorties from the town. The "Accursed Tower" was almost completely demolished, and Bonaparte resolved to make a last effort.
Then, too, the circumstances rendered this imperative.
A Turkish fleet of thirty vessels, escorted by English warships, was sighted on the 8th of May. It was scarcely daylight when Bonaparte learned of this. He climbed the little hill whence he could survey the entire harbor. It was his opinion that the fleet came from the Island of Rhodes, and was conveying ammunition, troops and provisions to the besieged.
It became imperative therefore to take Saint-Jean-d'Acre before the town received these reinforcements.
When Roland saw that he had decided upon the attack, he asked the general for two hundred men with full permission to use them in any way and for whatever purpose he should choose.
Bonaparte asked for an explanation. He had great confidence in Roland's bravery, which amounted almost to rashness; but because of this very rashness he feared to intrust the lives of two hundred men to him. Then Roland explained that the day when he took his long swim he had seen a breach in the walls from the sea which could not be seen from land, and which had evidently caused the besieged no anxiety, defended as it was by an inside battery and the fire from the English frigates. He intended to enter the town through this breach and then create a diversion with his two hundred men.
Bonaparte gave him the desired permission. Roland chose two hundred men from the thirty-second brigade, and among them Sub-lieutenant Faraud.
Bonaparte ordered a general attack. Murat, Rampon, Vial, Kléber, Junot, generals of division, generals of brigade, chiefs of corps, all were to charge at once.
At ten o'clock in the morning all the outer works which had been recaptured by the enemy were thrown down once more. Five flags were taken, three cannon carried off, and four more spiked. But the besieged did not yield an inch; as fast as they were beaten down, others took their places. Never had such audacity and ardor, never had more impetuous courage and obstinate valor, struggled for the possession of a city.
Generals, officers and soldiers fought together in confusion in the trench. Kléber, armed with an Albanian rifle which he had wrested from its owner, made a club of it, and raising it above his head as a thresher uses his flail, he brought down a man with every blow. Murat, with his head uncovered and his long hair floating in the wind, was flashing his sabre back and forth, its fine temper bringing its message of death to all those who came in contact with it. Junot killed a man, now with a pistol, now with a rifle, every time he fired.
Boyer, the commander of the eighteenth brigade, fell in the disorder with seventeen officers and more than a hundred and fifty soldiers of his corps; but Lannes, Bon, andVial passed over their bodies, which only served to raise them closer to the ramparts.
Bonaparte, not in the trench, but upon it, was directing the artillery himself, and motionless, a target for all, was making a breach in the wall on his right with the cannon in the tower. They had made a practicable opening at the end of an hour. They had no bushes with which to fill up the ditch; but they threw in the corpses as they had already done at another part of the ramparts. Mussulmans and Christians, French and Turks, thrown out through the windows of the tower where they laid heaped up, raised a bridge as high as the ramparts.
Shouts of "Long live the Republic!" were heard, with cries of "To the assault!" The band played the "Marseillaise," and the rest of the army joined in the fight.
Bonaparte sent one of his ordnance officers named Raimbaud, to tell Roland that the time had come for him to effect his diversion; but when he learned what had been projected, instead of returning to Bonaparte, Raimbaud asked permission to remain with Roland. The two young men were friends, and when a battle is on one does not refuse favors of that sort to a friend.
Roland no sooner heard the order than he placed himself at the head of his two hundred men, plunged into the water with them, turned the corner of the bastion with the water up to their waists, and presented himself in the breach with the trumpets in front. The attack was so unexpected, although the siege had lasted two months, that the gunners were not even at their posts. Roland took possession of them, and having no men to work them, he spiked them. Then shouting, "Victory! Victory!" they dashed into the winding streets of the town.
These cries were heard on the ramparts and redoubled the ardor of the besiegers. For the second time Bonaparte believed himself master of Saint-Jean-d'Acre, and sprang into the "Accursed Tower," which they had had such difficulty in taking. But when he reached it he saw with dismay that the French troops had been brought to a halt by a second inclosure. This was the one which Colonel Phélippeaux—Bonaparte's companion at Brienne—had constructed behind the other.
Leaning half-way out of the window, Bonaparte shouted encouragement to his soldiers. The grenadiers, furious at meeting with this fresh obstacle, attempted to mount on each other's shoulders for want of ladders; but suddenly, while the assailants were being attacked in front by those who had been placed there to defend the inclosure, they were swept by a battery in the flank. A tremendous fusillade burst forth on all sides—from the houses, the streets, the barricades, and even from Djezzar's seraglio. A thick smoke poured up from the city. It was Roland, Raimbaud and Faraud who had fired the bazar. In the midst of the smoke they appeared on the roofs of the houses, and endeavored to enter into communication with those on the ramparts. Through the smoke of the fire and of the artillery they saw the tri-colored plumes waving, and from the city and the ramparts they could hear the cry of "Victory!" which went up for the third time that day. It was destined to be the last.
The soldiers who were to effect a junction with Roland's two hundred men, a portion of whom had already slid down into the town, while the others were fighting on the ramparts or in the ditches, being assailed by volleys from four sides, hesitated as the bullets whistled and the cannon roared around them, falling like hail and passing like a hurricane. Lannes, wounded in the head by a musket ball, fell upon his knees, and was carried off by his soldiers. Kléber held his own like an invulnerable giant in the midst of the fire. Bon and Vial were driven back into the ditch. Bonaparte sought for some one to support Kléber, but every one was occupied. He then ordered the retreat with tears of rage in his eyes; for he did not doubt that all who had entered the town with Roland, together with those who had slipped over the ramparts to join him, some two hundred and fiftyor three hundred in all, were lost. And what a harvest of heads they would have to gather in the moat the next day.
He was the last one to retreat, and he shut himself up in his tent with orders that no one was to disturb him. This was the first time in the course of three years that he had doubted his own fortune.
What a sublime page could be written by the historian who could tell what thoughts passed through his mind in that hour of despair.
Meanwhile Roland and his men, and those who had gone into the town to join him, having cherished for a time the hope that they were to be supported, were at last forced to the conviction that they had been abandoned. The shouts of victory which had answered their own became fainter and fainter, and then died away. Then the volleys of musketry and cannon gradually grew fainter, until they had ceased entirely in the course of an hour. Amid the other sounds which encompassed him, Roland even thought that he heard the sound of the drums and trumpets sounding and beating the retreat.
