French campaign in Egypt and Syria and Related Topics

Napoleon

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French military and political leader who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led several successful campaigns during the Revolutionary Wars.

Napoleon's father, Carlo Buonaparte, was Corsica's representative to the court of Louis XVI.

Statue of Napoleon as a schoolboy in Brienne, aged 15, by Louis Rochet (1853)

Napoleon Bonaparte, aged 23, as lieutenant-colonel of a battalion of Corsican Republican volunteers. Portrait by Henri Félix Emmanuel Philippoteaux

Journée du 13 Vendémiaire, artillery fire in front of the Church of Saint-Roch, Paris, Rue Saint-Honoré

Bonaparte at the Pont d'Arcole, by Baron Antoine-Jean Gros, (c. 1801), Musée du Louvre, Paris

Bonaparte during the Italian campaign in 1797

Bonaparte Before the Sphinx (c. 1886) by Jean-Léon Gérôme, Hearst Castle

Battle of the Pyramids on 21 July 1798 by Louis-François, Baron Lejeune, 1808

General Bonaparte surrounded by members of the Council of Five Hundred during the Coup of 18 Brumaire, by François Bouchot

Bonaparte, First Consul, by Ingres. Posing the hand inside the waistcoat was often used in portraits of rulers to indicate calm and stable leadership.

Silver coin: 5 francs_AN XI, 1802, Bonaparte, First Consul

The Battle of Marengo was Napoleon's first great victory as head of state.

The 1803 Louisiana Purchase totalled 827,987 sqmi, doubling the size of the United States.

The Coronation of Napoleon by Jacques-Louis David (1804)

Napoleon and the Grande Armée receive the surrender of Austrian General Mack after the Battle of Ulm in October 1805. The decisive finale of the Ulm Campaign raised the tally of captured Austrian soldiers to 60,000. With the Austrian army destroyed, Vienna would fall to the French in November.

Napoléon in his coronation robes by François Gérard, c. 1805

Napoleon at the Battle of Austerlitz, by François Gérard 1805. The Battle of Austerlitz, also known as the Battle of the Three Emperors, was one of Napoleon's many victories, where the French Empire defeated the Third Coalition.

The Iranian envoy Mirza Mohammed Reza-Qazvini meeting with Napoleon I at the Finckenstein Palace in West Prussia, 27 April 1807, to sign the Treaty of Finckenstein

Napoleon reviewing the Imperial Guard before the Battle of Jena

The Treaties of Tilsit: Napoleon meeting with Alexander I of Russia on a raft in the middle of the Neman River

Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon's brother, as King of Spain

Napoleon accepting the surrender of Madrid, 4 December 1808

Napoleon at the Battle of Wagram, painted by Horace Vernet

The entry of Napoleon in Schönbrunn, Vienna

The French Empire at its greatest extent in 1812:

Napoleon watching the fire of Moscow in September 1812, by Adam Albrecht (1841)

Napoleon's withdrawal from Russia, painting by Adolph Northen

Napoleon's farewell to his Imperial Guard, 20 April 1814, by Antoine-Alphonse Montfort

Napoleon after his abdication in Fontainebleau, 4 April 1814, by Paul Delaroche

Napoleon leaving Elba on 26 February 1815, by Joseph Beaume (1836)

Napoleon's Return from Elba, by Charles de Steuben, 1818

Napoleon on Saint Helena, watercolor by Franz Josef Sandmann, c. 1820

Longwood House, Saint Helena, site of Napoleon's captivity

Frederick Marryat's sketch of Napoleon's body on his deathbed

Napoleon's tomb at Les Invalides in Paris

Napoleon's remains passing through Jamestown, St Helena on 13 October 1840

Napoleon on His Death Bed, by Horace Vernet, 1826

Situation of Napoleon's body when his coffin was reopened on St Helena, by Jules Rigo, 1840

Reorganisation of the religious geography: France is divided into 59 dioceses and 10 ecclesiastical provinces.

Leaders of the Catholic Church taking the civil oath required by the Concordat

Napoleon visiting the Palais Royal for the opening of the 8th session of the Tribunat in 1807, by Merry-Joseph Blondel

Napoleon is often represented in his green colonel uniform of the Chasseur à Cheval of the Imperial Guard, the regiment that often served as his personal escort, with a large bicorne and a hand-in-waistcoat gesture.

First remittance of the Légion d'Honneur, 15 July 1804, at Saint-Louis des Invalides, by Jean-Baptiste Debret (1812)

First page of the 1804 original edition of the Code Civil

Statue in Cherbourg-Octeville unveiled by Napoleon III in 1858. Napoleon I strengthened the town's defences to prevent British naval incursions.

