01 cole fm 6/12/07 8:51 AM Page i Napoleon’s Egypt INVADING THE MIDDLE EAST This page intentionally left blank 01 cole fm 6/12/07 8:51 AM Page iii Napoleon’s Egypt INVADING THE MIDDLE EAST Juan Cole 01 cole fm 6/12/07 8:51 AM Page iv NAPOLEON’S EGYPT: INVADING THE MIDDLE EAST Copyright © Juan Cole, 2007. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. First published in 2007 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN™ 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 and Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS. Companies and representatives throughout the world. PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN-13: 978–1–4039–6431–1 ISBN-10: 1–4039–6431–9 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cole, Juan Ricardo. Napoleon’s Egypt : invading the Middle East / by Juan Cole. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-4039-6431-9 (alk. paper) 1. Egypt—History—French occupation, 1798–1801. I. Title. DT100.C65 2008 962'.03—dc22 2007024215 A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library. Design by Letra Libre First edition: August, 2007 10987654321 Printed in the United States of America. 01 cole fm 6/12/07 8:51 AM Page v CONTENTS Map of Egypt vii List of Illustrations viii Acknowledgments ix 1. The Genius of Liberty 1 2. A Sky Aflame 21 3. The Ferment of the Mind 45 4. Grand Cairo 65 5. The Flight of Ibrahim Bey 85 6. The Most Beautiful Nile that Has Ever Been 107 7. Ali Bonaparte 123 8. The Constant Triumph of Reason 143 9. The Festival of the Republic 161 10. The Object of His Desires 181 11. The Egyptian Revolution 203 12. The Fall of the Delta and the Arabian Jihad 223 13. Epilogue 245 Further Reading 249 Notes 251 Index 273 Ten pages of illustrations appear between pages 122 and 123. 01 cole fm 6/12/07 8:51 AM Page vi To Arman and Sheena 01 cole fm 6/12/07 8:51 AM Page vii Map by Arman H. Cole 01 cole fm 6/12/07 8:51 AM Page viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 1. “Napoleon in Egypt.” By Jean-Léon Gérôme. Oil on oak panel. Princeton University Art Museum. Museum purchase, John Maclean Magie, Class of 1892, and Gertrude Magie Fund. Photo credit: Bruce M. White, © Photo: Trustees of Princeton University. 2. “Alexandria.” By Vivant Denon, Voyages dans la Basse et la Haute Égypte, 3 vols. (London: S. Bagster, 1807). 3. “Napoleon at the Battle of the Pyramids.” Engraving by Philippe Joseph Vallot, 1838, after Antoine-Jean Gros. 4. “Cairo.” Vivant Denon. 5. “Denon Making a Sketch.” Vivant Denon. 6. “Rosetta.” Vivant Denon. 7. “The Cairo Revolt.” Drawing in A. Hugo, ed., France Militaire, vol. 2 (Paris: Delloye, 1835). 8. “Bonaparte Pardons the Cairo Rebels.” Drawing in A. Hugo. 9. “The Battle of Samanud.” Vivant Denon. 10. “Ambulance for the Wounded.” Description de l’Égypte, 24 vols. (Paris: Imprimerie de C. L. F. Panckoucke, 1820–1830). 11. “Frontispiece.” Description de l’Égypte. 12. “River Port of Bulaq, Cairo.” Description de l’Égypte. 13. “Tomb of Ozymandias, Thebes.” Description de l’Égypte. 14. “Azbakiya Square.” Description de l’Égypte. 15. “Distillery.” Description de l’Égypte. 16. “Coffee Roasting Shop.” Description de l’Égypte. 17. “A Woman of the People.” Description de l’Égypte. 18. “Alimahs or Public Dancers.” Description de l’Égypte. 19. “Sheikh al-Sadat.” Description de l’Égypte. 20. “Murad Bey.” Description de l’Égypte. 01 cole fm 6/12/07 8:51 AM Page ix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS apoleon’s Egypt concerns the political, military, and cultural en- N counter of the French and Egyptians in the late eighteenth century, and is primarily based on a wide reading in eyewitness memoirs and letters, not least those of Napoleon Bonaparte himself. Although it has elements of a biography of Bonaparte in Egypt, its canvas is wider than that, and substantial attention is paid to his coterie of officers as well as his Ottoman and Egyptian enemies and collaborators. It is the first extended treatment in English by a Middle East specialist such that the French sources have been read through the lens of Egyptian realities. This book attends more closely than have others to French struggles in the Egyptian Delta region, to the Middle Eastern (Ottoman, Egyptian, and Muslim) cultural and institutional context of resistance to the occupation, and to the interplay of the ideas of the French revolutionary period with Ottoman and Egyptian ways of life. It aims at being an intimate his- tory of what the French Annales school calls “mentalités,” that is, a history of mindsets. Although many books have been written on Bonaparte in Egypt in French, the last