Napoleon in Egypt (7 page)
Yet again, Napoleon presented to the Directory his plans for an invasion of Egypt. These were nothing if not ambitious. He would require 30,000 men and 3,000 horses, mainly drawn from the Army of Italy; the cavalry would in fact require 10,000 horses, but as it would not be possible to transport so many, the extra number would be made up from Arab mounts to be captured in Egypt, though all cavalrymen would bring their own saddles. He would also need to take 1,500 artillerymen, and the requisite number of artillery pieces. The invasion fleet would embark from at least four separate ports, where supplies would be loaded in a particular sequence, to facilitate the immediate requirements of the first troops ashore, spearheading the invasion. The details went on and on, each aspect of the expedition meticulously accounted for. As Napoleon continued, the full extent of his intentions gradually became clearer: having conquered Egypt, he would then mount an expedition to India, where he would attack the British. This force would require 60,000 men, 30,000 of whom would be recruited and trained from amongst the Egyptians; it would take 10,000 horses and 50,000 camels, sufficient to carry supplies for sixty days and water for six. Other provisions would be sequestered on the march, which would take four months to reach the Indus. In India he would link up with the forces of Tippoo Sahib, the ruler of Mysore who had risen against the British and sworn allegiance to French revolutionary ideals. Napoleon concluded by announcing that the entire expedition would cost between eight and nine million francs.
The Directory was aghast: they simply did not have such money. Similarly, they could not afford to lose as many as 30,000 experienced men from the Army of Italy, who might be called upon to defend the territory they had occupied. On the other hand, the Directory knew that if they were to remain in power it was imperative to get rid of Napoleon. So they struck a bargain: Napoleon could have 25,000 men in total, but he would have to raise the money to pay for the expedition himself. Also, there was no question of him marching on to India: his expedition was to be limited solely to the conquest of Egypt, and he was expected to return in six months. Meanwhile Talleyrand would be dispatched to Constantinople to reassure their Turkish allies that the French harbored no aggressive intent against the Ottoman Empire. Napoleon would merely overthrow the Mamelukes and restore order to the country, so that French traders could go about their business unmolested. Afterwards the Directory and the Porte would come to an arrangement about how the country should best be governed.
Napoleon accepted the Directory’s terms with a suspicious rapidity and lack of bargaining, but the Directory were not worried. He was agreeing to leave France and mount an expedition at no cost to themselves; what he might or might not decide to do after he reached Egypt was another matter altogether. When he once more brought up the benefits of marching on India, the Directory gave the impression that they acquiesced, leaving the matter up to him.
The Italian campaign, followed by Napoleon’s protracted treaty negotiations and his marital problems, had left him exhausted. Even before his return to France he had written to his brother: “My health is ruined. . . . I can barely get into the saddle and need two years rest.” Yet no sooner had the Directory agreed to his invasion on March 5, 1798, than he launched himself into a delirium of activity, prompting even Bourrienne to comment: “He worked night and day on this project. I never saw him so active.”
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The first requirement was money, and Napoleon knew that the only way to raise this was by looting from the exchequers of the countries France had “liberated” for the Revolution. Here he proved as ruthless as in his military campaigning: nothing would stand in the way of his “glory.” He dispatched his chief of staff Berthier to Rome to ransack the Vatican; General Joubert, whose military prowess had proved vital to the success of the Italian campaign, was sent to Holland; and General Brune, who had already established himself as a notorious looter in Italy, was ordered to Berne, where he sent back to Napoleon what amounted to the entire Swiss exchequer, a sum equivalent to three million gold francs.
Napoleon soon had more than enough to finance his expedition to Egypt, though an indication of his further ambitions is seen in the fact that he had also covertly budgeted to take on further assets. Around this time he received a report from his former financial administrator Poussielgue about his spying mission to Malta, where according to intelligence sources the treasury of the resident Knights of St. John contained relics, valuables and bullion worth several millions. The taking of Malta would have more than strategic value for the Egyptian expedition.
