Arabs (15 page)

The Napoleonic army gave Muhammad ‘Ali a second model to consider. The French
levée en masse
was a citizen’s mass army that, when led by able commanders, had proven capable of conquering continents. However, Muhammad ’Ali viewed the people of Egypt as subjects rather than citizens, and he never tried to stir his
troops with rousing ideological slogans as did French revolutionary commanders. He decided to draw on French military experts to train his recruit army, but otherwise he modeled the Egyptian Nizam-i Cedid on the Ottoman example. In 1822 he commissioned a veteran of the Napoleonic wars named Colonel Sèves—a French convert to Islam known in Egypt as Sulayman Agha—to organize and train a Nizami army drawn entirely from Egyptian peasant recruits. Within a year he had raised a force of 30,000 men. By the mid-1830s, that number would reach 130,000.

The Egyptian Nizami army was not an overnight success. Egyptian peasants feared for their farms and the welfare of their families; their close attachment to their homes and villages made military service a real ordeal. Peasants avoided conscription by fleeing their villages when military recruitment teams approached. Others deliberately maimed themselves by chopping off fingers or striking out an eye to gain exemption on grounds of disability. Whole regions rose in revolt against the draft, and in Upper Egypt an estimated 30,000 villagers rebelled in 1824. Once pressed into military service, many peasants deserted. It was only through heavy punishment that Muhammad ’Ali’s government was able to force the peasants of Egypt to serve in the army. The astonishing thing is how successful this reluctant army proved on the battlefield. It was first put to the test in Greece.

In 1821 the Greek provinces of the Ottoman Empire erupted in a nationalist uprising. The revolt was initiated by members of a secret society known as the Filiki Etairia, or the “Society of Friends,” established in 1814 with the goal of Greek statehood and independence. The Greeks of the Ottoman Empire were a distinct community held together by their language, their Orthodox Christian faith, and a shared history spanning the classical period to the Hellenic Byzantine Empire. As the first overtly nationalist uprising in the Ottoman Empire, the Greek War posed a danger of much greater magnitude than the eighteenth-century revolts by local leaders. In previous revolts, movements had been driven only by the ambitions of individual leaders. The novelty of nationalism was that it was an ideology capable of inspiring a whole population to rise up against their Ottoman rulers.

The revolt broke out in the southern Peloponnesian Peninsula in March 1821 and quickly spread to central Greece, Macedonia, the Aegean islands, and Crete. The Ottomans found themselves fighting pitched battles on several fronts simultaneously, and they turned to Muhammad ’Ali for assistance. In 1824 his son Ibrahim Pasha set off for the Peloponnesian Peninsula at the head of an Egyptian army of 17,000 newly trained infantry, 700 cavalry, and four artillery batteries. As all of his soldiers were native-born peasants, it is the first time we can speak of a genuinely
Egyptian
army.

The Egyptians achieved complete success in the Greek War, and the new Nizami army proved its mettle. Following his conquests in Crete and the Peloponnese, Ibrahim Pasha was awarded the governorships of those provinces, expanding Muhammad ‘Ali’s empire from the Red Sea to the Aegean. Ironically, the better his forces
fared on the battlefield against the Greeks, the more concerned the sultan and his government grew. The Egyptians were subduing insurgencies that had withstood the Ottomans and expanding the territory under Cairo’s control. If Muhammad ’Ali were to rise in rebellion, it was not clear that the Ottomans would be able to withstand his troops.

Egyptian victory and Greek suffering provoked concern in European capitals as well. The Greek War captured the imaginations of educated elites in Britain and France. As the cities of the classical world became modern battlefields, European Philhellenic societies clamored for their governments to intervene to protect the Christian Greeks from the Muslim Turks and Egyptians. The poet Lord Byron drew international attention to the Greek cause when he sailed to Messolonghi in 1823 to support the independence movement. His death in April 1824—of a fever, not at the hands of Ottoman soldiers—elevated him to the status of a martyr for the cause of Greek independence. Public calls for European intervention redoubled in the aftermath of Byron’s death.

The British and French governments were susceptible to public pressure but were more concerned with larger geostrategic considerations. France had developed a privileged relationship with Muhammad ’Ali’s Egypt. In turn, the governor of Egypt made use of French military advisors for his army, drew on French engineers for his industrial needs and public works, and sent his students to France for advanced training. The French were keen to preserve their special relationship with Egypt as a means to extend their influence in the Eastern Mediterranean. The expansion of Egyptian power to Greece, however, posed a dilemma for the government in Paris. It would not serve France’s interests to see Egypt grow stronger than France itself in the Eastern Mediterranean.

