Part 4: The Battle of Kafr El-Zayat
July 22, 1798. Across the Nile River from Kafr El-Zayat, Egypt. Morning.
For the French, the march was slow, making it only about 50 miles over the next three days of travel. The heat was unbearable, but at least Kleber had supplied his troops well. On the same day that Bey began marching north, Kleber realized that the navy had been left at Aboukir. How this had escaped his notice for the previous three days is commonly explained as him having no reason to pay attention to the river. Apparently he only noticed his (lack of a) river flotilla when, of all things, some of his troops stopped to bathe in the Nile and noted a total lack boats of any kind on the river.
As lack of support from the navy left his army somewhat vulnerable, he sent word back to Alexandria, requesting that at least some forces be sent up river while he set up camp across the Nile from Kafr El-Zayat, about halfway to Cairo. The response from Bonaparte didn’t arrive until the evening of the 21st, costing the French another two days. The support from the navy would come, he assured Kleber, but the march on Cairo must be made regardless. The decision was made to resume the march the next morning. Kleber didn’t know it, but a different decision had already been made for him.
The French camp was situated at a tight curve in the river Nile, a jut of land about 1.5 miles wide. The idea was that any Mamluk attack would have to come in from the west towards a relatively narrow position. The flaw, of course, was that if anything went wrong there would be no escape. This was a major part of Kleber’s desperation to get naval support, as that would open up an escape route. Rather than face a potential attack from all sides by moving away from the river, Kleber stayed in place and began to, futilely, try to fortify his position while waiting for word from Alexandria.
On the morning of the 22nd, the front elements of Bey’s forces, marching north along the riverbank, stumbled into the French sentries. The French had failed to fully dig in; the assumption had been that they would be moving constantly, so they had brought no
chevaux de frise or entrenching tools, reasoning that such implements would weigh them down too much. That did not, however, mean that the French position was defenseless. Taking Bonaparte’s parting words to heart, Kleber had spent the time from the 18th onwards drilling his troops relentlessly in the art of the infantry square. The moment his pickets reported that the Mamluks had arrived, he immediately set to work.
Bey: Red.
Kleber: Black.
Kleber scrambled his forces into position: five divisional squares arranged in a checkerboard formation at the base of the landmass. Bey, for his part, ordered his flotilla to begin bombarding the French positions, while he personally prepared a massive cavalry assault, believing that the legendary Mamluk horsemen were an unstoppable force. That belief would soon be put to the test.
The Mamluk flotilla may not have been the most powerful force in the world, but it still had a devastating effect. The immobile squares of Kleber’s formation were hammered from north and south by fire from the river. Kleber was forced to move his artillery to his outermost squares to effectively return fire. The land-based guns had the desired effect, damaging two of the gunboats and crippling another. The Mamluks had, however, badly shook some of Kleber’s men. The true battle was about to begin.
Bey’s first, massive charge was launched at approximately 11:30 am, after seeing his flotilla begin to shake the squares. As the fire from his gunboats began to die down, he sounded the attack. 10,000 riders stormed forwards, on a front only 2000 yards wide. As the first horsemen slammed into the French lines, Kleber’s formations held firm. The front three squares broke the charge up while the second two laid waste to the riders with musket fire. The few horsemen that managed to break into the formations were soon dealt with by bayonet and musket butt. Writings from the French troops contain a common thread: admiration for the sheer bravery of the Mamluks. Again and again they charged, and again and again they were beaten back. Dead horses and riders piled up between the squares.
After nearly half an hour, Bey decided to revise his tactics. He sent in his infantry against the three front squares, hoping to break them up and let his riders break through. These men, however, were largely fellaheen, no more than quickly conscripted and trained peasants, with many being armed with only clubs or swords. On the other hand, there is something to be said for sheer numbers. The French formation meant that only 15,000 troops were in the front line against 30,000 Mamluk infantry. They were also oriented in squares, meaning that only a quarter of them were facing the direction of the attack.
