Does the History of Turkey and Egypt Since 1798 Fulfil the Prophecy of Dan. 11:40-44?
By Arthur G. Daniells
Napoleon's Retreat From Acre to Egypt
“The march onward was a continued scene of misery; for the wounded and sick were many, the heat oppressive, the thirst intolerable; and the ferocious Djezzar was hard behind, and the wild Arabs of the desert hovering around them on every side, so that he who fell behind his company was sure to be slain.”—“Life of the Emperor Napoleon,” chap. 3, page 94, by J. G. Lockhart. “The rowing gunboats of Sir Sidney Smith's squadron annoyed the retreating army in its march along the beach, while the Arabs from the mountains of Nablous harassed them when they turned inwards to avoid the British fire.”—“History of the Egyptian Revolution,” Vol. I, chap. 24, page 293, by A. A. Paton. “The march over the burning desert was long and painful, and many of the sick and wounded perished. The sufferings of the army were inconceivable. Twelve hundred persons, faint with disease or agonized with broken bones or ghastly wounds, were borne along, over the rough and weary way, on horseback. Many were so exhausted with debility and pain that they were tied to the saddles, and were thus hurried onward, with limbs freshly amputated, and with bones shivered to splinters. The path of the364army was marked by the bodies of the dead, which were dropped by the wayside. . . . Seldom have the demoralizing influences and the horrors of war been more signally displayed than in this march of twenty-five days. . . . “The troops were harassed upon their march by hordes of mounted Arabs, ever prowling around them. To protect themselves from assault and to avenge attacks, they fired villages, and burned the fields of grain.” “At length Napoleon arrived at Cairo [June 14, 1799], after an absence of three months. With great pomp and triumph, he entered the city. . . . Napoleon, finding his plans frustrated for establishing an empire which should overshadow all the East, began to turn his thoughts again to France. He knew, however, that there was another Turkish army collected at Rhodes, prepared, in cooperation with fleets of Russia and England, to make a descent on Egypt. He could not think of leaving the army until that formidable foe was disposed of. He knew not when or where the landing would be attempted, and could only wait.” The Turkish Fleet Lands an Army at Alexandria
“One evening in July, he [Napoleon] was walking with a friend in the environs of Cairo, beneath the shadow of the pyramids, when an Arab horseman was seen, enveloped in a cloud of dust, rapidly approaching him over the desert. He brought despatches from Alexandria, informing Napoleon that a powerful fleet had appeared in the Bay of Aboukir; that eighteen thousand Turks had landed, fierce and fearless soldiers, each armed with musket, pistol, and saber; that their artillery was numerous, and well served by British officers; that the combined English, Russian, and Turkish fleets supported the armament in the bay; that Murad Bey, with a numerous body of Mameluke cavalry, was crossing the desert from Upper Egypt to join the invaders; that the village of Aboukir had been taken by the Turks, the garrison cut to pieces, and the citadel compelled to capitulate. Thus the storm burst upon Egypt.”—“The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte,” Vol. I, chap. 13, pages 230-233, by John S. C. Abbott. “Bonaparte reached Alexandria on the evening of the twenty-fourth of July, and found his army already posted in the neighborhood of Aboukir, and prepared to anticipate the attack of the Turks on the morrow. . . . “The Turkish outposts were assaulted early in the morning, and driven in with great slaughter; but the French, when they advanced, came within the range of the batteries, and of the shipping that lay close by the shore, and were checked. Their retreat might have ended in a rout, but for the undisciplined eagerness with which the Turks engaged in the task of spoiling and maiming those that fell from them; thus giving to Murat the opportunity of charging their main body in flank with his cavalry at the moment when the French infantry, profiting by their disordered and scattered condition, and rallying under the eye of Napoleon, forced a passage into the entrenchments. From that moment the battle was a massacre.”—“Life of the Emperor Napoleon,” chap. 3, page 95, by J. G. Lockhart. “The first gray of the morning was just appearing in the east when the Turkish army was aroused by the tramp of the French columns, and by a shower of bombshells falling in the midst of their entrenchments. One of the most terrible battles recorded in history then ensued. The awful genius of Napoleon never shone forth more fearfully than on that bloody day. He stood upon a gentle eminence, calm, silent, unperturbed, pitiless, and guided, with resistless skill, the carnage. The onslaught of the French was like that of wolves. The Turks were driven like deer before them. Every man remembered that in that bay the proud fleet of France had perished. Every man felt that the kings of Europe had banded for the destruction of the French Republic. Every man exulted in the thought that there were but six thousand French republicans to hurl themselves upon England, Russia, and Turkey combined, nearly twenty thousand strong. The Turks, perplexed and confounded by the skill and fury of the assault, were driven in upon each other in horrible confusion. The French, trained to load and fire with a rapidity which seemed miraculous, poured in upon them a perfect hurricane of bullets, balls, and shells. They were torn to pieces, mown down, bayoneted, and trampled under iron hoofs. In utter consternation, thousands of them plunged into the sea, horsemen and footmen, and struggled in the waves, in the insane attempt to swim to the ships, three miles distant from the shore. With terrible calmness of energy, Napoleon opened upon the drowning host the tornado of his batteries, and the water was swept with grape-shot as by a hail-storm. The Turks were on the point of a peninsula. Escape by land was impossible. They would not ask for quarter. . . . “Before four o'clock in the afternoon the whole Turkish army was destroyed. Hardly an individual escaped. About two thousand prisoners were taken in the fort. All the rest perished, either drowned in the sea or slain upon the land.”—“The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte,” Vol. I, chap. 13, pages 234, 235, by John S. C. Abbott. Napoleon's Departure for France
“Napoleon once more returned to Cairo, on the ninth of August; but it was only to make some parting arrangements as to the administration, civil and military; for, from the moment of his victory at Aboukir, he had resolved to entrust Egypt to other hands, and Admiral Gantheaume was already preparing in secret the means of his removal to France. . . . “Leaving the command of the army to Kleber, and without suffering any suspicion of his projects to arise among the soldiery, he turned his back upon Cairo, and on the twenty-third of August embarked at Rosetta, for France, in the frigate which Admiral Gantheaume had provided for him.”—“Life of the Emperor Napoleon,” chap. 3, pages 96, 97, by J. G. Lockhart. “At length, on the eighth of October [1799], the long-wished-for mountains of Provence appeared; and the frigates shortly after anchored in the Bay of Trejus.”—“History of Europe,” Vol. IV, chap. 26, page 216, by Sir Archibald Alison. On leaving Egypt, Napoleon placed General Kleber, his greatest general, commander-in-chief of the French army in Egypt. Kleber was assassinated June 14, 1800, and was succeeded by General Menan. During the month of May, 1801, the British landed a force of troops at Alexandria to aid the Turks in driving the French from Egypt. The last of July the French capitulated, and in September, 1801, the entire army was conveyed in English vessels to France.