The Third of May 1808 by Francisco Goya, showing Spanish resisters being executed by French troops

A mass grave of soldiers killed at the Battle of Waterloo

1814 caricature of Napoleon being exiled to Elba: the ex-emperor is riding a donkey backwards while holding a broken sword.

Ceramic pitcher of Bonaparte: Where is he going to. To Elba. (Musée de la Révolution française).

Bas-relief of Napoleon in the chamber of the United States House of Representatives

Joséphine, first wife of Napoleon, obtained the civil dissolution of her marriage under the Napoleonic Code, painting by Henri Frédéric Schopin, 1843

Marriage of Napoleon and Marie-Louise by Georges Rouget, 1843

Napoleon Crossing the Alps, romantic version by Jacques-Louis David in 1805

Bonaparte Crossing the Alps, realist version by Paul Delaroche in 1848

Two years later, he led a military expedition to Egypt that served as a springboard to political power.

The Destruction of L'Orient at the Battle of the Nile
George Arnald, 1827, National Maritime Museum, in Greenwich, London, England

Major naval battle fought between the British Royal Navy and the Navy of the French Republic at Aboukir Bay on the Mediterranean coast off the Nile Delta of Egypt from the 1st to the 3rd of August 1798.

Rear-Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson, Lemuel Francis Abbott, 1800, National Maritime Museum. Visible on his cocked hat is the aigrette presented by the Ottoman Sultan as a reward for the victory at the Nile

François-Paul Brueys d'Aigalliers
artist unknown, Palace of Versailles

Battle of the Nile, Augt 1st 1798, Thomas Whitcombe, 1816, National Maritime Museum. The British fleet bears down on the French line.

The Battle of the Nile, 1 August 1798, Nicholas Pocock, 1808, National Maritime Museum

Map of ship positions and movements during the Battle of Aboukir Bay, 1–2 August 1798. British ships are in red; French ships are in blue. Intermediate ship positions are shown in pale red/blue. The map has been simplified, and differs from the text in several minor particulars.

under fire from at the Battle of the Nile.

The Battle of the Nile, Thomas Luny, 1830, National Maritime Museum

Battle of the Nile, 1 August 1798, Daniel Orme, 1805, National Maritime Museum. Nelson returns on deck after his wound is dressed.

A 1799 depiction of the Battle of the Nile by Thomas Whitcombe. Orient is on fire, and visible under her stern, and drifting clear of the burning ship, is the dismasted Bellerophon.

The Battle of the Nile: Destruction of 'L'Orient', 1 August 1798, Mather Brown, 1825, National Maritime Museum

Battle of the Nile, Augt 1st 1798, Thomas Whitcombe, 1816, National Maritime Museum – the climax of the battle, as Orient explodes

A True Position of the French fleet as they were moored near the Mouth of the Nile and the manner in which Lord Nelson formed his attack on them, Robert Dodd, 1800, National Maritime Museum

Battle of the Nile Medal in Gold. Normally worn from a wide blue ribbon. Grades: 4, awarded by rank. Gold: awarded to Nelson and his captains. Silver: awarded to lieutenants and warrant officers. Copper-Gilt: awarded to petty officers. Bronzed copper: awarded to ratings, marines, etc.

The Gallant Nellson bringing home two Uncommon fierce French Crocadiles from the Nile as a Present to the King, James Gillray, 1798, National Maritime Museum. The crocodiles represent Fox and Sheridan.

'Victors of the Nile', a celebratory engraving published five years after the Battle of the Nile, depicting Nelson and his 14 captains.

This allowed Bonaparte to propose an invasion of Egypt as an alternative to confronting Britain directly, believing that the British would be too distracted by an imminent Irish uprising to intervene in the Mediterranean.

Egypt Eyalet

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Administrative division of the Ottoman Empire from 1517 to 1867.

Expansion of the Eyalet under Muhammad Ali and his sons

Ottoman Cairene cruciform table carpet, mid 16th century

Alexandria in the late 18th century, by Luigi Mayer

Murad Bey by Dutertre in Description de l'Egypte, 1809

Battle of the Pyramids, Francois-Louis-Joseph Watteau, 1798–1799

The Battle of Abukir, by Antoine-Jean Gros

The Revolt of Cairo, 21 October 1798, by Anne-Louis Girodet

Massacre of the Mamluks at the Cairo citadel, painted by Horace Vernet.

Muhammad Ali, Viceroy of Egypt, painting by Auguste Couder (1841, Palace of Versailles)

The Ottomans administered Egypt as an eyalet of their Empire from 1517 until 1867, with an interruption during the French occupation of 1798 to 1801.

Rosetta Stone

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Stele composed of granodiorite inscribed with three versions of a decree issued in Memphis, Egypt, in 196 BC during the Ptolemaic dynasty on behalf of King Ptolemy V Epiphanes.