Then, as we have said, all these sounds ceased.
Then, like a tide rising upon all sides at once, from all points of the compass, the little troop was assailed by English, Turks, Mamelukes, Arnauts, Albanians—the entire garrison, in short, of some eight thousand men.
Roland formed his little troop into a square, one side of which he backed against a mosque, thus converting it into a fortress, and there, after making them swear to defend themselves to the death against these enemies from whom they knew they could expect no quarter, they waited with levelled bayonets.
The Turks, full of overweening confidence in their cavalry as usual, dashed upon the little troop with such violence that, although the double volley of the French laid low over sixty men and horses, those who came up behind rode over their bodies and dashed upon the bayonets of the still smoking guns.
But there they were forced to stop. The second rank had time to reload and fire at close quarters. They had no choice but to fall back, and as they could not again cross the heap of corpses, they sought to flee to the right and left. Two terrible volleys accompanied their flight and cut them down in swaths. But they returned with all the greater desperation.
Then a frightful struggle ensued, a regular hand-to-hand encounter, in which the Turkish horsemen, defying the murderous volleys, rushed up to the very points of the French bayonets, to discharge their pistols at their adversaries.
Others again, seeing that the reflection of the sun upon the gun-barrels frightened their horses, made them walk backward, and, forcing them to rear, threw them over on the bayonets. The wounded dragged themselves along the ground, and, gliding like serpents under the gun-barrels, hamstrung the French.
Roland, perceiving that the number of his men was decreasing, and that, despite the triple row of corpses which formed a rampart for the little troop, he could not hope to sustain the unequal fight much longer, had the door of the mosque opened, and with the utmost composure, continuing his murderous fire all the while, he bade his men enter, being the last to pass through the door himself. Then the firing began again through every opening in the mosque; but the Turks brought up pieces of artillery and trained them against the door. Roland himself was near a window, and one after another, the three gunners who drew near to apply the match to the touch-hole fell. Then a horsemen rode swiftly toward the gun, and, before any one could divine his motive, he fired his pistol at the priming. The gun was discharged, and the door broken in.
This broken entrance emitted such a terrible fusillade, however, that the Turks presented themselves before itthree times to enter the mosque and were repulsed each time. Mad with rage, they rallied, and made a fourth attempt, but this time only a few scattered shots replied to their shouts of death. The little troop had exhausted its ammunition. The grenadiers awaited the enemy with fixed bayonets.
"Friends," cried Roland, "remember that you have sworn to die rather than be made prisoners by Djezzar the Butcher, who cut off your comrades' heads."
"We swear it!" replied Roland's two hundred men with one voice.
"Long live the Republic!" said Roland.
"Long live the Republic!" they all repeated after him.
And each man prepared to die, but to sell his life dearly. Just then a group of officers appeared at the doorway with Sidney Smith at their head. They all carried their swords in their scabbards. Smith raised his hat and made a sign that he wished to speak. Silence ensued.
"Gentlemen," he said in excellent French, "you are brave men, and it shall never be said that men who had borne themselves like heroes were massacred in my presence. Give yourselves up; I will guarantee that your lives shall be spared."
"It is too much or not enough," replied Roland.
"Pray what do you want?"
"Kill us to the last man, or let us all go."
"You are exacting, gentlemen," said the commodore; "but one can refuse nothing to such men as you. But you will permit me to furnish you with an escort of Englishmen as far as the gate? Otherwise none of you will reach it alive. Is that agreed?"
"Yes, my lord," replied Roland; "and we can only thank you for your courtesy."
Sidney Smith left two English officers to guard the door, entered the mosque himself, and held out his hand to Roland. Ten minutes later the English escort arrived.
The French soldiers with fixed bayonets, and the Englishofficers with drawn swords, traversed the street which led to the French camp, amid the imprecations of the Mussulmans, the howling of the women, and the cries of the children. The ten or twelve wounded, among them Faraud, were carried on improvised litters of gun-barrels. The Goddess of Reason walked beside the sub-lieutenant's litter, pistol in hand. Smith and his English soldiers accompanied the grenadiers until they were out of range of the Turkish guns, and as they defiled before the redcoats the latter presented arms.
Bonaparte, as we have said, had retired within his tent. He called for Plutarch, and read the biography of Augustus; then, thinking of Roland and his gallant companions, who were probably being murdered, he muttered, like Augustus after the battle of Teutberg: "Varus, give me back my legions!"
But he had no one of whom he could demand his legions, for he had been his own Varus.
Suddenly he heard a great uproar and the strains of the "Marseillaise" reached his ears. Why did these soldiers rejoice and sing when their general was weeping with rage?
He sprang to the door of his tent. The first persons he saw were Roland, his aide-de-camp Raimbaud, and Faraud.
The wounded man was leaning on the shoulder of the Goddess of Reason. Behind them came the two hundred men whom Bonaparte had thought lost.
"Ah, my good friend," he said, pressing Roland's hand, "I was mourning for you. I thought you were lost. How the devil did you get out of it?"
"Raimbaud will tell you," said Roland, who was in a bad humor because he owed his life to an Englishman; "I am too thirsty to talk, I want something to drink."
And taking a glass full of water, which was standing upon the table, he emptied it at a single draught, while Bonaparte went out to meet the soldiers, all the more delighted to see them since he had never expected to do so again.
Napoleon, speaking of Saint-Jean-d'Acre at Saint Helena, said: "That paltry town held the destiny of the East. If Saint-Jean-d'Acre had fallen, I would have changed the face of the world."
This regret, expressed some twenty years later, gives an idea of the poignancy of what Bonaparte must have suffered at the time, when he realized the impossibility of taking Saint-Jean-d'Acre, and published the following order in all the divisions of the army.
As usual, Bourrienne wrote at his dictation:
Soldiers! You have crossed the desert which separates Africa from Asia with more rapidity than an army of Arabs.The army, which was on its way to invade Egypt, is destroyed. You have taken its general, its camp baggage, its supplies and its camels.You have captured all the strongholds which defend the wells of the desert. On the fields of Mount Tabor you have dispersed the cloud of men which had gathered from all parts of Asia in the hope of pillaging Egypt.Finally, after having maintained the war with a handful of men in the heart of Syria for more than three months, taken forty pieces of artillery, fifty flags, six thousand prisoners, levelled the fortifications of Gaza, Jaffa, Kaïffa, and Acre, we are about to return to Egypt; the season of disembarkation calls me back.A few days more and we might hope to take the pasha in his own palace; but at this season the price of the castle of Acre is not worth the loss of a few days, and the brave men whom I should lose are now necessary to me for other operations.Soldiers, we have a season of fatigue and danger before us. Having made it impossible for the East to do anything against us during the forthcoming campaign, we shall perhaps be forced to repulse the attack of a part of the West.You will find new opportunities for glory; and if in so many battles, every day is marked with the loss of a braveman, other brave men must be made every day, and take their places among the little band who set the example of daring in times of danger, and who make victory easy.