III
The Cream of France
N
APOLEON
now set about recruiting the most talented commanding officers he could muster. Loyalty, bravery and leadership were the qualities he most prized. Many of those he chose had already served with him, and thus he had witnessed their abilities firsthand on the battlefield.
For his chief of staff he chose the forty-four-year-old General Louis Berthier, who had proved both loyal and highly efficient in this demanding post during the Italian campaign. Berthier was from a military family and had fought in the American War of Independence under Lafayette, whose forces had played such a vital role in thwarting the British. He had been cited for bravery at Philipsburg, but had fallen from favor with the Jacobins after the Revolution. Later he had been reinstated, and in 1793 at the outbreak of the serious Royalist uprising in the Vendée (which coincided with the Royalist seizure of Toulon and threatened the entire Revolution), he had served with distinction. He had been quick to recognize Napoleon’s exceptional qualities, and had volunteered to become his chief of staff in the Army of Italy. He often bore the brunt of his commander-in-chief’s volatile temperament, but nevertheless at all times maintained the smooth running of Napoleon’s staff. Berthier was as meticulous in his military dress as he was in his administrative duties; despite this, he presented an odd figure: even shorter than Napoleon, he had an oversized head, wiry hair, a hesitant, nervous manner, and his nasal voice had a stutter. Napoleon had been impressed by his bravery in the field, particularly at the Battle of Lodi, where he had led his men under heavy fire across a vital bridge. In Italy the bachelor Berthier had fallen in love with a certain Contessa Visconti, who had been attached to Josephine as a lady-in-waiting, but with some reluctance he decided that his loyalty to Napoleon came before this late flowering of his love life.
Also on Napoleon’s staff, amongst his aides, was the fearless Junot, who had fully justified Napoleon’s faith in him during the Italian campaign, and whose likeable qualities had led to him being one of the few men to become close to Napoleon. Other aides included Napoleon’s favorite brother, Louis, still just twenty-one, and the young officer August Marmont, who together had risked their lives pulling Napoleon from the mud at the Battle of Arcola. The youngest aide of all was the seventeen-year-old Eugene Beauharnais, Josephine’s son, whom Napoleon had taken under his wing with the affection he might otherwise have given to the son Josephine seemed incapable of providing for him.
However, Napoleon’s second-in-command was a more problematic figure, whose loyalty could not be assumed. General Jean-Baptiste Kléber was a big, bluff Alsatian, the son of a peasant, who had trained as an architect and risen through the ranks on exceptional military prowess alone. He was forty-five years old and considered himself, with some justification, to be at least Napoleon’s equal as a commander; not only this, but he reckoned his seniority should have entitled him to the command of the Egyptian expedition. He too had gained recognition in the Vendée, helping to save the Revolution. Despite this he had been dismissed by the fanatical Jacobins in 1793 when he had refused to slaughter in cold blood 4,000 prisoners taken at St. Florent. Reinstated under the Directory, he had distinguished himself serving in the Army of the Rhine, winning the Battle of Fleurus and taking Frankfurt in 1794, after which he had retired. Napoleon brought him out of retirement to join the Egyptian expedition because he admired his exceptional ability. He also admired Kléber for the charismatic figure he cut, which was in many ways the equal of his own. As Napoleon would later remember in admiration: “Kléber! He was the god Mars in uniform!”
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However, this admiration was not fully reciprocated. Kléber prided himself on being a soldier’s soldier: he believed in commanding his men with some panache, and also with some compassion. He resented Napoleon’s youth, disliked his political ambitions, and although he could not help admiring Napoleon’s tactical brilliance and daring, this did not extend to his often brutal military methods. Kléber claimed that Napoleon “was the kind of general who required an income of 10,000 men a month.”
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He nonetheless remained a proud professional soldier, and as such took his orders without question.
