Louis de Bourrienne
Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte — Complete
CHAPTER XIX
1799.
The siege of Acre raised—Attention to names in bulletins—Gigantic project—The Druses—Mount Carmel—The wounded and infected— Order to march on foot—Loss of our cannon—A Nablousian fires at Bonaparte—Return to Jaffa—Bonaparte visits the plague hospital— A potion given to the sick—Bonaparte's statement at St. Helena.
The siege of St. Jean d'Acre was raised on the 20th of May. It cost us a loss of nearly 3000 men, in killed, deaths by the plague, or wounds. A great number were wounded mortally. In those veracious documents, the bulletins, the French loss was made 500 killed, and 1000 wounded, and the enemy's more than 15,000.
Our bulletins may form curious materials for history; but their value certainly will not depend on the credit due to their details. Bonaparte attached the greatest importance to those documents; generally drawing them up himself, or correcting them, when written by another hand, if the composition did not please him.
It must be confessed that at that time nothing so much flattered self-love as being mentioned in a bulletin. Bonaparte was well aware of this; he knew that to insert a name in a bulletin was conferring a great honour, and that its exclusion was a severe disappointment. General Berthier, to whom I had expressed a strong desire to examine the works of the siege, took me over them; but, notwithstanding his promise of secrecy, he mentioned the circumstance to the General-in-Chief, who had desired me not to approach the works. "What did you go there for?" said Bonaparte to me, with some severity; "that is not your place." I replied that Berthier told me that no assault would take place that day; and he believed there would be no sortie, as the garrison had made one the preceding evening. "What matters that? There might have been another. Those who have nothing to do in such places are always the first victims. Let every man mind his own business. Wounded or killed, I would not even have noticed you in the bulletin. You could have been laughed at, and that justly."
Bonaparte, not having at this time experienced reverses, having continually proceeded from triumph to triumph, confidently anticipated the taking of St. Jean d'Acre. In his letters to the generals in Egypt he fixed the 25th of April for the accomplishment of that event. He reckoned that the grand assault against the tower could not be made before that day; it took place, however, twenty-four hours sooner. He wrote to Desaix on the 19th of April, "I count on being master of Acre in six days." On the 2d of May he told Junot, "Our 18 and 24 pounders have arrived. We hope to enter Acre in a few days. The fire of their artillery is completely extinguished." Letters have been printed, dated 30th Floréal (19th May), in which he announces to Dugua and to Poussielque that they can rely on his being in Acre on 6th Floréal (25th April). Some mistake has evidently been made. "The slightest circumstances produce the greatest events," said Napoleon, according to the Memorial of St. Helena; "had St. Jean d'Acre fallen, I should have changed the face of the world." And again, "The fate of the East lay in that small town." This idea is not one which he first began to entertain at St. Helena; he often repeated the very same words at St. Jean d'Acre. On the shore of Ptolemes gigantic projects agitated him, as, doubtless, regret for not having carried them into execution tormented him at St. Helena.
Almost every evening Bonaparte and myself used to walk together, at a little distance from the sea-shore. The day after the unfortunate assault of the 8th of May Bonaparte, afflicted at seeing the blood of so many brave men uselessly shed, said to me, "Bourrienne, I see that this wretched place has cost me a number of men, and wasted much time. But things are too far advanced not to attempt a last effort. If I succeed, as I expect, I shall find in the town the pasha's treasures, and arms for 300,000 men. I will stir up and arm the people of Syria, who are disgusted at the ferocity of Djezzar, and who, as you know, pray for his destruction at every assault. I shall then march upon Damascus and Aleppo. On advancing into the country, the discontented will flock round my standard, and swell my army. I will announce to the people the abolition of servitude and of the tyrannical governments of the pashas. I shall arrive at Constantinople with large masses of soldiers. I shall overturn the Turkish empire, and found in the East a new and grand empire, which will fix my place in the records of posterity. Perhaps I shall return to Paris by Adrianople, or by Vienna, after having annihilated the house of Austria." After I had made some observations which these grand projects naturally suggested, he replied, "What! do you not see that the Druses only wait for the fall of Acre to rise in rebellion? Have not the keys of Damascus already been offered me? I only stay till these walls fall because until then I can derive no advantage from this large town. By the operation which I meditate I cut off all kind of succour from the beys, and secure the conquest of Egypt. I will have Desaix nominated commander-in-chief; but if I do not succeed in the last assault I am about to attempt, I set off directly. Time presses,—I shall not be at Cairo before the middle of June; the winds will then lie favourable for ships bound to Egypt, from the north. Constantinople will send troops to Alexandria and Rosetta. I must be there. As for the army, which will arrive afterwards by land, I do not fear it this year. I will cause everything to be destroyed, all the way to the entrance of the desert. I will render the passage of an army impossible for two years. Troops cannot exist amoung ruins."
