Terror of the French Revolution in the Land of Egypt, 1798–1801

Abstract

Historians have written quite a lot about the fact that, starting in 1798 with his Egyptian campaign, Napoleon Bonaparte took everything necessary with him to acquaint the Egyptians with the advanced achievements of the European civilization. However, historiography quite rarely mentions that Napoleon brought another “gift” to the Middle East in the form of revolutionary terror. Out of all the achievements of revolutionary France, it was terror that was most actively used there. Having realised that neither praises of Prophet Muhammad nor anti-Mamluk discourse provided the French with sympathies of the Muslims of Egypt, Bonaparte used la terreur , which did not stop for a day during the entire period of occupation. The policy of intimidation of the population by the occupants was systematic, although it was combined with various ostentatious gestures of the commander-in-chief designed to win the sympathy of the Muslim elite. There was a kind of division of responsibilities: Bonaparte tried to charm the influential sheikhs of the al-Azhar mosque, invited them to dinners, conversed with them about Islam, and gave them gifts; at the same time, the police made up by local Christians and Maghreb mercenaries day after day terrorised the inhabitants of Cairo and its environs, arbitrarily killing innocent people to intimidate everyone else. With the departure of Bonaparte from Egypt, when Kleber took charge of the Oriental army, terror did not stop, but only changed its character from permanent to situational. Following Kleber’s death, his successor, General Menou once again gave terror a permanent nature. It was the policy of terror that allowed a tiny minority of thirty thousand people to hold power over several million people in a country almost twice the size of France for three years.