“Soldiers! You are one of the wings of the French army. You have made war on the mountains, on the plains, and in cities; it remains for you to fight on the seas. The Roman legions, that you sometimes imitated but no longer equaled, fought Carthage now on this same sea and now on the plains of Zama.... Soldiers, sailors, you have been neglected until this day; today, the greatest concern of the Republic is for you.... The genius of liberty, which made you, at her birth, the arbiter of Europe, wants to be genius of the seas and the furthest nations.” (Napoleon’s address to his soldiers before leaving for Africa)

An initial review of France’s naval forces had led Napoleon to conclude his navy could not hope to outfight the power of the Royal Navy, which had been the dominant naval power for centuries, so he was forced to look elsewhere. After months of planning, Napoleon crafted a scheme to attack and conquer Egypt, denying the British easy access to their colonies in India, with the ultimate goal of linking up with the Sultan Tipoo in India itself and defeating the British in the field there.

Napoleon sailed with Admiral Brueys and 30,000 troops that June, heading for Egypt. Notionally part of the Ottoman Empire, Egypt was de facto a weak independent regime run by the breakaway Mamelukes. For France, it offered an overland route to India and a chance to beat Britain at its own game via economic strangulation.

Napoleon Bonaparte’s Invasion of the Levant: The History and Legacy of the French Campaign in Syria chronicles one of the French leader’s most forgotten campaigns. You will learn about the French invasion of the Levant like never before.