After the first defeat of the Mamelukes in a clash with the French, the state of the French army became more optimistic, as one of the most important problems Napoleon faced was concern about the situation his soldiers found themselves in in Egypt.
After fighting battles in the valleys of Austria and Italy, which were full of trees, plants and rivers, they suddenly found themselves in the Egyptian desert in July, where they did not know the purpose of their expedition, so fear of the unknown future and a sense of hopelessness about the expedition began to permeate Napoleon’s army.
Napoleon Bonaparte wanted to reach Cairo as soon as possible before the Nile flooded. He knew that the state of Egypt would change completely once it surged.
On the other hand, the French were beginning to be more motivated to attack Cairo and keep it under their control.
The next confrontation between the French and the Mamelukes would take place there, as capturing the capital was a great target to take control of Egypt,. For this reason, Napoleon was constantly striving to reach Cairo as soon as possible.
From the first to the second clash, which took place near Cairo, five days passed. During this time, Bonaparte began to reorganize his forces, and the Mamelukes began to gather their troops and fortify Cairo before the next invasion.
However, I would like to mention at this point that the Mamelukes squandered a great opportunity during this time to attack the French again before they had time to reorganize their array and thus squandered the impact of this expedition.
Unfortunately, the Mamelukes were unorganized, overcome by both fear of the unknown size of the expedition and low self-confidence.
The people of Cairo, despite their poverty and poor economy, showed more loyalty to Egypt than the Mamelukes. According to reports by historians of the era, they supported the Mamelukes and soldiers with their own savings.
In this article I do not want to reveal the details of this battle, I will describe it in more detail elsewhere, but I would like to add that this battle was decisive for the period of this expedition, as it was the beginning of a new phase of the Egyptian campaign.
The number of Mameluke soldiers and warriors was about 20,000 in the area between the outskirts of Imbaba and the Pyramids, most of whom were at the ready in front of barricades and trenches. In addition, the infantrymen stood in front of the cannons, which were set up in the fortresses of Cairo and were not easy to move, unlike the French cannons, which were more mobile and allowed them to change position according to the needs that arose.
When Napoleon saw the Mameluke troops, who had their servants and slaves for support, he was shocked and thought there were about 50,000 of them. Then he said to his soldiers motivating them, the famous phrase: “40 centuries are watching you”!
The battle probably began at 11:00 in the morning and ended around 6:00 in the evening.
The main reason for the defeat of the Mamelukes was the extraordinary courage and flexibility of Napoleon, who was ready to respond to any initiative that began during the battle.
At the beginning of the battle, Murad Bak began to penetrate deep into the French army with his warriors and was close to cutting off groups of French troops, but Napoleon quickly noticed this and began to fire on the Mameluke forces, which forced them to retreat.
When the army standing in front of the cannons, trenches and barricades began to retreat due to the lack of adequate leadership (which, by the way, would have been useful even after the knights withdrew to hold their Cairo fortification sites) even Murad Bak was no longer able to regain control of his forces and retreated to his palace in Giza in the evening.
Losses in the French army of soldiers killed during the battle, reached about 300. The Mamelukes, however, suffered much greater damage after this skirmish, as about 7,000 soldiers were killed, and about 3,000 Bedouins and ordinary farmers drowned in the Nile. The rest of the force of about 3,000 retreated with Murad back to Giza, and about 1,000 soldiers returned with Ibrahim to Cairo.
Mention should also be made of the Egyptian fleet, which did not have a chance to take part in this battle due to the low water level and weak wind, which was a great obstacle and reduced the strength of the Mamelukes.
Due to poor tactics, which took away the Mamelukes’ future prospects, they had to hide their gains.
Meanwhile, Napoleon arrived in Giza at around 9pm at the Murad-Baka palace, after which he settled in and discovered its opulence and magnificent decorations and interiors, which testified to the lavish life of the Mamelukes at the time.
The French were happy to start moving closer to achieving their strategic goal of conquering Cairo, playing with firecrackers and drinking lots of alcohol.
On the other side of Cairo, the mood of the Egyptians was quite different. It was a dramatic night, full of nervousness and negative energy, filled with grief over the defeat of the Mamelukes. Most people began to move their families away from the French.
All these situations and events were reflected in one fact – the main victims of this battle were the Egyptians themselves, who suffered from both the Mamelukes and the French. Each side simply wanted to plunder the country of its wealth.
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