As soon as I returned to my tent I committed to paper this conversation, which was then quite fresh in my memory, and, I may venture to say that every word I put down is correct. I may add, that during the siege our camp was constantly filled with the inhabitants, who invoked Heaven to favour our arms, and prayed fervently at every assault for our success, many of them on their knees, with their faces to the city. The people of Damascus, too, had offered the keys to Bonaparte. Thus everything contributed to make him confident in his favourite plan.
The troops left St. Jean d'Acre on the 20th of May, taking advantage of the night to avoid a sortie from the besieged, and to conceal the retreat of the army, which had to march three leagues along the shore, exposed to the fire of the English vessels lying in the roads of Mount Carmel. The removal of the wounded and sick commenced on the 18th and 19th of May.
Bonaparte then made a proclamation, which from one end to the other offends against truth. It has been published in many works. The season of the year for hostile landing is there very dexterously placed in the foreground; all the rest is a deceitful exaggeration. It must be observed that the proclamations which Bonaparte regarded as calculated to dazzle an ever too credulous public were amplifications often ridiculous and incomprehensible upon the spot, and which only excited the laughter of men of common sense. In all Bonaparte's correspondence there is an endeavour to disguise his reverses, and impose on the public, and even on his own generals. For example, he wrote to General Dugua, commandant of Cairo, on the 15th of February, "I will bring you plenty of prisoners and flags!" One would almost be inclined to say that he had resolved, during his stay in the East, thus to pay a tribute to the country of fables.
—[The prisoners and flags were sent. The Turkish flags were entrusted by Berthier to the Adjutant-Commandant Boyer, who conducted a convoy of sick and wounded to Egypt. Sidney Smith acknowledges the loss of some flags by the Turks. The Turkish prisoners were used as carriers of the litters for the wounded, and were, for the most part, brought into Egypt. (Erreurs, tome i. pp. 47 and 160)]—
Thus terminated this disastrous expedition. I have read somewhere that during this immortal campaign the two heroes Murat and Mourad had often been in face of one another. There is only a little difficulty; Mourad Bey never put his foot in Syria.
We proceeded along the coast, and passed Mount Carmel. Some of the wounded were carried on litters, the remainder on horses, mules, and camels. At a short distance from Mount Carmel we were informed that three soldiers, ill of the plague, who were left in a convent (which served for a hospital), and abandoned too confidently to the generosity of the Turks, had been barbarously put to death.
A most intolerable thirst, the total want of water, an excessive heat, and a fatiguing march over burning sand-hills, quite disheartened the men, and made every generous sentiment give way to feelings of the grossest selfishness and most shocking indifference. I saw officers, with their limbs amputated, thrown off the litters, whose removal in that way had been ordered, and who had themselves given money to recompense the bearers. I saw the amputated, the wounded, the infected, or those only suspected of infection, deserted and left to themselves. The march was illumined by torches, lighted for the purpose of setting fire to the little towns, villages, and hamlets which lay in the route, and the rich crops with which the land was then covered. The whole country was in a blaze. Those who were ordered to preside at this work of destruction seemed eager to spread desolation on every side, as if they could thereby avenge themselves for their reverses, and find in such dreadful havoc an alleviation of their sufferings. We were constantly surrounded by plunderers, incendiaries, and the dying, who, stretched on the sides of the road, implored assistance in a feeble voice, saying, "I am not infected—I am only wounded;" and to convince those whom they addressed, they reopened their old wounds, or inflicted on themselves fresh ones. Still nobody attended to them. "It is all over with him," was the observation applied to the unfortunate beings in succession, while every one pressed onward. The sun, which shone in an unclouded sky in all its brightness, was often darkened by our conflagrations. On our right lay the sea; on our left, and behind us, the desert made by ourselves; before were the privations and sufferings which awaited us. Such was our true situation.
