Siege of Acre

Context

The Syrian campaign began in February 1799: the aim was to forestall an Ottoman offensive and, in Bonaparte's mind, perhaps to open a road to India. El-Arish, Gaza and Jaffa fell. Acre commands the road to Damascus and the coast; it was held by Ahmed Djezzar, an Ottoman governor famed for cruelty.

Forces

France: about 13,000 men, deprived of their siege artillery intercepted at sea.

Defenders: Djezzar's garrison, supplied by sea, and two British ships under Commodore Sidney Smith.

Course of the battle

The key to the failure lies in one capture. At the very start of the siege, Sidney Smith intercepted the vessels carrying the French heavy artillery along the coast: without its siege guns the army had to open a breach with field pieces too weak for the task, while the town received food, ammunition and reinforcements by sea.

The defence was moreover organised by Antoine Le Picard de Phélippeaux, an émigré officer and former fellow student of Bonaparte at Brienne. Eight assaults followed between 28 March and 10 May; the grenadiers reached the breach several times and were thrown back. Caffarelli and Bon died there, Lannes was wounded, plague ran through the trenches.

Consequences

The siege was raised on 21 May and the army began a terrible retreat towards Egypt, in the heat, carrying its sick. Bonaparte kept a regret he voiced more than once: that hovel, he said, changed the destiny of the world. Three months later he secretly embarked for France, leaving his army to Kléber.