A. G. DANIELLS by Arthur G. Daniells

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Mar 20, 1913

A. G. DANIELLS

By Arthur G. Daniells

Does the History of Turkey and Egypt Since 1798 Fulfil the Prophecy of Dan. 11: 40–44?

— No. 9

A. G. DANIELLS

ALEXANDRIA was taken by the French July 2, 1798. Napoleon began at once the entire reorganization of affairs, with the view of placing the country under the government of France. Of this the historian says:—

“Napoleon remained in Alexandria but six days. During this time he devoted himself, with a zeal and energy which elicited universal admiration, to the organization of equitable laws, the regulation of police, and the development of the resources of the country. The very hour of their establishment in the city, artisans and artists and engineers all were busy, and the life and enterprise of the West were infused into the sepulchral streets of Alexandria. “Preparations were immediately made for improving the harbor, repairing the fortifications, erecting mills, establishing manufactories, founding schools, exploring antiquities; and the government of the country was placed in the hands of the prominent inhabitants, who were interested to promote the wise and humane policy of Napoleon.”—The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, by John S. C. Abbott, Vol. I, chap. 11, page 188. “Every act thus showed that his design was not a temporary occupation, but the foundation of a permanent colony.”—History of the Egyptian Revolution, by A. A. Paton, Vol. I, page 109.

The March to Cairo

“Leaving three thousand men in Alexandria, under the command of General Kleber, who had been wounded in the assault, Napoleon set out, with the rest of his army, to cross the desert to Cairo. . . .

“Napoleon despatched a large flotilla, laden with provisions, artillery, ammunition, and baggage, to sail along the shore of the Mediterranean to the western branch of the Nile, called the Rosetta mouth, and ascend the river to a point where the army, having marched across the desert, would meet it. The flotilla and the army would then keep company, ascending the Nile, some fifty miles, to Cairo. The army had a desert of sixty miles to cross. It was dreary and inhospitable in the extreme. A blazing sun glared fiercely down upon the glowing sands. Not a tree or a blade of grass cheered the eye. Not a rivulet trickled across their hot and sandy path.

“After five days of inconceivable suffering, the long-wished-for Nile was seen, glittering through the sand-hills of the desert, and bordered by a fringe of the richest luxuriance. . . .

“The flotilla now appeared in sight, having arrived at the destined spot at the precise hour designated by Napoleon.”—The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, by John S. C. Abbott, Vol. I, chap. 11, pages 188–192.

The Battle of the Pyramids

“After a march of seven days, during which time they had many bloody skirmishes with the enemy, the army approached Cairo. . . .

“Murad Bey had there assembled the greater part of his Mamelukes, nearly ten thousand in number, for a decisive battle. These proud and powerful horsemen were supported by twenty-four thousand foot-soldiers, strongly entrenched. Cairo is on the eastern bank of the Nile. Napoleon was marching along the western shore. On the morning of the twenty-first of July, Napoleon, conscious that he was near the city, set his army in motion before the break of day. Just as the sun was rising in those cloudless skies, the soldiers beheld the lofty minarets of the city upon their left, gilded by its rays, and upon the right, upon the borders of the desert, the gigantic pyramids rising like mountains upon an apparently boundless plain. “The whole army instinctively halted, and gazed, awestricken, upon those monuments of antiquity. . . . The whole plain before them, at the base of the pyramids, was filled with armed men. The glittering weapons of ten thousand horsemen, in the utmost splendor of barbaric chivalry, brilliant with plumes and arms of burnished steel and gold, presented an array inconceivably imposing. Undismayed, the French troops, marshaled in five invincible squares, pressed on. There was, then, no alternative. Napoleon must march upon those entrenchments, behind which twenty-four thousand men were stationed with powerful artillery and musketry to sweep his ranks, and a formidable body of ten thousand horsemen, on fleet and powerful Arabian steeds, awaiting the onset, and ready to seize upon the slightest indications of confusion to plunge, with the fury which fatalism can inspire, upon his bleeding and mangled squares. . . .

“It was, indeed, a fearful spectacle. Ten thousand horsemen, magnificently dressed, with the fleetest steeds in the world, urging their horses, with bloody spurs, to the most impetuous and furious onset, rending the heavens with their cries, and causing the very earth to tremble beneath the thunder of iron feet, came down upon the adamantine host. Nothing was ever seen in war more furious than this charge. Ten thousand horsemen form an enormous mass. Those longest inured to danger felt that it was an awful moment. It seemed impossible to resist such a living avalanche. The most profound silence reigned through the ranks, interrupted only by the word of command. The nerves of excitement being roused to the utmost tension, every order was executed with most marvelous rapidity and precision.

