French invasion of Egypt and Syria
1798–1801 campaign during the War of the Second Coalition / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The French invasion of Egypt and Syria (1798–1801) was an invasion and occupation of the Ottoman territories of Egypt and Syria, by forces of the French First Republic led by Napoleon Bonaparte. It was the primary purpose of the Mediterranean campaign of 1798, which was a series of naval engagements that included the capture of Malta and the Greek island Crete, later arriving in the Port of Alexandria. The conflict forms part of the French Revolutionary Wars.
Egypt and Syria
The expedition was the result of a confluence of interests. The French government hoped to disrupt the trade of their enemy, Great Britain, and create a "double port" connecting the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. Napoleon proclaimed it to "defend French trade interests" and to establish "scientific enterprise" in the region, and envisioned the campaign as the first step of a march to India, where he would join France's ally, Tipu Sultan, who ruled Mysore and was engaged with a war against the British, to drive Britain out of India.
Despite early victories in Egypt and an initially successful expedition into Syria, the destruction of the French fleet by the British Royal Navy at the Battle of the Nile stranded the French troops in Egypt, and the defeat of Napoleon and his Armée d'Orient by Anglo-Ottoman forces at Acre forced the French to withdraw from Syria. Following his defeat in Syria, Napoleon repelled the Ottoman landing at Aboukir, but recognizing that the campaign was lost, and with the news of a Second Coalition reversing French conquests in Europe, Napoleon opportunistically abandoned his army, sailed to France, and overthrew the government. The French forces left in Egypt ultimately surrendered at Alexandria, concluding the defeat of Napoleon's expedition. These last French forces were repatriated, and the Treaty of Paris officially ended the hostilities between France and the Ottoman Empire.
On the scientific front, the expedition was a success that led to the publication of the Description de l'Égypte, and the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, creating the field of Egyptology. On the social and technological front, the expedition's legacy includes the re-introduction of the printing press to Egypt, the founding of the Institut d'Égypte, the rise of nationalism and liberalism in the Middle East, the emergence of modern European imperialism, and the popularization of Orientalist narratives of the Muslim world.