Battle of Abukir (1799)

Common card · No. 263790

The Battle of Abukir (also known as the Battle of Aboukir or Battle of Abu Qir) was fought on 25 July 1799 between the French Army of the Orient under Napoleon Bonaparte and an Ottoman army under Mustafa Pasha during the French invasion of Egypt and Syria. It is considered the first pitched battle with this name, as there already had been a naval battle on 1 August 1798, the Battle of the Nile. (A second pitched battle followed on 8 March 1801.) No sooner had the French forces returned from a campaign to Syria, than the Ottoman forces were transported to Egypt by an Anglo-Ottoman fleet under Sidney Smith to put an end to French rule in Egypt. Mustafa Pasha was an experienced commander who had fought against the Russians. He knew that cavalry charges against the French squares were futile. So, he sought to avoid them by fortifying his beachhead with two defensive lines. From this beachhead the Pasha could carry out the invasion of Egypt. However, Napoleon immediately saw the flaw in the...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Louis-François Lejeune (1775-1848), Public domain