Hope some Dopers with more experience in Napoleonic-era history can help me with this.
I was asked today about Napoleon Bonaparte’s Egyptian Campaign of 1798-1801 which ended when he returned to France with his friends and supporters. His French army, under Kleber, remained in Egypt, and my friend wanted to know what happened to those soldiers. Did they return to France? Or did they remain in Egypt?
I was at a loss to answer, as this time period is not my forte, so naturally I turned to the SDMB.
Boy, I hope Tamerlane wanders by, pretty soon. I have a hard time keeping track of all the players, here.
Kleber, unfortunately, never made it home.
The French interference in Egypt aroused the ire of the Ottoman emperor who decided to drive the Christian/European interlopers out of his sphere of influence. He declared war against France (becoming a de facto ally of Britain). Meanwhile, the Egyptians, themselves, rejected the claims of the Christian/outsider political leader that he was there to “help” them, and they staged a couple of revolts (one before and one after Napoleon left) that turned the French Army from an army of liberation (against the Mamluks) into an army of occupation.
Initially, Kleber, who wanted to go home, negotiated a truce that would have allowed him to get his troops back to France. However, that truce was negotiated with the assistance of the British naval commander, Sir Sydney Smith, and Smith was overruled by his commander, Admiral Lord Keith who insisted that the French be taken as prisoners of war. (The British really did not want Kleber bringing his army back to Europe.) When the British reneged on their deal, Kleber, facing the Turks, decided to fight, and was successful in holding off the Turks. He was also successful in putting down the second Egyptian rebellion, however, he was then assassinated. Eventually, actions by the British (landing in two locations from Britain and India) combined with the Ottomans forced the French army to surrender. I suspect that they were eventually repatriated after the fall of Napoleon, but I do not have the exact information on that point.
The stranded French troops were repatriated during an armistice (the Preliminaries of Peace) concluded at London on the 1st of October 1801. The preliminaries led to the Treay of Amiens (25th. March 1802) and “peace” lasted until 17th. May 1803. -source Brittanica.
Slightly off topic but still relevaent. A couple of nights ago the BBC ran a programme about Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow and the recent finding of a mass grave of these soldiers in the Vilnius , the capital of Lithuania . The programme stated that some of the French soldiers survived and stayed behind . The programme makers managed to find some people ,with French surnames, who are the direct descendants of these soldiers and living in deepest Lithuania.