Anti–French Resistance in the Egyptian Provinces of Alexandria and Beheira (July — September 1798)

Napoleon Bonaparte, in his memoirs about the Egyptian campaign of 1798—1801 dictated at the end of his life, focuses primarily not on describing his victories on the battlefield, but on forming his own image of a wise ruler — the great “Sultan Kebir”, beloved and revered by the locals. He does not mention a word about any resistance to the invaders on the part of the Muslim population of the country in the first months of the French occupation and dates its beginning only to October 1798, claiming that it was provoked by incitement on the part of the Mamluks and, especially, by the news of the proclamation of jihad against the French by the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. A number of historians took Napoleon’s opinion on faith. The author of the article, relying on the correspondence and memoirs of French participants in the campaign, as well as on the official documents of the Oriental Army, shows that in the provinces of Alexandria and Beheira, from the very first days of the French’s presence on Egyptian soil, they encountered hostility from all strata of Muslim society: the elite and the urban “lower classes,” the fellahin peasants and the nomadic Bedouins — hostility that actually resulted in a people’s war against the occupiers.