HSY2601 - Themes In The 19th Century History: Power And The Western World (HSY2601)
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HSY2601-RELEVANT THEME SUMMARY STUDY NOTES 2022.
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HSY2601 - Themes In The 19th Century History: Power And The Western World (HSY2601)
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University Of South Africa
HSY2601-RELEVANT THEME SUMMARY STUDY NOTES 2022. H S Y 2 6 0 1 S T U D Y N O T E S
THE FRENCH OCCUPATION OF EGYPT ()
The French invasion of Egypt (1798±1801) is seen as a milestone in the history of Western imperialism. The
French tried to establish control over the economy of Egypt. They viewe...
HSY2601 - Themes In The 19th Century History: Power And The Western World (HSY2601)
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SUMMARY
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HSY2601 STUDY NOTES
THE FRENCH OCCUPATION OF EGYPT (1798-1801)
The French invasion of Egypt (1798±1801) is seen as a milestone in the history of Western imperialism. The
French tried to establish control over the economy of Egypt. They viewed it as an important pawn in their attempt
to safeguard a strong position in their relations with other big powers. Moreover, the French justified their
occupation of an Islamic country by their “superior” civilisation because it would enable the “backward” Muslims
to improve themselves by changing their society according to modern Western concepts of science and progress.
Imperialism: a policy of extending a country’s power and influence though diplomacy or military conquest.
A. Reasons for the French invasion
France tried to emulate their archrival, Britain, in creating a colonial empire. French statesmen felt humiliated
because Britain pushed out the French from many overseas territories during the 18th century. The French
statesman Charles Maurice de Talleyrand argued that France needed colonies to keep up with the British. Since
British hegemony of the Atlantic (and superior navy/fleet) could not be disputed, the French focused on the
Mediterranean. Turning the Mediterranean into a French lake held the prospect of creating a rival centre of
power, which could be extended farther east, across the Red Sea to India. French strategists viewed Egypt as the
gateway to a bigger empire in Asia. Gaining control of this route across the Middle East became a key part of
Napoleon Bonaparte's vision of becoming a global player. Economically, the French also hoped that a profitable
sugar industry could be developed in French-occupied Egypt, although Talleyrand argued that French colonialism
should reject slavery as unprofitable and inefficient. Moreover, even before the French invasion of Egypt, there
was a sizeable presence of French merchants in the region. Protecting French business interests from oppression
at the hands of Muslim rulers added another justification for their planned conquest. Napoleon (influenced by his
reading of classical texts/travel accounts/Koran) and his generals believed that they were well informed about the
history of Egypt and its inhabitants. Napoleon frequently expressed his admiration for Islam and even hinted at
the possibility of his/his soldiers' conversion to Islam. These statements may have initially got him some respect
among the Egyptian population. It is doubtful that Napoleon ever seriously considered converting. Despite his
research on the Middle East, Napoleon viewed Egypt as a place in need of Western influence.
B. Egypt as a province of the Ottoman Empire
Egypt belonged to the Ottoman Empire, whose rulers resided in the Turkish capital of Istanbul. The Turkish sultan
(head of the Ottoman Empire) had limited powers. As the nominal ruler of Egypt he could install a representative
(pasha), however, the Mamluks ruled Egypt. Since the Middle Ages, the Mamluks had constituted a formidable
fighting force in the service of Middle Eastern rulers. European boys, sold into slavery, were shipped to Egypt,
converted to Islam and trained as soldiers who obtained freedom upon manhood. The slave soldiers were lived in
tightknit male communities and taught to live according to strict warrior code. Despite originally being slaves,
Mamluk soldiers could rise in military hierarchy and receive monetary rewards. Despite strict restrictions placed
on Mamluk influence these soldiers gradually gained a degree of independence until they rose to a prominent
role in Egyptian power politics. They acquired the right to tax the population. They essentially isolated the Turkish
pasha, but exerted power without explicitly questioning the nominal position of the Ottoman emperor as the
ruler of Egypt. In reality the Mamluks governed the country. The Mamluks were the warriors the French soldiers
encountered in battle. Since the Mamluks maintained contact with areas that increasingly shifted into the orbit of
Tsarist Russia, the French believed that the occupation of Egypt was necessary in order to forestall a Russian
advance into the Middle East. The French also felt encouraged in their expansionist plans because they believed
that Ottoman power was on the brink of collapse (but did not become reality until after the First World War).