Soldiers! You have crossed the desert which separates Africa from Asia with more rapidity than an army of Arabs.
The army, which was on its way to invade Egypt, is destroyed. You have taken its general, its camp baggage, its supplies and its camels.
You have captured all the strongholds which defend the wells of the desert. On the fields of Mount Tabor you have dispersed the cloud of men which had gathered from all parts of Asia in the hope of pillaging Egypt.
Finally, after having maintained the war with a handful of men in the heart of Syria for more than three months, taken forty pieces of artillery, fifty flags, six thousand prisoners, levelled the fortifications of Gaza, Jaffa, Kaïffa, and Acre, we are about to return to Egypt; the season of disembarkation calls me back.
A few days more and we might hope to take the pasha in his own palace; but at this season the price of the castle of Acre is not worth the loss of a few days, and the brave men whom I should lose are now necessary to me for other operations.
Soldiers, we have a season of fatigue and danger before us. Having made it impossible for the East to do anything against us during the forthcoming campaign, we shall perhaps be forced to repulse the attack of a part of the West.
You will find new opportunities for glory; and if in so many battles, every day is marked with the loss of a braveman, other brave men must be made every day, and take their places among the little band who set the example of daring in times of danger, and who make victory easy.
As he finished dictating this bulletin to Bourrienne, Bonaparte rose and went out of his tent as if to breathe more freely. Bourrienne followed him uneasily; events seldom left such a deep impression upon that heart of bronze.
Bonaparte climbed the little hill which overlooked the camp, seated himself upon a stone, and remained for a long time staring at the partially demolished fortress and the ocean which lay before him in its immensity. Finally he said: "The men who will write my life will not understand why I was so anxious to take this wretched little place. Ah, if I had taken it as I hoped!"
He let his head fall upon his hands.
"And if you had taken it?" asked Bourrienne.
"If I had taken it," replied Bonaparte, seizing his hand, "I should have found the treasures of the pasha in the city and arms for three hundred thousand men; I would have aroused and armed all Syria; I would have marched upon Damascus and Aleppo; I would have swelled my army with all the malcontents; I would have announced the abolition of servitude and the tyrannical rule of the pashas to the people; I would have reached Constantinople with my armed hordes; I would have overthrown the Turkish Empire; I would have founded a new and vast empire in the Orient which would have fixed my place in history; and perhaps I should have returned to Paris by way of Adrianople and Vienna, after having humbled the house of Austria."
This, as will be seen, was nothing more nor less than Cæsar's project when he fell beneath the assassin's knife; it was his war among the Parthians which was to end only in Germany. As far as was the man of the 13th Vendémiaire from the conqueror of Italy, so far was the conqueror of Italy that day from the conqueror of Egypt.
Proclaimed throughout Europe the greatest of living generals, he sought, on the shores where Alexander, Hannibal and Cæsar had fought, to equal if not surpass the names of these captains of antiquity; and he did surpass them, since he tried to do what they only dreamed of.
"What would have become of Europe," said Pascal, speaking of Cromwell's death from calculus, "if that grain of sand had not entered his entrails?"
What would have become of Bonaparte's fortunes if Saint-Jean-d'Acre had not stood in the way?
He was dreaming of this great mystery of the unknown when his eye was attracted by a black speck between the mountains of the Carmel chain which was gradually growing larger. As it drew nearer he recognized a soldier of that dromedary corps which he had created "to pursue the fugitives more swiftly after the battle."
Bonaparte drew his glass from his pocket, and, after taking a good look, he said: "Good! Now we shall have some news from Egypt."
And he stood up. The messenger also recognized him; he promptly turned his dromedary, which was edging toward the camp, somewhat out of the direct line toward the hill. Bonaparte descended the hill. The soldier, who seemed to be an excellent rider, put his dromedary to a gallop. He wore the uniform of a quartermaster-general.
"Where do you come from?" called Bonaparte as soon as the man could hear him.
"From Upper Egypt," was the answer.
"What news?"——"Bad, general."
Bonaparte stamped his foot. "Come here," he said.
The man reached Bonaparte in a few moments. The dromedary knelt down and the man slid to the ground.
"Here, citizen-general," he said, and he handed him a despatch. Bonaparte passed it to Bourrienne, saying: "Read it." Bourrienne read:
To the Commander-in-Chief, Bonaparte:I do not know whether this despatch will reach you, general, or whether, if it does, you will be in a position to remedy the disaster with which I am threatened.While General Desaix was pursuing the Mamelukes from the coast of Syout, the flotilla composed of the "Italie," and several other armed ships, which carried almost all of the supplies of the division, some artillery, and the sick and wounded, was detained off the coast of Beyrout by the wind.The flotilla was attacked within a quarter of an hour by the Sherif Hassan and three or four thousand men. We are not in any condition to resist but we shall do so.But we cannot escape death save by a miracle.I am preparing this despatch, to which I shall add the details of the battle as it progresses.Hassan attacks us with a sharp fusillade; I have ordered his fire to be returned. It is two o'clock in the afternoon.Three o'clock—The Arabs are returning to the charge for the third time, after suffering terrible havoc from our artillery. I have lost a third of my men.Four o'clock—The Arabs have thrown themselves into the river and taken the small boats. I have only a dozen men, all the rest are dead or wounded. I shall wait until the Arabs have crowded aboard the "Italie," and then I shall blow her up with myself and them.I am sending this despatch by a brave and clever man, who has promised me that, unless he is killed, he will find you wherever you are. In ten minutes all will be over.Captain Morandi.
To the Commander-in-Chief, Bonaparte:
I do not know whether this despatch will reach you, general, or whether, if it does, you will be in a position to remedy the disaster with which I am threatened.
While General Desaix was pursuing the Mamelukes from the coast of Syout, the flotilla composed of the "Italie," and several other armed ships, which carried almost all of the supplies of the division, some artillery, and the sick and wounded, was detained off the coast of Beyrout by the wind.