The situation was more clear-cut for the British government. London watched Paris extend its influence in Egypt with mounting concern. Since Napoleon’s invasion, the British had sought to prevent France from dominating Egypt and the land-sea route to India. Britain had also been scarred by the continental wars of the Napoleonic era and worried that attempts by strong European powers to secure positions in Ottoman territory could reignite conflict between the European powers. The British government thus sought to preserve the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire to preserve the peace in Europe. It was clear that the Ottomans could not retain Greece on their own, and the British did not wish to see Egypt extend its power into the Balkans at the expense of the Ottoman Empire. Thus, British interests would best be served by assisting the Greeks to achieve greater autonomy within the Ottoman Empire and securing a withdrawal of both Ottoman and Egyptian troops from the disputed territories.

Muhammad ‘Ali had nothing left to gain from his campaign in Greece. The war proved a tremendous drain on his treasury. His new Nizami army was overextended
across Greece. The Ottomans were treating him with growing suspicion and clearly doing their best to deplete his army and his treasury. By the summer of 1827 the European powers had made clear their opposition to Egypt’s position in Greece and had assembled a combined Anglo-French fleet to force an Ottoman and Egyptian withdrawal. The last thing the governor of Egypt wanted was to engage the European powers on the battlefield. As Muhammad ’Ali wrote to his political agent in Istanbul in October 1827, “We have to realize that we cannot stand up against the Europeans, and the only possible outcome [if we do so] will be sinking the entire fleet and causing the death of up to 30 or 40 thousand men.” Though he was proud of his army and navy, Muhammad ’Ali knew they were no match for the British or the French. “Although we are men of war,” he wrote, “yet we are still in the A-B-Cs of that art, whereas the Europeans are way ahead of us and have put their theories [about war] into practice.”
¹⁵

Though he had a clear vision of possible disaster, Muhammad ’Ali committed his navy to the cause and dispatched his fleet to Greece. The Ottomans were unwilling to concede independence to Greece, and the sultan decided to call the European powers’ bluff and ignore their joint fleet. It was a fatal mistake. The allied fleet trapped the Egyptian ships in Navarino Bay and sank virtually all the seventy-eight Ottoman and Egyptian ships in a four-hour engagement on October 20, 1827. Over 3,000 Egyptian and Ottoman men were killed in the battle, along with nearly 200 men in the attacking allied fleet.

Muhammad ‘Ali was furious at his losses and held Sultan Mahmud II responsible for the loss of his navy. Moreover, the Egyptians found themselves in the same position Napoleon had been in after the Battle of the Nile: thousands of soldiers were trapped, with no ships to provision or repatriate them. Muhammad ’Ali negotiated directly with the British to conclude a truce and repatriate his son Ibrahim Pasha and the Egyptian army from Greece without consulting the sultan. Mahmud II was outraged by his governor’s insubordination, but Muhammad ‘Ali no longer sought the sultan’s favor. His days of loyal service were through. Henceforth, Muhammad’Ali would pursue his own objectives at the sultan’s expense.

Navarino was also a turning point in the Greek war of independence. Assisted by a French expeditionary force, Greek fighters drove Ottoman troops out of the Peloponnesian Peninsula and central Greece in the course of the year 1828. That December the governments of Britain, France, and Russia met and agreed to the creation of an independent Kingdom of Greece, then imposed their solution on the Ottoman Empire. After three more years of negotiations, the Kingdom of Greece was finally established in the London Conference of May 1832.

 

In the aftermath of the Greek debacle, Muhammad ‘Ali trained his sights on Syria. He had aspired to rule over Syria since 1811, when he first agreed to lead the campaign
against the Wahhabis. He petitioned the Porte for Syria both in 1811 and again after the defeat of the Wahhabis in 1818. The Ottomans rebuffed him both times, not wanting their governor in Egypt to become too powerful to serve the Porte’s purposes. When Istanbul sought Egypt’s assistance in Greece, the Porte held out the prospect of conferring Syria on Muhammad ’Ali. The Egyptian governor called this debt due after the loss of his fleet in Navarino, but to no avail: the Porte believed Muhammad ‘Ali had been sufficiently weakened by his losses that it was no longer necessary to earn his goodwill.

