Week 7 - From one Master to Another - European Imperialism in the Mediterranean - The Example of Egypt

Introduction - The origins of European colonialism in the Middle East

• With the example of Haiti we explored modifications incurred by revolutionary ideas and principles when exported in non-European settings
  • Bringing a "global" instead of a merely European perspective to French revolution
  • The Universal Man is not, in the end, so Universal
• In many ways this week's theme is a continuation of the previous week
  • Exploration of impact of French revolutionary ideas on the Eyalet of Egypt
• Today's theme, The French invasion of Egypt is perhaps foundational => birth of a modern Orientalism relying on combination between military occupation and scientific enterprise that will become hallmark of European colonialism
  • Orientalism => body of scholarly literature, usually Western, on the Oriental languages, history, cultures
    • Can be a scientific endeavor
    • But following Napoleon's campaign in Egypt => close association with power politics

Slide Outline

Slide Overview

1 War reaches the Mediterranean

• Expedition of Egypt should be seen as a consequence of French opening fronts in the Mediterranean

French Campaigns in Italy

• French campaigns in Italy, 1797-1798: Napoleon acquires Nice, Savoy and the Ionian islands. Napoleon also declares the death of the Republic of Venice.

Revolution Toulon and Military Objectives

• The Revolution and the dispute over Toulon and Marseille, briefly controlled by royalist forces but later conquered again by the revolutionaries.
  • Toulon in particular becomes the weapons warehouse of the Republic. The French expedition to Egypt leaves from Toulon on 19 May 1798.
• The immediate military objective of the French was to strike at Britain's communication routes with India => This is a campaign about controlling the Mediterranean
  • Napoleon was also motivated by commercial considerations, hoping to colonize Egypt and to establish it as a reliable source of grain for the French mainland.
• The original revolutionaries, the Jacobins, were against colonialism and called for ending it as well as the abolition of slavery. Another group of politicians argued that it was imperative for France to obtain colonies in order to "prosper."
  • The conservative camp triumphed and the concept of satellite republics was born. Colonies were to be turned into republics modeled after France, liberated from old oppressive regimes and enjoying democracy and freedom of the press but under the control of Paris.

Colonization and the Vocabulary of Liberation

• Legislator Joseph Echasseriaux promoted the colonization of Egypt: "What finer enterprise for a nation which has already given liberty to Europe and freed America than to regenerate in every sense a country which was the first home to civilization… and to carry back to their ancient cradle industry, science and the arts, to cast into the centuries the foundations of a new Thebes or of another Memphis."
  • This is truly when colonization dons the vocabulary and ideology of liberalization of oppressed peoples.

Napoleons Dream of the Orient

• There was also, on Napoleon's part, a real dream of the Orient, of imitating Alexander by creating a great empire in the East.
  • In fact preparing for this expedition Napoleon asked for the advice of Orientalists
    • First time that Orientalist knowledge put to direct colonial use

Ottoman Decline and the Mamluk Order

• For the 18th c. because Ottoman resources were diverted in wars against European powers =>
  • Ottoman hold on Egypt loosens, cf. Treaty of Küçük-Kaynarca, 1774 after Russo-Turkish War, 1768-1774 and the birth of the Eastern Question
  • By the end of the 18th c. has become virtually an autonomous state under a revived Mamluk order
• The Mamluk regime was unstable, oppressive and unpopular.
  • It had no cohesive central governments but instead operated through a network of competing Mamluk households, each of which collected taxes, employed troops and engaged in commercial ventures with merchants and European agents.

French Fleet Arrives in Alexandria

• The French fleet, l'armée d'Orient, 40,000 men, and many scientists, including mathematicians, physicians, zoologists, and engineers, some of whom already dreamt of the Suez Canal, landed in Alexandria in July 1798.
• Upon arriving in Cairo, Napoleon disseminated a long proclamation in broken Arabic stating the emancipating goals of the campaigns:
  • It asserted that the campaign was undertaken in the name of God:
    • French soldiers were Muslims who believed in and obeyed the one God of Egyptian Muslims.
    • The proclamation plays on ethnicity, underscoring the presumed Circassian and Georgian origins of the Mamluks, their foreignness and hence readiness to exploit local Arabs.
  • Napoleon administered a decisive defeat to the Mamluk forces at the Battle of the Pyramids.
• Local Arabs along with some of their Mamluk elite launched a jihad against the infidels after the different appeals of the Ottoman sultan, firmans/decrees.
• Whereas elite Arab inhabitants largely sided with the French, the lower classes joined the jihadist army of the Mamluks.

