Napoleon Bonaparte; a risky adventure to glory

The sun was falling below the horizon on that cold winter day of January 1799 when Napoleon and his small group of scholars and guards were returning from their day trip to the Wells of Moses in Sinai. Unexpectedly, they found their lives at an alarming risk and realized they could face the ill fate of the Egyptian Pharaoh who drowned with his army in the same sea according to the Biblical story. Riding their horses on an exposed sandbank on the coast during low tide, the French conqueror of Egypt and his companions had easily crossed from the port of Suez to the eastern Sinai earlier that  day.

But during their return journey with the approaching nightfall, the speeding tide swept in covering up the sandbank which they had used earlier that morning. They were constantly pushed into deep water by the flowing current and had to cling to their horses' necks in order not to lose them. Blinded by darkness, they could only keep track of each other by crying out their names. The situation got worse when Louis Caffarelli, the brilliant engineer shouted for help as his horse slipped away from under him after his wooden leg was lost with the strong tidal motion.

Dreaming of an Empire of the Orient that stretched to India, Napoleon invaded Egypt in the summer of 1798 with 335 ships and 40,000 men, an army which was considered the largest long-distance force transported by sea the world had ever heard of. It was also the first attack carried out by a Western power on a Middle-Eastern country in modern times.

Still, Napoleon's intentions were not strictly colonial. He brought along with the expedition 167 scholars who formed the "Legion of Culture". This comprised astronomers, architects, chemists, engineers, artists, zoologists and many others from all fields of knowledge. Their discoveries and documentation of Egypt would eventually transform the knowledge of Western Civilization and would initiate the uncovering of ancient Egyptian history.

Although the British destroyed his fleet in Alexandria shortly after his arrival in Egypt, Napoleon did not give up his ambition to conquer India. In December 1798, he sent an expedition led by General Bon to Suez, the once-thriving port on the Red Sea. It used to be a flourishing trade harbor lying on the main routes between the Far East, East Africa and the European merchants from Genoa, Venice and Portugal during the Mamluk reign in the Middle Ages. It began to decline starting the 16thc when the Portuguese found their way around Africa using the Cape of Good Hope.