The flotilla was attacked within a quarter of an hour by the Sherif Hassan and three or four thousand men. We are not in any condition to resist but we shall do so.
But we cannot escape death save by a miracle.
I am preparing this despatch, to which I shall add the details of the battle as it progresses.
Hassan attacks us with a sharp fusillade; I have ordered his fire to be returned. It is two o'clock in the afternoon.
Three o'clock—The Arabs are returning to the charge for the third time, after suffering terrible havoc from our artillery. I have lost a third of my men.
Four o'clock—The Arabs have thrown themselves into the river and taken the small boats. I have only a dozen men, all the rest are dead or wounded. I shall wait until the Arabs have crowded aboard the "Italie," and then I shall blow her up with myself and them.
I am sending this despatch by a brave and clever man, who has promised me that, unless he is killed, he will find you wherever you are. In ten minutes all will be over.
Captain Morandi.
"And then?" asked Bonaparte.
"That is all."
"But Captain Morandi?"
"Blew himself up, general," replied the messenger.
"And you?"
"Oh, I did not wait until he blew himself up; I blew away before that, after carefully concealing my despatch in my tobacco-box. Then I swam under water to a place where I hid in the tall grass. When it was dark I came out from under the water, and crawled on all fours to the camp where I came upon a sleeping Arab. I put a dagger into him, and taking his dromedary I started off at a gallop."
"And you have come from Beyrout?"
"Yes, citizen-general."
"Without accident?"
"If you call shots fired at or by me accidents, then I havehad plenty and my camel also. Between us we have been hit four times. He three times in the side, and I once in the shoulder. We have been hungry and thirsty; he has eaten nothing at all, and I have eaten horseflesh. But here we are. You are well, citizen-general; that is all that is necessary."
"But Morandi?" asked Bonaparte.
"The deuce! as he put the match to the powder himself, I rather think that it would be difficult to find any of him, even a piece as big as a nut."
"And the 'Italie'?"
"There is not enough of the 'Italie' left to make matches."
"You were right, my friend; this is indeed bad news. Bourrienne, you will say that I am superstitious; but did you notice the name of the vessel?"
"The 'Italie.'"
"Well, now listen, Bourrienne. Italy is lost to France; that is beyond doubt; my presentiments never deceive me."
Bourrienne shrugged his shoulders. "What connection do you find between a ship which is blown up twenty-four hundred miles from France, on the Nile, and Italy?"
"I have said it," replied Bonaparte with a prophetic accent, "and you will see." Then, after a moment's silence, he said, pointing to the messenger: "Take this good fellow with you, Bourrienne; give him thirty talaris, and get him to tell you the story of the battle of Beyrout."
In the evening, in order to conceal its movements from the enemy as well as to avoid the heat of the day, the army began its retreat. The orders were to follow the Mediterranean for the fresh air of the sea.
Bonaparte called Bourrienne and dictated an order to the effect that all who were able must go on foot, leaving the horses, mules and camels for the sick and wounded.
An anecdote will at times convey the state of a man's mind better than any number of descriptions.
Bonaparte had just finished his dictation when his personal attendant, Vigogne senior, entered the tent, and asked: "General, which horse have you reserved for yourself?"
Bonaparte looked him through and through, and then, striking him in the face with his riding-whip, he retorted: "Did you not hear the order, imbecile? Everybody is to go on foot, myself as well as the others. Go!" And he went.
There were three men sick of the plague at Mount Carmel; they, too ill to be moved, were left to the generosity of the Turks and the care of the Carmelite brothers.
Unfortunately, Sidney Smith was not there to save them and the Turks put them to death. Word of this was brought to Bonaparte after he had gone six miles. Then Bonaparte gave full vent to the passion of which the blow which he struck Vigogne was only the prelude. He stopped the artillery wagons and distributed torches to all the army. Then he gave orders to light the torches and to set fire to all the small towns and villages, hamlets and houses on the road. The barley was ripe; they set fire to it. It was a terrible yet a magnificent sight. The whole coast was in flames for thirty miles around, and the sea reflected the tremendous ocean of flames like a gigantic mirror. The bridge, being bare sand, was the only thing which was not on fire, and seemed like a bridge thrown over the Cocytus.
Bonaparte became alarmed when, after breakfast, he again took the head of the column. A devouring thirst, the total want of water, excessive heat, and a fatiguing march through burning sand-dunes had completely demoralized the men, and caused the most cruel selfishness and the most heartrending indifference to supersede all generous sentiments.
And this continued day after day. They began by ridding themselves of those who were sick of the plague under pretext that it was dangerous to take them along. Then came the turn of the wounded. The unfortunate men criedout: "We have not got the plague, we are only wounded." And they showed their old wounds, or inflicted new ones on themselves. But the soldiers did not even turn their heads. "Your turn has come," they said. And they went on.
Bonaparte shuddered with terror when he saw this. He ordered a halt. He forced all the able-bodied men who were on mules, horses, or dromedaries to give them up to the sick and wounded.
They reached Tentoura on the 20th of May, in a stifling heat. They sought vainly for a bit of grass or a tree to give them shelter from the blazing sky. They lay down upon the sand, but it was fiery hot. Men were continually falling to rise no more. A wounded man in a litter asked for water. Bonaparte went up to him.
"Who have you got there?" asked he.
"We do not know," replied the men. "All that we do know is that he wears double epaulets."
The moans and the prayer for water had ceased.
"Who are you?" asked Bonaparte.
The wounded man was silent. Bonaparte raised the cloth which shaded the litter and recognized Croisier.
"Ah, my poor boy!" he exclaimed.
Croisier began to sob bitterly.
"Come," said Bonaparte, "have a little courage."
"Ah," said Croisier, lifting himself up in his litter, "you think I am weeping because I am going to die? I am weeping because you called me a coward; and I tried to get myself killed just because you did call me that."
"But," said Bonaparte, "I sent you a sword after that. Didn't Roland give it to you?"
"Here it is," replied Croisier, seizing the weapon which was at his side, and carrying it to his lips. "Those who are carrying me know that I want to have it buried with me. Tell them to do that, general."
And the wounded man clasped his hands imploringly.
Bonaparte dropped the corner of the cloth which covered the litter, gave the necessary order, and walked away.
