Berthier turned his horse and galloped back towards the faint column of dust that marked the head of the French army approaching across the desert. As Napoleon continued to examine the Turkish positions it was clear that they had made extensive additions to the defences of the fortress, and dug three lines of trenches, supported by several bastions, across the neck of land, each of which was defended by thousands of soldiers. Janissaries, Napoleon surmised, if this army had been transported from Turkey.
He lowered his telescope and shook his head. ‘It’s hard to believe that they have just sat on their backsides and handed the initiative to us. What kind of general would be so foolish?’
‘One who is about to be kicked into the sea,’ Murat grinned.
As the French army deployed in front of the first trench the Turkish troops began to beat their drums and the harsh blare of trumpets sounded across the dusty open ground between the armies. Some of the enemy guns, mounted in the nearest bastions, opened fire but the range was long and the heavy iron balls merely kicked up plumes of sand and grit well ahead of the first French line. The moment the last unit was in position Napoleon gave the order to attack, starting with Lannes on the left flank. The guns of Lannes’s division advanced towards the enemy and unlimbered. Moments later the first cannon boomed out across the open ground as they pounded the embrasures of the nearest bastion. Once the enemy guns were knocked out General Lannes gave the order to advance, and with colours unfurled and drums beating the battalions of his division rolled forward.
As the French bombardment ceased the janissaries rose up in their trenches and raised their muskets. There was no attempt to hold fire until the French had approached to within lethally close range and the Turkish troops wasted their first shots in a ragged crackle of musketry that felled only a handful of men before Lannes’s division reached the first trench and halted to pour a single devastating volley into the dense ranks of the enemy massed before them. The effect was just as Napoleon had envisaged and as the gunpowder smoke cleared in the sea breeze, he saw that the enemy had broken and were streaming back towards the second trench. The panic spread along the first line, so that General Destaing’s brigade did not even have the chance to fire at the enemy opposite them before they too broke and ran to the shelter of the next line of defence.
From his horse Napoleon could see that the men of the second line were made of sterner stuff and withheld their first volley until the attacking columns were close. The shattering effect of their fire stalled Lannes’s men a short distance from the second trench, and they deployed into line and exchanged fire with the janissaries. As he watched, Napoleon noticed a peculiar aspect of the fight. Every so often, a janissary would leap out of his trench and race towards the nearest French body. Most were shot down before they reached the corpses, but one, faster than his comrades, raced forward, swung his curved blade down and cut off the head, which he tucked under his arm as he turned and sprinted back to his own lines. He didn’t make it. A shot caught him in the centre of the back and he pitched forward and twitched feebly on the ground.
Even though he did not doubt that the enemy’s second line would cave in before the disciplined fire of the French troops, Napoleon did not want to lose any more men than necessary and decided the time had come for Murat’s cavalry to deliver the blow that would shatter the enemy’s will to continue the fight. As soon as the order was received, Murat trotted his horse to the front of the cavalry formation and bellowed the command to advance. It was as brave a sight as Napoleon had ever seen, and he felt his heart swell with pride, and only a little anxiety, as the lines of horsemen walked forward, slowly gathering pace as they crossed the abandoned first line of defence, then breaking into a trot before finally charging the enemy.
Murat’s cavalry tore into and through the second line, scattering the Turkish forces before them. Sabres glittered in the midday sun as the horsemen hacked and slashed at the fleeing men. Fear preceded them and the Turks in the last trench turned and ran without even firing a shot. Clambering out of their positions, some made for the safety of the fortress above them; many more ran towards the beach and waded out into the surf, hoping to swim to safety. The cavalry rode after them until the sea was up to the flanks of their mounts, and all the time the riders were cutting down the men in the water around them, turning it red as the day wore on.
The killing stopped late in the afternoon and Napoleon rode forward with Berthier to inspect the battlefield. Thousands of enemy dead lay piled in the trenches and scattered across the open ground between. Mingled with them were the French dead and wounded and Napoleon hurriedly detailed the nearest soldiers to help their injured comrades down to the dressing stations Desgenettes had established just behind the army’s original battle line. Over a thousand of the enemy had managed to reach the fortress and even now General Menou was busy reversing the defences of the last trench so that the defenders were now trapped there. As night fell, Napoleon returned to his tent to dictate a report of the battle to be sent to the Directory aboard the fast packet ship that communicated between France and Alexandria, when it could be assured of a route clear of English warships. The victory at Aboukir had smashed the Sultan’s chances of driving the French out of Egypt for the next year, or possibly two. Napoleon phrased his report with the usual glowing praise for the gallantry of the men and their commanders. It was true the French had suffered nearly a thousand casualties, but they had smashed the cream of the Sultan’s forces.
The next day an envoy landed from the Turkish fleet still anchored in the bay, asking permission to collect the Turkish wounded and take them on board the ships to carry them home. At first Napoleon was tempted to deny the request. But there had been more than enough suffering already, and he relented. As the Turkish seamen began to load the wounded janissaries aboard the ships’ boats being held steady in the surf, the envoy approached with a package of newspapers bound with string tucked under one arm. He paused a short distance from Napoleon as the guides relieved him of his sword, knife and pistol, then continued forward, proffering the bundled newspapers.
‘My master, Sir Sidney Smith, bids me to offer these to you in gratitude for the return of our wounded. They are the latest editions to reach the fleet, and are as current as anything that General Bonaparte’s army has read in months.’
‘The Directory is losing the war,’ Napoleon announced to his inner circle of senior officers: Berthier, Lannes and Murat. He had summoned them to his office as soon as he had returned to Cairo. The contents of the newspapers Smith had sent him had been carefully sifted before being circulated via the army’s official journal, and only a handful of men had been permitted to know the full details of events in Europe. Napoleon did not bother to hide his bitterness as he continued. ‘Almost everything that we gained in Italy has been lost to Austria. In Germany our armies have been beaten back towards the French border and in Paris the factions plot against each other with no thought of the men fighting and dying for France.The war will be lost, the revolution will be crushed and France will return to the tyranny of the Bourbons, unless the situation changes.’ He paused and glanced round at the others. ‘Or unless the situation is changed, by us.’
Berthier coughed.‘By us? How can we change anything from here, sir? You’ve said it yourself, we have been abandoned by the Directory. They might as well have forgotten we exist.’