Bruise sent his last distress letter on July 26, reminding Napoleon: We are floating between hope and despair. Their bread and water were gone. Moreover, the entire fleet would be defenseless if they were attacked. Even if they were not attacked, at least 3,000 people had left the ship to be hospitalized or to dig wells on the shore to find water. Some had left the ship without permission, including many rebel officers. Without food, the warships could not be repaired. He told Napoleon that the fleet was paralyzed. Despite this, two days later, when he received the news of the French army's great victory at the pyramid, Bruise, who was excited, struggled to get up from his illness and issued an announcement to the fleet: Long live the Republic! Long live Napoleon! Our brave brotherly troops have taken the capital of Egypt, Cairo! He ordered all ships to fire a 24-gun salute to celebrate, and the rations of food and water were doubled that day.
On June 30th, Napoleon finally sent him a reply, saying that he had ordered: 50 ships carrying wheat and rice were waiting for them in Alexandria. He had to sail into Alexandria as soon as possible. In fact, it was on the same day that Napoleon ordered the defenders of Tamia and Rosetta to ship the grain. At the same time, Napoleon warned that the danger of the British attack still existed. The British's actions led me to believe that they wanted to block the Malta and therefore would not attack Egyptian waters for the time being.
The letter and the fifty ships of supplies did not reach the unfortunate Bruise. It was a cruel trick, and Napoleon had convinced the admiral that he would get food soon. As Napoleon often said, In this world, one must appear friendly and make many promises, but one need not keep any promises at all. In fact, Bruise had only received enough rice and a small amount of water for the fleet to eat for a day from six three-masted galleons. Other than that, there was nothing else. There was no meat, vegetables, wheat, or flour. By the weekend, the ship's rations had been halved from the previous two weeks, and most of the people on board were suffering from malaria. Bruise himself had recovered from a serious illness, and the French fleet was still anchored in the open bay without any defensive facilities. At the same time, on August 1, Lieutenant Shariel reported that the British fleet was approaching Abu Kir Bay at full speed.
After discovering the enemy ship, Admiral Sheila and Vilnav hurriedly boarded Vostok without waiting for orders. Bruise held an emergency military meeting on Vostok. The officers were furious as they discussed how to deal with this sudden situation. Only one officer advocated going out to sea to fight, while the more cautious Villeneuve and Gantum supported the equally cautious flagship commander's plan to anchor in place to resist the enemy. If only they had sent out their three-masted clipper ships to meet the enemy at sea, instead of waiting to be beaten up in this bay. If a large number of people who left the ship without permission could return to the ship in an emergency, the situation might be different. However, no matter what, the entire fleet would not be able to resist the enemy if they were squeezed into the defenseless bay. In order to prevent the British from breaking through the defensive line, Bruise ordered the warships to be tied together with ropes so that the British warships could not break through. However, most of the captains did not carry out this order. They only dropped the second anchor to stabilize their formation.
I will take action against the French fleet as soon as I find them. Narson, who had made up his mind, said this more than once. On July 25th, when he heard that the French fleet had arrived in Egypt, his 14 warships set off from Syracuse and headed for Alexandria for the second time. After about 700 miles, at dawn on August 1, when they were approaching the Egyptian coast, Nelson sent two 74-gun warships to scout ahead of the fleet. They arrived at Alexandria at noon. However, only a few French ships were found in the old port, and they were not warships. They sailed east again, soon spotted the French fleet, and sent a signal to Nelson. The enemy fleet is in Abu Kir Bay. This was the moment Nelson had been waiting for since arriving in the Mediterranean in May. It was three o'clock in the afternoon, which meant that if they were to take action that day, there was not much time left before dark. Nelson had neither a local chart nor a local navigator. But he was determined not to let the French fleet, which had chased half of the Mediterranean and traveled about 2,600 miles, slip through the net again.
Therefore, Nelson raised a signal on his double-decked flagship, the Vanguard. Drop the anchor and prepare for battle…Attack the bow and center of the enemy ship. At five o'clock, the British fleet approached Abu Kir Bay. Nelson ordered the fleet to attack a French warship from both sides or from the front and back. Although they did not have enough warships to attack all the French warships, they could at least use this tactic to destroy the enemy ships one by one. 30 minutes later, Nelson issued the long-awaited order for the entire fleet to attack in battle formation. At around six o'clock, the French fleet finally raised the colored flag and opened fire on the two British warships that were the first to enter the bay.
Nelson's attack plan was bold and almost risky. He was attacking in unfamiliar waters, without a chart or a local navigator. In fact, he was putting everything on the line. Even if the sun had already set below the horizon, he must launch an attack on the same day. Bruise, who had thought that the British would attack the next day, was caught off guard. Nelson took advantage of the favorable wind and continued to push forward. Half of the ships inserted into the French fleet's berthing line, forming a pincer attack on the French warships. The British warship, the Culloden, with 74 guns, was stranded in the shallows. As the sun quickly sank into the sea, the British warships chose their target and anchored in front of or behind the target. Nelson, who was suffering from headaches and toothaches, and Bruise, who had been weakened by weeks of malaria and fever, both decided to fight it out at Abu Kiir Bay.
13 French warships and 14 British warships launched the most tragic battle in the history of naval warfare on Abu Kiir Bay.
The pitiful French sailors, who had been living on rations and fresh water for weeks and were weakened by disease (most of them were new recruits who had faced artillery fire for the first time), made a tragic resistance, and the result was terrible. At 9 o'clock, a British warship sank a French warship, while another British warship was hit by a French warship equipped with 36 cannons and became a floating ruin on the sea. The climax of the great naval battle was after 10 p. m., when the pride of the French Navy, Bruise's flagship, Vostok, exploded. All the soldiers on board were killed. Even General Kléber's headquarters in Alexandria, 15 miles away, heard the deafening explosion and felt the earth tremble. They also saw a dazzling huge ball of fire rising into the sky in the night sky. The fire burned bigger and bigger until it finally turned into a black cloud of smoke with sparks. The survivor of the tragedy, Lieutenant Massin, recalled,"After the explosion of the flagship, there was a sad silence, because both sides were stunned by this terrible scene and stopped fighting. Late that night, Kléber received a report from a small boat he had sent to the scene. The reporter had witnessed the tragic scene of the French fleet being almost completely annihilated.
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