Battle of the Pyramids

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Battle of the Pyramids
Part of the French Revolutionary Wars
Battle of the Pyramids by Wojciech Kossak
Date July 21, 1798 Location Embabeh, near Cairo, Egypt Result Decisive French victory
Combatants
France	Mamluks
Commanders
Napoleon Bonaparte	Murad Bey, Ibrahim Bey
Strength
25,000 men	50,000-75,000 men
Casualties
300 dead	4000-6000 dead or wounded

Egypt–Syria Campaign of 1798–1800
Shubra Khit – Pyramids – Nile – El Arish – Jaffa – Acre – Mount Tabor – 1st Aboukir – 2nd Aboukir

The Battle of the Pyramids was a battle fought on July 21, 1798 between the French army in Egypt under Napoleon Bonaparte and local Mamluk forces. It was the battle where Bonaparte put into use one of his significant contributions to tactics, the massive divisional square.

In July of 1798, Napoleon was marching from Alexandria toward Cairo after invading and capturing the former. He met two forces of the ruling Mamluks 15 kilometers from the Pyramids, and only 4 miles from Cairo. The Mamluke forces were commanded by Murad Bey and Ibrahim Bey and had a powerful and highly developed cavalry.

Napoleon realized that the only Egyptian troops of any worth on the battlefield were the cavalry. He had little cavalry of his own and was outnumbered by a factor of two or three to one. He was thus forced to go on the defensive, and organized his army into hollow "squares" with artillery, cavalry and baggage at the center of each square, and so dispersed sustained charges of Mameluke cavalry with supporting artillery fire. He then stormed the Egyptian camp in the village of Embebeh, routing the disorganized Egyptian infantry and scattering their army.

The battle won Cairo and Lower Egypt for France. Upon hearing news of the defeat of their legendary cavalry, the waiting Mamluk armies in Cairo dispersed to Syria to reorganize. The Battle also signalled the final chapter of 700 years of Mamluk rule in Egypt. Despite this auspicious beginning, Admiral Horatio Nelson's victory in the Battle of the Nile ten days later ended Bonaparte's hopes for a glorious conquest of the Middle East.

[edit] See also

• The Egyptian expedition of 1798–1799
• History of Ottoman Egypt