The soldiers held their breath, and, with bristling bayonets, stood shoulder to shoulder to receive the shock. “The moment the Mamelukes arrived within gunshot, the artillery at the angles plowed their ranks, and platoons of musketry, volley after volley, in uninterrupted discharge, swept into their faces a pitiless tempest of destruction. Horses and riders, struck by the balls, rolled over each other by hundreds on the sand. They were trampled and crushed by the iron hoofs of the thousands of frantic steeds, enveloped in dust and smoke, composing the vast and impetuous squadrons. But the squares stood as firm as the pyramids at whose base they fought. Not one was broken; not one wavered. The daring Mamelukes, in the frenzy of their rage and disappointment, threw away their lives with the utmost recklessness. They wheeled their horses round, and reined them back upon the ranks, that they might kick their way into those terrible fortresses of living men. Rendered furious by their inability to break the ranks, they hurled their pistols and carbines at the heads of the French. The wounded crawled along the ground, and with their scimitars cut at the legs of their indomitable foes. They displayed superhuman bravery, the only virtue which the Mamelukes possessed.”

“But an incessant and merciless fire from Napoleon’s well-trained battalions continually thinned their ranks, and at last the Mamelukes, in the wildest disorder, broke and fled. The infantry in the entrenched camp, witnessing the utter discomfiture of the mounted troops, whom they had considered invincible, and seeing such incessant and volcanic sheets of flame bursting from the impenetrable squares, caught the panic, and joined the flight. . . .

“The victors, with their accustomed celerity, pursued, pitilessly pouring into the dense masses of their flying foes the most terrible discharges of artillery and musketry. The rout was complete—the carnage awful. The sun had hardly reached the meridian before the whole embattled host had disappeared, and the plain, as far as the eye could extend, was strewn with the dying and the dead.”—Id., pages 193–196.

“Thus were in a great measure destroyed the finest cavalry, considered as individual horsemen, that were ever known to exist. ‘Could I have united the Mameluke horse to the French infantry,’ said Bonaparte, ‘I would have reckoned myself master of the world.’ The destruction of a body hitherto regarded as invincible, struck terror, not through Egypt only, but far into Africa and Asia, wherever the Moslem religion prevailed.”—The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, chap. 30, page 251, by Sir Walter Scott.

“The justice that never fails had overtaken the iniquities of the Mamelukes. . . . The fiat of heaven itself was against them, and the decree of their doom went forth as infinitely more inexorable than the laws of the Medes and the Persians as Omnipotence is to impotence.”—Bonaparte in Egypt, page 93, by Haji A. Browne.

Egypt Conquered

“After the battle, Napoleon, now the undisputed conqueror of Egypt, quartered himself for the night in the country palace of Murad Bey. . . .

“Cairo contained three hundred thousand inhabitants. Its population was degraded, inhuman, and ferocious. The capital was in a state of terrible agitation, for the path of Oriental conquerors is ever marked with brutality, flames, and blood. Napoleon immediately despatched a detachment of his army into the city to restore tranquillity, and to protect persons and property from the fury of the populace. The next day but one, with great pomp and splendor, at the head of his victorious army, he entered Cairo, and took possession of the palace of Murad Bey. With extraordinary intelligence and activity, he immediately consecrated all his energies to promote the highest interests of the country he had conquered.”—The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Vol. I, chap. 11, pages 196, 197, by John S. C. Abbott.

“Lower Egypt was completely in the hands of the French, and thus far the expedition of Bonaparte had been perfectly successful. But it was not the will of Heaven that even the most fortunate of men should escape reverses, and a severe one awaited Napoleon.”—The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, chap. 30, page 252, by Sir Walter Scott.

We now have before us the main facts regarding the French invasion and conquest of Egypt, and the resistance offered by the latter. This event holds a prominent place in every standard history of that part and age of the world, and all accounts agree in the main features of the affair.

We have now to decide whether this event fulfils that specification of the prophecy which says: “At the time of the end shall the king of the south push at him.”

The “time of the end” began in the year 1798. The “king of the south” was Egypt. In that very year Egypt was invaded and conquered by the armies of France, one of the greatest of the European powers. Alison describes the part taken by France in this event as a “celebrated undertaking,” and says: “Seldom had a more splendid armament appeared on the ocean.” Of this expedition Scott says, “A finer and more formidable one than which never sailed on so bold an adventure.” Abbott declares that “Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt was one of the most magnificent enterprises which human ambition ever conceived.”

From the standpoint of prominence among the nations, there is no reason why France might not be the power called “him” in the prophecy, and against which Egypt was to “push.” The purpose, the preparation, and the execution of the undertaking are all of a character to allow the event to have a place in the prophecy. Egypt’s part in this conflict accords with the prophecy. The landing of an army into Egypt by France came upon the inhabitants like a thunderbolt. Alexandria was attacked without an hour’s warning. Three weeks later the French and Mameluke forces met near Cairo in full strength. The defense made by the Egyptians was all that was possible under the circumstances. Their charge upon the French was terrible, but it was not the kind required to successfully meet the modern methods of warfare adopted by the French. They pushed at their invader, but went down in doing so.

The prophecy does not foretell the result of the conflict. It simply states that it would come, and marks the time. The history we have here given of the French invasion of Egypt is all that has been made up to the present time which can possibly be referred to as the fulfilment of the prophecy.