Fun Fact:
After subjugating Egypt, Napoleon led his small army toward Syria in February of 1799. The army of 13,000 was divided into four divisions under Generals Kleber, Reynier, Bon, and Lannes. The latter would go eventually become a Marshal of the Epire and die in 1809 following the battle of Aspern-Essling in which he was struck by a cannonball and had a leg amputated.
Bonaparte wanted to take the port of Acre, but the British navy, the formidable walls, the defenders' stout resistance, and the plague all worked to prevent Bonaparte's success. Before he got to Acre, he first overcame resistance at El Arish and Jaffa. The garrison at El Arish, which had surrendered and sworn not to take up arms against the French, went and joined the Jaffa garrison.
Bonaparte had lost two valuable weeks in the siege of El Arish, and had to get back to Egypt to contest an expended landing by Ottoman forces. He hoped to make up time with a quick conquest of Jaffa. Plague was already working on his army.
Near the walls of Jaffa, Napoleon had near brushes with death from an artillery shell and a sniper's bullet that went through his hat. He had an officer and trumpeter approach and enter the city with a letter advising the commander that the garrison and city would be protected if they surrendered, otherwise shelling would begin the next morning.
A short time later, the heads of the officer and trumpeter appeared on spears raised above the city gate, and the bodies were thrown from the walls. Things were not getting off to a promising start at Jaffa.
Bonaparte used the terrain and tree cover to push his artillery within 150 yards of the walls. The shelling began as promised on March 4, 1799. The Jaffa garrison made a series of attacks against the besiegers, but they were not sufficient to break the siege.
During the afternoon of March 7, the French stormed the walls. Although the castle was taken by 8 pm, house to house fighting continued until it became a massacre as the French killed everyone where any resistance was offered until it became a murderous frenzy mixed with robbery and plunder.
Resistance continued in fortified buildings and mosques. These finally offered to surrender in exchange for their lives, to which the French leaders on the scenes agreed. Many of these prisoners were sent away to other cities, and the Egyptians among them were released to Egypt.
Bonaparte lacked sufficient food for his own army and couldn't provide for the prisoners. He couldn't trust them to be released on oath as many of them had already violated the oath they had taken on their surrender and release at El Arish. The war council met and considered the problem, ruling out sending them all to Egypt under armed escort as the already weakened army could not spare the troops for such an escort. The war council released all noncombatants and ordered the execution of the garrison. Some 2,000 - 3,000 prisoners were marched into the desert, divided into small groups, and shot.
Meanwhile, the plague was spreading among the French. Four to five soldiers were dying each day from the disease. Morale was failing. Napoleon took a tour of the hospital, visiting the infected, shaking their hands, telling them what they had was not the plague. Many of them recovered, and some of the doctors who had abandoned the patients returned.
The walls of Acre, coupled with the other problems for Napoleon, resisted the French efforts, and Napoleon returned to Egypt. Eventually, he slipped away to France with some of his officers, leaving Kleber in charge. General Kleber was later killed by an assassin.
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If you're interested in Napoleonic or other warfare, check out the Wyrd Warfare Anthology featuring my story "Seventh Hussar and Aide to the Mage."
or "A Stardust Memory" featured in Sultry Murder Jazz.
If you would rather have my full length noir novel Smoke, it's on sale now.
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