Napoleon Transforms Egypt into a Model Colony

• Over the next few months, Napoleon made efforts to transform Egypt into a model French colony => example of enlightenment civilization at the heart of the Middle East
  • He set up a new government, grounded in a system of native councils
  • Set up a new system of courts, a postal service, hospitals, and a National Guard
  • He began a process of land reform
  • He set up printing presses and published two newspapers

Battle of the Nile and Napoleon Returns to France

• Nelson trapped and destroyed the French fleet at the Battle of the Nile on August 1 1798.
  • The French expeditionary force is stranded in Egypt
• Napoleon briefly conquers Syria and Palestine where his armies massacre entire villages and then returns to France.
• Meanwhile, cut off from France, his expeditionary force remains in Egypt which it seeks to rule "scientifically"

Transition to Scientific Mission

2 Experiments in modern colonialism - The scientific mission

• The rest of the expeditionary force, cut off from the outside by the British fleet, remained in troubled occupation of the country for three years.
• Two directions:
  • Scientific research: engineering, archaeology, history
  • Modern governance
• The engineers and scientists whom Napoleon had brought with him drew up plans for new canals and communications, and the fledgling French administration attempted to reorganize the landholding and taxation systems.
• This fever for reform in the East was not something new:
  • It drew on an age-old Orientalist tradition

Orientalist Tradition and French Experts

• Different scientific, serious endeavors had been undertaken to learn the Orient of which Egypt was said to be a part of:
  • Anquetil-Duperron, the first scholar of the East, learned scholar in Persian, Sanskrit, Hebrew, Arabic
• During the two decades that preceded Napoleon's campaign in Egypt, a number of French experts visited Egypt to explore the country and produce scientific knowledge for potential colonization.
  • One feature constantly underlined by these European "experts" is the presumed incapacity of locals to exploit the country's large natural resources.
  • Three areas which Europeans allege they can develop better than the "natives": arts and antiquities; trade; agriculture. Engineers play an important role here.
• Almost all of the scientists that came on board with Napoleon to Egypt = former students of Sylvestre de Sacy

Institute of Egypt and the Description of Egypt

• In Cairo Napoleon founded the Institute of Egypt, which greatly influenced the origins of Egyptology
  • 160 eminent French scholars, artists and engineers met twice a week and discussed everything from the wings of Egyptian ostriches to the composition of the slime of the Nile to the discovery of Egyptian antiquities
    • Champollion and the Rosetta Stone, Egyptology
  • Publication of the Description of Egypt, or the collection of observations and research which were made in Egypt during the expedition of the French Army-1809-1829
    • Presented as a crucial crossroad between Africa and Asia, Europe and the East: a place saturated with meaning and history.

Fourier Preface and Colonial Knowledge

• Preface by Fourier: Napoleon wanted to offer a useful European example to the Orient, and finally also to make the inhabitants' lives more pleasant, as well as to procure for them all the advantages of a perfected civilization. None of this would be possible without a continuous application to the project of the arts and sciences.
• To restore a region from its present barbarism to its former classical greatness.
• Disguising all the knowledge collected during colonial occupation with the title "contrıbution to modern learning."

Transition to Consequences

3 Consequences

• The whole episode was brought to an end by a joint British-Ottoman expedition that landed in Egypt in 1801 and eventually arranged for the evacuation of the French forces.

Battle of Aboukir and British Dominance

• Destruction of the French fleet at Aboukir by Nelson on 1 August 1798. In reality much of Napoleon's ventures in Egypt lead to the reinforcement of British positions in the Mediterranean: Gibraltar, Malta, Ionian Islands
• Quite literally, the occupation gave birth to the entire modern experience of the Orient as interpreted from the universe of discourse founded by Napoleon in Egypt.