French invasion of Egypt and Syria

French invasion of Egypt and Syria
Part of the War of the Second Coalition
Click an image to load the appropriate article. Left to right, top to bottom: Battles of the Pyramids, the Nile, Cairo, Abukir (1799), Abukir (1801), and Alexandria (1801)
Date 1 July 1798 – 2 September 1801 (3 years, 2 months and 1 day) Location Eyalet of Egypt Result Anglo-Ottoman victory End of Mamluk rule in Egypt Formal end of the Franco-Ottoman alliance Failure of French expedition to Syria Capitulation of French administration in Egypt
Belligerents
Ottoman Empire Eyalet of Egypt Mamluks Nablus tribesmen[1] Bedouin tribesmen (1798–1799) Albanian bashi-bazouks  Great Britain (1798–1800)  United Kingdom (1801) Bedouin tribesmen (1801) Regency of Algiers[2]	French Republic Armée d'Orient
Commanders and leaders
Selim III Yusuf Pasha Mustafa Pasha Muhammad Ali Pasha Jezzar Pasha Abdullah Pasha Murad Bey Ibrahim Bey Abdallah Bey  Haim Farhi Ralph Abercromby † Gordon Drummond Samuel Graham John Moore George Ramsay John Hely-Hutchinson William Beresford Sidney Smith Horatio Nelson Antoine de Phélippeaux  † Raïs Hamidou	Napoleon Bonaparte Jean Kléber † Thomas Dumas Jacques Menou  Jean Lannes Louis Desaix Joachim Murat Louis-Nicolas Davout Jean Rapp René Savary Jean-Antoine Verdier Jean Reynier Louis André Bon † Jean-Baptiste Bessières Cousin de Dommartin (DOW) Maximilian Caffarelli (DOW) Jean-Baptiste Perrée Charles Dugua Martin Dupuy † Brueys d'Aigalliers † Pierre-Charles Villeneuve Horace Sébastiani Charles-Louis Lasalle Rose de Beauharnais Louis Bonaparte Géraud Duroc Joseph Sulkowski (DOW) Louis Friant
Strength
220,000 soldiers 30,000 soldiers	40,000 soldiers 10,000 sailors
Casualties and losses
Ottoman Empire: 50,000 killed and wounded[3] 15,000 captured Total: 65,000	France: 15,000 killed and wounded[3] 23,500 captured[4] Total: 38,500

War of the Second Coalition:
Egypt and Syria

800km
500miles

6

5

Jaffa

4

Cairo

3

Alexandria

2

Malta

1

  

  Napoleon in command till 23 August 1799

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The French invasion of Egypt and Syria (1798–1801) was an invasion and occupation of the Ottoman territories of Egypt and Syria, by forces of the French First Republic led by Napoleon Bonaparte. It was the primary purpose of the Mediterranean campaign of 1798, which was a series of naval engagements that included the capture of Malta and the Greek island Crete, later arriving in the Port of Alexandria. The conflict forms part of the French Revolutionary Wars.

The expedition was the result of a confluence of interests. The French government hoped to disrupt the trade of their enemy, Great Britain, and create a "double port" connecting the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. Napoleon proclaimed it to "defend French trade interests" and to establish "scientific enterprise" in the region, and envisioned the campaign as the first step of a march to India, where he would join France's ally, Tipu Sultan, who ruled Mysore and was engaged with a war against the British, to drive Britain out of India.

Despite early victories in Egypt and an initially successful expedition into Syria, the destruction of the French fleet by the British Royal Navy at the Battle of the Nile stranded the French troops in Egypt, and the defeat of Napoleon and his Armée d'Orient by Anglo-Ottoman forces at Acre forced the French to withdraw from Syria. Following his defeat in Syria, Napoleon repelled the Ottoman landing at Aboukir, but recognizing that the campaign was lost, and with the news of a Second Coalition reversing French conquests in Europe, Napoleon opportunistically abandoned his army, sailed to France, and overthrew the government. The French forces left in Egypt ultimately surrendered at Alexandria, concluding the defeat of Napoleon's expedition. These last French forces were repatriated, and the Treaty of Paris officially ended the hostilities between France and the Ottoman Empire.

On the scientific front, the expedition was a success that led to the publication of the Description de l'Égypte, and the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, creating the field of Egyptology. On the social and technological front, the expedition's legacy includes the re-introduction of the printing press to Egypt, the founding of the Institut d'Égypte, the rise of nationalism and liberalism in the Middle East, the emergence of modern European imperialism, and the popularization of Orientalist narratives of the Muslim world.