We reached Tentoura on the 20th of May, when a most oppressive heat prevailed, and produced general dejection. We had nothing to sleep on but the parched and burning sand; on our right lay a hostile sea; our losses in wounded and sick were already considerable since leaving Acre; and there was nothing consolatory in the future. The truly afflicting condition in which the remains of an army called triumphant were plunged, produced, as might well be expected, a corresponding impression on the mind of the General-in-Chief. Scarcely had he arrived at Tentoura when he ordered his tent to be pitched. He then called me, and with a mind occupied by the calamities of our situation, dictated an order that every one should march on foot; and that all the horses, mules, and camels should be given up to the wounded, the sick, and infected who had been removed, and who still showed signs of life. "Carry that to Berthier," said he; and the order was instantly despatched. Scarcely had I returned to the tent when the elder Vigogne, the General-in-Chief's groom, entered, and raising his hand to his cap, said, "General, what horse do you reserve for yourself?" In the state of excitement in which Bonaparte was this question irritated him so violently that, raising his whip, he gave the man a severe blow on the head, saying in a terrible voice, "Every-one must go on foot, you rascal—I the first—Do you not know the order? Be off!"
Every one in parting with his horse was now anxious to avoid giving it to any unfortunate individual supposed to be suffering from plague. Much pains were taken to ascertain the nature of the diseases of the sick; and no difficulty was made in accommodating the wounded of amputated. For my part I had an excellent horse; a mule, and two camels, all which I gave up with the greatest pleasure; but I confess that I directed my servant to do all he could to prevent an infected person from getting my horse. It was returned to me in a very short time. The same thing happened to many others. The cause may be easily conjectured.
The remains of our heavy artillery were lost in the moving sands of Tentoura, from the want of horses, the small number that remained being employed in more indispensable services. The soldiers seemed to forget their own sufferings, plunged in grief at the loss of their bronze guns, often the instruments of their triumphs, and which had made Europe tremble.
We halted at Caesarea on the 22d of May, and we marched all the following night. Towards daybreak a man, concealed in a bush upon the left of the road (the sea was two paces from us on the right), fired a musket almost close to the head of the General-in-Chief, who was sleeping on his horse. I was beside him. The wood being searched, the Nablousian was taken without difficulty, and ordered to be shot on the spot. Four guides pushed him towards the sea by thrusting their carbines against his back; when close to the water's edge they drew the triggers, but all the four muskets hung fire: a circumstance which was accounted for by the great humidity of the night. The Nablousian threw himself into the water, and, swimming with great agility and rapidity, gained a ridge of rocks so far off that not a shot from the whole troop, which fired as it passed, reached him. Bonaparte, who continued his march, desired me to wait for Kléber, whose division formed the rear-guard, and to tell him not to forget the Nablousian. He was, I believe, shot at last.
We returned to Jaffa on the 24th of May, and stopped there during the 25th, 26th, 27th, and 28th. This town had lately been the scene of a horrible transaction, dictated by necessity, and it was again destined to witness the exercise of the same dire law. Here I have a painful duty to perform—I will perform it. I will state what I know, what I saw.
I have seen the following passage in a certain, work:—"Bonaparte, having arrived at Jaffa, ordered three removals of the infected: one by sea to Damietta, and also by land; the second to Gaza; and the third to El-Arish!" So, many words, so many errors!
Some tents were pitched on an eminence near the gardens east of Jaffa. Orders were given directly to undermine the fortifications and blow them up; and on the 27th of May, upon the signaling given, the town was in a moment laid bare. An hour afterwards the General-in-Chief left his tent and repaired to the town, accompanied by Berthier, some physicians and surgeons, and his usual staff. I was also one of the party. A long and sad deliberation took place on the question which now arose relative to the men who were incurably ill of the plague, or who were at the point of death. After a discussion of the most serious and conscientious kind it was decided to accelerate a few moments, by a potion, a death which was inevitable, and which would otherwise be painful and cruel.