The infantry went in slightly after noon, slamming into the squares like a tidal wave. The French were unable to bring their full firepower to bear, as they were still surrounded by cavalry and couldn’t break the square formation. The sheer numbers of the Mamluks went up against the firepower and discipline of the French, and when the Mamluk cavalry reformed and charged once more, the front squares of the formation began to crack.
But it wasn’t to be. The Mamluks had no artillery support, with the gunboats unwilling to fire into the chaotic melee lest they hit their own side. The French cavalry in the center of the squares countercharged, while the troops at the rear of the squares turned around and joined in on the melee. The battle devolved into brutal hand-to-hand combat, and the tide slowly began to turn. The Mamluk infantry was slowly pushed back out, then began to falter. The cavalry had been whittled down to almost nothing. At this crucial moment, Kleber ordered his other two squares forward to engage. The relatively fresh troops began to pour fire onto the Mamluks, and Bey’s lines shattered. The fellaheen broke first, followed by the rest of the infantry. The rout soon threatened to turn into a massacre, as the French cavalry formed up to pursue the fleeing Mamluks.
Watching this all with an increasing sense of consternation was Murad Bey. His force was in full retreat; all he could do now was prevent its total destruction. What he did next would go down in history as, perhaps, the most suicidally brave action of the 18th century. Rallying the last of his cavalry (estimates of their remaining strength at this point in the battle range from 500 to 3000, with the most common being in the 1200-1800 range [with one likely apocryphal story placing the number at a mere 70]), he launched one last desperate charge against the French to cover the retreat. Many believe that seeing his legendary cavalry being cut down by the thousands had broken something in him, and his desperate charge was, instead of a heroic holding action, an attempt to prove to himself that the Mamluks were still the best riders in the world. Whatever the purpose, they rode. The writings of one French soldier, which would become the basis of the famous poem “The Last Ride of the Mamluks,” describes what happened next:
“As the enemy broke away from our lines, we reformed and began to pursue them. The cavalry rode out ahead to cut them off. Then, suddenly, the last of the Egyptians riders surged forwards towards us. To a man, they were injured. Their clothes were torn, their mounts had gaping wounds in the sides, but it did not matter. They charged us with reckless abandon, us who had beaten them off again and again throughout the battle, through our own cavalry before us and rode for our lines. We formed up with bayonets outstretched as they closed the distance, screaming as they came. Then they were upon us, slashing maniacally with their scimitars. Our own cavalry closed in behind them, cutting off any chance of their escape. Still they fought, outnumbered and without firearms, alone against our whole army."
Another thing to note: at this point, the Mamluk flotilla could fire without worrying about hitting their own side. The covering fire from the four remaining gunboats likely played just as big a part for the successful disengagement as the charge. They also attracted most of Kleber’s artillery fire, paying for it with another boat lost.
When the dust finally settled that afternoon, the Mamluk army was far out of reach. Bey’s charge had bought them enough time to escape, and now many were on the road back to Cairo under the command of Ibrahim Bey. The French were not too exhausted to pursue (in fact, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, the cavalry commander, did chase down and capture several hundred fellaheen and other infantry), but Kleber decided to take the rest of the day to analyze the situation instead. He had lost some 5000 men to either death or wounds, a full fifth of his force. The losses on the Mamluk side were far worse. More than half of their infantry was either dead, captured or missing, while the legendary cavalry was spent. Of the 10,000 riders who had gone in, no more than a 1500 hundred remained, the majority of them now French prisoners. Murad Bey was not among them, having been anonymously cut down at some point during his final attack. They had lost four irreplaceable gunboats as well. The road to Cairo was now wide open, with only ill-equipped fellaheen left stumbling back towards the city. But again Kleber paused, afraid of marching downriver without the Nile secured. He also had prisoners to count, loot to organize and wounded to treat. Cairo, again defenseless, went unattacked. Back in Alexandria, Bonaparte was nearly ready to resume command. He would take his job back earlier than he himself had expected.