C. The ideology of colonial conquest
From the start of the expedition in 1798, conquest was also conceptualised as a scientific project. The 54 000
soldiers who sailed from France to Egypt were accompanied by 900 medical doctors/nurses, scientists, engineers,
artists and writers. Napoleon also ordered that a large library of about 500 books be taken as well. The organised
collection of scientific data on Egyptian culture was a unique to this imperialist project. French researchers
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deciphered the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, explored the pyramids/temples, and laid the foundation for modern
Egyptology. Napoleon's armed invasion also symbolised a radical break with the European past as the French
viewed themselves as the forerunners of a new era. Although Napoleon's subsequent rise to self-declared
emperor of France shows that the revolutionary French were convinced they had got rid of medieval superstition
and prejudice. Living up to his image of a revolutionary innovator, Napoleon ended the regime of the knights'
order, the Hospitallers of St John, on the island of Malta en route to his North African destination. The
Hospitallers clung to a feudal past but the ideas of the French Revolution and weakened their resolve. He also
released several thousands of Muslim slaves who had been forced to toil for the Christian knights, to prove his
goodwill to the Muslim population of Egypt. However, the invasion of Egypt had been badly planned; Napoleon
had not even equipped his soldiers with water canteens. Consequently, the march of the French army from the
coast to Cairo was a nightmare for the soldiers who were continuously attacked by Mamluk troops. The superior
French military tactics ensured French victories and they eventually occupied Cairo. Napoleon claimed that he
wanted to liberate the Egyptians from the oppressive Ottoman rule. His views of what liberty meant were
conditioned by his experience of the French Revolution. The revolution had swept away monarchical rule and its
justification that the king's power was based on the will of God. This had generated an anti-religious backlash
among the revolutionaries who rejected any religion as superstition and celebrated reason and science instead.
The revolutionaries had replaced the will of God with the will of the people. Napoleon assumed that the French
could break the power of the Ottoman sultanate by implementing rational governance and scientific progress in
accordance with Western ideas of modernity. These ideals were not translated into reality. When the French had
conquered Cairo, they found the locals rejected foreign rule even though they had suffered under the Ottoman
and Mamluk rulers. Napoleon tried to introduce administrative reforms by creating a kind of indirect colonial rule.
He aimed at co-opting the Muslim clergy as collaborators into the French colonial occupation. However, the new
regime brought new hardships for Egyptians: they had to pay high taxes, their wives were no longer sheltered
from the curious stares of foreigners, and the French generally proved to be ignorant of local customs/religious
traditions. Napoleon tried to ingratiate himself with Egyptian Muslims by brazenly supporting their religious
festivals/traditional customs. His attempts to manipulate Islam in order to consolidate French influence were not
successful because these concerns for Egyptian culture were continuously undermined by clumsy demonstrations
of French power. For example, they ordered the French flag to be hoisted on every minaret. This infuriated
Muslim sensitivities. Napoleon also attempted to persuade clerics to conduct Friday prayer in his name, which
was viewed as blasphemy. The Egyptians were also told to wear the tricolour cockade, the red, white and blue
badge, which symbolised loyalty to the French Republic. The French argued these gestures were necessary to
show they had brought a new age of law and order to “backward” Egypt. The Egyptians saw the symbols of
republican rule as submission to the foreign occupation. Napoleon's attempts to integrate Muslim clerics into a
French system of administration were unsuccessful because this diminished their role as religious experts. Thus,
to most Egyptians, French rule seemed arbitrary/destructive. This grated the French who thought that they would
be welcomed as liberators, saving the Egyptians from the stifling Ottoman yoke and medieval superstition. The
negative aspects of French rule provoked more determined resistance from the Egyptian population.
D. Colonialism and the production of knowledge
One of Napoleon's plans was the foundation of the Institute of Egypt, modelled on the Institute of France in Paris.
This was a think-tank where both French and Egyptian intellectuals/scholars could conduct scientific experiments,
study Egyptian history/culture, and spread modern ideas of progress. The French hoped it would be a meeting
place of the different cultures in Cairo where Western and indigenous scholars could convene/collaborate in their
pursuit of scientific knowledge. The substantial library and various laboratory experiments duly impressed many
Muslim visitors but Napoleon couldn’t overcome their ingrained suspicion that the French had ulterior motives.
