Evasion at the Nile and Victory at Acre

So lets say that French ships abandon there defensive positions and move elsewhere a few hours before the Battle of the Nile. Nelson misses them and the French force is saved. Little else changes at first as Napoleon marches up the coast capturing Arish, Gaza, Jaffa, and Haifa as in OTL. However without British support of the Turks and with Shihab support for the French, Acre is captured. In addition, troops are never hit by plague like in OTL. What would happen next?
 
Not much difference actually. The move to Acre was part of defeating a two prong attack on Egypt, which despite his failure at Acre, which Napoleon was able to accomplish. Basically the Turks get beat worse than OTL and the French are in a better position to resupply, reinforce and possibly evacuate Egypt if necessary.
 
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Not much difference actually. The move to Acre was part of defeating a two prong attack on Egypt, which despite his failure at Acre, which Napoleon was able to accomplish. Basically the Turks get beat worse than OTL and the French are in a better position to resupply, reinforce and possibly evacuate Egypt if necessary.

Okay, so then how does this affect events in France and the war with Britain? Does the support of British enemies in India become possible now?
 
So lets say that French ships abandon there defensive positions and move elsewhere a few hours before the Battle of the Nile. Nelson misses them and the French force is saved. Little else changes at first as Napoleon marches up the coast capturing Arish, Gaza, Jaffa, and Haifa as in OTL. However without British support of the Turks and with Shihab support for the French, Acre is captured. In addition, troops are never hit by plague like in OTL. What would happen next?

Perhaps the British would have no choice but to leave at least a few of these cities alone; it could also give Napoleon an impetus to send some more troops to the Middle East.............how about a much earlier French Lebanon, for starters? :D
 
Given the poor status of the French fleet...

Napoleon had stripped the fleet of supplies nor did he replace them. At times as much as one third of the French sailors were away trying to find food and water for the fleet.

The French commander, Admiral Brueys, reported to the French Minister of Marine "Our crews are weak, both in number and quality. Our rigging, in general, out of repair, and I am sure it requires no little courage to undertake the management of a fleet furnished with such tools."

Such a fleet is in no position to lead the British on an extended chase, let alone win one or more battles, and the arrival of a plague...:eek:
 
I agree with you Grimm for the most part, but IMO if the French could last even a little longer Napoleon would be able to stake a claim to it at Amiens, and then try to reinforce it.

This will fail spectacularly, and will drive the Ottomans into British arms, of course.
 
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