The Naval Component of the Battle of Shubra Khit
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The Age of Gunpowder 149 The Naval Component of the Battle of Shubra Khit George Granberry Abstract As a result of long-standing theories of Ottoman Decline and strings of major military defeats throughout the 18th century, the Ottoman Empire as a whole is often looked upon as a military non-factor in the age of Napoleon. In the case of the Ottoman Navy, Napoleon's brilliant victories over the Egyptian Mamluks often overshadow the fact that the Ottomans were capable of fighting on even if not advantageous terms against Napoleon's own naval forces. To investigate this misunderstanding, both sides of the historiographical debate on the decline of the Ottoman Empire will be examined with a focus on the Ottoman Navy. With the historiography laid out, the main focus of this paper is on the Battle of Shubra Khit, a battle waged between the French Expedition to Egypt under Napoleon and the Ottoman Egyptians residing there. While there are a handful of different accounts of what happened at the Battle of Shubra Khit, it becomes clear that the Ottoman Navy had vessels of remarkable similarity to the French flotilla and that the French Flotilla was only able survive as a result of backup from infantry on the banks of the Nile. The paper then concludes that the Ottoman Empire's navy does not fit into the frame of the Ottoman Decline. he French troops under Napoleon described the Mamluk cavalry as one of the most graceful forces they had ever seen. Dressed in fine clothing Tand wielding decadent weapons, the Mamluks of Egypt were raised to fight on horseback on the banks of the Nile. In comparison, the French expedition was a group of exhausted foreigners with rampant dehydration and cases of dysentery in its ranks. Sentenced by Napoleon to a brutal march though the deserts of Egypt, the marching infantry of the French expedition could not have been more out of their element. Some members of the French expedition to Egypt 150 Emory Endeavors in History 2013 undoubtedly considered leaving their field artillery behind to decrease their burden. In fact, some members did choose to decrease their burden by throwing away food supplies. Others chose to end their own lives. However, when the graceful and powerful Mamluk cavalry and the French expedition's land forces finally met at what is now known as the Battle of the Pyramids, the outcome of the battle could not have been clearer. The Mamluk forces under Murad Bey were completely crushed by the French expedition, barely leaving a scratch on Napoleon's infantry. If an expedition of sick, starving, and overheated infantrymen was to completely defeat the Mamluk cavalry in their own territory, it seems natural that the naval battles against the Ottoman-Egyptians would be an equally victorious endeavor. However, the naval battles between the French flotilla on the Nile and the Ottoman-Mamluk flotilla were of a completely different nature. Looking specifically at the battle of Shubra Khit preceding the Battle of the Pyramids, the naval battles between the French and Ottoman-Egyptian forces actually favored the Ottoman-Egyptians to the point where Napoleon was called to support his naval forces at the cost of letting the Mamluk ground forces escape to fight another day. With land battles ending in such resounding success, it seems strange that the French expedition's resounding victories did not follow them into the naval battles of the Nile. While the French flotilla was technically never defeated on the Nile by Ottomans, they did require assistance from Napoleon's ground forces in order to fend off the Ottoman flotilla. Why would the Ottoman Navy, which had a reputation for weakness among the powers of the Mediterranean in the 18th century, be able to fight on equal if not advantageous terms with the French expedition's powerful naval crafts?350 To answer this question, we must first ask, was the Ottoman Navy actually weak? In this paper, I argue that by the end of the 18th Century, the Ottoman Navy was modernized enough to fight on nearly equal terms with the navies of Western Europe. Using the Battle of Shubra Khit as an example of conflict between the Ottoman Navy and Western Europe, I argue that 350 Bernard Lewis, The Muslim discovery of Europe (New York: W.W. Norton, c1982), 226. The Age of Gunpowder 151 the Ottoman Navy would have defeated Napoleon's flotilla if his infantry had not arrived on the banks of the Nile as reinforcement. To support this claim, our first objective is to take a closer look at the state of the Ottoman navy in the late 18th century. Simply comparing their record against the Venetians and Russians, it does seem that the Ottomans were falling behind their competitors in naval warfare after suffering a string of defeats during the 18th century culminating in the Battle of Chesme in 1770. While historians tend to agree that prominent European powers such as the British Royal Navy and the French Navy held an advantage over Ottoman Navy through the 18th century, the degree of separation between the two is debated as a part of the “Decline of the Ottoman Empire” subject. On one side of the debate, historians such as Bernard Lewis, Norman Itzkowitz, and Paul Holt all agree that the Ottoman Empire “reached its peak in the sixteenth century under Suleyman the Magnificent, and thereafter began an inexorable stagnation and decline lasting until the twentieth century.” 