Pharaoh Napoleon

What's the plausibility of Napoleon setting himself up as a Pharaoh or Emperor of Egypt during his campaign there? Instead of going back to France he decides to rule set up a government there and become its ruler.

Is there any plausibility of this? If it is plausible, how might it work?
 
Pardon me, but did the Egyptology fever only take place decades after his adventure in Egypt? Besides he was more of an Islamophile, too....
 
Pardon me, but did the Egyptology fever only take place decades after his adventure in Egypt? Besides he was more of an Islamophile, too....

I thought he was hard on Islam for the pragmatic reasons of not pissing off the native Egyptian population. He wanted a local Egyptian to serve as khedive of the region [while nominally being subservient to France ie a protectorate]
 
I thought he was hard on Islam for the pragmatic reasons of not pissing off the native Egyptian population. He wanted a local Egyptian to serve as khedive of the region [while nominally being subservient to France ie a protectorate]

There was that too, but I heard that had he managed to take over Constantinople, the word "Caliph" will be most like included in the list of his royal titles.
 
If this did happen Napoleon would never be able to remain "pharaoh" since the army that he came with (probably going to be his only power-base too) is going to be starving from the lack of supplies and the growing stronger Ottoman forces.
 
There was that too, but I heard that had he managed to take over Constantinople, the word "Caliph" will be most like included in the list of his royal titles.

That would mean probably not pissing off the Russians because I can't see Napoleon alone taking on the Ottoman empire. It sounds interesting though.
 

archaeogeek

Banned
Nope I did a paper on Napoleonic Egypt, the foundations of his defeat began before he began.

It was pretty much doomed from day one, and a lot of people suspect that the Directoire picked Napoleon to do it exactly because it was doomed (his political meddling was becoming inconvenient). Plus getting hit by one of the last major plague outbreaks in Alexandria was another layer of rotten luck...

As for the OP's question he would probably have picked something more modern, like Sultan of Egypt IMO, and it was before the empire, the egyptian campaign of 1797 would likely have led, at best, to an Egyptian Republic (hopefully not a Nilotic republic like all the italian subrepublics before 1802 were called by their position on the Po or the Alps, yuck).

For an entertaining POD; Napoleon is too succesful in Egypt and the directoire basically dumps him there indefinitely; Bonaparte-ruled sultanate of Egypt anyone? (yes, I know, probably ASB)
 
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