Battle of Abukir (1799)

At the Pyramids - Battle of Aboukir - Battle of Aboukir

The Battle of the Nile was held on July 25, 1799 near the village of Aboukir (Arabic أبو قير, DMG Abū Qīr ), about 15 km northeast of Alexandria on Egypt's Mediterranean coast between Napoleon's French expeditionary army and Turkish troops instead. The battle is not to be confused with the famous Battle of the Nile of 1798, the Horatio Nelson defeated the French fleet crucial.

After the conquest of Egypt in 1798 and his ultimately unsuccessful campaign to Syria in the spring of 1799, Napoleon moved in June 1799 back to Egypt. There, an Ottoman army of 18,000 men under Mustapha Pasha had landed at Aboukir, and had set himself. Napoleon attacked the Ottomans with 5,000 infantry and 1,000 cavalry, and added them to a crushing defeat. On August 2, the fort of Aboukir again fell into French hands. The French troops were led by Generals Murat (Cavalry Avant Garde ), Lannes (right wing ), Lanusse ( left wing) and Davout (hedging against rebellious Arabs in the hinterland ). General Kléber led the Reserve, but could not intervene because he was still too far from the Nile.

After a series of failures Bonaparte unfolded in the East once again his tactical and strategic superiority: " Quick march, at the decisive point attack with united forces at the right time, destroy the enemy. "

General Bonaparte took advantage of the victory of Aboukir, positively portray the French public with a " transfiguration of events" and to create favorable conditions for a coup. This was after he already planned long before, in France partly enthusiastically acclaimed return on 18 Brumaire (9 November 1799), in which the Board and was replaced first in the sequence Consul Bonaparte, and thus became the sole ruler of France.