351 Supporters of this view are sometimes referred to as “declinists.” Lewis explains that “The Ottomans found it more and more difficult to keep up with the rapidly advancing Western technological innovations, and in the course of the eighteenth century the Ottoman Empire, itself far ahead of the rest of the Islamic word, fell decisively behind Europe in virtually all arts of war.”352 This view of a stagnating Ottoman Navy that was unable to adapt to battle in the age of sail is a commonly held view by many historians studying the Napoleonic era.353 Looking in the Dictionary of Napoleon, the entry for the Ottoman Navy sums up its entire 351 Johnathan Grant, Grant, Jonathan, Rethinking the Ottoman "Decline": Military Technology Diffusion in the Ottoman Empire, Fifteenth to Eighteenth Centurie. Journal of World History, Vol. 10, No. 1 (Spring 1999), pp. 179-201. University of Hawaii Press. 179. 352 Lewis, The Muslim discovery of Europe, 226. 353 Tuncay Zorlu, Innovation and empire in Turkey: Sultan Selim III and the modernisation of the Ottoman Navy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 1. 152 Emory Endeavors in History 2013 existence as “Unable to compete with European navies.”354 It seems only natural to assume that a nation with outdated military technology and a continuous string of defeats throughout the 18th century would be experiencing a steady “decline”. In addition, Europe's overall triumph over in the Ottoman Empire in the 19th and 20th centuries also seems to support the notion of an overall decline. However, the key word that separates the “declinists” and their revisionist counterparts is the concept of an “inexorable” decline that proceeded at a steady pace. Instead of assuming that the Ottomans were doomed to failure based on their competition with European competitors, the revisionist approach inspects primary sources in the Ottoman Empire's extensive archives. To be sure, some primary documents, such as Joost Fredric Tor's records, also support the declinist position in their description of the state of the Ottoman military. Tor, the secretary to the Dutch Ambassador Van Den Dedem, reported on the “deplorable state” of the Ottoman Navy in 1785. In his description, he lists inefficient docks, poorly defined vessels, and decrepit fortresses as examples of the stagnation of the Ottoman navy. However, revisionist historian Tuncay Zorlu's investigation of Tor's claim concludes with a dubious note. According to Zorlu “Although these comments might have been true to some extent, when compared with the Ottoman and other European sources it is clear that they were biased and inaccurate.” He then proceeds to cite information from M. Bonneval's report from April 22, 1784, which contains a detailed report of the true condition of the Ottoman fleet. In truth, the number of ships in good, operating condition outnumbered ships in bad condition and ships in repair by a significant amount.355 The revisionist historians of Ottoman military history such as Jonathan Grant and Tuncay Zorlu believe that while the Ottoman Navy was somewhat behind the technological advancements of parts of Western Europe, overall their 354 Stephen Pope, The Cassell dictionary of the Napoleonic Wars (London: Cassell, c1999), 334. 355 Zorlu, Innovation and empire in Turkey, 11. The Age of Gunpowder 153 embrace of new technology and enthusiastic naval reforms allowed the Ottoman Navy to stay competitive in the world arena. In a response to Lewis' description of the Ottoman stagnation, Jonathan Grants explains that “Once the effects [of new technology] became apparent to the Ottomans, especially after the Russian conquest of Crimea, the Turks followed suit, with the result that by the beginning of the nineteenth century Ottoman war technology was again competitive with that of its rivals, especially Russia.”356 The extent of the Ottoman's transformation during the late 18th century can be seen in the research conducted by Grant and Zorlu. In Zorlu's Innovation and Empire in Turkey: Sultan Selim III and the Modernisation of the Ottoman Navy, the reign of Selim III and its effects on the Ottoman Navy are characterized as a modernizing force in which the Ottoman Navy once again becomes competitive with European powers.