Battle of the Pyramids

On 21 July 1798 a French army led by Napoleon Bonaparte defeated the Mamluk-led forces of Murad Bey on the west bank of the Nile, close to the village of Embabeh and within sight of Cairo. Napoleon named the engagement after the pyramids of Giza visible in the distance. The victory gave France control of the Egyptian capital and broke the military power of the Mamluk beys, although a British naval victory days later left the French army stranded.

Egypt was formally a province of the Ottoman Empire, but real power lay with Mamluk grandees, chief among them Murad Bey and Ibrahim Bey. After landing and seizing Alexandria on 2 July 1798, the army of the French First Republic marched across the desert towards Cairo, aiming to overthrow the beys before Ottoman help could reach them. On 13 July French guns scattered a Mamluk force at Shubra Khit, a first taste of how artillery and disciplined infantry could handle cavalry.

Estimates of the two armies vary considerably. The French numbered roughly 20,000 to 25,000, mostly infantry. Figures given by historians for Murad's side range from about 21,000 to 50,000 or more, made up of perhaps 6,000 heavily armoured Mamluk horsemen and a much larger body of infantry, largely conscripted peasants and irregulars of uneven quality. Ibrahim Bey's army stood on the far bank of the Nile and could not cross to join the fight.

After a night march, the French formed their five divisions into hollow rectangles, with guns at the corners and baggage and cavalry inside. Murad anchored one flank on the fortified village of Embabeh by the river and the other on the village of Biktil, planning to pin the French on both sides and smash their centre with his horsemen. In the afternoon Ayyub Bey led a massed cavalry charge, but the squares under Desaix, Reynier and Dugua held and cut the riders down with musket and cannon fire. Bon's division then stormed Embabeh. Its defenders broke, and many drowned trying to escape across the Nile.

French reports put their own losses at 29 killed and 260 wounded. Estimates of Egyptian losses run between several thousand and 10,000 killed or wounded, possibly including some 3,000 Mamluk cavalry; Ayyub Bey was among the dead. Murad, wounded, escaped south with several thousand horsemen and fought on in Upper Egypt until Desaix defeated him late in 1799.

Napoleon entered Cairo on 24 July and set up a French administration, putting down later uprisings by force. The Mamluk forces waiting near Cairo scattered towards Syria, and on 11 August French troops overtook Ibrahim Bey and routed him at Salalieh. The battle is often seen as the start of the end of centuries of Mamluk dominance in Egypt. Its strategic value was soon undercut: at the Battle of the Nile, fought ten days after the Pyramids, a British squadron under Horatio Nelson destroyed the French fleet, cutting Napoleon's army off from France. The battle became a favourite subject for painters such as Antoine-Jean Gros and Louis-François Lejeune.

Our 1800 map shows Egypt in the period of the French occupation, and our 1815 map shows it back under Ottoman sovereignty.