Napoleon in the Middle East
Napoleon Bonaparte’s bloody campaign in Egypt and Ottoman Palestine, which marked the start of modern European colonialism in the Middle East, remains contentious two centuries after the French emperor’s death.
The Corsican general set sail eastwards with 300 ships in 1798, aiming to conquer Egypt and block a crucial route between Britain and its colonial territories in India.
It was an occupation that was to leave thousands dead in Egypt and Palestine.
Bonaparte also brought some 160 scholars and engineers, who produced mountains of research that would play a key role in understanding the culture of ancient Egypt as it transformed into a modern state.
When Bonaparte’s fleet anchored in 1798 close to Alexandria, he ordered soldiers to daub walls with the message: “Egyptians, you will be told that I am coming to destroy your religion: it is a lie, do not believe it!”
But his claims of religious tolerance soon gave way to repression after he toppled the centuries-old Mamluk dynasty in July 1798.
When Egyptians revolted against their occupiers that October, French troops brutally crushed the uprising. They killed thousands and even bombed the Al-Azhar mosque, a key authority for Sunni Muslims worldwide.
Many Egyptians today see the episode as “the first imperialist aggression of the modern age against the Muslim Orient.
That sentiment is echoed in the neighbouring Gaza Strip.
Napoleon seized the ancient port city of Gaza from Ottoman Empire forces with little resistance in February 1799, having marched through the Sinai desert after British admiral Horatio Nelson destroyed his fleet.
“He is a small man who has caused great chaos in this region,” said Ghassan Wisha, head of history at the Islamic University of Gaza.
“Napoleon came here not only with soldiers but also with scientists and agricultural specialists. But he used science to justify the occupation. He lied.”
‘Dark, negative image’
Rashad al-Madani, a retired Gaza history lecturer, said the city had been “a center for honey, oil and agriculture, and a strategic point between Asia and Europe.”
Napoleon wrote that Gaza’s hills, covered with “forests of olive trees,” reminded him of Languedoc in southern France.
Two centuries on, those groves have given way to a forest of concrete.
Information courtesy of Al Jazeera
Destination – Middle East and North Africa, France and England