When they left Tentoura on the following day they came upon a quicksand of considerable extent. There was no other road, so the artillery was obliged to take it, and the guns sank deep in the sand. They laid all the sick and wounded on the edge for a time, while they harnessed all the horses to the gun-carriages and wagons. But it was useless; wagons and cannon sunk to their middle in the sand. The able-bodied soldiers asked to be allowed to make a last effort. They exhausted themselves uselessly.
They wept as they abandoned the brass which they had so often blessed, which had so often witnessed their triumphs, and which had made Europe tremble.
They slept at Cesarea on the 22d of May.
So many of the sick and wounded had died that horses were more plentiful. Bonaparte, who was himself far from well, had nearly died from fatigue on the previous day. He was so strongly urged to do so that he finally consented to mount a horse. He had hardly gone three hundred paces beyond Cesarea when, about daybreak, a man fired pointblank at him from behind some bushes, but missed him.
The soldiers who were near the commander-in-chief darted into the thicket and dragged out the man, a native of Nablos, who was condemned to be shot on the spot. Four men pushed him toward the sea with the butts of their carbines; there they pulled their triggers, but none of the guns went off. The night had been damp and the powder was wet.
The Syrian, astonished at finding himself still alive, recovered his presence of mind immediately, and throwing himself into the sea, swam to a reef beyond the range of their muskets. The soldiers in their first stupefaction watched him go without thinking to fire off their muskets.
But Bonaparte, who knew what a bad effect it would have upon the superstitious population if such an attempt were to go unpunished, ordered a platoon to fire upon him. They obeyed, but the man was out of range, and the balls fell hissing into the water wide of the reef. The man drewa dagger from his breast and made a threatening gesture with it. Bonaparte ordered them to load again with a charge and a half, and fire once more.
"It is useless," said Roland; "I will go." And he instantly threw off all his clothing, retaining only his drawers.
"Stay here, Roland," said Bonaparte; "I do not wish you to risk your life for that of an assassin."
But whether he did not hear him, or whether he did not wish to hear, Roland had already borrowed a dagger from the Sheik of Aher, who was retreating with the army, and, thrusting it between his teeth, he had thrown himself into the sea. The soldiers, who knew that the young captain was the most daring in the whole army, shouted "Bravo!" Bonaparte was forced to be a witness of the duel which was impending.
The Syrian did not attempt further flight when he saw that it was only one man who was coming after him, but waited. He presented a fine spectacle there on his rock. With one hand clinched and his dagger in the other he looked like a statue of Spartacus on a pedestal. Roland swam toward him, his course as straight as that of an arrow. The Syrian made no attempt to attack him until he had gained a footing; he even drew back courteously as far as the rock would afford him a footing. Roland emerged from the water, young and handsome, and dripping like a sea-god.
They stood facing each other. The rock which was to serve as their arena resembled the shell of an immense tortoise protruding from the water. The spectators looked for a long scientific contest in which neither would give any advantage to the other. But this was not to be.
Roland had no sooner gained his feet and shaken off the water which blinded him as it fell from his dripping hair, than, without taking any precaution to defend himself against his adversary's dagger, he sprang upon him, not as one man springs upon another, but as a jaguar springs upon the hunter. They saw the flash of the daggers, then the two men fell into the water.
There was a tremendous splashing, then one head reappeared—the blond head of Roland.
He clung to the sharp edges of the rock with one hand, then he rested his knee upon it, and finally stood upright, holding his adversary's head by its mass of long hair in the other hand. He resembled Perseus after he had cut off the Gorgon's head.
A tremendous shout went up among the spectators and reached Roland. Then putting his dagger between his teeth, he sprang into the sea and swam to the shore.
The army had halted. The men had forgotten both heat and thirst. The wounded forgot to think of their wounds. Even the dying found strength to rise on their elbows.
Roland paused ten feet from Bonaparte.
"Here," said he, "is the head of your would-be assassin."
Bonaparte recoiled, in spite of himself. As for Roland, he went straight to his clothes and began to put them on as calmly as if he had come from an ordinary bath, and with a degree of modesty which a woman might have envied him.
The French arrived at Jaffa on the 24th. They stayed there the 25th, 26th, 27th and 28th. Jaffa was indeed a city of misfortune for Bonaparte.
The reader will remember the four thousand prisoners whom Croisier and Eugene de Beauharnais had taken, who could neither be fed, nor sent to Cairo, and who had to be, and were, shot.
A graver and still more lamentable necessity awaited Bonaparte on his return. There was a hospital at Jaffa for plague-stricken patients. There is a fine picture by Gros, at the Musée, which portrays Bonaparte in the act of touching the plague stricken at Jaffa. The picture isnone the less beautiful because it represents an occurrence which did not take place.
Here is what M. Thiers says. We who are only petty novelists are sorry to find ourselves again in opposition to that giant among historians. It is the author of "The Revolution," of "The Consulate and the Empire" who is speaking.
When he reached Jaffa, Bonaparte blew up the fortifications. There was a hospital there for plague-stricken patients. It would have been impossible to carry them away. They would have been exposed to inevitable death had they been left where they were, either from sickness, hunger or the cruelty of the enemy. Therefore Bonaparte told Dr. Desgenettes that it would be much more humane to give them opium than to allow them to live; to which the doctor made the much-lauded reply: "My trade is to cure, not to kill." The opium was not administered, and this occurrence served to propagate an outrageous slander which has now been refuted.
When he reached Jaffa, Bonaparte blew up the fortifications. There was a hospital there for plague-stricken patients. It would have been impossible to carry them away. They would have been exposed to inevitable death had they been left where they were, either from sickness, hunger or the cruelty of the enemy. Therefore Bonaparte told Dr. Desgenettes that it would be much more humane to give them opium than to allow them to live; to which the doctor made the much-lauded reply: "My trade is to cure, not to kill." The opium was not administered, and this occurrence served to propagate an outrageous slander which has now been refuted.
I humbly beg M. Thiers's pardon, but this reply credited to Desgenettes, whom I knew as well as I did Larrey and all of the "Egyptians"—I mean my father's companions in the great expedition—is as apocryphal as that of Cambronne.
God forbid that I should slander (that is the word which M. Thiers used) the man who illuminated the first half of the nineteenth century with the torch of his glory; and when we come to Pichegru and the Duc d'Enghien, the reader will see whether I simply repeat infamous echoes.