Bonaparte took a rapid view of the destroyed ramparts of the town and returned to the hospital, where there were men whose limbs had been amputated, many wounded, many afflicted with ophthalmia, whose lamentations were distressing, and some infected with the plague. The beds of the last description of patients were to the right on entering the first ward. I walked by the General's side, and I assert that I never saw him touch any one of the infected. And why should he have done so? They were in the last stage of the disease. Not one of them spoke a word to him, and Bonaparte well knew that he possessed no protection against the plague. Is Fortune to be again brought forward here? She had, in truth, little favoured him during the last few months, when he had trusted to her favours. I ask, why should he have exposed himself to certain death, and have left his army in the midst of a desert created by our ravages, in a desolate town, without succour, and without the hope of ever receiving any? Would he have acted rightly in doing so—he who was evidently so necessary, so indispensable to his army; he on whom depended at that moment the lives of all who had survived the last disaster, and who had proved their attachment to him by their sufferings, their privations, and their unshaken courage, and who had done all that he could have required of men, and whose only trust was in him?
Bonaparte walked quickly through the rooms, tapping the yellow top of his boot with a whip he held in his hand. As he passed along with hasty steps he repeated these words: "The fortifications are destroyed. Fortune was against me at St. Jean d'Acre. I must return to Egypt to preserve it from the enemy, who will soon be there: In a few hours the Turks will be here. Let all those who have strength enough rise and come along with us. They shall be carried on litters and horses." There were scarcely sixty cases of plague in the hospital; and all accounts stating a greater number are exaggerated. The perfect silence, complete dejection, and general stupor of the patients announced their approaching end. To carry them away in the state in which they were would evidently have been doing nothing else than inoculating the rest of the army with the plague. I have, it is true, learned, since my return to Europe, that some persons touched the infected with impunity; nay; that others went so far as to inoculate themselves with the plague in order to learn how to cure those whom it might attack. It certainly was a special protection from Heaven to be preserved from it; but to cover in some degree the absurdity of such a story, it is added that they knew how to elude the danger, and that any one else who braved it without using precautions met with death for their temerity. This is, in fact, the whole point of the question. Either those privileged persons took indispensable precautions; and in that case their boasted heroism is a mere juggler's trick; or they touched the infected without using precautions, and inoculated themselves with the plague, thus voluntarily encountering death, and then the story is really a good one.
The infected were confided, it has been stated, to the head apothecary of the army, Royer, who, dying in Egypt three years after, carried the secret with him to the grave. But on a moment's reflection it will be evident that the leaving of Royer alone in Jaffa would have been to devote to certain death; and that a prompt and cruel one, a man who was extremely useful to the army, and who was at the time in perfect health. It must be remembered that no guard could be left with him, and that the Turks were close at our heels. Bonaparte truly said, while walking through the rooms of the hospital, that the Turks would be at Jaffa in a few hours. With this conviction, would he have left the head apothecary in that town?
Recourse has been had to suppositions to support the contrary belief to what I state. For example, it is said that the infected patients were embarked in ships of war. There were no such ships. Where had they disembarked, who had received them; what had been done with them? No one speaks of them. Others, not doubting that the infected men died at Jaffa, say, that the rearguard under Kléber, by order of Bonaparte, delayed its departure for three days, and only began its march when death had put an end to the sufferings of these unfortunate beings, unshortened by any sacrifice. All this is incorrect. No rear-guard was left—it could not be done. Pretence is made of forgetting that the ramparts were destroyed, that the town was as open and as defenceless as any village, so this small rear-guard would have been left for certain destruction. The dates themselves tell against these suppositions. It is certain, as can be seen by the official account, that we arrived at Jaffa on 24th May, and stayed there the 25th, 26th, and 27th. We left it on the 28th. Thus the rear-guard, which, according to these writers, left-on the 29th, did not remain, even according to their own hypothesis, three days after the army to see the sick die. In reality it left on the 29th of May, the day after we did. Here are the very words of the Major-General (Berthier) in his official account, written under the eye and under the dictation of the Commander-in-Chief:—
The army arrived at Jaffa, 5th Prairial (24th May), and remained there the 6th, 7th, and 8th (25th-27th May). This time was employed in punishing the village, which had behaved badly. The fortifications of Jaffa were blown up. All the iron guns of the place were thrown into the sea. The wounded were removed by sea and by land. There were only a few ships, and to give time to complete the evacuation by land, the departure of the army had to be deferred until the 9th (28th May). Kléber's division formed the rear-guard, and only left Jaffa on the 10th (29th May).