One possible reconstruction of the original stele

Another fragmentary example of a "donation stele", in which the Old Kingdom pharaoh Pepi II grants tax immunity to the priests of the temple of Min

Report of the arrival of the Rosetta Stone in England in The Gentleman's Magazine, 1802

Left and right sides of the Rosetta Stone, with inscriptions in English relating to its capture by English forces from the French

Experts inspecting the Rosetta Stone during the Second International Congress of Orientalists, 1874

Patrons at the British Museum view the Rosetta Stone as it was displayed in 1985

A crowd of visitors examining the Rosetta Stone at the British Museum

Richard Porson's suggested reconstruction of the missing Greek text (1803)

Champollion's table of hieroglyphic phonetic characters with their demotic and Coptic equivalents (1822)

Replica of the Rosetta Stone, displayed as the original used to be, available to touch, in what was the King's Library of the British Museum, now the Enlightenment Gallery

A giant copy of the Rosetta Stone by Joseph Kosuth in Figeac, France, the birthplace of Jean-François Champollion

A replica of the Rosetta Stone in Rashid (Rosetta), Egypt

alt=Illustration depicting two columns of demotic text and their Greek equivalent, as devised by Johan David Åkerblad in 1802|Johan David Åkerblad's table of demotic phonetic characters and their Coptic equivalents (1802)

It was discovered there in July 1799 by French officer Pierre-François Bouchard during the Napoleonic campaign in Egypt.

Battle of the Pyramids

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The Battle of the Pyramids, also known as the Battle of Embabeh, was a major engagement fought on 21 July 1798, during the French Invasion of Egypt. The battle took place near the village of Embabeh, across the Nile River from Cairo, but was named by Napoleon after the Great Pyramid of Giza visible nearly 9 miles away.

Order of battle of the Armée d'Orient (1798)

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The Armée d'Orient (English: Army of the Orient) was the French military force gathered by the French Directory to send on the expedition to Egypt in 1798.

Alexandria

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Mediterranean port city in Egypt.

The Lighthouse of Alexandria on coins minted in Alexandria in the second century (1: reverse of a coin of Antoninus Pius, and 2: reverse of a coin of Commodus).

Entry of General Bonaparte into Alexandria, oil on canvas, 365 x,, Versailles

The Battle of Abukir, by Antoine-Jean Gros 1806

Alexandria: bombardment by British naval forces

Map of the city in the 1780s, by Louis-François Cassas.

Macedonian Army, shown on the Alexander Sarcophagus.

Engraving by L. F. Cassas of the Canopic Street in Alexandria, Egypt made in 1784.

Satellite image of Alexandria and other cities show its surrounding coastal plain

Egypt – Obelisk, Alexandria. Brooklyn Museum Archives, Goodyear Archival Collection.

Side view of The Temple of Taposiris Magna.

Jewish girls during Bat Mitzva in Alexandria

The Italian consulate in Saad Zaghloul Square

Alexandria figured prominently in the military operations of Napoleon's expedition to Egypt in 1798.

General Kléber, by Jean-Urbain Guérin, Nationalmuseum, Stockholm

Jean-Baptiste Kléber

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French general during the French Revolutionary Wars.

Statue of Kléber on the Place Kléber at Strasbourg

Kléber wounded in front of Alexandria, engraving by Adolphe-François Pannemaker

Assassination of Kléber, painting in the Musée historique de Strasbourg.

Kléber's name inscribed on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

He retired to private life in the peaceful interim after the Treaty of Campo Formio, but returned to military service to accompany Napoleon in the Egyptian Campaign in 1798–99.

Muhammad Ali Pasha

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The Albanian Ottoman governor and the de facto ruler of Egypt from 1805 to 1848, who is considered the founder of modern Egypt.

Muhammad Ali's birthplace in Kavala, now in northeastern Greece.

Massacre of the Mamelukes at the Cairo citadel by Horace Vernet.

Muhammad Ali by Jean-François Portaels, 1847

Muhammad Ali of Egypt, drawn by Louis Dupré.

Muhammad Ali Pasha with his son, Ibrahim, and Colonel Joseph Sève (later Suleiman Pasha).

Interview with Mehmet Ali in his Palace at Alexandria (1839), with Patrick Campbell in the centre. After David Roberts, in The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt, and Nubia

The Mosque of Muhammad Ali in Cairo, Egypt

Tomb of Muhammad Ali in Alabaster Mosque in Cairo

A portrait of Muhammad Ali of Egypt by David Wilkie (1841).

He was a military commander in an Albanian Ottoman force sent to recover Egypt from a French occupation under Napoleon.

Anonymous caricature depicting the treatment given to the Brunswick Manifesto by the French population

French Revolutionary Wars

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The French Revolutionary Wars (Guerres de la Révolution française) were a series of sweeping military conflicts lasting from 1792 until 1802 and resulting from the French Revolution.