We have said that Gros's picture represents something which did not happen, and we will prove it. Here is Davoust's report, written under the eyes and the orders of the commander-in-chief, in his official narrative:
The army reached Jaffa on the 5th Prairial (May 24). It remained there the 6th, 7th, and 8th (25th, 26th, 27th of May). The time was spent in disciplining the villages which had behaved badly. The fortifications of Jaffa were all blown up. All the artillery of the place was thrown into the sea. The wounded were sent away, both by land and sea. There were only a few ships, and in order to give timefor the land evacuation we were obliged to defer the departure of the army until the 9th.Kléber's division formed the rear-guard, and did not start from Jaffa until the 10th (29th of May).
The army reached Jaffa on the 5th Prairial (May 24). It remained there the 6th, 7th, and 8th (25th, 26th, 27th of May). The time was spent in disciplining the villages which had behaved badly. The fortifications of Jaffa were all blown up. All the artillery of the place was thrown into the sea. The wounded were sent away, both by land and sea. There were only a few ships, and in order to give timefor the land evacuation we were obliged to defer the departure of the army until the 9th.
Kléber's division formed the rear-guard, and did not start from Jaffa until the 10th (29th of May).
You see not a word about the plague, not a word about the visit to the hospital, and, above all, nothing about the touching of the plague-stricken patients. Not a word in any of the official reports.
Bonaparte's eyes had been bent upon France ever since he had turned them from the East, and it would have been very much misplaced modesty on his part had he concealed such a remarkable fact, which would have done honor, not to his reason perhaps, but to his daring.
Furthermore, this is how Bourrienne, who was an eye-witness, and a very impressionable actor, relates the incident:
Bonaparte went to the hospital. He found men there with their limbs amputated, wounded soldiers, afflicted with ophthalmia, who were moaning piteously, and men sick with the plague. The beds occupied by the latter stood to the right of the entrance.I was walking beside the general.I affirm that I did not see him touch one of the plague patients. Why should he? They were in the last stages of the malady; none of them spoke. Bonaparte knew well that he was not immune from the malady. Would fortune interfere in his behalf to shield him. It had certainly not seconded his plans with sufficient ardor during the last two months for him to depend upon that.I ask: Would he expose himself to certain death, and leave his army in the midst of a desert which we had just made by our own ravages, in a demolished town, without help, or the hope of receiving any—he so necessary, so indispensable, as everybody must admit, to his army; he upon whom rested the responsibility of all the lives of those who had survived the last disaster, and who had just given proof of such devotion by their unalterable courage, their sufferings, and the endurance of privations; who were doing all that he could humanly ask of them, and who had confidence in him.
Bonaparte went to the hospital. He found men there with their limbs amputated, wounded soldiers, afflicted with ophthalmia, who were moaning piteously, and men sick with the plague. The beds occupied by the latter stood to the right of the entrance.I was walking beside the general.I affirm that I did not see him touch one of the plague patients. Why should he? They were in the last stages of the malady; none of them spoke. Bonaparte knew well that he was not immune from the malady. Would fortune interfere in his behalf to shield him. It had certainly not seconded his plans with sufficient ardor during the last two months for him to depend upon that.
I ask: Would he expose himself to certain death, and leave his army in the midst of a desert which we had just made by our own ravages, in a demolished town, without help, or the hope of receiving any—he so necessary, so indispensable, as everybody must admit, to his army; he upon whom rested the responsibility of all the lives of those who had survived the last disaster, and who had just given proof of such devotion by their unalterable courage, their sufferings, and the endurance of privations; who were doing all that he could humanly ask of them, and who had confidence in him.
That is the voice of logic; but here is something convincing.
Bonaparte walked rapidly through the rooms, lightly flicking the yellow tops of his boots with the riding-whip which he held in his hand.He spoke as follows as he strode back and forth:"The fortifications are destroyed. Fortune was against me at Saint-Jean-d'Acre. I must go back to Egypt to preserve it against the enemies who are coming. In a few hours the Turks will be here. Let all those who are strong enough to rise, get up and come with us; they will be carried on litters and horses."There were at the most sixty down with the plague. Anything that may have been said about a greater number is mere exaggeration. Their absolute silence, their complete prostration, and their general weakness announced the near approach of death. To take them in that state meant infallibly to introduce the plague in the army.If one longs for ceaseless conquests, glory, and brilliant deeds one must accept his share of ill-fortune. When we think we have found something to cavil at in the actions of a leader who is hurried along by reverses and disastrous circumstances to terrible extremities, it is essential, before passing judgment upon him, to post ourselves thoroughly as to the given condition of affairs, and ask ourselves with our hands on our hearts whether we would not have done as he did. Then we must pity the man who is forced to do something cruel, but we must absolve him, since victory—let us be frank about it—cannot be won except with such or similar horrible accompaniments.
Bonaparte walked rapidly through the rooms, lightly flicking the yellow tops of his boots with the riding-whip which he held in his hand.
He spoke as follows as he strode back and forth:
"The fortifications are destroyed. Fortune was against me at Saint-Jean-d'Acre. I must go back to Egypt to preserve it against the enemies who are coming. In a few hours the Turks will be here. Let all those who are strong enough to rise, get up and come with us; they will be carried on litters and horses."
There were at the most sixty down with the plague. Anything that may have been said about a greater number is mere exaggeration. Their absolute silence, their complete prostration, and their general weakness announced the near approach of death. To take them in that state meant infallibly to introduce the plague in the army.
If one longs for ceaseless conquests, glory, and brilliant deeds one must accept his share of ill-fortune. When we think we have found something to cavil at in the actions of a leader who is hurried along by reverses and disastrous circumstances to terrible extremities, it is essential, before passing judgment upon him, to post ourselves thoroughly as to the given condition of affairs, and ask ourselves with our hands on our hearts whether we would not have done as he did. Then we must pity the man who is forced to do something cruel, but we must absolve him, since victory—let us be frank about it—cannot be won except with such or similar horrible accompaniments.
Here again is some one who has every interest in telling the truth. Listen:
He ordered an examination to be made in order to determine what had best be done. The report stated that seven or eight were so dangerously ill that they could not live more than twenty-four hours longer, and that, furthermore, plague-stricken as they were, they would spread the disease among all the soldiers who came in contact with them. Several asked for instant death.Hethought that it would be an act of charity to advance their death by a few hours.