The only other man Napoleon chose for the Egyptian expedition whose military brilliance came close to his own was General Louis-Charles Desaix, who although only a year older than Napoleon had already risen to the rank of general before they met at the siege of Toulon. Desaix had been born into a family of impecunious nobility in the mountainous Auvergne region in central France. At the age of eight he had entered military college, but had proved such an inept cadet that on graduating at the age of fifteen he had decided to join the navy, only to be turned down. On the outbreak of the Revolution he had been a lowly twenty-one-year-old sub-lieutenant, but had elected to remain in the revolutionary army rather than flee into exile along with his fellow aristocrats (and many of his family). Not until he went into active service with the Army of the Rhine did he reveal his brilliance and achieve rapid promotion in an army which had lost so many of its aristocratic higher-ranking officers. In 1796 Desaix more than justified his position as the youngest general in the French army when instead of surrendering he held out for two months against vastly superior Austrian forces at the strategic fortress of Kehl, guarding the Rhine crossing. By the end of the campaign his military renown was on a par with that of Napoleon, but this nearly proved to be his undoing: the political commissioners of the Directory ordered his arrest on the spurious charge that he was an aristocrat. Fortunately his loyal troops got wind of this, and when the commissioner arrived to arrest General Desaix he was sent on his way by armed soldiers with fixed bayonets, whereupon the matter was dropped.
Desaix had an overriding interest in military tactics, of both the great battles of history and contemporary conflicts. In pursuit of this he would travel four months later to Italy to make a firsthand study of the battlefields where Napoleon had achieved his spectacular victories. Here he also encountered Napoleon in person, and was immediately impressed. The feeling was mutual, despite their disparate characters. Desaix retained a certain aristocratic manner, though his appearance by this stage was far from refined. His ugly face was further disfigured by a long scar from a slashing sabre, he had a drooping, undistinguished moustache, and long straggly hair hung down from beneath his cap. Yet despite this unattractive appearance, his enthusiasm for women was such that the variety and quantity of his conquests were legendary, even by French military standards. Napoleon’s regard for Desaix meant that he was one of the first to be accorded the privilege of listening to Napoleon’s Italian evening reveries on following in the footsteps of Alexander the Great and achieving glory in the Orient. Soon Desaix too had been gripped by this dream, and moved heaven and earth to make sure that he was allowed to join the Egyptian expedition.
So far, the motives behind Napoleon’s choice of senior generals appeared evident, yet this was certainly not the case with General Jacques Menou, who according to a colleague “was without any sort of military talent, but was not lacking in bravery.” Menou had a bad military record, and the slovenliness of his appearance was a source of constant irritation to Napoleon, who remarked of his uniform, “he wears it all wrong and can’t even do it up properly.” At forty-nine, Menou was the oldest of Napoleon’s commanders, and certainly looked it. The years had not treated him kindly—he was bald and fat, and contemporaries remarked on the fact that he had the stance and bearing of a waiter, rather than a general. Yet surprisingly, he was the scion of an ancient aristocratic family. Prior to the Revolution, the young Baron de Menou had followed in the footsteps of many a young aristocrat and become an army officer, where his lineage had assisted in his election to the Constituent Assembly, in which he advocated reform of the army.
In 1789, like a number of progressively minded aristocrats, Menou welcomed the Revolution, and miraculously survived the ensuing Terror which cost so many of his friends their lives. He then left Paris to take part in the campaign against the Vendée uprising. Here his ineptitude on the battlefield was such that it led to a charge of treason, instigated by no less a person than Robespierre. Astonishingly he survived his trial, was then appointed general, and in the ensuing upheavals ended up as commander of the Army of the Interior. His indecisiveness in this post was instrumental in allowing the 13 Vendémiaire insurrection in Paris to get out of hand, when Barras replaced him with Napoleon, and the “whiff of grapeshot” saved the day. After this, Menou was forced into well-deserved retirement, until Napoleon’s remarkable decision to place him in command of a division on the Egyptian expedition. No plausible reason has been put forward for this decision (which was to have its ramifications in Egypt); the unusual, but most likely, explanation is that Napoleon never forgot anyone who helped him in his career, and his reason for recalling Menou was in fact gratitude for the opportunity Menou’s incompetence had given him.