Muhammad ‘Ali recognized that the Porte had no intention of ever conceding Syria to him. He also knew the Ottomans had no force to prevent him from taking the territory for himself. No sooner had Ibrahim Pasha and his soldiers been repatriated to Egypt than Muhammad ’Ali set about building a new fleet and reequipping his army to invade Syria. He approached both the British and the French to gain their support for his ambitions. France showed some interest in entering into an agreement with the Egyptians, but Britain continued to oppose all threats to the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire. Undeterred, Muhammad ’Ali continued his preparations, and in November 1831 Ibrahim Pasha set off at the head of an invasion force to conquer Syria.

The Egyptian army was now at war with the Ottoman Empire. Ibrahim Pasha led his 30,000 men in the rapid conquest of Palestine. By the end of November his army had reached the northern stronghold of Acre. As reports of Egyptian movements reached Istanbul, the sultan sent a special envoy to persuade Muhammad ’Ali to call off his attack. When this had no effect, the Porte then called on its governors in Damascus and Aleppo to raise an army to repel the Egyptian invaders. They enjoyed a six-month window of opportunity while the Egyptian army laid siege to the near-impregnable fortress of Acre.

While the Ottomans prepared to repel the Egyptian invasion, some of the local leaders in Palestine and Lebanon chose to lend their support to Ibrahim Pasha to preserve their positions in the face of the new Egyptian threat. Amir Bashir II, the ruler of Mount Lebanon, entered into alliance with Ibrahim Pasha when the Egyptian army reached Acre. One of the members of Amir Bashir’s ruling Shihabi family sent his trusted advisor, Mikhayil Mishaqa, to observe the Egyptian siege of Acre and report back to the rulers of Mount Lebanon.

Mishaqa spent nearly three weeks in Acre, following Egyptian operations first-hand. When he arrived, Mishaqa witnessed a fierce battle between the Egyptian navy and the Ottoman defenders in Acre. Muhammad ’Ali had committed twenty-two warships to the siege, and they fired more than 70,000 rounds into the citadel of Acre. The defenders put up a stiff fight and managed to disable many of the ships in heated exchanges. “Acre,” Mishaqa wrote, “could not even be seen for the smoke of gunpowder” in shelling that lasted from morning to sunset. According to Mishaqa’s sources, the
Egyptians fielded eight regiments of foot soldiers (18,000 men), eight cavalry regiments (4,000 men), and 2,000 Bedouin irregulars against “three thousand brave and experienced soldiers” defending Acre. Given the strength of Acre’s sea walls and the earthworks protecting its land walls, Mishaqa warned his employers to expect a long siege.

For six months the Egyptians pummeled the fortress of Acre. By May 1832, the impregnable walls of the castle had been sufficiently reduced for Ibrahim Pasha to assemble his infantry to storm the citadel. He gave a rousing speech, reminding his veterans of their victories in Arabia and Greece. Retreat was not an option for the Egyptian army. To reinforce the point that there would be no turning back, Ibrahim Pasha warned that “cannons would be brought up behind them to blast any soldier who returned without having taken the walls.” With these menacing words of encouragement, Ibrahim Pasha led his men in a charge on the shattered walls of Acre. They easily overran the ramparts and forced the surrender of the surviving defenders, reduced by months of fighting to just 350 men.
¹⁶

With Acre now secured, Ibrahim Pasha set off for Damascus. The city’s Ottoman governor mobilized 10,000 civilians in defense. Ibrahim Pasha knew that untrained civilians would not fight a professional army and ordered his troops to fire over their heads to frighten away the defenders. Sure enough, the sound of gunfire was enough to dispel the Damascenes. The governor retreated from the city to join Ottoman forces further north, and the Egyptians entered Damascus unopposed. Ibrahim Pasha ordered his soldiers to respect the townspeople and their property, and he declared a general amnesty for all the people of Damascus. As he intended to rule over the people of Syria, he had no wish to alienate them.

Ibrahim Pasha appointed a ruling council for Damascus and continued his relentless march to conquer Syria. The Egyptian commander took some of the notables of Damascus with him to ensure the townspeople would not revolt in his absence. Mikhayil Mishaqa once again followed the Egyptian campaign, gathering intelligence for the rulers of Mount Lebanon. As the Egyptians marched out of Damascus, he took a tally of their numbers: “eleven thousand foot soldiers, two thousand regular cavalry, three thousand [Bedouin] cavalry”—16,000 men in all, supported by forty-three cannons, and 3,000 transport camels for supplies and materiel. They marched to the town of Homs in central Syria, where they were joined by a further detachment of 6,000 Egyptian troops.