extended account in English came out in 1962, and its author was not an Arabist. Even in the Francophone literature, few authors have treated at length these issues in cultural dialogue and debate—and some manage virtu- ally to ignore the presence in Egypt of Egyptians! One of my central questions is how the French and the Egyptians constructed and remembered one another. This book is not, however, about a “clash of civilizations,” but has as its premise that the Greater Mediterranean has been a single civilization for a very long time. Clashes are produced by struggles over power, not by cultures, which are themselves often shaped and altered by mutual interaction and conflict. I take the story to the eve of Bonaparte’s departure for his Syria campaign because these first eight months raise all the key issues I want to address in military and cultural interplay in Egypt, and because Syria has a significantly different local context. The title appears to contain two anachronisms: At the time of the invasion Bonaparte was not yet Napoleon I, and contemporaries would have spoken of 01 cole fm 6/12/07 8:51 AM Page x x NAPOLEON’S EGYPT the Orient rather than “the Middle East.” The title is a recognition that the book concerns memories and constructions of Egypt, including those written by Napoleon long after he became emperor. As for the subtitle, the profound con- fusion produced for contemporary readers by a subtitle such as “invading the Orient” would have outweighed any gains in verisimilitude. I have used the phrase “Middle East” in the text, as well, inasmuch as I am writing twenty-first century English. My late mentor, Marsden Jones, suggested this project to me many years ago. I was exceedingly fortunate that in 1993 Philippe de Meulenaere brought out his priceless critical bibliography of eyewitness accounts, and that in recent decades several rich French memoirs (e.g., those of François Bernoyer, Joseph- Marie Moiret, and Charles Antoine Morand) have been published. I was also fortunate in that some relevant Arabic materials have been published in recent decades, including the earliest chronicle by historian ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti (perhaps co-authored with Hasan al-’Attar), the chronicles of Izzet Hasan Darendeli and ‘Abdullah al-Sharqawi, and contemporary letters from Yemen. The translations into English of the works of al-Jabarti, by Shmuel Moreh and by a team of scholars under Thomas Philipp and Moshe Perlmann, have been very useful to this book. I have always consulted the Arabic text, however, and sometimes have preferred to paraphrase directly from it. I have also used al- Jabarti’s untranslated Muzhir al-Taqdis, which contains material, and pregnant silences, not present in the other works. I had the good fortune of studying modern Egyptian history at UCLA with Afaf Lutfi al-Sayyid Marsot. Everyone who works in this field is profoundly in- debted to André Raymond, who has revolutionized our understanding of eigh- teenth-century Cairo. Henry Laurens has shed loads of illumination on the French in Egypt with his own books and articles and his editions of primary texts. My friends and colleagues Kenneth Cuno, Jane Hathaway, Gabriel Piter- burg, Peter Gran, and Daniel Crecelius further taught me through their talks and writings about the Ottoman beylicate and its era in Egypt. Edward Said’s work on Orientalism made possible many of the insights herein. I am deeply indebted to Alessandra Bastagli, my editor at Palgrave Macmil- lan, for her gentle persistence in pulling this book out of me, for her canny sug- gestions about writing strategies, and for the way her sage blue pencil and suggestions for additions improved the book. My gratitude also to Alan Brad- shaw, Jodie Hockensmith, and Erin Igoe at Palgrave Macmillan for their invalu- able help. I also want to express warm thanks to David Pervin for recognizing the promise of this project. Even though they came late to this particular party, 01 cole fm 6/12/07 8:51 AM Page xi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xi Brettne Bloom and Steve Wasserman of Kneerim & Williams, now my literary agency, gave key encouragement and help, for which I am most grateful. The enthusiasm of my son, Arman, and the patience and warm encouragement of my wife, Shahin, sustained me in this project. A trip to Paris to consult materials in the Bibliothèque Nationale was funded by the History Department and the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, at the University of Michigan, as was a semester of research while I held the Hudson Professorship, for which I am grateful.