E. Colonialism and gender relations
Another area of conflict arose on how French and Egyptian men viewed women. From the Egyptian perspective,
French ideas of sexual behaviour were unacceptably depraved. Egyptian males disapproved the flirtatious manner
in which French soldiers pursued their females. Moreover, Egyptian males observed with suspicion that French
women walked the streets of Cairo unveiled, communicating without inhibitions with the locals. Worse, Egyptian
men became aware that their women felt encouraged to behave in an equally open manner, under the banner of
French social reform. Thus, some women tried to associate themselves with the new social networks, which the
French had established in Cairo, to escape from the supervision of their own men. This resulted in hardships for
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Egyptian women without French protection. Napoleon was horrified to learn that the hundreds of women he had
evicted from the quarters of his soldiers were executed in one night on the orders of the religious authorities.
Since the relations between men and women are central to the structures of any society at any given level,
colonial intrusion impacts on the core of political and socioeconomic structures by changing gender roles and
perceptions of male and female roles in society.
F. Resistance
In the meantime the British had destroyed Napoleon's fleet, which lay at anchor off the Egyptian coast. Cut off
from the motherland and without fresh supplies, the French troops became more desperate in their attempts to
exploit the Egyptians economically, and violent oppression/armed resistance spun out of control. When a massive
wave of armed resistance to the French occupation washed over Cairo and other areas, the French responded
with brute force. They burned down houses, executed prisoners and paraded their victims' severed heads in the
streets. The French conquest of Egypt also had an international dimension, because Muslims in other regions
were incensed by what they saw as an onslaught on Islamic culture. The Turkish sultan in Istanbul, the nominal
ruler of Egypt, declared holy war on the French. Muslims in Arabia enrolled volunteers for the fight against the
Europeans. Several thousand warriors travelled to Egypt to join the struggle against the French. Their presence
did not have a huge impact on the military situation, but the participation of foreign mujahidin indicated that
Napoleon's conquest of Egypt had caused alarm in the whole Islamic world. In order to forestall a counter-attack
by the Ottomans, Napoleon led his army far into what today is Israel. However, the British supported the Turks
and after many bloody battles, the French commander gave up his plans of striking at the heart of the Ottoman
Empire, Istanbul, and ordered the return of the French troops to Egypt. By August 1799 Napoleon realised that his
game was lost. Cut off from France, unable to gain the trust of the Egyptians and decimated by epidemics, the
French could not consolidate their rule. Then, with the naval support of the British, an Ottoman army landed at
Alexandria. The French were able to rebut this attack, and Napoleon secretly abandoned his troops. In 1801 the
remaining French soldiers succumbed to the British-Ottoman alliance and repatriated on British ships.
G. Reasons for the failure of the French invasion
Apart from pressure brought about by the British-Ottoman alliance, an important reason for Napoleon's failure to
gain a foothold in Egypt was that he could not convince the local population to collaborate with the French. Any
attempt to curry favour with the Muslims, by professing his admiration for Islam/local traditions, was belied by
the readiness of the French to switch to brutal oppression when the desired cooperation did not materialise.
H. The debates about the meaning of the French occupation of Egypt
Historians used to depict Napoleon's conquest of Egypt as a case study of the transformation of a pre-modern
society into a modern one. Despite all the destructive aspects, the French occupation constituted a breakpoint in
the modernisation of a previously underdeveloped country. Napoleon's invasion foreshadowed the later colonial
history of the country in the 19th/20th centuries. The arrival of the French marked the advent of new structures
and concepts, which helped to push Egypt into the modern age. The French injected modern ideas like science,
modern medicine, printing, even scholarly research into the ancient Egyptian past. Recently, however, historians
have emphasised that Napoleon did not bring the light of civilisation to ignorant people who lived in isolation.
Since Egypt had been part of the Ottoman Empire and the Islamic civilisation before the arrival of the French,
Egyptians had participated in various international networks. Trade connections, for example, extended from
Egypt far into Asia. Western ideas of democracy and modernity can’t simply be planted into a different historical
and cultural context in the same manner as trade goods can be moved from one country to another. However,
the Ottoman rulers responded to the ideas of the French Revolution by trying to improve their administrative
system, although these reforms were not introduced in the Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire. Thus, ideas of
modernising the state were not the prerogative of the Western world. The French invasion was not merely an
attempt to dominate an Eastern country in economic and political terms, but it also constituted “a truly scientific
appropriation of one culture by another”. Many aspects of Egyptian culture and history genuinely fascinated the
French scholars in Egypt, but their activities could only unfold in the context of colonial conquest. Imperialism had
an important cultural aspect because Western domination also depended on depicting the Orient as completely
different from and therefore inferior to the West. Non-Western people were “the others” to whom the rules of
civilised behaviour did not always apply. What looked like a rational evaluation of foreign cultures was therefore a
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