At Aboukir and Acre Author:G. A. Henty With the general knowledge of geography now possessed we may well — wonder at the wild notion entertained both by Bonaparte and the French — authorities that it would be possible, after conquering Egypt, to march — an army through Syria, Persia, and the wild countries of the northern — borders of India, and to drive the British altogether from that
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country. The march, even if unopposed, would have been a stupendous
one, and the warlike chiefs of Northern India, who, as yet, were not
even threatened by a British advance, would have united against an
invading army from the north, and would, had it not been of prodigious
strength, have annihilated it. The French had enormously exaggerated
the power of Tippoo Sahib, with whom they had opened negotiations, and
even had their fantastic designs succeeded, it is certain that the
Tiger of Mysore would, in a very short time, have felt as deep a hatred
for them as he did for the British.
But even had such a march been possible, the extreme danger in which an
army landed in Egypt would be placed of being cut off, by the superior
strength of the British navy, from all communication with France,
should alone have deterred them from so wild a project. The fate of
the campaign was indeed decided when the first gun was fired in the Bay
of Aboukir, and the destruction of the French fleet sealed the fate of
Napoleon's army. The noble defence of Acre by Sir Sidney Smith was the
final blow to Napoleon's projects, and from that moment it was but a
question of time when the French army would be forced to lay down its
arms, and be conveyed, in British transports, back to France. The
credit of the signal failure of the enterprise must be divided between
Nelson, Sir Sidney Smith, and Sir Ralph Abercrombie.