The official report of what passed at Jaffa was drawn up by Berthier, under the eye of Bonaparte. It has been published; but it may be remarked that not a word about the infected, not a word of the visit to the hospital, or the touching of the plague-patients with impunity, is there mentioned. In no official report is anything said about the matter. Why this silence? Bonaparte was not the man to conceal a fact which would have afforded him so excellent and so allowable a text for talking about his fortune. If the infected were removed, why not mention it? Why be silent on so important an event? But it would have been necessary to confess that being obliged to have recourse to so painful a measure was the unavoidable consequence of this unfortunate expedition. Very disagreeable details must have been entered into; and it was thought more advisable to be silent on the subject.
But what did Napoleon himself say on the subject at St. Helena? His statement there was to the following effect:—"I ordered a consultation as to what was best to be done. The report which was made stated that there were seven or eight men (the question is not about the number) so dangerously ill that they could not live beyond twenty-four hours, and would besides infect the rest of the army with the plague. It was thought it would be an act of charity to anticipate their death a few hours."
Then comes the fable of the 500 men of the rear guard, who, it is pretended, saw them die! I make no doubt that the story of the poisoning was the invention of Den——. He was a babbler, who understood a story badly, and repeated it worse. I do not think it would have been a crime to have given opium to the infected. On the contrary, it would have been obedience to the dictates of reason. Where is the man who would not, in such a situation, have preferred a prompt death, to being exposed to the lingering tortures inflicted by barbarians? If my child, and I believe I love him as much as any father does his, had been in such a state, my advice would have been the same; if I had been among the infected myself, I should have demanded to be so treated.
Such was the reasoning at St. Helena, and such was the view which he and every one else took of the case twenty years ago at Jaffa.
Our little army arrived at Cairo on the 14th of June, after a painful and harassing march of twenty-five days. The heats during the passage of the desert between El-Arish and Belbeis exceeded thirty-three degrees. On placing the bulb of the thermometer in the sand the mercury rose to forty-five degrees. The deceitful mirage was even more vexatious than in the plains of Bohahire'h. In spite of our experience an excessive thirst, added to a perfect illusion, made us goad on our wearied horses towards lakes which vanished at our approach, and left behind nothing but salt and arid sand. In two days my cloak was completely covered with salt, left on it after the evaporation of the moisture which held it in solution. Our horses, who ran eagerly to the brackish springs of the desert, perished in numbers, after travelling about a quarter of a league from the spot where they drank the deleterious fluid.
Bonaparte preceded his entry into the capital of Egypt by one of those lying bulletins which only imposed on fools. "I will bring with me," said he, "many prisoners and flags. I have razed the palace of the Djezzar and the ramparts of Acre—not a stone remains upon another. All the inhabitants have left the city, by sea. Djezzar is severely wounded."
I confess that I experienced a painful sensation in writing, by his dictation, these official words, everyone of which was an imposition. Excited by all I had just witnessed, it was difficult for me to refrain from making the observation; but his constant reply was, "My dear fellow, you are a simpleton: you do not understand this business." And he observed, when signing the bulletin, that he would yet fill the world with admiration, and inspire historians and poets.
Our return to Cairo has been attributed to the insurrections which broke out during the unfortunate expedition into Syria. Nothing is more incorrect. The term insurrection cannot be properly applied to the foolish enterprises of the angel El-Mahdi in the Bohahire'h, or to the less important disturbances in the Charkyeh. The reverses experienced before St. Jean d'Acre, the fear, or rather the prudent anticipation of a hostile landing, were sufficient motives, and the only ones, for our return to Egypt. What more could we do in Syria but lose men and time, neither of which the General had to spare?