He ordered an examination to be made in order to determine what had best be done. The report stated that seven or eight were so dangerously ill that they could not live more than twenty-four hours longer, and that, furthermore, plague-stricken as they were, they would spread the disease among all the soldiers who came in contact with them. Several asked for instant death.Hethought that it would be an act of charity to advance their death by a few hours.
Do you still doubt? Napoleon shall speak for himself in the first person.
Where is the man who would not have preferred a speedy death to the horror of living exposed to the tortures of thesebarbarians?If my son—and I think I love him as dearly as a child can be loved—were in a situation similar to that of those unfortunates, my opinion would be in favor of doing the same thing to him; and were I in the same position I should demand that it be done to me.
Where is the man who would not have preferred a speedy death to the horror of living exposed to the tortures of thesebarbarians?If my son—and I think I love him as dearly as a child can be loved—were in a situation similar to that of those unfortunates, my opinion would be in favor of doing the same thing to him; and were I in the same position I should demand that it be done to me.
It seems that nothing could be clearer than those few lines. How does it happen that M. Thiers did not read them? And if he did read them, why did he deny a fact which was confessed by the man who would have the most interest in concealing it?
Thus we establish the truth, not for the purpose of attacking Bonaparte, who could not have acted otherwise, but to prove to the partisans ofpurehistory that it is not alwaystruehistory.
The little army followed the same route in returning from Cairo that it had on coming to Syria. But the heat grew more terrible each day. When they left Gaza it registered 35 degrees Centigrade, and if the mercury was placed in the sand it rose to 45 degrees. Bonaparte noticed two men filling a grave a short time before they reached El-Arich. He thought he recognized in them the two men to whom he had spoken a fortnight before. And when he questioned them they said that they were indeed the men who had carried Croisier's litter. The poor fellow had just died of tetanus.
"Did you bury his sabre with him?" asked Bonaparte.
"Yes," replied both men together.
He stayed until the grave was filled up. Then fearing that it might be violated, he said: "I want a volunteer to stay here as a sentinel until the army has passed."
"Here," said a voice.
Bonaparte turned and saw Quartermaster Falou seated upon his dromedary. "Ah, is it you?"
"Yes, citizen-general."
"How does it happen that you have a dromedary when the rest are on foot?"
"Because two men have died of the plague on my dromedary's back, and no one will ride it."
"And it seems that you are not afraid of the plague?"
"I am not afraid of anything, citizen-general."
"Very well. I will remember that. Look up your friend Faraud and both of you come to me at Cairo."
"We will be there, citizen-general."
Bonaparte glanced at Croisier's grave.
"Sleep in peace, poor Croisier," he said, "your modest grave will not often be disturbed."
On the 14th of June, after a retreat across the burning sands of Syria almost as disastrous as the retreat from Moscow through the snows of the Beresina, Bonaparte entered Cairo in the midst of an immense concourse of people. The sheik, who was awaiting him, presented him with a magnificent horse and the Mameluke Roustan.
Bonaparte had said in his bulletin dated from Saint-Jean-d'Acre, that he was returning to Egypt to oppose the landing of a Turkish force assembled in the Island of Rhodes. He had been correctly informed upon this point, and the lookouts at Alexandria signalled on the 11th of July that they had sighted seventy-six sails in the offing, of which twelve were men-of-war, flying the Ottoman flag.
General Marmont, who was in command, sent courier after courier to Cairo and Rosetta, ordering the commander at Ramanieh to send him all the troops at his disposal, and sent two hundred men to the fort at Aboukir to reinforce that point. That same day Colonel Godard, the commander at Aboukir, wrote to Marmont:
The Turkish fleet is moored in the roadstead; I and my men will hold out until the last man falls rather than yield.
The Turkish fleet is moored in the roadstead; I and my men will hold out until the last man falls rather than yield.
The 12th and 13th were employed by the enemy in hastening the arrival of some battalions which were behindhand.
There were one hundred and thirty ships in the roadstead on the evening of the 13th, of which thirteen carried seventy-four guns each, nine were frigates, and seventeen gunboats. The remainder were transports.
On the following evening Godard and his men had kept their word. He and his men were dead, and the redoubt was captured. Thirty-five men were still shut up in the fort under the command of Colonel Vinache. They held the fort for two days against the whole Turkish army.
Bonaparte learned of this while he was at the Pyramids. He started for Ramanieh, where he arrived on the 19th.
The Turks, now masters of the fort and the redoubt, had landed their whole artillery. Marmont, who had only eighteen hundred troops of the line, and two hundred sailors composing the nautical legion, with which to oppose the Turks at Alexandria, sent courier after courier to Bonaparte. Fortunately, instead of marching upon Alexandria, as Marmont had feared, or upon Rosetta, as Bonaparte had feared, the Turks with their customary indolence contented themselves with occupying the peninsula, and throwing out to the left of the redoubt a great line of intrenchments bordering upon Lake Madieh. They fortified little mounds some five or six feet in front of the redoubt, placing a thousand men in one and two thousand in another. They had eighteen thousand men in all. But they seemed to have come to Egypt for the sole object of being besieged.
On the 23d Bonaparte ordered the French army, which was now only distant a couple of hours' march from the Turkish army, to advance. The advance-guard, composed of Murat's cavalry and three of General Destaing's battalions, with two pieces formed the centre.
The division of General Rampon, who had Generals Fugière and Lanusse under his orders, was on the left. On the right General Lannes's division advanced along the shores of Lake Madieh.
Davoust, with two squadrons of cavalry and a hundred dromedaries, was placed between Alexandria and the army,with orders to head off Mourad Bey, or any one else who should come to the assistance of the Turks, and to keep communication open between Alexandria and the army.
Kléber was expected, and he was to take command of the reserve. And finally Menou, who had gone toward Rosetta, found himself at dawn near the end of the bar of the Nile, by the ferry which crosses Lake Madieh. The French were within sight of the intrenchments almost before the Turks were aware of their proximity.
Bonaparte formed the columns of attack. General Destaing, who commanded them, marched straight against the fortified hill at the right, while two hundred of Murat's cavalry, stationed between the two hills, left their positions, and circling both sides of the hill to the right, cut off the retreat of the Turks who were attacked by General Destaing.
Meanwhile Lannes marched against the hill on the left, which was defended by two thousand Turks, and Murat sent two hundred more of his cavalry around that hill.
Destaing and Murat attacked at almost the same moment and with equal success. The two hills were carried at the bayonet's point. The fugitive Turks met the French cavalry, and threw themselves into the sea.
