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Stranded in Egypt: How Catastrophe Became Legend
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Napoleon's Egyptian campaign was a strategic disaster — the fleet destroyed, the army stranded, thousands dead. So how did he return to France as a conquering hero?
Audio is available on Spreaker — see link below.
Here's a question that doesn't have a clean answer. Did Napoleon go to Egypt to serve France, or did he go to serve Napoleon?
To understand why Napoleon sailed for Egypt, you have to understand the position France was in by seventeen ninety-seven. The Italian campaign had made Napoleon famous.
The French fleet departed Toulon in May of seventeen ninety-eight. It was a vast operation.
Then came the first catastrophe, and it came fast. On August first, seventeen ninety-eight, the British fleet under Admiral Horatio Nelson found the French fleet anchored at Aboukir Bay, near Alexandria.
With Egypt secured but isolated, Napoleon launched a campaign into Syria in early seventeen ninety-nine. The goal was to push north, break Ottoman resistance, and potentially threaten British interests further afield.
By the summer of seventeen ninety-nine, the situation in France had deteriorated sharply. The Directory was failing.
The Egyptian campaign did something that purely military operations rarely achieve. It turned Napoleon into a figure with mystique.
There's one thread worth pulling as this chapter closes. Napoleon returned from Egypt and moved almost immediately toward seizing political power.
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