Napoleon was happy to finally have a chance to fight the enemy. He ordered Desai to advance quickly along the Nile to Shubrahit and prepare to attack at dawn.
Twelve days after the French expeditionary force set foot on Egyptian soil, the two sides were about to start a decisive battle.
At two o'clock in the morning, Napoleon ordered his troops to break camp and set off for Shubrahit. According to secret reports, there were already about 4,000 Mamluk cavalry in position from the village to the Nile River, with cannons and gunboats deployed. The French captured two villages before reaching Shubrahit, where they formed five large phalanxes of five divisions to face the Mamluk cavalry. As soon as the French army fixed their cold bayonet, Murad Beyy's cavalry howled and began to charge.
The French returned fire with howitzers and artillery. The Mamluks were repelled several times. Under the pressure of the powerful firepower of the French army, the Mamluks had no choice but to avoid a direct confrontation with the French army.
At the same time, the French fleet on the Nile was in a very dangerous situation because it was intercepted by the Mamluk fleet. A warship was blown up and sunk. The Mamluks boarded two French sailboats and fought fiercely with the French to repel them. However, the Mamluk fleet that was coming down the river was so fierce that Peret's fleet could barely hold on. At this moment, the French gunboat fired a shot at the ammunition depot on the Mamluk flagship. The entire flagship was instantly reduced to ashes, and the enemy was in chaos. The scientists and civilians on the Perrett also picked up their muskets and joined the battle. As Bertier said later, Every Frenchman is a soldier when fighting against the enemies of their homeland.
After the battle, Napoleon seized the opportunity and ordered his cavalry and infantry to immediately pursue and annihilate the enemy in Shubrahit.
As a result, the French encountered 12,000 enemy troops at Shubrahit, a mixture of peasants, slaves, and Mamluk cavalry. Despite the overwhelming numbers of the enemy, the French quickly won the first real battle between Shubrahit and the Egyptian enemy. From Bertier's report, the French suffered very few casualties, while the Mamluks suffered more than 300 casualties. However, a powerful enemy was still waiting for this invading army.
After Shubrahit's robbery, the French army rested for a while. On July 13, Napoleon ordered the march to continue. The artillery and the convoy quickly sank into the sand dunes and the dry canal bed. For a tired army that had lacked food and sleep since the Egyptian landing, this march was the most difficult. Every day, a large number of soldiers died of hunger, thirst, exposure to the sun, and exhaustion. However, despite the wavering morale and even rebellion, Napoleon did not hesitate to order the army to advance day and night. The general was gambling with the army, and Belial said that the officers were not happy at the moment and allowed their soldiers to steal everything they needed from the villages along the way. Even the fear of being attacked by the Bedouins did not work, and more and more soldiers fell behind. Due to Napoleon's hasty and sloppy plans, he was still unable to find food for his exhausted troops. The army was completely unable to provide logistical support. As a result, the angry and half-mad French army completely ignored Napoleon's ban (including the execution of violators on the spot) and slaughtered wantonly in the impoverished and defenseless villages they passed. Discipline and order could not be maintained unless the army was given food and water, and could avoid the unbearable heat.
The wildest robbery was carried out by the Villard Division, which caused terror wherever it went. It was hard to imagine an army with worse discipline than theirs. Colonel Logil said sadly more than once. The cries of the villagers and the screams of their wives mingled into a terrible din, and the women climbed onto the flat roofs of the mud houses, wailing and waving their headscarves wildly, while the Commander-in-Chief watched. When he saw this scene, he angrily ordered General Digai to be responsible for restoring order and rationality to the army. Carrying heavy backpacks, marching day after day across the desert, under the hellish heat of July, their throats were burning with thirst, the burning light of the yellow sand weakened most of their vision, and their feet were bruised by sand and shoes (if they still had shoes), all of which made the soldiers and officers more than they could bear. What was worse was that the commander openly defied Napoleon's orders in front of the soldiers, Logir sadly recounted. When Digai found a place to store soybeans that could feed several brigades, the quartermaster refused to distribute them to the troops. When the officers protested, the quartermaster said,"He was not their slave!
Due to the lack of food, the starving army began to kill the animals they absolutely needed to rely on for transportation, including the donkeys carrying ammunition and luggage, and even cooked the dogs brought by the officers. Desai's artillery team had already lost hundreds of people, but the Bedouins were still attacking and outflanking them from both sides. The wheat fields they discovered along the way had been burned and eaten by Desai soldiers who were angry because they did not have any grinding tools, leaving ashes for Villard and Digai's troops and farmers. When we arrived, we didn't even know where to find fodder for the horses. As usual, Napoleon's report to Paris made no mention of this destructive chaos.
The French army had already closed in on Vadin, and Murad Beyy, who had fled from the previous battle, had already regrouped in front of them. If Napoleon did not engage his enemies in the next few days, he would not have enough troops to face them. Without any mercy, Napoleon ordered the army to fight the enemy. He believed that a great victory before the attack on the Egyptian capital would solve all problems. In any case, this was the only way out, unless they retreated to the Mediterranean and admitted defeat.
Cairo was already in sight, but the endless sand dunes made the French army discouraged. The night was still very humid and cold due to the rising fog of the Nile River. " This march is even more difficult," Berial reported.
On July 18th, three miles away from Vardan, the situation changed dramatically. Suddenly, a fertile valley appeared in front of him, covered with clumps of palm trees and fig-trees. This caused the sorrowful morale of the army to rise. However, due to the long march in the desert without water, the quartermaster still refused to collect and distribute food for the troops after arriving at Wandan and seeing the Nile River again. The hungry soldiers began to rebel. Just as Beliard said, although the troops were exhausted after a long march, it did not stop them from robbing and leaving mementos along the way. At this time, in Vadin, Napoleon witnessed with his own eyes that the soldiers ignored his threats and caused disasters to many villages. This time, his patience reached its limit. He was furious about the robbery. Savari noted in his personal diary. Moreover, as the troops could not stand the heat, more and more were falling behind. If the Mamluks attacked now, the consequences would be unimaginable. Moreover, the cannon was stuck in the sand dune and could not move.
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