Destaing, Lannes, and Murat then marched against the village which formed the centre of the peninsula, and attacked in front. A column left the camp at Aboukir and came to the support of the village. Murat drew his sabre, a thing he never did until the last moment, gave the word to his cavalry, charged the column, and drove it back to Aboukir. Meanwhile Lannes and Destaing captured the village. The Turks fled on all sides only to meet Murat's cavalry as it was returning. The battlefield was already strewed with four or five hundred corpses. The French had only one man wounded. He was a mulatto, a compatriot of my father's, the commander of a squad of the Hercules Guides. The French now found themselves upon the highroad which covered the Turkish front.
Bonaparte had it in his power to box the Turks up in Aboukir, and harass them with bombs and shells while he was awaiting the arrival of Kléber and Régnier with their divisions; but he preferred to deal a decisive blow and have done with them. He ordered the army to march straight at the second line of defence. Lannes and Destaing, supported by Lanusse, still bore the brunt of the battle, and won the honors of the day.
The redoubt which defends Aboukir is the work of the English, and consequently it is constructed on the most scientific plan.
It was now defended by nine or ten thousand Turks. It was connected with the sea by a causeway. As the Turks had not had time to dig far enough in the other direction, it did not connect with the Lake of Madieh. A space some three hundred feet in length remained open, but it was occupied by the enemy and swept by the gunners at one and the same time. Bonaparte ordered an attack to the right and the front. Murat, who was ambushed in a grove of palms, was to attack on the left, and crossing the space where there was no causeway, under fire of the gunners, was to drive the enemy before him. The Turks sent out four detachments of about two thousand men each, when they saw these arrangements, who marched against our troops.
The battle would inevitably be a desperate one, for the Turks realized that they were shut up in the peninsula with the sea before them and a wall of French bayonets behind.
A heavy cannonade directed against the redoubt and the intrenchments of the right was the signal for a fresh attack. General Bonaparte thereupon sent General Fugière forward. He followed the bank, and turned to the right of the Turks. The thirty-second, which was stationed on the left of the hamlet which had recently been captured, was to hold the enemy in cheek, and sustain the eighteenth.
It was then that the Turks left their intrenchments and came to meet the French. The latter uttered a joyful shout. This was what they wanted. They rushed upon the enemywith fixed bayonets. The Turks discharged their guns first, then their pistols, and finally drew their sabres. The French soldiers, who were not even checked by the triple discharge, closed in upon them with their sabres.
It was not until then that the Turks realized with what kind of men and weapons they had to reckon. With their guns slung over their shoulders and the sabres hanging by their cords they began a hand-to-hand fight, trying to snatch the terrible bayonets from the rifles, which pierced their breasts as they stretched forth their hands to grasp them.
But nothing could stop the eighteenth. They continued to advance at the same pace, driving the Turks before them to the foot of the intrenchments, which they attempted to carry by storm; but there the soldiers were driven back by a hot fire which raked them diagonally. General Fugière, who led the attack, received a bullet in the head in the beginning. The wound was a slight one, and he kept on, and spoke encouragingly to his men. But when a ball carried away his arm he was obliged to stop.
Adjutant-general Lelong, who came up with a battery of the seventy-fifth, made heroic efforts to induce the soldiers to defy this hurricane of fire. Twice he led them up to it and twice he was repulsed. The third time he darted forward and was on the verge of springing over the intrenchments when he fell dead.
Roland, who was standing near Bonaparte, had for a long time been asking for a command of some sort, which the latter hesitated to give him, until at length he felt that the moment had come for a supreme effort. He turned toward him. "Very well, go!" he said to him.
"Thirty-second brigade!" shouted Roland.
And the gallant survivors of Saint-Jean-d'Acre ran off after him, led by their major, Armagnac. Sub-lieutenant Faraud, recovered from his wound, was in the first rank.
Meanwhile, Brigadier-general Morange had made another attempt; but he was also driven back, leaving thirty men on the glacis and in the trench. The Turks thoughtthat they had conquered. Carried away by their custom of cutting off the heads of the dead, for which they received fiftyparasapiece, they left the redoubt in disorder, and began the bloody work.
Roland pointed them out to his indignant soldiers.
"All our men are not dead," he cried; "some of them are only wounded. Let us save them."
At that moment Murat caught a glimpse through the smoke of what was going on. He darted forward under the fire of the artillery, passed through it, cut off the redoubt from the village with his cavalry, and fell upon the men who were engaged in the horrible operation of cutting off heads on the other side of the redoubt, while Roland attacked it in front, dashing in among the Turks with his usual reckless daring, where he mowed down the harvesters.
Bonaparte saw that the Turks had been taken at a disadvantage by this unexpected onslaught, and he sent Lannes with two battalions. Lannes attacked the redoubt with his usual impetuosity, on the left face and at the gorge. Pressed thus on all sides the Turks tried to reach the village of Aboukir; but Murat was between the village and the redoubt with his cavalry, and behind him was Roland and the thirty-second brigade, and at their right Lannes and his two divisions.
Their only refuge was the sea. They threw themselves into it wild with terror; for, since they were not in the habit of giving quarter to their prisoners, they preferred the sea, and the chance of reaching their ships, to death at the hands of the Christians whom they despised.
At this juncture the French were masters of the two hills, where they had begun the assault; of the hamlet where the remainder of those who had been defending the hills had taken refuge; of the redoubt which had cost so many brave men their lives. And now they were before the camp, and the Turkish reserve. They fell upon them.
Nothing could stop the French soldiers, who were drunk with the carnage which they had just perpetrated. Murat'scavalry fell upon the pasha's guard like a whirlwind, a simoom, a hurricane.
Ignorant of the result of the battle, Mustapha, when he heard the shouting and uproar, mounted his horse, and placing himself at the head of hisicoglans, he rushed to meet the French, encountered Murat, fired upon him at close range, and inflicted a slight wound. Murat cut off two of his fingers with the first blow of his sabre. With the second he would have cut off his head, but an Arab threw himself in front of the pasha, received the blow and fell dead. Mustapha gave up his cimeter, and Murat sent him to Bonaparte as a prisoner.
See Gros's magnificent picture.
The remnant of the army took refuge within the fort of Aboukir; the others were killed or drowned.
Never had such annihilation been seen since two armies had marched against each other. Aside from the two hundred Janissaries and the hundred men shut up in the fort, nothing was left of the army of eighteen thousand Turks.