Battle of the Pyramids

Context

Landed at Alexandria on 2 July 1798, the Army of the Orient crossed the desert for three weeks in murderous heat, with no organised water or supplies. On 21 July it finally found its enemy: Murad Bey's Mamluks, backed against the Nile near the village of Embabeh, opposite Cairo.

Forces

France: about 25,000 men, five infantry divisions, very little cavalry and light artillery.

Mamluks: about 6,000 elite horsemen, supported by some fifteen thousand infantry and fellahin entrenched in the village.

Course of the battle

Bonaparte formed five divisional squares, artillery at the angles, cavalry and baggage in the centre — a defensive arrangement that made a breakthrough impossible. The Mamluk charge, magnificent and suicidal, broke on the crossfire; the horsemen circled the squares without finding an opening. Desaix and Reynier then took the entrenched camp at Embabeh, driving the fugitives into the Nile.

Consequences

Cairo fell three days later without a fight. The line about forty centuries appears in no document of the day itself: it is attested later, in reconstructed accounts, and was probably fixed afterwards. Eleven days after the victory Nelson destroyed the fleet at Aboukir: the army, master of Egypt, had no way home.