21 July 1798, evening
The storming of Embabeh
Near the river Bon’s division forms attack columns and storms the entrenchments of Embabeh. The garrison breaks, and many of its men flee into the Nile, where hundreds drown. The Cairo chronicler al-Jabarti writes that the fighting lasts about three quarters of an hour.
The Battle of the Pyramids, painting by Antoine-Jean Gros, 1810Wikimedia Commons, Antoine-Jean Gros, Public domain (Baron Antoine-Jean Gros-Battle Pyramids 1810.jpg)
French reports give 29 killed and 260 wounded. Estimates of the Mamluk and Ottoman losses range from several thousand to 10,000, among them Ayyub Bey and perhaps 3,000 of the Mamluk horsemen. Murad Bey, cut in the face by a sabre, escapes south with several thousand cavalry to Upper Egypt, and the army of Ibrahim Bey on the east bank breaks up and makes for Syria.
On 22 July the notables of Cairo come to Bonaparte at Giza and hand over the city, which he enters on 24 July. Desaix follows Murad into Upper Egypt. Bonaparte pursues Ibrahim himself, defeats him at Salahieh in August and drives him out of Egypt.
Sources
- David G. Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon (1966).
- Paul Strathern, Napoleon in Egypt (2008).
- Juan Cole, Napoleon’s Egypt: Invading the Middle East (2007).
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