At Aboukir and Acre Part 1

At Aboukir and Acre.

by George Alfred Henty.

PREFACE

With the general knowledge of geography now possessed we may well wonder at the wild notion entertained both by Bonaparte and the French authorities that it would be possible, after conquering Egypt, to march an army through Syria, Persia, and the wild countries of the northern borders of India, and to drive the British altogether from that country.

The march, even if unopposed, would have been a stupendous one, and the warlike chiefs of Northern India, who, as yet, were not even threatened by a British advance, would have united against an invading army from the north, and would, had it not been of prodigious strength, have annihilated it. The French had enormously exaggerated the power of Tippoo Sahib, with whom they had opened negotiations, and even had their fantastic designs succeeded, it is certain that the Tiger of Mysore would, in a very short time, have felt as deep a hatred for them as he did for the British.

But even had such a march been possible, the extreme danger in which an army landed in Egypt would be placed of being cut off, by the superior strength of the British navy, from all communication with France, should alone have deterred them from so wild a project. The fate of the campaign was indeed decided when the first gun was fired in the Bay of Aboukir, and the destruction of the French fleet sealed the fate of Napoleon's army. The n.o.ble defence of Acre by Sir Sidney Smith was the final blow to Napoleon's projects, and from that moment it was but a question of time when the French army would be forced to lay down its arms, and be conveyed, in British transports, back to France. The credit of the signal failure of the enterprise must be divided between Nelson, Sir Sidney Smith, and Sir Ralph Abercrombie.

CONTENTS

CHAP. Page

I. MAKING A FRIEND 11

II. A BEDOUIN TRIBE 31

III. LEFT BEHIND 49

IV. THE BATTLE OF THE PYRAMIDS 66

V. A STREET ATTACK 86

VI. THE RISING IN CAIRO 105

VII. SAVED 122

VIII. AN EGYPTIAN TOMB 142

IX. SIR SIDNEY SMITH 162

X. A SEA-FIGHT 182

XI. ACRE 199

XII. A DESPERATE SIEGE 217

XIII. AN INDEPENDENT COMMAND 234

XIV. A PIRATE HOLD 251

XV. CRUISING 270

XVI. A VISIT HOME 287

XVII. ABERCROMBIE'S EXPEDITION 304

XVIII. THE BATTLE OF ALEXANDRIA 322

XIX. QUIET AND REST 340

ILl.u.s.tRATIONS.

Facing Page

"WELL, MY LAD, WHO ARE YOU?" Frontispiece

ALI AND AYALA APPEARED 144

EDGAR HITS OUT 184

WITH A TREMENDOUS CHEER, FLUNG THEMSELVES UPON THE PIRATES 256

GIVING A YELL OF DERISION AND DEFIANCE 328

Plan of the Battle of the Nile 84

Plan of the Siege of St. Jean D'Acre 209

Plan of the Battle of Alexandria 329

AT ABOUKIR AND ACRE

CHAPTER I.

MAKING A FRIEND.

Two lads were standing in one of the bastions of a fort looking over the sea. There were neither guards nor sentinels there. The guns stood on their carriages, looking clean and ready for action, but this was not the result of care and attention, but simply because in so dry a climate iron rusts but little. A close examination would have shown that the wooden carriages on which they stood were so cracked and warped by heat that they would have fallen to pieces at the first discharge of the guns they upheld. Piles of cannon-b.a.l.l.s stood between the guns, half-covered with the drifting sand, which formed slopes half-way up the walls of the range of barracks behind, and filled up the rooms on the lower floor.